Page 9 of The Alpha’s Unclaimed Mate

The wolf in me goes still. A low sound builds in my throat before I know it’s coming.

I tip my head back and let it climb out of me, long and raw, breaking into the wet dark over the trees. Grief, maybe. Or something older with no name to it. From across the territory, the pack answers, one voice and then a second, then a third, the sound lifting until the whole valley hums with it, until I’m not howling alone out here. I never am. That’s the one mercy of a pack. You don’t face the worst of it by yourself, even when you want to.

I turn to go before the ache can root any deeper.

A big silver wolf eases out of the trees behind me, gone gray at the muzzle, amber eyes catching the dark. He presses his shoulder against mine, solid and warm, and I lean into the contact before I can think better of it.

We shift together, bone folding back into a man’s frame. Uncle Nathaniel is sixty now, silver through and through, still broad across the chest, moving with the easy authority of an alpha who’s held the seat a long time. That warm, crinkle-eyed look I’ve known all my life settles on me.

“You rarely go to that side,” he says.

“Felt like it tonight.” I drag a hand down my face. “Couldn’t make myself go in, though. Don’t have the strength for that part.”

He follows my gaze to the dark hulk of the house. “You shouldn’t let it fall to ruin like this. Say the word and I’ll send a few of the pack to keep it standing. It’s no trouble to me, Marcus. It never has been.”

I don’t answer. I just look at the dark windows.

“Bella will want to come up here one day, you know. To see where she came from.”

“No.” The word comes out hard. “I don’t want her anywhere near this place. I don’t want her smelling her parents’ blood. It might have dried, but the smell still lingers.”

He lifts his hands, conceding the point without pressing it. “All right. All right.”

We turn from the house and start back through the trees, the drizzle ticking against the leaves above us. For a while, neither of us speaks. The clearing falls away behind us. He walks close, his shoulder near enough to brush mine, and I let the quiet stretch, glad of the company even when I won’t say so.

Then he breaks it, his voice gone softer. “She’s growing up faster than you want to admit, that girl. She needs a mother, Marcus. A girl her age needs one.”

“She has me. I’ve been mother and father both to her for ten years. We’ve done all right.”

We have done all right. Still, there are nights she asks about Hannah, soft questions I don’t have a good answer to, and I hold her until she falls back asleep. I keep that to myself.

He sighs, the sound heavy with affection, and settles a hand on my shoulder. “I know how much you love her. I’d never ask you to let a stranger walk into Hannah’s place. But there are things a girl turns to a woman for, things you and I can’t give her no matter how we try. Let me make some introductions. Good women. Our own.”

“No. Thank you.” I reach past him for my clothes as we reach the placed I’d left them and begin pulling them on. “I don’t have room in my life for a woman, Uncle. Bella is my whole world. Every hour I’m not coaching, I’m hers, and that’s how I want it.”

He shakes his head. “You need a mate at some point, Marcus. You need a woman of your own. You can’t keep living like this.”

“I gave up being alpha, despite being born to it. I handed the seat to you for Bella’s sake without a second thought. If I can live without that, I can live without a mate.”

“And when she’s grown?” he presses, gentle as ever. “When she finds her own life and leaves you to rattle around that house alone?”

“Then I’ll deal with it. For now, it’s all Bella.”

His brow furrows, worry threading through the warmth. “You can’t go that long untouched, son. You know what it does to one of us. A wolf left too long on his own starts to come apart at the edges. I’ve watched it happen to better men than you.”

“I get what I need.” I roll my shoulders. “From you. From the pack.” A beat. “From women who want exactly as little from me as I want from them. Our females want a mate, a claim, a forever I can’t give. Human women don’t ask for any of that. They’re simpler about it.”

He doesn’t care for that answer. I watch it cross his face, the quiet disapproval he’s much too gracious to speak aloud. But he holds his tongue, only clapping my shoulder once before he steps back toward the trees.

“Bring Bella over this weekend,” he says. “I miss her.”

I smile at that. “I can guarantee she’s missed you more. You’re her favorite grandfather.”

He laughs, low and warm. “If your father were alive, I doubt I’d hold that title for long.” He says it lightly, no weight to it, already turning for the dark.

I head back toward the house alone, the drizzle cooling on my bare skin. Somewhere between the tree line and my own door, a pair of furious brown eyes rises in my mind, narrowed at me over a curb full of ruined groceries, the woman soaked through, snapping at me for the simple crime of helping her.

My mouth tugs up before I catch it.