Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
NOLAN
Ten steps to the right. Turn around. Ten steps to the left. Repeat.
Over and over I continue this path, pacing in front of the two queen-sized beds in the hotel room I’m sharing with Wesley, my best friend and the future alpha of our pack. Wesley keeps glancing at me in the reflection of the mirror, his brow furrowing deeper with each pass I make.
“Goddess, Nolan, will you please stop pacing?!” he finally spews, a pulse of his lycan alpha aura slipping from him. His lycan has been volatile since his early shift nine years ago, and I’m sure my anxious fidgeting isn’t helping.
I freeze and meet his eyes in the mirror, and he cracks his neck, shaking off his anger and the aura. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”
I wave off his apology. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not, though. Or you’re not, at least.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
I’m not.
I should be fine. It’s only a mating ball. I probably won’t even find my mate. I’m only twenty-two. Most males don’t find their mate until they’re older.
There is nothing for me to be worried about.
So why can’t I shake this overwhelming sense of wrong?
I run my hand over my hair and down the back of my neck, joining Wes at the mirror. I debate telling him my concerns, confiding in him about my nerves and the sense of dread I can’t shake, but before I can, there’s a knock followed by the whirring of the lock in the door.
“Oh, your room is much nicer than ours,” Reid says as he slams the door open, a key to our room in his hand, and his blue eyes scanning every surface of the hotel room.
Wesley scoffs. “My dad booked all the same types of rooms. Your room is identical to this one.”
“I assure you, having just come from there, it isn’t,” Reid says, shaking his head. “Tell him, Sebastian,” he adds, nudging Wesley’s younger brother as Sebastian walks by him and towards the mirror Wes and I stand in front of.
“They’re the same, dickhead,” Sebastian says from my left as he looks in the mirror and fixes a nonexistent stray hair.
Reid huffs out a sigh and leans against the wall on the other side of Sebastian, pulling his tie out of his pocket. “If you say so.”
“Does anyone think it’s odd they scheduled this mating ball on a full moon night?” Sebastian asks, adjusting his pink tie as he continues to stare at himself in the mirror.
“What do you mean?” Reid asks, tossing his balled up tie in the air.
“I don’t know.” Sebastian shrugs. “I guess it feels like a bad omen to schedule a ball for unmated wolves to potentially find their fated mate on the one night of the month when mates can reject each other. Like they’re just asking for drama and heartbreak.”
My hands slip on the button of my shirt, and a low warning growl slips out of Wesley. He glares at Sebastian, but he doesn’t notice.
Or pretends not to.
“You’re not even old enough to find a mate. Why are you here?” Wesley asks Sebastian, his fists clenching.
“Reid doesn’t even want a mate. Why is he here?” Sebastian fires back without missing a beat, his gray eyes never leaving his tie.
“Moral support,” Reid quips, still playing one-handed catch with his tie. “Plus, Alpha Harrison didn’t give me a choice.”
Sebastian raises a brow at him. “I distinctly remember my dad giving you a choice in the matter.”
“Well, when the ‘choices’ are to attend the mating ball with Wesley and Nolan or be on locker room bathroom cleaning duty for a month…”
“Touché,” Sebastian says, his lips twitching. “Now put your tie on, dickhead, so we can get this all over with.”
“I bet you everything is fine,” Reid says, wrapping his tie around his neck. “I bet you twenty bucks you’re being dramatic about the full moon for no reason.”
I meet Wesley’s eyes in the mirror and blow out a long breath, rubbing the back of my neck. Wesley rolls his shoulders, his hands flexing and clenching again at his sides, a faint hint of his aura leaking from him again. I close my eyes and count to ten, using each breath to relax my muscles like my mom taught me to do before my piano recitals as a kid, a calming technique that’s stuck with me even as an adult.
“Add in doing the winner’s laundry for a week, and you’ve got a deal,” Sebastian says.
Reid smiles. “You’re on.”
Their hands slap together as they shake on it, both of them either oblivious to or ignoring my stress and Wesley’s growing ire. I press my palm against the glass, my heart in my throat, the room spinning, and their voices muffled from the blood rushing through my ears like wind over an open convertible. My stomach twists and revolts against my body. I clench my eyes shut and clamp my jaw down, grinding my teeth together.
“Did you really have to make that bet?” Wesley asks, his voice breaking through the cotton wool in my ears as he scolds Reid and Sebastian.
I force my eyes open, and they both finally look at me. Their laughter stops in an instant.
“Shit, no, I’m just kidding!” Reid says, his head pivoting between Sebastian and me, his messy, slightly too-long, dirty blond hair flying with the movement. “I take it back. Bet’s off.” His hand slices through the air, and Seb nods emphatically.
“It’s fine,” I grunt, pushing off from the mirror and stomping to the hotel suite door. “Let’s just go.”
I adjust my suit jacket and button it as I exit the room, the others following behind me in silence. Wes catches up to me easily, his hands sliding into his pockets. “Just ignore them,” he says out of the side of his mouth. “They didn’t mean anything by it. They’re just…” He trails off, glancing at them over his shoulder and then pretending to observe the hotel decor in the hall as he tries to come up with some excuse for them.
“Being dickheads?” I supply, using our default insult. Or term of affection. The line between the two has blurred so much over the years, and I’m not sure if any of us can tell the difference anymore. Wes laughs, and my lips tilt into a smile of their own accord despite the unease I’ve experienced since checking in to the hotel earlier today. “It’s fine. Neither of them know I’ve been on edge since arriving. Seb is just speaking his mind, and Reid is just… being Reid.”
“Why are you so nervous?” he asks. “You’ve been itching to find your mate since the day you turned twenty-one.”
“I have. I want her more than anything,” I say, punching the down button for the elevator. “I can’t explain it, but it’s like Seb said—I have a bad feeling about tonight. Everything feels… off. Wrong.”
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?