Stealing the Alpha’s Heart

I let stepped off the final rung of the ladder and looked at what would soon be our completely redone kitchen, sighing with contented satisfaction.

“You know, we could have hired contractors,” Theo said, rounding the corner from our main hall with two smoothies. I took the yellow one from him, knowing it was my favorite mix of passionfruit, coconut, and pineapple, and gulped down a large sip.

“Yeah, but then we’d miss out on all of this!” I made a gesture to the walls that I’d painted a gentle periwinkle, which I thought would be a great contrast to much of our deep brown trim. Sure, maybe I was decorating our house a little eccentrically, but it was our house. I could do what I wanted! Well, do what I wanted as long as Theo and I could come to an agreement on everything. Which we usually managed pretty darn well.

“You mean all of this manual labor!”

“I mean all the experience.” I gently ribbed him with my elbow. “Come on, I know you’re having fun completely kitting out your office so that you can work from home half the time.”

At that his serious expression cracked into a grin. “Alright, yeah. That is pretty cool.” He took his own long gulp from his smoothie, which I knew was going to be kale, apple, and melon. Not bad, but not nearly as exciting as he made mine. But that was alright. Everyone had flaws. “Between my actual office, my office in your shop, and this office, I might finally have all the space I need to never get burnt out.”

“That doesn’t mean that you can become a workaholic again,” I said accusingly, turning to face him and giving him one of my looks.

“Hello pot,” he shot right back. “I’m kettle. Nice to meet you.”

I couldn’t help but cackle at that. Theo had always been witty and sarcastic, but lately he always seemed to tickle my funnybone just right. I didn’t know if he got funnier or I was just a total sap, but either way I loved how much of my days were always spent laughing.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“Fair enough, fair enough. We’ll just both have to hold each other accountable.”

“As long as I get to hold you.”

Theo wrapped his arm around my waist and I rested my hands on his chest. I could feel the tension ramping up between us and I was tempted to ask if he wanted to christen one of the rooms in our house before I was set to go to dinner with Savvy. We’d been hanging out much more lately and I didn’t really want to cancel on her, so any mate boinking would have to take place before or after. But I didn’t quite get the indecent proposal out before his phone rang.

“Give me one good reason not to throw that into the lake,” I growled.

“It’s your brother.”

“Oh, that’s a good reason.”

Theo answered quickly, although he did keep his arm wrapped around my middle. “Yes, alpha?”

Like usual, I could hear my brother clearly on the other line. He sounded stressed, which had the hair on the back of my neck stand up. It hadn’t been exactly smooth sailing since we’d killed Ellan and discovered her failed plot, but it had been much less harrowing. Our guard team especially was finally getting a break and the other shifters that had been leant from other packs had finally gone home.

“I think there’s something wrong with the council. Something… something’s just not making sense.”

Theo and I looked at each other, both of our expressions clearly shocked by the accusation.

“Well sh!t.”

My new boss thinks he owns me. I can’t decide if I hate him. Or if I want to k**s him…

I’ll do whatever it takes to impress my super smart, serious boss. Thanks to my secret crush, I’ve moved cities and given up everything to become part of Jacobian’s pack.

Shifters from his pack are being hunted down and I’ve been brought into his elite tech team. Now I’m risking my life to conduct corporate espionage and gather intelligence.

But impressing Jacobian is proving way harder than I thought. When one of the employees I’m spying on starts showing interest in me, Jacobian forbids me from putting myself at further risk.

I know I’m only an intern, but I don’t appreciate being micromanaged, and I plan to show him exactly what I’m capable of.

I’ll do anything for my career, except the determined look in Jacobian’s eyes tells me there’s another reason behind all the special attention he’s giving me. And surely one little love bite can’t hurt…