Bonded To The Dysfunctional Alpha

Chapter 12: Naomi

Tyler’s POV

I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

The drive had been going for ten minutes already and I was still there, still stuck in it, turning it over the same way I had been since I opened my eyes this morning, Sophie beside me, warm and real, and my body that had spent years being a source of shame suddenly working like nothing had ever been wrong, like there was never a problem to begin with, and I still couldn’t fully accept it, kept looking for another explanation, kept telling myself it was circumstance, coincidence, anything that wasn’t the thing my wolf had already decided.

“Alpha.”

Brandon’s voice pulled me back and I blinked and looked out the window and remembered I was supposed to be present for this.

“The border patrol reported three more rogue attacks on the eastern edge,” Brandon said, his eyes on the road, his voice carrying that particular evenness he used when something was serious but he didn’t want to alarm anyone unnecessarily, “the elders are getting restless, they’re saying we’re spread too thin and the rogues know it, they’re hitting the same spots deliberately.”

I exhaled and let the Alpha part of my brain take over because at least that part knew what it was doing, “I doubled the security on the eastern border two days ago, I also moved two of the strongest units to rotate shifts so there’s no gap between patrols, it’s been quiet since last night.”

“Good,” Brandon nodded, “I’ll check the reports when we get back.”

Silence settled between us and I turned back to the window and my mind drifted immediately back to Sophie, to the way she had looked at me this morning when she thought I was still asleep, soft and unguarded and certain in a way that made something in my chest do something I didn’t have a name for yet.

“You know,” Brandon said after a moment, casual, too casual, “I saw the way you looked at her this morning.”

I said nothing.

“I was only gone a few weeks,” he continued, “did I miss something? Because the way you were standing in that room didn’t look like nothing to me.”

I glanced at him, “drop it.”

“I’m just asking Alpha.”

“Brandon.”

“Okay,” he said easily, both hands on the wheel, “you don’t want to share, that’s fine, I’m not going to push, I just know what I saw and what I saw was definitely something.”

The car was quiet for a moment and I stared at the road ahead and I don’t even fully know when the words came out, they were just suddenly there, out of my mouth before I had made any conscious decision to say them, “we had sex.”

Brandon hit the brakes.

Not an emergency stop but close enough, the car lurching slightly as he pulled to the side and turned to look at me fully, his eyes wide in the rearview mirror first and then turning his whole body around because apparently the mirror wasn’t enough to contain his reaction.

“How,” he said.

I looked straight ahead, “Brandon….”

“No Alpha, how, when, she’s Ava’s friend, when did this even, how does that happen?” he was staring at me like I had said something in a language he didn’t speak, “and your, I mean, it didn’t, you were able to….”

“I don’t know,” I said flatly, because that was the honest answer, I genuinely did not know, I had been trying to figure it out since it happened and I was no closer to understanding it than I had been yesterday.

Brandon sat back slowly, absorbing it, and then something shifted in his expression, the shock settling into something more thoughtful, “and you’re still in denial about what that means.”

It wasn’t a question.

“I’m not in denial,” I said, “I just don’t know what it means yet.”

“Alpha.”

“I don’t.”

He looked at me for a long moment, then turned and started the car again, pulling back onto the road, and was quiet for a moment before he said, “if she’s the only person your dysfunction has never affected, then my advice is simple, keep her close, don’t push her away, because that hasn’t happened in years and you know it.”

I said nothing but I heard it, and my wolf heard it too and had absolutely no argument against it.

We drove in silence for a while and I was just beginning to settle back into my own thoughts when Brandon spoke again, his voice shifting into something slightly more careful, “there’s something else I need to tell you Alpha.”

I looked at him.

“Naomi might be coming back to the pack.”

Everything in me went still.

“What.”

“When I went on the trip,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road, “the mission was to find the best surgeon we could for the pack, someone strong enough to handle a war situation if it came to that, someone who knew our people and our ways, and the only person who fit every single requirement was Naomi, she’s from our pack Alpha, she knows it inside out, bringing her back as our pack doctor is not a wrong idea on paper.”

“No,” I said.

“Alpha…”

“No Brandon, absolutely not, Naomi is not coming back to this pack, not now, not ever, find someone else.”

“I already informed the elders,” he said quietly, “they accepted, they agreed with the reasoning, and if you reject her now, if you stand up in front of the elders and say Naomi cannot be our doctor, people are going to start asking why, and everything that happened between the two of you is going to resurface and I know that’s the last thing you want.”

I stared at the road ahead and felt something cold moving through my chest.

“I didn’t want to bring her back Alpha,” Brandon said, and his voice was genuinely apologetic, “I want you to know that, it was not my first choice, but I had no option, and now that the elders have agreed, rejecting her is going to cause more damage than accepting her.”

“Call a meeting,” I said, my voice flat, “I’ll take it to the elders myself, because Naomi is not stepping foot inside my pack, I don’t care what it takes.”

Brandon was quiet for a moment, then, “do you still have feelings for her, Alpha?”