The Alpha’s Chosen Outcast

8. TREY

Chapter 8

TREY

It’s been almost three weeks since an exile started designing my baby sister’s wedding gown and no one knows she’s here but me and Violet.

Surprisingly, Violet is actually upholding her promise not to tell Brody, as far as I can tell, at least.

I’ve been back to deliver supplies to Heather a few times, and the tension seems to be calming a bit. I can see that Heather is still terrified of me, but it’s like she’s gotten used to it.

She doesn’t startle as easily. I think that might also be because she’s learned my smell. I’d expect that from any wolf, though.

Right now, though, all that matters is that Violet is happy.

I’m heading off to another meeting with my inner circle. As my father’s health continues its steady decline, I have to set up how I’ll run things when he’s gone. Luca, Grayson, Austin, and Samuel will be my lieutenants.

They know that something is happening but aren’t aware of how bad my father’s health really is. I think they might believe he’ll be abdicating his place and letting me take over before he dies.

I’m not swaying them one way or the other. Let them believe whatever they want as long as I don’t have to talk about my father dying.

We’re meeting at my office. The Hanovers have owned a printing press for several generations. In recent years, that’s grown to include some online media and a small studio for indie films. It was a project for one of my cousins that kind of went to the wayside when he lost interest.

We have some offices in one of the corporate buildings in midtown. The conference room there is much more secure than talking at a diner or any other public place.

I set up the room, making sure to have pastries and coffee on the sideboard where we always put the food. The guys will never pay attention if I don’t provide something sweet and some sort of caffeine, and I need them to pay attention to this.

They all arrive around the same time and load up their paper plates, make their coffee, and sit down. I’m standing. I want to show them that I command this room today.

I wait for them to settle in and give me their full attention. When they’re staring at me with their mouths full of pastry, I start the meeting.

“I’ve called you here because I have an important piece of possible legislation to discuss within our pack. This is something I’ve heard whispers about but not a ton of support for, and I want to gauge what you think before I decide to bring it to leadership.”

Now I really have them. They’re waiting for me to continue.

“What I’ve heard whispers about are the laws regarding exile that came about when the humans were told of our existence. Only a few wolves have had to be exiled due to these laws, but those few have families that want them to come home. A couple of them have been gone for five years or longer. Some people want to know if maybe that’s enough time for them to have learned their lesson.”

“No,” Austin says immediately. Exile means exile. Forever. There is no length of time that will make them learn their lesson. The pack leadership that made those laws did so for a reason. Some of our practices need to remain ours alone.”

“I agree,” Grayson says. “The people who broke those laws put us all in danger. Wasn’t there that one girl from our pack who wrote an article that made it to a local paper?”

“Yes,” Austin answers, “I remember that. She outlined her coming of age ceremony and claimed that she was only talking about her own experiences, not outing anyone else.”

I don’t know why, but I feel the need to defend her.

“She didn’t name anyone and she did detail the ceremony only through her own eyes. It was practically a journal entry.”

“Trey, come on, she still broke the law.” Austin insists.

“She was pretty young, though.” Luca enters the conversation. “Wasn’t she barely out of high school? Around your sister’s age.”

“Yes,” I think about it, “I think she was in Violet’s class at school.”

“How would you feel if this was about Violet?” Luca asks.

“Honestly?” I shake my head. “I have no idea.”

“You’d exile her just like that girl’s parents let her be exiled,” Samuel says.

“Maybe,” I answer him.

“You would,” Samuel continues, “because you’re part of the pack leadership, too, and order among us in the pack is incredibly important. You’d want to uphold all of our safety. That’s what those laws have always been about.”

“I suppose you’re right.” I sit down at the head of the conference table.

“I am right.” Samuel crosses his arms.

The rest of them continue the conversation, saying much of the same things as I lean back and think about it. I wanted to know how they’d feel about me changing the laws in our region when I become Alpha, which may be sooner than we all think. This response is disconcerting.

The truth is that after my short interactions with Heather these past couple of weeks, I don’t want to kill her. I know I’ll have to when this is all over.

I can’t let her leave and risk anyone knowing she was here. Violet will be on her honeymoon and she’s planned a long tour of Europe with Brody for the day after the wedding. She wouldn’t have to know until she returned.

I think about Raymond and Melissa Cauley, her parents, and what I’ll have to tell them after she’s dead. It all seems so nonsensical. Should she really have to die for writing one essay? Or because she had to come back here for her job? I don’t believe so.

We end the meeting, and I head back home. If I can’t change the law without a ton of pushback, maybe I can find something in the family archives that can work as a loophole.

If I can find some way to circumvent the law without having to change it, then I won’t have to kill this woman, and everyone will just have to deal with that.

The archives in our family library are full of dust. I can see that no one’s been back here for years—particularly the housekeepers and their vacuums. Then again, why would they if no one ever comes here?

The books are intact, albeit filthy, so no harm done. I’m not going to bring it up with them.

There are many books with runes on the cover, the coded lycanthrope language of our ancestors. Most of these books have translations added.

The translations were written on thin vellum folded pages and added on top of the runes. This is interesting, but it’s not what I’m looking for. The laws I want to know about are more recent.

Near the bottom of one of the bookcases, I find a row of books with identical blank spines. They’re leather bound and the dust isn’t as thick on them as the others.

I pull one out and open it, pleased to find my father’s cramped handwriting. This is what I wanted to locate—his journals.

Father wrote extensively during his prime as Alpha, and I know he has notes here about making the laws when those councils first formed.

I see that I’m in the wrong year and I look through the next one, then the next, and three more before I find the right time frame.

“Ah ha!” I say out loud.

“Ah ha, what?” I jump as I see Violet standing there, leaning against one of the bookcases.

“How long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to see you frantically searching through…what is that you’re reading?”

“It’s one of Father’s journals.”

“Why do you need that?”

I close the journal and put it under my arm, walking past her to leave the room. I have what I need.

“Oh no, you’re not getting away that easily!” She runs to catch up with me. “What were you doing in the archives, Trey? You’re not a big history buff and you were obviously after one of Father’s journals in particular. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, Violet.”

“I’m really fucking sick of you saying that. I know there’s a lot going on you’re not telling me.”

I stop in the middle of the hallway and turn to face her.

“You’re right. I do have something on my mind, and Father’s journal can help.”

“How? Why do you need it? Come on, Trey, just tell me.”

“I don’t want to have to kill Heather,” I say it flat out.

“Why would you?”

“After she designs your dress, I can’t just let her leave.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t let her walk away with the knowledge that she was here, and I let an exile live.”

“Who is she going to tell?”

“That really doesn’t matter.”

“And something in that journal can help?” She points at the book under my arm.

“Yes. I think there might be something in Father’s notes when he wrote the new laws that could give me a loophole.”

“All this work just so you don’t have to kill her? I don’t buy it.”

“What do you mean?”

“You have feelings for her.” She narrows her eyes.

Mine go wide. “Violet, no. That’s not true.”

“Whatever you need to tell yourself, but I’ve never seen you go out of your way this much for your buddies, let alone some exile you barely know.”

“It’s more than that. This is also about me. I don’t want to have to deal with the consequences of killing her.”

“What consequences?”

“Mostly, having to tell her parents that she’s dead.”

“Why would you have to tell them?”

“I’d owe them at least that much after killing their child. If it was my child, I’d want to know.”

“Well, I hope you find something. I think it would put a real damper on my honeymoon if you have to kill my dress designer.”

“Right, because that’s what’s important.”

She snorts and walks past me to go do whatever it is Violet does all day. I head back to my room with the journal. I open it on my bed and start looking through it.

As I near the part where my father wrote his notes about the laws, Violet’s remarks come back to my mind. Do I have feelings for Heather?

I can’t have feelings for someone I have to kill. Period. But there’s still this nagging feeling when her face pops into my head.

I can’t quite put my finger on it, like something that I know but can’t remember for some reason. Then, the memory of my claws at Heather’s throat comes to the forefront.

I’m instantly hard when I think about her soft skin on my palm, her cheek fitting perfectly into that space, and the subtle slope of her cheekbone going down her jawline to the soft hollow between her throat and shoulder.

I want to run my tongue down that slope. What the fuck is that about?

Way too distracted to keep reading, I put the journal in my bedside table drawer and get dressed to go out. Samuel is working a manager shift over at Phase, a club downtown catering to wolves.

There are a lot of clubs like these in the city now and Samuel’s family picked a few of them up. I know I’ll find what I need there.

When I walk in, it’s like I’m a celebrity. My status is well known among the wolves and my family is well known within the city in general. I look for Samuel and find him over by the bar, talking to a group of shot girls. I head down to him, ignoring the adoring fans along the way.

He’s sending the shot girls onto the floor as I approach him, and he notices me right away.

“Hey, Trey, was I supposed to expect you tonight?”

“No, I came out on a whim. Need to get some energy out.”

“Well, there’s a great DJ playing tonight.”

“Not that kind of energy.”

I give him a side look and he smirks. He catches my drift and glances around.

“What about her?”

He’s pointing at a brunette with ample curves and a spangly outfit.

“No, too…sparkly.”

He looks around again.

“What about her?”

He points out a redhead with lithe dance moves and a skintight dress.

“Yes. She’ll do nicely.”

“Just go out there and dance with her. Everyone knows you here. She’ll be happy to head back to one of the private rooms with you.”

Judging from the response when I first came in, he was right. I head out to the dance floor and start dancing with the redhead, matching her moves.

She almost falters when she sees who I am but then goes right back into her dance. When the song ends, I move in to talk to her.

“Hey, I’m Trey.”

She giggles. “I know.”

“And you are?”

“Oh, right. I’m Amber.”

“Would you like to go someplace more private with me, Amber?”

She giggles again. “Absolutely.”

I hold out my hand, and she takes it, a grin breaking out on her face. She’s practically shaking as we head to the back, where the private rooms are. I wink at Samuel as I walk past him. He nods back at me.

I know the back rooms pretty well, and I know I have a favorite. Two doors down from the rear hallway, I open one of the doors and duck in. There are several couches, a small bar, and large cushions on the floor.

“You want something to drink?”

Amber is looking around the room, clearly having never been back here.

“Uh, yeah. Do you have any vodka and cranberry?”

“Sure.”

While she searches around, I set to making the drinks (vodka and cranberry for her, whiskey neat for me) and bring them over to the couch, motioning with my head for her to follow me. After I hand her drink to her, she takes a long sip and sits down on the couch.

“Mmmm, this is good.” She sips again.

I down half my whiskey in one swallow. My tolerance can take it. Most wolves are that way. She’s halfway through her drink when she catches me looking at her and breaks out into that grin again.

“Like what you see?”

“Oh yes.”

She stands up, takes one more sip of her drink, and puts the glass down on the small table by the couch, leaning over me as she does.

“Do they have any music in here?”

“Yeah,” I say, “I can hook it up to my phone. What do you want?”

“Something sexy.”

I find something with a decent beat, and it starts to play over the speakers.

I sip my drink as she begins to dance in front of me, locking on my eyes.

Her moves are sultry, accentuating her hips and showing off the rest of her curves and flexibility. Then she hooks a finger in one strap on her dress and removes it, doing the same with the other.

Somehow, she shimmies out of that skintight dress and is now dancing in her bra, panties, and heels. She comes over to me and lands one knee on either side of my waist, straddling me.

Apparently, I picked a lap dancer. She’s grinding on my cock, her breasts in my face, and I’m feeling none of it.

I think about my claw on Heather’s throat and get hard again. Suddenly, this woman grinding my lap seems ridiculous. I don’t want this. I don’t want her. I push her away and lean down to pick up her dress.

“I’m sorry, but no. I don’t want this. Take your dress and go.”

“Did I…” She trails off.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong. Just lock the door on your way out.”

I know she’s still confused, but she does as I order. Being Trey Hanover does have its perks sometimes. I hear the door lock click, and I turn to put my feet up on the couch, lean back, and let this happen.

If I can’t stop thinking about Heather now, maybe I can do something else to get her out of my head.

This room is set up for fucking, so there are massage oils and lubes all over the place. I reach behind me to the table and grab whatever’s there. It happens to be a massage oil. I take my pants off and let myself think of her.

I’ve noticed the curves under the t-shirts and leggings she wears, the way her ass has that perfect slope and hips that I’d love to grab while she rides me.

I put a drop of the massage oil on my hand and then put that hand around my dick. My breath hitches when I feel it, imagining it’s Heather’s hand instead.

I move up and down the shaft, slow at first, while I get really hard. I think about Heather’s hair, putting my hands in it while I kiss her, pulling it back gently so I can nip at her throat.

I think about her breasts under those tight t-shirts. They’re tight enough to reveal that she doesn’t wear a bra.

I move my hand faster while I imagine my lips on one of those nipples, sucking, flicking at it with my tongue, making her moan.

The thought of that moan spurs me on to move faster. Pumping myself, I think about my mouth moving lower down her torso. I want to taste her so badly.

I can feel it coming, the orgasm that begs to escape while I imagine my tongue thrusting into her, hearing her scream in pleasure as I suck on her clit.

I start to come when I think about that scream. I keep coming while I imagine her back arching and her coming with me into my mouth, tasting all of her.

After I finish, I clean up and hope that this experience gets her out of my system. I leave the club without finding Samuel, and I head home.

When I return and take Father’s journal from the drawer, ready to read again, her face is in my mind.

Fuck. It didn’t work. I settled in with the journal. I need to find that loophole. There’s no way I’ll be able to kill her now.

Unfortunately, it seems Violet is right. I do have feelings for her. And I have no fucking clue what I’m going to do about that.