Fated to the Warrior Wolf (The Hunted Omegas #3)

16. Gael

SIXTEEN

Gael

F ive months wasn’t a lot of time to unpack centuries of hatred and species profiling, but it was a chance. I couldn’t bear it if she basically signed her own death warrant.

Why did I feel this much if we weren’t mates? It made no sense. But my wolf was absolutely losing it, and I’d given in to the urge to den up with her. It was that or bite her, and I couldn’t do that.

If she had stayed mad at me as long as she did for knotting her, Leigh wasn’t going to ever forgive me for biting her. Not that I would do that without her consent.

She was sleeping now, peaceful and serene in a way I’d never seen her before. I gently thumbed a piece of hair out of her face, having no trouble seeing her with my wolf’s night vision.

Leigh was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, but it wasn’t the beauty that entranced me. It was her fire, her spunk. She stood up to me. She pushed back when I was overbearing.

Most people kept their distance, and those who dared to come close to the high alpha’s second certainly didn’t mouth off the way she did .

Goddess, that mouth.

It was going to be the death of me. But the vision of her sucking me off with those cherry-red lips—even though I immediately shut that thought down—had me sporting a halfie.

Shit.

Luckily, there were plenty of nonsexual thoughts to occupy my mind. Like how the fuck was I going to protect our daughter, when every species in the world was going to be gunning for her while she was a defenseless infant?

Not defenseless. She had me. I picked my phone up from the nightstand where I’d dropped it and sent off a few texts to my local contacts. With a bit more hesitation, I also fired off a text to my father’s head of security and interpack liaison. It wasn’t much, but every protection gig started somewhere.

Then I closed my eyes and let myself—and my wolf, the smug bastard—revel in the closeness, breathing her in like I could hold on to that scent forever. But even then, I knew we didn’t have forever.

Three hard raps on the door woke me.

“G, you in there? Lucien’s here, and he’s got news.”

“What?” Leigh murmured sleepily.

“Shh, I’ll handle it.”

“Don’t go,” she whispered, and my heart clenched.

Goddess, if she’d ask me that when she was awake, I’d be the luckiest damn man alive.

“Just for a minute,” I promised.

“’Kay,” she murmured, already shifting to get comfortable on her own.

I interrupted the next series of knocks by swinging the door open to Reed’s bored expression. That changed quickly when he sucked in a lungful of Leigh’s heady coffee scent, and I lifted a lip in a snarl at him.

That was my scent, not his. And while I knew now that he hadn’t touched her… my wolf didn’t care.

“What does he know?”

“He got us in to see the IGC. Pretty sure he’s sleeping with someone on the council.”

“Fuck yes. Give me a minute. Kane’s office?”

He nodded, already turning on his heel to head there.

“Leigh?” I whispered, but she was still sound asleep.

I waffled on what to do for a moment—I wasn’t a man who had sleepovers, not ever. A quick fuck, and then off you went. And I certainly never hung around for breakfast the next day.

But Leigh was different, and I didn’t want her to wake up and think I’d left her.

So I grabbed a notepad from the nightstand and scrawled out a quick note, second-guessing it the entire way.

One last look, and then I quietly shut the door behind me.

I found them all in Kane’s office, including the women.

Lucien’s dirty-blond hair was slicked back, a hand-rolled cigarette hanging from his lips. “Nice of you to join us.” He sucked in a deep draught of air, then grinned wickedly. “Fresh from the sack. Was she any good?”

Something came over me, a red haze dropping over my vision that I’d never experienced before. Between blinks, I was on him. My clawed hands around his neck, fangs low in my mouth as I snarled over his prone form.

“Don’t you ever talk about her like that.”

“Gael!” Kane’s alpha bark raked across me like nails on a chalkboard, and I flinched back, but hung on. This son of a bitch needed to learn a lesson about how we treated females in our pack, and I was happy to teach him.

Strong hands grabbed both of my shoulders, but I didn’t let go, not yet .

“Submit,” I snarled, a fat drop of saliva falling off my extended canines to land with a plop on his cheek.

He bared his neck, tilting his head as far to the side as he could with my punishing grip.

I loosened it a fraction, and Dirge snatched me off him.

“What are you thinking? The women don’t need to see that shit.” He cuffed me on the back of the head and frog-marched me behind Kane’s desk, out of reach of anyone except him and Kane, boxing me in from either side. Kane’s displeasure was a pressure I could feel in my bones, both through the bond and with the weight of his dominance.

Lucien stood, dusting himself off with a chuckle. “It’s fine, not the first time I’ve run afoul of a possessive alpha.” He slicked his hair back and straightened the sleeves of his leather jacket without a care in the world. “But I won’t mention her again, brother. I apologize.”

His eyes shone with sincerity, and he let his gaze sweep around the room, including everyone in the apology.

My fangs finally receded, the fight going out of me at his complete submission.

Kane cleared his throat. “Gael’s situation is a large part of the reason you’re here, Lucien.”

“I thought it was your mate who had… proclivities.”

Reed snorted. “Not everything is about sex, Luc. She’s got powers, not kinks.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive,” he said with a wicked grin. I growled, the sound low in my throat.

Kane raised a hand, shooting Lucien a warning look. “That’s enough from both of you. What’s the status with the IGC?”

Lucien leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest as he gave his report. “I can get you in today, two p.m. I had a conversation with Karina, and it turned out that there was a very convenient gap in this afternoon’s council schedule. ”

Kane nodded gravely. “And are they aware that the high alpha will be filling that spot?”

He bobbled his hand back and forth in the universal gesture for not really .

“That doesn’t leave us much time to strategize. Let’s get down to it.”

Kane reached into his desk and pulled out a legal pad and the plain white envelope sitting on top of it. He paused, looking at the envelope, and then looked up at me.

“Brielle asked me to pass this along. Cristian just brought it up.”

The envelope was stamped, the return address some lab nearby. A lump formed in my throat as I stared down at it as if it were a snake about to bite. The other men were all talking, the sounds like flies buzzing in the background as they worked out ideas for handling the IGC. But I was stuck, staring down at an envelope that I knew had the results of my paternity test inside. Leigh must have done her part of the test.

I flipped it over and saw that it was still sealed. Brielle hadn’t looked inside. The question was, did I want to?

Leigh had told me I was the father.

If you weren’t, would it matter? You want her and the baby.

I leaned over and dropped the envelope into the trash. Kane arched an eyebrow at me but didn’t comment.

They were mine, and I didn’t need a piece of paper to tell me that.