Page 22 of His Treasured Mate

“And I'm happy to report that your house is virtually untouched,” Wyatt assured us.

“Oh, thank God,” I blurted out without meaning to.

Thomas hugged me. “That's certainly a relief. Do we have a count on how many people are being displaced by this storm?”

“Five families so far,” Luke said.

“That's it?” I couldn't even believe it.

“So far,” he reiterated.

“The country club has been cleared. No building damage, so we're instructing people in need to head there now. No one wants to stay below ground any longer than is absolutely necessary,” Sydney informed us.

“I should head over there to assist and see what individual needs we can meet,” I said.

Thomas grinned and kissed me. “Good idea. We'll swing by there when we're ready for a break.”

“Okay.”

I turned to leave but Syd yelled after me.

“Wait up, Lil. I'm coming with you.”

Thomas

Chapter 6

I had only ever loved two women in my life. Seeing them walking away together, laughing and loving each other, made my heart swell.

Of course, it wasn’t the same. I had never loved Sydney the way I love Lily, but she had also been one of my closest friends, and I would have hated to lose that.

Lily was the most amazing woman in the world, in my opinion, and instead of pushing Sydney out of my life, she’d befriended her and brought her even closer to our inner circle.

“Hey, are we doing this or what?” Luke asked, but I caught him staring after our girls, too.

“What’s needed?”

“There’s a tree down across Thomas Street. Sounds like its got your name all over it. Think you remember how to handle a chainsaw, Alpha?”

I rolled my eyes. “That was terrible, even for you.”

He smirked and shrugged.

I grabbed the chainsaw he offered me and walked over to Thomas Street to get started on the tree. There were four other men that in the time we took to say goodbye to our mates, had already began working on it.

I couldn’t have been prouder, but Luke had issued a challenge to my manhood that I had to respond to anyway.

“You guys better save me a cut on this one.”

They all stopped and stared back at me with wide eyes.

“We’ve got this, Alpha,” one man said.

“I know you do, but Luke will never let me live it down if I don’t do something.”

So they gave me the last cut of the tree and had the pieces removed before I could even set the chainsaw down to help.

I gave Luke a sheepish look and shrugged.