The Alpha's Reluctant Mate Read online

  THE ALPHA’S RELUCTANT MATE

  (CLEAR RIDGE PACK)

  By C.J. Colton

  ****

  Copyright © 2020 by C.J. Colton

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  This book is intended for Adults (ages 18+) only. The contents may be offensive to some readers. It may contain graphic language, explicit sexual content, and adult situations. May contain scenes of unprotected sex. Please do not read this book if you are offended by content as mentioned above or if you are under the age of 18.

  The story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used factiously. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author. The cover uses licensed images and are shown for illustrative purposes only. Any person(s) that may be depicted on the cover are simply models.

  All products/brand names/trademarks mentioned are registered trademarks of their respective holders/companies.

  First Digital Edition, 2020

  Kindle Edition

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  Dedication

  To all my wonderful readers who love the Clear Ridge Pack as much as I do.

  Thank you for sticking with me and the alphas of the Clear Ridge Pack throughout the series. I hope their stories have brought you as much joy reading them as they have brought me, writing them.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Also by C.J. Colton

  CHAPTER ONE

  Marcus

  I closed the door of my truck and rolled my shoulder, trying to ease the knot that had been pulling tight across the wide of my upper back since midmorning. I grimaced when my neck clicked in protest. Or gratefulness…it was hard to tell when everything ached. It’d been a long day and I was done.

  Heading up the wide driveway, I skirted between the range of cars and trucks parked along it like the yard of an open-air theatre and slowed as I spotted the familiar figure leaning against the open hood of a dark green pick-up. Well-worn, grease-stained denim stretched over thick, long legs—one cocked at the knee against the bumper—before coming to a stop at the tapered waist. Above that, a black shirt clung tightly to the bent back I knew all too well, the muscles beneath it straining under the damp cotton as its owner grunted and fiddled with something in front of him.

  “Do you mind starting her up? The keys are in the ignition,” Ryland said by way of greeting as he straightened up and looked over his handiwork, shoving his rolled-up sleeves higher up his veined forearms as he did so. He then lifted a gloved hand and swiped at a wayward lock of black hair that looked in need of a pair of shears. When he dropped his large hand to rest it on his narrow hip, a dark greasy streak marked where the unruly lock of hair had just been.

  “Evening to you too,” I greeted back as I moved past him towards the driver’s door and slid into the seat. The engine of the old Dodge Ram purred for a minute before I switched her off at Ryland’s nod.

  I exited the truck and moved to Ryland’s side as he gave the newly replaced drive belt another once-over before closing the hood and walking over to his bench. The spanner and the pry bar clanged as he set them down on the bench’s scarred surface next to the old belt, and finally turned to face me.

  “Looks like it’s been busy,” I remarked as I surveyed the maze of vehicles parked strategically at the back of the four-bedroom bungalow where Ryland had set up shop. “Been a long day, huh?”

  Fine lines of exhaustion fanned out from the corners of his steel-gray eyes as he grinned at me. “You look like something the dog shit out too,” he answered with a chuckle as he tugged off his gloves and reached up to massage the back of his neck. Even with regular use of the thick, synthetic leather gloves, grease had stained the tip of his thick fingers, the roughened skin lined and abrasive from the pads of his fingers down to the palms of his skilled hands. His bicep flexed at his movement, the seams of his shirt straining against the muscle and it was all too easy to see the power radiating from the large shifter.

  “I heard there’s going to be another alpha mate bonding soon,” I said, keeping my tone and stance casual as I met Ryland’s eyes. I watched as the amused expression slowly slid off his tanned face and a look I knew all too well hardened the softness only a few were privy to.

  “Brevyn and Jayce,” Ryland said more than asked as he turned and started gathering his tools with brisk movements.

  I couldn’t miss the tightening of his jaw as I watched his sharp profile. “You’re not surprised,” I said, picking up the rest and following him into his workshop. I hung the tools up, automatically pairing each with its home like I’d done a thousand times before.

  “I’d have to be blind and lose my sense of smell to not have noticed. For a minute there though I did start to question if Brevyn had.” He moved to consult the list he had clipped to a clipboard and suspended from a nail sticking out of the side of the beam to his right.

  I leaned back against the counter and rested my palms on the edge as I watched Ryland go over his list, the pencil in his fingers tapping against the edge of the clipboard. “You thought Brevyn wouldn’t claim him?” I asked, surprised.

  “The moment he mentioned Jayce’s surprise visit to us, it was obvious there was more to the story of Jayce just being one of his former pack members,” Ryland explained as he moved over to the bright orange Mazda 2. “Usually calm and collected Brevyn was almost frothing at the mouth. If that wasn’t enough, for a while during every alpha meeting since, the moment one of us even mentioned the disobedient shifter, Brevyn made sure he wasn’t mentioned again for the rest of the meeting.”

  He glanced up, amusement dancing in his eyes. “It didn’t help his case that an alpha’s sense of smell is more acute than others, so with him scenting like a possessive mate nearly every time we met up, it was obvious it was only time. Only he himself didn’t seem to realize it.” He shrugged. “But I guess that’s stubborn alpha for you.”

  I snorted. Stubbornness in an alpha seemed to be a requisite. “I guess I was as clueless as he was. I didn’t even notice this mate bonding coming,” I admitted to Ryland as I digested his words and watched as he finished up with his checklist and flipped the switch to bring down the large workshop door. I pushed away from the counter and followed him out the door at the side of the large garage.

  Ryland snorted as we trekked into the mudroom. “The mate bonding I’m more surprised with is Soren and Jack’s. Don’t think anyone saw that one coming,” he said as he stripped off his shirt with deft movements of his fingers and balled it up before tossing it into the hamper against the far wall without looking. It landed neatly on top of the rest of
the dirty laundry. “They’re giving every other bonding a run for their money with how happy they are though.”

  “I think it was coming far longer than any of us suspected,” I mused, the corner of my mouth tipping up at the memory of Jack at the daycare luncheon, asking me about Soren having to mate bond and soon.

  Even then I hadn’t suspected his interest had been more than pure curiosity. I’d had to explain to the younger shifter that the alphas of the pack had come to an agreement to mate for the future of the pack in a bid to replenish our dwindling numbers. It was their hope that with greater numbers we would be giving the future of the pack a fighting chance of survival. It was hard enough trying to ask the pack members to reproduce with the high birth mortality rates that plagued our kind.

  From what Ryland had told me that long ago night the decision was made, they couldn’t ask their pack members to take that chance when they wouldn’t themselves. Above all else, the future of the pack had to come first.

  The memory of that conversation with Ryland and the one that had followed it wiped away my lopsided grin and compressed my lips into a tight line like it always did when I recalled it. Frustration, yearning and painful disappointment crashed through me, barely tempered with time.

  “Really?” Ryland asked, unaware of the tangle of emotions rolling through me. He stopped in front of the sink and turned on the faucet. Grabbing the sliver of soap—the creaminess of it no longer white but marbled dark—he started working it up into a lather between his work-roughened hands. “Well, it just goes to show you really never do know what’s happening in homes other than your own.”

  The comment sounded innocuous but it hit a chord with me and I couldn’t really say anything back.

  Unperturbed by my silence, Ryland smoothed the thick lather up his strong, wiry forearms, working it over the smattering of dark hair there before dropping the soap back into the dish and pushing his arms under the spray of water. With quick movements he rinsed off the soap and the water swirling around the bottom of the sink began running clear in seconds.

  I reached for the hand towel at my side and offered it out to him as he bent his head into the water cupped between his hands and scrubbed at his face before turning off the faucet.

  “Thanks.” He took the proffered towel and made quick work of drying off. “I could do with a cold drink, you?” Ryland asked as he rehung the towel and toed off his work boots before heading into the house.

  I followed suit, closing the door behind us as I headed in after him. “Sounds good,” I said as we headed for the kitchen. What was left of the late afternoon sunlight flooded in through the line of windows above the counter on the west wall, bouncing off the white walls and reflecting off the polished hardwood floors that matched the trim around the windows and doors.

  The room was warm and homely, calling for rambunctious weekend family brunches at the island with its upholstered stools, and loud boisterous family dinners at the large walnut dining table with its long bench on one side.

  The French doors of the fridge closed with a muted thump and I turned to see Ryland uncapping each beer with the other before handing me one. I took the offered beer with a nod of thanks and lifted it up for a long drink, my parched mouth already started to salivate for the cold, thick taste of hops. The bottle in my hand stopped before it reached my lips and I had trouble swallowing past my dry throat.

  The thick column of Ryland’s throat bobbed as he took a long swallow of his beer. His dark hair, damp from the water he’d splashed over his face, curled along his tanned neck, stroking his skin and making my fingers itch to reach out and trace the dark whorls, feel the differences in texture. I steadfastly kept my eyes above the sharp planes of his collarbone, knowing venturing them any lower would tear away the rest of the unaffected façade I’d made a career of wearing.

  My tongue felt dry and heavy in my mouth and no longer interested in the beer pooling condensation in my grip. Instead, it craved the taste of salt and damp skin; that hint of spice that deepened when his gray eyes flared dark and knowing—like they did now.

  I cleared my throat and made myself take a drink from the warming bottle in my hand. Somehow I managed not to choke on my mouthful as I swallowed with what felt like a rusty throat. I bit back the urge to clear my throat as Ryland leaned back against the island and watched me with an amused look. His eyes remained more charcoal than steel.

  “So that means all the alphas have found their mates,” Ryland said as he continued to watch me.

  My fingers tightened on the bottle I still held as tension filled me. I didn’t say anything in response. I knew what was coming.

  “It looks like I’m the last one.”

  “It’s time, Ryland.” My words were matter of fact and calm. At odds with the emotions roiling inside of me like a storm that hadn’t been able to subside in nearly three years. “It’s time to stop putting it off.”

  I could see the mirror of those emotions swirling behind Ryland’s questioning expression. “You’re finally going to agree to it then?” Hope flared bright and fierce, and I hated myself at that moment like I had every other time I’d had to disappoint him.

  My heart twisted and my stomach clenched as every other irrational part of me clawed at my next words. I wanted my voice to be emotionless and hard when it came out—like it was more times than not when I spoke the words. Instead it came out shamefully pleading. “You know it’s not possible. It can’t happen.”

  I watched, my lungs squeezing tight and my chest twisting painfully, as pain and disappointment flared bright in his gray eyes and then snuffed out like the hope he always held before I knifed it every time.

  Body tense and unmoving when everything in me wanted to stupidly surge forward and provide comfort for the pain I had caused, I watched as his mouth flatten into a hard, tight line.

  His gray eyes narrowed as he set his bottle down on the countertop, the softened sound of glass meeting granite more ominous than if he had slammed it down. “It could if you’d just pull your head out of your ass and take off whatever fucked up sense of obligation you keep wearing as armor.”

  My growl of warning rumbled out before I could call it back in. I set my own barely-touched bottle down on the countertop with a thump, not bothering to temper the sharp sound. I was pissed. “That’s not what it is and you know it.”

  A black brow cocked up at my words. “From where I’m standing that’s exactly what it is.”

  For such a laid back guy, he sure knew how to strike fast and hard. I felt the change come over me as anger surged up white-hot. Why the fuck couldn’t he see I was doing this for his own good? Every decision I had made, everything I had done, had been for him. It had always been for him.

  The edge of my vision glowed, the details in the room sharpening as I took in the shifter in front of me. Wide chest, tanned, smooth and unmarked, heaved from his sharp, angry intakes of breath. Between the two flat disks of his nipples a soft pelt of dark hair stretched and curled, fingering the edge of the small mole next to his right nipple as it ran down his hard stomach, bisecting the taut muscles in his abs and disappearing into the waistband of his jeans.

  Power radiated from every pore of his body naturally as though it was his birthright. The scents of anger, need and disappointment hung sharply in the air, thick and almost heady in its combination.

  “Fuck this,” Ryland growled. “If we’re going to have at this again, I want to have my shower first at least. We can tear into each other after.”

  I snarled as he reigned back in his anger and flicked me a look of impatience. Dismissing me and what was unfolding, he turned his back and exited the room, leaving me seething.

  His voice, down the hall and clearly impatient called. “You coming?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Ryland

  I was fucking pissed.

  I stalked down the hall, through the large bedroom and past the king sized bed I’d spread Marcus over more times than either of us coul
d count—not to mention all the other surface areas. If someone were to shine a UV light in here it’d look like a serial killer had had one hell of a party…multiple times. I ignored the small pile of freshly laundered and folded t-shirts on the edge of the dresser waiting to be hidden away in one of the mahogany drawers, the scent of pine under-laid with the soft floral scent of dryer sheets and the sharper scent of oil paint.

  If I buried my face in one of the pillows propped up against the hand-carved headboard it’d smell like the shifter angrily stalking after me. The thought caused me to go from pissed and frustrated to pissed, frustrated and horny.

  I knew what Marcus had intended when he’d greeted me with that line about Brevyn and Jayce’s mate bonding, and the knowledge made my teeth clench.

  Refusing to follow that train of thought when I knew I’d reach that particular station soon enough, I moved through my walk-in and out into the adjoining bathroom. The tiles were cold beneath my feet but I barely felt it as I reached past the glass doors of my shower and turned on the water. The spray of water came out hard and cold, and I shucked off my jeans and walked in without waiting for the temperature to heat up. When it did, it didn’t take long.

  Closing my eyes, I lifted my face up into the spray and let the water work its magic. Warm water jetted down on me with perfect pressure and like the grease and dirt that I’d scrubbed off my hands and arms earlier, the stress and tiredness of the day flowed down the drain with the swirling water. The anger and desire, however, stayed, strumming thickly through my blood.

  Not more than a minute passed when I felt cool air at my back and then the shower door was closing with a soft thud. I pushed my hands through my mop of soaking hair, dragging it back and opened my hands as I reached for the soap dish.