Her Mates (Wolf Trials Book 1)

by Tamara White

  “I keep forgetting how little you know,” Pete says shaking his head.

  “It’s not her fault,” Jonnie snaps at him. “Dani, do you know what pure silver is?” he asks me from the floor.

  “Yeah, Dad told me all about it. And I’ve been scratched with it. Why?”

  “Well the cage is made of pure silver except the bottom, which is concrete. The point of the cage is to have someone punished in the most cruel way. The silver won’t hurt her unless she’s touching it though it will make her slightly ill while she’s in there. It’s not harmful in the long term but it can be an effective tool when we have rogue wolves that we need contained.

  As for the isolation, it’s because our wolves like to be around others. Without the support of the pack, she’ll become extremely lonely and it will make her want to be around others. Monique was very forgiving by letting her parents visit her so she won’t go completely insane but, a wolf that is isolated with no visitors, will eventually want to escape to be around it’s pack. It’s the ultimate test of self-control and it’s one of the best ways to teach a pack member to show respect. It rarely ever happens. She really did annoy Monique so, I don’t blame her for using the cage to scare her,” Jonnie says grinning.

  “What will happen if I do something like that? Will I get punished? Will it be the same?” I ask curious to know just how bad things can get.

  “It all depends on you and what you do. If you did the same thing by speaking out against the Alpha Pair, then it may be the same. If you were to disobey orders given to you by the Alpha or Alpha Pair, it could lead to the cage. However, because of your position it could be a lot better for you than it would be to another wolf. You may just end up with just a slap on the wrist. Though with Luke in charge there is the possibility he will make it worse for you to prove that he can control you.

  In some cases you can also be whipped, beaten or banished. For those to happen you have to be extremely horrible. The last beating happened when Luke was punished, not that he didn’t deserve it. Though now I’m thinking he deserved a lot more after knowing what really happened to your mother. His beating was because he let your father kidnap your mother but obviously, that’s not true,” Mitchell explains while the others all nod in agreement.

  “Whipping hasn’t happened since my father was called to the Elders for my appeal. It was deemed he would no longer be allowed to use whipping as a punishment and, if it was a harsh enough crime, he has to consult with the Elders. They will then decide on the punishment,” Cam says, unconsciously rubbing the scars on his chest.

  “What about banishment? That must be a pretty severe crime to warrant that? Dad said going rogue means losing your wolf but he never quite elaborated,” I trail off enthralled to hear more.

  “Being rogue is always dangerous. Most wolves can survive though they became more withdrawn and angry as each day goes by without companionship from the pack. Recently, we’ve been told the rogues have actually banded together to keep them all alive.

  Banishment usually happens for extreme crimes. Usually murder, sometimes harm to another wolf warrants it depending on the severity of it. If it was self-defense, and there’s a special circumstance to call for it, you would be left alone but if not, it would warrant banishment. Usually the Alpha Pair decides on the best punishment for the crime, however in some cases, the Elders can make the decision,” Jason says, leaning back in his chair.

  “Alright, now that we’ve gone through all of that, can we talk about something else please? I don’t like thinking about you being punished. It’s hard enough having gone through it myself,” Cam says, abruptly getting up from the bed.

  He paces back and forth over the room, his anger obvious. I feel so guilty for not realizing how much this conversation would affect him.

  “Okay guys, maybe we should go to bed. It’s been a long night and I have to meet Monique in the morning. If I think of anything I want to know, I’ll just ask Monique,” I say closing off the conversation.

  “Sure thing, Dani. We’ll see you after your meeting with your grandparents. Do you want to maybe have lunch and come to training with us?” Nate asks me a little hesitantly. I guess he’s picking up on the vibe from Cam too.

  “I’d love to.” I say offering him a smile. It will give me the perfect opportunity to train and get to know them a bit better. I’m actually looking forward to seeing Jason fight. He comes off as a soft teacher, but I have a feeling he’s pretty vicious when his wolf takes over.

  “Okay we’ll see you tomorrow,” Pete says leaving my room while the others hurriedly follow after him. Cam lingers and so I decide to offer him a chance to talk. Something’s bothering him, maybe if he talks about it, he’ll feel better.

  “Cam, do you mind staying please?”

  He stops fidgeting, dropping back on the bed while Jason lingers in the doorway. I can tell he doesn’t want to leave me while he’s acting like this, but I trust Cam to behave. Jason must sense that I have no problems because he walks out closing the door.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask approaching cautiously. I may not be scared of him but I’m not stupid enough to get too close to an agitated werewolf.

  He sighs, throwing himself back on my bed, rubbing his temples. “No, nothing is okay. I’m scared for you facing these trials.”

  “Why? I’ve already proven I’m strong enough to handle anything they throw at me. I’ll be fine,” I say promising him nothing will happen. It honestly confuses me the depth of emotion he has for me. I thought for sure he would distance himself rather than get closer.

  “You don’t get it. My wolf is terrified to see you go through the same things I did. He was the only reason I was able to survive. You can’t even shift yet.

  I know you’re strong and wicked fast but that won’t save you from saying the wrong thing. My dad will leap at the chance to get rid of you. I couldn’t stand it.

  This may be too soon, but I care for you. From the moment I saw you, I knew I was meant to keep you safe. I’m sure the others feel just as strongly as I do, even if we have to compete for your affection.

  No matter who you choose, we’ll always be here for you. There’s no getting rid of us now.”

  “Then that’s how I’ll stay safe. You will protect me from doing or saying something stupid. We’ll get through these trials together. Just please don’t be sad. I hate that my curiosity made you feel like this,” I say gesturing to his defeated demeanour.

  “Okay, I’m just going to wait here a minute while the others go to bed. I hate when they gang up on me,” he says exhaustion seeping into his voice.

  “That’s fine. I’ll lie here with you until you’re ready to go.”

  He looks tired as hell. It’s been a rough few days, going from moving to having mates, then moving again. Now we’re dealing with all this trouble from his father. I wish life could be simpler.

  Chapter 16

  Last night was amazing! Cam and I stayed together for two hours before we finally fell asleep talking. I didn’t intend for it to happen but my wolf needed to comfort him. It was so calming just being near each other. When I woke up, I expected it to be awkward between us but it was actually nice.

  We went to breakfast together and again, I thought someone would mention it but everyone acted as if it was normal. That’s what worries me most, it was so normal. Me having a boy in my bedroom, a boy I have only known a few days, should have raised Dad’s alarm. He doesn’t seem to care. In fact, he didn’t even mention Mitchell staying the night before. Maybe he’ll wait until I forget and bring it up just to torture me? It’s definitely something he would do.

  I once borrowed his credit card to buy a dress for a dance at school. He never questioned where or how I got the money so I thought I got away with it, until the night I came home from the dance. That was when he ambushed me asking a million and one questions about the dress before I gave in, telling him everything.

  There’s nothing I can do now though. I’m on my wa
y to my grandparents’ room to be the dutiful granddaughter. I have to learn what I need to rule our people.

  I’m about to take a right turn when Nate’s voice stops me from down the hall, “Dani, do you know you’re going to wrong way?”

  “Ah crap! Seriously?” I ask looking around trying to get my bearings. I have no clue where I am, there aren’t exactly directions taped to the walls. Stupid huge mansion!

  “Follow me,” he grins taking a left instead, then another left, a right and then another left. “Here you go.”

  “Thanks Nate, you’re a life saver,” I grin, reaching up to give him a peck on the cheek. He blushes, touching his hand to his cheek before bolting down the hall.

  Huh? Maybe that was too much for him? Oh well, I’ll ask him about it later. Right now, I need to gather what little courage I have.

  I knock on the door, trying my hardest not to fidget. I’m nervous as hell even if I’m excited to know more about my mother. Dad has already told me so much about her though he was never around her while she was growing up. I want to know if she was like me, if we really did look so much alike and why they never looked for us?

  They had three years to find my mother before she died. They could have looked for me and Dad after Mom died but he said they never did. It makes me wonder why they didn’t? Surely they wanted to see their daughter and granddaughter? If they had found me sooner, maybe they could have taught me more than I know now.

  “Danielle, come on in,” Walter says opening the door for me.

  Laura really has done a fantastic job of all these rooms. My grandparents are staying in a bright red room. It’s got some beautiful dark red and pale oranges scattered about the room with a lovely, deep red bed set. It’s pretty amazing and exactly what you would expect for royalty.

  “Sorry I took so long. Nate had to drop me off to make sure I got here. This place is a bit bigger than I’m used to,” I say explaining the reason I’m later than I meant to be. I’m grateful though because my navigation skills are horrible.

  “Oh that’s no problem at all,” Monique says waving off my apology. “I would usually chat for a while before jumping straight in but we don’t have much time on our side and there’s so much we have to discuss. First though, I have something I would like you to read. It’s a journal of sorts, that’s been handed to each Alpha Queen once the trials start. All I want you to read now is the first entry. Once you’ve finished, we’ll discuss it all. Okay?” Monique asks watching me for signs of running. She’s sitting poised in an arm chair as if she owns the room and in a way, I guess she does.

  Her pale blue pantsuit making her look more like a lawyer than anything. After hearing her demands, it makes a whole lot more sense. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a lawyer in the human world.

  As much as I want to argue, I’m glad that we aren’t messing around with small talk. I know it won’t go any better unless I do what they want.

  “Yeah, I can do that,” I tell them forcing a polite smile to my face. I really don’t want to piss anyone off before finding out answers.

  “This journal has been passed down through generations. We each add something in after we’ve been through the coronation. It should give you some answers about us and your role in the future,” Monique’s says clutching a battered old journal to her chest. It must be hundreds of years old. She reluctantly hands it over and when I touch it, a zap of energy goes through my body.

  “Whoa! What was that?!”

  Walter chuckles at my shock and Monique just grins with a knowing look on her face.

  “Read and you’ll find out,” Walter says, watching me as I turn the cover. His relaxed flannel shirt making me feel at ease. He looks more relaxed then Monique does, who is strictly all business.

  My heart’s racing in excitement though I can’t understand why I’d be so excited around such a stingy book. Even my wolf is pacing frantically excited.

  On the inside is elegant writing on such decrepit paper that I’m afraid if I touch it, it will tear. I settle into the seat folding my legs under me and start to read.

  For all of my descendants,

  If you’re reading this, it means you’re just as stubborn as I am and have started the trials. If my traditions have held, this will mean you have barely any idea what this means or who we really are. Well let me explain.

  We weren’t always werewolves. A long, long time ago, I was a goddess or what the humans called a witch.

  We witches lived amongst the humans using our powers to heal. We could make lives last longer, plants grow, heal human borne viruses and could heal our own injuries. Unfortunately, like humans, there was a sect of our own that believed they were better than us and began using their powers to kill others of our kind as well as any humans that stood in their way.

  ‘We are Gods so why should we bow?’ was their mantra. Sadly, it was one that many of our people found appealing. After all, why did we have these powers if not to rule?

  We could heal but we could also do many other things like burn someone with our anger. Our powers were individual based on our personalities. No witch had the same powers. It was why were praised as gods and goddesses.

  Many of our own were killed in a war to prevent the evil cult of us from hurting the humans and from killing others of our kind. We came so close to extinction due to their actions.

  That’s where I come in. My mother and father knew we were dying out. They thought of a way that could end the fighting between us and those we called ‘Dark Souls.’ They arranged a marriage between me and the son of the sect that would cause a truce between our sides.

  If we married, then the war would stop and we would live in harmony again. The sect leader’s son however, was pure evil. No matter how much I begged not to be near him, my parents forced the marriage.

  Out of love for my people, I relented and became his wife. He enslaved me for years until he went over the edge of sanity, killing anyone who even offended him in the slightest way. He was determined to rule the world but at the rate he was going, there would be no world left to rule.

  By this time, we had been married for fifteen years and had a ten-year-old daughter, Shira. She was my hope that our world would be united by her kind soul but it wasn’t to be. Balin killed our daughter, his own flesh and blood, murdered because she protected someone weaker than her.

  Shira was ten years old when she stood up to him. She tried to protect a human slave from being hurt and Balin struck out using his powers to steal her life.

  I pause when I read of her child dying. Killing a child, let alone your own flesh and blood, is so appalling! And how cruel is this Balin guy?! I hope she flays his nuts! I look back at the page, noticing where her tears have stained the pages. She must have suffered so much pain losing her child.

  Seeing my daughter’s lifeless body, a primal rage rose up inside me and I let it free. I didn’t mean for what happened next, but it did. My rage was so strong that when I let it loose, it cursed all our people, Balin included. The human slave that Shira protected shifted into a wild black wolf, killing Balin where he stood.

  I tried as hard as I could to reverse it but the curse I inflicted on us, was irreversible. None of us had our powers any longer. We could only heal the smallest of wounds.

  A year passed and I got close to the human slave Shira risked her life for. It turned out he had been spending a lot of time with her since Balin refused to. His name was James and he had been a better father than Balin ever was.

  Years passed with us spending time together every day dealing with the development of our wolf natures when we started to feel something stronger. We fell in love, and not long after had children.

  Surprisingly, we found more of our kind scattered around the world not long after our daughters’ third birthday. The others had also been hit by the curse I had unleashed and survived by figuring it all out on their own. We banded together to keep our people alive and start a new hierarchy.

  We lived t
ogether for many years until I felt the death. James knew I was close and we decided to sit our girls down to decide who would rule. None of them were capable of choosing anyone but themselves to lead so we had to come up with a new way to decide who would rule us. We couldn’t go by who was oldest as they were triplets which meant we had to come up with a fairer way to determine the leader of our people.

  Then, I had a dream. My mother appeared to me and told me of the trials. She said they were the key to the curse over us being broken. We were to explain the basics of the trials to them and let everyone choose who the Elders of our people would be.

  The trials happened and my daughter, Nora, won. She was the obvious choice and knew how to lead her people.

  The night she took control of our people, I told her what my mother told me. A time would come when an Alpha Queen would meet soul mates as powerful as her. When that time came, the Queen must choose the right mate. Only then would she be able to break the curse over our people.

  Until then the trials would help our people see how worthy the Queen is to lead. It will also help what was scattered of our society, band together under one rule.

  My mother knew a time would come when there was dissension between our Alphas and the packs which is when our new Queen will rise up. She will show the packs, loyalty, respect and above all love.

  If you’re reading this, you are a new Alpha Queen ready to lead until the curse can be broken.

  If you are the Alpha Queen with mates equal in power as your own, then it’s time. I wish you luck in saving our kind. I have sent James to you, I only hope he finds you in time.

  All my love,

  Malina.

  I stare down in the page in shock, not quite believing it. I don’t even know where to begin.

  “Is this true? Are we cursed?” I ask Monique waiting for some kind of explanation.