Page 36 of Mated

“I’m just saying what other people won’t, because they’re scared of Cain. This pack has needed a breeding alpha pair for years. He’s refused to take any of us as his mates, because we’re not good enough, and now he’s fucking some completely random double dilute who might not even produce actual pack members. She has a fifty-fifty chance of spawning something basically human. What’s the point?”

Isabella doesn’t seem to be afraid of pain. Abel’s blow would have flattened me physically and emotionally, but she has already shaken it off. She is a very striking young woman, a little older than me, but with so much more presence. Her eyes flash with intensity, and her thick raven locks fly with defiance as I feed another stick of crispy bacon into my mouth.

Now people are really paying attention.

“She’s a puppy,” Isabella continues. “She’s domesticated. She’s cute, and she’d be a fine mate for one of the deltas, but she’s not alpha mate material, and everybody here knows it.”

Now I sip my hot chocolate, hoping that it makes me appear unbothered, even though I am actually extremely bothered.

Abel doesn’t just smack her again. This time he picks her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold and spanks her curvy rump hard enough to make her squeal.

Every eye in the room is on me now, and the silence is so intense that the sound of my chewing seems like the loudest noise that has ever been made by anybody ever.

“I am sorry,” Cain says to me. “That was absolutely unacceptable…”

“I think I’d like to go,” I say as politely as I can,

“You may go up to our room,” Cain says. “I have a few things to address here. Are you okay to get there yourself?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Cain

I wait until Kira is out of earshot before unleashing my fury on this ungrateful pack of mongrels.

“It has been some time since our last conclave, so perhaps it has been forgotten,” I say, addressing the rest of the pack, sans Abel, Isabella, and of course, Kira. I am not pleased with how she has been treated. Abel defended her honor, but with past alphas’ mates, that sort of talk would have resulted in a reaction from all present.

The fact that they stood and stared instead of setting on Isabella and making it clear her behavior was inappropriate tells me that they have not accepted Kira, and that is not acceptable to me.

“Who an alpha selects as his mate is not a subject for debate, nor is it subject to the approval of the pack. I don’t answer to you. You answer to me.”

My voice is relatively calm, but underneath the controlled tone is a rage that is beginning to simmer ever closer to the surface. My protective instincts toward Kira are fully developed. I sound likea tyrant, but I do not care. I would enact all manner of tyranny if it meant keeping my mate safe and happy.

“Am I understood?”

There is a murmur of assent, but it is not nearly enthusiastic enough.

“Am I understood!?”

I raise my voice, not in a shout, but in a dominant projection of power.

The response is more vociferous this time, but it is still not what I want to hear. Kira has to hold her own among the pack. That is the long and the short of it. A she-wolf like Isabella is the prototype. Beautiful, bold, dominant. They’ll respect that energy. Kira’s nervous nibbling of sweet treats did not make much of an impression on them.

I needed more time with her. I should never have allowed Abel to rush the conclave. Mistakes are being made. I am being hurried. Hell, I am being manipulated. I have the very bad feeling that this will not go well, and the even worse feeling that I may not have the power to stop it.

CHAPTER 8

Kira

I am trying not to cry.

I am trying not to cry.

I am crying.

I’ve taken off the outfit that now feels like some kind of a fake disguise which everybody saw through immediately, and I’m sitting cross-legged on the bed.

I hate feeling out of place. I tried so hard to appear normal for Cain, but being paraded in front of the pack and then humiliated was too much. She was ruthless, and though I hate how mean she was to me, I think I hate it more that I got the feeling everybody agreed with her. This pack doesn’t care about nature, or love, or personal choice. They want Cain to mate with someone who will produce the right kind of babies for their pack. It’s gross.

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