That was the reason for the shyness and awkwardness in the Common House, she supposed. Poor girl couldn’t have had a chance to get used to pack life yet, and now she was supposed to welcome someone else with dominion over her life. The fact that Mickey had also been there must have made it doubly thorny for her, since neither had managed to rekindle any sort of relationship since her first shimmer.
“She’s a great girl,” Donovan announced, taking a sip of his own wine.
Wine with dinner. Beth had never tasted wine before. Un-mated females were children until the day of their mating ceremony, and with all the commotion surrounding hers, she hadn’t had a chance to discover the finer points of being mated.
“This is delicious.” Beth indicated her own glass, which was almost empty at this point. Delicious wasn’t the word for it. Moreish, described it a little better, she decided, raising her glass for another taste. Sweet and bitter all at once, it exploded on her tongue. A veritable feast for the taste buds.
“Californian,” Bradley informed her. “I get a cask of it every spring. This is the last of it, tonight,” he frowned. “Perhaps I’ll send for some more, Beth.” He beamed. “Since you enjoy it so much.” On that note, he rose and reached for the crystal carafe. “Top up?”
“Oh,” she gasped in a panic. “I can do that, Alpha. Don’t bother yourself with me.” Truthfully, she was terrified he would find the scent of another wolf on her skin. Hastily grabbing the bottle of wine before he could reach it, she poured a healthy serving into her glass. “There,” she announced with a smile at the burgundy liquid. “All done.”
Donovan's smile seemed forced, but although Bradley's was bewildered, he didn’t push her on it. “Have you met many of the pack, yet?”
“Oh I met lots of them in the Common House today. They were all very nice.”
“As well they should be,” he boomed. “You will be their Alpha some day, Beth. Not as soon as I had planned but,” he glanced at Donovan. “Some day. I thought tomorrow I could bring you to the human village with me,”
“Of course, Father.”
“Not you, Donovan. I was actually speaking of Beth. I think she might like to purchase some things for your new home.” His smile was pure wolf. Beth felt caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Donovan shifted in his seat, re-folding his napkin. “I thought perhaps we would do that together.”
“Nonsense! While I escort your mate into town, you can pick a spot for your new home, and requisition supplies from the store house. See Hale about it first thing. He will show you to likely locations.”
It didn’t appear that the topic was up for discussion. “Yes, Father.”
“Does that suit you, Beth?”
“Yes, Alpha.” It didn’t. She’d rather spend a morning with either the devil or the deep blue sea, but she could hardly say so. Not to the Alpha of the pack. Her Alpha.
“That’s sorted then.” He clapped, the sudden sound making both Donovan and Beth jump. “September! Where’s that steak?”
~~~~
Either because of nerves, or the mouth-watering taste, by the time dinner was over with, Beth had barely touched her steak, but was totally squiffy. “I think I’d better take her to bed,” murmured Donovan.
“Yes,” his father replied. “She rather over indulged on the wine.”
Beth longed to tell them both to stop speaking about her as if she weren’t present, but the Alpha chose that moment to sigh and glance toward the fire place where a picture of a woman rested – covered in dust, naturally. The glass had been shattered, and it was difficult to make out the woman’s features. Beth could see blond hair and silver eyes, but the rest was distorted by time and scratches.
“She reminds me so much of her,” he whispered sadly.
“She’s not her,” Donovan announced in a steely voice. Beth was surprised; he had been nothing but submissive in the Alpha’s presence since they’d gotten here.
“I know, son. But...” he trailed off. “I’m going to turn in. Make sure she’s up early for our trip into town.”
“Father,” Donovan whispered desperately. “Please don’t do anything.”
“I’m not to be questioned, boy!”
Whining softly, Donovan lowered his gaze to the floor like a good little doggy.
“Time for bed.”
“Yes, Alpha,” he answered meekly.
What the hell? Beth thought. What’s going on here?
And more importantly, how did it concern her?
Taking Donovan's arm as he led her up the stairs, she vowed to root out some answers in the morning. Drunk as she was, she’d forgotten the conversation by the time her head hit the pillow, along with her silent promise to consummate their mating.
~~~~
“Ohhh my head.”
It felt like there was a little gnome inside her brain with a teeny tiny hammer, and boy did he know the best technique for creating headaches. Her mouth felt like something had crawled in there and died during the night. Either that, or she’d been licking sand off a stick of chalk. And every limb seemed full of lethargy.
“That’s what you get for being a lush.” Donovan poked her in the side, earning him a squirm and a dark look. “Time to get up.”
“Oh couldn’t I just have one more hour?” she frowned. “And I’m not a lush.” Nor was she ever likely to be one if this was her reward.
“Not a chance, my mate. Father is taking you shopping this morning, and you’re already a half hour late.” Tap-tap, his finger went on the clock. “He’s not a very patient man.”
“I gathered.” Shit. She was keeping the Alpha waiting while she snored off the effects of how many glasses of wine? She couldn’t even remember. All she knew was that his offer of replenishing the stock, while appreciated, would not be necessary.
“I’ll look after her as if she were my own,” Bradley informed Donovan with a nod.
This did not inspire much relief in Beth’s mind – if it weren’t for that botched mating ceremony, she’d be his own, after all. “I’m sure you will, Father.” A fleeting kiss on the corner of her mouth, and Donovan swept out the door in search of the pack architect, Hale.
Feeling cornered for no good reason, Beth followed the Alpha to a long, black town car, smiling tightly as he opened the rear door and ushered her inside. The inside was luxurious cream leather that still smelled brand new, though she knew it to be at least ten years old, according to her mate. “This is a lovely car,” she muttered for lack of anything else to say.
“It does the job,” Bradley replied, sliding in opposite her with a flash of his teeth in what Beth supposed was a smile. His lips moved stiffly, as if not used to the pose, and Beth’s tension increased ten-fold.
“Beth.” Bradley caught her hand in his and brought her attention to him. “Can you explain to me what happened during your ceremony?”
“Surely Donovan told you all there was to tell,” she replied warily, not at all liking the severe look of concentration in his eyes, no matter how he tried to hide it.
“If I thought that, dear girl, I wouldn’t be asking you.” He smiled, and again it was the smile of a shark to a shrimp. “We’ve a bit of a journey ahead of us. The nearest town that we can buy all you will need to set up home in is forty miles from our northern border, which is itself twenty miles away.” Settling in comfortably, he squeezed her hand briefly before rolling his window down a crack to feel the breeze in his hair. “Regale me.”
So Beth told him of the preparations for her ceremony. The hours spent recapping her ceremonial dance in the woods, the process of the dance itself, and the incantations of Patina, which invited the spirit of the moon to participate in the ritual. “Of course Donovan was informed that he could observe, but not take part in the ceremony.” She shrugged. “The moon doesn’t care for outside influences, so he was drawn in, despite the orders from Marcus.”
“I see.”
“The moon chose quite a few potential mates, though my wolf cho
se only one.”
“Donovan.”
“No,” Beth whispered, coloring with something akin to shame. “Gareth.”
“Gareth?” the Alpha inquired his tone stern. The car had picked up some decent speed now, and Beth watched the greenery blur as they whizzed by. Perhaps Donovan hadn’t been as forthright as she’d assumed; Bradley didn’t appear to know any of this. “Yes, Gareth. He’s the Loam Floor pack’s answer to Donovan, I guess you could say.”
“Explain, please.”
This was feeling less like regaling him with a tale, and more like being interrogated. “He will most likely be the next Alpha of the pack,” she clarified, words seeming to turn to dust in her mouth.
“I see,” he said again. Though it was plain he saw just what he wanted to.
“The moon and my wolf were in agreement, although,” she swallowed, hating to go on. Hating to admit to anyone, least of all her new father-in-law that the mate of her heart hadn’t wanted her. “He didn’t claim me.”
This brought the Alpha’s head snapping round, his stare locked upon hers. “Unheard of!” he quipped.
“Not anymore,” she whispered. “He eventually claimed me, at the urging of our Alpha.” She shuddered with remembered embarrassment. “It was then that Donovan strode into the midst of our pack and my wolf sensed the power in him, while the moon had drawn him. My wolf thought he would be a suitable mate also, and they began to fight for dominance.”
“And my son won,” he announced, delighted.
“No, Alpha.”
“What?”
“I mean, he would have won, I think,” she shook her head, babbling now as well as mortified. “I stepped in and stopped it.”
“You...stopped a fight for dominance?” He sounded so slapped with disbelief that Beth wanted to curl up and hide her face in her tail.
“Yes, Alpha.”
“I see. Now I realize why there was such delay in my son’s return, as well as the reason for such empty spots in his explanation.” Tapping a meaty finger against his chin in thought, he gave the impression of going into a trance-like state.
Beth was wondering whether to change the subject or spill the rest of the whole sorry tale, when Bradley took the decision out of her hands altogether. “How were mating rights established?”
“I, um...” Mindful of the talent for sniffing out a lie that all Weres seemed to possess, Beth thought about her reply. “I chose Donovan myself in the end.”
“In the end? The end of what?”
He was like a big old bear that she’d just poked with a stick. “The end of the courtship period our Alpha established.”
Shaking his head now, he frowned. “Courtship period...”
“I had three weeks to choose between them,” she admitted. “I chose Donovan.”
“Well,” he snorted. “At least you made the right decision...in the end.” His lips twisted on those words, and she wondered if she’d live to regret being so candid with her new Alpha. She’d had no choice; the alternative was to lie to him and have him sniff it out.
“Yes, Alpha.”
~~~~
Beth’s feet were killing her. That didn’t happen very often, and she wondered just when they’d get a chance to sit down and eat. She was starving, having eaten nothing since dinner the previous night. Ill-advised though it may have been, she’d declined the Alpha’s offer of breakfast.
So far they’d chosen a bed – “the single most important item of furniture for a new Den House,” he’d told her smugly – and a set of dining room furniture, along with some couches and appliances, all of which would be delivered when her own Den House was completed. They were now hunting for the “little things women like” as Bradley called them. Things like bedding and rugs, pots and pans, curtains and throws and mirrors. She honestly couldn’t care less if they had a bare mattress and cardboard in the windows so long as she could rest soon.
The Alpha, she had discovered, experienced a certain ecstasy when spending human money. He’d spent more money than she’d ever seen before, and the day was only half over.
“Lunch time?” he asked. “If you’re feeling up to it, that is. That wine can certainly be a bitch the morning after the night before.”
A sudden laugh bubbled out of Beth’s lips, causing several people in the textile store to glance their way. “Sounds wonderful,” she admitted. “And yes, that wine certainly was a bitch this morning.”
“Suppose I should hold off on that re-stock order?”
“Gratefully,” she laughed. “Burgers?” she pointed to a stand across the street where a vendor was selling burgers to passers-by. The aroma had chased her right into the store, making her mouth water and her nose practically swivel on her head to catch the last lingering wafts of beef.
“Can’t beat a good burger,” the Alpha surprised her by announcing, his big, bass tones reaching every customer in the store. “And I happen to know the perfect spot to eat them.”
Happily following in his wake, Beth stepped across the street where Bradley ordered four burgers “with everything”, and paid for them with one of the notes he pulled from a roll of cash in his pocket.
“Follow me,” he ordered, crossing the street again, burgers in hand. Beth trotted behind him towards the back of the store they’d been in, gasping in surprise when they emerged from the dingy alley into a wide open area of grass and trees. “The town lake,” he told her, smiling.
Companionably, they sat munching on burgers, watching ducks diving and begging for food. Beth tossed them a piece of the bun and laughed as two large drakes fought for it, racing each other in the water. The victor swallowed his hard-won prize without as much as a quack.
Thinking perhaps she’d been wrong about Bradley from the get-go, she considered the time they’d spent together today since their conversation in the car. He hadn’t been boorish or offensive, and she had expected that and more from the Alpha of the Tall Grass pack. First impressions, she realized, really didn’t count.
“You Bonded with this Gareth, didn’t you?”
His quiet voice shook her out of her reverie and she turned to him with a frown. “Bonded?”
“You both formed an emotional attachment to each other.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked, genuinely curious.
“I can smell him off you,” the Alpha admitted slowly, with a frown.
“Oh...” she muttered. “That.”
“Yes,” he replied stonily. “That. I know what it is to be Bound.”
“You say that like it’s supposed to mean something.” Bound. She might have formed an emotional attachment to Gareth, but she’d never been more than a roll in the hay to him. That last night in the woods flashed in her mind, and she was again transported into darkness and lust.
“What have you done to me?”
“It means a great deal,” Bradley told her now. “If you can’t form the same attachment with my son.”
“I have,” she insisted. “I love Donovan.”
“But you are Bound to another.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she protested, voice barely above a whisper, eyebrows pulled together in a frown.
“You really don’t know how a Bond works, do you?” he questioned on a low growl.
Shaking her head, she started to say it didn’t matter, but the look in his eyes, so fierce, so serious, froze the words in her throat.
“Did they teach you nothing in Loam Floor?” he demanded angrily.
“I was un-mated,” she shrugged.
“No excuse!” He rose and began to pace, his giant strides eating the ground between steps. His powerful arms shook with anger as he growled low in his throat. “You were intimate with this male?”
“Yes,” she admitted, slack-jawed. “How did you–”
A wave of his hand cut her off. “When two wolves share intimate experiences of a sexual nature, it can form a Bond between them. One that distance and time may or may not sever. It can make it s
tronger in some extreme cases. You begin to take on characteristics of his scent, and vice versa.” He glanced at her for confirmation and she nodded numbly.
“Separation can be...difficult to deal with,” he went on in a lecturing tone, still pacing. Beth watched him avidly. Finally someone was explaining the intricacies of pack life to her. Albeit a little late, it seemed. “First comes sadness, then anger, and jealousy, frenzied emotions all roiling and boiling inside, just waiting for a chance to let loose.”
He seemed to know exactly what he was speaking of, and Beth had to wonder who it was that hurt this hulk of a man so soul-deep. “Left alone, the beginnings of a Bond will most times unravel and fade, unless both parties are happy to complete it. When you are finally Bound, you will both wear a scent marker. Proof, if you like, of whom you belong to.”
“Scent marker?” Beth questioned, her face draining of color. “But what does it all mean?”
“What does it mean?” he rounded on her, anger in his tone now directed at her. “It means that you had better form the same Bond with Donovan.”
“I will...I had planned–”
“To the Devil with what you had planned, Elisabeth Tall Grass,” he hissed, halting his steps to tower over her. “I am a reasonable man,” he went on quietly. “But you cannot walk around my pack wearing the scent marker of a foreign wolf!”
“I understand.” He stood there quietly, watching her face pale with dark eyes which never left her face.
“Do you?” he asked her with quiet intensity. “I doubt it, Elisabeth, I doubt it very much. But let me make this clear to you.”
She forced herself to meet his eyes as his body language was demanding.
“This cannot be tolerated. You must break this Bond. When you carry a scent marker from another, you will no longer be Bound to this Gareth,” he explained slowly. “And as your Alpha, I demand it be sooner, rather than later.”
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