The She-Wolf Alpha (Book 1 She-Wolf Series)
Chapter 28

The rest of the day flew by in a blur. The one highlight being that I had to argue with the security crew to leave surveillance cameras on the outside of the home only. All of the men felt it would be in the interest of my safety to keep every inch of the house on camera, but I could not cope with a complete lack of privacy.

Even Emerick pushed back on my desire to keep my home a home and not some sort of prison or fortress. I tried to remind myself that he was just worried about my safety and to not feel betrayed that he didn’t have my back. The women all supported me as I expected and pointed out that I was a powerful werewolf. The only male on my side was Michael, once again proving to me that I had made the right decision in my beta. In the end, I firmly reminded them who their alpha was and each backed off immediately.

As evening approached, the group started to disperse. The last left were myself, my mother, and Emerick. I was now faced with the awkwardness of navigating whether I wanted my boyfriend to spend the night with my mom and I in our new home. The obvious answer to me was no, but I had already hurt his feelings quite a bit over the last 24 hours. I didn’t want to be the one to push him away again.

While I struggled with my internal debate, I heard my mom speak up, “Emerick, you and I haven’t really gotten much of a chance to know one another. I brought a bottle of wine. Why don’t we all make ourselves comfortable with a glass on the back porch?”

“Thank you for the offer Mrs. McClain,” he began. “But I was actually going to head home to give you and Sam some alone time. I look forward to seeing you another time.”

My head whipped around to stare at him, dumbfounded. It was one thing for me not to want him to spend the night, but I was surprised he turned down an offer from my mom to get to know her. I would’ve thought the man who had offered to marry me the day before would want to win her over as quickly as possible.

“Of course,” my mom conceded. “It has been a long day. Another time.”

Emerick smiled and gave her a nod as he moved towards the door.

“I’ll walk you out,” I called after him and hurried to catch up.

Outside, I turned to him and saw he looked less than pleased.

“What was that?” I asked.

“What?” he answered with a question.

“My mom was trying to spend time with you. Get to know you. You completely shut her down,” I said, exasperated. “Now you don’t even seem happy to be one on one with me despite us hardly having the chance to talk today. What’s the deal?”

“I guess I’m just tired,” he shrugged, clearly trying to shut me out.

“Don’t do that,” I said. “If you have something you’re upset about, just say it.”

“Look, Sam,” he snapped. “Clearly you wanted time away from me or you wouldn’t have pushed the timeline on moving everything to your house.”

“That’s not true,” I said, quietly. “I just wanted some support.”

“And my support wasn’t enough,” he responded after a moment.

“Honestly, Em? No, it wasn’t,” I admitted. “I still felt like an outsider in a room of strangers. I love you, but you were a stranger a week ago. I wanted something - someone - familiar.”

He stayed quiet and I could tell he was looking for a way to respond.

“You can’t be my entire world,” I finally filled the silence for him. “I have a family, a son, and an entire pack that rely on me as much as I rely on them. If you need to be the center of my universe, I’m sorry I can’t give you that.”

“I’m not asking to be your whole world,” he said, raising his voice slightly. “But I want to be at least a part of it. You have been completely shutting me out.”

“I shut you out because your friend outed you as a liar,” I let venom seep into my voice. It was my turn to be pissed. “Then the minute I let you back in you were asking me to marry you, and you’ve been cold to me since I told you no. How the fuck is that fair?”

He threw up his hands.

“I didn’t lie, Sam!” he shouted. “I was trying to fix it. I don’t know what I’m doing. I just don’t want to lose you.”

“Do. Not. Yell. At. Me.” I ground out. “A good first step would’ve been getting to know my family. Clearly you don’t have any interest in that, so just go. Maybe we can discuss this when you’ve had a good night’s sleep. I don’t have the energy to deal with you acting like a child.”

I spun on my heel. I heard Emerick call after me, but I continued up the steps and slammed the door closed behind me. Once inside I took a deep breath before meeting my mom’s gaze.

“What in the world was that?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Let’s go have that wine.”

I was floored at Emerick’s behavior, and I didn’t even have the energy to be sad about it. He had seemed so kind, caring, and mature just days before. He was the former beta for goodness sakes, and from what I knew, very good at his job. This seemed completely out of character and I wondered whether his feelings for me were genuine. I liked to believe they were and we were just having growing pains because we had fallen so hard so fast, but I knew this would be a difficult argument to come back from. Throwing Celeste in his face was unfair after I had chosen to forgive him for it.

I sighed. Of course this was my first relationship after Travis. The love of my life who could do no wrong. He and I rarely, if ever, raised our voices at each other in the more than a decade we had been together. That was why it had bothered me so much when Emerick had, over something so petty.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Mom finally asked after we had sat in silence for several minutes.

“I’m just confused Mom,” I told her. “I feel like since I turned down his proposal, Emerick has become a different man. A complete stranger.”

“Well, honey,” she started, “that would be a difficult thing to hear. Have you tried talking to him about what the future looks like for the two of you outside of mating immediately?”

“Sort of,” I admitted and my mother sighed. I knew she was probably right. I had shut out Emerick as much as he had shut me out. After a moment I said, “Travis would have never yelled at me like that.”

“Oh, Sam. Don’t do that,” my mom said sadly.

“What?” I asked.

“You can’t compare Travis,” she said and held up a hand when I tried to protest. “No man can compare to Travis because you put him on a pedestal the moment he passed. I’m not saying he wasn’t a great man and husband. He was, without a doubt. But he wasn’t perfect, Sammy. He may have not yelled at you, but it used to drive you crazy when he would give you the silent treatment rather than argue it out. So don’t measure Emerick against someone he doesn’t stand a chance at besting.”

I absorbed what she said. Travis and I had had a wonderful marriage, but every marriage had its hiccups. Maybe I did remember my life with him with rose colored glasses. I sighed and took another sip of wine.

Emerick

I peeled out of the Alpha Residence driveway and charged down the road, seeing red. I had no idea why I was so angry. I wasn’t even mad at Sam I decided. I was mad at myself.

She was right of course. I should’ve taken the opportunity to get to know her mom. I was acting like a pouty child because I hadn’t gotten to spend as much time with Sam as I had wanted today. It was frustration spilling over from her wanting to take things slower and me wanting to mate quickly so that I could stop sitting by while other men drooled over her. Asking her to make a lifelong decision just because I was jealous and scared was not the right move.

By the time I reached my house, my anger had mostly subsided and I just felt foolish. For lots of reasons. Mainly for thinking Celeste would have nothing to say about me being in a relationship. Her coming between Sam and I was where things had gone off the rails, but really I should have seen it coming. Celeste had always been a little jealous, but I had brushed it off as her not wanting to share my time, not that she had romantic feelings for me. I supposed both were true.

Either way, I had been wrong to string her along for all of these years blindly. In doing so, I had probably stopped her from replaceing a mate to spend her life with. She still had plenty of time, even by werewolf standards, but it was wrong of me to assume I wasn’t standing in the way of that. Not that I could reach out to apologize to her now without sending the wrong message.

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair as I stomped up to my doorway. When I got inside I immediately headed to the liquor cabinet to pour myself a glass of bourbon. I kicked off my boots and then made my way on to the back deck to slump down into one of the lounge chairs.

I wanted to call Sam and apologize, but I wasn’t sure she would answer and I didn’t want to come off as whiney and desperate. Or at least more so than I already had. What had I been thinking, proposing the day after Sam had found out I had originally planned to use her to be Luke’s beta? Fuck. How did I think that would play out? Honestly, I was lucky she hadn’t laughed me out of her life completely.

I sipped my drink, staring up at the stars and feeling the liquid burn a trail down my throat. It would take a lot of it to get me actually drunk, but I had a large bottle and at least 12 hours to kill. There was no way I was going to sleep after the way I had left things with Sam.

My phone ringing cut through the silence of the night. I dug it out of my pocket and answered immediately when I saw the caller ID.

“Sam? Hey, are you okay?” I asked.

“Hey, Em. Yeah everything is fine. Sort of. I just…. I didn’t like how we left things,” she said.

“I know. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me these last two days,” I told her. “You didn’t deserve the way I treated you.”

“No, I don’t think I did,” she agreed. “I’m sorry too though. I shouldn’t have thrown the Celeste thing in your face. We need to replace a way to move past all of this or…”

“Or this isn’t going to work,” I finished for her.

“Right.”

“I love you, Sam,” I told her, sincerely.

She sighed. “I love you too, Em. Which is why I want to work on it. It’s just hard to feel like I’m disappointing you by bringing my family here.”

“I don’t want you to feel that way,” I said quickly. “I acted like a jackass tonight, but I will make it up to you. And your mom. Whether that means I come over to make you two breakfast in the morning, or stay away for the week so that you have your space.”

She stayed quiet for a moment, contemplating.

“Breakfast sounds great,” she said, finally.

“Okay, babe. I’ll be there,” I said hopefully.

Once again there was a moment of silence before Sam asked, “French toast?”

“You want French toast?” I asked, amused.

“Fun fact, French toast is my favorite breakfast,” she said, very matter-of-fact.

“That is a fun fact,” I agreed. “French toast it is.”

“Yes!” she cheered and giggled. Then I heard her yawn.

“Alright, Sam,” I said. “I should probably let you get some sleep.”

“Okay,” she said, yawning again. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“I’ll see you in the morning, babe,” I said.

“Goodnight, Em. I love you,” she said, softly.

“I love you too. Always,” I told her before reluctantly hanging up the phone.

I sat in the peace of the evening for a while longer, sipping my whiskey and thinking about the amazing woman who had walked into my life. She was unlike anyone I had ever met. Sam was strong and independent while also being forgiving and compassionate. She knew what was important and always put her duties first.

I was coming to the realization that she and I were truly at different stages of life. While I had lived my adult life as a bachelor without any true responsibilities outside of being the pack’s beta, Sam had been a wife and mother while building her own business from the ground up.

I knew going forward, my outlook on her priorities would need to shift. Her choosing or needing time with her family was not her putting me second, and I could choose to be a part of that part of her life or I could see my way out of it altogether. It was not fair of me to make her feel like there was a choice in the first place. Especially after everything she had already forgiven me for in our brief relationship.

I could never measure up to Sam, and the beautiful thing was, she wasn’t asking me too. She loved me for who I was and just wanted me to support her. That realization was incredibly humbling.

I finished my drink and made my way to my bed. At least with things somewhat resolved, I had a chance at some sleep tonight. In the morning, I vowed to be the man Sam deserved.