Chapter 234 – Owned by the Alphas Novel Free by Jen Cooper

Filed to story: Owned by the Alphas Novel

Until Lorelai.

She was my siren, just like Kassie had been my grandfather’s. She had changed everything. She introduced the idea of humans and wolves working together again and flipped the game to a place I didn’t understand.

And now my parents, along with all our history, were dead. I didn’t blame her.

Lorelai had no choice or say in what happened. But she had kept me distracted, kept me from being the soldier, the leader I was born to be.

I should have been out there with that group of wolves.

Now they were dead.

And it was my fault.

I growled and slammed my handle of ale down on the bar. The tavern, usually rowdy with laughter, was filled with wolves trying to drown out the cries of our friends dying.

I doubted it was working any better for them than it was for me. When Lorelai had gotten that vision, the link had opened up wide, and we had all seen the carnage.

I was never going to get their screams or the looks on their faces out of my head. I couldn’t close my eyes; I couldn’t think; I could only drink.

It was usually Brax’s way of handling things, but I was trying new tactics since mine clearly weren’t working. There was no pack work deep enough to get my head out of the hole it was in.

I sculled the last of my ale, then nodded to Juniper for another. She eyed me, then poured another. I took another gulp.

The chair scraped out beside me, and I shook my head. It wasn’t my luna. “Not tonight, Beta,” I hissed at Ryleigh, who nodded to Juniper. She got Ryleigh an ale, and she sipped it.

Ryleigh didn’t talk; she just sat there until I growled and spun to her. “What?” I snapped.

“Nothing.” She shrugged. “What are you doing here?”

“You tell me. You’re the one who summoned me here,” she said, sipping her drink and looking over her shoulder at the patrons.

She was wrong; I hadn’t summoned anything. “No, I didn’t. Go home. I want to be alone,” I wallowed.

She scoffed and drank her drink. “If that were true, home is exactly where I would be.”

I shook my head and ignored her, drinking my drink, turning my thoughts over in my head. The blame, the guilt, and the regret were eating up every ounce of light I had.

I ran a hand through my hair, roughing it up as I tried to get out of my head. I was still too sober. I couldn’t do another funeral. My parents were buried, and I hadn’t even been there. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself.

But it was a spiral I had no interest in getting out of. Lorelai had gone with Galen and Kai to get my parents and taken a team to get the wolves that had been killed.

They got rid of the vamps and had come back a couple of hours ago.

They had burned them on the pyre, then spread their ashes by the blossom tree, as was tradition. I couldn’t go there.

I couldn’t say goodbye.

I should have been there.

“You were doing what you had to for the pack, Derik. You can’t be everywhere at once, and you had a duty to bury the witch our pack owed a life debt to. Nobody holds that against you,” Ryleigh said quietly, not in a patronizing way but as if she was talking about the weather.

“I hold it against myself,” I snapped, emptying my cup again. I needed stronger stuff.

“Then you’re an idiot. Your parents were proud of you. I’ve been a wolf for all of two seconds, and even I could sense that in the link. If you think you in any way failed them, then you’re the only one showing up to that pity party,” Ryleigh said, shaking her head before having another drink.

She used to be so docile and sweet; when had she turned into this woman with a mouth on her? Probably about the same time I turned into a wolf and gave her the temperament of one.

Guess that was my own fault too, then.

Fuck, I heard it myself then, the pity party. It was disgusting, and yet I still felt it all.

My head told me it was me, I was the problem. That I had gotten them killed, I should have protected them. But I hadn’t.

Just like I hadn’t protected the pack from getting slaughtered, just like I hadn’t protected Lorelai from getting taken.

I was not a good alpha. I was just an orphan wolf with a title I couldn’t live up to.

“Derik.”

Lorelai’s voice struck deep within me. She was a siren, something pulled from my furthest dreams and darkest nightmares.

She walked over to Ryleigh. “I’ve got this, Rye. Go home to your daughter. I’ll handle our alpha.”

She nodded and got up. “Please do. With the way he’s feeling right now, I doubt I’ll be able to go far before I’m being screamed out through the beta bond to come back.”

Lorelai nodded as if she understood. She couldn’t, but my mate could empathize the shit out of any situation. Including me being bound to another she-wolf, apparently.

If history served, she should have fucked Ryleigh up. But not my mate. She was perfect. And I didn’t deserve her.

I emptied my cup and tapped for another. Lorelai shook her head at Juniper, who nodded once and went about serving more ale to the other customers. Not me, though.

“I’m not saying you can’t feel like shit, D. I’m not even asking you to stop dealing with this however you need to, but walk with me? You’re my mate, and being away from you while you feel like this is not going down well with the link.” She smiled softly at me.

Her smile was beautiful. It was what had made me fall for her. One smile was all it took, and she had enraptured me.

It lightened her whole face, her mouth wide and inviting every time she did. I wanted to be the reason for that smile, and I had endeavored to make it so since we had claimed her as ours.

But I had failed. Not just her, but everyone. All my life had been a series of trying and achieving as high as possible. Leading, decision-making, organizing. I had done it all, and I had been under the impression it was enough to keep the pack safe. But I couldn’t do that.

Nikolai could fight, rip through anything, and laugh doing it like the maniac he was.

Brax had his shadows, and now that he had taken on half the responsibilities, he was coming into who he was always meant to be. An alpha.

So where did that leave me?

“With me, D. It leaves you all with me. As Alphas. Equally,” Lorelai kissed me, dragging my face to hers and covering my mouth with hers. Her soft lips teased mine until I was not thinking about anything but her.

I lifted my hand to the side of her face, pushing it back through the strands of her hair and cupping her head as I met her mouth. I kissed her with soft, tender kisses until my body roared with the demand for more.

“Walk with me?” she panted, pulling away slightly.

I nodded, turning out of my chair and leading her out of the tavern. I led her down the side of it, pushing her against the stone wall, melting our mouths together in the dark.

I felt every part of her clothes and detested them. I wanted her naked and on top of me. But since we were in a stone alley of the city, that was unlikely.

So instead, I yanked down her leather vest, revealing her tunic. I missed her dresses, but she hated them, so I let it go. I preferred her out of her clothes anyway.

I kissed her harder, my grip on her hair tightening. “Derik,” she panted, breaking away from my kiss and running her fingers down my torso.

It was still bare from my run earlier when anger had overwhelmed me, after my parents.

I shoved the thoughts so fast and hard from my head, kissing Lorelai again to expel them completely.

She moaned against the kiss, her hands running up and around my shoulders, her leg hanging on the edge of my hip. I gripped her thigh in my hand to hold it there and pushed my hard cock against her.

I was normally gentle with her, patient with her, steady with every moment so I could feel every part of her in an intense way, but I couldn’t today.

Today I needed my head to stay the fuck out of it; I needed to feel.

She must’ve known that because instead of trying to pull away again, she jumped up. I caught her on my waist and pressed her back against the wall.

I held her there, kissing her with rough strokes of my tongue against hers.

“Take what you need, Derik. Fuck me, bite me, bruise me. I want it,” she promised, and the love I felt for her with every piece of me swelled.

She was mine, and I was hers. Perfect mates. And yet, I felt unworthy of her.

Pressing her against the wall of the tavern? Stripping her down so I could feel her breasts in my greedy hands? It was a Kai move. Or even Brax. But it wasn’t what I did.

She wasn’t a common whore of a wolf who worked for Juniper. She wasn’t a wolf I wanted on display for others. I wanted to keep her as ours, a secret that everyone wanted in on.

I knew that was pointless. She could shift now. She had experienced the heat with us.

There was no way the pack hadn’t seen her naked. But I still wanted to preserve the idea that they hadn’t. Well, that was how I used to think.

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