A True Alpha Christmas (8 page)

Mia sighed. “Unbelievable.”

Rebecca was nearly choking on her attempts to hold back her laughter. Lev gave her a private grin. Mia punched his shoulder one more time for good measure.

Laughing, Lev tugged Rebecca away with their clasped hands. They were leaving her alone, and she knew why: Lucas was waiting for her at the edge of the gathering, by himself. Mia bit her lip. She had no idea what to say to him. But with him standing there in the moonlight, tall and gorgeous and all-alpha with his head held high… it reminded her of the first time she met him.

Except this time he had clothes on.

That memory sent a flush through her—not only had he been ridiculously sexy, he saved her in an alley before he even knew who, or what, she was. Because that was the kind of man, and wolf, Lucas Sparks was. And it was why she loved him above all the obvious reasons, like being ridiculously handsome, brilliant, and kind. It was why she agreed to be his mate in the first place, trusting her heart as well as her life to him.

He waited for her, and while there were other people nearby, they gave them room. Word must have finally spread about what had happened—good gossip like that never would have lasted under wraps, anyway. The snow crunched lightly as she stepped up to him. His face was half in shadows, but the part that was shining in silver light was pensive and frowning.

“Mia, I know you’re mad at me,” he started, but she held up a finger to stop him.

He fell silent.

“I want you to know something, Lucas Sparks.” There was a slight tremble in her voice, but it was just because the emotions she’d been keeping at bay for the last twenty-four hours were finally surging up again. Her wolf paced a tight circle of anticipation inside her. “I chose you for my alpha because you’re the finest man I’ve ever known.”

Lucas’s shoulders dropped, and his face opened with surprise. “I would have come for you, Mia. There was only one thing that could have kept me away.”

She gave him a small smile. “Me.”

He breached the distance between them and took her hands in his, pulling them up against his chest. “It was killing me to stay away. To give you time. If you hadn’t come tonight, I would have come to the dorm and done anything you asked, if only you would come home with me again. I’ll always fight to keep you, Mia of mine. I’ll do anything and everything it takes. There’s nothing in this world that could stop me from trying… not even
you.”

Her heart swelled with his words—what better thing could she ever ask of him than to fight for their love, no matter what?

She wanted him to wrap his arms around her and kiss her… but a rustle of movement around them broke the tiny spot of closeness they had created. People were gathering into clusters larger than the twos and threes from before.

“It’s beginning,” Lucas whispered, then peered back into her eyes.

“The submission ceremony.” Her inner wolf pranced at the thought.

Lucas put his hand to her cheek, softly holding her. “Tell me you’ll be mine once again.”

“I’ll always be yours, Lucas.”

The hunger in his eyes at that moment had her convinced he would kiss her… but instead he stepped back and released her. She instantly missed his touch, but she understood: a few of the pack members and their dates were gathering around them. Lev and Rebecca had brought their secret smiles with them. Samuel from the Christmas party was there, and Mia belatedly realized he was one of Lucas’s new pack members as well. Or soon would be. His date was a pretty blonde girl who was wide-eyed at the whole scene. Mia could only imagine what a non-shifter would think of the submissions about to happen. There was one other wolf who had come to submit to Lucas, but he was new to the office, and she didn’t yet know his name. That made four wolves in Lucas’s pack now, including Mia. Still less than Llyr’s seven, but Lucas was rebuilding. Mia knew it was only a matter of time before he won the loyalty of more wolves than any of the Sparks men.

Closer to the tree, the elder Mr. Sparks had the most pack members gathering around him—about a dozen wolves, some mated, others with their non-shifter dates. Llyr’s pack was a little farther away, grouped in front of his commanding form. Each of the packs had a set of giant white boxes wrapped in red bows place on the snow around them: Lucas’s pack had four, one for each member, including the one Lev had set by Mia and Lucas’s feet. She had no idea what they were for, but she imagined she would find out soon enough.

Mia lifted her gaze only to see Lev had already shifted. His clothes lay in a pile next to him, and his dark brown fur bristled out with the cold. Mia’s eyes widened a little. She hadn’t thought about the lack-of-clothes part of submission. She had submitted to Lucas every month since that first time, but it had always been intimate, in the privacy of his apartment… and followed up with amazing sex.

This was going to be…
different,
to say the least.

As she watched, Lucas’s other two pack members shifted, gracefully leaving their clothes behind in a heap. Mia turned to find Lucas in wolf form as well: he was standing proud and strong, tail erect, head high, ears forward. A thrill ran through her as his dark wolf-eyes met her gaze. She couldn’t hear his thoughts yet, but she knew they were commanding her to shift. Her inner wolf raged against her skin, wanting out, wanting to join with him… wanting her alpha.

Mia closed her eyes, and she didn’t have to try: all she had to do was let her wolf loose. She shifted in a split-second, her borrowed set of jeans, boots, and fuzzy sweater now in a loose pile on the snow.

Now that she was in wolf form, she could hear all their thoughts.
Is it time? Are you ready? I’m ready, are you ready? Damn this snow is cold. Who’s idea was it to do this in December?

Those last thoughts were Lev’s, and they made her smile.

Submit to me, Mia.
Lucas’s words rang stronger than the rest, and they melted her like a blast of warmth on cold winter’s day. Her body relaxed into the submission pose without hesitation: forepaws forward, rear end lifted, head bowed. Lastly, completing the position, she tucked her tail down. The magical bond washed over her like a warm blanket covering her head to toe—only it didn’t weigh her down, it lifted her up. Better than any cocoon that she could ever hide in, this soft nest of love opened her heart.
She was Lucas’s, and he was hers.
With his love holding her up, nothing in the world could tear her down. And that feeling of
belonging
transcended anything else that might matter in the world. She stayed fixed in the submission position, savoring the bond, knowing it would still be there when she shifted back, but less so: in human form, it would only be a reflection of the bliss she felt at the moment.

One by one, the other wolves submitted to him. She knew they felt a similar kinship, a bond that tied them together, bolstering each… but none was as strong as hers. Lucas had only one mate, and it was
her.
The pride of that filled her heart to overflowing.

Rise.
Lucas’s command meant the submissions were complete, and they were free to shift back to human. Normally that was the best part—the point at which she leaped naked into his arms—but this time she peered behind her to see what the rest of the pack was doing. All three, including Lev, were tugging open their boxes, using their teeth to pull the red ribbons free. Mia swung her gaze back to Lucas, and he was doing the same. Once the box was open, it looked like an entire of warren rabbits had fallen inside. Only when he clamped his jaws around the fur and pulled it free, did she see that it was a coat. Lucas nudged his head into the mass of fur and quickly shifted—a split second later, he was fully human, but still covered in fur. The hooded cloak wrapped around him, hiding his naked body.

Really unfortunate.
Although she was glad there was a second cloak that he was picking up and walking over to her. He gently laid it over her, such that she could shift and still maintain some level of modesty. By the time she had done so, he was back with fur boots to match, so her feet wouldn’t freeze in the snow.

She had to admit that the fur coat snuggled against the winter cold had an amazingly luxurious feel. Mia glanced behind her, and all three pack members, including Lev, had donned their coats. Rebecca was busy running their hands through the fur, much to Lev’s delight. Mia chuckled and turned back to Lucas.

He was on one knee before her.

Mia blinked, uncertain what was happening. Then he took her hand in one of his… and in the other, he held a ring.

“Mia Fiore, would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” His dark eyes glittered in the moonlight, but his face was solemn and serious.

She couldn’t breathe.
He was asking her to marry him.
And she couldn’t move or speak. The only thing that had life was her gaze, which bounced between his tightly concerned eyes and a ring that blazed with moonlight. She could barely see it through the glare of a million facets, but it appeared to be an enormous round diamond on a thin platinum band. Lucas waited, his eyes crinkling more with each second that passed without an answer from her, but she was frozen in place.

“For the love of magic,” Lev’s voice came from behind her. “Say
yes,
Mia!”

She let out a gasp-laugh and covered her mouth with her hand. Her vision was quickly blurring with tears. Lucas’s gaze never left her, never moved one fraction of an inch.

“Yes.” Her voice was a whisper, but Lucas was up off his knees in a flash. He crashed his lips to hers, holding her body tight against him as he wantonly kissed her for everyone to see. She laughed and cried through it and somehow managed to remember to kiss him back.

A roar went up around them, then clapping. Lucas was still kissing her. When he finally pulled back, it was only an inch or two, just enough room to bring her hand up between them and slide the ring on her finger.

She forgot to breathe again. It was insanely gorgeous, but it looked so foreign on her hand—like a glittering raindrop had magically frozen and suspended above her finger. Lucas pulled her hand up to his lips and kissed the back of each of her fingers in turn.

Then he looked in her eyes. “I’ve been waiting for this night for so long,” he whispered, just for her.

“You
idiot,”
Mia said. The tears were cooling on her cheeks now that they weren’t flowing quite so freely. “Why did you wait? I would have said yes two minutes after we were mated.” But all that time of worry and heart-hurting seemed to blow away in the gentle breeze rustling the trees.

Lucas shrugged and glanced around. Everyone was watching them. He looked back to her. “I wanted it to be magical.”

At that instant, the tree lit up, a thousand tiny white lights racing to the top and stealing beauty from the stars in the heavens behind it. Mia reached up to bring him into another kiss, which only pulled more rounds of applause from their onlookers.

Then she whispered, just for him, “It’s absolutely perfect.”

He grinned, and seeing him so happy made her heart ready to burst. He slid his arm around her, holding her fur coat tight against the nakedness of her body underneath, and she couldn’t help wishing they were back in his apartment, rather than in the frozen wilderness, surrounded by a legion of wolves and their mates and girlfriends. Lucas kept his arm around her but opened up their tight embrace for the others who were already tromping across the snow to greet them.

His pack members came first, Samuel and the second one—Mia would have to learn his name if they were going to be pack-mates. She peeked past them to find Lev and then grinned: he was busy kissing Rebecca, something far more important than any congratulations he might have for her and Lucas. Mia beamed at Lucas, and he just shook his head. But there was a smile underneath.

One by one, the rest of the packs came up to shake hands and cheek-kiss Lucas and Mia. The warmest hug came from the elder Mr. Sparks, which made Mia blush, but Lucas’s smile was more than compensation for it. Jeeter and Colin were up next. If her ex-roomie smiled any wider, she would be nothing but teeth.

“You know, you could have told me,” Mia said to her.

“Well, yeah… if I wanted to be your
ex
best-friend.” Jeeter gave her a huge hug that lifted Mia off her feet and nearly spilled her fur coat open. Which would have been horrific, especially with Colin standing there. But even he seemed genuinely happy for her.

When he bent down to give Mia a kiss on the cheek, he whispered, “Love well, Queen of Wolves.”

That alone would have made tears jump to her eyes, if she wasn’t slowly leaking tears all along. When the last of them came and went, there was one figure standing a short ways away, watching all the bustle.

Her mother.

Mia gasped and looked to Lucas. Had she been there the whole time? Lucas smiled and nodded to Samuel standing nearby. He hustled over and escorted her mother toward them. Mia fought for words, drowning in the fact that
her mother was here.
Mia had shifted, had submitted to her alpha, and now was dressed in nothing but a fur coat in the middle of the forest…
all in front of her mother.
Her mind was still spinning when her mom reached them. Mia was especially confused by the smile on her face.

“Mia, honey,” was all her mother said before reaching out to hug Mia. More tears gushed out of her. She didn’t know why or how, but her mom was here, hugging her, and that was all she really needed to know. Everything was going to be all right now—in fact, everything was so right in this moment that no matter what happened going forward, her life would forever be anchored in this moment of love.

But she still wanted to know what had happened.

When her mom pulled back, she had to ask, “Why are you here?”

Her mother glanced at Lucas, and the smile she gave him flat-out stunned Mia.

“Lucas came back after you left. He wanted to make things right, and I…” She looked sheepish for a moment. “I almost threw him out again. But he told me about his plans here tonight, and said he loved you, but that he wouldn’t move forward without my blessing… because he knew it would mean the world to you.” Her mom was tearing up, but Mia was outright crying again. “What more could I want for my baby girl?”