Page 45 of The Alpha’s Chosen Mate

The pack meanders towards the tree line, but Harrison hesitates with his arms locked around me in an embrace and his nose hovering over my mark.

He may not want to leave me behind, but he has a job to do. A duty to fulfill. A tradition to uphold.

I reach behind me to run my fingers through his slightly too long hair. “Go. Run.” My lips meet his in a quick, teasing kiss laced with the promise of more fun later. “Lead our pack like you’re meant to.”

Harrison growls. “I love when you call it ‘our pack.’” He dives forward, planting a much deeper kiss on my lips than the one I gave him, before he backs away towards the trees, eyes never leaving mine. “I won’t be gone long,” he promises.

And then, before I can respond, he shifts into his lycan and runs into the trees ahead of the pack, leading them on their first run with him as their alpha.

As pack members pass me, they offer their congratulations on both becoming the luna and on my pregnancy. I stroke my stomach—something that’s becoming a habit even without a bump—and thank them for their kind words, when I’m ambushed with a hug from behind.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant too?” Stephanie squeals as she twists me side to side in excitement. “Our babies will be so close, just like Brad and Harrison!”

“Like a future alpha and future beta should be.” I spin to face her as she releases me. “Sorry we kept it from you.”

“You should have at least told me.” Felix crosses his arms as he approaches us.

“You?” Stephanie wrinkles her nose. “I’m her best friend. You’re just her gamma.” She tries to say the words like an insult, but she laughs during the last part of her sentence, and there’s no malice behind it.

Felix ignores Stephanie’s fake slight. “I can protect you better if I know you can’t shift.”

“You two should go join the run.” I compose my laughter as I nod towards the forest. “Especially you, Felix. It’s your first official night as the gamma, and it’s tradition.”

“I have very specific orders from my alpha to guard my luna.”

“What if I give you very specific orders to ignore your alpha?”

He smiles, breaking his always-serious exterior. “Then I’d have to listen to my luna. But you’re not going to tell me to ignore him, are you?”

“Not today. Today, I’ll let him think he’s the one in charge.”

“Even though we all know that’s absolutely not true.” Stephanie’s eyes—always on alert and scanning for danger—flick behind me, tracking movement. She frowns. “What is he doing?”

I follow her gaze to find Harrison’s lycan sprinting on all fours across the grounds towards us.

Towards me.

He lets out a low warning growl as his steps slow, and the others back away, giving him space. When he reaches me, he rises to his full height, and I have to tilt my chin to gaze up into his dark-brown eyes that still hold all the love and warmth that Harrison always looks at me with. They draw my wolf forward, and she rubs her body against the confines of my mind, practically vibrating with her appreciation of our mate.

“Run with me,” Harrison says in the mindlink.

“I can’t.”

Even if I wanted to, I can’t. I can’t shift while pregnant because he’s not my true mate.

His lycan makes a noise that I can only describe as a laugh. He steps closer to me. Before I can ask what he’s doing, he sweeps me into his arms and cradles me to his chest. Then he sprints back into the cover of the forest to run with his pack.

While a small, almost minuscule part of me is intimidated by the massive beast that carries me through the forest, a larger, more prominent part feels safe and loved when in the presence of Harrison’s lycan. Because he’ll never use his power, his strength, his dominance against me the way others have. Instead, he’ll use it to protect me. To love me. To make sure I never feel weak again.

And that’s all I’ve ever wanted.