The Alpha's Happiness

Chapter 2:

Chapter Two:

4 Years Later

It was South Carolina, and it was June, the temperatures soaring much like the child on the swing. The air pushed against her with every upward stroke, demanding effort, in return, offering freedom. The wind whistled past her as she raced back towards the ground. Her delighted shrieks reached all the way to the street, and a woman passing by stopped to watch. The child's arms swung wildly from the chains of the swing, her legs pumped in her journey to touch the sky, hair the same shade her mother's had been flying out behind her. The woman was there to watch the child's arm slip for just one second. Watched her mouth gape open in shock, as she desperately fumbled for the chain. The woman was running across the lawn just as the girl righted herself. She slowed the swing, and the woman turned back to the street, continuing her walk.

............

2 Years Later

Lainey strolled down the street. The same street she had walked every day, rain or shine, for the past six years. As she passed it, she glanced at the whitewashed two story house. The same house she had glanced at once a day, seven days a week. Four weeks a month. Twelve months a year. For six years.

She knew to some, this might seem bizarre. A grown woman watching a child that wasn't hers grow up. Watching a father raise his daughter the best he could even while his heart was shattered. But to other werewolves, this was what being a mate entailed. You were always there for them. Always watching their back, even if, like Xander, they never knew you existed.

She had kept tabs on both the girl and her father. Of course, moving shortly after them had aided her cause. She had watched from a distance as they settled into the pack, the same pack she was already a member of. Watched his rise to Beta as rouges cut down members of the pack, starting with the higher ups. Been present as he was presented to the pack as the reigning alpha, the previous one cold, dead, and buried after an attack. She had watched him ascend to the podium, and give his speech, and though his eyes looked hard, she could see the pain that they were trying to hide. The pain that had been present since her death. She had never once spoken to him, never met his eye.

.........

Xander watched her walk past the house each day. Perhaps not in the beginning, when thoughts of Natalie were constant, but recently, he had taken to watching, perhaps gawking, the woman as she passed. It was because of this that he just managed to see, one day, before she was lost around a corner, as a man walked up to her. She was lost from view before he could see the man's intent.

..........

Lainey had tried to scream as soon as the man grabbed her. Terror flooded her brain as he held a knife to her throat. His scent invaded her nostrils, and she realized that it was a rogue who held her against her will, infinitely harder to escape than a human.

"Hold nice and still, and this won't hurt," said her attacker, his stubble rubbing against her cheek, his breath unpleasantly moist against her ear. This was when she began to truly struggle. The man reached for the buckle on her jeans, and her training kicked in. She kneed him in the crotch, before throwing an elbow in the direction of his face, but he wouldn't go down. She heard his nose break with a crunch, but he only reached one hand to align it before he tightened his grip. He wrestled down her pants, and that was when she began to sob. She punched and kicked, desperate to escape his grip. Mortification and insufficiency clawed at her. She screamed at the pain as her virginity was stolen from her.

Abruptly, she felt his weight disappear. She heard a sickening crack and thump, though she didn't recognize it as her attacker falling to the ground, dead, neck broken. She was raised from the ground with a jerk, the nausea building inside her, pepper invading her senses. She relaxed instantly, drifting away on the sea of terror and embarrassment, knowing it was her mate that held her.