Page 4 of The Alpha's Pregnant Mate

“Thank you, Alpha Laurent,” she said sincerely. “I can’t tell you how much this means to me. To all of us.”

All he could manage was a stiff nod. And then she was gone, leaving him alone in his office once again, wondering exactly how he was going to explain to his advisors what he’d just agreed to—or why.

Chapter 3 - Rhietta

She wasn’t nervous, Rhietta told herself firmly as she led her pack down the final jungle path that would bring them to their temporary new home. Being nervous and being excited were two sides of the same coin, and she was determined, as she always was, to choose the more positive interpretation. Sure, there was a possibility she was about to suffer the second-worst humiliation of her short career as Alpha by throwing herself and her pack at the mercy of the man who’d told her she wasn’t fit to lead in the first place. Sure, she could feel the worry of her whole pack pressing down on her like a thick, heavy blanket. But would feeling miserable about it change anything? Absolutely not. What might guarantee a better outcome, however, was a positive attitude. She’d believed that for as long as she could remember.

It was perhaps the only lesson she’d managed to learn from her mother, who’d died when Rhietta was so young she could barely remember her. The image of her mother was constructed of a handful of impressions—soft, curly hair, an embrace so warm and safe it had made her feel invincible. But she remembered her mother’s conviction, gentle but irresistible, that there was sunshine to be found on even the darkest day. And no matter how many dark days had passed since then, Rhietta had always found that her mother’s motto rang true.

And so she lifted her chin and straightened her back, and though she didn’t feel like smiling, she smiled anyway, trusting the feeling would come along in time. It usually did. And so she led her pack out of the jungle and into the home territory of their enemy.

It didn’t surprise her to realize that Laurent hadn’t bothered to come and greet them. He’d sent Seff instead, the young man who’d met her on the outskirts of the settlement a few days ago when she’d come to beg for shelter for her pack. There was no hint of recognition or friendliness in his face as he greeted them; something told her that the young man was under strict instructions to treat them more coldly than he had last time. Behind her, her own pack were exchanging worried glances, and she turned to tip them a secretive wink. There were a few hesitant smiles in response.

It had been dark when she’d last visited. The late afternoon sun offered a much better view of the little town that Laurent’s pack had managed to build. The northern part of Ravil Island was marked by a great deal of uneven, hilly ground—it had taken Rhietta’s pack quite some time to find a suitably flat piece of land on which to begin building, and she didn’t doubt that Laurent had been met with the same difficulty. Still, they’d done well to find this place. A small stream ran crookedly through the little town, and the residential cottages had been constructed in mercilessly neat little rows as if to compensate for the stream’s lack of symmetry.

It wasn’t just the cottages she was looking at, though. There were curious faces peering out from several windows at them, many quickly ducking out of sight when they sensed her pack’s gaze falling on them. What had Laurent told them about the arrangement, she wondered? Knowing him, not much. He’d always been reticent, from what she could remember. People assumed it had something to do with his lorekeeper training—learning the secret ways of magic tended to instill a kind of mystery in those scholars. But Rhietta had heard a little about Laurent as a much younger man, before he’d gone away to study, and it hadn’t been the Council who’d made him so remote, so aloof. She’d only been a child then, barely five years old, which meant he must have been in his early twenties—around the same age that she was right now. It was odd to think of Laurent, with his hard face and salt-and-pepper hair, as having ever been young. Maybe he hadn’t been. Not in any way that counted, anyway.

She looked up when she realized Seff had come to a halt. They’d reached what seemed to be the middle of town, an area that had been left clear of dwellings, though still scrupulously cleared of the thick jungle vegetation that had once stood here. Piled high around a firepit were some familiar shapes—drab gray canvas bundles. Their guide gave them a stiff little nod, gestured to the tents, then left.

“I guess Laurent’s even rationing their words now,” Silea murmured beside her, and Rhietta had to hide a giggle behind her hand. The rest of the pack was spreading out, looking thoughtfully around what would pass for their new home. It wasn’t much more than a field, truth be told, but its position in the middle of town meant that it was as far as they could get from the demons that lurked within the thick jungle beyond. They’d be safe here. That was all Rhietta really cared about, at the end of the day.

“Right,” she said brightly, lifting her voice to catch her pack’s attention. “Let’s get set up before nightfall, hm? I’m sure I don’t need to remind you what a hassle these things are to set up after dark.”

That won a weak chuckle from a few of her wolves. They all remembered these tents well from the early days, when the packs had still been one, before they’d decided on a single place to stay. Setting them up at nightfall, packing them up at dawn…it was an odd little trip down memory lane. Like setting up their settlement all over again in miniature, Rhietta thought with a pang of sadness.

“We’ve got an audience,” Silea muttered a little later, as Rhietta helped her hammer in the last few tent pegs. They’d learned the hard way the importance of securing the tents firmly to the ground—tropical storms were a formidable enemy, and could spring up with hardly any warning. Rhietta glanced up to see a few curious figures standing around the outskirts of the town center. They didn’t seem interested in coming any closer, though Rhietta lifted her arm in a cheerful wave. “Rhi!” Silea hissed. “Don’t!”

“What?” Rhietta rolled her eyes. “They’re not monsters, Silea. They were our packmates.”

“Exactly. They were. They abandoned you, Rhi. They’re no friends of ours, not anymore.”

“Maybe not,” Rhietta allowed. “But we owe them one for taking us in. We’re safe here, thanks to them.”

“I’d find it easier to be grateful if they offered us a hand setting up instead of just standing around stickybeaking,” Silea said through gritted teeth. “I doubt these things have even been cleaned since last use. They just dug them out of storage and dumped them out here, I bet.”

Rhietta wanted to say more, but there was a grim look on Silea’s tired face, and a quick glance around at the rest of her pack told her that she wasn’t alone in feeling that way. This wasn’t the time, then, to share the slightly more radical plan she’d been chewing on ever since her first visit to this place. Chatting with Seff as he’d escorted her to Laurent’s home—which, she couldn’t help observing, was as far as could be from where her pack were pitching their tents—had made her wonder just how difficult it would really be to improve relations between the packs. Since then, her conviction had only grown that there was something to be gained here, some silver lining to the thick, dark cloud that was the loss of their own settlement. The bitterness between the two packs, the resentment—it weighed on her. The thought of easing that tension somewhat, of finding some common ground…that had been the thought that had kept her going over the last few days, that had lightened the heaviness of leaving their doomed settlement behind for the last time.

But right now, her wolves were too tired and sad to be receptive to the idea of befriending their old enemies. So Rhietta filed it away for discussion once everyone had gotten a few good meals into them, and at least one good night’s sleep. After the week they’d had, they’d more than earned it. And once the tents were up, the sun barely below the horizon, the pack wasted no time in turning in.

By the morning, Rhietta was very glad she’d made sure that every last tent had been firmly secured. The storm had pulled her from sleep at some point in the night, the soft drumming on the canvas of her tent quickly becoming a roar that drowned out every other sound. What she wouldn’t have given for this rain a week ago, she thought sourly. No wonder Laurent had been so surprised when she’d mentioned the wildfires. She was a little surprised herself. Ravil Island was one of the largest in the archipelago, but she was fairly certain it wasn’t large enough to be home to multiple weather systems. Then how could it be so different here, a scant day’s travel from the scorched and blackened remains of their own wildfire-ravaged settlement?

The mood was decidedly subdued in the morning. There was still a light drizzle forming, and it seemed the overnight storm had revealed that more than a few of the tents were leaking and in sore need of maintenance. Maintaining her usual brick wall of cheer, Rhietta chatted and joked with the pack for a while, then assigned those wolves to whom laughter came easily to the more onerous tasks. Tents needed repair, the belongings they’d managed to bring with them needed sorting and safe storage, and a hunting party needed to be organized, too. The other pack had given them the space and the tents, but it seemed that was the limit of their generosity.

And it wasn’t long before another concern was raised. Rovell came to her a little after the pack had dispersed. He didn’t look like he’d slept a wink, and she found herself catching her breath at the stark worry in his eyes. Rovell wasn’t a man who worried easily—there was only one thing she could think of that could put that look on his face.

“It’s Anik,” he said, confirming Rhietta’s suspicions at once. “She’s had a cough for a few days. We’d hoped it would clear once we were away from all that smoke, but it’s worse this morning, and she’s feverish. These tents…Alpha, I know it’s better than nothing, but the damp, the drafts…”

“Leave it with me,” Rhietta said, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder. “You’re absolutely right, those tents are no place for a baby. I’ll talk to Laurent.”

She could see the relief in his eyes, but it was quickly clouded by worry. “I wouldn’t want to jeopardize our position here—”

“Let me worry about that, that’s my job. Yours is taking care of Anik.”

The worry in Rovell’s eyes put a fiery purpose in her steps, and her strides carried her through town faster than she’d expected. The grid-like arrangement of buildings made the place very easy to navigate, and it wasn’t long before she was on the doorstep of the house she’d first visited a scant handful of days ago. It felt like years had passed, but she still remembered how surprised she’d been by how quickly Laurent had agreed to take them in. She’d been braced for a whole night of argument, but it had barely taken a few sentences to convince him. What had really been strange, though, was the look in his eyes—as though he’d been just as surprised as she was by how quickly she’d convinced him to take her pack in.

Well, she hoped he was still in that uncharacteristically generous mood. Because she had a few more requests to make.

This was the only two-story building in town, Rhietta noticed. Laurent’s offices were upstairs, but as one of his wolves let her in, she found herself looking around the lower level curiously. Laurent’s attendant had clearly been warned against demonstrating any kind of friendliness to the newcomers, but Rhietta pinned the young woman with her warmest smile regardless. It hadn’t been so long since the two of them had played together as children. Did Laurent really think a year of estrangement would be enough to erase all the history their two packs shared?

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