7. Thorne

Iris is pregnant.

Pregnant.

With another man's baby.

Iris has been seeing another man.

And is pregnant.

With his baby.

The words circle my head, angry birds that peck at my thoughts and rip me apart.

I have no right to be this upset. Of course Iris was seeing someone else. I shouldn't have fallen for her without discussing what we were to each other.

And mostly, I shouldn't have fallen for her. She was never going to be mine.

She's a human.

I'm a wolf.

I need to find a mate, another shifter, in about five months, or I will lose the ability to shift.

And my pack will lose their alpha.

I haven't slept since I found out. It's been somewhere around twenty-four hours since I saw her with all the pregnancy tests at her house, and I still can't believe it.

When I first heard her explain her process, I wanted to chuckle. My Iris is nothing if not thorough, so the fact she went through fourteen different pregnancy tests feels so... her.

If it hadn't been in the context it was, then I would have been entertained. Oh, Iris. Of course you got fourteen tests and took two every hour.

But it's not funny.

Because Iris is pregnant.

With another man's baby.

I'm staring at absolutely nothing on my desk when Evander, followed by Josh and Adrian, who usually does our accounting, walk in.

I blink at them. "Hey."

"We're here for the quarter three financial meeting," Evander says, clearly re-stating since I seem to have no fucking clue what's going on.

"Oh. Yeah. Okay. Let's do it."

Evander nods, and the other wolves sit. Adrian hands me the financial report, and I leaf through it. Everything looks in order to me, but Adrian's the accountant. "Go," I snap.

He gives me an odd look, and Evander and Josh exchange a glance. However, Adrian starts talking. He runs me through the financials, and I nod along, noting where there are discrepancies from what I've noticed before.

Finally, he wraps up. I glance at the clock: we're almost ten minutes early.

Excellent.

This meeting could not be over fast enough. Now, I can dismiss them and get back to my regularly scheduled programming.

Thinking about Iris, and trying to decide who the fuckhead is that got her pregnant.

I glance down at the packet, slapping it closed on my desk. "Okay. Looks good. Thanks boys," I say to the group. I'm about to dismiss them when I feel like Evander has something else to say.

I tilt my head. "Anything else?"

Evander glances at Adrian and Josh. "There's another thing we were hoping to talk about today."

"Okay," I lean back.

"It's time for you to find a mate."

I glare at Evander. "Did you put them up to this?"

Josh jumps in. "No. I confronted Ev about it. It's clear you've been fucking one of the women from town. A couple of wolves saw you at the Café with her about two months ago, and then you smell like her. We don't care. As you know, that's fine. Shifters fuck humans all the time."

The way he's talking about Iris, like she's not even a full person, like she's some kind of dumb sex toy… it rubs me the wrong way.

I frown. "It doesn't matter who I fuck."

"It does, unfortunately," Adrian says. He pulls out a tablet from his messenger bag and pulls up something. "We polled the pack. They want you to find a mate. In this file I've put together profiles for several high-ranking females in the area. There's a couple who have territory that borders ours, so a merger would be…"

"You made me a fucking dating file?"

Adrian freezes. "What?"

"You decided to take it on yourself to make me a fucking dating file. Because I can't find a mate on my own."

Evander stands. "T, you've had time. You've had twenty-nine years. And you've done nothing except sleep with humans and fuck around with women you shouldn't."

"You are not the alpha, Evander," I say, rising up to glare at him.

"No. I'm not. But I'm about to be if you don't get your shit together and find a mate."

The growl that I let out is full wolf.

"Do. Not. Fucking. Tell. Me. What. To. Do."

I barely bite the words out. I'm so angry, my skin is shifting between skin and fur, and my nails are elongating into claws.

"I'm not telling you want to do, brother," Evander spits the word. "But you need to get your head out of your ass and do some alpha shit."

"Haven't I done that?" I snarl. "I'm the one who cleaned up Dad's mess. I'm the one who decided to move us to Colorado, so we wouldn't have to beg and bow at the feet of some fucking wolverines. I'm the one who chose this for all of us, Evander. And I'm the one who is the fucking alpha here."

Evander stares at me. The other two wolves look vividly uncomfortable, which is good.

They should be.

"Get out," I snap. "Get. The fuck. Out."

One by one, they file out. Evander lingers, putting the tablet on my desk.

"Mate," he growls. "Or I will challenge you for the role of alpha."

He couldn't have hurt me more if he had stabbed me in my chest.

"Really, Evander?"

"You're a good alpha, Thorne. You're better than Dad."

His soft words take some of the rage out of me and I sit back. "And you'd challenge me?"

He nods. "In a fucking heartbeat."

"Why?"

"Because if you throw it all away, you'll be just like Dad."

With that, my brother finally leaves.

I look down at the tablet.

And I put my head in my hands.

Iris fucked another man. Another man's baby is in her stomach. I shouldn't care. She can go and be happy with him. They can lead wonderful lives together, one happy fucking family.

But the vision kills me.

I never consciously thought about it at the time, but now that I've lost her, I realize that I can't picture her with another man. I physically cannot.

Because when I think about Iris, belly swollen, smiling with a baby, all I think about is us.

Her holding my baby.

Making dinner in our house.

Sitting at night with me.

The image of her with someone else feels so violently wrong, my stomach sinks and I feel bile build in my throat. Everything inside me is screaming that Iris is mine.

Except, she isn't.

I decide laterthat afternoon that I can look at the tablet, and the eligible females, as long as I'm really fucking drunk. I promise myself that I'll pick one of them. Make the pack happy.

Find a mate that I can live with, so I can get Iris out of my mind.

So, later that night in my cabin, I make good on that promise.

Shifters don't get drunk easily. Our metabolism burns a lot of that stuff away, so it's really just a numbers game. Volume, time, and alcohol level all factor in to the calculation.

I figure that one-hundred-fifty-proof whisky, two handles, and an hour will do the trick.

I'm right.

After chugging both bottles, I'm absolutely stupid drunk. My head feels like it's swimming, and I simultaneously want to lay down to sleep—and throw up.

Nice.

With a shaking hand, I pick up the tablet. I open the file that Adrian put together and examine it.

There are four women's names inside.

I click on one. Emma. Elk shifter.

That's an immediate no. I'm not into cervids, so Emma and Joan, a moose, are out. Not only is it weird to date someone that you consider prey, it also gets very strange during mating season.

The bull elk and moose tend to not take kindly to other shifters dating their women, political alliances or not.

Fifty percent of the women ruled out, and my buzz slowly fading, I click on the third profile.

Destinee. Bear. She's pretty; as a bear she's got a cinnamon coat that's highly desirable, and as a woman, she looks strong. Sturdy. Big breasts, wide hips, waist-length brown hair.

No.

All I can picture is Iris' small hips, her slight breasts that are a perfect mouthful…

Fuck.

Come on Alderwood. You can do this. Pick a fucking mate.

There's only one profile left. I click on it, and a beautiful blonde woman fills the screen.

Joanna. Jo. Mountain lion.

She's gorgeous. Sunny, sandy blonde hair. A body with curves for days, petite stature. Mountain lions are dangerous enemies, and it looks like her father is an alpha of a pride that borders our western boundary. Mountain lion prides are infamous for having enormous territories, and it looks like if someone mates his daughter, he'd be happy to part with about ten thousand acres.

Ten thousand acres.

Something is either really fucking wrong with Jo, or this is a deal that's too good to be true.

I pull the tablet closer to my eyes, trying to focus on her. Jo seems great. Since all shifters take after their fathers, she'd be the mother to the next pack alpha, and she radiates confidence and strength. I have no doubt that she'd be a fierce mother and an asset to our pack.

But I don't want her.

Sighing, I put the tablet down. I pinch the bridge of my nose between my fingers, keeping the headache behind my eyes at bay. Another bad thing about being a shifter, and pounding alcohol to get drunk?

You still get hungover at the same intensity as a human. Except it comes on faster.

Leaves faster.

But I'm about to be in for a big one.

My stomach feels like I'm going to throw up. I don't want any of this. When I became alpha, it was something I'd trained for my whole life. I didn't love it, but I knew I had to do it. Sex, partnership, none of that mattered to me.

Only my pack did.

And now, I'm here. Basically five months out from my thirtieth birthday. About to lose it all.

Because I can't get the image of pale blonde hair and hazel eyes out of my mind.

I'm not sure if it's the booze or the headache or actually my mind, but the thought of losing my ability to shift suddenly doesn't feel quite as cataclysmic as it once did.

It actually kind of sounds…

I gulp.

It sounds nice.

Adrenaline floods my system and my heart pounds. How could I think that? How could it be nice? What, one day I'm a wolf, and the next I'm just… not?

It shouldn't sound like freedom.

But what if it was?

I sit back on the couch, staring at the picture of Jo on the tablet.

Could I give everything up?

Shockingly, it wouldn't be that hard. Evander would be just as good an alpha. I know my brother, and despite the fact that he's not my biggest fan right now, I know he'd make an excellent alpha. Dad trained both of us for the job, and we were both prepared to step up.

But only one son can be alpha.

And it was me.

However, if I pass on the title to Evander in the next few weeks…

I shake my head.

This still doesn't solve the bigger problem, which is that Iris has a relationship with a human man. And she's having his baby.

But…

What if it wasn't current? Or what if it was a one-time thing?

What if he hadn't had her consent when he…

The thought makes my teeth lengthen and my nails turn into claws. If I found out someone raped Iris, I'd fucking kill them.

She would have told me.

I'm sure of that.

I sit back, somewhat mollified.

I wouldn't have to be the baby's father. If Iris was willing…

Danger.

Suddenly sober, I sit upright. Everything inside me is screaming that there's danger.

But it's not me.

Iris.

Something is wrong with Iris.