Rise of the Alpha
Chapter 29

Blaine

Mate! My wolf growls as we lean against the truck, waiting for our girl to exit the airport. She doesn’t know I’m coming, but the guys and Wylla agreed someone needed to be here to pick her up. We all wanted to be the one, so a serious game of rock-paper-scissors decided for us, and I came out victorious. No way was our girl Ubering when she has four mates. Even if she hasn’t claimed us yet.

Looking up, I see her making her way toward me. Damn, she’s beautiful, her gray hair floats side to side with each step she takes and her tits bounce, clueing me into the fact that she’s not wearing a bra. And now my d**k’s hard. I casually reach down and adjust it with my hand. The woman is perfect if she’d just accept how strong she is. She needs to stop living in total fear of her father and pack. It’s a work in progress, and I have no doubt if we are patient, the reward will be immense.

She’s just a few steps away from me when she finally looks up and realizes I’m here. Dropping her bag, she runs toward me, and as soon as she is close enough, she leaps onto me, wrapping her arms and legs around me. Her head is buried in my neck, and I can already feel the warmth of her tears soaking my shirt. Wrapping my arms around her tighter, I hold her as she cries in my arms. What the f**k did they do to her?

When she finally has herself composed, I set her down and nuzzle my face into her shoulder. “I missed you, babe.” As she’s about to respond, I feel my nose twitch, and I push her back gently, still holding onto her shoulders. “Why do you smell strongly of another wolf, Magnolia? I know your dad wasn’t there to bid you farewell, and this scent is very strong and very fresh. What happened? Is this why you were crying? Tell me who upset you!” I’m all but yelling at her. My wolf is pacing inside, growling and snapping in rage, ready to tear whoever the scent belongs to limb from f*****g limb.

“Probably Jeremiah, one of my intended mates. He’s a Beta and offered to drive me to the airport,” she tells me as if it’s no big deal.

“Why didn’t you take an Uber?” From what she messaged us over the weekend, that’s how she got to her house from the airport.

“That was the plan, but last night, my father surprised me at dinner with the Alpha and his son with his two Betas. He all but demanded I change my flight unless one of my intended could drive me. So, thankfully, Jeremiah offered to take me. He’s not that bad, actually. Something is different about him. I just can’t put my finger on it.”

What the f**k? Not that bad? What is this woman smoking? That whole pack is rotten from the bottom to the top. Now she comes home and one of the Betas she’s supposed to mate isn’t that bad. Is she going to change her mind about everything and go along with their arranged mating? Was this all a joke to her? Was she brainwashed while she was there?

Annoyed by her words, I quickly walk to where she left her bag, snatch it up and storm back toward my truck, dropping it in the back roughly. She looks at me in shock, then walks silently to the passenger side of the truck and gets in. I make my way to the driver’s side, open the door, and slide in. Turning the key in the ignition, I hear the truck come to life. I look over to Magnolia, who is just silently sitting, staring out the window. I grunt before reaching over her and grabbing her seat belt to buckle her in.

Leaning over to buckle her was a mistake, but I want her to be safe in the vehicle. However, it gave me another potent whiff of the other male wolf, who had to have touched my mate for his scent to be that strong. She smells like rain mixed with cotton candy and rain is not her signature scent.

We drive in complete silence for the first ten minutes of the trek to campus. I keep looking over at her, and each time, I catch her staring at me in confusion. “Blaine, can you please tell me what’s wrong? I know I smell like another wolf, but I don’t understand. I told you I got a ride,” she says, breaking the silence that filled the cab of the truck.

“I’m sorry, Magnolia. If anything bad happened, I trust that you’d tell us instantly. I just don’t like you smelling like someone who isn’t one of us.” Sighing, I try to settle my wolf, so I don’t keep upsetting our mate.

“Us?”

“Yeah. Me, Jude, Zeke, and Wylla… us.”

“Oh, okay,” she responds softly. Why would she question it? Who else would I be talking about? She has been gone forty-eight hours, and she’s acting like she’s forgotten we’ve all told her how we feel about her. I f*****g hate her father and her pack. I will destroy them if it’s the last thing I do.

Arriving on campus, I park the truck and jump out, hurrying to her side and opening her door for her. She slides out and gives me a beaming smile as she follows me to the back of the truck, so I can grab her suitcase. I pick it up and head toward the dorm building, with her following close behind me.

“Blaine, I can carry my own suitcase,” she scolds.

“Yeah, but with a mate who very much wants to take care of you, why would you?” I snark back. She is silent and continues to follow behind me as we make the small journey to the dorm building. Once we get to our building, I open the door and let her in first, then I follow her, watching the sway of her h**s and a*s as she leads us to the elevator. She huffs as I reach around her to hit the button, and when we get inside, I hit the floor number before she can. She growls at me quietly, and I chuckle at her annoyance with my over-caring.

When we get to her door, she unlocks it but doesn’t open it. Instead, she turns to me and gives me a once over with her eyes from my hair down to my shoes. “Thanks for coming to get me, Blaine. I was ready and willing to take an Uber or taxi.”

“Well, if we let you do that, then how would we know if you got home okay? How would we have known if we were declaring war on your pack to get you back?” I tell her, and I mean every single word. I would raze the world for this wolf standing in front of me.

She looks shocked at the seriousness in my tone. “I ju–”

I lean in and k**s her softly. “Magnolia, you’re still confused about things, I know. I’m trying like hell to give you whatever you need to figure things out, but you are my mate. I would go to hell and back for you. You need to realize it for yourself. You’re so worried about leaving that pack and being packless or going feral, babe. Did you ever think that you could be a part of my pack? We wouldn’t let you be alone because you’d be with us at all times.”

She gasps, and I see her eyes start to glass over. Hopefully, she’s listening to what I’m saying and not just hearing me. I mean every word, and I know Wylla and the guys feel the same. I don’t want to see her cry after experiencing a weekend from hell, one that she hasn’t shared anything about yet, but I’ll soon get details. I grab her shoulders, turning her body, so she is facing the door. Leaning down, I whisper into her ear, “Now get in there and talk to your best friend, then go take a shower and wash that wolf’s scent off you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She turns the knob, and I smack her a*s. “Good girl.” She quickly looks over her shoulder as she gasps at my words. I throw her a wink and saunter off back toward the elevator. I check behind me when I’m a few feet away to make sure she got in the room, and sure enough, she’s not standing there anymore. Stepping into the elevator, I adjust my c**k in my pants as the doors close. Her little gasp and the way her pupils were blown after I called her a good girl has me hard as f*****g stone in my jeans.

Getting to my room, I walk in and see the guys sitting on their beds playing some zombie video game. They look up as soon as I enter and shut the game off. “Well, how was it? Is she okay?” Jude asks right away.

“Yeah, she’s fine. She didn’t tell me much about the weekend. Which is probably for the best, so she can tell us all at once. But she did smell like another wolf, and it was strong, almost like he had his hands, his body on her. My wolf and I were not happy. Luckily, the little minx is so sweet and innocent, she soothed him easily enough.”

“What do you mean, she smelled of another wolf? Did they touch her?” Zeke shoots off the bed, coming close to me.

“Relax, man. I’m serious, she was fine. No visible marks, but she did cry when she saw me. I think it was more like a ‘thank Goddess you’re here and I’m not there anymore’ reaction, if you know what I mean. She did tell me the scent was probably Jeremiah, one of the Betas she is promised to. She had two choices: change her flight or get a ride with him, so he took her. She also said, which ticked me the hell off, that he seemed different and not so bad.”

They both say nothing but stare at me in confusion. My thoughts exactly, friends. I cross the room and change into a pair of sweats and pull my shirt off. “Tomorrow, we ask a few questions about what happened this weekend. But I don’t want to push her so much that she feels like she’s being interrogated. We’ll go from there. Until then, I have some homework I can finally focus on and get done, now that our girl is back where she belongs.”

I sit on my bed, Zeke returns to his, and we work quietly on our homework. Seems I’m not the only one who couldn’t get shit done this weekend with Magnolia at home with the cult.

As soon as I finish the last assignment, I stand up. “I’m finally done, fellas. I’m going to go take a piss, then I’m headed to bed for the night. What do you two have planned?” I ask them.

“I’m with you, I need sleep. I barely got any this weekend. I was so worried,” Zeke replies as he’s shoving his books back in his bag, his bed now cleared of debris, and he looks to Jude for his answer.

I see Jude stand from his bed and stretch, “I think I’m going to go for a run and clear my head, then hit the hay. I’m hoping to find a couple or two hooking up along the running trail, so I can fuel up my energy reserves.”

I nod, understanding this is how he has to feed right now until he talks to Magnolia. He turns and quickly exits the room, and I finish packing the stuff in my bag I’ll need for class tomorrow. I head to the bathroom to do my business, then I need to go to sleep. Good ol’ fashioned beauty rest now that I can be at peace, knowing my mate is just a floor below me and not being held captive by a crazy wolf cult.