Filed to story: Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel Free >>???
His hand rubbed the back of my head before he sank his fingers into my hair and tugged a couple of times to get me to look up at him. Xander’s eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed. He frowned.
“I f u cking love you. I want you to hear it, do you understand me?” he said roughly. “You f ucked up, but I just…I get it. And I want you to stop beating yourself up about it. We’re going to find a way to make this all okay.”
I punched his chest lightly, then let my hand rest flat over his heart, still beating fast with the efforts of our run. My fingertips curled, pressing for a second before I let my hand slide down his hip to anchor there. Xander slipped a heavy thigh between mine.
“My mother was going to do some research to figure out a way to get you out of the vow. You did make a vow, right? Not just like a little, casual promise with a wave of your fingers or whatever?” He looked a litt! hopeful at the end of that question.
With regret, I shook my head. “No. It wasn’t a blood vow or anything like that. I mean, she didn’t cu palm and mingle our essences in a goblet or anything f ucked up like that ”
“No,” he said, tone slightly mocking. “She just made you promise to ‘mingle your essences’ in her goble so you could make a baby with her.”
I snorted laughter, amazed that we could even find any humor in any of this. “Yeah. I made a vow.
“Ma says that means you’re bound to do it, then. That Rhiannon would’ve set a binding on you somehow, whether you knew it or not. So you can’t just tell her you changed your mind.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I gave my word,” I said harshly. “Which means we need to figure out another way to stop her.”
Lanie–
over When Zane and Xander got back, I could tell that Zane felt…not better, since this whole thing was still mess, but he didn’t feel as anxious. He and Xander came through the front door with their arms slung each other’s shoulders, smelling like fresh air and sweat and pine needles.
I loved them both so much.
A twist of guilt tried to tighten inside me when I saw Mason watching the other men joking around at the kitchen sink, and me watching them. It was going to take a while for all of us to settle in to something that worked. I gave him an extra kiss to make sure he knew how much I loved him, too.
“Love you, too,” he murmured into my ear and squeezed my hips.
“I’m starving.” Xander declared, yanking open the fridge. “Looks like we’re out of steak. I’m going to grill some chicken.”
Just like that, he was grilling while the other two “helped” with their advice and they all drank beer. Gabriela had appeared briefly just to say she hadn’t been able to figure out a solution yet. Since the babies were all still peaceful in their bassinets, she left me to finish up the rest of the meal prep.
“Lanie.
At the sound of Zane’s voice, I turned. At the look on his face, I went to him at once. He kissed me softly, tipping my face to his.
“I know you hate this,” he said.
Iran my hands up his chest to his shoulders. “I hate the idea of you having to be with her like that. But I don’t hate the fact you were willing to do whatever it took to protect us.”
He nodded and pulled me into a hug. We danced in the quiet kitchen for a few seconds, spinning slowly in a circle while the sound of jeering shouts rose from the yard. He chuckled gently into my ear and ran his hand. up and down my back.
“What are they doing out there?”
“Comparing d ick sizes,” Zane said with a snort. When I pulled away, startled, he shook his head. “Figuratively. They each have specific ideas about what temp to put the grill at, and how often to flip the chicken. Stuff like that.”
“Ah. Manly man stuff.” I put on a fake-impressed face, and we both laughed.
“Anything from Gabriela?” Zane kissed my forehead and went to the fridge to pull out a beer.
I went back to prepping the salad, my knife slicing sharply through the tomatoes I was putting in the bowl. “Nothing.”
“She’ll figure something out. She always does.” He leaned against the counter to watch me with a glow in My eyebrows went up. “In the kitchen, huh? And look. I’m not even wearing shoes. What do you know.”
He laughed ruefully and shook his head. “You’re good at making a home, Lanie. If we were back at the mansion, there’d be staff to take care of this stuff. You’d be busy with Luna duties, sure, but you wouldn’t have to be chopping lettuce.”
“Or cleaning toilets,” I said. Living with three men in a cottage with only one bathroom was proving to be more of a challenge than I really wanted to face.
“What I mean is, we’d all be living together, but it would be very different. It almost makes me wish we could just stay here forever. You, me, Xander, the babies. Mason too, I guess. Our family, here together.” He tipped his bottle to his lips and drank.
I watched his throat work as I added some sliced cucumbers to the bowl and dried my hands on a to “You don’t want Xander to be Alpha of the pack?”
“Of course I do. Even if I didn’t, it’s what he is. But this is nice.”
“For now,” I said softly.
Our eyes met.
No matter how much I tried to pretend I could handle the idea of him having sex with someone else, I really couldn’t. It made my canines drop and my claws lengthen, and Zane saw it even though I quickly held myself back. He crossed the kitchen to me and took me in his arms He didn’t apologize, but I felt his sorrow. Not at what he’d agreed to do, but at how it hurt me and all of us. I was being selfish with my pain. Yeah, I hated the thought of him being with someone else physically, but he was the one who’d have to do it.
He e was the one who’d be creating a child he’d never get to raise, one that could be in danger from its own mother from the first moment of its conception.
I couldn’t let that happen to an innocent child, but especially, I could not stand to let the man I loved go through all of that.
“Lanie? Love?”
The glow emitting from all around me had grown so bright it reflected in Zane’s eyes. I stood up straight.
“You all finish your dinner and take care of the babies, okay? I need some time to myself.”
I had an idea of how I could solve this dilemma…but needed some time. The problem was, I wasn’t sure I’d have enough.
Xander–
Something was wrong with my mate, and there wasn’t sh it I could do about it. That pi ssed me off-and that made everyone else in the cottage on edge. The babies were practically inconsolable, which only made it all worse.
Zane had firmly suggested I go outside to keep the babies from being agitated, and Mason had agreed with such force I found myself on the front porch with my fists clenched, hating them both. I had to begrudgingly admit they were right to get me out of the cottage, though. Being cooped up inside wasn’t helping.
“You need to go for another run or something,” my mother said, irritated, as I paced the front porch. ”
nor I off some of this angry energy, Xander. It’s not good for you or for anyone else.”
“What’s she doing in there?” I stabbed a finger toward the front door of the cottage.
Lanie had been hiding out in the bedroom since Mason and I came in from the grill last night. She’d accepted a tray of dinner, but then shut the door right in my face. It had been hours without a peep from her, and any time I tried her through the mind link, all she said was “I need some time.”
“I don’t know what she’s doing, but whatever it is, you need to back off,” my mother said sharply. “By the Goddess, being the Alpha doesn’t give you permission to run roughshod over your Luna just because you’ve got an itch to scratch,”
My lip curled at that. “Ma, this isn’t about that. Not that I want to discuss that with you.”
“I was the Luna for a long, long time, and believe me, there were plenty of times when I needed your father to back off so I could simply have a few minutes to breathe. You have a lot of responsibility as the Alpha.” My mother shook her finger at me. “And you have a Beta to help you. You have a Luna. But who does the Luna have? Give her the time she needs. Goddess knows, it’ll be soon enough that none of us have the luxury of taking a few hours alone.”
Zane opened the front door. “The kids are all quiet. Mason and I are going to play a few hands of cards.
You want in?”
I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on a game right now, and I didn’t even need to say so. Zane nodded and went back inside. I returned to my pacing.
“If you don’t stop, I swear by the moon, I’ll take you down myself!” my mother growled.
I leaned against the railing and looked out across the yard. “You haven’t been able to come up with anything, have you?”
“If I had, you’d know. But no. None of my resources have been able to give me a definitive answer about the ways to break a witch’s vow binding spell, especially since we can’t be sure exactly what she used. At least not without asking her, and I highly doubt she’d be willing to tell us.” My mother chuckled without much humor. “As for what she’d be able to do with a hybrid witch-wolf child..I’m trying to be very careful who and how I ask.”
I turned to face her. “Can’t we just kill her?”
“Oh, Xander.”
“I’m serious, Ma.” My voice dropped. “When Malachi killed Dad, he broke the treaty. There’s no reason for us not to just take her out since everything is f ucked anyways.”
My mother flinched, her expression getting as dark as a summer thunderstorm. “I’ve always hoped you had more of me than your father inside you. I guess I was wrong.”
I guess it didn’t matter how old you ever got, or how much power you could control. When your mother looked disappointed in you, it royally sucked.
“I’m not my father,” I told her. “But I will do what I have to in order to protect my pack and my mates.”
“Killing Rhiannon would cause far more trouble than we can hopefully prevent.” She shook her heal if the treaty is already broken. Which is something I never thought I would see in my lifetime.”
I settled into the wicker chair across from her. I’d learned so much about my mother and father and 1 roles they’d played in what the High Council had done, but it felt like there was still so much that had been kept secret from us all. Now war was coming, and all I could think about was what I could do to stop it.
“Lanie,” I heard Zane say through the link.
Mason joined in. “She’s out of her room.”
When I leaped to my feet, my mother jumped to hers, immediately wary and ready to fight. She spun toward the trees, then back to face me.
“What? What’s going on?”
“Xander,” Lanie murmured through the link. “You and your mother should come in here. I have something to share with both of you.”
Lanie–
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?