The Alpha's Other Woman by Vielle Nye (read a book .txt) 📗

7 Discarded

Carrie

I knew what it was like to be discarded.

I woke the morning after Dane’s proposal with sunlight shining on me through the open curtains of the hotel room. The deep feeling of satisfaction and the glint of the ring on my finger reminded me of just what had happened the previous night, sending another surge of pure joy through me.

We would be married, and more importantly, once we were marked, we would have all the things that other wolves had.

The shower was running beyond the half closed door of the bathroom. I pulled myself out of bed and wandered in after him.

"Good morning," I said, affection in my voice.

"Morning, Care.” I would be able to see this man every morning for the rest of my life. I pushed past the shower curtain and leaned in to give him a peck on the lips. I didn’t miss my opportunity to quickly admire the taut muscles of his form.

And he didn’t fail to notice my leer. "So naughty. You know we don't have time."

It was a shame that he was right. We both had to get back to our duties that kept the pack running smoothly.

While waiting for my turn in the shower, I brushed my teeth and then leaned against the counter. He got out, wrapping a towel around his waist. It hid some of the essential bits, but there was nothing to complain about while looking at the still exposed flesh with droplets of water clinging to it.

"Waiting for a show?"

I smiled innocently. "No, I'm waiting for the shower."

He grinned. It only took me a moment to strip off the scanty clothes I was wearing, and I enjoyed the way he ogled me as I got in to take my turn, wasting a minute even though he definitely had alpha duties to get back to.

Water streamed down over me and I gave myself one minute to enjoy it before I started to get ready for my day. A half hour later, we were on our way back to the pack. He left me with a kiss, and I made my way into the main dining hall, greeting pack members as I went by. Dane had gone to take care of his own duties and would likely eat breakfast at his desk, but that wasn't unusual so I made my way over to sit with a couple of other pack members.

"Good morning, Carrie," said the older woman who was already seated. Her eyes landed on the ring on my finger. "Did you two have a good night?"

I could not help but grin at her words. "A very good night."

The other females around me oohed and awed as they inspected my ring. Not all wolves got married to their mates as it was something of an adopted human custom, but weddings were more common for chosen mates, and it was still romantic nonetheless. My head whirled with thoughts of flowers and white dresses.

"It's about time he made it official," Samantha, my best friend since childhood opined, before shoving a forkful of egg into her mouth. "You already do all the luna duties."

The older woman was thoughtful. "Well, you can understand his reluctance. It's rare for an alpha to have a chosen luna, but at his age, it makes sense. The pack needs its luna, and you are fulfilling that role beautifully."

"Well, I try," I responded modestly. It was nice to hear the pack was satisfied since I worked hard to meet expectations. There were always people who were against any non-mate relationship, but she was right, at a certain point the alpha simply had to choose.

It would have been nice if both Dane and I had found our destined mates, but as the years dragged on, all the wolves our age got paired off, and it became increasingly obvious neither of us were going to find ours easily.

I didn't know where my mate was, probably on the other side of the planet. Every time a male had come searching our pack I had gone out to see if he was the one, but he never was, at least not for me. Dane had tried even harder to find his than I had, checking every pack he visited for years with no luck.

That was all in the past though. What we were doing was not settling, because Dane and I did work really well together, better than most human relationships if what I had seen in media was true. We were compatible, we enjoyed each other's company, and we both were attracted to each other. We were happy.

I ate while Samantha talked about some border incident that had happened the previous day with the neighboring pack. Her mate, John, had been on patrol duty, so she had a direct line to what had happened. Dane and I had been too preoccupied the previous night for him to have more than mentioned it, I thought with a secretive smile.

"So, the whole thing was a complete misunderstanding. Alpha Dane is going to meet with Alpha Tom and they're going to ensure that the borders are properly recorded."

"Strange that this trouble didn't come up sooner," I commented before bringing a piece of bacon to my mouth.

Samantha shrugged. "Well, pack borders do shift over time, and it's unusual for two packs to be so close together that this becomes an issue. If that young wolf had simply paid attention to his nose rather than his head like the rest of us, it would never have been an issue."

The poor kid who had been caught off pack territory because he was following the official borders must have been so scared. Luckily Blackcreek was as civil as our pack so they merely called Dane and sent the boy home.

Still, she was not wrong about pack borders. They did tend to naturally slightly shift over time as one wolf followed the previous wolf's scent trail. Pack sizes were roughly based on the size of a territory a pack could defend over time. People called the Blackcreek pack and our own Greenwoods pack the twin packs, because of our unusually close proximity and interactions. It could never have worked if either had been hostile, but Dane and Alpha Tom had good lines of communication. Having a close ally was actually safer, because everyone knew that challenging one pack was akin to challenging two. It had ensured a long period of peace in a dangerous world of rogues and other supernatural threats.

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