The Alpha's Happiness

Chapter 4:

Chapter 4:

Hey lovely readers, here's the chap...

Song for the chap is Ordinary Day by Vanessa Carlton....seriously check it out

 He grabbed her wrist and she began to struggle. Pulled into the dark alley. A hand stroked her face. His face loomed before her eyes as she begged him to have pity before a hand covered her mouth. She choked on the smell that exuded from him before the true pain began.

Lainey woke from her nightmare as the car hit yet another bump. Her bladder protested. She stretched out in the passenger seat and ignored the look of concern Xander shot at her. She felt a tug on the sleeve of her shirt and turned so that she could clearly see the girl who occupied the booster in the backseat. 

        "Are you alright?" questioned the seven year old replica of her mother. 

        "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?" Lainey returned, beginning to feel self concious of her ratted hair and the baggy men's clothing she was wearing despite knowing the girl probalby hadn't noticed.

        "You screamed." Averyn informed her, looking very concerned and altogether too grown up for her young age though her voice still contained the innocence of childhood.

        "Oh, um, well" she began, trying to find a way to explain something that no little girl should know about.

        Xander obviously sensed her discomfort, and he cut his daughter off with a stern "Averyn that's enough," and a look shot through the rearview mirror.

         "But daddy.." she began to protest, and was cut off again with an even sterner look and telling of her name. Lainey felt bad that the little girl had been yelled at on her behalf, though she had no desire to explain her situation to the seven year old. 

        "Are you alright?" the question came at her again, though this time it was Xander who asked it, and in a voice quiet enough not to disturb the pouting girl in the backseat. At her nod he stretched his hand out over the console and rested it there, after grabbing her hand in his.

His thumb massaged the outside of her hand, and the tingles she had come to associate with his touch raced down her hand through her arm and settled in her heart. He had returned his eyes to the road already, and after mere seconds of staring shamelessly at him, she turned her head and gazed out her window, watching North Carolina as it flashed past, final destination, her hometown in Virginia. Her hand still secured within his much larger one, she thought back to how she had ended up in the car with Xander and his daughter.

......

She had been seated at the counter, watching Xander as he cooked dinner, knowing she wasn't going to be able to force anything down her throat and into her nausea ridden stomach. The scent of grilled cheese hit her, and she rushed to the bathroom, all of the yogurt parfait she had eaten for breakfast reappearing. Xander appeared in the doorway, Averyn presumably already seated, chowing down on the culprit of her sickness. He knelt down beside her and with one hand scooped her hair back, the other running small circles on her lower back.

"Oh darlin'," he whispered. She wanted to curl up inside of him. Forget the pain in her abdomen, the tears constantly present just behind her eyelids. Instead she leaned into him, and felt his arms automatically, reflexively,  circle her, and for once she felt that she belonged. For the first time in forever she was safe, protected, and her wolf perked up inside of her. Mate, she whispered.

It was when she opened her eyes and they caught on the toilet in front of her that she remembered that they were on the bathroom floor, and his daughter was sitting in the other room eating a grilled cheese sandwich.