บททั้งหมดของ In Service of the Alpha: บทที่ 91 - บทที่ 100

JohnathanGregory sits quietly in his car seat, staring out of the window as we drive into town. The two of us haven’t had a lot of father-son time lately. Maybe he’d open up more if I gave him my undivided attention for a few hours. “Hey buddy,” I say on a whim. “How do you feel about ditching school and going to the waterfall slides instead? Just you and me.”“Really?” he asks, his eyes widening with surprise, and his face lighting up with delight.Mara spent the last several months teaching him how to say his Rs properly. I have to admit I sometimes miss the way he used to speak - it was sweat and innocent - but they grow up fast, and as much as we want to, we can’t keep them babies forever.“Yes. Let’s swing by the cafe, get some snacks and drinks, and head out. Winter is around the corner, and this could be our last chance before the rains come.”“Yes,” Gregory says and claps his hands excitedly. “No one else? Just you and me?”“Just you and me.”I just want my exuberant boy back

MaraI slowly walk back to the pack house, swinging the heavy velvet bag by my side. I haven’t given Rose any thought since Johnathan took her to live with the vampires. I don’t know if she’s doing okay, if they’re mistreating her, or if she’s even learning anything.Guilt gnaws at me like a hungry caterpillar. After what happened with Ally, I should have gone and gotten my sister. What she is, and what she became, isn’t her fault. Just as it wasn’t Ally’s fault for being raised in a man eater pack. She was a child. She didn’t know any better. Rose doesn't know any better.I come up to our pack house from the back, walking across the sunny deck and past the glittering pool. The days are getting cooler, but not cold. The heat is just about bearable, but the pool still looks very inviting.Instead of jumping in, as I’m prone to do of late, I walk past the blue water and into the mansion. Everyone should be back by now, and they need to know that the Lunae is on their way.I wonder what

JohnathanI would love nothing more than to spend the rest of the afternoon with my mate and son, but I can’t. As I shower and change into my regular clothes, I’m assaulted by images of Rose. I’m pretty sure the Goddess is sending them purely to torment me. “Stop it,” I growl after a while. “Do you not care about Mara at all?”*The matters of your frivolous love lives doesn’t concern me,* the Goddess answers.“Then why did you bother to create fated mates? Make us feel the pain of their death as if it’s our own?”She doesn’t answer me, but I am not surprised. When I ask such questions, she never bothers with an answer - perhaps because I won’t like what she has to say.*The girl is is wasting away in the darkness. She is one of yours. You must protect her.*“Yeah, okay, fine!” I snap. “I’ll go get her. Just leave me the fuck alone.”I swear I hear the Goddess laugh as she retreats. Shaking my head, I pull my loafers out of the closet and go to Gergory’s room. He’s on the floor with

Mara I run through the woods, my feet slapping hard against the forest floor as I go straight for the town’s border. I’m aware that Kahn is following me, but I pay very little attention to him. There are several places where the wolves cross the border into our expanding territory. Sometimes, we’ll see the ones looking for the entrance, witness the outright fear on their faces when they can’t get in, and every time I want to go help them. Every time, one of the others stops me. And now I know why. No matter how scared those lost wolves are at that moment, they are the ones who’ll eventually turn on us and tear our pack, my family, to shreds. Just look at what Theresa did - and she’s not even in the town. Oberon materialises, as he always does, out of thin air, and right in my path. I can’t stop myself in time and run full-force into him. The fae doesn’t budge, but I stagger back. I trip over my own feet and start to fall, but Kahn catches me just before I hit the ground. I jump ou

JohnathanMara falls asleep on my lap, curled up like a cat, her face buried in my chest, hand fisted around my shirt.It’s not a peaceful sleep. Kahn asked me about my first kill - and it was true that I didn’t feel guilty about that one. It was pure self-defence. If anything, I was proud of myself for overpowering a fully grown werewolf with experience.But there have been others since then. And they do haunt me from time to time. All of them deserved it to some degree, but that doesn’t make it any less painful. Ally visits me often in my dreams. I keep reliving that moment just before she died. That split-second when she was sane and simply asked, “Why?”I didn’t have a chance to answer her question. I hope she knows that I didn’t want to do it, that I regret it almost every day of my life.I get up, holding Mara close to me, and go upstairs. I lay her on the bed and open the windows to let the cool, rainy breeze in.My mate moans softly in her sleep and flops over on her stomach.