I hated this, the first moment of dealing with a medical professional. They had all the degrees on the wall, sat in a place of power, and I was just some dickhead, crawling in their door, begging for help with my daughter.
“Evie’s got a will like iron. We only kept her in her previous school because they won’t expel kids from state schools and then we moved her to a school for gifted children, but we’re running into the same problem. She’s smart, crazy smart, but not off the charts, though I can never tell her that.” Riley smiled then. “That’s not the issue. It’s what we focussed on first. Keep her stimulated, stop her from being bored, stretch her academically, mentally, that was the first round of advice. Well, she gets that throughout the whole day now, but the calls still keep coming.”
My voice started to crack. The bottle of water crackled as my fingers began to crush the flexible plastic.
“She’s gorgeous and sweet and loving—”
“And won’t take no for an answer,” Riley supplied in a much softer voice. “She pushes and keeps on pushing, until there’s someone strong enough to stand up to her and you’re worried about how long you’ll be able to do that for.”
I froze then, experiencing the contradictory feelings of relief and fear at feeling seen, finally seen.
“Yes,” I croaked out.
“Do you mind if I bring in one of my other mates?” she said. “I can explain it myself, if that’d make you feel more comfortable, but he… There’s a lived experience I don’t quite get and he can answer any questions you might have.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
I dimly heard her make a call, the door to her office opening and closing and then a man entered who seemed to fill the room. He was one hundred percent not the type of guy I expected to see in a place like this, the worn jeans and t-shirt with the sleeves torn out showcasing full sleeve tattoos. But those pale blue eyes? I could only meet them for a second, because they reminded me way too much of someone else’s.
“Haze Taylor,” he said, before settling down in a chair beside Riley.
“Nice to meet you,” I mumbled.
Riley brought him up to speed much more concisely than I could’ve managed, but his focus remained on me the whole time. He nodded along, that quiet attention reminding me all too much of Evie. And when Riley finished, he leaned forward, making himself seem slightly smaller.
“When you grow up as an alpha, you do so in a pack usually,” he explained. “Me and my brothers, we squabbled over every damn thing, establishing a pecking order. Even Fen, the brother that largely took over the running of the pack, he had to fight to put every decision in place. Still does,” he said with a snort. “We have power, dominance, aggression that’s unmatched in omega or beta circles, but that power is constrained. There’s always someone bigger, tougher, harder, who’ll put you down, inside your pack and outside it. Seems to me your little girl needs that.”
“What’re you proposing?” I demanded. “Some kind of primary school Hunger Games? She’s a little girl.”
“She’s an alpha.” He leaned back in his chair. “The role is misunderstood. Largely due to some erroneous studies of captive wolves that were forced into a wildly distorted pack structures within a zoo. People think ‘red of tooth and claw’ and all that bullshit.”
“Haze…” Riley said.
“It’s not. Fen isn’t our leader because he’s beaten everyone else down. Wolf packs in the wild are family structures. The mother and the father care for their adolescent and young children, and sometimes there has to be some tough love administered. Fen looks after us the best, that’s why he runs things. I’m not being critical here, but if your daughter turns out to be an alpha, she just needs more than the kind of egalitarian power structure that works well for betas.”
“So what am I supposed to do?” I asked, smiling but there was no mirth there. “Drag some random alphas off the street to discipline my child?”
“You had a connection to a pack once,” he said, and with that he went strangely pale. Riley’s hand grabbed his and gave it a squeeze, which he returned. “Where are her fathers?”
“Father,” I corrected. “One alpha, in town for the one night.” Riley perked up at that, taking some notes on her computer. “I have no idea how to find him and if I did, what would I say? It was nine years ago. He and his pack would’ve found their omega by now—”
“Would he?” Haze’s pale eyes were striking against his tanned skin and dark hair, but now they zeroed in. They were like blue lasers, piercing my skin, looking down, down into the depths of my soul. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that. I… need to ask a delicate question.” He glanced at Riley, whose eyebrow shot up. “It’s relevant to the situation, I promise.”
“What?” I asked, barely keeping the terseness from my voice.
“Were you able to take his knot?”
That, that was not something I’d prepared an answer for as I’d rehearsed over and over in my head how this would go. No one had asked me that, ever. I flushed, I couldn’t stop it, my eyes dropping down to the floor, because as he said the words it all came back. Ben and the feel of him locking down inside me, but also all the ersatz Bens that had come afterwards. The ones where my eyes shut and I head-swapped the partner I was with. Dark hair became blond, dark eyes became blue and cocky smiles became something else, something much more reverent.
“Yes.” The word came out as an explosive exhale.
“Then I would be very surprised if he has mated an omega. Perhaps he’s found one he and his pack are prepared to settle for but…” He shook his head slowly. “Who do we have on the books that are struggling to find a mate?” he asked Riley. “If we have a name we can cross-check and—”
“No.” I straightened up then, a strange steel stiffening my spine. “If I wanted him involved, I would’ve done something about that by now. I know where he’s from and there’s only two or three alpha packs in every town.”
“Right,” Haze confirmed.
“Even if he hasn’t found his mate, I don’t want to drop this on his doorstep. If that’s all the advice you have then—”