Page 8 of His Treasured Mate

I hated missing out on time with the guys, especially when I knew they were all together.

Clay, Wyatt, Emmett, Austin, James, and I had been running together since we were pups. Along the way we'd earned the title the Six Pack. Being Alpha sometimes made it hard to trust people. I had to decipher if someone was trying to get close to me for a better pack position or because they really wanted to know me—the real me, not the Alpha me.

When it came to these guys, I knew I never had to worry about where I stood. As we got older, I’d come to rely on them even more. If anything, I had to keep them in their places because we had the sort of brotherhood that often overruled pack position, even mine. That meant they got away with shit no one else ever could.

Finding my mate at a young age and before I'd actually assumed the role of Alpha had made things easier too. Lily and I had been so young, and it certainly hadn't been an easy mating.

I rubbed the ache in my chest that only she could fill.

My Slugger.

She had no idea what she did to me or the lengths I would go to not only protect her, but to ensure her happiness.

We'd lost our first pregnancy. It had been a miscarriage pretty early on, but I'd seen the light inside her dim that day. There had been a part of me that had never wanted to put her through that again, but I'd also promised myself I'd give this woman anything she wanted that was within my power to do so.

Now, here she was, pregnant with my fifth child—four girls. That's what she'd given me. Four daughters. I adored each and every one of them and couldn't imagine life without them.

Cammie was headstrong and tough. She wanted to know and learn everything she could about our Pack. She was a natural leader, so much so it scared me at times.

Alphas weren't supposed to be female. It was tradition and the way of the Pack. Yet, we knew of at least one Alpha who was grooming his daughter to someday take over as Alpha. At first, I had thought Landon of the British Columbia Pack was insane for announcing such a thing. Most she-wolves weren't Alphas, and she could be challenged not just by another she-wolf but by any male someday for her Pack position.

I shuddered at the thought.

It wasn't that I didn't think Cammie could be strong enough to fight, or that she was incapable of leading, it was just that I didn't want to have to put her in that position. Still, I had no heir.

The Alaskan wolves have a belief that a Begay wolf will always reign over their people. So when they had no male heir, the last surviving Begay she-wolf took a mate who was elevated to Alpha.

Could I really do that? Name a potential outside wolf as my heir when Cammie someday takes a mate?

I wasn't sure. But for the moment there was still hope.

While Lily was insisting on this being her final pregnancy, we still didn't know if it was another girl or the son my Pack longed to see.

That was the other thing. Landon's Pack was very small and his wolves were loyal to his wishes. But my Pack was large and there were those who would fight against an Alpha she-wolf.

I pushed all those thoughts away. My father had six daughters before I was born. I guess you could say we were blessed in abundance to be surrounded by beautiful women. It had worked out for him, and I had to believe it was all going to work out for me too.

Having left the guys, I drove over to the Alpha house. Lily and I still preferred to live at our house away from the hub of Collier Pack, so I was happy for my parents to continue living there, though I did maintain an office there.

I had many memories of the craziness that ensued at the Alpha house. People would stop in at all hours of the day with some emergency or another. My dad was a saint for tolerating it. I wanted a better life for my girls. Not living there gave us just enough of a buffer to have that.

My Pack knew my office hours, and I made sure to be available and accessible during that time even if I didn't always keep them at the office. It was important for me to be seen around Collier too. I was all for being there for my wolves. They were my responsibility, and I took that very seriously. But at the end of the day, a quiet night at home with my ladies was what I truly craved.

Lily and I didn't do things exactly the way my parents did, and we took our fair share of hits over things because everyone had an opinion on how things should be, but over the years we'd found that happy medium that worked for us. Just like Lily balanced my wolf, together we balanced the demands of family and our Pack.

I grinned thinking about it. At one time I'd questioned whether Lily could handle any of it. Being a Pack Mother carried its own demands, but I knew now there was no one better for the position than my mate. She was everything Collier Pack didn't know we needed.

“What are you grinning at?” Luke asked me as I jogged up the stairs into the house after parking my truck.

Luke Larken, my Beta and one of my closest friends. He wasn't one of the Six Pack, those guys were more like brothers to me, but Luke had become a strong ally and confidant over the years. As former Alpha of the disbanded Larken Pack, he truly understood the pressures of being Alpha and what I needed most from him.

“Just thinking about Lily,” I confessed.

He shook his head and smiled. “Does it ever stop feeling like that?”

“God, I hope not. And I know you understand. I see the way you still look at Sydney.”

Sydney Parker had been my best friend and love of my life at one point in time, but what I'd felt for her paled in comparison to my feelings for my mate. I couldn't be happier that she'd found her true mate in Luke.