MATE AND HIS LOVER 9

#16 You're the only Alpha

Daisy nervously paces in her room. Briefly stops to glance at her closed laptop. Then starts pacing again.

It's Liam, the boy Daisy had under her command when she was with the Stantons. He's the only one with the copy of this program of hers.

When he was still a newbie, Daisy had given it to him so he could learn.

Daisy stops pacing and jumps onto the bed and flips back open her laptop.

Line by line, she goes through her old code. It is unaltered, except for a couple of minor additions Liam had done.

Daisy's distress now is about only one thing — whether Liam is helping Patrick out of his own interest or under Ian's order?

Daisy was the one who taught Liam of the possible side hustles he could have as a hacker to earn some extra cash.

So it would not be surprising if Patrick had found Liam online and listed his help to track the rogues.

"That should be it," Daisy says to herself.

In that light, the other option is less likely to be — Why would Ian want to help Patrick when there's nothing in it for him? And would Patrick be even dumb enough to talk to someone like Ian when he's looking to become the next Alpha of one of the well known packs? Daisy wonders.

However, if it really is the other case, then that's more reason Patrick can not win.

Because whatever Ian would want out of it, it'll ruin everyone in the pack.

Daisy is also sure Ian doesn't know she's here. If he did, that would've made him storm in here the instance he found about it.

So it must be Liam.

"I'll go with that for now," she repeats. "Liam must have taken this as a side gig."

Daisy rubs her chin, thinking what to do next. She can't let Nate know about any of this.

She won't let anyone or anything related to Ian get close to Nate.

On the other hand, she can't ignore it either.

With Liam's help, Patrick has a significant advantage.

Even though her program is old, and Liam had not bothered to optimize it, it's still an efficient application. Soon Patrick will be able to catch the rest of the rogues.

The only way to stop that from happening is for Daisy to step in.

In twenty minutes, she can code a program ten times more effective than the one she had written in the past.

She then will just have to force Nate's hand into accepting her help in locating the rogues.

"How will I do that?" she says, bringing her palms together across her face as if she's shielding it from a blizzard.

Feeling like the devil, Daisy decides she'll need to strike Nate with the temptation when he's the weakest.

With Patrick already having caught two of the rogues, Nate must be pretty upset now, Daisy thinks.

Even though she wants Nate to not lose hope and feel better, she'll let him suffer the defeat for a while longer, and when the time is right, she'll hook him in.

"Patience," Daisy says. "And I'll have him where he needs to be."

Later at night, Nate returns. He sees Daisy at the dining table working on her laptop.

In spite of their last bitter exchange, seeing Daisy makes him feel like he's finally home.

Daisy notices him, too. She gets up. "You're back."

"Hmm," Nate says and heads to his room without saying anything further.

"I'm sorry," Daisy quickly says, "about what happened with Patrick, and about what I said that day."

"It wasn't your fault," Nate says, turning back to her. "It seems these days only those who don't care how they get what they want gets anything done. You're probably thinking I should've just listened to you and let you help me."

Daisy lowers her eyes.

Nate turns around to head to his room. But doesn't go anywhere. "When we first met, when I learned you were a rogue, even though I was upset about it, I know somewhere deep a part of me felt relieved. If my mate had been a pack wolf, or worse, an Alpha's daughter, I thought for sure she would look down on me for being an Alpha's bastard child. But since you were a rogue, I felt that was not that bad. I thought out of us two surely I was the superior one... I was a fool to forget that how someone was born is more important than how someone lives. Even being a rogue or a criminal can't beat being an illegitimate heir."

With that Nate starts to walk away, when Daisy says, "I hated it, that you were my mate."

Nate stops.

Daisy continues, "I thought why you had to be a pack wolf, let alone someone who wanted to be an Alpha? I wished you were like me, a rogue. Then we would have nothing between us..."

"...Yet, I couldn't help but like you. I've never met someone as honest and straightforward as you. For the first time I thought, so this is what it must be like to be a pack wolf... I'm not going to pretend I know how you feel, or that I understand why you want to be an Alpha. All that matters to me is that in the past few weeks I've spent with you, you're the only Alpha I've ever recognized. That's why, you should win. You must become the leader of your pack."

Daisy picks up her stuff and gets inside her room.

Nate leans back on the wall and closes his eyes.

To Nate, becoming the Alpha is his chance to prove himself to his father and everyone in the pack who looked down on him and his mother.

However, today, Nate realises what it really must mean to be an Alpha.

What it means when someone trusts you and acknowledges you and accepts you as their Alpha.

Daisy is the one who showed him that.

Nate takes out his phone and calls Frank. "Let's start with the next rogue on the list."

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