All Chapters of Alpha's Obsession With His Pet: Chapter 81 - Chapter 90

(Parker)The first cars leave at midnight.I watch them from my window.They’ve had their fill of food, drink and gossip.They’ll have to wait for Levi Knox to finish interrogating Maliyah before they hear what the outcome is of this plot.Every one of them that leaves thins the wall of protection around Zack.The coven won't hurry.They'll wait for exactly this.The guards and household distracted by departing guests, everyone with somewhere to be.Gravel crunches across the lot. Three sets of feet approaching.I know the heavy tread before it's halfway to me.Alphas walk like the ground owes them.I do it myself.I open the door before they reach it.Rene Beck stands on my step with Angelique at his shoulder and Cole a pace behind, and for the first time since I came to this house he's not looking at me like he wants to open my throat."You told me I'd know where to find you," he says. "Once I worked out which man was the right one.""Took you a while.""I've had a busy week."I ste

(Angelique)He's waiting in his room when I come up from checking on Zack, sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the door like he knew which minute I'd walk through it."He's asleep," I say. "Tova's on the cot. Guards on the door.""You've been quiet since Knox took the healer downstairs. Quiet the way you go right before you shut me out.""I'm tired.""You're scared."He stands."A woman went to our son's door today to kill him, and you're up here white as a sheet and still won't open up to me. Tell me all of it, Angelique."My wolf is annoyed with my continued reticence.'Tell him,' she says. 'You've run out of road, coward.'"I’m worried someone could be listening," I admit.He takes my wrist, pulls me into the bathroom, and turns the shower on hot so the water covers our voices.Steam climbs between us."Now nobody hears but me," he says. "Talk."So I do."The reason the coven wants Zack dead."My voice is already breaking."There's a prophecy. A child born of a goddess blessed

(Maliyah)The door opens and it's neither the guard with my tray nor the Warden with his patient face, so I sit up straight.It's the guest.The consecrated one they gave a bed for the crowning.Parker Frey. The man who falsely claimed Angelique and her brat.He was a problem I was going to get to once the crowning was over.He shuts the door himself. The guard outside lets him, so the Warden must have sent him.He doesn't sit.He stands a careful few feet back, hands loose at his sides, and looks at me the way I look at everyone else.Weighing what I'm worth.I've spent my life on the other end of that look."You've been under this roof for weeks and didn’t have anything to say to me," I tell him."Now that I can't bite, you come to see me. Say what you came to say. I have real problems to worry about.""Emmy," he says.The name lands on nothing."Should that mean something?""My daughter. She was three."Nothing shifts in his voice on the word, and that's the tell, that it doesn't s

(Parker)The town has one diner, one gas station, and a motel with nine rooms.I've been watching all three since yesterday noon.Cole's men are watching the roads.From the diner window I can keep an eye on the other two while sitting in front of a coffee I don't drink.Rene sent a message an hour ago.Valeria struck and failed.Zack's untouched.Tova took a cord across the arm and survived swearing all the way.My hands were clenched into fists for a long time after that last part.I didn’t think I’d ever be interested in a woman again, but Tova sparks something inside me.'The witch will come here,' my wolf says. 'Wounded animals go to ground they know.'She's not wounded.That's the thing none of them understand yet.Eleven years I've watched this circle work, always one step behind.They don't rage and they don't give up.They calculate.And the calculation changed this morning.They’ll regroup and look for a different way.The bus from the county line comes in at four.Three peo

(Rene)Something small and heavy lands on my chest at half past six and announces, "The sun's awake.""The sun is not awake.""It's a little bit awake."Zack pries at my eyelid with one finger."You have to make waffles now. It's the rules."Angelique doesn't move.Five years of doing every morning alone, and the woman has learned to sleep through an airstrike.So I get up.I carry my son downstairs upside down, because that's apparently also the rules, and I make waffles while he sits on the counter and supervises."More," he says."You've had two and almost an entire can of whipped cream.""Giants eat nine.""Giants eat what their fathers give them."He grins around his fork like I've said something wonderful.Fathers.He's still trying the word on, every chance he gets, checking it still fits.Five years of these mornings happened without me.I can't get them back.But I can stack new ones on top until the pile's taller than the hole, and I intend to start today.Tova comes in at e