Alpha's Vow (Shifter Ops 2)

“So you’ve marked her?”

I growl. It’s like my wolf thinks Rafe’s moving in on her before I can, which, of course, is asinine. “Not yet.” I haven’t even told her about the marking thing. She had enough to digest with the ‘your baby isn’t human’ thing.

“Right.” Rafe rubs his face. “Exactly how do you see this all playing out, Lance? You think you’re mate material? With the life we lead? How will you even get this girl to take you seriously?”

A hot flush of shame pushes through me. I turn away so he won’t see that he’s getting to me. Rafe is poking me where it hurts, because no one takes me seriously. I’ve made sure of that by taking the part of the playboy. The goof-off. The womanizing asshole who never takes anything too seriously.

I suppose it was to counterbalance Rafe, who takes everything way too fucking seriously. Including my own mating.

“She’s a woman, not a girl.” I’m getting testier by the minute. “And I’m going to figure that out.”

“You’re sure she’s your mate?”

“She’s my mate, and she’s pregnant with my pup.”

Rafe’s jaw goes slack for a moment, then he surges to his feet, his work at the computer forgotten. “What?”

I square off against him, my shoulders set. “You heard me.”

“What happened to your protection?”

Oh, for fuck’s sake. He still thinks I’m fifteen and need him to counsel me about always wearing a goddamn rubber. “It came off. Because she’s my fucking mate, and my wolf wanted to mark her. Do you want all the details?” I ask sarcastically. “The position we were in? The number of times I made her come? Because you are seriously way too up in my business right now.”

“You starting a family is everyone’s business, Lance,” Rafe snaps, striding over to me. His eyes flash amber, showing his wolf. “We are soldiers for hire on the most dangerous operations in the world, and you think it’s a good time to knock up a hu—” He wisely stops before I punch him in the nose. “—your female?”

I rub a hand over my closely-cropped hair. “I already told you, it was an accident. There was no thinking about starting a family. My wolf wanted to claim her. It was all I could do not to sink my teeth in her neck and lose her forever.”

That thought brings a little more control back. I have a human female. I will require so much more control than ever to make sure I never hurt or harm her. When I mark her, I will have to be sure I’m in total awareness and control, because fucking up could mean I hit an artery and she bleeds out.

Rafe sobers, too, his eyes returning to their human color. “Lance, this is a problem,” he says quietly.

“Why?”

“How are you going to keep them safe?” It’s only the haunted quality to Rafe’s eyes that keeps me from taking offense.

Because we were orphaned by the most alpha of parents, who died to keep us from getting picked up by shifter slavers. Because Rafe has feared losing me the way we lost them since the moment he took charge of me at the tender age of fifteen. Because Rafe carries the weight and responsibility of keeping everyone in our small pack safe, and that will be infinitely harder if there are pups involved.

I force myself to swallow under the tight band around my throat. “I will keep them safe,” I tell him. “It’s not on you.”

“Of course it’s on me,” he explodes. “It may be only a matter of days before Sarcero cuts through the bullshit story the CIA built, and uncovers our identities. He’s gonna want revenge, which ordinarily, I wouldn’t worry too much about, but I just saw you take thirty rounds and nearly not make it out, and you’re a fucking shifter. How the hell are we going to keep Charlie safe from a man like that? How are we going to keep that unborn pup safe?”

Fear strikes me at the base of my spine. Real fear. The kind I felt when we were running for our lives through those woods, our father’s command still ringing in our ears.

Charlie and my pup are in danger right now. Just by my existence. If anyone ever linked them to me, they’d be used as leverage. Or maybe just butchered for revenge. And we probably have more enemies out there than Sarcero. There might be hundreds of people who want us dead after the things we’ve done for our government.

“Dammit.” Rafe paces away from me. “I got us out of active duty to give us some breathing room, but it may have been my worst decision yet.”

I stare at my brother in surprise. Fuck, I didn’t know he second-guessed his decisions so much. He hides his doubt and vulnerability under his gruff, take-charge sergeant persona, but I can see it crumbling.