Accidentally Bitten by The Alpha

Chapter 13

Zane’s POV

Taking a deep breath, nod. “Thank you, Stephanie. Let father know I’ll come see him in 15 minutes.”

“He sent me to tell you that he expects you in 5,” the older she-wolf grimaces, looking down at my arms and my sleeping companion. “Do you need help?”

She reaches out to take Felicity from my arms and a low growl bubbles from my chest unbidden. It was an automatic response and her eyes widen, looking from me, to the girl and back again. I know what she must be thinking.

“If you could please not say anything to my father about my friend,” I ask quietly. “Give me a chance to tell him in my own way.”

She nods in understanding. Alphas usually only have that strong of a reaction for one reason, and though she isn’t saying it out loud, I know what she’s thinking. This girl must be my mate. I refuse to believe it, but denying it now doesn’t do anything helpful with my father waiting upstairs. I can clear things up later, but for now, I need to get Felicity somewhere safe.

And I need this delta to keep her mouth shut. The last thing I need is for her to blurt out something that isn’t true.

“I see,” Stephanie takes a step back. “I’ll distract him with the quarterly reports. That’ll buy you some time. And I won’t say anything about your m…friend, unless he asks me directly but…please hurry, young alpha,” she frowns, her eyes full of concern. “The longer you keep him waiting the more suspicious he’ll be.”

She doesn’t need to tell me what I already know, but I thank her anyway as she lets me pass, giving me enough room so that no part of my companion touches her. Until I can figure out what is going on with my urges, and why my wolf is going berserk over some human, I don’t want anyone to know a thing about her.

Cradling her carefully in my arms, I march Felicity to the one place I know she’ll be safe–my bedroom. Not even my father dares enter without permission. It’s a sign of respect between alphas, and as his heir, he knows respect is important. The pack needs to see me as strong, but also, my father needs to avoid doing anything that might force me to challenge him. My father may not be in his prime anymore, but he has always been strong, and with decades of battle under his belt, far more skilled. This doesn’t mean I wouldn’t win, but our pack needs his strong leadership and I don’t want to battle my father until he’s crippled or dead.

But if he pushes me too hard I’d have no choice but to challenge him just to save face. Pushing against my authority by entering my rooms would be one of those things. Touching my mate would be another one. There isn’t an alpha alive who wouldn’t tear the throat out of any wolf who tried to place his hands on someone they considered to be theirs. And regardless of what my current obsession with this fragile human girl means or doesn’t mean to me, I can’t help my primal instincts to protect her.

“Are you sure she’s human,” my wolf, Zander, asks cautiously. “She smells like she’s ours.”

“She also smells human,” I counter, wrinkling my nose. She smells both alpha strong and human weak simultaneously and the contradiction is maddening. It’s almost as if one scent is layered on top of the other. “She can’t be ours and human.”

“Maybe you’re wrong,” Zander says quietly as he fades in my mind, “About both things. The Moon Goddess moves in mysterious ways. Who are we to judge her plan?”

I can’t let my wolf’s words get to me. The last thing I need right now is to be distracted, especially with Zelda running around right under my nose with that i***t Jake, and Father back home to make my life a living hell. Too much is at stake for me not to be on my game. Besides, it's not like either one of us can turn and ask the Moon Goddess for advice. As cryptic and mysterious as he tries to sound, my wolf is no better informed than I am.

Pushing open my door with my foot, I kick it closed behind me and turn the deadbolt, sealing Felicity inside. I don’t want anyone even attempting to open that door, not with this injured girl so vulnerable and my nerves on high alert trying to protect her. Until I figure out what this is, I don’t want to risk hurting anyone.

Setting her down gently on my bed, I don’t want to let this girl go. My urges are even worse once she’s in my bed and covered in my scent. Just like the first night we met, I can’t help but stare, every inch of my body electric with the need to claim her again.

She’s so f*****g beautiful. And clever and sassy, and from what I saw with those rogues, brave, if somewhat clueless. I guess I can’t blame her for not knowing that running from those junkies was a bad idea. She doesn’t know they are wolves. She doesn’t know anything about this world. And yet, she seems to know the right thing to do, almost as if it were instinctual. The way she allowed Corrina to care for her, the way she trusted Patrick shows an insight rare even among wolves.

Jake was a damn fool for throwing her away. It’s a shame she’s not a wolf, she’d make a decent luna to the right alpha. But you can’t change your species anymore than you can change your fate.

Grabbing a clean towel from my bathroom, I wet the edge and take it to the bed. Her breathing is erratic, but as I place the warm, wet cloth on her face she calms instantly, inhaling deeply as my wrist crosses her face, as if taking in my scent. It’s such a wolfish reaction that my body responds as it naturally would if a shewolf were to do the same. My heart pounding, I lean in to breathe in her scent, rubbing my face against hers to gently scent mark her. It’s a sign of affection and possession, and as I move away from her slowly, I want nothing more than to join her in that bed and wrap my arms around her until she wakes up.

“What am I going to do with you?” I ask, talking to myself as I gently wash the crushed blood from the side of her head. Her hair is sticky with it, gluing it firmly to her skin in places, tangled with some poorly wrapped bandage on the side of her neck. Pulling gently, the hair springs free along with the wide, stained piece of gauze that clings to her skin by one long piece of tape.

My hand pauses, just above her injury as I reach down to pull the bandage away. Whatever is under that gauze radiates a feverish heat. She’s only been here a few days, how could she possibly have a wound that could be that infected?

Cautiously, I move the last of the bandage away.

No. It can’t be.

Sitting on her neck is the perfect crescent of a large bite. Not just any bite, a mating mark from a full-grown alpha. Because it wasn’t sealed properly, tended by the alpha who made it, the wound has begun to fester. If left for a few more days, she could die from the infection.

How is this possible? How could she bear an alpha mark?

A flash of memory hits me all at once. That night, as we slammed into one another with the force of an oncoming storm, there was a moment of passion so intense that I blacked out. But now I see all of it, frame by frame, in perfect clarity. Zander had taken over, overwhelmed by an instinct deeper than anything else we wolves hold sacred.

We may not have said all the words, but we did say two very important words. Mate. Mine.

And she responded.

“Mate,” my fingers touch the wound and I instantly feel a tingle that shocks me to my core.

I am so f****d.