Page 16 of The Alpha's Pregnant Mate

But despite how busy she and the other wolves were getting Laurent’s pack settled, she was irritated to find that her mind kept straying back to the other pack’s Alpha. It wasn’t fear for his life that kept distracting her; Dasha had given him a thorough once-over, and confirmed that while his condition was serious, he was at least stable. The old woman had never been one to give false hope, or to speak with more optimism than a situation warranted, so to hear her say Laurent would recover from his wounds was all Rhietta needed to set her mind at ease. And yet, thoughts of him continued to trouble her, as though his very proximity had reawakened feelings she’d been doing her best to put into deep hibernation. It didn’t help, either, that all the excitement seemed to be manifesting as a faint fluttering low in her belly, reminding her over and over of the secret slowly growing inside of her.

Well, she thought. At least she’d have a piece of news to distract Laurent from the subject of this settlement’s location when he finally woke up. She couldn’t decide which information would shock him more—that her pack had settled here in outright defiance of his orders, or that his very own child would soon be added to their numbers. Would it affect his assessment of the situation, she wondered? Would he be quite as quick to jump to dire statements about war if he knew that his own child would suffer the consequences? Right now, she genuinely didn’t know. He’d reached brand-new depths of callousness the morning after they’d slept together, and Rhietta had realized she could no longer trust her own judgment of his character.

In the end, she had plenty of time to think about it. It was three days before he began to wake from the deep sleep that had almost claimed his life. By then, with the majority of wolves healing well from their wounds, Dasha had been able to reduce the hospital to a single tent, much to the pack’s relief. With sixty wolves now inhabiting a temporary settlement that had been intended to house less than thirty, every inch of spare space was at a premium. Still, spirits were surprisingly high. Laurent’s injuries, it turned out, marked the most serious casualty of the attack. The pack would bear the psychological scars for a lifetime, but not a single life had been lost, and that was absolutely cause for celebration.

Rhietta could only hope that Laurent would see things that way, too. With every hour that passed, she found herself dreading their inevitable reunion more and more. She remembered how angry he’d been when she’d given his wolves orders in the leadup to that demon attack. How would he feel when he found out she’d been the de facto Alpha of both packs for three whole days while he recovered from his wounds? She’d had no choice, of course, but something told her he wouldn’t see it that way. For a man who prided himself so much on his coldly rational approach to the world, he seemed to have a fairly significant blind spot when it came to Rhietta’s actions. Funny about that, she thought darkly. It was almost as if there was some kind of specific emotional connection the two of them shared…but she reminded herself sharply to put that thought out of her mind. Some things simply had to be off-limits if they had any hope of getting through this.

And on the fourth day, having received the all-clear from Dasha to visit with the patient, Rhietta took a deep breath, then ducked through the entrance to the hospital tent where Laurent was waiting to see her.

The first thing that struck her was that he must have managed to get hold of a comb somehow. Despite the fact that he’d been unconscious for three days straight, his dark hair fell crisply and neatly across his forehead as it always had. He was sitting up in bed, the sheets folded fastidiously over his lap, and though much of his body was still covered in bandages, she was relieved to see how much color had come back to his cheeks. The last time she’d caught a glimpse of him had been on that awful first day, when Dasha was cutting away his bloodstained clothing to get a proper look at the wounds beneath…a shiver ran down her spine at the memory.

Laurent must have noticed, because his lips pressed together with displeasure and his eyes narrowed. “It’s worse than it looks,” he said, and his impatient tone didn’t quite conceal the faint hint of embarrassment in his voice. And suddenly, to Rhietta’s dismay, all of the anger and resentment she’d been carefully cultivating rushed out of her, washed away by a great wave of relief. She felt her irrepressible smile spreading across her face again, wider than it had been in what felt like weeks, tears welling up in her eyes—and despite Laurent’s huff of seeming irritation, somehow she knew that he was suppressing a smile of his own.

She sat at his bedside then, resisting the urge to interrogate him too much about exactly what had possessed him to get himself so badly hurt. Instead, she filled him in on the events of the last few days, keeping her descriptions as clear and straightforward as possible. She could see the disapproval burning in his eyes, the tension growing in his shoulders…but he didn’t interrupt her, and when she’d come to the end of her account, he exhaled, his gaze fixed on the middle distance. Rhietta readied herself for the inevitable passing of judgment. But when he finally spoke, she was surprised.

“I didn’t expect to survive that battle,” he said abruptly. “I didn’t expect my pack to survive that battle. I can’t say—” Had she ever seen him struggle like this to find words? Only once, she thought faintly, but that subject was out of bounds. “I can’t say how grateful I am, Rhi—Alpha Rhietta,” he corrected himself. His silver eyes were still trained on the opposite wall, but she could hear the feeling in his voice. “Your actions saved us. Even with the—the recent history, between our packs—"

“Yes, well.” She felt oddly unmoored in this conversation. She’d come prepared for a fight, to justify taking over the running of things while he’d been unconscious. The last thing she’d expected from Laurent was gratitude. Had he hit his head when he’d passed out? Been replaced by a demon, somehow? “I was hardly going to let them die because of your crappy decision-making.”

The joke felt deeply unkind, like kicking a man when he was down. But Laurent’s silver eyes shot to her face, and the affronted look on his face was enough to make her smother her laughter with one hand. It was such a relief to see that ruffled-feathers expression of his again. “Speaking of questionable decision-making,” he said stiffly, ignoring her laughter, which only served to make her giggle more, “you may be interested to know that I have ascertained our current location.”

Rhietta nodded slowly, holding his gaze. “I thought you might put the pieces together.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “I made it clear that the establishment of a settlement on my pack’s territory would be considered an act of war,” he said eventually, that remote, icy tone setting her teeth on edge.

“Are you really going to—”

“Let me finish,” he snapped. “Honestly, Rhietta, your impatience is deeply unbecoming of a leader of your pedigree. However,” he continued, stressing the word primly, and Rhietta bit back a childish urge to repeat the word in her best and most mocking impression of his voice. “Given the somewhat extenuating circumstances—namely, the utter destruction of my pack’s settlement—I am willing to overlook your transgression.”

“How generous of you,” Rhietta said drily. This was much more like what she’d been expecting from Laurent. “For a moment there, I was worried your near-death experience had made you a more tolerable person.”

Was that a flash of amusement in his eyes? It was gone in a heartbeat, leaving her doubting what she’d seen immediately. Surely not. “Observation of proper protocol grows more important in times like these, not less,” he continued, still prim. “And with that in mind—”

“With that in mind,” she cut in, seizing an opportunity she’d been waiting for since she’d arrived, “I’ve brought you something.” She reached behind her to withdraw the bundle of papers she’d been concealing, dropping it triumphantly on the carefully smoothed blankets that covered his lap. He blinked down at the documents, and the look of genuine surprise in his face was deeply satisfying. “A proposal,” she said smugly. “For a harmonious living arrangement between our two packs, going forward.” She’d wondered as she stayed up long into the night painstakingly drafting the tedious document whether this was all a waste of time, but five minutes talking to Laurent had confirmed that her instincts had been right. If she wanted to make the best of this situation, she’d have to lay out the terms in the language Laurent understood best.

Laurent was leafing through the papers, his silver eyes narrowing in that fussy way they did when he was looking for errors. Well, he wouldn’t find them. She’d been dragged kicking and screaming through enough of her father’s interminable lessons on the drafting of inter-pack agreements that she could have produced a perfect document in her sleep—motivated, of course, by the knowledge that the fewer mistakes she made, the more quickly the lesson would be over.

“I’ll give you some time to consider my suggestions,” she said now, rising smoothly to her feet with her heart singing. “We’ll discuss any suggested amendments at your convenience. You’re looking well, Alpha Laurent. We’re all looking forward to having you back on your feet.”

The satisfaction of his speechless little nod stayed with her for quite some time, even after she’d left the hospital tent and returned to her own temporarily very-crowded quarters. They could do this, she told herself. As much of a nightmare as Laurent was, she knew that at the end of the day, they both wanted the same thing—a safe home and a bright future for their packs. She’d do whatever it took to make that happen—even if it meant ignoring, for the time being, the maddeningly obvious fact that they were soulmates. He’d chosen denial, that much had been made abundantly clear.

Still, she thought, passing a thoughtful hand over her stomach. Sooner or later, denial wasn’t going to be an option. And given how badly he’d reacted to their night together, she couldn’t help but feel a morbid curiosity about just how much worse he was going to be when he learned that he was going to be a father.

Chapter 12 - Laurent

Laurent pored over the document for three hours, not sure whether he was more impressed or infuriated that he couldn’t find a single error in it. No wonder Rhietta had looked so smug when she’d handed it to him. It was maddening, how good she was at protocol when she chose to make use of it. It only made her lapses in decorum all the more insulting, because he had incontrovertible evidence that she knew better. She was choosing to be an over-emotional mess with a reckless disregard for command structure and professional boundaries. That was so much worse than simple incompetence.

Still, he had to accept—grudgingly—that the terms she’d proposed were reasonable, especially given the complexity of the situation. It was a model for a kind of intermingling of the packs, while still keeping each Alpha’s rights as leader of their own wolves intact. She’d laid out a proposal for the next three months, at which point a thorough revision of terms would be scheduled based on how things had gone. The packs would cohabitate here, in what seemed to be the safest place for a settlement, giving his wolves time to recover from the physical and psychological damage associated with the loss of their homes. And both packs would share in the effort to figure out a strategy to address the risk of wildfire destroying yet another settlement.

He made a few of his own notes, of course, minor revisions to the proposal, but he could tell he was going through the motions. The proposal was entirely fair to both parties, and why wouldn’t it be? Rhietta cared every bit as much for his wolves as she did for her own. That soft heart of hers would be her undoing, he knew, but his exasperation was tempered by the knowledge that it was her soft heart that had saved the lives of his pack that night. He’d been awake for a short while before Rhietta had come to see him, and he’d been well and truly briefed on the situation by the steely-eyed Dasha, who with characteristic bluntness had made it clear that he and his pack owed their lives to Rhietta’s quick thinking.

It wasn’t long before he was on his feet again. Thanks to Dasha’s ministrations, the wounds he’d sustained were healing well. At any rate, it hadn’t been the wounds that were responsible for how long he’d been unconscious. He’d spent a lot of strength on that last, desperate blast of magic to turn back the demons, and that kind of life force took more time to replenish than flesh took to heal. Still, he was well enough to take a look around the settlement—this strange new place that his pack would be calling home, at least for the next few months.

It was well-situated, that much was obvious. With the thick jungle cleared from hilltop, they had an easily defensible position, and one that was within reasonable distance of a water source, though he made a mental note that the digging of a well ought to be made a priority in the medium-term. He’d expected to find his wolves demoralized after the awful loss of their homes, especially given how cramped and uncomfortable their new living situation must be, dwelling in leaky tents with every inch of floor space occupied. But he was surprised by how much laughter there was around the camp, by the smiling faces that greeted him when he emerged from his convalescence. They were genuinely happy to see him, he realized. Even after how distant he’d been for the last month or so, how coldly he’d treated them, they welcomed him with a warmth he knew he didn’t deserve.

There were tensions too, of course—an awkward, uneasy energy that he became aware of as he made a full return to his position as Alpha. He’d expected to be navigating a tables-turned situation, with his pack residing as guests of Rhietta’s instead of the other way around, but instead he found himself confronted with something new. The packs were collaborating. It made sense that relations had improved, he supposed, given the necessity of their very close living situation and the bonds of fellowship formed by the recent battle. But he was taken aback by just how willingly his wolves were collaborating with Rhietta’s, and vice versa. Wolves from both packs patrolled together, fetched water together, went on hunting trips together—even the distribution of living quarters didn’t seem to take pack allegiance into account at all. An outsider visiting the settlement would never have imagined that they were looking at two separate packs. And as the days passed, Laurent realized more and more that the notes he’d added to the agreement—most of which had concerned procedures for conflict resolution in the event of inter-pack disputes and rivalries—were so far completely unnecessary.

When he saw that his wolves were even helping Rhietta’s with the work of constructing their settlement, he was hardly surprised. A couple of them shot him guilty looks, however, and later that afternoon Reade came to find him, the dust on his clothes making it clear how he’d spent his afternoon.

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