Alphas burden

12CADEN

The scene at breakfast has me wrestling my wolf into submission before he takes my skin and fucks everything up by attacking Lorne again without an official challenge. It was hard enough to keep my attention from drifting to Avery the moment she stepped through the doors to the kitchen. Next to impossible to ignore her when she came near, tantalizing me with that divine scent I need to wipe from my memory.

Watching him get that close to her—again—as if he has a right to, mere fucking hours after I came close to tearing his throat out for it?

It’s a miracle I managed to restrain myself, only going as far as breaking the table instead of every damned bone in my cousin’s body.

Putting Avery on kitchen rotation was a mistake. I thought it would be best to show the pack nothing’s changed after last night.

I’m fooling myself because everything feels so different.

Everything about her entices me. Tempts me to take her as mine.

To learn if her caramel hair is as soft as I’ve wondered when I wind it around my fist and use it as leverage to make her bare the delicate column of her throat for me. To see if it’ll make her amber eyes flash in the audacious way that lights my veins on fire. To knead the dip of her waist and map her slight curves as I take my time scenting her, scraping my stubbled jaw over her skin until she smells so much like me no other male will come near her.

My wolf is amped up, prodding me to go find my female. Now, right now. I jerk with the force of his pull on my will, exhaling forcefully.

If I don’t find a way to keep him in check, this mate bond will continue upturning the careful order I’ve strived for to run this pack smoothly. I rejected her, so my life should return to normal. A sharp buzz pings around inside my chest. I rub at it with an a

Callie leans against the wall behind the broken head table, arms folded. Her sour assessment of me prods at what’s left of my patience.

“What?” I ask through my teeth. “Are you pissed off because Liam made you face the consequences of your actions with Taryn last night? Tough.”

She scoffs, shaking her head. “You’re an idiot.”

My head jerks. “Your undermining isn’t fu

“Yeah, yeah. Follow your rules, set good examples, blah fucking blah,” she snaps with an eyeroll. “I didn’t mean that. It wasn’t a big deal, anyway.”

“I beg to differ,” Liam interjects behind me. “How do you think it looks to have the alpha’s own family doing as she pleases?”

She serves him a withering stare before turning it on me. “If you can’t figure out why you’re an idiot, goddess help us all.”

My jaw sets when she stomps off. I scrub my face, adding one of her tantrums to my list of shit I don’t need right now.

“Let’s go.”

Liam falls into step with me when we exit the building. “I take it your wolf’s still attached to Av⁠—”

“Yes.” I whirl on him with a growl, fur sprouting across my forearms.

He freezes, lifting his brows. The outburst attracts attention from people milling around the commons. I grunt, shaking off the sense I need to fight my loyal beta and best friend. What’s wrong with me? He’s my trusted right hand man, not my enemy because he said her name.

“Sorry. I’m just—fuck. I don’t know.”

“Don’t look at me.” Liam smirks. “It’s not like I know what happens when you reject the Fates’ plan. This is why I’m more inclined to keep things strictly casual between me and any female interested in a night together. Maybe that’s what you need to sort this out.”

“No.”

This time the wolf rides me so hard I nearly choke on the thundering growl. It startles several birds from the trees. Liam bends his neck, as do the people dotted around the central lawn when my glare shifts around. I blow out a breath and shake off the intense power of my wolf.

“It must be an aftereffect,” I mutter. “I’m handling it. We just need to go about our usual business, and in a few days it’ll fade away.”

It has to.

He stares at me. I can tell he wants to say something else, but he keeps his mouth shut as we head for my office in the lodge.

I barely manage to focus on a review of various trade teams. One’s asking for perso

Every few minutes, the words blur together. My mind strays to rain drenched meadows, and bright amber irises that dare me to chase, to hunt my prize and claim what’s mine.

Adam bursts in. The youngest enforcer added to the patrol roster last year is a welcome interruption from my wayward thoughts. Liam stops him with a hand to the chest before he rushes my desk.

“What’s the problem?” Liam urges.

“It’s—Alpha, you need to come,” Adam blurts.

I exchange a tense look with Liam and rise. “What’s happened?”

“It’s maintenance group C. They’re on my patrol route. They wouldn’t stop.”

The three of us are on the move, Liam signaling for Ford to leave his post in the hall. Adam explains on the way that the group was causing a scene and turning on itself.

The raucous fighting echoes through the trees before we round a bend in the road, finding maintenance group C brawling. Two have shifted while the rest throw punches. It’s unclear who the instigators are at first glance. Their truck is in a ditch at the side of the road and their tools are strewn everywhere.

Liam and Ford enter the fray, shouting orders to stop. One stocky female holds off one guy while elbowing another who charges her. An older male spots me and snarls.

“Enough,” I boom.

The fighting ceases, even Ford and Liam jerking to a stop mid-movement from my Alpha command. I ease back to free them and they round up the three Adam points out as the cause of the scene.

I pace before the lineup, arms crossed. “What the fuck is going on here? Why are you turning on your packmates?”

“They didn’t think they needed to work anymore,” says a male who has shifted back and prods at his swollen eye. “When we tried to stop them, they did that to the truck.”

“This is unacceptable. You’ve destroyed pack property and attacked the members of your group without cause.”

“We got cause,” the youngest male jeers.

He can’t be more than eighteen. I stop in front of him, staring him down until he falters and lowers his gaze to glare at my shoes.

“And how long have you been assigned to team C?”

“Six months too fucking long,” the older one beside him complains. “I’m sick of it. I ain’t doin’ no more.”

The other two pipe up with similar sentiments.

“It doesn’t give you a right to do this. The job rotations mean everyone pulls their weight and puts in their fair share,” I say. “If you want to remain part of this pack, you contribute no matter what the pack requires of you. It’s so we’re all working together.”

“I didn’t sign up for it,” he objects.

I shake my head. “And what do you expect instead?”

“What I been promised!”

My eyes narrow. “What promise?”

“Promise of somethin’ better. Not working to the bone doing grunt work day in and day out. Not this bullshit life you’re forcing on me with a rule and schedule for every little thing, down to when I shit.”

Liam jerks him with a warning snarl for his outright disrespect, forcing his head to bow. “Watch how you talk to our alpha. Where did you hear that?”

“Jana’s tavern,” he spits.

I go rigid. The seedy tavern is where I’ve heard my uncle is known to harp about how good he had it coming up under my grandfather until he wasn’t named heir. There’s no doubt in my mind this traces back to him influencing drunken packmates who feel overworked and overlooked. If he sways enough of them to splinter the pack into factions, I’ll lose the footing I’ve busted my ass to stabilize in the wake of the trouble with the Morgans turning on my father.

The pack won’t survive a second revolt.

“Liam, Ford, take them to the patrol cabin,” I order.

“Don’t worry, we’ll deal with them,” Liam says.

“Alpha Dempsey never shoulda named you his heir,” the older male gripes as he’s dragged off.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and turn to the rest of the workers. “Let’s get this cleaned up. I’ll have the other teams from maintenance send over replacements until this is all resolved so your group won’t be shorthanded.”

The she-wolf that held her own against two of the workers in the fight gives me an approving smile. “You heard the alpha.”

I help them get their truck out of the ditch the other three drove it into and stay with them until everything’s righted. By the time we’re done, the minor injuries from the fight have healed and they offer to share their lunch with me.

“Thank you. I would, but I have to get back. Your efforts are an important part of the community. If you have any problems or wish for a reassignment, come see my office.”

“You don’t have to tell us,” Candace, the strong female, says with a hearty chuckle. “There’s no such thing as a pack full of people that can scratch their asses all day, or nothing would ever get done. Someone’s gotta do this, and right now it’s us. Honestly, I like this assignment better than my last one in laundry. I like being outdoors all day.”

I nod in appreciation, thanking each of them again before I head back to the lodge.

Dealing with the disgruntled maintenance workers makes me late getting back in time for my meeting with Timber Hollow Pack’s liaison.

“Apologies,” I say when I stride into my office. “There was an urgent matter I needed to resolve.”

The last thing I need is other packs hearing I don’t have things in hand. It won’t help my bid for better trade agreements if they think we’re in shambles.

The liaison is old enough to be my mother, with her blonde hair pulled into a severe bun. She gives me a judicious once over.

“Thank you for fitting me into your busy day, Alpha Blackburn. Gina of Timber Hollow Pack.”

I shake her hand. “I hope your travels were pleasant.”

“Quite. The foothills between here and Timber Hollow’s forest to the south are beautiful this time of year.”

“Let’s get right into it,” I suggest.