Page 25 of The Reluctant Alpha

I leaned back against the couch, my mind racing. What had possessed me to kiss Bayer? One minute I was arguing with him about his self-sacrificial nonsense, and the next I was all over him, grabbing his face and devouring him like he was my last meal. I hadn't planned it—I'd just needed him to shut up, to stop talking about facing the revenant alone like his life didn't matter.

And then his lips had softened against mine, his massive hands had come up to cradle my face so gently, and for one perfect moment, everything had made sense.

Until the damned vampires had stirred shit up.

"You're thinking awfully hard over there," Emery said, sliding onto the couch beside me. He kept his voice low, mindful of the other pack members scattered around the common area, even though shifter hearing meant they could still hear. "Want to talk about what happened up there?"

I glanced at him, heat crawling up my neck. "Not particularly."

"So, you didn't just kiss a certain bear shifter right when all hell broke loose?"

I groaned, covering my face with my hands. "You saw that?"

"Everyone saw that," Emery said, though there was no judgment in his voice, just a hint of amusement. "I'm pretty sure Kaylan was taking mental pictures."

"Great," I muttered. "Just what I need—an audience for my emotional breakdown."

Emery bumped my shoulder with his. "Is that what it was? A breakdown?"

“It was just a peck,” I groused.

Em arched an eyebrow. “I’m talking about the one where you climbed him like a tree.”

At least three she-wolves giggled, and I sent a death stare to my former best-friend, who just grinned unrepentantly.

“We all saw,” Sharon smirked.

I glanced over at one of the she-wolves I really liked, even though her son Nicholas had betrayed Phoenix and the pack and, well…let’s just say I was glad I wasn’t there to see Phoenix dispense wolf justice. But thanks to Em, his family had stayed in the pack, and Sharon was like an unofficial grandmother to Tia and Callie. “I am not discussing my sex life,” I said haughtily, and Raven, who was about my age, giggled again.

“Well damn, I just saw a kiss,” Sharon said. “You mean there was more?”

I groaned and banged my head back against the wall, then winced, instantly regretting it. Then I looked at Raven, who seemed flushed. Had I embarrassed her?

Em glanced at her as well. “Are you okay, Raven?”

She nodded and just waved a hand over her face. “It’s just so hot in here.”

Esther’s head came up so quickly at that, I wondered what was wrong, apart from the obvious. It was so chilly I had a blanket wrapped around me. Not that wolves needed it, but then I noticed the dawning smile on Sharon’s face. “Raven, how much time have you been spending with Kasim?”

She bit her lip. “Don’t tell my dad. He’s still got it into his head I’m gonna meet an alpha.”

And it dawned on me this was the she-wolf whose dad had tried to offer her to Phoenix as a brood-mate, which was a disgusting term, assuming—wrongly—that Em couldn’t get pregnant. Not that it made it any better, and Em and Phoenix had taken a while to get back together after that. It hadn’t been Raven’s fault, though. The old man just assumed that since Phoenix’s magic dick had sent Emery into heat, he might be able to do it for his daughter. I rolled my eyes and then it hit me, and I opened them wide.

Emery had gotten it much faster than me and he was smiling at Esther. Esther came over to Raven and took both her hands, inhaling deeply, and then she patted Raven’s hand. “Congratulations, sweetheart. Kasim’s your mate, isn’t he?”

Raven bit her lip and tears sprang to her eyes. “But we barely get any time together. Dad hates him.”

Emery chuckled. “Well, he’s gonna love him when you present him with a grandchild.”

Every conversation in the bunker stopped. Raven’s jaw dropped. “What?”

“You’re in heat, Raven,” Esther said with a smile. “Congratulations, sweetheart. Now, we need this door open so you and Kasim can find somewhere private.”

She reached over and clasped her sister’s hand. “The first one.” There were tears in a lot of the women’s eyes, and I didn’t blame them. An unintended consequence of the curse Estrelle had used so she wouldn’t get pregnant when the vampires kidnapped her was that it had affected them all, and until Emery and Tia, there hadn’t been a shifter baby born for many years because the curse had only worked on females. Apparently, Estrelle killing Alessandro had broken it.

There was a lot of hugging and excited laughter, and when the door opened, Sharon was there first with an order to find Kasim.

“Don’t think we’ve finished talking about this,” Em said as we walked out.