The Fury Pack Alpha's Secret Mate

CHAPTER ONE Rogue “Goddammit.” I huff, my jaw grinding so hard I fear for my molars when I hear a snicker and close my eyes in defeat. I feel like s**t, my head is killing me and if my p***y doesn’t stop fluttering with warning signals of…whatever the hell is wrong with me, I’m going to lose it and scream. Which wouldn’t be good because the last time I lost it, I ended up giving serious thought to having myself committed. Hell, I go to therapy as it is, and there’s been no difference. You’re not nuts, Rogue. I snort and tense at the sound of my inner voice chiming in, but the truth is, it doesn’t sound like me. This voice is strange and different, and it growls a lot, as if the stupid i***t in my head has a constant case of laryngitis. Don’t start. Just leave me alone today. Please. I’m already feeling like s**t. I don’t need you chiming in. In fact, I’d appreciate it if you left me alone for a while. You know what this week symbolizes for me and I really don’t need to lie awake at night worrying that I’m losing my f*****g mind. At least you have company. You and I both know you’re going to lie awake for hours anyway because the heat is coming. I snarl now, furious, and close my eyes to calm down. “Stop saying it like that. I’m not some b***h in heat. I’m a human being!” And yet you experience one week a month when you become so aroused, you practically lose your mind trying to sate the arousal that flares up. I huff and turn to clean the coffee machine and try like hell to disregard the voice because she isn’t wrong. I’ve spent five f*****g years, suffering like this. Well, four, but that’s only because my pregnancy with Jackson was so traumatic. I was sick, exhausted, and almost didn’t make it. We both almost didn’t make it, but I don’t want to think about that and I sure as s**t don’t want to focus on what’s happening with my body. These episodes always start this way. I wake up one morning, and I feel stirrings deep within. They’ll become tingles soon and then throbbing and then… Then I’ll spend days suffering such arousal, I’ll have to take half-days and go home to ice down my crotch while I eat everything in sight and curse Adam Fury to hell and back. This is his fault. Five years ago, he charmed me, got me into bed, and made me fall so hard, I’m still recovering from the whiplash of waking up to find him…gone. “f**k him.” I hiss, my c**t throbbing softly before I open my thighs to stop the ache that’s settled there. I hate him. I despise him. I wish I’d never met him. But then I wouldn’t have Jacky and dammit, he’s worth all the strange, unexplained horror I’ve been through. He’s worth the almost debilitating heartbreak I felt when Adam left, and I realized he wasn’t coming back. He’s worth the six months of pregnancy when I was so sick I thought we’d both die. My son is worth every minute of confusion I feel because the fact is, I’ve never been the same. Not since that night. Huffing, I turn away from the counter where I’m trying to wash away my emotions and take a minute to rearrange the display where I have every baked good known to man displayed. My café is small, but in a small town like Ash Valley, it's busy thanks to locals and a constant influx of folks from neighboring towns. So I do well. Thank God. “Ayo, Ro! I’m goin’ out for a bit to have lunch and get with Bo for our daily crossword!” my friend and main baker, Meryl, calls as she pushes through the swing doors that lead to the kitchen. I grin and turn, taking in the old woman, and shake my head once again. Meryl is ancient, though no one really knows her true age, but she’s also fit as a fiddle and has helped me more than anyone ever has. With her stooped shoulders, iron gray hair that’s cut into a cute pixie cut, she should be…old, and yet she’s stronger and more capable than most younger folks I know. “Take a long lunch, Mer and tell Bo I say hello. Jacky and I will hang out and have lunch in a bit. He still asleep?” I ask, smiling when she chuckles. “He’s still passed out on the cot you put in your office. Reckon he’ll be out for a bit still. I’ll see ya in a bit. I already washed up from this mornin’s baking, so don’t bother tryin’a go back and tidy. Take a bit to enjoy lunch. There’s a tray of pizza slices coolin’ down for y’all.” I nod and wave as she leaves, then sigh because my son is a marvel. And one of my greatest sources of worry. At four, he’s the size of a six or seven-year-old, he can read, write, and color, and he’s…just different. I have no idea how the heck I had a kid who’d turn out to be so smart. That’s not the part that worries me, though. It’s the other stuff. Stuff I don’t dare think about because every time I do, I have the equivalent of a mini-meltdown with worry. Deciding I don’t want to think about the fact that my son is different, I busy myself wiping down the front counters and tables before I end up back at the display, at loose ends. Lunch rush hasn’t come yet, and since it’s Wednesday, there’s likely to be a slow afternoon that will get busy around three. Deciding I’m better served keeping busy, I check on Jacky, grab a pizza slice, and then sit down at the counter near the register to go over the books. I smell him before I see him, and though I want to pretend this is just a dream, my gut coils so hard I know this is real. He’s here. Oh, God.