Page 3 of The Alpha's Pregnant Mate

Later, he’d wonder if it could really have been a coincidence that he’d been thinking of Rhietta a scant handful of minutes before she turned up on his doorstep. When the soft tap had come at his study door and one of his men had informed him of who’d come to beg an audience with him, his first reaction had been suspicion of some kind of practical joke. And when she appeared in his doorway, it had taken him a few seconds to reassure himself that he hadn’t lapsed into some kind of waking dream.

“Alpha Laurent. It’s been some time. Thank you for seeing me.”

He felt frozen in his chair, impossibly stiff, and his mind felt like it lagged a few seconds behind his tongue when he responded. “The situation must be dire indeed, if it warrants a visit from the Alpha in person. Are none of your followers willing or able to serve as messengers?”

It was hardly his best effort—a lazy jab to open their conversation, to get a sense of how strong her defenses might be. It had been a year, after all, and he could see the passage of time on her face; she looked older than the child he remembered, and her bearing and expression were more in keeping with a woman than a girl. But then he saw the flash of anger on her face, the way her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and he realized grimly that his hopes had been in vain. She was still every bit as much a slave to her own emotions as she had been a year ago—if not even more so. After all, she’d had a year surrounded only by her own enablers.

“I chose to come myself,” she snapped. Which part of the barb had gotten under her skin most, he wondered? Was it his suggestion that her wolves were disloyal, or that her leadership had brought them to harm? “Insisted on it, in fact.”

“A mistake,” he said, seeing her fists clench even tighter. This was far too easy. “Did your father never teach you about protocol? A meeting between Alphas is always arranged ahead of time, by proxy.”

“He did, actually,” Rhietta retorted. “Sounded like a waste of bloody time, so I decided to dismiss it. Alpha’s prerogative.”

“Unwise,” Laurent said, affecting boredom as he looked down at the papers on his desk. His body felt alive with electricity, his wolf bristling under his skin. Strange to feel so suddenly awake, given the weariness that had been dogging him all day. He put it down to the novelty of the visit, of the sight of a face he hadn’t seen in a year.

“Strange argument, coming from you.” Rhietta’s eyebrow quirked, her voice suddenly ringing with a challenge. “You seemed happy enough to do away with protocol when it suited your own ends. Or is honoring an Alpha’s choice of successor less important than adding a bunch of unnecessary steps to inter-pack diplomacy?”

She was pleased with that one, he could tell. He was surprised she’d gone so readily for that particular subject; if she’d given it a moment’s thought, she’d have known it was the one subject he’d be more than prepared to address. “Why, yes,” he said pleasantly, as though the question had been genuine. “Sending a messenger is considerably less likely to doom a pack than is appointing an unseasoned child to leadership. Now, miss, is there something you’re here to ask me?”

“That’s Alpha,” she snapped, her whole body rigid with fury. He kept the smirk from his face as he saw a tear roll down her reddening cheek. Unlike his opponent, he was more than capable of controlling his own reactions. “I’d hoped at least basic courtesy wouldn’t be beyond you.”

“I’ve been perfectly civil. Your lack of readiness for leadership is a matter of fact, not opinion. Or are you here to update me on how well things are going for you and the score of wolves who chose sentiment over reason?” She wasn’t, of course. One look at her had told him that. Her rumpled, torn clothing, the exhaustion even the energy of youth couldn’t conceal, the indications of recently-healed wounds on her skin…she was doing a reasonable job of holding herself with the confidence of a leader, he’d give her that. Lowell had taught her well. But Laurent knew false bravado when he saw it.

Sure enough, he saw her shoulders drop, saw the rage in her eyes vanish like a candle being blown out. In its place was a look of such deep, profound worry that for just a moment, it stopped Laurent’s breath in his throat. Regret struck him like a bolt of lightning. As disappointed as he’d been by their decision, the wolves who’d followed Rhietta had been members of his pack. He hadn’t wanted serious harm to befall them. But judging by the way their Alpha was looking at him now…wordlessly, he gestured for her to sit in the chair opposite his desk, and she did so gratefully. As she moved closer, he could see her body trembling with exhaustion.

“Tell me why you’re here,” he said, and while he didn’t consciously soften his voice, he could hear that the hard edge had left it. Curious.

She spoke then for several minutes, and Laurent couldn’t bring himself to chasten her for the inefficiencies of her story, the extraneous details she saw fit to include. Her voice was small, remote, so full of suppressed sadness that there would simply be no point in making her feel any worse than she already did. As he’d suspected, a terrible fate had befallen the other pack’s fledgling settlement. One building left, and even that on the brink of falling to opportunistic bands of demons—that part, at least, wasn’t a surprise. Demons had always taken a particularly virulent dislike to any sign of civilization, of the hallmarks of the places wolf packs called home; they’d take any opportunity to destroy such signs, sometimes prioritizing property destruction over defense against the wolves themselves.

But what did surprise him was the event that had precipitated the calamity. He frowned, leaning back in his chair as the young Alpha’s story began to trail off. “You said a fire was responsible for all of this?”

“I wish it was just one,” Rhietta said softly, shaking her head. “The wildfires were devastating. We held them back for a little while, but—well, if I’m honest, I hadn’t expected them. How did you deal with them on your side of the island?”

That was the first reference she’d made to his pack, he noticed. But the awkwardness of the subject was thoroughly eclipsed by his curiosity. “Wildfires? This is a tropical island. At times, the air’s too damp to set a fire intentionally.”

“Then you’ve had no fires on this side of the island?” Rhietta looked stunned by the revelation.

“None,” he said. “Our most significant natural inconvenience has been the rain, if anything.” Laurent hid his discomfiture. If what she was telling him was true, then he’d been overly hasty in dismissing her troubles as related to her leadership. It was hard to imagine what he himself would have done differently in her place, faced with such an unexpected threat. Then again, it wasn’t as though a fire couldn’t be fought. A sufficiently well-mobilized pack, a strategy in place to optimize the fetching and carrying of water…

“That’s a relief,” Rhietta said, interrupting his reflections. The smile on her face was broad and genuine. “I’m glad you’re all doing so well here.” She meant it, he realized. Rhietta had never been capable of hiding her true feelings—there was no hint of resentment, of bitterness or jealousy in her voice. He felt a little of his own resentment fade for the traitors who’d chosen her leadership over his. Exhausted as she was, her charisma was still a force to be reckoned with.

“It’s been a hard year,” he said, sharply reminding himself that he was still speaking with a political enemy, albeit a charming one. “Hard choices. Sacrifices. The living we’ve eked out has been hard-won.”

“I don’t doubt it. Seff was telling me about it on the walk up here—”

Making a mental note to have a firm conversation with Seff about sharing pack information with their enemies, Laurent sat back in his chair. “At any rate,” he said brusquely. “I imagine I know what you’re about to ask me, and it’s out of the question. We’ve only just completed construction on the bare minimum of structures to house our pack—we’re in no position to take in refugees.”

“It wouldn’t be for long,” Rhietta said urgently. Those huge eyes were suddenly trained on his face, and he felt his breath catch in his throat. He’d thought she’d been tugging on his heartstrings before—feeling the full force of her charm turned on him now, he realized she’d barely been trying earlier. Perhaps he’d underestimated the significance of charisma in a leader, at least a little. “Truly, we just need a place to get back on our feet that isn’t choked with smoke and full of demons. Please, Laurent. For everything that’s happened, our packs are still kin.”

“We’ve no space,” he said, but to his horror he could already feel his resolve ebbing. And as if someone else was speaking, he heard his own voice continue, “Not indoors, at any rate—”

Rhietta pounced. “Not a problem,” she said immediately. “We’d never want to turn your wolves out of their homes anyway. We’d be more than happy to use the tents if you can point us to a safe space to pitch them—I don’t doubt you’ve kept them in storage,” she added with a winning little twinkle of a smile. Huge canvas tents had made up the bulk of the supplies they’d carried with them from their old home; what they lacked in comfort, they made up for in durability. And her assumption was correct, of course. Never dispose of a tool that could be useful again—that was pack protocol. And there was ample space in the town center where a row of tents could be safely pitched—

Laurent felt his jaw clench at the horrifying realization that the vision upon which he’d always prided himself was changing. That was…unusual, to say the least.

“Very well,” he heard himself say, more to hide his own unease than anything. The look of joy on Rhietta’s face did something to him that he liked even less than his own lack of resistance in the face of her request. “For a very short time, you understand?”

“Weeks, not months,” she assured him, her eyes shining. He’d been thinking days, not weeks, but when he opened his mouth to say so, he found that his voice refused to obey. She was on her feet, and something in her movements made him suddenly convinced she was going to come around the desk and try to embrace him. Unthinkable. His heart leapt into his throat, but as if she sensed his sudden unease, Rhietta moved back.

---