Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
I frowned but nodded. I didn’t really understand his world—business or werewolf—but I could make sense of most of what he said.
“What does that have to do with anything? With us?” I asked.
He grimaced. “A lot, actually.”
“How?”.
“After you left last week, I went to the packhouse to talk to my dad, and when I got there, he was in a meeting with Timothy. Timothy had brought a new offer, a new proposal to my dad. And it involved me.” He blew out a breath and ran his hand through his hair as he prepared himself to say whatever he was going to say next. “It involved me and his daughter.”
My eyebrows shot up into my hairline. That was not what I expected him to say. “What do you mean it involved you and his daughter?”
“He wanted us to form an alliance with our packs by having Nicole and I take each other as mates.”
“Mates?” I repeated.
That word again. The one I kept hearing.
“Basically, we’d unite the packs through marriage. Still separate packs, but tied together by the mating alliance.”
“Like a contract marriage. Or a political marriage. Like what rich people or royal people or other cultures do?” I asked, and he nodded. “So, what did you say after you heard this proposal?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest and my stomach boiling.
“I said yes. But I had no intention of actually going through with it. I only pretended to agree to it so we’d get what we needed and could finally take him down, then the contract would be void.”
“So you were pretending.”
“Yes.”
“Did this ‘other girl’ know you were pretending?”
“Yes. She wanted to help us. She and her brother wanted their father gone too.”
“Why?”
“He cheated on their mom. A lot. It basically killed her,” he hissed, his face a mixture of disgust, sorrow, and anger.
“That’s awful,” I murmured, and he nodded his agreement. “So you were pretending to be engaged?”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s why you didn’t call me back when I called you?”
“Yeah,” he repeated, quieter this time, glancing down at his feet. “I had to convince Timothy I was serious about his daughter. He could… he could smell you on me when I came to the meeting.”
I wrinkled my nose and furrowed my brow again. “Smell me? How—?”
“Werewolf? Remember?” he said, tapping his nose. “We have enhanced senses such as sight and smell.”
“Oh.”
“He didn’t want his daughter to be someone’s side piece. Ironic when you think about how he treated his own mate. My dad said I should wait until it was all done with before contacting you. I thought it would all be done by the end of the weekend.”
“But it wasn’t,” I finished for him.
“No. It wasn’t,” he admitted. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I didn’t respond. I wasn’t ready for that. I still had questions, and I still needed answers about this whole fake engagement thing. I just stared at him, waiting for him to continue his story.
He waited, but when he realized I would not respond to that, he pressed on. “Timothy wouldn’t agree to give us what we needed until I agreed to schedule the mating ceremony with his daughter. So we scheduled it for Friday. Once we had what we needed, we sent it to the king so he could look over it and make his decision. We kept the ceremony set for Friday even when the king informed us he would be coming to arrest Timothy because we didn’t want to make him suspicious by backing out.”
“So you’re not married? Or mated or whatever?” I asked, looking down at my fingers.
“No!” he exclaimed, standing up straighter. “No, of course not. I never intended to be. I only agreed so we could get the information that we needed. And Nicole found her real mate while pretending to be at her bachelorette party.”
“But what if the king hadn’t convicted Timothy? Or what if he hadn’t gotten back to you in time? And what if Nicole hadn’t found her real mate? What would you have done?” I asked.
His face went white, and I could almost feel his heart skipping a beat and sticking in his throat. Of course, he hadn’t thought about that when he made his plan.
“Neither of us wanted it, Haven,” he breathed out. “I guess we would have gone through with it, pretended to be mated until everything was finished, and we could annul the union. But I wouldn’t have marked her. I would never have marked her as my mate.”
I didn’t understand what he meant by that, but I just nodded, still staring at my fingers. I could add that to my list of questions.
“Okay,” I muttered. “I can kind of understand what you were trying to do. Trying to help your pack and your dad and your king. I mean, I don’t really get it, but I get it.”
He sighed, and I felt a brief twinge of relief from him. “I know. I know it’s a lot to take in and understand and you’ve sort of been thrown into it, and I’m sorry.”
He kept apologizing, which was good because it was what I wanted, but I wasn’t done. I wasn’t ready to forgive him. I still had more questions, more things I needed to address.
“So, if a mating ceremony is like a wedding, then a mate is like—like a husband or a wife?” I asked.
“Yes and no,” he replied. “There are different types of mates. Chosen mates and fated mates. A chosen mate means you pick each other and agree to be together, even though there isn’t a mate bond. Nicole and I were pretending to be chosen mates.”
“And a fated mate?”
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?