Stealing the Alpha’s Heart
Chapter 2

MAHLAN

I picked up another tie, regarding it before setting it down again. I felt ridiculous mulling over my outfit choice like a teenager going to prom, but I wanted to look my best, considering I was meeting several older, local alphas.

Which meant powerful, put together, in control, and successful. That was a lot for a single suit to say, which was half of what was contributing to my trepidation.

In the end, I just chose generic black. It was imposing, simple, and classic. Besides, I was tired of thinking about something as banal as fashion when I had real things to worry about.

Gathering everything I needed out of my relatively underutilized walk-in closet, I set all the item pieces out and proceeded to pace my living room for nearly ten minutes. A vital part of the dressing process, naturally. Physically, I may have been at home, but mentally I was already at the meeting, practicing exactly what I was going to say.

“I realize the previous alpha had big shoes to fill….”

No. That wasn’t it. While it was true that I’d only recently come into my role due to the untimely death of our previous pack leader, Bertram Sawyer, saying that right out of the gate could be seen as gloating, which was not the foot I wanted to start on. Only the weak and posturing needed to lord over the dead in such a way.

Even if the previous alpha had absolutely screwed us over, he’d been killed in a raid that cost our pack our moonstone. And with no direct heir, he’d left a beta in charge, one John Thomas, until I stepped in to take over. As a natural-born alpha, I was primed to lead, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t a bit… nervous.

But I had to get that under control because if I showed any weakness, all the more established alphas would pick up on it, and that was the last thing my pack needed.

I paced for another few minutes before I moved back to putting my suit on, and I carefully tied my tie in the mirror. Once the ensemble was completed, I felt better, a little more polished and in control — which was exactly what I needed.

Checking my watch, I realized I was cutting it close if I wanted to make it to John’s house on the edge of town. This wasn’t some social event where being late was a fashionable thing. Oh, no, wasting the time of the elder alphas would be incredibly rude and not the first impression I wanted to give.

I wasn’t going to grovel, that had never been my style, and it never would be. And I wasn’t going to become some brown-nosed sycophant who did whatever he could to ingratiate himself to them. But I did believe in showing the proper respect and appreciating how well the elders had led their packs.

Hurrying out, I hopped into my car and headed to John’s house. Considering we both had vehicles, it might have been more expedient to have him meet me at my place. However, since we still hadn’t found the man who’d killed Bertram, we were being a little more cautious about the predictability of our schedules.

So, if that meant I drove to John’s to switch cars and have him act as my chauffeur to the alpha meeting, so be it.

I made it in record time, and if that was because I sped a little, no one was any wiser. Thankfully, John was already dressed and ready to go. I parked my car in his small, but well-kept, garage and then slid into the back seat of his subtly armored transport vehicle.

It didn’t look much different than a particularly classy black SUV, but I knew that it had reinforced glass and metal plating in several of the doors. Not enough to stop a full-on attack, but enough to buy time to evaluate the threat and get into a better position. And if there was one thing I learned, sometimes mere seconds meant life and death when it came to battle.

“Any progress on the search?” I asked as John drove. It was still somewhat miraculous to me how he didn’t need a GPS to navigate the city; most of the streets and locations were committed to his memory.

“Having the video helped, but it’s still slow going,” John answered honestly. “We might have found a connection with a company we were looking to be involved with before, but nothing solid.”

“Ah, that’s the one where Theo has been corresponding with the CEO?”

“I believe so, sir. He’s set up a meeting, correct?”

“Yes. Fingers crossed we’ll be able to obtain their financial records to see if they have any suspicious payments. Life-ending payments.”

“Yes, sir.”

The conversation shifted to other things, primarily busywork and incidentals from running a pack. When I’d been a young alpha, I’d always thought being a pack leader was all running in the moonlight and hunting in a coordinated attack. If someone had told me it was a lot of politics and diplomacy, I probably would have been pretty discouraged.

But I liked to think I was handling it well enough. I just had to hope the elders all agreed. Not that I was going to kowtow to them, of course. But I’d rather not go to war with a rival pack in my first year of being alpha.

It didn’t take long to get to the Langhouse building the restaurant was under. It was a high-rise of upscale apartments that my financial company owned. I was flattered that the elder alphas were willing to meet in a place deep in my territory. It was a sign of trust that I wasn’t sure I had earned, but I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Drop me off at the lobby. I just want to walk the perimeter before I go to the restaurant.”

“Are you sure you want to be alone while I park the car?”

“Yeah, it should be fine.”

John gave a nod and proceeded to do as I asked. Straightening myself one last time, I strode towards the door.

But before I could open the door, something delicious hit my senses with the force of a freight train. I stood there momentarily, my mind whiting out except for the intense, mouthwatering scent.

It was indescribable, but at the same time, my mind was desperate to parse whatever was bewitching us. Lavender, blueberry, and chamomile, perhaps? But then I’d catch something citrusy. Then something more subtle, like earth or pine after a rain. It was a puzzle, enchanting me like a siren’s song.

I couldn’t say how long I stood there, breathing deeply like I was struggling with asthma. Eventually, I was able to get a hold of myself and open the door. I didn’t want any of the visiting alphas to see me huffing outside like some feral, out-of-control beast.

“Sir? Is everything all right?”

I blinked, John drawing me back to reality. For some reason, he didn’t seem like he could smell anything, which was outright baffling to my brain. Was I going mad?

“Let me get the door for you.”

“Right. Of course.”

I took a step back and let him do just that, shaking the last of that beguiling scent out of my head. Was it some sort of sabotage by the other alphas? Did one of them have a mysterious vial of potent pheromones that they’d dumped outside the building’s door? I had to admit it was a pretty good way to rattle me.

But I wouldn’t be fooled, and I steeled myself against it. Or at least I did until I walked inside and my eyes landed on exactly where it had to be coming from.

There, just across the lobby from me, was a young woman, most likely in her early twenties. She had brown hair and blazing green eyes that were boring into mine, my entire body responding to her presence like she was a lightning rod to my energy.

I was vaguely aware that John was talking as he entered behind me, but I had no idea what he was saying. There was only the woman, her intoxicating pheromones, and far too much space between us.

It was like my inner wolf was trying to burst out of my skin so it could cross the scant space between them. I felt my mouth begin to water and my teeth ache like they wanted to be buried into her skin. If I could smell her so strongly from across the spacious lobby, what would it be like to be right up against one of her scent glands? Like the small one in her wrist? Or the oh-so-sensitive one on the side of her neck? My body jolted at that thought, elder alphas all forgotten. But before I could do anything about it, the woman broke eye contact and hurried to an elevator, disappearing from my sight.

Huh.

I was going to need to come back and replace her. She had to live in the building, considering that she’d been coming out of the mail room. But fortunately enough, her absence allowed her pheromones to clear quickly, and I remembered why I was at the building.

“Sir? Is something wrong?”

John’s voice drew me back to reality for the second time in just a couple of minutes.

“No, no, I’m fine. Let’s go downstairs.”

“Of course, sir.”

The two of us descended the stairs, and I was pleased to see that I was the first one there. No elder alphas to witness my embarrassing display with a random woman in my territory. Sure, I liked the fairer se*x as much as the next guy, and I always appreciated feminine beauty in all its different forms. But there was a difference between admiring a woman and being rooted to the spot, transfixed by her scent and presence.

Naturally, the staff knew us on sight, and I was taken to the back room, which I used whenever I had a private meeting. They brought me cool water as well as my signature whiskey, which allowed me to collect myself and put all thoughts of the young woman out of my mind for another time.

Frederick Cyprus arrived first, an impressively old alpha whose wrinkles were deeper than some people’s wallets. But even in his elderly years, he still maintained the posture and commanding presence that screamed alpha. He was the end goal for all of us, considering that the life span of a pack leader was significantly shorter than anyone else among wolf shifters.

“Alpha Cyprus,” I said, standing and offering my hand. “Welcome to my table.”

“Alpha Reese,” the man returned, taking my hand firmly. “It’s been most interesting watching your rise to this position.”

“It has been a quick one, hasn’t it?”

“Yes, but you are handling it well.”

I hadn’t expected an outright compliment, so I just gave him what I hoped was a polite nod. “Here, have a seat, please. Whatever you would like, my staff will provide.”

“Your hospitality is noted.”

“It’s the least I can do.”

And that was that. The elder alpha sat and started to settle. The next alpha arrived a few minutes later, and another after ten minutes. Then the rest filed in pretty quickly until I looked at a table full of established, confident alphas.

“Thank you for meeting here tonight,” I started, sounding commanding. “I know we have much to discuss.”

“That we do,” one of the elders, Jackoby Belcroft, said, his voice a low, wizened rumble. “For starters, what do you plan to do about your moonstone situation?”

Of course, they honed right in on that. Without the moonstone, I had nothing to swear in on. And while I thought a lot of the ritual around alpha meetings was overdone, there was no ignoring that lacking a physical connection to the moon was hard to work around.

“My pack and I are willing to do a b***d oath.”

There was a moment of silence, not that I could blame them. While swearing-in on the moonstone was considered incredibly binding, a b***d oath was on an entirely different level. Breaking such a thing was said to call curses that could wipe out entire packs and lineages across continents.

“And what of Sawyer’s beta?” That was Christian Guivant, who was one of the youngest elder alphas.

He meant John, who had served the previous leader dutifully, and I couldn’t help but feel a streak of protectiveness even though it was a perfectly valid question. “I have a couple of prospects I am exploring as his replacement, but currently, he has been a vital part of our pack’s transition.”

John, to his credit, remained quiet and calm from where he was standing against the wall. He was a great beta and had more than earned his retirement.

“Have you considered keeping him longer?”

Oh? That I hadn’t expected. Usually, when a pack transitioned from one alpha to another, the leader was expected to establish their beta and the rest of their support system pretty expediently.

“I am interested in knowing why you would advise that,” I said diplomatically. I liked John, but I’d thought that delaying the usual proceeds would make me look weak in front of the elders.

“You are young, are you not, Mahlan?”

“Alpha Reese,” I corrected as levelly as I could. Normally, I didn’t care about such things, but I needed to establish that I was an alpha just like the men around me, and I would be respected as such. “And I’m twenty-six, currently.”

“Ah, I remember when I was twenty-six,” Cyrus mused, sipping his bourbon. “What I wouldn’t give for the knees I had before my thirties.”

There was a chorus of agreeable sounds, and I couldn’t help but wonder what sort of lumbar issues were in my future. If I lived long enough to develop any, that was. Considering what happened to the last alpha, my future was less than assured.

“Twenty-six is quite young, and John has the expertise to aid you and train whoever you choose as your long-term beta. It would be prudent not to waste such a resource.”

“I see your logic and I agree,” I said like I wasn’t intensely relieved. Even a year with John helping out would be a huge boon to me.

The conversation continued, and I could tell bit by bit that I was winning them over, especially when I got into my plans to build up our financials and security. As the leaders of wolf shifters, one of our biggest goals was to make jobs and safe spaces for other wolf shifters. Places where they could take time off for their natural, biological functions among people who understood. Places where they could build community and the vital bonds that helped so many packs keep peace with each other.

Only a couple of hundred years ago, having so many wolves in a single area would have resulted in an endless, bloody war. Territory fights were no joke. But with the increasing number of humans taking over anything and everything, our people had been forced to adapt.

Sure, there were still plenty of conflicts, evident with our dead pack leader, but we did try to avoid that for the most part.

“Well,” Alpha Hiro Watanabe said, possibly the first time he’d spoken since he arrived. He was a taciturn man whose father had immigrated to America and become the first Asian alpha in our state. He was a strict but fair leader, from what I’d heard. “I am satisfied with your plans, and I suggest we meet again in three months for an update.”

There was a chorus of agreement all around and relief flooded through me so thickly I knew that they could smell it. Oh, well, let them know that I was happy. It wasn’t a sign of weakness to be pleased that we all could reach an accord.

“In that case, let my staff get you all something to eat.”

Another chorus of positive responses. If there was one universal truth among wolf shifters, it was that pretty much everyone was always at least a little hungry.

Perhaps an hour or so passed, I wasn’t keeping track of the time, but eventually, the men wrapped up and started to leave. A few trickled off on their own, but I walked the main group out the door and to the valet station like a proper host.

Except we didn’t quite make it there. Only a few steps out the door, that same arresting scent hit me, stopping me dead in my tracks. Turning, I saw the girl exit the door and stride straight towards us.

The rest of the world fell away for a moment, leaving just her and me. I tried to move through the alphas towards her, sure that she was just as captivated by me as I was by her. My heart thundered in my chest, my body trying to jump into its wolf form as some sort of release from her pull.

But before I could get close enough, she tripped, colliding with one of the elder alphas.

I reached out, hoping to catch her, gripping her arm to make sure she stayed on her feet. A faint blush spread across her lovely features as she sent the elder a sheepish grin. I wanted her to look at me, so I cleared my throat and spoke.

“Miss! Are you all right?”

Her head swiveled towards me and… something happened. I didn’t know her nearly well enough to understand her expressions, but it seemed like a million played across her face at once.

“Oh, sorry, I’m fine! Just wasn’t paying attention!”

“That’s all right, darling,” Cyprus practically purred, which was not a very werewolf thing to do. Pervy old man. “You’re good.”

“Aw, thanks!” With a strange look in my direction, she hurried off. Almost as if she was scared of something. Of someone.

… of me?

And that was how I met my soulmate.