Spring

  Running with Alphas Seasons

  Spring

  Viola Rivard

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Summer

  Chapter One

  Sometimes Holly looked more like a cat than a fox. She lay draped in a mesh hammock strung between two birch trees overlooking the lake, her arms draped over the sides and her head cocked in Taylor’s direction.

  The hammock had been Taylor’s idea. Last summer, when the heat had been near to unbearable, Taylor and the pups, then only Shadow and Fawn, had spent their days from sunrise until blessed sunset cooling off in the water. In the afternoons, Taylor would take a break from the water and rest in the hammock while one of their many aunties had ensured that her children didn’t drown, and would occasionally bring them to her to nurse.

  At least, that had been the plan when she’d had the hammock installed. The reality was that she’d never quite been comfortable in it. Anytime she’d managed to fall asleep, she would wake with sore muscles and mesh imprints on her face. That was assuming she could fall asleep. Even with Beka, Quinn, or Lark tending to the pups, one of them would inevitably demand her attention every two to three minutes.

  Nowadays, anytime Taylor made the short trek from her cabin to the lake for water, she could almost always find Holly lazing in the hammock. It was where she’d taken to sleeping during the day, before waking for her late afternoon shift guarding the cabin’s perimeter.

  Holly was a very light sleeper, which meant that she could be relied upon to wake and deliver some sort of tart remark whenever Taylor passed by her haunt. Usually, Taylor just ignored her. She and Holly actually spent a lot of time in conversation these days, but Taylor knew that Holly was only good for quips while in between her naps.

  Today, however, what Holly said to her was so startling and caught her so off-guard that Taylor instantly swung around, put her hands on her hips and said, “Seriously, Holly, go screw yourself.”

  She would have liked to use harsher language, but it seemed that any time someone dropped an f-bomb, a pup would come out of the woodworks.

  Holly’s eyes remained shut as she responded, “It’s a shame, too. You were actually starting to look skinny.”

  “How about you go back to sleep? Just don’t be surprised if you wake with tar in your hair.”

  Holly’s lips quirked. “Putting tar in my hair won’t make you any less pregnant.”

  Taylor brought a finger to her mouth to shush her. “Stop saying that. I am not pregnant.”

  She couldn’t be pregnant. It just wasn’t possible.

  Okay, maybe it was technically possible. After all, she did have not one, but two mates in their sexual prime, and scarcely a day went by without one of them screwing her senseless, but there was just no way that either of them could have gotten her pregnant.

  There were rules to shifter pregnancies, and foremost among them was that there was at least a day or two of notice before her cycle peaked. Her mates would notice the change in her scent, it would drive them nuts until they couldn’t stand it anymore, and then they would haul her off to somewhere private where they could mate like animals for several days. Only after all of that had occurred could she then become pregnant.

  None of that had happened, so she couldn’t possibly be pregnant.

  She told Holly as much. “We both know that I haven’t been fertile once since the twins were born.”

  Rather than being a cause for concern, the absence of her monthly cycle had been something of a relief to Taylor. Giving birth to premature twins without the aid of a doctor or modern medicine had been a harrowing experience, and for a while she’d dreaded the idea of becoming pregnant again.

  Thankfully her son Shadow had nursed for well over a year, which seemed to have stalled her reproductive system. Just when Shadow had finished nursing, Taylor had adopted a two-week-old pup named Henry, and then just days later, a newborn, Belle. Henry had weaned himself shortly after his first shift, nursing only during the rare occasions when he took human form, but Belle was still actively nursing with three regular feedings each day, supplemented with pup food, a concoction made by Shadow that consisted of partially chewed venison and stewed quail eggs.

  Holly cracked open an eye. “Well, there was this one day, a few weeks ago, when you smelled like you might be fertile.”

  Taylor’s mouth went dry. “What?”

  “Yeah, I thought for sure that Hale would be packing you up and hauling you off, but then the next day you smelled normal again. I figured I must have been wrong, so I just didn’t say anything, but I guess I was right after all, because you’re definitely pregnant.”

  Taylor felt as if cold water had been flung onto her.

  She didn’t want this. Or at least, she didn’t want it yet.

  Sometime in between adopting Henry and Belle, she had warmed to the idea of a new pup. As the pups grew and became increasingly independent, she’d even begun craving the weight of a new pup in her arms. But in her mind, it was still a far-off thing, something that would happen in another year, or maybe even two, once she’d finally dispelled her loathsome moniker:

  Taylor Ha.

  Taylor Ha was a nickname amongst her pack mates, originating just under three years ago, when it had become apparent to her new pack mates that she was there to stay. She was sure it started innocently enough. Perhaps someone saw Taylor sitting around with nothing better to do, and had asked if Taylor would like to join the evening hunt. Then someone else, probably Holly, had exclaimed, ‘Taylor? Ha!’

  Over the years, it had become something of a running joke amongst her pack mates. One of them would mention a chore that needed to be done or something they needed help with, and their snarky companion would suggest asking Taylor, and that would be their cue to respond, ‘Taylor? Ha!’ It was a slightly less acidic way of saying, ‘Taylor isn’t good at anything.’

  Which was not true. Taylor Michaels was great at playing tennis. She was awesome at baking cupcakes. She knew how to write HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. She also spoke pretty damn good Spanish.

  Unfortunately, none of these things mattered or were relevant to her pack mates. In their eyes, she was just a tiny, scrap of a human female who couldn’t hunt, couldn’t run fast, couldn’t lift heavy things, sucked at fishing, sucked at sewing, sucked at wound care, sucked at cooking meats, sucked at plucking geese, sucked at climbing trees, and really she could go on and on because they were mostly right. She was not good at anything that they were good at.

  As Holly had once eloquently put it, ‘You’re really only good at having pups, so why don’t you just stick to that?’

  There were two problems with that. One, was that Taylor wanted to do more than just have pups. She didn’t want the sum of her existence to be sitting around being catered to while she gestated. Two, was that she actually wasn’t very good at having pups. She’d had two so far, both had been premature, and one of them had almost died.

  The only real claim to prowess that she had was that she was good at being a mom. There were days, especially lately, that she doubted herself, but every evening when her wonderfully diurnal children piled into bed with her, showering her with kisses and fighting over who got the prime cuddling position, she was comforted by the knowledge that she was doing a good job.

  Each of her four children were unique and had their own needs, and Taylor had structured her life around ensuring that those needs were met.

  But as much as she loved being a mom, she didn’t want the role to be her entire identity. If Alder and Ha
le could both be great fathers while also being excellent alphas, why couldn’t she wear a second hat as well?

  After two years of pondering this question, a solution had finally come to her in the form of an alpha named Shan.

  They’d met him only once, almost half a year ago when he’d delivered Belle to them, along with several large bags of seeds, which he’d instructed them to preserve until his return in spring. Since then, they’d received a single communication from him, informing them that he would be arriving in five days’ time. That had been five days ago.

  Taylor could count on one hand how many things she knew about Shan. His wolf form was extremely large, he was well-educated, he was the alpha of a massive pack, he wanted to bring agriculture to Halcyon Valley, and her mates really, really disliked him.

  To be fair, with Alder it was more of a general distrust. He was like that with any outside male that entered their territory, although unlike Hale, he could hide his feelings in favor of striking a diplomatic tone. Alder was genuinely interested in finding out what Shan had to offer, but he wasn’t keen on having a wolf in his territory that could snap his spine between its jaws.

  Hale was unequivocally opposed to hosting Shan. His argument against having Shan—that Shan could kill them anytime he wanted to—was flimsy when given even modest scrutiny. If Shan had wanted them dead, he would have had the opportunity while he’d been in their den last winter. And for that matter, he wouldn’t have sent advance notice of his arrival.

  Taylor had tried pointing both of these things out, but as usual, Hale was stubborn in his resolve. If he had it his way, Taylor and the pups would be squirreled away deep inside the den for the duration of Shan’s stay in the valley. Never mind Taylor’s feelings, or the fact that she had devoted nearly every spare moment of her life for the past several months preparing for Shan’s arrival and the valley’s agricultural revolution.

  There was only one person in all of Halcyon that knew anything about agriculture, and that person was Taylor.

  Not only had she lived on a farm for much of her childhood, but she’d also spent the past three years cultivating and expanding a sizable garden. She loved growing plants and she was damn good at it. By her estimation, she was the only member of her pack that was qualified to aid Shan in his endeavor, and she’d thrown herself into the task wholeheartedly.

  With help from her friend Sarah, she’d gotten several books on agriculture, as well as a few new composition books to take notes in and draw up plans. With Holly’s help, and usually with one of her mates shadowing her, Taylor spent a full month scouting every corner of Halcyon’s vast territory, both in the valley and in the mountain. She’d taken soils samples from each region, and with baking soda and vinegar—also compliments of Sarah—she’d tested the pH levels of each sample to determine the optimal regions for growing crops.

  Accomplishing all of this while also caring for her pups hadn’t been easy. There just weren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything she wanted to while also devoting herself to her children. In an effort to avoid cutting corners, she often stretched herself too thin, to the extent that she was worn out most days, sometimes skipping sleep and frequently missing meals.

  For those reasons alone, now was an awful time to be pregnant, but Taylor was more worried about the impact a pregnancy would have on her agriculture plans. The protective instincts of her mates were already stupidly high, but they skyrocketed while she was pregnant. There was no way in hell that they’d let her leave the immediate vicinity of her home and the den, let alone go anywhere near Shan once they found out she was carrying a pup.

  “I don’t feel pregnant,” Taylor said, giving Holly a plaintive look. “Remember last time? I was sick from the word go. I can’t be pregnant, or I’d be puking my guts up right now.”

  That was another thing that would not only wreck her plans, but also make it impossible to properly care for her children. She’d spent the first trimester of her last pregnancy debilitated by nausea and vomiting. She did not have time for that.

  Holly shrugged. “I dunno, I’m not a healer. All I am is the person with the best nose in the pack and, I might add, the one who told you that you were pregnant last time. Sorry you’re upset, but maybe you should go complain to whichever of your mates knocked you up.” She paused to snort. “Like you even know.”

  Taylor put her hands on her face and groaned. “I can’t tell them yet. I have a day or two until they notice, right?”

  “Probably, yeah.”

  The time frame might work to her advantage. If she could meet with Shan and her mates saw that he wasn’t a threat to her or their pack, they might be okay with her meeting with him again once the news was out.

  Taylor took a few steps back towards the cabin, and then stopped. “You’re not going to tell them, right?”

  Holly rolled her eyes. “Why would I do that?”

  “I don’t know. Because they’re sort of your bosses.”

  She rolled onto her back. “Yeah, but I’m your best friend.”

  Taylor blinked at her. “Oh my God, we are best friends. When did that happen?”

  When she’d first joined the pack, Taylor had spent all of her time with Lark and Glenn, the three of them forming a band of awkward outcasts. Then, Taylor had become Alder and Hale’s mate, thus elevating her status in the pack. Shortly thereafter, Lark had more or less betrayed the pack, and although she hadn’t been forced out, she had lost the confidence of everyone, Taylor included. Taylor had still hung out with Lark and Glenn from time to time, but found their antics to be less amusing once she’d had children.

  Since her first year in the pack, Holly had been assigned as one of her guards. Although Holly’s acerbic tongue had been off-putting in her early months in the pack, Taylor had come to enjoy the fox shifter’s dry sense of humor, especially when it wasn’t directed at her.

  “Slow down,” said Holly. “I said I’m your best friend. You’re not mine.”

  “I am seriously going to tar your hair,” Taylor said, continuing up the path to her home. She called back, “Remember, don’t say anything to anyone.”

  Taylor actually did trust Holly to keep her confidence, but there was no telling how long it would be until her scent betrayed her. As she neared her cabin, she braced herself for the first test.

  Chapter Two

  Nestled in the foothills of the mountain and near to the lake, Taylor’s home had once been a single-room, four-cornered log cabin. There had been several modifications made over the years, including an expanded porch and a small washroom.

  Since her family had grown by two over the winter, it had been decided that once the weather warmed they would finally add an additional room. Taylor had been yearning for a bedroom and the privacy it would afford her and her mates for a very long time, but when the topic of another expansion had come up a week earlier, Taylor had brushed it off. Her list of things to do was already a mile long, and she wasn’t keen on adding construction plans to it, or dealing with the temporary move to the den that the expansion would necessitate.

  The quail coop that had once resided in her front yard had been moved behind the cabin. In its place was a hole that had been dug where she intended to put a pond—whenever she had time for that. Near to the cabin was a tree and strung from a thick lower branch was a swing made from a tire Lark had found in the river. Her mates had thought she was crazy when she’d asked them to put it up, and their aversion to the swing must have rubbed off on their children, because Taylor used it more than her pups did.

  Stepping onto the porch, Taylor grabbed the doorknob but hesitated in turning it. She turned her head down towards her shoulder and sniffed, as if her human nose could somehow parse out a hormonal shift in her scent. All she could smell was sweat.

  She opened the door quietly and stepped inside. Dark blue curtains hung over the windows, blotting out most of the sunlight. The light from the door fell on the kitchenette, but stopped short of illuminating t
he bed, which had been strategically moved to the left corner of the cabin for that specific reason.

  Alder was asleep on the bed, in the same position she’d left him in early that morning, when she’d gotten up to feed the quail and tend to her garden. Like his twin brother Hale, Alder was nocturnal, but after the pups were born her mates had begun sleeping in shifts, making sure that at least one of them was there to watch over her and the children at all times. Most alphas didn’t have such a luxury, and it was one of several reasons that they’d shirked tradition and decided to share a mate.

  Because Hale was completely useless after dawn, the morning shift was usually left to Alder. Alder was no less nocturnal than his brother, but he never complained about spending the day with Taylor and the pups. He would arrive at the cabin in the early morning hours, already appearing groggy from a night spent hunting and managing his pack. The first thing he would say after doling out hugs and kisses would be, “What can I help with?”

  Taylor would give him a short list of tasks, usually ones involving the pups that she knew he would enjoy, and then she would feed him breakfast in bed. On the rare occasions when there were no pups in bed with them, they’d spend the morning kissing, cuddling, and making love. But whether they had sex or not, Alder would inevitably pass out before noon, waking shortly before the end of his shift and always seeming surprised by how long he’d been asleep.

  Slipping out of her shoes, she tiptoed over to where he was sleeping. The last time she’d popped into the cabin, Fawn had been nestled in his arms. She was gone now, but the absence of her daughter didn’t worry Taylor. When her pups had learned to shift, Taylor had also learned that she couldn’t panic every time one of them disappeared. Nowadays, even the littlest ones came and went in spite of her best efforts to keep tabs on them.