It took him four days to get clear of it.

Four long, tortured days—more tortured than his days usually were. That was how bad it was, how it turned him inside out. Alison had walked up behind his shoulder, read those words aloud, and stuck the knives of doubt into him. The knives he’d felt all his life. The knives that only his wolf could ease—when he let it.

You’re an idiot. They’ll all know. Soon they’ll know everything.

It wasn’t himself he was worried about. Humiliation, loss of status—it didn’t matter. No, what ate at him was that when the alpha makes a mistake, it can cost lives. When he slips up, someone else’s blood gets spilled. And when he’s weak, the pack is weak. A weak pack would have to fight.

His pack wouldn’t run from a fight, and neither would Brody. But he didn’t want war. They’d already fought off a coup attempt from within the pack, and an attempted takeover from another pack. After three decades under Charlie’s violent rule, all Brody wanted was for his pack to live in peace. Which meant no one could know that he was stupid, unable to piece simple words together. No one could ever know.

The fact that Alison knew drove him crazy.

If she could find this secret, then she could find the others. And they were worse.

He didn’t sleep. He shifted into his wolf instead, running most of the night in the woods, ranging miles from his house. He slept in small fits, short naps taken in the bushes before his wolf was up again. When a shifter was his animal, his human brain relaxed and let the animal take over. The animal didn’t agonize over the stupid, complicated things that humans did. Run, hunt, kill, eat, sleep—that was all. The wolf was connected to the earth, the sky, the elements in a way that a human never was.

But Brody’s wolf was different. His wolf was uncontained, struggling for dominance. Always trying to emerge. Even when Brody was human, his wolf saw things, thought things, that the man had to fight. Uncomfortable things. Painful things. And the wolf never slept.

In short, his wolf was his enemy. One he lived with inside him every day.

His wolf had been wide awake when he’d confronted Alison Masterson outside her car. He’d had to struggle to stay human. It wasn’t just the panic of what she’d discovered—it was her. Alison. Something about her…

He wasn’t going to explore it. He couldn’t. He had a problem to solve, and he had no time.

He avoided the diner, avoided everyone, for as long as he could. He stayed in wolf form for most of those four days. But on the fourth day, he turned back into a man and lay on the bed of pine needles where he’d changed, naked and staring at the sky. Unaffected by the wind and the cold and his uncomfortable bed. He was the alpha; he couldn’t run from his responsibilities anymore. He had work to do. Besides, now he had his answer.

An hour later, he was back in town—bathed, and no longer naked—and walking into the diner. The cell phone in his pocket, one of the cell phones he’d forced on his reluctant brothers, had messages on it. People who saw him tried to flag him down. The alpha of the Donovan pack couldn’t take a day off—an hour off, it felt like—without someone wanting something. But he ignored all of it and walked into the Four Spot, looking for Alison.

She was there. Standing at the chalkboard that listed the daily specials—a chalkboard that, in his agitation, he couldn’t read. She was writing something on the board, near the top, pushed up onto her toes and reaching up. She was wearing her waitress uniform, a dark blue skirt and a uniform top of light blue with white buttons. Her auburn red hair was in its usual ponytail, the hair pin-straight and the ponytail sleek. He had never seen her with her hair down.

In the second before she saw him, he saw her: the straight line of her slender body, the flexed calf muscles as she stood on her toes, the elegant arch of her arm, the relaxed concentration on her face. It struck him in that second, the fully human side of him, that she was a beautiful girl. Perfectly, effortlessly beautiful. How had he never noticed that Alison Masterson was beautiful before?

Then his wolf awoke, and he struggled for control again.

She turned her head and saw him, and her expression changed. Her eyes went wide, and apprehension tightened her features. She lowered down from her toes and turned to him, uncertain.

He stood there and looked at her for a long second. Yes, this was the right decision. He just had to convince her.

He looked past her shoulder at Patty, who was standing behind the counter, filling the coffee maker, her eyebrows rising. “Alison is taking a break,” he said to her.

“Sure, Brody,” Patty said. There were advantages to being the alpha sometimes.

He took Alison’s elbow—she wasn’t wearing her cardigan today, and her arm was bare, the skin on the inside of her elbow as delicate as tissue paper—and tugged her. Gently, because he had more power than he knew. He kept his grip loose, but she followed him willingly as he led her to the back of the restaurant, through the STAFF ONLY door, down the corridor behind it. He’d never been back here, and he tried the few closed doors until he found one that was unlocked. It was a supply closet. He pulled Alison inside with him and closed the door.

They were in the dark for a second, and then there was a snap and the single bulb in the ceiling came on. Alison was holding the dangling chain that lit it and staring at him, her narrow slashes of brows lowering in a frown.

“Brody?” she said. “What are you doing here? And why are we in a supply closet?”

“I need to talk to you,” he said.

She let go of the light bulb chain and crossed her arms.

Then he was speechless again. Shit. He’d never been alone with her, and they were in a small, enclosed space. He wished he’d thought ahead. He should have taken her outside, somewhere where it was easier to control his wolf. But maybe she wouldn’t have gone.

She had perfect white skin and elegant, slender hands. She wore very little makeup—something on her eyelashes, gloss on her lips. Her face was a flawless oval with a feminine, pointed chin. She wasn’t freckled, like some redheads were. Her eyes were gray, her lashes dark, her nose straight and proportioned, and her mouth was perfect, the gloss on her lips giving them a hint of soft, pink shine. She was nearly his height, but she was narrow as a reed. He wasn’t the biggest of his brothers—that was Devon—but he could have picked her up like she weighed nothing. He wanted to. He wanted to put his hands on her everywhere.

No. This is Alison. Be nice.

“So?” she said finally, when he’d been silent too long. “Talk.”

Right. She was human. He had to act a little bit human here, at least for a minute. “If I scared you the other night, I’m sorry,” he said. “I was surprised, that’s all.”

She blinked at him. “You don’t scare me, Brody.”

This was true. Werewolves could smell fear, and he couldn’t smell any coming from her. There was apprehension, but that was more because she didn’t know what the hell he wanted, not because she was afraid.

“No one has seen you for four days,” she said before he could put his next words together. “Where have you been?”

He rubbed a hand over his jaw. He’d shaved before leaving the house—he always shaved. It was part of the man’s dominance over the wolf. “I was in the woods,” he said. “Thinking.”

“People were asking about you,” Alison said. “I kept your booth open for as long as I could, but eventually Patty said I had to let people sit there.”

He stared at her in astonishment. She’d kept his booth open for him? He’d never asked her to do that. It wasn’t something he expected of her.

But it hit him: that same booth was always free, every time he walked in. He’d never given it a thought before, but now he realized. That was Alison’s work.

Every day. He’d been alpha for months now, nearly a year, and he’d been using the Four Spot as his meeting place. And she’d made sure he had his booth. Every day.

He’d been… missing things. Big things. Important things that were right in front of his face.

What else had he been missing?

In the enclosed space, he could smell cleaners, dust rags, and Alison. She smelled a little like apples, tart and sweet and natural. He’d smelled that last night, when he’d dipped his head to smell her neck. His wolf had done that before he could stop it. The smell of apples was one of the things he’d run for four days to get clear of.

This had to work.

“I have an idea,” he said to her.

“You brought me in this storeroom to tell me an idea?”

“Yes, because it has to do with you.”

And he watched it: a faint, pink blush on the tops of her cheekbones. It was so exquisitely beautiful he lost his breath. He had been missing very, very big things.

“What idea?” Alison asked.

“You come work for me,” he said.

That truly surprised her. Her eyes widened and her lips parted. “What—I’m sorry. What?”

“I need an assistant,” he said. “The job is too much. I can manage the face-to-face things, but there’s more paperwork than I imagined. I get through it, but I’m too fucking slow. So slow that people are going to start to ask questions. And I can’t ask for help. At least, I couldn’t until four days ago. But now I can ask you.”

She was staring at him, flabbergasted. “You want me to help you be alpha?”

“I do,” he replied.

“Brody, I can’t do that.”

“Why not?” he said.

“Because I’m not a Donovan. I’m not even a werewolf. I’m a waitress. I can’t help you lead. I’m not qualified.”

Brody barked a laugh at that. “Alison, I’m not qualified. I’ve been saying that from the first day.”

“You do just fine,” she said.

“No, I don’t. That’s what I’m saying.” He searched for words. He hadn’t thought out beforehand what he’d say to convince her. He wished he had Heath’s talent for words, especially with women. “You’re pack,” he said. “Your father is one of us. You’ve grown up in the pack. You understand us. You’re smart, and you have common sense, and you have loyalty. You tell me you can keep a secret, and in all the years I’ve known you I’ve never seen otherwise. That’s what I need.”

She swallowed. He watched the line of her throat. She was wavering, but she was still going to say no. “Your brothers have all of those qualities,” she argued. “Pick one of them.”

“First of all, that would put the power out of balance,” Brody said. “Two brothers as alphas, and two who are not. We don’t look united. And second of all, I can’t put up with any of my brothers for more than ten minutes at a time. So no.”

“You don’t know if you can put up with me for more than ten minutes at a time,” she said.

“Do you plan to drive me up the goddamned wall?”

“No.”

“Then we’ll get along just fine.”

Still, she shook her head. “Brody, this is crazy. I have a job already.”

“This?” he said, motioning around them at the storeroom. “You’re worked off your feet and you go home alone late at night. Work for me and you don’t have to do that anymore. No cups of coffee. No uniform. Regular hours.” He saw her look of skepticism. “Okay, I don’t work regular hours. But I can make sure you do, if that’s what you want. I’ll sure as hell never make you go home alone at night. I can’t pay a lot, but it’s still more than Patty pays you.” She was close to saying yes. He wanted to touch her, maybe take her hand, but he couldn’t do that. “You’d be doing something important, Alison,” he said. “Something that helps the pack. Something that helps me.”

That blush on her cheekbones again. Had she always done that, and he’d never noticed?

“Why me?” she asked him. “Why me, Brody? Is it just because I figured out about the letters jumbling? Because you’re worried I’ll tell everyone?”

It was nothing to do with that, and everything to do with her. He’d realized that over four days of thinking. He looked at her and realized she wasn’t sure of him. Part of her—the shy, unconfident part—thought he was just using her. That he didn’t give a damn about her. That she was just a tool to him, like a pitcher or a chair. And that thought gave her pain.

That realization seeped through his blood. Deep inside him, his wolf growled.

But he didn’t know what else to say, so he said, “Alison, I need you.”

She looked away. She couldn’t meet his eyes when he said that. From where he stood, he could sense her heart beating quicker, her blood pumping hotter. Apprehension, excitement, uncertainty, and—oh dear, sweet God—arousal. It was there, underneath the other things. A soft, warm current. Feminine and sweet and complex. Dark and intricate and heady. Something he could smell every day, forever, and never get tired of it.

But only from her.

“Okay, Brody,” she said, interrupting his haze of sudden wolfish lust for her. “I’ll do it. I’ll give Patty two weeks’ notice.”

“No,” he replied. “You give her a day’s notice. You start for me tomorrow.”

She sighed. “Brody, that’s rude.”

“She’ll understand.” She would. The Four Spot wasn’t overrun with customers, and Brody was alpha. Patty would just wait the tables herself, or tell everyone to come to the counter, until she found someone.

“Tomorrow?” Alison said, and now she sounded faintly panicked. “What do I wear?”

That was an odd question, but then again she was used to wearing a uniform. “Whatever you want.” He pushed down the surge of quiet jubilation at convincing her and strode to the storeroom door. He needed to not be in an enclosed space with her anymore; it was making him a little crazy.

“What time tomorrow?” she asked.

Time? Werewolves weren’t big on keeping time. “When the sun is up.”

“That’s not a time,” she said.

“Sure it is.” He turned the knob and opened the door.

He was halfway into the corridor when she called, “Wait!”

He turned back and looked at her.

She was twisting her hands together. “Where?” she asked him. “Where do I go when the sun is up tomorrow?”

That was an easy one. “My house,” he said, and left.