Declan
The sound of rain tapping against the tall windows was the only thing keeping me sane in this room.
Maxwell, the Moonshine Pack's Alpha, sat across from me, droning on about things I'd heard a hundred times before. Politics, diplomacy, trade agreements between packs. I'd been sitting in this chair for four hours. I just wanted to go home.
"You think he knows about your plans to reclaim those shares in Moonshine company?" my Beta, Richard, mindlinked me. He was my best friend. He and Finn, my Gamma, made being an Alpha slightly bearable especially since I lost the only ray of sunshine in my life.
It had been six years since I became Alpha. Six years since I last saw Judith Baker. I had counted every single one of those days. She wasn't just a memory. She was a wound that refused to heal—the first woman to ever touch my soul and the only one I would ever truly love.
Goddess, I loved Judith like a madman.
My fingers flexed on the armrest.
"You're thinking about her again"Ash, my wolf, stirred inside me.
"Shut up", I muttered back.
"You miss her. We both do. You smell her in every dream. You see her when you close your eyes."
I did. Damn him, I did. I really did miss her.
Judith was my sunlight. I never thought I needed her until I lost her.
That first night I touched myself thinking about her—when she'd caught me—was pretty much the best night of my life to date. I couldn't think straight back then. She'd come over for a sleepover, and it was crazy to admit you wanted your sister's best friend, so I'd pretended not to.
But that night, knowing she was in the next room, teasing the hell out of me, I couldn't resist touching myself to the sight of those pretty brown eyes rolling in pleasure as I fucked her in my mind. The way she'd looked at me, all flushed from touching herself, her lips parted invitingly—I'd been completely undone.
She'd been too young, too pure, too beautiful for the likes of me. And yet she made me feel alive for the first time in my cursed life. Just thinking about the way my hands had skimmed over her curves had my cock hardening.
That hadn't happened in a while.
We drove her away. We made her cry, Ash whined in the back of my mind.
"Enough" I snapped, though my chest ached with guilt. "I know what we did."
I could still see the look on her face the day I buried my father. Fuck, I'd been hurting. The last words I'd said to him before he left on that trip were cold and bitter. We'd had a stupid argument, and he died before I could apologize. I was such a fool. The guilt when I got the news that my father—the man I'd looked up to my entire life—was gone drove me into a rage.
How could he die? I hadn't apologized yet.
He was supposed to be invincible. He was supposed to come back, and we would have a match in the gardens, and I could apologize. Instead, he was gone.
My jaw tightened. I would give everything to undo that moment. Anything at all.
I wasn't supposed to feel like this. I was Alpha Declan Montgomery, head of the strongest pack in California. People either feared me or bowed to me, and that was the way I liked it. No one dared look me in the eye unless I allowed it. No one questioned my command.
But it was stifling. I felt empty.
My spark. My Judith was gone.
I wanted to leave. I wanted to go back to the one place where her scent still lingered, where I could pretend she was in my arms again, digging her nails into me as she took my cock, moaning my name in that sexy, sultry voice.
"Alpha Declan," Maxwell called, snapping me back to the present. "If we proceed with the supply exchange, I believe both packs will benefit—"
"Fine," I cut him off. "We'll finalize the paperwork tomorrow. Beta Richard will handle the process."
Maxwell blinked, clearly surprised by how impatient I sounded. I stood before he could respond, straightening the cuffs of my shirt.
"It's late," I said. "I'll be heading back tonight."
The man frowned. "It's raining. You should stay the night, Alpha Montgomery. We can prepare a guest suite for you—"
"No." I said gruffly. Two of the guards we came with immediately followed as I made my way to the door.
I didn't stay overnight anywhere since my father died on a business trip he never came back from. I'd made a promise to my mother that no matter how late or how far I traveled, I would always return home. I wouldn't give her and Leila another reason to mourn.
"The Alpha has important matters to attend to back at the pack," Richard said, making up an excuse for me. He was diplomatic and always knew what to say to get others to do what he wanted.
"Of-of course," Alpha Maxwell stammered. "Safe travels."
Outside, the rain fell lightly as Richard and the guards accompanied me to my car.
"I'll drive you, Alpha," Sam, one of my guards, said. Normally, my driver, Peter, would be behind the wheel, but his wife had gone into labor earlier this week, and I'd insisted he take leave to be with her.
I shook my head. "I'll drive. You can follow along. Jackson, stay with Richard. I don't trust Maxwell and his cronies, so make sure Richard stays safe."
"Yes, Alpha," Jackson, the second guard, replied, bowing his head.
"Aww, is the big bad Alpha worried about me?" Richard grinned, and I shoved him aside jokingly, slipping into the car.
"I love you too," Richard said, blowing me a kiss. I held up my middle finger at him, then turned on the engine.
It was just me and my memories tonight.
"I can feel her", Ash hummed as I drove down the street, with Sam following closer behind in another car.
"You can't. She's gone, Ash."Yes, sometimes I'd got that phantom feeling that she was around, but she wasn't. It was just my mind playing tricks. Ash hadn't forgiven me for letting Judith go, and frankly, I hadn't forgiven myself either.
It was so long ago. I was married to Sabrina, and I had my precious daughter, Natalia. My chest warmed at the thought of Natalia, and I made a mental note to pick up a doll for her when I got back to my pack. She was my perfect little girl, and I loved her to the bones.
Her mother, however, was...
"A witch", Ash spat, spitefully. He wasn't a fan of Sabrina, and that was severely understating what he felt for her particularly after that incident last year. He loved Natalia because she was my pup, but Sabrina had been very difficult lately. Her father had pushed for our engagement because having a Luna would help the people feel good about me being Alpha. I'd been too swallowed up in grief over losing Dad and anger that Judith's father had murdered him. I'd simply let it happen.
And look where that got us.
I drove faster down the road, eager to be back in my pack. My mind betrayed me again, replaying flashes of Judith beneath me, around me.
Goddess, I would give anything to hear her say my name again. Suddenly, a child ran onto the road, reaching to pick something.
"Shit!"
I slammed the brakes. The tires screeched as the car jolted to a violent stop mere inches from a little boy.
My pulse hammered loudly in my ears. He stared back at me through the windshield, and Ash roared in my head.
"Mine!"
I frowned. "Wait, what?"
"Mine!"
"Ash, if this is a joke, it's not fucking funny. We almost hit that poor boy." I pushed the door open to check if the kid was alright. I'd barely opened it when a woman ran toward him, fell on her knees, clutching the boy.
She was obviously his mother. Her silhouette looked oddly familiar.
I stepped out of the car, preparing to apologize, when the scent of daisies filled my nose. The words died on my tongue.
I would know that body, that hair, that scent that had haunted me every night for six long years.
Ash growled, repeating the word "Mine" over and over in my head.
My Judith.
"Judith?"
But it was the boy who made my entire world stop spinning.
He had my dark eyes. My features. And running through his midnight-black hair was a distinctive silver streak—the same mark all Montgomery heirs carried.
"Our son" Ash snarled, his voice thick with rage and possession. She had my son and didn't fucking tell me.
My gaze shifted from the boy to Judith, who was staring up at me with wide, terrified eyes.
Six years of abandonment. Six years of rage and grief. Six years of believing she was gone from my life forever.
And here she was.
With my child.
"Hello, Declan," she whispered, pulling the boy closer.
The rain pounded harder against the pavement. My fists clenched at my sides as Ash surged forward, demanding control, demanding answers, demanding everything.
"Judith," I said, my voice low and dangerous. "What the fuck is this?"
The boy—my son, I realized with a shock that reverberated through my entire being—looked up at me with those familiar dark eyes, holding a copper coin in his small hand.
Judith's face had gone completely white.
And I knew, in that moment, that everything was about to change.
Again.