Mated to the Grumpy Alpha

Chapter 5

DECLAN

SHE BROUGHT ME COFFEE WITH THREE SUGARS. I DRINK MY COFFEE BLACK.

You would have drunk it too. Let me back up. I had spent the night in Betsy outside Ciara's house with Jonah asleep against the window.

Worst night of my life, Axel said. I could have been warming her bed.

"Go back to sleep," I told him.

A knuckle rapped on the glass. Ciara stood in a bathrobe and boots with two mugs in her hands.

I rolled the window down. "Morning."

"You sat out here all night with the engine off. I watched you from my kitchen for an hour."

"I slept some."

Jonah lifted the cap. "I slept great. Good morning, Ciara. Please note I stayed in the truck."

"It's noted." She held out a mug with a cartoon cat on it. "It's instant. I don't make the good kind for men who sit outside my house."

I took a mouthful. She had put in three sugars and a pour of cream. My teeth hurt.

"Well?" Ciara asked.

Drink it, Axel said. Then find a reason to go inside her house.

I drank the whole mug. "That's good."

"I gave you extra sugar because you looked tired." She seemed pleased with herself.

"I'd like to check your gate latch from the kitchen window. The angle's better."

"That's the worst excuse I've ever heard." She opened the gate. "Come in. He can stay on the porch."

Her kitchen smelled of toast and orange peel. She kicked a rubber boot on the way in and pitched forward.

She caught the counter with both hands. Her own coffee went the other way and landed on my chest.

"It's lukewarm," she told the counter. "You'll live. I'm clumsy everywhere except with animals."

She grabbed a dish towel and started blotting my shirt. "Hold still."

Her knuckles pressed against my sternum. I caught her wrist, and she looked up. Her other hand stayed flat on my chest.

"Are you always this stiff?" she asked.

"I'm the Alpha."

"Of what?"

"Wolves."

"Sure." She nodded, patient with me. "And you called me mate over a puddle of birdseed. What happens if I'm not?"

"In six weeks the Council picks a Luna for me. By law." I took the towel from her. "Unless I stand at the Hunt Moon Gathering with a bonded mate."

She set the towel down. "So I'm a deadline."

"No."

"If this is how you find a wife before forty, I'm not buying it. You haven't asked me for coffee. You haven't brought me flowers."

"And if I did all that? Would you say yes?"

"I wouldn't know. I've never been in a relationship." She folded her arms. "I'd like to date people that don't turn into a huge dog."

Something cracked on the porch. Jonah was folded over the railing laughing with no sound coming out.

"Go look at her back fence," I told him.

"I'm going." He wiped his eyes. "Huge dog."

The screen door banged behind him.

"And you can't walk into a woman's kitchen and announce things," Ciara said. She stepped closer to make the point. Her finger landed on my chest.

Orange peel and warm bread rose around me. Every sensible thought I owned left the room.

Mine, Axel said. He came up fast, and the edges of my vision sharpened.

Down. He went. It cost me, and my hand shook against the counter.

"You're staring at my mouth again," she said.

"I know."

"Do you plan to do something about it?"

I kissed her.

I meant it to be short. It lasted until she fisted both hands in my shirt and pulled. She tasted of sugar, and her mouth opened under mine.

Her heart hit mine and matched it. Beat for beat, for four full seconds.

"Dec?" Jonah's voice came through the window. "You'll want to see these prints."

She let go of my shirt. She touched her lip and scowled at her own fingers.

"Your timing is beautiful," she called toward the window.

"Taking myself to the fence!" Jonah called back.

We went around the back. The prints were deep and enormous, and the left forepaw had one toe cut short.

"That's not a Rogue," Jonah said. "That's Ansel Brandt. He lost half that toe in a winter trap at fifteen. I was there."

"Who's Ansel Brandt?" Ciara asked. She was still pink.

"Silas Brandt's nephew," I said. "His uncle speaks for the Council."

"So the club sent him."

A car door slammed out front.

"Cee?" a man called from the walk. "I'm early! I brought breakfast!"

She was out the screen door before I had stood up.

Through the window Theo Marchetti handed Jonah the box and opened both arms. She walked into them.

"Dec," Jonah said through the screen with his mouth full. "They're hugging. It's a long one."

I flexed my hand until the knuckles cracked.

"You could go out there," Jonah said.

"I could stay here and mind my own business."

"You have never once done that."

They came in together with his hand on the small of her back.

"Ferris called me," Theo said. "The Corolla's ready. I thought I'd feed you and drive you to pick it up." He held out his hand to me. "You must be the man from the video. Thank you for catching her."

I took his hand and held it a second longer than I needed.

"Declan Levesque."

"Theo Marchetti." He looked at Ciara. "Cee, you're flushed. Are you feverish?"

"It's the coffee," she said.

It was not the coffee.

"Then I'll be brief." Theo turned to her. "The new place on Main opened. Would you have a coffee with me on Thursday?"

"I'm off at two," she said.

She said it before I could draw breath. My fist closed on the cat mug and the handle came off.

"She's busy," I said.

Ciara turned. "I am?"

"You're buying me a better coffee than that one. Ferrand's, two o'clock." I stepped in until she had to tip her head back. "And you don't say yes to other men in front of me."

Ciara opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

Theo looked from her to me. "Is he always like this?"

I took one step away from her. Then I stopped.

The pier could move another four inches. The county could wait a morning.

"Change of plan," I said.

I got my shoulder into her middle and lifted. Her boots came off the floor and nobody in that kitchen moved.

"Declan Levesque, put me down."

"You haven't eaten anything with protein in it." I caught the screen door with my free hand. "Jonah. Stay with the prints."

Theo stood where he was, holding the box with both hands.

"Is this normal?" he asked.

"No," Jonah said. He sounded reverent.

"Theo, take the donuts home!" she called over my back. "Don't let them go to waste!"

She was still going when we reached the gate. k********g came up twice.

"I have a dog at eleven."

"Then you have four hours."

"Corrie Pruitt will have me on the internet by supper."

"Probably."

"You could at least look ashamed."

I laid my coat in her lap and she went still. Then she pulled it on and climbed up by herself, which I thought was worth noticing.

"This is a terrible way to ask a woman out," she said.

"I didn't."

"You're enjoying this."

"Yes."

We got sixty feet.

At the end of Alder Lane a grey sedan sat across the road with its engine running. I stopped the truck.

"Who's that?" Ciara asked.

"Stay in here."

"Declan."

"Thirty seconds."

I got out. Silas Brandt rolled his window down as I came level with it. He was sixty-one and had never once raised his voice.

"You smell of her," he said.

"Move your car, Silas."

"In a moment." He looked past me at the woman sitting in my truck. "The Council will hear by noon."

The rear window came down two inches. Ansel Brandt sat with one arm along the back seat.

He lifted the other hand and let something swing from his finger. A thin gold chain with a broken clasp.

Behind me a door opened.

"That's my grandmother's," Ciara said.