Page 35 of His Temporary Alpha Mate
The weeks after the birth of Hiroshi and Tate’s babies were a blur to me, and they weren’t even my kids! It didn’t stop their parents from roping both me and Micah into feeding, changing diapers, and even bathing the cubs.
In that house, it was all hands on deck, which was fine. I just ended up learning a lot of new skills.
A major downside was how my time with Dalton was drastically cut short. There hadn’t been time to slip away during the celebration for the babies where they received witch and demon blessings and a proper welcome into the pack. Both of us had too much to do, so we were going through a dry spell. Or at least, I hoped he was. Part of our friends with benefits agreement was that we didn’t sleep with anyone else.
Navigating this new path, one without the council leadership, had us all floundering. From our brief sexting sessions, I knew Dalton was buried underpaperwork as he helped Dakota and Roan go through pack membership applications, managed a new system for pack tithes, and handled everything else he was responsible for on a daily basis.
At least we still talked. I think I would have felt adrift without our chats. It wasn’t quite every day, neither of us were that needy we had to maintain constant communication. We were sometimes on different rotations, but it helped keep me sane when I was floundering.
Being a part of Roan’s family after my feelings for him was strange. If the house had an open secret, it was my old crush. Now part of the past, for sure. I wasn’t sure when my feelings for Roan had changed. Somewhere around the time he met Hiroshi and dropped everyone, or when I saw him become a dad. No, it was Dalton who had turned those romantic feelings into something platonic, familial, for Roan.
Dalton had slipped into my heart and stolen it.
I don’t know when it happened. Slowly, over the time we’d spent together, he became more precious to me until it was him I thought of when I woke up each morning.
Whatever crush I had for Roan had vanished. Not transferred onto Dalton. What I felt for the raccoon shifter was deeper than anything I’d ever felt for my wolf friend. Dalton had me tied up in knots. Heknewme in ways Roan would never. Not just physically, he’d taken the time to listen to my stories. He asked about my day. Knew what I liked. We had the same sense of humor, outlook on life, and only had ourselves to rely on. One day, I wanted him to feel like he could rely on me.
Until he became my friend, my something more, I didn’t realize how lonely I’d been.
Beside me, my phone rang. I answered with a grunt, tired from a night helping Hiroshi and Tate with the babies.
“Hey, Lark, I know you’re stretched thin, but could you come to the gate for a bit?” Deke asked. The man sounded harassed. Knowing the Head Enforcer like I did, he wouldn’t have asked me if he hadn’t tried everyone else.
“You got any of those energy boosting potions like they have at Heatwave?”
Our local heat club, where omegas could have their heat serviced safely, was Heatwave. There the betas used potions to form knots so alpha-averse omegas could get relief. They also used energy potions because servicing omegas could be exhausting.
Deke chuckled. “That bad, huh?”
“Jewel is a literal angel. Maddox is the sweetest. Noah, though. Well, he drank his milkso good, but puked all over himself and me when I was burping him. Baby vomit is disgusting, man.”
“Yeah, it really is. I’ll get you a potion if you promise to get a decent night’s sleep. You know Xavier will happily do an extra night.”
I thought about the older alpha, Roan’s dad. He had shown up when it was most important and had really put the work in, making a space for himself in Roan’s life. Xavier had come around to the unconventional set up. He seemed to love it, actually, since it gave him three new sons and grandchildren out of it.
Xavier had tried adopting me into his family, but it was too weird for me. I couldn’t let myself be parented by him after losing my loving parents and Karina. In my heart, it felt disrespectful of the sacrifices they had made to keep me safe.
“Sleep? I can promise that. We’ve got elves on duty right now. I was supposed to be taking a nap.”
“Sorry, Lark.” He was more apologetic than I’d ever heard from him. “Sam ate something that didn’t agree with him. Can you replace him at the front gate?”
“Sure thing. Leave the potion there for me. I’ll run over there now.”
“Thanks!”
Relieved I could help Deke and wasn’t in for a dressing down, I changed into my guard uniform, lefta note for whoever got home first, and ran across the compound to the guard hut.
Sweetwater was a shifter friendly town not too far from the port city of Northarbor. From what I’d been told, as long as there was a town in Sweetwater, there had been a shifter pack there. No one knew if the town was named after the family, or the family after the town. Just that there was no town without the pack.
We mostly lived in a sprawling gated compound, which held a lake where they got most of the water for the cider production, and woodland for the shifters to take their alter forms.
So many shifters in one place could be a problem, but the Sweetwaters had learned from other successful packs to create a safe haven for the omegas set apart from alpha influence. They carefully guarded that area and usually only allowed mated alphas, betas, and, of course, omegas to access it.
Each of the gates to the compound had to be about ten feet high, each topped with barbed wire to prevent easy climbing. There was a hut next to the gate where we would watch for approaching vehicles. Beside the gate was a doorway which would only open with a numeric passcode, which changed frequently. The door let us through the gates to check paperwork.
Sam was looking green when I arrived. “Thanks, Lark,” he managed, before scurrying away. I pickedup his shed clothes as he took to his wolf form to get home faster. Maybe his wolf would stop him from vomiting in the rose bushes.
Inside the hut, a potion bottle waited for me, the passcode written on the label. I memorized the number, drank the potion down, grimacing at the taste, and destroyed the code. Then I settled in for a long, boring shift.
