Page 41 of Alpha's Forbidden Bond

“Sarafina? She’s not in any more trouble than the rest of us.”

He smirked. “I’m not talking about how you are going to protect her from this new threat. I want to know what you’re going to do about the fact that you’re falling in love with another woman. You’re supposed to get married in just a few weeks, Andreas!”

“Sarafina doesn’t care who I fuck! She’s got someone back home she’s in love with anyway.”

“But the rest of the pack doesn’t know that,” he reminded me. “You can’t be sneaking off in the middle of the night to have sex with a human right outside of the compound! If someone from her pack were to have caught you tonight, the entire merger would be called off.”

I leaned back in my chair. “I know.”

“If you don’t think you’re going to be able to control yourself, then you need to call this thing off with Sarafina before it totally blows up in our faces.”

“No way. Then there won’t be a merge!”

“You don’t know that,” Mikeal said. “Sarafina could marry someone else. Hell, I’m available. Sounds like a fun, no-strings-attached sort of thing, and even though I can’t shift anymore, there’s no reason to think I can’t provide her with strong offspring.”

“But you’re not the pack leader. The only reason Becc and Mr. Morena even considered letting Sarafina marry me is because I hold the highest position in the Vilks. No offense.”

“Right…” He tapped his chin in thought. “I suppose you could always give up your claim and hand the reins down to me.”

I laughed. “Nice try. You don’t even want to be in charge. At least, you always said as much growing up.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” He pulled out one of the other chairs and kicked his feet up. But that leaves you in a pretty sticky situation. On the one hand, there’s the beautiful and politically significant Sarafina, who would strengthen the pack and give us the numbers we need to weather this storm. Then, there’s Diana, the woman you actually want to be with. Tough choice.”

Instead of arguing the point, I just accepted what Mikeal said. What was the point in pretending anymore? I did want to be with Diana. More than anything.

But I had a duty to the pack and to my family.

“God, sometimes I just wish Mom were still here,” I said. “Not only so I wouldn’t be forced to make this decision in the first place, but also because I feel like she would know exactly what to say right now to make me feel better.”

Mikeal fixed me with a look.

“What?”

“Are you really going to act like you don’t know what Mom would say if she were here?” He shook his head. “Because you had a good twenty-seven, twenty-eight years with that woman. You know exactly what she would say to you.”

I stared at him in silence for a few seconds. He was right. I did know what my mom would say. “She’d tell me to follow my heart.”

“No,” Mikeal corrected me, much to my surprise. “She would smack you on the side of your head and scold you for not following your heart even sooner.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that does sound like her.”

“She cared about this pack with all her heart,” Mikeal went on. “Nobody would ever say otherwise. But she also loved us a lot. And she always said how she just wanted us to be happy. If Diana makes you happy, then she would want you to be with her. Even if that meant not merging with the Morena pack.”

I folded my hands together on the table and hung my head. I had a lot to think about, and even though I knew it would be a good idea for me to get some sleep, I decided to go back outside for a walk instead. I was too wired to go to bed just yet.

“I’ll be back around sunrise,” I told my brother as I got up from the table. “If Sarafina comes around, can you tell her I went to check the property line again? And don’t mention the security breach to anyone.”

“You mean you don’t want me to tell the person you are supposed to marry that you were fucking some other woman in the woods earlier tonight?” He grinned. “You got it.”

I gave my brother a mean look, but he kept grinning as I walked out the door. I was glad he knew the truth. It made me feel a little less alone. The moon was sitting high in the sky, and many more stars were now visible. I went left when I stepped off the porch and walked past the guest house. When I crept close to Sarafina’s bedroom window, I saw that it was open. I paused and strained to listen.

She was laughing and speaking in a low, seductive voice.

I realized she was on the phone with her boyfriend back on the East Coast, and in a way, that made me feel a lot better about what I’d gotten up to earlier. Regardless of what I decided I was going to do in the end, at least I hadn’t betrayed anyone. At least no one’s heart had been broken in this process. If anyone was going to get hurt at this point—it would probably be me.

Chapter 20

Diana

---