Filed to story: Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel Free >>???
I heard a throat clearing behind me and turned to see Xander glowering. I rolled my eyes at hi came around the edge of the enormous wooden table to hug me fiercely, which surprised me. I let he Our Luna energies pulsed and swirled, until finally a few seconds later, she released me.
geta Her expression was dark. All these years, I’ve been so careful, and within days of meeting you, everyth catches on fire”
I frowned, taken aback, but then she shook her head and continued.
“I’m not blaming you, Lanie If anything, it proves to the even more that the Moon Goddess has something in mind for you, something special and necessary Something we’ve all been waiting for, perhaps without even knowing it, for ages.” She managed a smile that looked thin and tired.
“With great change comes great upheaval.” This came from Malachi, at the far end of the table. Melina and her husband sat close to him. He gestured to us all.
“Come in. Sit. I’ve arranged for refreshments. You wolves prefer your meat rare, yes?”
As he spoke, two carved wooden doors at the room’s other end swung open to reveal a few staff carrying platters of thinly cut steak. My stomach rumbled as I scented the meat. Goddess, how long had it been since I’d last eaten?
“Not so long ago he was calling us dogs, Zane murmured through our group link. “I guess this is an upgrade.”
We all took our seats at the long table. I used the few minutes as the food was being served to look around and take it all in. The room was grand, with high ceilings covered in more wooden carvings. Matching. floor-to-ceiling bookcases lined the walls, except where there were doors. The table in the center of the room was so big, twenty carved wooden chairs with velvet upholstery fit around it. Several lit candelabras lined the center. We all clustered at one end.
“Let’s just get right to it, Mason said. “Do we need to go on the run again?”
Xander pulled the plate in front of him closer to stab into a slice of steak. He tucked it into his mouth and chewed slowly, his eyebrows rising. I could feel his satisfaction at the meat’s tender flavor rolling through us all via the link. I dug into my own plate.
“We need to know everything.” Xander said, his mouth full. No more of this keeping secrets bu Ils hit.”
“The good news is that nobody seems to know where you are, much less that you’re here,” Charlotte said quickly.
“I thought you said nobody knew about Brightsky.”
Zane shot a look at Malachi.
“I said that nobody knows where Brightsky is,” my grandfather corrected him. “Many know of its existence and could guess that you might be here.”
“According to our sources,” Charlotte said, “they do not even suspect you are.”
“If they’re accusing Lanie of being part vampire-”
Xander began, but Malachi raised a hand to cut him off.
“It is not an accusation. It is the truth. She is part vampire,” he said in a cold tone.
Xander frowned but didn’t argue. “If they’re revealing to everyone else that Lanie is part vampire, why wouldn’t they assume she’d seek refuge in the vampire enclave?”
“I think I can answer that,” Braden said. “Since I’m the source Charlotte was talking about.”
Mason–
I’d taken the spot next to Lanie, and now I reached for her hand under the table. She linked her fingers with mine and gave me a small smile as she squeezed them.
else I’d heard Charlotte say that nobody knew we were here, but I wasn’t sure I could believe her or anyone Since when did we start trusting vampires, anyway?
Since we found our Luna had vampire blood, and since they welcomed us into their enclave,” Zane thought to me.
Sh it. Id been sending without meaning to. At least to Zane. Xander and Lanie didn’t seem to have heard I’s troked my thumb over the back of her hand, but she was focused on everything Braden was saying “Like Charlotte said, nobody seems to know that you, or Gabriela, or the children, are here,” he began, and Lanie interrupted him.
“Do they know about Stella?”
Braden tilted his head. “What about Stella?”
Til bring you up to speed later, Malachi cut in. The two vampires exchanged a look.
Huh Those two?
I wasn’t sure anyone other than me noticed. Lanie took her hand from mine to put them both on the table. She leaned toward Braden, pinning him with an intense gaze.
“You’re sure nobody knows the children are here?”
she asked i didn’t hear a peep about it if anything the general rumor seems to be that you and those three ran off together and left the kids someplace with Gabriela”
Braden had left a pause significant enough to show he’d meant to call us all something else Xander grumbled Zane gave him a little burst of Beta calming I thought Lanie would, too, but she was too intent on what Braden was saying I could hear her heart beating with my wolf’s ears. She was tense We all were “When the High Louncil put out the announcement that tanie was a hybrid, they only told the council members though Hight?
Xender had stopped shoveling his mouths full of food to talk. They couldn’t or “They couldn’t reveal that Lanie was a vampire-wolf hybrid without revealing to every pack that hybrids exist,” Zane said firmly. “If they admitted that hybrids exist, they’d have to admit purebloods exist, and since they’ve been keeping the entire reality of other supernaturals a secret since the Great Wars, there’s no way…
“They can’t announce a broken Treaty without revealing that there was a Treaty in the first place.
Or why it was put in place, Malachi said smoothly and paused like he was waiting for all of us to put the pieces together.
Da mn, I was so f ucking tired of all the intrigue. In the early days, back in Stillwood, all I’d wanted was to get some normal-sized revenge on my deadbeat father and the brother I thought I had to hate. I wanted to make a life with a mate and the baby I’d come to love as my own.
We could still have that, I thought, being very, very careful to shield my thoughts from everyone.
Lanie sat back in her chair hard enough to rock it on two legs. Her voice trembled. “They’ve undone everything they worked so hard to put into place after the Great Wars. All those years of lies. I had to have a spell put on me to forget my life because of what they did. They can never repay me for losing myself! Never!
I can never get that lost time back! And now they’re just tossing it all away and putting the blame on me?”
he didn’t let me take her hand. S
I reached for her again, but was shaking, her fury palpable. The fact that she’d said she wanted that lost time back stuck with me, and I frowned.
No, the way we met hadn’t been ideal, but I would never have wished it away.
Was Lanie?
“I figured they just told all wolf-kind some other kind of lies about us,” Xander said with a growl edging his voice. His eyes flashed as his wolf rose.
Mine did, too.
“If they’ve admitted that they’ve been lying to everyone they’re supposed to protect, why hasn’t everyone risen up against them?”
Zane questioned.
Braden’s shoulders lifted and dropped as he gave a deep, heavy sigh. “It seems your High Council is spinning things in a very different direction. They put out an official announcement revealing the existence of vampires. I’m not sure if they mentioned any other supernaturals.”
“And…nobody’s rioting about this? Everyone’s just totally peachy keen with it all, right?” Xander’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
Braden’s expression twisted. His gaze found Lanie’s and held it, and a small sliver of jealousy made the existing cut I’d been trying to ignore a tiny bit deeper.
“They convinced everyone that vampires brainwashed all of wolf-kind to forget about them. Both councils Included”
Lanie–
I burst into hard laughter that raked at my throat.
“No! You’re kidding, right?”
Malachi frowned. This is far from a humorous matter, Lanic.
“If I don’t laugh, I’m going to scream, I said. “I mean, seriously. Brainwashing? What the actual f uck?”
Braden snorted a soft chuckle, which earned him a stern look from Malachi. It didn’t seem to sober him much. His amused gaze met mine, but he pressed his lips together to hold back his laughter.
“They can’t really have everyone believing they’ve all been brainwashed,” Zane said, sounding incredulous.
“Why would everyone in every pack fall for that?”
“Your High Council can be very persuasive, and they’re very, very good liars. After all, they managed to hide the truth from all of you for decades. What makes you think they’d have any trouble convincing you all that the opposite is true, especially if they’ve crafted some elaborate story?” Malachi sneered a little when he spoke. “I mean, it’s well-known that you all follow your pack leaders with an almost sla vish devotion.”
Xander rumbled with a hard growl that would’ve sent anyone other than an Ancient vampire running. “And, you vamps apparently don’t know how to be courteous to guests under your roof.”
“It is the duality of your natures,” Malachi said without batting an eye. “It lends itself to duplicitousness. That means-”
“I know what it means, Xander interrupted. “F uck’s sakes. No matter what you obviously seem to think, we aren’t a pack of idiots.”
Braden leveled a silent look at my grandfather that went on way too long before Malachi broke it. I didn’t think vampires had mind links the way wolf-kind did, but something was definitely passing between them.
Something unspoken but definitely understood.
My skin pr ickled with awareness. Braden…and my grandfather? I wanted to leap up from the table and confront them both, but I held myself together. This wasn’t the time or the place.
“If I might be permitted to continue?” Braden’s voice oozed with politeness he addressed toward Malachi.
Malachi’s the one I take orders from.
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?