Stealing the Alpha’s Heart

I stared balefully at my spreadsheet, wishing it was full when it was anything but. Normally, I had no problems staying ahead of my tasks, even in our busiest season, but with Mahlan taking so much time off due to his new mate and everything else going on, I had a lot more work to pick up.

Not that I was complaining. No, with members of our pack being kidnapped right and left, then the knowledge of witch-aligned traffickers being dropped into our la*ps, our alpha was needed more than ever. Besides, I could hold down the business for a good while. I was the CEO, after all.

Most people expected the alpha of the pack to be completely in charge of our largest business ventures, but how was he supposed to find the time? He was a shareholder and CFO, but the position was built to give him the flexibility to do whatever he needed for the pack.

Besides, it was nice to see my friend find the love of his life. I’d been suspicious of Lyssa at first, but she’d more than proven to me that she only had the best of intentions for my best friend. I saw the way she looked at him, the way she unlocked her inner wolf particularly to save him. There was an intense, genuine devotion there.

One that almost made me want that for myself.

I’d always told myself I was too busy and had too much responsibility for a mate. I was a beta, after all, so I had no obligation to procreate. I had s3x when I wanted it—and it was some pretty great s3x at that—but it never went further than that.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

But now, seeing how happy both Mahlan and Lyssa were in their relationship…well, it made me wonder if I should reallocate some energy for romantic pursuits.

Then again, the very idea was exhausting while staring at the spreadsheet in front of me.

Maybe after things had calmed down.

Focusing myself so I could finish my current task, I made a quick plan in my head for my day’s schedule. I needed to move onto a meeting about a big project I had coming up, and then do some final review on expensive but vital purchases we had for the expansions. I wanted to do some planning for the first quarter of the next fiscal year, and then maybe inhale some food so I could get some sleep. But if I was being honest with myself, one of those tasks would probably have to go. My money was on me not actually getting to bed anytime soon.

Which I knew wasn’t good. Wolves definitely needed their sleep to help with our fast metabolism and healing, but what choice did I have? Stuff needed to get done, and I was the only one who could do most of it.

If I had known that my suggestion to Mahlan right after graduation would turn into a multi-million dollar business, maybe I would have structured the business with a bit more help in place for me. But even with all my ambition, I hadn’t imagined our venture would be so successful.

As the largest shareholder, I was set for life. And Mahlan was right behind me. Then the rest was split evenly amongst our inner circle. Except for Ellibie, of course. She’d refused hers from the beginning and said we could just send her money whenever we felt bad about it.

I’d stuck to that, sending her enough that she could probably retire comfortably and never work another day in her shifter life. But expecting Ellibie not to work was like asking the ocean not to long for the moon, so I was pretty sure that she would keep a wrench in her hand until she keeled over.

That would certainly be a loss for the pack. There was only one Ellibie, that was for sure.

“Focus, Theo. Your pack is depending on you.”

Finishing up my spreadsheet, I checked out the encrypted report that Addison had sent Jacobian. She was still infiltrating Bronson’s company along with Hannah, our secret card up our sleeve while Hannah was the known entity. Although our attention was turned elsewhere for the moment with the traffickers, I figured it didn’t hurt to keep a hidden mole in the rival company along with our public plant; they had shady stuff going on even if they didn’t have our moonstones.

After that, I went to my meeting, then double-checked some proposals that had been submitted the previous Thursday before my secondary cell phone rang. That surprised me, and I pulled my blue cell out of my pocket. I had three phones in all—my main line that I used for my social life, my black phone for business contacts who weren’t personal friends, and the blue one that was specifically for more… subterfuge-related purposes. I didn’t want anyone to be able to track Addison or Hannah’s conversations with me, or Jacobian’s encryption tech, so I kept that one under a fake name and social.

Illuminating the screen, I saw it was indeed Hannah, and I answered it, worried that perhaps her cover or Addison’s had been blown.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, tone serious.

“Why does something have to be wrong?”

I resisted rolling my eyes. While I appreciated that Hannah was quite talented at her job, I wasn’t always a fan of her attitude. She constantly had something to say that wasted precious minutes of mine.

“Because you usually check in with Jacobian,” I answered matter-of-factly.

Which was the truth. While he wasn’t in charge, as I was, Jacobian was our resident expert on all things digital. I wasn’t technologically ignorant myself, unlike a lot of shifters who viewed that kind of stuff as their enemy, but I also had nothing on Jacobian, who could encrypt, decrypt, hack, and build up defenses like no one else in our pack.

“He already gave his opinion, but I wanted a second one,” she answered curtly, like I was the rude one.

“You know we trust you to make your own choices.”

“I am aware.”

The effort to resist rolling my eyes was rising and rising. “What is it you need an opinion on?”

“So I have a potentially complicated interpersonal issue,” she said before sighing. “A fellow coworker from a different department—the one that we’re having trouble getting access to—asked me to dinner.”

Oh.

That hadn’t been what I was expecting. I felt a tiny bit regretful for giving her a hard time at the beginning, as that was definitely a nuanced sort of situation.

“That’s certainly more than was asked of you,” I answered her as honestly as possible.

“But it could also open doors to get into that department.”

That I did appreciate about Hannah. She was incredibly practical once she got over all her chit-chatting. “Do you have any interest in the man? Or would this be purely corporate espionage?”

She laughed, and it wasn’t a disrespectful sound. No, she seemed genuinely amused by my question. “He’s handsome enough, but not really someone I’m into. So it would be one-hundred percent professional. But I also recognize that if I botch things, it could compromise my whole mission.”

She was right about that, but honestly, I didn’t think Hannah would do that. She was incredibly smart, and if the man had already asked her out, he almost certainly was going to view her in a positive light.

I thought about what she said, however, making sure I was completely certain before I gave her a final answer. “We’d want you to have covert security if the two of you go out, but if you want to go, I won’t stop you. And I do agree it very likely will be useful.”

“Alright then. I’ll think about it overnight, but I’m banking on going. I’ll send you the details tomorrow morning.”

“Sounds good.”

“Thank you, Theo. I’ll be in touch.”

With that, she hung up, allowing me to get back to my day. It picked up into its usual rush, and before I knew it, it was well after when I was supposed to stop. Cursing to myself when my 6:30 alarm went off, I also saw that I had three texts from Mahlan.

Oh, he wanted to meet me after work. Well, I was a bit behind on that. Quickly, I shot him a message back that I was finishing up and went about leaving for the day.

Part of me was tempted to bring my laptop along, but I knew if I did, I’d never get any sleep.

So instead, I made sure to set myself up nice and pretty for the next day, then shut everything down. Weary, I headed down to the main floor where, sure enough, Mahlan was standing there.

“Walk and talk with me?” he asked as I approached.

Mahlan was always great about understanding how much I hated wasting time with pointless small talk. I had things to do, even if those things were as simple as shoving enough calories in my face not to lose weight, and passing out in my bed. And maybe showering, too, if I was feeling ambitious.

“Of course.”

We strode out to the same parking spot I always used. I was a creature of habit just as much as I was a creature of the moon, but I figured it made me reliable more than anything else.

“Look, I know that I’ve been asking a lot of you lately,” he started, which was definitely the truth. “But I need to ask a huge favor of you.”

“Yes?”

“So, as you know, I love my apartment, but it’s not really the place to build a family.”

Oh? Was Mahlan thinking about that already? I supposed that shouldn’t be surprising considering his mate’s first heat was likely approaching, but I hadn’t really thought about what that meant.

Of course Mahlan would want pups, to expand his family like his alpha drive told him to. I personally was not exactly a fan of babies. I respected them for the little souls they were, but goodness, they were messy, exhausting, and stressful. So while I was annoyed by them, I certainly couldn’t let the baby itself sense that. It wasn’t their fault.

“That makes sense, Alpha.”

“So I’m surprising Lyssa with buying a house. I have people coming to view my apartment and need an excuse to get her out of it where she won’t be suspicious. So I thought if you could host a family dinner, that’d be the perfect ruse.”

Host the family dinner? I would rather stick my hand in a blender.

My cooking ability was minimal, I hated washing dishes, I didn’t want to deal with the setup and then the cleanup after, and hosting was even more exhausting than everything else.

It was too much, especially in my limited personal space. My home was my haven, where I didn’t have to worry about socializing or doing anything uncomfortable. I could just be Theo, a shifter who liked walking around in pajama pants and considered cereal a full and complete dinner, instead of being Theo, the right-hand man to our pack’s alpha and resident fixer.

“Can’t you just have the family dinner at your new house for the surprise?”

“That’s what I originally wanted to do—figured that would be romantic—but things didn’t come together in time. I’m just now closing, and there’s not even furniture inside it yet. Besides…” he flashed me a lopsided grin that he was wearing more and more often. Mated life really did do right by him. “I would like to uh, christen the house when we first go into it, if you know what I mean.”

“I understand your drift,” I said, while also actively trying not to think about my alpha taking his mate on every available surface in their new home.

It was a nice story—it really was—for Lyssa to have gone from homeless, packless, and under some awful spell that locked her away from herself, to having an undoubtedly beautiful home with a pack alpha who also was filthy rich. Their kids were going to get one hell of a story when it came time to learn about how their parents met.

A truly lovely tale, of course, but if it were me, I’d just rather not have any of the drama at all. Our pack was facing things I’d hoped we’d never have to face, and while it wasn’t Lyssa’s fault at all, she kind of represented a lot of the maelstrom in my mind.

“Alright, I’ll host.”

“Why do you say it like it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever asked of you?”

“Because it is. Or at least the most daunting.”

Mahlan chuckled. “I literally asked you to secure the house next to it without telling you it was the house next to it two weeks ago.”

“Ah, that’s what that was about. Yes, that’s already been secured.”

“Huh, maybe this hosting business is the hardest thing I’ve asked of you in a while.” Shaking his head, Mahlan let out a happy sigh. “You know to tell me if I’m putting too much on you, right?”

“Of course, but I can handle it. Especially since you’re making the perfect den for you and your mate. That’s important to our whole pack.”

“Just know that whenever you need a break, I can step up. And one day, if you have your own mate, I’ll be more than happy to return the favor.”

I let my mind drift for a moment, thinking about having a loving partner and pups as Mahlan’s neighbors. Our kids being raised together, running around like the miscreants they were, just like our inner circle had grown up. We’d built bonds that would last us for our entire lives, that strengthened us and covered our own weaknesses with our brothers’ skills.

I could vaguely see it: us at the lakefront, next door to Mahlan, Jacobian on the other side. Kaleb and Parker weren’t there, if only because it was hard to imagine either of them in a parental role. But even so, they would show up to cookouts and runs, play frisbee with all the kids. We would all be one happy, harmonious family.

Huh.

Funny that I’d never really taken the time to imagine such things before. As a beta, I didn’t have the borderline obsessive need to breed that alphas and omegas did, but that didn’t mean I would mind being a father one day, if the timing and partner were right.

It was just unfortunate that having children meant dealing with that whole pukey baby part. I wished there was a way to skip that.

“I know you would,” I said to Mahlan finally. “You know, since you’ve already had me buy the property next to yours, we should probably just grab the whole lakeside in case the other three knuckleheads ever get their shit together.”

“You think so? I wasn’t sure if Jacobian knows women exist outside of a computer screen.”

I chuckled at that, because it was true. While everyone accused me of being a workaholic, Jacobian was far worse than me. He just managed to do everything in the comfort of his own apartment, so people didn’t realize how much he was glued to his technology. Really, it was a wonder we regularly got him out for family dinners.

Which I was going to host. I definitely needed to get some things for my apartment, such as an actual dining table. I usually just wolfed my meals down or ate at my work desk in my home office.

“So, you want me to grab them up?”

“Why don’t you get a price on it and we can present it to the guys tonight? That way, they can decide to split it however they want.”

“This sounds like a cash-offer-in-today sort of situation. You don’t want shitty neighbors, do you?” I was always more of a get-things-done-asap sort of person. Why put off to tomorrow what could be done today?

“I appreciate your eagerness, but let’s talk to them first. Life is funny. You never know if they have other plans.”