Shiro and Zian were sticking around for a while, helping Zhuang get everything settled, but then they planned to take off. Council business, they said. Xias was afraid to ask what that meant, and his mate wasn’t saying.
“Xias, can we play with the cubs?”
Xias smiled down at the youngster tugging on his pant legs. “I think they’re hanging out with their grandparents. Why don’t you go ask them?”
Xias smiled as he ran off. Kids, shifter cubs, and grandparents. A match made in heaven. He followed the kid’s path to the two older couples sitting under the large tree in their front yard. The sight of his parents and Zhuang’s parents visiting together as they watched over the cubs and the other small children in the clan gave Xias the second perfect peaceful moment.
Especially his father. He had been devastated when his parents arrived two months ago and he discovered his father had lost a hand to Osamu’s insanity when he tried to take Xias back. Osamu had said he was taking the hand of a thief because Xias belonged to him. That his father held no ill will toward him was a miracle.
“Happy, mate?” Zhuang whispered into Xias’s ear.
“Yeah, I am.”
Zhuang pushed against him from behind, effectively letting Xias know just what the man was feeling. “How about you come inside and make me happy?”
Xias snorted at the cheesy line, but he knew he’d fall for it nonetheless. He grinned as he took a step out of Zhuang’s arms and turned to face him. He wiggled his eyebrows as he took another step back, and then another. The confusion on Zhuang’s face was adorable.
“Xias?”
“You have to catch me first,” he shouted as he took off running.
He could see people stopping to watch, some looking a little apprehensive, others chuckling. When arms wrapped around him from behind and swung him up into the air, Xias burst out laughing. Those who had been apprehensive smiled and went about their business.
Xias wrapped his arms around Zhuang’s neck as he was carried inside the house. He couldn’t resist the man, and he didn’t want to. Zhuang was everything he’d always wanted in a mate. Strong, kind, gentle. That he had the mark of an alpha was just a bonus.
THE END
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Mark of an Alpha
STORMY GLENN
Copyright © 2018
Chapter One
“Come on, babies, just a little farther.” Xias was lying through his teeth, but the cubs didn’t need to know that. The longer they could remain blissfully ignorant of the danger they were in, the better.
He nudged one with his nose when it started to fall behind the other two. He knew there was a cave close by. He’d scouted it out while the cubs were still sleeping, but with the snow coming down so hard he could barely see a step in front of him, he was beginning to wonder if he’d ever find it again.
The blizzard had come out of nowhere, hard, cold, and dangerous. Xias knew if he didn’t find shelter for himself and the cubs soon, they’d be lost in the flurry of bitterly cold snow. They’d freeze to death by morning for sure.
Maybe he should have left the cubs behind where they would have been warm and dry. Xias quickly dismissed that idea. His heart ached just thinking about it. Everything in him balked at the idea of anything happening to his cubs.
They were his babies. He had carried them for four months, given birth to the three darling little fur balls. Just because clan law stated they belonged to their sire didn’t make it so, especially when the bastard decided to put two of them to death because they hadn’t been born male.
Xias grew enraged every time he remembered his alpha’s declaration that two of his cubs were defective. His cubs were precious, each and every one of them. He didn’t care if they were boys or girls or purple penguins. They were his cubs and he’d fight to the death to defend each and every one of them.
Which was what had led him to where he found himself now—racing through a blizzard with his cubs, trying to find a place to wait out the storm and escape from the alpha intent on killing everything he held dear.
Xias jumped forward when Bai, the oldest of his litter of cubs, tripped and went face-first into a snowdrift. He gently grabbed the cub by the back of his neck and lifted him out, giving him a little shake to get some of the snow off of him.
