8. Alphas and Their Mates
8
Alphas and Their Mates
FLOR
T he next few days fell into a pattern. Breakfast was followed by three hours of running and strength conditioning. After that, I had lunch inside with the Alpha Heirs and senior Enforcers, followed by more running and the most basic fighting exercises with a group of young Enforcers-in-training. I wanted to laugh at how easy the training was, and the Heirs were all confused as to why I was going along with the rudimentary program I’d been assigned.
Brand asked me more than once if I wanted him to say something to Sergeant, but I told him not to bother. “It’s just until the full moon. I can handle a little bit of easy training after last month. I want to do this. It makes me feel… normal.” It was so damned true. Brand had rolled his eyes, but I guessed he’d spread the word that this was my choice. Nobody tried to force me to show my skills, anyway.
Though I would have liked to do a demonstration on Vanessa’s face. She’d obviously spread rumors about me among her friends, so none of them did much more than smile or say hello. Glen assured me that would end as soon as I took my ranking test.
“I can’t wait for everyone to see what you’re capable of.” When I asked if I could test straight into the highest rank of Enforcer, he’d grinned. “Unranked to Enforcer? That’s not normally how it works. You get your rank, and then you eventually test into the Enforcers. It takes years.”
“But could I? Like, has it ever been done?”
He’d admitted it hadn’t, but ran off to place a bet with Patrick that I would be the first.
Margarette was more annoyed at me, grumbling that I was wasting my time, hiding my light, or some shit. When I’d mentioned that if I did become an Enforcer or a trainer here, I’d need to know what the regular process looked like, she quieted down and left me alone. I’m not sure she would have been able to keep her mouth shut if she saw me doing such basic moves, though.
It didn’t matter since she spent most of her time inside the Lodge, setting up patrols to watch for groups of rogues everyone seemed concerned about, yelling at doctors, or sitting at Bradley’s bedside. He was doing worse every day, and Margarette was a wreck.
While I trained, Glen and Brand stayed close at all times, though Finnick made himself scarce. I still had no idea why he was at Northern, and when I asked him outright, he dodged the question, so I let it go. Maybe what Margarette had said about him needing a mom was part of it. But he watched me constantly, not like he was suspicious of me, but like I was a puzzle he was trying to figure out.
His words on my last day at Southern haunted me, though. I was still pissed that he’d thought he needed to say all of that mean shit out loud. I’d known I was nowhere near his league, and I knew now that just changing my address hadn’t made me any higher class. Why would a shifter like him even look twice at me?
But he was looking twice now, and for some reason, the thing he’d said before rejecting me—before my heart had started hurting when I even glanced his way—kept looping in my thoughts.
If you were mine, I would cover you in jewels. I would show you what a woman like you deserves, show the world your beauty.
That meant he thought I was beautiful. He’d thought that at Southern, when I was at my worst. He’d thought I deserved jewels when almost everyone else around me thought I was trash. But he’d taken it all back so fast. It made my mind spin and my heart ache every time I remembered.
There was only one explanation: Finnick was a douche. I forced myself to run harder and faster every time I thought of him, and do a hundred pushups when I even thought about touching him. It worked, mostly.
After dinner each night, I watched a movie with the Heirs, and sometimes Patrick and another Enforcer or two—though they made certain none of the shifters who’d chased me into the dining room were ever in the house. Then I read in my room until I fell asleep.
I avoided Vanessa as much as possible, given we now had rooms in the same wing. She’d been ordered not to speak to me, or confront me. But every time she saw me, she stopped and stared like my continued breathing was her problem to solve. Luckily, she went on runs into the nearest town to get supplies or something, and more or less avoided me.
Her best friend Clara took up Vanessa’s bitch slack, though. She practically stalked Glen through the house, always asking for his opinion and trying to sit next to him, though I wasn’t sure he noticed her. She lived in the Lodge, and called Margarette Aunt Mags as well. When I asked, Glen told me that Clara’s parents had been war heroes who died alongside Vanessa’s mother. I wanted to feel sorry for her, but she was mean as fuck.
Whenever the Heirs weren’t near, she honest-to-goodness hissed like a cornered possum and called me a whore, or something like that. I just laughed it off; I’d been called so much worse that “whore” was a step up.
Everything felt almost normal, except for Finnick’s way of watching from the corner, like a cat watching a goldfish circling in a bowl. One night in the library, I snapped.
“I don’t like feeling hunted, Finnick,” I spat out when the weight of his gaze pulled me away from the book I was reading. It was a good book, a Regency romance Glen had recommended, with a handsome Duke who was pining for a chambermaid, but no amount of wrist kissing could compete with Finnick’s staring.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, then strode from the room like someone had lit his tail on fire.
What the hell? He didn’t want to insult me, or fight?
Come to think of it, we’d been here for well over a week, and he hadn’t said anything snarky, although someone had left etiquette books inside my room after dinner for the first few nights, with pages marked at the table manners sections.
I’d thought it was Margarette, but the last time they’d been left there, I’d smelled Finnick’s ginger scent on the books, so I knew it had to be him. I’d confronted him, though he’d denied it. I retaliated by using more coarse manners at every dinner.
The books had stopped arriving after a meal when I didn’t even bother with silverware, but drank my soup from the bowl and ate my salad with my fingers, staring at Finnick the whole time. Patrick and Brand had both thought it was hilarious, but for some reason, the whole drama irked Glen.
Drama was the theme when it came to Margarette’s interactions with me. When she took breaks from being at her mate’s bedside, she would try to manufacture reasons for Glen and me to be alone. Patrick confided in me that his mom had a true mate obsession, and always had. She’d been obsessed with finding his and Glen’s true mates, ever since they were old enough to like girls.
“Her mom was the same way before she died at the end of the war,” he murmured at dinner one night, when Margarette had oysters served and made what she probably thought were subtle jokes about them being aphrodisiacs. I thought they tasted like cold snot, and gave all mine to Glen.
I still felt uneasy, living in the house around all the elite of the pack. Uneasy and uneducated. I’d asked for some books, hoping to delve into the ranking structures in all the packs, and figure out where it had come from. I’d also tried to speak about it with some of the unranked shifters, but the Heirs were around most of the time, and they didn’t trust them at all, or me. Not yet, anyway.
Instead of what I asked for, Margarette gave me pack law to read, and what she said was basic shifter education I’d been denied. The texts were long and sort of boring, but I learned about some of the rituals shifters were supposed to have as they went through different stages of life, like mating, births, and even death. I thought the sections on true mates were intriguing, though I would never, ever mention that to Margarette.
“Did you know that every North American Alpha has been mated when they ascended to Alpha, except Callaway?” I panted to Brand as we ran around the track. I was wearing ankle and wrist weights and carrying a backpack full of stones to build strength. “It’s not a law they have to be, but there hasn’t been a single other one not mated in history.”
“Yes, I knew that,” he replied, annoyingly not panting.
Damn my short, stumpy legs. “Were they all true mates?” I wondered aloud.
Brand didn’t answer, not even when I nudged him, so I let it go.
After another half lap, I asked, “Did you know there’s a ritual for rejecting a true mate, as long as you do it before you actually have sex?” The book hadn’t said what the words were, but I was almost certain they’d be in some book in Margarette’s collection. A small part of me wondered if the harsh words Finnick had uttered back at Southern were something similar.
Brand choked on something, probably a gnat flying in his mouth. I pounded on his back without stopping.
“Need a rest?” He shook his head, looking perturbed but not tired. He wasn’t even sweating. Of course, if he had half his body weight in rocks in a pack like I did, he’d probably be slowing down. I eyed his massive biceps and his muscular calves. Or not.
He straightened up, and I realized he wasn’t choking anymore. He wasn’t even breathing hard, unlike me.
“Ugh, bear shifters must have amazing endurance.”
He blushed and wouldn’t look at me. Had I embarrassed him?I tried to think what I’d said to cause his reaction.
Endurance… Oh, yeah. I’d heard women gossiping about how important that was in sex. I scowled at Brand’s red cheeks, unimpressed. “I’m not Glen, Brand. Not everything is about sex.”
“Did I hear the words Glen and sex?” Glen called, running past. He turned around, jogging backward. “You called, Princess?” I licked my lips, wondering why I got so damned thirsty every time he was close. Maybe I was dehydrated.
I ignored the sensation and rolled my eyes. “Watch out, Glenda, your magic sparkles have attracted some nasty fairies. If one catches you, she gets to kiss you.” I nodded at the group of unmated females who had once again—coincidentally, of course—chosen to do a few laps at the same time as Glen, wearing nothing but exercise bras and teeny-tiny shorts. I stifled a giggle at the look of panic that crossed his face.
“I’m not… not… I mean, they’re not with me!” he sputtered.
“They will be, if you don’t run faster,” I said, and tripped him as I put on a burst of speed and ran ahead. I didn’t look back when I heard the girls cooing over him and helping him up.
“Vicious,” Brand muttered. I stared at the tiny twitching corner of his mouth and kept running. Eventually, we were far enough away from Glen and the gaggle of Glen-chasers that I could ask the question that had been bugging me.
“So, I need to ask you something about true mates.”
Brand stumbled slightly. “You do?”
“Yep.” I took a breath and focused on my stride as I ran. “I would go to Margarette, but she’s made it her full-time job to hook me up with Glen. I don’t know anyone else here enough to ask. You’re the only one I trust to be honest.”
“You t-trust me?”
How was stammering and blushing so cute on such a huge, masculine guy? I wanted to squeeze his cheeks. My gaze dropped unconsciously to his toned ass. All of his cheeks.
Ugh, I was creeping on him. Maybe I’d been hanging around Glen too long. I felt a matching heat cover my face.
I tried to sound casual. “Sure, I trust you. You’re the only guy I’ve ever known well enough to talk to, other than Del. And you haven’t tried to pull that true mate line on me like Luke and Glen did. Such bullshit.”
“Oh.” Suddenly, Brand’s eyes looked… shifty. What was that about?
Whatever. I went on. “And I sure as heck can’t ask Finnick.”
“Finnick?” Brand growled. “He said you’re his mate?”
“Nah.” I ignored the twist in my gut. “You were there. Like, he said he wasn’t straight out, so I wouldn’t misunderstand. Probably worried I was getting ‘ideas above my station.’” I rubbed my chest, which still hurt.
“I was there,” Brand grumbled. “Still has his head in his ass, if you ask me.” He let out a long breath. “You should know, Finn isn’t interested in any woman, as a mate. His pack… Well, I can understand why, even if he did meet a special woman, he wouldn’t want to take her home to that hellhole.”
“Hellhole?”
He shrugged. “Cities are all bad. But his may be the worst. A trap for any decent shifter.”
I refused to think about what he meant. “Whatever. So Finnick’s not mate shopping, like ever. But the whole conversation back at Southern made me twitchy. Also, he’s a prick.”
“True.” Brand let out a huffing laugh. “Ask your question.”
“Do you have to mate before you can be an Alpha? Like, you and Glen and Finnick. Is it a requirement that you find your mates before you can ascend?”
Brand slowed. “No one will ever admit to this,” he said, as softly as I’d ever heard him speak. “But yes, we are expected to mate. Preferably to our true mate, if we find her. It’s not written in pack law or our histories. But Alphas pass it down to their Heirs.”
“Why?” I demanded. “Is it just more patriarchal bullshit?”
“Power,” he answered. “It’s about power, Flor.” He glanced at the Lodge, as if he expected his admission to bring troops running. Or someone.
Huh. I chewed on my lower lip. “So Alpha Callaway, at Southern. He didn’t have a true mate, as far as the pack knew.” I avoided the truth I knew.
“No one ever understood that,” Brand replied. “But we believe he had a mate, a true mate, and that was how he grew strong enough to be Alpha.”
“A mate makes you stronger?”
“A true mate, yes. You felt Callaway’s dominance?” I nodded, and he went on. “I think he could only have that level of power because he’d found his true mate. Luke found some proof of that, days before your fight.”
“He did?” I tried to keep my face expressionless. Did Luke know my secret?
“Yes. It checked out. And that proof answered a lot of questions the rest of the Council had for years.”
“The Council?”
“Finnick gave a full report on everything he found out to his father. He’s the Acting Head of the North American Council while Alpha Hillier is recovering.”
I didn’t like thinking about Finnick’s dad being in charge. He was oily, and too smart for me to go up against. “How does being mated give someone more power?”
“It gives both mates more,” Brand admitted. “My mother was what your pack would call low ranked before she met my dad. Once they mated, he ascended to Alpha, but her level of dominance rose as well. Margarette was already powerful, but once Bradley mated her… Well, he was nowhere near as dominant as my father originally, but Bradley became Head of the Council because of their shared power.”
“So, if Luke doesn’t find his mate, he’d be what? A weak Alpha?”
Brand stopped, a flash of pain crossing his features. “He already met his true mate, Flor. I know you don’t want to believe it, but we all saw it, felt it. His wolf’s power was much more potent than it should have been, given how long he’d gone without shifting. I met him ten years ago. He showed unusual dominance, even back then. His wolf has known you were his, ever since he was young. Since he was a child.”
“Since he was a child?” My thoughts whirled. Luke had first shifted when he was ten or something; I’d heard Del talking about it more than once. It was some sort of shifter record. “Wait. Are you saying Luke knew I was his—I mean, he believed I was his true mate, from when I was a baby or something?” If he had, and he’d let me suffer… It made me want to go back to Southern, to kick Luke Callaway’s ass from one side of the county to the next. “What a rat’s ass!”
Brand didn’t answer, but his lips had gone tight, and his eyes shifty again. I bared my teeth. “Tell me everything, Brand, or I’ll make you wish you had.”
I harassed him for a half hour as we ran, but “That’s not my secret to tell,” was all he would say.
Finally, Brand started back to the training camp, with me on his heels, the bag of rocks on my back taking its toll on my endurance. “Flor, don’t worry about Luke. He’ll be Alpha as soon as Callaway dies. After that? Well, he made his choices. Your choices are all that matter now.” He gritted his teeth and ran faster, like someone or something was chasing him. “And I’ll do whatever I need to, to make sure no one takes those choices from you.”
“My choices?” I had no idea what he meant by that. “Brand, there’s something you’re not telling me.”
He didn’t answer, just squeezed my arm lightly—setting off that feeling of home, of grounding, of safety—then picked up the pace again.