"Rachel, Chloe." Kyle nodded at the two women. "How may we help?"
Chloe proffered a clipboard towards Kyle. "Sir, we need a final confirmation of the guest list and planned lodgings." Kyle proceeded to leaf through the pages.
"Tia, I need you to approve the colour scheme I picked." Rachel's voice sounded close to my ear and at a very quiet pitch. I smiled and looked down at the clipboard, shocked to see beautiful sketches of garments and flower arrangements on the pages.
"Did you draw these?"
"Yes." The girl glowed with pride. "M'am, the Alpha is not meant to know the style or look of any of your dresses. You must block this knowledge from your bond." I glanced up at Kyle. He nodded, a smile on his face.
Smiling, I gave my own nod to Rachel. Coming to her side, I looked in amazement at the collection of gold and maroon and blue garments sketched on the pages. I pointed to the three I preferred, one for each section of the evening. I blushed slightly at the one for the main ceremony. The word dress was a slight over estimation of the quantity of fabric actually involved. In truth, the only thing I changed was for Lotus flowers to be placed around the complex and tables, at random points. Everything else I gave the green light to, pushing Rachel to keep going with her gut.
As she wandered off, I looked over to see Kyle still in conversation with Chloe over the particular issue of sitting the Alpha pairs of other packs that would be coming, including his brother. Not knowing who anyone they were discussing actually was, I headed into our rooms.
Walking into our closet, I partially closed my mind to Kyle, not enough for him to be aware I had but enough that he wasn't aware of my intentions. Going to the corner of the room, I pulled a lace babydoll from the drawers. Fastening the ribbon over my chest, I bent to secure stockings up my thighs and sliding some crotchless panties into place. Quickly, sensing the conversation coming to an end, I darted into the living room, draping myself on the couch. I lay there quietly as I heard Kyle enter our rooms.
"Tia?" His feet padded into our bedroom. "Tia?" His footsteps continued into the kitchen. I tried not to laugh. Was I that bad? If not it bed or the bathroom, I was eating? "Tia? Where are yo-" The question died in his throat as he rounded the corner into the living room, his eyes landing on my body. He groaned as he came to stand beside the couch, staring down at my body with hungry eyes.
"Something wrong?" I asked, shifting slightly. He groaned again, almost seeming to fall to his knees beside the couch. His eyes raked my body with lust and desire. His hand slowly reached to rest on my hip, massaging in slight circles.
"Why are you doing this to me?" The strain in his voice startled me. I looked at him questioningly. He laughed, a husky deep laugh that made me body tingle. "You don't know?" I shook my head, perplexed. "We can't, can't touch each other in the week before the ceremony. It supposedly makes the seed more potent. Fucking tradition." I could see his eyes starting to glow slightly amber as he stared at my body as I lay draped upon the couch.
I sniggered and pushed his hand away, sitting up. He coughed and stood again, readjusting himself as he headed to the kitchen. I couldn't help but snigger slightly at the situation. The faint growl that emanated back from the hall had me scooting into the wardrobe before I riled and tempted his wolf further. Sighing, I slipped on a pair of stretchy pants and a loose shirt, pulling my hair into a hair ponytail. I waited calmly for my arousal to drop before heading into the living room again, just in time to meet Kyle half way with the mugs of coffee in his hands. We both curled up on the couch, me nestled into his side.
"So, tell me about this mighty Alpha's who are going to see me fuck the first time I meet them." My snarky tone wasn't lost on Kyle who chuffed slightly in amusement.
"Hey, that's how I met most of their mates; it's only fair they can say that about mine." He drew me closer, his light banter forcing a smile to my lips. "This pack, though not the only American pack, is the biggest and strongest. In other words, in terms of how the rest of the world views us, we are the American pack. As such, not only will Alpha's from the American packs be attending but the Alpha's from the big foreign packs as well. The American Alphas will most likely only stay for the ceremony and then return home. The foreigners will stay for a couple of days at least. From the UK there will be a mated Alpha pair: Dennis and Lizzy. There are two European packs: the French, Claude and Juliet, and the Russians, Nikolai and Tatiana. The Arabic pack has a lone male Alpha, Parth. At the moment, there are multiple packs from Asia and Africa that wish to attend but they don't want the others from that region to be there. That is what Chloe is managing at the moment."
I nodded against his side, trying to process and remember all the names.
"Parth is by far the oldest Alpha that will be attending. He is older than the Elders of most packs, I believe he is closing in on around 3,000 years old now. He is very cunning and wise, making him hard to read and widely mistrusted. Dennis and Lizzy are great fun, I've known Lizzy for most of her life. She was born to the Alpha pair and found her mate Dennis as a human, when he turned he was Alpha. Very erratic." I smiled. At least there would be one person there who would know something similar to my confusion. "Claude is a ladies man, always being told of by Juliet by flirting with too many women. I think it's actually Juliet who runs the pack; she certainly seems more dominant in their relationship. I think you'll like her quite a bit. The Russians, they are a new Alpha pair and I have met neither of the two before, only Chloe has had any contact with them."
I nodded, sipping my coffee as I pondered the wide range of people I would have to entertain and host while going through my own dramatic changes. Kyles hand came down to stroke my head, my eyes closing as I enjoyed the caress.
"What are you going to do about Maxwell Tia?" I sighed. I knew I couldn't avoid it forever, but I had been hoping for half a century at least.
"I don't know." I groaned, my mind once again fixating on the whirlwind of emotions Maxwell caused.
"Well, he's standing in the hall."
I spun around, gasping to see him standing in the open doorway. Shocked, I automatically lept from the couch to the floor, crouching, ready to attack. Kyle roared with laughter. Maxwell only coughed, covering a laugh I suspect, while I straightened from my crouch.
"Please, come in and sit down Sir. I believe Tia left all of her knives downstairs." I turned and whacked Kyle on the arm. "Would you like a drink or something?" Maxwell shook his head as I resettled myself against Kyle's side, circling like a cat.
"What do you want?" My voice was abrupt and harsh, partly from my embarrassment and partly from my anger at him.
He sighed. "Tia, I want to talk to you. I don't want this animosity between us."
"What do you want to talk about then? What is there to talk about?"
"Why." I looked at him in askance. "Why your mother ran away with you. Why she was killed. I've had years to figure it out, years to learn about Fae myths and legends. Some I think you'll know others I don't think you do." I sighed, secretly desperate to hear the old man's stories. Kyle out his arm and around me and squeezed.
"Okay old man." I nodded.
"It's probably best I start with the myth of the beginning. The tale is told in three ways: the wolves' way, the Fae way and the older way." I glanced at Kyle in confusion. The older way? "The stories always agree on one thing; at the beginning there were humans. For the wolves, the story goes that the humans caught a disease or a genetic mutation as we would now call it. This genetic flaw was only passed down through family ties. This mutation caused the humans to change shape, to shift in to the form of a wolf. Over the years, these families with the gene became so powerful that the normal humans feared them, feared them for the murders they had caused. However, the wolves weren't killing the normal humans. The wolves discovered than a species of youthful looking humans with super speed and strength had spread from the dark corners of the Earth, feasting on the normal humans. The wolves, though hated by the humans, fought to protect them from the Fae. A fight still fought to this day." I looked at Kyle, hearing his mother's voice as she told him the exact same story each night before bed. I of course knew the story Maxwell told next to be the actual story.
"The Fae understand the beginning to be different. The Fae believe that they have existed for as long as the humans. For the Fae, humans were the children product of an unsuccessful breading couple, a flawed child that had shorter life and limited capabilities. The only way in which they were superior to the Fae was their ability to breed quickly. Soon, there were more humans than Fae, forcing the Fae to separate the humans from themselves, starting the process of screening mating pairs, a procedure I'm sure you're aware of to this day Tia." I nodded in confirmation. This story I already knew. "In the way of the Fae, they saw the humans to not only have less capability physically, but also mentally. Werewolves were born, according to the Fae from the bestial pairings of humans and wild wolves. From these, animalistic unions were the werewolves born. These children of animal and human were abominations that the Fae swore they would rid the land of, causing the beginning of a war that, as we've already outlined, still continues to this day." Kyle growled slightly at the origins of his race in the fae story, the suggestion they were somehow unholy or monstrous. I stroked his arm to sooth him.
"Finally, I discovered another version. This I found written in the margins of a Journal, found nearly 2,000 years ago, and already estimated to be 1,000 to 2,000 years old already. The journal contains detailed sketches of land formations that crumbled into the sea before the birth of Jesus, of witch's brews and spells termed common and easy magic. That said, the book remains buried deep in the English packs archives, forgotten and gathering dust, but with no paperwork as to why it has been banished to the furthest depths of our oldest collections. I believe it's all because of the hand scrawled story that lines so many pages. The older version of the beginning."
