~*~
Otto
Even after the damn werewolves removed the silver restraining band and shoved me out the bar door, I couldn’t make myself leave the parking lot. Instead, I paced back and forth along the perimeter, staring through the large plate glass window wherethat alphahole was pawing my..pawingDexpublicly for all the world to see.
Inside me, the bear pushed against the invisible threads keeping him back, his growls rumbling through my gut as he made his displeasure known. A displeasure that matched my own even though I knew it didn’t make any sense.
Iwas the one who stepped back to protect his reputation, who told Dex we could never have more than the one roll in the leaves and that he needed to move on and find a suitable mate, so why did my Alpha senses scream that he wasmine?
My anxiety increased when Kravets led Dex out into the night, crossing the parking lot to where Dex’s little scooter sat. I watched as they spoke, heads bent together and the words too low for me to hear. Then, I forced back a snarl when Kravets urged Dex over to a truck and helped him into the driver’s seat. He watched the truck pull slowly out onto the street before throwing his leg over Dex’s scooter and following suit, pausing to wave at me. Leaving no doubt he knew I was watching them the entire time.
Bastard.
I fucking hated him every bit as much as I loved Dex.
Fuck my life, Ididlove Dex. Even though I was determined to be the bigger man. To let him move on to find a mate and start a family, did it have to be so damn soon?
Ridiculously, even knowing he was carrying another Alpha’s cub did nothing to dull the protective instincts that rose when I thought of him. If anything, those instincts grew stronger when I let myself dwell on the tiny life growing in my Omega’s belly.
Not that Dex wasmine.I knew he wasn’t. Of course, I knew he wasn’t, so there was no doubt my reactions to him were ridiculously overblown.
The afternoon after I was unceremoniously ejected from the bar was a prime example.
In the small community of Unity City, the medical offices sat clustered in a row across from the hospital. So, it was probably foreseeable that Dex and I might cross paths and at what might have been the worst possible time, that’s exactly what happened.
It was when I was leaving my second mandatoryreintegrating to society after involuntary confinementtherapy session. My head was down as I walked, reading through the action plan I was assigned for the month when a smaller man walked directly into me, his head also bent down over a paper in his hand.
“Sorry,” I said automatically, catching him by the shoulders to stabilize his balance. “Are you okay?”
“Fine and it was my fault,” a familiar voice said before the man looked up and I was staring into the face of my obsession. “Oh!” Dex gasped and tried to take a step back when he realized who was supporting him.
“Dex? Are you okay?” It probably made me a dick, but I didn’t release his shoulders, telling myself I didn’t want him to fall.
“I..” The color drained from his face and he began to vibrate under my hands. “Please..I can’t..”
I was trying to make sense of his words, to find outwhathe couldn’t when he shifted on his heels, slipping out of thecoat I held and taking off on foot down the alley while I stared dumbly at his desperate exit.
Shaking my head, I laid his caramel-colored pea coat over my arm and then noticed that the paper he’d been staring at was lying on the sidewalk. He must have dropped it when he saw me.
With a mental shrug, I leaned down to snatch it up before the wind could. My heart stuttered when I saw that it was an ultrasound picture of a fetus only slightly larger than a peanut. After a long moment, I carefully tucked the picture into my breast pocket and began walking to my car, mentally planning the best way to see Dex. I mean, it was only right to return the picture and coat, wasn’t it? That’s not even close to stalking. It was just being a good friend.And Dex and I could still befriends, right?
ChapterFour
Dex
It only took about three blocks of running from Otto for the adrenaline rush to crash, leaving me leaning against the corner of the public library, winded and shivering. It wasn’t cold, exactly, but the wind was sharp and combined with the sweat from panic running, well, it was enough to make me shiver. Although, I suspected that the emotional toll of running from the Alpha I’d saved myself for only to be cast aside after he found me wanting wasn’t exactly helping with the misery factor.
Wrapping my arms around my chest, I hurried into the library, shuddering a bit when the warmth wrapped around me, heating my chilled skin.
“Dex?” Taylor’s voice came from deeper in the room and I turned to find him seated in the early reader section, his brow knitted in a concerned frown and twenty little ones seated in a neat half-circle around his rocking chair.
“Hey,” I said, trying to force a grin as I slowly walked toward his story group. “Whatcha reading?”
“We just finished Mouse and Cookie!” a cutie with big brown eyes and blond pigtails whisper-shouted at me.
Taylor smiled and gently corrected, “It was If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, Molly.” Standing, he gestured to the row of short bookshelves around us. “Okay, people! You have twenty minutes to find a book to check out and since we’re in the library..” Taylor trailed off expectantly and smiled broadly when his class all raised their fingers to their lips in a shushing motion. “Good job!”
When the last of the littles wandered off to choose a story, Taylor silently stripped his sweater off and shoved it my direction. “You’re freezing, put this on.”
