A True Alpha Christmas by Alisa Woods Page A

was, even she had believed all shifters were vicious thugs—right up until she met Lucas.
    But Mia still hadn’t found a way to tell her mother that shifters weren’t just criminals. They were high-powered tech entrepreneurs and college students and generally nice people. Including her mate who was also her… boyfriend? Live-in lover? Her mom had kept her mouth shut tight when Mia moved out of her dorm at the University of Washington and into Lucas’s glamorous downtown apartment… but Mia knew she didn’t approve. And now her mom insisted on meeting Lucas. Tomorrow. How would Mia even introduce the man who was her alpha?
    Hey, Mom, guess what? This hot billionaire tech investor wanted me to move in because he claimed me with his bite during hot sex and now we’re mated, and by the way we’re both shifters?
    That would not end well.
    Mia took a breath for courage. First she had to survive SparkTech’s black-tie Christmas party.
    Jupiter finished reapplying lipstick that was perfect to begin with. “Show time!” she said brightly, then hooked her arm around Mia’s and dragged her through the glass doors of the White Elephant. Just inside, a young man took their coats and tucked them away in a walk-in closet filled with furs and upscale men’s overcoats. Mia’s plain trench and Jupiter’s blue faux-fur looked like party crashers next to them.
    The room itself was absolutely gorgeous—tiny, white lights wound around the circular dark-wood bar, twirled up a broad spiral staircase at the heart of the room, and danced along the ceiling beams. A legion of candles were tucked in fresh evergreens, and the city’s lights sparkled from the broad expanse of windows. The glamour of the décor was rivaled only by the beautiful people in attendance: men in elegant black suits, women with more bared flesh than covered. Mia’s dress was far from the most revealing one, which made her sigh in relief.
    There were over a hundred people milling about, and Mia had dragged her feet long enough that the party had clearly begun without them. The holiday scents—a wash of upscale martinis, candles, and fresh pine boughs—deluged her shifter-heightened sense of smell. But she would take those any day over the stench of spilt party drinks and eau de dorm room at the university. Plus it gave a soothing sense of the Olympic mountains, which calmed her inner wolf, who was already anxiously scanning the crowds for her alpha. Her human side wanted to find Lucas, too, not least to warn him about the impending meetup with her mother.
    Jupiter tugged on her arm. “Hey, is that Colin over there in the killer suit?”
    Mia peered in the direction Jupiter had subtly gestured with her chin. A trio of wolves Mia knew well stood together: Llyr, the eldest of Mr. Sparks’s sons and an alpha like Lucas; Colin, Llyr’s beta and the wolf Mia had turned down for a mate; and Sampson, another of Llyr’s pack who worked in the office on mergers and acquisitions.
    “Yeah, that’s him,” Mia said. Colin’s tall, commanding figure seemed made for filling out formalwear. Something about the shifter gene made all the males hulky, good-looking, and dominating: Mia could easily attest to how difficult that was to resist.
    “He’s the one you threw back, right?” She licked her lips.
    “Jeeter,” Mia chastised. “Don’t—”
    Jupiter turned toward her in a mock-fury, her drama school training in high gear. “And why ever not? Do you have eyes, woman? That man’s 100% delicious packed in a tux and tails.”
    “He’s not a man, he’s a shifter,” Mia said, keeping her voice low, so the couple drifting nearby wouldn’t overhear. SparkTech employees were primarily shifters, but their clients were decidedly not —and advertising that fact wasn’t good for business.
    “All the better.” Jeeter was back to raking her gaze over Colin. “He hasn’t claimed a mate yet, right?”
    “No, not yet.” Mia felt a little bad about that, only because