Regardless, after everything that happened three months ago—their engagement, Park getting shot, Freeman popping up out of the woodwork to groan, “Beware,” like a specter of the night—Cooper had never bothered to get his Alpha Quotient retested and still didn’t know what his actual score was. The last two times he’d taken it he’d completely screwed up, getting “impossible” test results. Not exactly surprising considering the hijinks the bastard administering the test had been getting up to at the time. Cooper’s new therapist, a stone-faced wolf with an almost painfully gentle voice named Dr. Ripodi, had offered to retest him when he felt ready, but so far Cooper had rejected the idea. Frankly, he was fine never knowing. It was only times like this that, well, he worried. His go-to emotion, really.

Park insisted it was fine. He was a big boy who could stand up for himself and say no, even if he did see Cooper as his alpha. He swore he was getting something out of this, too. Cooper just had no idea what.

He wanted to be able to do something for Park. Something tangible. Something to make him as happy as he made Cooper. He wanted Park’s family to murmur amongst themselves, That Cooper sure does bend over backward to make you happy. Because he would for Park. He’d bend his body backward around the entire world if it made Park smile.

He just didn’t know how.

Cooper stared at his laptop screen. Heart beating just a little faster, he opened a search window and typed “good alpha behavior,” face flaming even as he hit enter. The first couple of links were specific to animals, and he skipped over them. Then came pages and pages of links that were geared toward people.

Cooper tried one hesitantly. It listed long, detailed descriptions of what it claimed were the top traits or characteristics of an alpha. It was...rough. Intensely misogynistic, cissexist, heteronormative, for starters. It also didn’t sound like Cooper at all. Not a worrier? Can shoot the shit? Be able to walk away from hot girls? Well, he supposed that wasn’t inaccurate, per se, but it certainly wasn’t relevant to his situation. He couldn’t think of a single person who should be reading this, honestly.

He clicked through a couple more links, growing increasingly dismayed, and was just about to try new search terms when Boogie jumped off the couch top and scrambled onto the arm.

Cooper slammed the laptop shut, startled and guilty. Just the thought of being caught looking at one of these sites by someone—anyone, a passing squirrel, Michael Myers—made him want to curl up and die. But he didn’t hear anything.