The Alpha's Reluctant Mate

by Williams, Morganna

  I was more than ready to eat when Tera called out that she had lunch ready.

  As we ate, Tera explained that there would be a gathering at the main house to welcome me formally into the pack.

  “A gathering?” I asked, chewing my lower lip worriedly, not sure I was up to anymore pack politics.

  Tera smiled encouragingly. “It won’t be bad, I promise. It’s just a small party to introduce you to the pack and give them a chance to meet you. Sebrina will be there and where there is Sebrina, there is usually great food.”

  “So it’s kind of like a welcome party?”

  “Exactly, nothing to worry about.”

  I nodded and finished my lunch.

  The rest of the day passed in quiet camaraderie as we lazed around the house, watching television.

  At some point I must have drifted off to sleep because the next thing I knew Tera was shaking me awake and suggesting I go get ready for the party.

  I took more time getting ready than normal as I wanted to make a good impression on the pack. I carefully applied makeup and put on a flirty green dress with a daring neckline that lovingly cupped my breasts and plunged between them in a deep V. The hemline swung loosely around my legs just above the knee. Impossibly high heels that I would never have been able to walk in before completed the outfit.

  I smiled at my reflection; my hair hung loosely around my shoulders and my green eyes shone brightly, reflecting the color of the dress. Tera had been right when she said it was perfect for me. I also had to concede that my size twelve figure was more than all right. It was the perfect size for me. I’d stopped dropping weight but my body continued to tighten and firm with every hour. By the time my transformation was complete I would be able to do a buns of steel commercial.

  The thought made me chuckle as I strolled out of my bedroom to join E and Tera. Dizzy watched me from the bed; she was pouting because I told her she had to stay home tonight. I wanted to be able to give my full attention to the people I would be meeting.

  Epenie looked lovely in a silky black dress that hugged her curves. Her short dark hair slicked back against her head made her almond-shaped brown eyes look enormous. E was gorgeous; she had a mixed heritage, leaving her with a warm brown sugar complexion, high cheekbones, and delicately pointed chin, which combined with her eyes gave her a slightly exotic look.

  Tera, true to form, was dressed in tightly fitting black ankle pants. A sleeveless red silk sheath dress hugged her sleek form ending at her knees, but unlike Epenie and me, she had decided against heels; instead a funky pair of leopard print flip-flops completed her outfit. Her slim white feet were adorned only with bright red toenail polish and her outfit was complete. Tera’s long brown hair was pulled dramatically away from her head in an intricate braid that wound around the crown of her head.

  We made a very attractive trio as we walked from our little cottage to Connor’s imposing home.

  The door swung inward before anyone could touch it and we were faced with a smiling woman I didn’t recognize.

  Wildly curly black hair crackled with life around her animated face, her warm brown eyes filled with such vitality and love of life, you almost missed the abnormal paleness of her skin. It was so white it was almost translucent, the moonlight casting an eerie glow across her countenance. Personality sparkled out of her, bringing a smile automatically to my own face.

  She was in a long black dress that almost covered her mismatched socks but not quite. I cocked my head and looked at them closer, one was white with black cats and the other was black with white cats. That was a little strange but I looked away before she could notice me noticing.

  “Hi, babe! I’m Sebrina! It’s nice to meet you. I’m throwing you a party. Come inside. Do you like lox and cream cheese with bagels? I also have some really nice matzo ball soup and the brisket just came out of the oven.”

  She talked as she led me into the kitchen away from the main living area of the house describing all sorts of interesting sounding food that had my mouth watering. It was a while before I even noticed Tera and Epenie hadn’t followed us.

  I found her chatter relaxing; it was like running into an old friend that I’d known for years instead of someone I was meeting for the first time.

  It was good to know I had an ally in my uncertain future. I knew without a doubt no matter what I chose to do, this woman would be on my side.

  I placed a hand on her cold arm, stopping her in mid-description of the cake she was getting ready to ice for my party. “Thank you.”

  Sebrina smiled. “I remember how it was walking into the local vampire nest for the first time. I felt so small and insignificant; I wanted to help ease some of the awkwardness of the first official pack gathering for you.”

  “You did,” I said earnestly, realizing that most of my nervousness had fled in the face of her determined cheerfulness.

  “I can’t believe all this food,” I said, taking in the spread that covered every available bit of counter space in the large kitchen.

  “Werewolves like to eat and I love to cook. In fact, I just plain love food. I miss it terribly so it gives me a bit of a vicarious thrill to watch the wolves scarf down my offerings.”

  Licking my lips, I contemplated the choices available to me. I decided to start with a bagel slathered in cream cheese, whitefish salad, and a few slivers of smoked salmon. Yummm.

  “I love to eat!”

  She grinned. “Alexandria, right?”

  “Xandie,” I said with a smile.

  “Xandie, welcome to the pack. Of course, I’m not actually a member, just an ambassador from the local vampire nest but I’m pleased to welcome you to the supernatural community as a whole.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Alexandria, it’s time for you to come and meet the rest of the pack.” I heard Connor’s voice as he entered the room. He held out a hand and beckoned me to him.

  I frowned at Connor’s interruption. “I’m getting to know Sebrina.”

  He smiled as if he found my prickly attitude amusing. “Sebrina is very good at setting people at ease, which is why she is the vampire ambassador. Most of them aren’t all that interested in the comfort of others.”

  Sebrina sighed. “Sad but true. Although, Ethan is trying to improve their manners.”

  “Now is not the time to discuss Ethan and his leadership qualities,” Connor said with a frown.

  “Who is Ethan?” I asked, confused by the turn of the conversation.

  “Ethan is the ruler of the local vampire nest, my nest. I know you didn’t want to discuss this now, Connor, but I must remind you as the ambassador for my people, it is my duty to defend them when you make a disparaging remark,” Sebrina said with a reproachful arch of her brow.

  “I apologize, lady ambassador,” Connor said, bowing and placing a kiss on Sebrina’s hand.

  She laughed. “You nut, now shoo… go introduce Xandie to your people. They’re waiting.”

  Connor took my arm and ushered me out of the kitchen toward the main room. “You look lovely this evening, but don’t you think that dress is a little low-cut?”

  Glaring, I jerked my arm from his grasp. “Thanks for the backhanded compliment. I don’t need an escort.”

  Stalking away from him, I held my head high as I entered the room and stopped short as the sheer number of people filling the room gave me pause.

  There had to be over two hundred people in the room. All of them nodded and raised their glasses to me in greeting.

  “Welcome,” the gathering spoke almost in unison. “Together we change, we rise, we fall, gathered together come one, come all… we are one… we are pack…welcome, sister, never look back.”

  I shuddered, as a rush of power seemed to gather above us in the room before wrapping around me and filling me up.

  My body began to shake as the rush of power became almost overwhelming; my skin felt as if it might burst as it stretched tighter and tighter to contain the immense energy. Then just as su
ddenly the power left me in a whoosh and I saw each wolf present absorb the part that belonged to him or her as it returned.

  It left me so quickly, I collapsed to the floor in a quivering mass of jelly. The exchange had drained me completely.

  Connor reached down as if to help me up but I slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

  I ignored the gasps of surprise and outrage that came from almost every wolf in the room.

  Totally ignoring my protests, glares, and attempts to physically remove his hands from my person, Connor lifted me easily to my feet and held me close until the trembling of my limbs passed and I could stand on my own.

  “Xandie, you will not defy me in front of the pack without consequences. As far as they’re concerned you are my mate and should behave appropriately.”

  I tried to step away from him, glad to have all the feeling back in my legs. “I do not consider myself your mate, and so everyone else’s feelings on the matter really aren’t all that consequential to me.”

  Connor gathered me close to whisper sternly, “Tread carefully, little wolf; if you continue to defy me in public I will have to discipline you.” Thankfully, as soon as he imparted his warning he released me.

  I sailed away from him, relieved to hear more than one muffled chuckle. Good; they didn’t all think I was horrid for not falling at his feet in blind adoration.

  My gaze narrowed in on Tera, standing next to a very wide-eyed Epenie. “Thanks for the warning about that little ritual,” I said tartly as I walked up to them.

  “Are you okay?” E asked in concern.

  “I have no idea what happened, so I’m not really sure. Tera, am I okay?” I asked her pointedly.

  “You’re fine. I didn’t warn you because it isn’t easy to explain what a pack gathering to welcome a new wolf entails. What would you have done if I’d said, when you walk into the room, everyone will welcome you and then send their power coursing through you in tandem to make you part of us?”

  “Run like hell.”

  “Which is exactly why we don’t warn the bitten; it has to be done five nights before the full moon.”

  I frowned. “Why five nights?”

  “After tonight, things will begin to accelerate. You’ll become hungry all the time; you’ll be restless as your body prepares itself for the change. This exchange of power tying you to the pack is necessary to help you control yourself in the days to come and during your first change. We can’t have a crazed werewolf with no ties to our community running amuck.”

  “It’s about to get worse?”

  “It won’t be too bad; let’s mingle.” Tera smiled as she grabbed my arm to lead me around the room to introduce me to the members of the pack.

  Each person I was introduced to found a way to compliment Connor as either a great leader or provider. By the time the twentieth person commented on his vast abilities, I was more than ready to leave the party.

  So when a man asked Tera a question about her dogs, I took my opportunity and snuck back into the kitchen, where Sebrina was just pulling a tray of pigs in a blanket out of the oven.

  “Babe, you’re back! Pig in a blanket?” she asked, holding the tray out for my perusal.

  I grabbed four and sank down onto one of the barstools that lined the outside of the kitchen counter. “All anyone can talk about is how wonderful Connor is.”

  “He is a nice guy.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m ready to tie my life to his forever. I want to fall in love the normal way, not that there is a chance of that now,” I said morosely, sinking my teeth into a pint-sized delectable.

  “Sure there is, babe. Don’t give up; everything will work out for the best. You’ll see,” Sebrina said encouragingly.

  As we chatted, she caught sight of someone over my shoulder and a little of the bright light faded from her eyes.

  “You look pale,” Ryan, who I’d learned was the pack doctor, observed as he studied Sebrina with concern.

  “I’m a vampire,” she said rather flippantly as she began busily wiping down the kitchen counter.

  “You know what I mean. Are you eating?” He pinned her with his eyes.

  I was surprised to see Sebrina actually looking a little flustered as she tried and failed to look away from the good doctor.

  “I had a bite,” she hedged.

  “Sebrina, you have to consume blood to survive. You don’t have a choice in the matter.”

  “I had a glass recently.”

  “How recently?”

  “Yesterday or the day before; honestly, this doesn’t really concern you, doc,” Sebrina said tartly.

  Ryan sighed. “Was it at least human?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “You know exactly why it matters, so answer the question.”

  “Fine, it was cow blood from the local slaughterhouse. Are we done with the inquisition now? I have managed to survive for the last five years without any help.” She pointedly turned her back on him, pretending to be focused on scraping something off the counter with her thumbnail.

  “Sebrina…” He didn’t seem to know what to say to her.

  “Leave me alone, fur face, just leave me alone,” Sebrina yelled, spinning around and glaring at him.

  Ryan turned on his heel and left the way he came.

  “Wow, what made the doc go all alpha on you?” I asked, confused by the whole scene, then, glancing at her face, it all suddenly made sense.

  “He was always very alpha,” she said, staring after him with such a look of longing it was almost painful to see. Suddenly, I remembered him in her flower garden with the moon flower vine. They were in love with each other!

  A vampire and a werewolf; it was like West Side Story with fur and fangs. Wow.

  “What happened?” I asked softly.

  Sebrina turned and looked at me with a sad smile; she knew exactly what I was asking.

  “Ryan and I were in love and ready to spend our lives together, it seems like a lifetime ago now. Then in the course of one night everything changed irrevocably.”

  Her eyes took on a faraway look as she remembered. “He and I had been dating for a little over a year, when he planned a romantic outing on a borrowed motorcycle. We rode out of the city into a little clearing where a picnic awaited us. There in the moonlight on a red checkered blanket, he asked me to be his wife.”

  I hung on her every word as the story poured out.

  “I was overjoyed. I couldn’t imagine anything better than being Mrs. Ryan Stein. He was everything I’d ever wanted and so much more. On the way back home the motorcycle quit working.” She laughed at the memory. “He was so cute when his plans went awry. We were still about three miles outside the city so we decided to walk the bike in together.”

  Her eyes took on a haunted look. “We were in the middle of them before we knew anything was wrong. They were fighting. The vampires and the werewolves were in the middle of a turf war and we walked right between them. The world went upside down; I remember being torn away from Ryan screaming, pain and then nothing. When I woke up three days later I was in the nest and a vampire; my old life was gone forever. I barely existed for over a year; it was horrible believing that the only man I could ever love was dead and beyond my reach forever. I only ate when Ethan, the ruler of our nest, forced me to. Sixteen months after the attack the werewolves came to the nest for a peace summit, and Ryan was with them. The night I became a vampire, he became a werewolf. When the groups decided each group would host an ambassador from the other side to keep communication open, I volunteered so I could be near him. At least the way things are now, I can see him and know he’s safe.”

  This was the most tragic love story I’d ever heard. “Why can’t you be together?”

  She smiled. “It can’t work. The other vampires would rather kill me than see me with a wolf and Ryan can’t forgive me for being a vampire.”

  “It wasn’t your fault you’re a vampire any more than being a werewolf is his faul
t,” I cried in outrage.

  “You should know better than anyone that fault doesn’t always matter. Sometimes we just feel the way we feel.”

  “But you love each other!”

  “We did once and maybe we still do, but in the whole scheme of things it doesn’t really matter,” she sighed, then shook her head as if to clear it of unhappy thoughts.

  “Why was he asking about what you’ve eaten?”

  “I’m a little squeamish when it comes to blood,” Sebrina said sheepishly.

  “But you’re a vampire, how can you be squeamish?” I asked.

  “I don’t like it; I especially don’t want human blood.”

  “You don’t want to kill people,” I nodded in understanding.

  Sebrina laughed. “There is no need to kill anyone for blood. Vamps that kill are into the hunt and killing, they aren’t there to feed. It doesn’t take more than a pint to sustain a vampire for a couple of days, maybe even a week or so.”

  “Then why did they turn you?”

  She gave a sad shrug. “Ethan was mortally wounded and needed the majority of my blood to survive. To him it was an even exchange; he did after all make me a vampire.”

  I frowned. “Without your consent.”

  “He thinks he gave me a gift beyond measure and can’t understand why anyone wouldn’t be pleased,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “But you don’t like blood and becoming a vampire took you from Ryan.”

  “I’ve learned to make do with an occasional glass of animal blood.”

  “You can thrive on animal blood?” I asked, concerned.

  “It doesn’t sustain us as well and it should be fresh to provide the most nourishment. We can exist on animal blood but it diminishes our strength and ability to heal.”

  “Is it dangerous for you to drink old animal blood?”

  Sebrina shrugged. “I can live on it but it does leave me weak. I just can’t make myself feed off of a human, it’s gross. I barely manage to drink the blood I get from the slaughterhouse; anything else is out of the question, but I do drink what I have to in order to survive. No one has to force me any longer.”