I made my way back to the Alpha house and collected clothing. Walking around in the nude is always frowned upon when you are the alpha's daughter. A quick look in the mirror shows a deep purple bruise on the side of my neck. He marked me. That asshole. Even though I'm annoyed, I decide not to cover it and throw on a green summer dress. If he wants everyone to see the mark, I'll just let them look.
It seems like there is a party going on outside the cabin where pack meeting are held. There are a few bonfires, music, and food set up throughout. Normally, I would be excited and barely need a reason to celebrate. Werewolves are social creatures. We enjoy spending time together like that, but today it feels like everyone else is partying while I'm mourning my freedom.
Someone pinches the inside of my arm and I look over to see Sable, my father's mate. "Where have you been?" She asks with narrowed eyes.
I open my mouth to answer, but it must not really matter because she's pulling me along, towards the cabin.
"That little stunt you pulled earlier was extremely immature. You need to think about all your father and I have done for you. This alliance insures pack safety. You need to respect your mate and produce a pup as soon as possible."
My mouth opens and closes like a little guppy fish as I try to figure out what to say. "But, I'm only eighteen!" I stammer out.
Sable rolls her eyes, "How old do you think I was when I mated with your father?"
I never really considered it before. I was very young when they were mated. It was shortly after my mother was killed. I was still too afraid to even go to their mating ritual. It wasn't until Snow was a toddler that I started warming back up to the other wolves. I would watch her from the window, playing with my father. Her two chubby human legs pumping hard trying to chase his four-legged beast. She'd squeal with laughter as my father's wolf bounced around, stealing licks under her sweet dimpled chin whenever she got close.
I went outside that day. My father was so surprised he immediately shifted to his human form. Since my mother was killed, I had avoided the wolves at all costs. They tried everything, having the weakest, the youngest, and the most familiar wolves approach me, but it didn't matter. I still curled myself up in a ball, shaking and crying with the memories of her death.
After that day, I progressed by leaps and bounds, but two years later a certain grey werewolf attacked me while I was playing in the woods. He pinned me to the ground, made me submit, and then just ran off. It wasn't until I started shifting myself that I truly became comfortable around the other wolves and it wasn't until a couple hours ago that I felt anything for Grayson other than fear.
Interrupting me from my inner dialogue, Sable continues with a huff, "At least you are mating a young, attractive male. He hasn't mated with anyone else. He has no children from other women."
We are at the door now and she stops and turns to me. "Let me give you some motherly advice," she tells me, tucking a stray hair behind my ear, "Make this work out. We have the humans in front of us and we can't keep watching our backs. This alliance has been in the workings for a long time. You just need to do your part."
With that, she pulls me inside the cabin and I follow her up the stairs.
~
Upstairs, Yara and Vera, the Beta's mate, are already sitting down and deep in conversation. Seeing me enter, they both look up with kind smiles. Yara pats the chair next to her and I go take a seat.
"Here's our girl. We were wondering when you would come back around. We thought you might have some questions."
Now that I thought about it, I did. Not questions about the mating process, but things much more important. "Where are we going to live? Grayson isn't your oldest son." I asked.
Yara and Vera share a secret smile. "It is something we have been working on for a long time. The rest of the packs just found out tonight, hence the celebration." She gestures outside where we can still hear laughing and music.
Then she begins to explain. She tells me about the increase in population that happens whenever an alpha couple is having pups. All the other mated pairs tend to start creating families too. Yara had six pups in 15 years, so during that 15 years, there was a baby boom in the Harbor Springs pack. They could handle the pups, but now that the pups are grown and will be starting their own families, the pack will be overpopulated.
Most of the Harbor Springs wolves between the ages of twenty-two and eighteen, along with a few of the Pine Mountain wolves of the same age, will be splitting off and creating a new pack with Grayson as the Alpha and myself as his mate.
