The Alpha's Desire 4 by Willow Brooks

newfound powers I couldn’t control. She’d treated me as an equal, made me as important as family would, from the second she’d said hello and introduced herself. Life was so unfair sometimes, but I had to pull it together and remain grateful for Lex. Right now, I had him by my side, looking over at me with love, pure and simple, yet intense, in his sparkling eyes.
     
    “I miss them, too,” Lex said, closing the space between our bucket seats to place a light but lingering kiss on my cheek.
     
    The skin tingled after his lips left, making my heart skip a beat, my breath catch from such a brief encounter. It was a wonder my body survived sex with him. While I’d never had a heart attack or stroke, I’d come close to it; at least it felt that way, a few times in the throes of orgasm. As exhausted as he left me, a puddle of muscle and bones after, it was also a wonder I ever recovered to have him again. Yet, here I sat, already wanting him. The tingle had gone straight from my heart, bee-lining to that wet spot between my thighs.
     
    “Everything okay, back there?” Nira asked, seated in the passenger seat this trip.
     
    “Yes. Just thinking of those we’ve lost,” I offered, my voice catching on a lingering sob as my cheeks heated.
     
    My mix of emotions swirled like a storm in my brain. Following that analogy, I figured I could just let myself be swept away by the tornado, clearing my thoughts to take in all the good that should come my way now. I had the man of my dreams by my side, and I was traveling to meet family, ones who could teach me all about the power that moved at the moment like gale force winds through my core.
     
    “You must, for them, find a sense of comfort and happiness in this life. Make the most of the time they’ve bought you with the sacrifice their lives. That is the best way you can honor them. Vivian and Riker loved what they did, were proud of who they were, and they took their roles, their missions, seriously, enough so to lay down their lives for it,” Nira said, her voice deep for a woman’s, and yet gentle and smooth.
     
    “I’m going to miss you, too,” I said to her as another vampire started the SUV and began our short trek.
     
    “As I will, you, but I’ve enjoyed our time together. Well, minus all the healing and the rescue, but still, you know what I mean. I appreciate the fact that I got to meet you at all. Of course, it would have been nice for it to have been under better circumstances, but that is not how my life works; apologies if I sound calloused.”
     
    “You don’t at all. I get it now. Or, at least I’m starting to.”
     
    As the business district gave way to more rural roads, the buildings replaced by tree-lined farmland, I focused on how much everything was right now, the way it should be as far as Lex and I went. We were together, and about to start our future as a couple. I was a wolf’s mate, soon to be approved, sanctioned... whatever you would call it by the Royals themselves. We’d get their blessing to be together, and they’d test and train the powers that had emerged in me due to our love.
     
    An exciting time, I reminded myself as I pulled deep breaths into my stomach, letting them out slow and steady, unable to wipe the silly grin I had going again, one from ear to ear, that had begun to make my mouth ache almost immediately; it was that big. I hardly cared as the happy came, and left no room for all the other junk. The smile was such a far cry from the tense, flat line of worry it had been holding for days. The muscles would just have to adjust. I decided, with gusto, to claim this joy for my own, and to let nothing get in its way.
     
    I looked at Lex again, and he returned my over-exaggerated smile. The sparkle in his eyes, those golden flecks in the amber when he was in human form, brought a gleam of tears to mine. Seemed I couldn’t stop the things, no matter what my emotions were this morning. I swiped across my cheeks