The Tyrant Alpha’s Rejected Mate (The Five Packs Book 1)

Change is hard.

That’s why there is a leather sofa half in and half out of our front door and a very pissed off Killian pacing in the kitchen, trying not to lose his shit.

He’s going to lose it.

We’ve been together for eighteen months, and relationships are hard. Especially with males who have always gotten their way and previously only used one way to settle an argument.

Tye is supposed to be helping me get rid of the sofa, but Killian gave an alpha command to “stop,” so now Tye’s standing at the top of the ramp Killian built to replace our front steps, blocking me from shoving the foul thing the rest of the way out of our cabin.

Of course, if I try to do it myself, Killian will restrain me. Very gently, but effectively. He’d never hurt me, but I haven’t been able to convince him that manhandling me is harmful. If he doesn’t like the look of something, he hauls me up like a sack of potatoes.

He doesn’t like the looks of most stairs, hills, freshly mopped floors, or trails with too many roots showing.

And he’s definitely not cool with his almost-ready-to-pop pregnant mate moving furniture. He’s caught me doing it a lot these past few weeks. It’s a sign the pup is coming soon if the aching hips, the ginormous belly, and the permanent indigestion weren’t enough advance notice.

I’m past ready. My ankles are swollen, my boobs are leaky, and I’m horny and mad at the same time—all the time. I’m not in the mood to suffer fools, and that’s what Killian is if he thinks I’m going to tolerate this repulsive thing in my space for another day.

“What’s wrong with the sofa again?” Killian’s using that “reasonable” tone of voice that I want to smack out of him.

“It stinks.”

“You never had a problem with it before.”

“It didn’t stink before.”

Tye bends over and takes a whiff. He shrugs at Killian like I’m nuts.

“It’s dead cow carcass treated with smashed brains, urine, and chemicals. I’m not nuts.” I hike my chin. My mate moves so the breakfast bar is between us.

“Where am I gonna sit, Una?”

“Sit on this.” I flip him the middle finger. I’ve picked up the habit from the males at the gym. When we were first mated, Killian liked me to hang out with him a lot—and I wanted to be around him all the time, too. I picked up tons of useful, new cuss words, and I was starting to learn how to fight when Killian caught a whiff of me one day, declared me preggo, and forbade me from doing anything more dangerous than weeding.

He’d probably be pissed if he knew the girls and I have dedicated the locked backroom of the old greenhouse to growing mandrake, hemlock, and henbane. The more I learned about Killian’s defensive efforts—the patrols, the contingency plans, the bunker under the commissary—the more I realized the threat from Last Pack and Moon Lake isn’t as far-fetched as I thought. If they are ever dumb enough to come for us, we’ll have more than fangs and claws to greet them.

Banning me from the gym was our first major fight, though. It ended with Killian buying me a Subaru and building me a raised garden in our backyard. I don’t remember exactly how it unfolded. I was shifting to my wolf a lot, and we were not using our words.

On the porch, Tye sighs, sinks to the sofa, and takes out his phone. “We’ve got a reconciliation match in a half hour,” he calls over his shoulder.

Those were my idea. You can’t leave ten males in the proverbial doghouse forever. You need to provide a path back to the pack’s good graces, or they stop bathing, spend too much time as wolves, and terrorize the chickens.

Hence—reconciliation matches. If a wannabe insurgent can beat an A-roster male—or go five rounds without getting knocked out—he can start eating meals in the lodge again.

Fallon was first to come back. It was a good day. I cried, but I waited until I was alone to do it. The pack is always looking at me now, but in a different way than before. I don’t want to call it awe, but it’s close. It’s how you look at a snake handler or a lion tamer, I guess. Like they’re insane, but also kind of magic.

Handling Killian Kelly isn’t magic. It’s all tenacity, an ability to ignore nonsense, and the willingness to tell him no a few times a day for his own good.

It turns out I’m pretty good at all of those things.noveldrama

“Tye, put the sofa back.” Killian adds a growl to the order. Tye looks up.

“No.” I put my hands on my hips. Tye drops his gaze back to his phone.

“There’s not enough furniture in this camp to make you happy, female.”

“That’s a gross over-exaggeration, and you know it. This is the only thing I want out of the house. The rest I just moved around.”

“I have no idea where my good hand grip is.”

“What’s a hand grip?”

“Exactly!” Killian slaps the counter.

I’m screwing with him. I know what a hand grip strengthener is. It’s in the junk drawer behind him. I put it there after I almost knocked it into the toilet. He had been keeping it on the tank. And he thinks I put things in weird places.

This has gone on long enough. My feet hurt, and Killian does need to be at the gym. This match is important to Garrett and his family. His mother has been torn up since the failed coup. She started dropping by Abertha’s garden to plead his case, and now she comes over to help with my backyard garden every day.

She has a wicked green thumb. She said she never knew it before. She’d always been stuck in the kitchen. I’m not sure what exactly stuck her there, but she’s unstuck herself now.

A lot of females are branching out. Rowan convinced Ivo to teach her how to fight. Old Noreen is learning French cooking from Julia Child videos on the internet. Annie showed her YouTube, and it’s a good thing we all have unlimited data now.

Killian emerges from the kitchen. He knows by my tone that we’re done messing around. He’s wary. His hands are on his hips, too.

I narrow my eyes. “It’s either me or the sofa.”

“I pick you.”

My insides melt. It’s the baby. But also because I know it’s a hundred percent true. Killian is not an easy male to live with, but loving him comes as natural as breathing.

We’re fated mates, but that’s mere biology. It’s not respect. Care. Loyalty.

We have that. And maybe we’ve never said it, but it’s there, growing stronger every day as we navigate this strange connection that both of us now protect with our lives.

I didn’t know what I was doing when I let Abertha sever the bond. It wakes me up in a cold sweat sometimes, the thought of what I almost lost forever.

This blunt, bull-headed, arrogant male who would move mountains for me.

Who already has.

I rub my big belly, and worry furrows Killian’s brow.

“Braxton-Hicks? Do you need to sit?” He casts a pained look at the sofa stuck in the door.

“I’m fine. Baby’s bopping around. Everything’s okay.”

His panic recedes, and the bond fades to its usual reassuring presence. “I’d feel better if you sat. Your ankles are fat.”

“Screw you.”

“Hey, don’t threaten me with a good time.” He grins as he pulls two dining room chairs into the living room.

I sit. My dogs are barking. My wolf has been very quiet since the baby started moving. It’s like she’s afraid to bother him. Sometimes, though, like now, she rumbles in my chest, a soothing purr that calms the baby and his tiny, flickering wolf.

Killian sits beside me and rests his hand on the top of my mound. His wolf starts rumbling, too. It vibrates his fingers.

The baby kicks in delight, gets me hard in the ribs. I wince.

Killian’s wolf growls once, not scary, just bossy, and the baby goes back to squirming lazily.

“It’ll take a day or two to get a new sofa,” Killian says. “I’ll have to send someone to town.”

“I’ll pay for it.”

He rolls his eyes. All the females who want one have an online bank account now. Mine is growing at a greater rate than my belly. We can sell online now, too, and I was right—wolf branded goods are hot.

Killian doesn’t argue. He also won’t give me the chance to pay for it. That’s going to be a huge argument a few years down the road when the girls and I are making more money with farm-to-table stuff than his males earn at the fights. I can’t wait.

“Hey. I want to pick the fabric.” I wish I could give it a sniff, too, but neither my wolf nor Killian’s—nor Killian himself—will let me leave pack territory this close to giving birth.

“I’ll have whoever gets it text you pictures and you can pick. That work?”

It does. I lean my head on Killian’s upper arm. He drops a kiss on the top of my head and grabs the bottom of my braid.

“I liked that sofa,” he sighs.

I kiss the bulging muscle under my cheek. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

Abertha says sex is really great at this stage of pregnancy for moving things along. Also, I’m completely, utterly addicted to my mate.

Killian’s wolf purrs like a pleased pussy cat. The dirty voyeur.

“Una, I’d get rid of every stick of furniture in this place if it made you happy.”

I giggle. “I know.”

He nuzzles my hair. “I’d do anything for you. You’re the reason, Una.”

“For what?” I know, but I want to hear him say it.

“Everything. I love you, shy girl.”

“I love you, too, mate.”

Our hands find each other as we sit side-by-side, our wolves quiet and content, everything the way it ought to be—because we made it so.