The Alpha's Lost Heiress

THE SEASON OF THE WOLF CONTINUED

Nathaniel was my best friend. My mentor. In more ways than I can count, the closest thing I ever had to a father. The grief of losing him still sits heavy in my chest, a weight I carry every single day. Duty is what ties me to this place, and to her. I love her because I loved him first. And I failed him. The memory of that failure burns like acid in my gut. I saw the threat coming too late. Nathaniel didn't. He knew exactly what was headed our way. He tried to warn me, prepare me for it, his voice urgent in those final days. I didn't listen, or couldn't, I'm still not sure which. In the end, that cost him his life.

The old give way to the young. The father gives way to the son. That's just how it works in this world of mine. Nobody expected Nathaniel to go down so easily. The challenger came out of nowhere, the way a storm rolls in fast over flat land. I should have seen it coming. I didn't. I failed to protect Nathaniel. But I did protect Millie. With body, blood, tooth, and bone, I held onto what was rightfully hers, fighting off every challenge, every threat, until my own blood soaked into the earth. And now it's finally time for her to claim it.

Nathaniel spent the last twenty years of his life looking for her. The Winona. First daughter. This place, these people, this land, all of it is hers by right. I've bled to keep it safe for her. I picture a woman as noble and proud as her birthright deserves. But she's spent her whole life out there among humans, shaped by their world, their values, their limitations. She doesn't know what she's actually inherited. If Nathaniel hadn't found her, she never would have known any of it. If I regret anything, it's that. That it falls to me to strip her of the only life she's ever known and drag her back into a reality she still thinks is fiction.

Protecting her is bred into me, down to the marrow. Not because I think females are weak. The opposite, really. They're as rare and as precious as the children they carry. No woman who hands her own body over to bring the next generation into this world is weak, or timid, or anything close to it. There are so few of us left because so few women can even conceive. And of the brave ones who do, fewer still survive carrying it through. I've watched too many funerals, stood beside too many graves of women who gave everything to continue our line.

That's the real price of the gift we were given. We're helpless against it. We watch our daughters grow into women and choose a mate. We hold our breath while a child stirs in the womb, counting the days, praying for one more sunrise. And more often than any of us would like, we bury our dead instead of celebrating a birth. Grief comes easier to us than happiness ever does. I'm a bastard for dragging Millie into this world, and into whatever part she's meant to play in it. But I'm also the only one who can.

I've spent hours with her picture in my hands, memorizing every detail. Coyote, the best tracker any of us have, did his job well finding her. The shot I'm holding is candid, just Millie sipping coffee on some balcony, sunlight on her face, completely unaware of the camera or the man behind it. California must be a beautiful place. I can see how much she loves the sand, the heat, the ocean, written right there in her expression - a kind of peace I've never known myself. I can also see the faces of the dead written into her features. Her grandfather died protecting her. Her mother died hiding her. Her father died securing her future. I can only hope her heart is as strong and pure as her blood. She's going to need both, to survive what's coming.

The gift lives in me too, woven into my soul same as it is in hers. My blood might not run as pure, but my heart beats just as hard for it. Like most of us, I stand with one foot in each world, never fully belonging to either. Same as my father before me, and his father before him, all the way back to the very first one of us. We were born to guard this secret, bound to it by blood, body, and soul, and too many of us have already died protecting it.

I think I look pretty damn good for a man as old as I actually am. That's one of the few perks of a life like mine. The decades sit lightly on my shoulders, barely leaving a mark. I know this house inside and out because I helped build it with my own two hands. Nathaniel and I cut the first beams ourselves and hung the family name over the lintel above the door, our sweat mixing with the sawdust, our laughter echoing through empty rooms. My mother died in childbed. My father went the way of the wolf not long after, unable to live without her, his howls echoing through the forest for three nights before the silence came. Nathaniel could have done the same thing when his wife died bringing their son into the world. His son could have done the same when Millie and her mother were lost to him. But Nathaniel chose life. For me. For Millie. For the destiny the two of us were always meant to share.

My whole life, I've imagined her. Her curves. Her scent. The sound of her voice. The feel of her skin under my fingertips. Even though I'd never actually seen her face until six weeks ago, when it finally stopped being something I only pictured and became something real, something tangible enough to haunt my dreams. She's been the center of every want I've ever had, the missing piece that's made every other woman feel like a pale imitation. I knew she was coming long before her own father was even born, and that she was meant to be mine. If she'd grown up in our world instead of out there, she'd already know it too.

There's one more hard truth to this life of mine. Millie is my one shot at this. We only get the one chance to find the other half of our own soul, and she's mine. My heart, my soul, the entire reason I've had the stamina to live this long in the first place. She's the only woman I will ever want. Everything I am sits in the palm of her hand right now, whether she realizes it or not. The thought should terrify me, this vulnerability, but instead it feels like coming home. She won't be able to deny me, not after I've denied myself for her for this long. I'll make sure of that, one way or another.

The suit coat is wool, stiff and suffocating. I can't stand the weight of it dragging on my shoulders another second. I shrug out of it and toss it onto the foot of the bed without a second thought. In just the light broadcloth button down, sleeves rolled to my elbows, I can finally breathe again. The fabric is softer, more forgiving against my skin. I look more like myself now, less like somebody's idea of a lawyer. The black dress slacks are tailored to fit my legs, at least, though I hate the stiff, itchy feel of the fabric against my skin. Give me my worn out jeans any day. But I need to look the part, educated, official, more like an attorney than a farmhand, or she'll never believe a word of it, credentials or not.

I've got every i dotted and every t crossed. The paperwork is as legal as it gets, reviewed by three different firms to make sure there's no loophole, no challenge that could take this away from her. This place is hers, lock, stock, and barrel. She doesn't know the first thing about the house, the land, or what it actually takes to run a farm and keep livestock alive through a Midwest winter. I've worked this land since before I could walk straight. I know every rock, every tree, every inch of it by heart. I've got my work cut out for me proving I'm half as necessary to her life as she already is to mine. I'll teach her everything she wants to learn, and plenty she doesn't ask for. Neither one of us gets a vote in the matter. Not that I'd choose differently even if I could. Destiny laid this course out for me a long time ago, and I intend to see it through to the end.

Her nearness stirs the wolf in me, and he paces, restless, somewhere behind my ribs. He'll wait, same as I have, just a little while longer. The prey always senses when it's being hunted. Except she isn't prey. We are. She's the most dangerous predator in the room, she just doesn't know it yet. The irony of that makes me smile despite myself. Whatever's been sleeping inside her is right on the edge of waking up. I regret that, some days. Wonder if I should have just left her alone, let her live out an ordinary, human life and never known the difference, never felt the weight of what she carries. But it's too late for that now. I already opened the door, and she's already taken her first step through it.

I pick up the keys off the dresser and weigh the truck against the Harley parked beside it. The truck would sell the story better, the kind of vehicle an attorney actually drives. But the beast under my skin needs soothing today, and nothing settles him down like wind in my face and scenery blurring past. It's about as close as I can get to running in my wolf skin without actually shedding my human one.

Every wolf is born knowing how to hunt. She's going to be the hardest pursuit of my entire life. Instinct alone won't be enough to win her over. I'll need patience. Persistence. Strategy and restraint in equal measure. I'll have to track her carefully and make sure I'm not the one who ends up caught in the process. Too late for that too, if I'm being honest with myself. She already owns me, and she hasn't even met me yet.

I grab the file off the desk and tuck it under my arm. The papers inside represent her entire inheritance, at least the parts that can be measured in acres and dollars. I let the wolf off the chain, just a little, just enough to settle his raw edges before I have to bury him deep again. For her sake, I need to be human today. She's not ready to accept me any other way. In time, she'll learn everything her new world has to offer, the beauty of it and the terror of it both. I'll be there to ease her through the fear and show her how to embrace what she really is