Stealing the Alpha’s Heart

I was thoroughly exhausted by the time everyone left, my head swimming with all the names, places, and everything else that had happened in such a short time.

And that was with me trying to avoid thinking about the hot, steamy shower and how nice the water had looked running down Mahlan’s abs. How my body had longed for him and desire had taken such a stranglehold on me that all I could think about was his touch.

I hadn’t intended for all… that to happen, but it did. And strangely enough, I didn’t feel bad about it. I was slightly alarmed, as that wasn’t my style, but not bad.

“Damn,” Mahlan murmured, standing in the doorway and watching as his pack members left. “I still haven’t finished up all that I need to do today.”

“Oh?” I asked, interested in what exactly it was he had to do. I was sure he didn’t become some fancy-pants business owner just by running around doing wolf stuff.

…Huh, that was undoubtedly a sentence I never thought I’d ponder.

“Yeah,” he murmured absently, checking his expensive-looking watch. I’d lifted plenty of those in my time. Enough to know that it would buy me groceries for half a month even if I rushed it through a fencer who charged a forty-percent cut. “You know, it’s not that late. I’m gonna go work in the home office on my computer.”

“Oh! Could I check my email on your computer?”

“Of course. I’ll set up your profile on that until we get you a laptop. Do you know what kind you’d want?”

I blinked at him like I could shift into an owl instead of a wolf — although that part was still debatable. “You wanna buy me a laptop?”

“Isn’t it borderline necessary in today’s world? That and a smartphone.”

I’d gotten by without both for quite a long while, but yeah, it had made my life a lot more complicated. I couldn’t imagine having that technology at my beck and call.

But Mahlan must have misinterpreted my expression because he paused. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“No! It’s not that,” I said quickly. “It’s just a lot. All of this is… yeah, a lot.”

“That’s fine,” Mahlan said gently. “For now, let’s just check your emails.”

I nodded and followed him into his office, where he logged in for me. I didn’t want Mahlan standing behind me as I opened my email, but it wasn’t like I could ask him to go away in his own house when a lot of his sensitive information was accessible to me.

So instead, I focused on the emails, and the first things I noticed were quite a few invitations to interview. Score!

“You can ignore those for now,” Mahlan said, his voice low but not demanding like before. “I’m going to get the paperwork in to officially hire you tomorrow.”

My first instinct was to argue, but we’d already been through it twice. He was hiring me as an independent contractor, and I was a free agent as soon as I did what he needed.

“By the way, we never really talked numbers. Do you have something in mind?”

“Fifteen an hour,” I blurted instantly, remembering how Amanda and Chris had bragged for about a week that they were being paid twelve an hour working for the public library.

“You didn’t even think about it,” Mahlan said, sounding disappointed. Which naturally just made me all the more defensive.

“That’s three dollars more than my friends are getting!”

“All right, how about we make it a weekly salary? How much would you want for a standard workweek?”

I tried to do the math as quickly as possible, although I’d never been very good without a pen and paper. “How much am I contributing for rent?”

His ch3st puffed up and his mouth opened, which I quickly recognized was him being affronted at something I said. “And don’t say nothing!” I understood he had more money than me, but that didn’t mean I wanted to be a total mooch.

I was pleased when Mahlan seemed actually to consider what I was saying. “You should pay for your parking spot in the garage.”

“How much is that?”

“About $750 a month.”

I tried not to let my eyes bulge out at that. Seven hundred fifty a month for a damn parking space? Rich people were insane.

“Is that doable?”

“Sure, yeah, but I don’t have a car.”

“We can rectify that.”

I rolled my eyes, knowing exactly what he meant. “Yeah, I can buy one after I save up.”

“…you know you don’t have to, right?”

“I know that I don’t want to freeload, and I fully expect to pay my way through life.”

“Why won’t you let me provide for you?”

“Why don’t you recognize there’s a difference between being provided for and being completely beholden to someone?”

Maybe that was too sharp of me, but Mahlan seemed to ponder a moment. “All right. I’ll let you pay for whatever bills and lodging you want if you let me take care of your schooling and help you find a career when you’re ready.”

It was a generous offer, I knew that much, but at the same time, it made me feel so suffocated. Everything he was saying was so permanent. I was just nineteen! The only permanent thing I should be doing was getting a reckless tattoo.Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

Yeah, maybe he was handsome, clever, and funny, and… and… and maybe I was viscerally attracted to him, but I’d just met the guy, and yet, we were discussing rent and college. It wasn’t how I imagined I’d eventually find someone. And even if it felt really good being around him sometimes, it was just so much pressure.

Once more, Mahlan seemed supernaturally aware of how I was feeling. Who knew? Maybe that was a werewolf thing too. After all, if every other girl in high school could claim to be an empath, why couldn’t a lycanthrope be one too? It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen in my week.

“Let’s just take it a day at a time for now. How about we get you working then sort of settle in a bit? Maybe you can take a semester off and see how you feel?”

I let out a sigh at the reprieve. Yeah, that sounded a lot better than trying to make a bunch of decisions in less than a week.

“I’ll talk to Theo and his finance team to see what kind of weekly salary we can work out.”

“Okay.”

I was kind of done talking about money, and suddenly noticing an email from Sarah sealed the deal. Quickly, I opened it, reading a bunch of concerned questions asking where I was, why I ghosted them, and how I could miss graduation.

I felt terrible, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to explain much to her. Sorry, I robbed the wrong guy, ended up kidnapped by wolf-people, and now I’m mated to a rich, handsome type who was trying to shower me with money. Yeah, not exactly believable.

But I couldn’t just leave her with nothing. Knowing Sarah, she was worrying herself silly and running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Ghosting was a particularly cruel thing, and I didn’t like to do it if I didn’t have to.

“Hey, so… uh, what exactly can I tell my friends?”

“Do you have to tell them anything?”

I sent him an icy glare. “Imagine you disappeared from your pack without warning and not a soul ever heard from you again.”

“Noted,” he answered wryly. “Well, I suppose you should skip the mating, wolf, and supernatural parts.”

“I’m right there with you on that.”

“Here, lemme think a moment.”

It took a bit, but together we crafted an email that at least didn’t sound totally unhinged. We played it vague, saying I’d gotten an opportunity I couldn’t walk away from and not much else. Although I insisted on saying that I was still in town, just booked, busy, and blessed, as it were. When things calmed down, I would reach out and we could do lunch, my treat.

I did feel better once I hit send. Sarah could be a stickler for manners, but she would be much less mad with a reasonable explanation instead of echoing silence. Besides, she’d looked out for me through much of high school. I was pretty uninclined to leave her high and dry.

“So, this Sarah girl, she’s important to you?”

I nodded, resting my chin in my hand as I explained how she’d been my friend most of my life. How we’d gone from school buddies to best friends to borderline inseparable. Well, as inseparable as one could be with the sort of double life I was living. That part did make it pretty complicated to have a BFF.

“I suppose one of the reasons we got so close was my folks.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, things started pretty normally, as far as I knew. My parents weren’t saints, Mr. Rogers or anything, but they treated me well enough, and I never really wanted for anything.” I chewed my l!p, recalling the slow transition of my family unit. “But as the years went on, it was kinda like they went crazier and crazier. Almost like they were scared of me.”

That stopped me short, and I reexamined my memories through a more current lens.

“Huh, I guess that makes sense knowing what I do now.”

“Did you ever go back for them?” Mahlan asked quietly, almost as if he feared he’d hurt me with his question.

“Oh, yeah, tons of times. Especially that first year. I kept hoping they’d be home and have a change of heart, but a different family already occupied the place.”

My memories came in faster, flooding me with melancholy and loss. “I remember I went to a shelter once because I was freezing and so hungry that I thought I might pass out. That’s when I met this other homeless kid who taught me to pickpocket.”

“And what happened to him?”

“Disappeared just like my family. That’s what the people I care about love to do. They trick me into trusting them, relying on them, then-” I made an exploding gesture with my hands. “-poof! Back into the ether they go.”

Mahlan looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t, so I decided to finish up the topic. “So yeah, I don’t exactly have a booming inner circle like you. That’s why I value Sarah so much. She’s the only one who’s always been there.”

“I see. I’m glad you have her then.”

“You and me both.”

I returned to my emails, thoroughly wrung out on emotional stuff, only to be interrupted by a truly egregious yawn that damn near cracked my jaw in half.

“Go to bed,” Mahlan said with a slight chuckle. It was a barely there rumble of noise, but goosebumps spread along my arms. “I’ll be here for quite a while, and your body still needs to heal.”

“My body, what about your body?”

And then he flashed me a crooked smile that could have been registered as a lethal weapon in at least twelve states. Goodness, it was not fair how hot he was. “I’m doing fine, don’t worry about me.”

“I’m not worried,” I countered sharply like I wasn’t a very worried worrier who was most definitely worrying.

“Sure, you’re not. In any case, I have an early morning tomorrow, so you likely won’t see me.”

“Um, is there anything I should be doing?” Usually, I’d be out hunting for a job or a mark so I could get food. But with Mahlan taking care of all that… what was I supposed to put my energy toward?

“Whatever you wish, really. I’ll be back around lunch, so maybe we could go somewhere?”

“Sure, yeah, if you want to.”

“Sounds good. Why don’t you just sleep in, relax, and make yourself at home? I get the feeling you don’t get a lot of lazy mornings.”

He was right about that. I didn’t know if I even remembered how to do a lazy morning. Whenever I tried to sleep in, I rarely made it past ten, except during the summer when I tended to be out later and do more social events with my friends in the hopes of free food.

“What should I wear?” Thinking of the entire wardrobe I’d just procured made me a bit anxious. Talk about choice paralysis. “We’re doing this whole Ocean’s Eleven thing after lunch, right?”

But Mahlan just let out that gentle laugh of his. “Yeah, we are doing all that tomorrow. As for your outfit, I don’t know. I’ll see if Emmaline can come over tomorrow and give you some outfit suggestions.”

Thank God. Although I wasn’t exactly thrilled about how I’d come across my new wardrobe, that didn’t mean I wasn’t excited about having more clothes. However, with that excitement was an underlying uncertainty that I would roll out looking like a clown.

“Okay then, that’ll be great.”

I got up, made sure to sign out of my email first, and headed towards the bedroom. But at the last moment, Mahlan caught my wrist. I turned to him, worried that I had forgotten something, but he tenderly pulled me in and placed a feather-soft k!ss on my cheek.

“Goodnight,” he said, voice full of so much that I was intimidated all over again.

“Night!” I said quickly before hurrying off. Yikes, I was a mess.

I thought perhaps I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but the moment I changed into some nightclothes and slid into bed, I was immediately enveloped in Mahlan’s scent — which didn’t make any sense. Sure, I’d always had a strong sense of smell, but there was a difference between having a good nose and getting drunk off huffing a guy’s scent. But that’s precisely what it felt like. I buried my face in his pillow and breathed deeply, letting it lull me into a deep, relaxing sleep.

No nightmares plagued me, no worries. My belly was full, my spine was supported, and I was wearing clothes that were so soft they were like a sensory blessing. I was vaguely aware when Mahlan climbed into bed, but I couldn’t bring myself close enough to the surface to so much as grunt at him. It was just blissful relief.

Until I felt Mahlan getting out of bed, which seemed entirely too soon — hadn’t he just gotten there? This time I did manage to grunt at him, murmuring something that might have been English if you ran it through google translate twenty times.

“Shhh, it’s 5:00 a.m. Go back to sleep, dear.”

I could feel him k!ss my forehead, and if that didn’t just turn me to syrup, sending me sinking deeper into my comfortable sleep.

---

I awoke with crust over my eyes, a dry mouth, with an urgent need to pee. And I couldn’t be happier about it. I couldn’t remember the last time I was so thoroughly rested.

Glancing at the clock on my way to the bathroom, I saw it was only 8:00 a.m. Wow, with how satisfied I felt, I would have thought it was at least noon. But it was nice knowing I hadn’t lost the whole day.

Finishing up with my business, I returned to Mahlan’s room, something restless within me. It wasn’t that I missed the guy. Pffft, that would be ridiculous. …but it would have been nice to wake up with him beside me.

Just cause the bed was so big, naturally. It felt weird to be the only one it. That was the only reason; it wasn’t like I was developing feelings or anything.

“I should start putting away my clothes,” I muttered to myself, trying to trick my consciousness into being motivated.

The task broke my brain from the loop it was quickly sinking into, which I was grateful for. I didn’t need to ruin a lovely morning with anxiety over stupid shit.

Granted, I might have bitten off more than I could chew. There was a lot of clothing. And by the time I was halfway through, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was making the wrong move. He had, after all, taken pretty much all of my choices away from me. Sure, he was paying for a lot and seemed like a genuinely good person. But that didn’t negate his violation of my agency.

Conflicted, I paused my clothes wrangling and headed to the kitchen. Emotional conflict on an empty stomach always made everything worse. But I didn’t feel like cooking, especially without Mahlan, so I just grabbed a banana instead.

And that was when I spotted a phone and laptop sitting right in the center of the island.

“No way…” I gasped, eyes wide.

That phone didn’t look like the one Mahlan was using. I’d noticed his was comically oversized to fit his broad, strong hands and that it almost looked like a dwarf using it.

I stared at the electronics for a while, certain that those things couldn’t be for me. Sure, we’d talked about it the day before, but that was literally the day before. He couldn’t have gotten them so quickly! And especially not such nice ones.

Nearly a solid minute passed before I realized there was a note on the laptop in what I recognized as Mahlan’s meticulous writing. Geez, we’d known each other for two days, and I could already tell how he tended to write. That was a lot.

Nevertheless, I picked it up and read it.

These were delivered for you this morning. Enjoy!

I couldn’t believe it, but that didn’t stop me from starting off with the phone as I ate my banana. I knew it would probably take some time to install all its apps and stuff, but I watched with fascination as it went through the process.

I had a smartphone! A real, honest-to-werewolf-god, smartphone!

When it finally finished with all its initial hullabaloo, I picked it up and started navigating through it. I found a few contacts already loaded in, mostly him, and a couple of his other friends. Well, that was nice.

Even though I wasn’t the most familiar with the interface, I could call him without much trouble, excitement and worry both twisting in my gut, erstwhile companions who loved to give me stomach rot.

“Good morning,” he said, sounding so genuinely pleased to hear from me that a wave of euphoria swept over my mind. How did he do that?

“Good morning,” I echoed, trying to find my words. But I’d never been the most gracious person, so I blurted out the first thing my brain came up with. “You didn’t have to get me all this stuff. I would have gotten it after my first week’s pay.” After all, if he was going to be my boss, it would be pretty entitled of me to think he would also buy everything for me.

“I needed to be in contact with you, and I was worried something could happen if we waited.”

“You think I can’t take care of myself?”

Sometimes I wished that I didn’t have to fight everything, that I didn’t have to be so stubborn. But if there was one thing I’d been taught in my short life, it was that I couldn’t trust or rely on anyone but myself. And Mahlan, with his dazzling smiles, delicious scent, and seemingly endless wallet, was constantly challenging that. Which kind of pissed me off.

Wait, no. Perhaps a more accurate description would be that he was threatening the entire system of coping mechanisms and strategies I had put together to survive. Without those things, I was afraid I would just drop into the miasmic void of uncertainty that was always waiting to swallow me whole.

“I know you can, Lyssa. You’ve more than proven that. It’s just that you don’t have to.”

You don’t have to.

You don’t have to.

I wanted to believe him, I did, but everything in my mind was screaming that he was lying to me. He would eventually get tired of me and leave whenever he desired.

But his words took all the wind out of my sails, and I could feel myself physically deflate.

“Mahlan, I know you mean well, but you can’t keep pushing me like this, okay?” My voice was soft as I spoke, my cheeks coloring at the fact that I had to show so much weakness. “I need you to be patient. I’m trying to navigate all this, but you move much faster than I’m ready for.”

I expected a fight. I expected him to tell me I was being stupid or overdramatic. But he didn’t do any of that. Instead, he let out a very quiet sigh. “I’m sorry, Lyssa. I’m not trying to do that, but I will work to be more conscious of it. I know it’s not an excuse, but my mating instincts feel like they’re always yelling at me. I’m still learning how to control them.”

Oh. I’d never thought of how it must have been from his side. Sure, he was the one who bit me, and I was still plenty pissed at him, but he hadn’t left his home that day thinking he was about to be mated for life. That had to be a lot for him too.

“Whenever you need space, I will do my best to give it to you.”

I couldn’t believe it. Man, I wished I had met him through other circumstances. Everything would be less complicated if he hadn’t put a claim on me like I was a particularly good steak at the grocery store.

“I’ll try to be more understanding too. It helps to know that you get where I’m coming from. This is all just so much.”

“I’m trying, I really am, Lyssa. And as long as you can tell that, I’m happy.”

“Well, glad we worked that out then. I’m… I’m gonna go now, okay?”

“Of course. Emmaline will be there around eleven, and you can let her in. If you want to text her, the number is in your phone under Emma.”

“Thanks. You know, for all this. And that too.”

“No problem. See you tonight.”

At that, he hung up and I was left to play on my new toys, conflict only slightly abated in my belly.

But it turned out that time passed quickly when one had nearly unlimited access to the internet. While I tried to stay on task and research stuff, it was so easy to get distracted by every interesting article or funny meme. Plus, the idea that I wouldn’t have to schlepp all the way to the library and carefully budget the twenty minutes I had online before I was kicked off for the next patron to use it.

Before I knew it, my phone was buzzing and the doorbell rang at the same time, notifying me that Emmaline had arrived.

“Hey there,” I said, opening the door for her and letting her in.

“Hullo! Ready for some fun styling?”

“If you mean ready to dig through a clothing pile equivalent to Mount Everest, sure.”

“Hah! I know; my brother went all in, didn’t he? But he’s always been the type. All alpha, ya know?”

Emmaline breezed past me and made her way toward her brother’s bedroom. Once we were inside, she let out a low whistle. “Oh, man, I didn’t know he went this all out.”

“See now why I’m a bit overwhelmed? And this is only about half of it. I spent a good hour or so this morning just hanging the rest up.”

“Oh, totally. I get it now.” She cracked her knuckles and walked over to the bag pile. “But it’s nothing I can’t handle. Let’s dig in!”

And dig in we did, methodically going through it all. Emmaline was plenty helpful, picking out different ‘statement pieces’ as they were and showing me how to mix and match for different occasions. It was all pretty interesting, almost scientific, and I found myself more enthused than I thought I would be.

But at the same time, I started to feel self-conscious. She had to think I was using her brother for his money or that I was a spoiled brat. “I didn’t want him to buy me all of this,” I said hurriedly as she hung up a particularly strappy lingerie set. I didn’t even know that lingerie was the kind of thing that was supposed to be hung up. Or maybe she was just doing it because I didn’t have a dresser? Kind of hard to use an underwear drawer without any drawers available.

I was getting sidetracked. Shaking my head, I focused. “I want to pay my way for things.”

“Well, if that’s the case, you can always come work for my place. I’m guessing you’d be pretty good at spotting shoplifting techniques.”

I blushed, but Emmaline’s wry smile let me know she was mostly teasing. “I’m on contract with your brother right now.”

“Oh, for how long?”

“Not sure. A couple of weeks. Maybe a month?”

“Okay, then after that. Mahlan was right; I need more help in the shop, and you’ve certainly got talents that I don’t.”

Excitement bubbled in my middle, but I was also wary of it. “I’d really like that. Maybe I could start training during some of my free time?” Considering that my life had turned inside out, I’d have at least a little of that.

“Sure! Once this week is over, I’ll talk to Mahlan about setting up a schedule.” To my great surprise, Emmaline clapped her hands and then threw her arms around my shoulders in a hug. “Man, I am hella excited! You have no idea. Buuuuut, in the meantime…” she lifted some l!pstick and mascara that she pulled from who knew where. “How about a little makeover?”

I broke into laughter because how could I not at her enthusiasm? She was older than me, but she didn’t seem to look down on me like some older people.

“Yeah, let’s do that.”

Her energy was palpable as she went about painting my face and picking me out a professional outfit. It wasn’t like I needed to dress up for standing in the middle of Mahlan’s bedroom, and I felt pretty stupid for a long while.

But when she finished and finally let me go to the bathroom to look in the mirror, I was blown away by who I saw standing there.

“Oh my God,” I breathed. The woman in the mirror looked so polished. So poised. Was that really me?

“You clean up great, girlie. But we both knew you would.”

“Speak for yourself.”

Shaking my head, I leaned closer, taking it all in. With myself so done up, it was easy to imagine a life where I hadn’t been a street urchin, fighting tooth and nail for everything I had. It was easy to imagine an untraumatized Lyssa who was put together and had a loving, not vanished family.

“You know, if you like all this, maybe we could do a girls’ day after your first paycheck? Like the whole shebang, hair, nails, and spa.”

“I’ve always dreamed of doing that,” I breathed, still looking in the mirror. How many romcoms or sitcoms had I watched where women did just that and desperately wished I could experience it at least once?

“Then it’s a plan! It’ll be a great first purchase!”

“Yeah, I know it will.”