Page 44 of Targeted By Fate
He chuckled.
“Please tell me everyone’s all right.” My hand went to my belly.
“Our baby is fine. And we’re all fine. But Cassian’s mate, Asher—his men—they’re gone. They will never harm you again.”
“Please tell me you tore his flesh from his body.”
“I didn’t have time. I had to rescue you instead.” He tapped my nose. “I shot him.”
“That’ll do,” I whispered. “That’ll do. Please hold me. I need to know this is not a dream and I’m really here.”
He took me in his arms and promised me that everything would be okay.
I was home.
21
BOAZ
Alpha was on vacation, something I couldn’t recall him doing previously, and I was the temporary head of the pack.
As expected it was a lot of paperwork, negotiations, and handling rivalries from other packs. But I made sure to get out with Josh and my men and crack some heads and read the riot act to pack members.
Keane’s bump wasn’t huge yet, but he had blossomed in recent weeks. As he worked from home, he reasoned he wouldn’t need to take paternity leave until just before the baby came.
We’d gone back and forth on whether he would work after the birth, and he’d agreed to cut back on his clients and work part-time, only doing the remote tasks. Rhodes and Maynard said we’d both be exhausted and to take as much time off as possible.
But as I was the stand-in Alpha, my days were long, and we had dinner together at headquarters or used a video chat and ate together in our respective locations.
As I ate my stir-fried noodles, I mused how Keane would fit in when he was the Alpha Omega.
“What?” He froze with a fork halfway to his mouth. “Is that a thing? I didn’t grow up in a pack.”
I dropped my chopsticks, trying to figure out how he had never been aware the Alpha’s mate played a role in a pack or den. But our Alpha was a widower, his mate having passed away in a car accident some years ago. So Keane hadn’t witnessed an omega in the role.
“Is that like a president’s spouse? Or a queen’s consort? They walk five steps behind and smile and nod at everyone but never accomplish anything?”
“Not at all. The Alpha Omega runs charities, organizes fundraising, and makes sure the pack is a cohesive unit.”
Keane rolled his eyes. “But has no power of his own.” He harrumphed and went back to eating.
How did I approach this? My mate didn’t appear to recognize that this was the role he would step into.
“You can make the role whatever you want when you take it on.”
“Me? But I have a job I enjoy, and we’ll have a child or maybe children. I can’t be the Omega Whatever.”
I let it go because Alpha was only in his 50s. He wouldn’t retire—or gods forbid, die—for decades. And I was busy carrying the burden of the pack while my mate was growing our baby.
One month after I assumed the temporary role, Alpha returned with a tan and a jaunty disposition. Odd. He was always so dour, and he rarely smiled, but now he almost skipped around his office.
Maynard was at headquarters one afternoon because Alpha had a job for him. Not as a pack member but his other role as a hitman. He emerged from the meeting convinced that Alpha was going to make a big announcement.
“He hasn’t mentioned anything to me.”
Maynard gave me a look but said nothing.
“Boaz.” That was more like the Alpha I knew, his voice booming from the office open door.
