Hunted Down by His Alpha (7 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Hayden

I saw Tobias wince and quickly released my death grip on his arm at the realization I was hurting him. I absently rubbed at the red marks I’d left as my eyes searched his. What the hell was happening? Shock and confusion ran through me as Tobias’s words nearly felled me.

“How’s that possible? Michael died in the fire. We buried him.” I realized I was growling and tried to reign it back in. I didn’t want to frighten my mate and his face was already pale enough to have me worried and yelling at myself.

“No, Mi—Michael died nearly a year ago. From a heart attack,” he was frowning and starting to shiver and I bit off a curse as I pulled him to me and rubbed his back.

“Tell me your earliest memory.”

He seemed to gather himself and take strength from being in my arms. “It’s blurry and hazy, but I remember waking up, bandaged and in pain. Michael was in a chair next to me and he looked even worse than I felt. He’d been taking care of me, he said. Something bad had happened and he’d had to get me out of wherever we had been. That we couldn’t go back and it was best not to ask questions. I didn’t know where we were, but he didn’t leave my side while he waited for me to get better. When I’d healed enough, we moved and didn’t stop moving until one day Michael said that we were as safe as we could be. That they wouldn’t find us here.”

I felt his hand curl against my chest, felt the small tremors run through his body and didn’t know what to think as his words played through my mind. Michael, the crotchety old wolf who’d loved and taken in the little halfling hadn’t died in the fire that had decimated the house and my life. He’d taken Tobias and run. But why? Who from? Why hadn’t he come to me? The questions wouldn’t stop.

“Did Michael never tell you about your past? About the fire or us, or who he was running from?”

I felt my mate shake his head and make a sound but it was muffled. “I don’t remember any fire. I—I tried asking about the past, but every time I brought it up, I felt uneasy, scared of his answers.” He pushed back and looked up at me with wide, wet eyes. “I should have, though. I should have made him tell me. Why would he run, Hayden? Why did he take me with him? He always seemed so scared, endlessly worried about keeping our heads down and not being noticed. Why didn’t he tell me he was a werewolf? That you would be out searching for me?”

The pain and confusion in Tobias’s voice tore at me. I swallowed.

“Did he think I wouldn’t believe him?” Tobias’s voice broke at the question and I pulled him back to me.

“Something happened that night. Michael wouldn’t have taken you and run if he hadn’t thought it necessary, that it wasn’t necessary in saving your life.” I had to believe that. “I’ll get to the bottom of it, I promise. Nothing’s going to happen to you ever again.”

I looked down at the little wolf in my arms, murmuring to him as he started shaking. It took a while, but finally he calmed and nestled deeper against me. He’d finally fallen asleep, but I couldn’t do the same even after a night without. The questions about that day five years ago swarmed in my head and I tried to piece back together the events of that night, but I was no closer to coming to an answer than I had been five years ago.
Fuck. What the hell had happened?

****

“So they can shift?” Tobias asked me as we walked over to Wyatt’s house nearly a week later. I’d have preferred to keep him in the house and in our bed for a bit longer, but I’d promised to take him over to meet Seth, Wyatt and their pups, and I didn’t want my mate to feel like I was keeping him prisoner.

“They’re three weeks old so they’re still getting the hang of it,” I said as we walked up to the door of the modest looking two story and rang the doorbell.

I wrapped my arm around Toby’s waist and splayed my hand over his still flat stomach. Because the gestation period for wolf shifters was so short, I knew he’d be showing soon. The visit to Seamus earlier had told us that everything was progressing smoothly and that we should be expecting our litter come late Spring but it’d be a couple more weeks before we knew how many pups to be expecting.

I’d been worried that Tobias wasn’t too excited by the prospect, but had told myself I shouldn’t expect him to come round to the idea so easily when he’d been taking in a series of shocks one after another since I’d come back into his life. But he’d looked genuinely excited, if not a little shocked, when Seamus had told him to expect five or six pups. I knew his apprehension stemmed from the fact that he wouldn’t be giving birth to them in shifted form, and he’d told me as such in the truck on our way back home.

“We’re going to figure it out,” I’d promised. “Seamus said that he’s heard of other half-shifters giving birth to shifter children and he’s going to look into the safest way possible for you to do so.”

My mate had turned trusting blue-green eyes on me and laughed, telling me we’d better get started on making up a list of names then. That time I had stopped the truck and pulled him onto my lap though the fit had been tight. I kissed him and tried to not let him see my worries as he ticked off the names that’d definitely
not
be on the list. Births already held danger among our kind and with Tobias being a halfling the chances for something to go wrong could possibly be higher. I knew though that if it came to the decision between keeping Toby safe or keeping our pups I would always choose him, no matter that I was already coming to love the small lives growing within him.

“I’m glad you made it!” Seth said as he pulled open the door, a squirming bundle in his arms. Wyatt stood behind him with one in each of his own arms. One was in shifted form and trying to climb over his shoulder while the other slept soundly, a thumb tucked into his small mouth.

“I’m glad you found him, Hayden,” Seth said with genuine happiness as he stepped aside to let us in. “You must be Tobias, I’m so glad you’re here. That Hayden finally found you,” he said as he reached out and hugged Toby, careful of the wriggling bundle trying to escape from his hold.

“I’m glad he did too,” I heard my mate answer shyly.

“They’ve grown a lot since I last saw them,” I told Wyatt as I held out my arms, waiting for the male to trust me enough with his children, and eyed the small bundle clawing at his shoulder. “That must be Rune.”

Wyatt grinned as he handed me the sleeping child and wrapped his hands around his daughter, pulling her off his shoulder. The small wolf made a chuffing noise and its little body rumbled as it nuzzled against the big shifter’s throat. “I swear when you have your own you’ll wish they grew a lot faster and a lot slower.”

I laughed and followed him into the room where the pups slept, gently placing the small child into the cot. He made a small snuffling sound, his brow wrinkling and then smoothing back out, as he fell back into the lull of his nap still sucking his thumb. His two other brothers were already asleep in the cot and the sight of them made my heart swelled as I imagined looking down at Tobias and my own pups.

“Lets go see what our mates are up to,” Wyatt said as he led me into his kitchen.

I could hear the sound of my mate’s voice, his laughter, as he spoke with Seth.

“Isn’t he adorable?” Toby asked as I leaned over his shoulder and brushed a kiss across his temple. I looked down at the chortling baby in his arms and smiled. His small chubby hand was wrapped tightly around my mate’s thumb as he gurgled in baby speak. “He looks like he likes you. I’ve got competition.”

I could feel my mate roll his eyes and heard Wyatt bark out a laugh. I glared at him but couldn’t help laughing myself.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Tobias

“So you didn’t know you were both mated?” I asked Seth a week later. When we’d left last time he’d been adamant that I come over to join his standing weekly lunch date with his best friend Gabby.

“
I
did, but Wyatt took a lot more time to come ‘round to the idea,” Seth said with a soft smile. The look in his eyes was far away, as though he were reliving the moment his mate came to his senses.

“Kenneth and I, on the other hand, knew it was insta love and lust,” Gabby said as she made faces at the small baby in her arms. Jessie chortled back his dark gray eyes squeezed shut as he laughed outrageously swinging his chubby arms and legs in the air.

“But mostly lust,” Seth cut in dryly. “Now make sure you don’t share that with the pups okay, sweetheart,” he told Rosie, Gabby’s daughter, as he handed her a banana. “If any of them get a hold of it, we’ll be finding it all over the walls and floor,” Seth told me with a huff of breath.

“I pwomise,” Rosie said dutifully as she took the fruit and skipped off to join the pups in the little pen Wyatt had set up for them, her blonde pigtails bouncing.

“I’ve already got the wet wipes ready,” Gabby said as she watched her daughter run off. It was only a matter of seconds before we’d find all five of them covered in mashed banana.

Jessie stared after the other children mournfully and seeing it, Gabby rose to return him to his littermates.

“You’re both really good with the children,” I commented as I took a sip of the hot tea Seth had prepared for us.

“Oh, hun, you’ll be fine,” Gabby said as she caught my pensive look. She reached across the counter and took my hand in hers, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Fatherhood is as instinctive as motherhood. Once you pop them out you’ll know exactly what to do and if you don’t you’ve got your mate, and us. You know you can come to us any time.”

Seth nodded and reached out to squeeze my arm. “Any time. Besides it’s easy enough for us to team up while our mates are busy during the day. We can have constant play dates, god knows my pups need something else to tire them out. They’re already a handful now that they can crawl, I don’t know what I’m going to do when they learn how to walk and run.”

“I can’t believe they grow so fast,” I said with astonishment as I took in the pups. You would never believe they were barely a month old and Rosie looked as though she were already two though she couldn’t have been older than six months.

“Scary isn’t it?” Seth laughed.

“I would definitely have been freaked out two weeks ago, but since Hayden came into my life and I ended up pregnant to a werewolf, I’m finding things don’t seem to faze me as much anymore,” I chuckled.

“It’s so strange,” Gabby said as she eyed us both over the rim of her mug. “We’d always heard that pregnant male shifters were rare, but now we’ve got two of them.”

“One,” Seth corrected with a grin. “I’ve already given birth remember? The confirmation’s rolling around sticky with banana on the floor over there and trying to climb all over each other.”

She waved his words away. “Oh, you’ll be pregnant again soon. You should see the way his mate looks at him,” she whispered loudly to me.

I grinned and felt my cheeks heat. “I’ve seen it, and I can’t help but agree.” I’d been the recipient of Hayden’s heated stare more times than I could count, but witnessing it happening between the two mated men the last time I’d been over had bordered on voyeurism.

We could practically hear Seth’s eye roll as he headed for the cupboard. “Hey, I’ve seen how your mates look at you two, too, so don’t think I’ll be the only one barefoot and pregnant again soon,” he said as he tossed a bag of chips our way.

“You know keeping our mouths occupied ain’t going to stop the truth from coming out,” Gabby quipped as she caught the bag in midair with one hand and proceeded to rip open the bag with a toothy grin.

“But it might at least stem the flow.”

I took a handful when it was passed to me then handed it back to Seth who started eating straight from the bag.

“How do you know it’s love if it’s your DNA or whatever that makes you want to be together?” I asked suddenly. The question had been bugging me for a while. I looked up to find two sets of wide eyes looking at me quizzically and fought the urge to duck my head. “I mean, I know that you—I mean
we
—are…I dunno, created? Born? With one half of a soul or something, so of course it’s only natural to find the other half, but then isn’t being together more like necessity? I mean I feel like I love Hayden but how can I
love
him if I don’t know anything about him?...I dunno if I’m making any sense,” I mumbled as I pinched my nose bridge.

“Well,” Seth said thoughtfully as he dropped the bag of chips back onto the counter and wiped his hands. “For a wolf to find their soulmate is actually quite rare, so a lot of the times you’ll find that they mate with someone who isn’t their soulmate and still come to love them regardless. It isn’t that you need to be soulmates to love each other and it’s the same in reverse, you don’t necessarily need to love each other when you’re soulmates.”

“What Seth means,” Gabby said when my frown of confusion remained, “is that your soulmate may be easier for you to love only because it feels natural—right—to be with them, but that love only goes so far, like love at first sight. Everything after that is what you create with your mate. And are you sure you don’t really know anything about Hayden?”

I fiddled with the string of the tea bag. “Well I know he’s hot as hell, and yeah, kind, and protective—annoyingly so sometimes—”

“Like Wyatt.”

“Like Kenneth,” they both cut in in unison with a grin.

I smiled. “He’s always watching out for me. And I know he loves me. I can feel it, with everything he does.”

“And you love him?”

I nodded. “And I love him.”

Seth smiled. “Sometimes, that’s all you need to know.”

****

“Why didn’t you tell me you were coming home?”

I jumped at the low growl and spun around to find Hayden stalking towards me. “You scared the bejesus out of me!” I frowned as I shrugged out of my jacket and hung it on the hook. I shivered as Hayden came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist.

He nipped at my ear and made a soft growling noise. “I would have gone to pick you up. It’s too cold for you to be lingering around outside.”

I turned and gave him a look of disbelief. “You do realize Seth and Wyatt’s place is only a five minute walk from here—tops.”

“That’s not the point.”

I cocked up a brow. “Really? And what is the point?”

His arms tightened around me and I found myself swung around and propelled into the living room, his larger hard body herding me in. “The point is that I like to know my mate is safe and not freezing his delectable ass outside in freezing temperatures. Now sit.”

“Would it be better if I strapped a heating pad to my ass every time I went outside then?” I asked, my voice dripping honey as I took a seat on the comfy couch. I tried to swallow down my groan as I sank back onto the plush cushions.

Hayden frowned as he took a seat on the thick mahogany coffee table in front of me. “Your body might have changed in these last five years, but your mouth hasn’t.” Then he surprised me by laughing. “God, I’ve missed you.”

Heat bloomed in my chest as my heart faltered then started racing. Damn, he really was gorgeous. Laughter lines fanned out from his dancing green eyes and bracketed his mouth as it pulled wide, the strong tanned column of his throat was exposed as he dipped his head back and his Adam’s apple bobbing as he laughed. I wanted to fall forward into his arms and lick a trail up from the base of his throat until I reached his smiling mouth and seal mine over it. I knew he would taste like joy, laughter and something uniquely Hayden that made every nerve in my body come alive. His laughter died down and then he smiled widely at me, his eyes soaking me up, swollen stomach and all. “Put your feet up here,” he said as he patted his lap.

Curious I complied and felt my eyes widen as he began unlacing my boots and pulled them off along with my socks. Then he was putting those very smart, very dangerous—to my heart and blood flow—hands on the balls of my feet. My eyes fluttered closed as I groaned. “Damn, that feels good,” I moaned as he worked the muscles of my sore feet. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but I’ve got to do it again.”

“You don’t need to do anything. I want to take care of you, Tobias,” Hayden said softly.

I opened my eyes to find him watching me, a soft smile on his face as his fingers moved nimbly over my soles. “Because I’m your mate?”

“Because you’re my mate, and I love you.”

I pulled my feet from his hands and leaned over to grab them in mine. I pulled him forward onto the couch with me and curled into his side. “Hayden.”

“Yes, mate?”

“I love you, too.” The confession was soft against his shoulder, but the words strong and the feelings behind them unmistakable. I felt his fingers beneath my chin and then he was turning my face up to his. Any doubt that had lingered vanished at the look in his deep green eyes and then I was closing my own as he pressed his mouth to mine.

Seth was right, sometimes that was all you needed to know.