Page 3 of Fated Alpha Baby

“You should be at the celebration.”

“I should,” he concedes smoothly, watching me as I stick the key in the keyhole.

“Then why aren’t you?” I push the door in and turn to face him.

He’s leaning against the doorframe now, almost blocking me from entering. At least, not without our shoulders brushing. And I can’t risk that brisk touch.

Already, it’s taking a lot from me to look at him and pretend that I’m not madly in love with the future alpha of the Iron Breath Pack.

Yeah. That’s right.

I’m in love with Conan Becker. I have been in love with him from the moment he walked into Dorothy’s house with big brown eyes, a sheepish grin, and muddy boots, asking to play dominoes with the girl everyone else seemed to have forgotten.

At the age of seven, I had no idea that it was love I felt. But as the years dragged on, and we grew older, spending countless days in the pack seer’s house where I grew up, I soon realized that it was love that had been growing between us for more than a decade.

At least, that’s how it is from my side.

But with the dawn of a new decade comes the inevitable change when Conan steps into his role of alpha. These silly ideas that I’ve fostered for many years—that there would ever be a future for him and me—had to be buried when he turned eighteen last year and received his wolf.

Perhaps I’m failing, but at least I’m trying to bury those ideas. But Conan makes it nearly impossible to control my thoughts when he stands so close, the musk scent he wears beckoning to my senses, and I almost throw caution to the wind.

Almost.

“I don’t get why you’re here, Conan. Did you know what they were up to?”

“Maybe.”

I narrow my eyes at him and huff. “So, they are your friends.”

Conan smirks, the indent in his cheek turning prominent. “And yet, here I am, to see you.”

He jabs a finger at my shoulder, and the slightest touch has me reeling all over again. I take a deep breath for composure, schooling my face so I give nothing away. The only trouble is that my body betrays me, so I do what I do best.

Flight.

Spinning on my heel, I head inside the cabin, about to shut the door in his face when he presses a palm to the wood as if he’d been expecting dismissal.

“What do you want, Conan?” I ask, infuriated by his obvious determination to hang around. I pull off my satchel and hang it behind the chair, before advancing to the kettle to boil water for a much-needed mug of herbal tea, just the way Dorothy taught me.

“I came to see you.”

“So, if it wasn’t for your friends trying to frame me for a crime I didn’t commit, you would have waited here until I returned?” I cross my arms and turn to him while the kettle continues to wheeze behind me. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Why wouldn’t you believe me?” he asks with a frown, his eyes saddening as if he’d been hurt. “I needed to see you. I needed to speak with you.”

My frown deepens, and for a flicker of a moment, I don’t say anything and just stare into his eyes. Eyes that I had long since come to lose myself in.

Eyes of a beloved who is forbidden to me.

“Well, you shouldn’t be here. And you shouldn’t have come to save me.”

“I didn’t come to save you. And you sure as hell looked like you could use the help, anyway,” he scoffs. “Besides, I saw them messing around at Dorothy’s cabin earlier. I knew they were up to no good. It looks like I was in the right place at the right time.”

“I don’t need you to save me, Conan. I never did,” I sneer, then turn to the kettle as it whistles.

“Will you not offer me tea?”

“You should have gone to Dorothy’s if you wanted tea. You need to return her gem, anyway.”