Dark Times

Chapter Thirty-Nine

When I awoke, the Alpha beside me was still fast asleep, one heavy arm slung across my body. I slipped out from underneath it silently, crossing to his side of the bed on my tiptoes. I doubted I had long to work on this. I knew he was a light sleeper.

Checking once more to make sure he was asleep, I dropped down to the floor where I began to rifle through his stuff, fully aware of what I was looking for and the possible repercussions of getting caught.

The Ranger had given him a package before we'd left the base. A package I wasn't supposed to know the contents of. Only my curiosity had gone and gotten the best of me. See, the thing was that I couldn't not know. Aidan had made it perfectly clear the first time I'd asked that he wasn't going to tell me. If snooping around in places I didn't belong was the only way to get me answers, then so be it.

When I found the package and readied to tear it open, a hand shot out from the bed, grabbing me.

One word. Busted.

"Nice try Lorelei," With his hold on my arm, he dragged me back up into the bed. "Bring your perky ass back up here."

"Get off me you brute." His body tilted over mine trapped me, blocking me from making a run for it or another dive for that package. "I have a right to know what's in there."

Those muscles were bulging around me. He used them to hold himself above me, a tired smile spreading across his face before he dropped. His entire weight came crashing down above me, leaving me thoroughly winded. "You have a right to shut your face and go back to sleep."

Says the Alpha whose head went straight for my neck, trailing butterfly kisses up and down it.

"Aren't you Alphas supposed to be early birds?" I gave him a push. Unsurprisingly, he didn't budge. "I thought you guys never sleep in. Shouldn't you be out bashing skulls and snapping out orders?"

I could deal with him sexual, argumentative and possessive- I didn't know how to handle this casual normalcy. It seemed like relationship stuff. I didn't do relationship stuff.

"This isn't my pack. If I want to sleep in with my mate, then that's what I'll do."

I huffed, waiting for him to roll to the side so I could finally breathe.

"Tell me what's in that package."

"Ask me about it again, I'll bend you over my lap and spank you."

Alphas. You can't live with 'em and you can't kill 'em either.

"It's obviously important somehow if the Ranger gave it to you. It obviously concerns me—which means you don't trust me."

His teeth grazed my earlobe. He was trying to distract me. "I trust you with my life." The distractions weren't going to work. Not on me.

"But you won't tell me."

"Go back to sleep Lorelei."

Unbelievable. He thought he could shut me up with sleep. Pfft- I'd show him talking alright.

"But we're talking. I thought you love talking. Normally I can't get you to stop."

"We'll talk later."

His eyes closed, his head seemingly quite comfortable with where it had come to lay in my neck. Of its own accord, my hand reached up to bury in his hair.

"What's the plan for today?" I asked. "They're holding that party for you. Is that when we attack? I've come to find acting in public is much more effective than people give it credit for."

"You found that from killing my Beta?"

"I didn't kill him in public. I executed the plan in public."