Page 1 of Forever Mine

Liam

Chapter 1

I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath. Pushing back from my desk, I let the chair drift and looked around my office, reflecting over the last two years. Two years ago I was fresh out of college. I had majored in business, unsure of what aspect of the family company I wanted to someday work. All through high school and college, I had managed to stay as far away from the Westin Foundation as possible. So, what the hell was I doing here, a twenty-four-year-old CEO of a multi-billion dollar company?

The Westin Foundation was largely an investment firm. We had other holdings, and worked closely with a lot of charities, but for the most part that's what we did. Really it was just a front to legitimize the small town of San Marco, which housed potentially the largest pack of wolf shifters ever known. It was hard to know that for a fact, as packs were close units that didn't always share correct info due to old fears and rivalries, but Westin Pack was certainly large enough to be a top contender for the title. Even I didn't know exactly how many wolves made up Westin Pack—only the Alpha knew for sure—but we each carried a slightly unique pack scent that always let us know if someone was pack or not.

As a pup, I had grown up the second son and fourth child of the Alpha. My twin sister, Lily, was technically only three minutes older than me. She never let me forget it, either. Growing up in the royal family, so to speak, had its ups and downs. I wasn't ever one that required a lot of attention or enjoyed the spotlight. Good thing, too, with Lily always around.

Most of the spotlight revolved around my oldest brother, Kyle. Kyle was a great guy, and when the first battle of the war with the Bulgarians began, leaving my father critically injured, he had stepped up to become a great Alpha, too.

Before the war began, wolf shifters had lived in relative peace, governed by the Grand Council, which was compromised of five men who gave up their own packs for the betterment of all wolf shifters. This had worked for hundreds of years and during this time of peace, my ancestors had started and grown what we knew today as Westin Pack, and also the Westin Foundation.

Wolves of Westin had much better lives than other packs because of the Foundation. All profits were split among the pack members providing us with a very comfortable lifestyle. Not all packs agreed with how Westin managed its pack, its money, or its wolves, but I'd learned through experience that that was almost always jealousy talking.

My brother Kyle found his one true mate, Kelsey. Wolves can only ever have one true mate. Wolves that didn’t find their true mate at a young age often settled for a compatible mate, of which there could be hundreds or even thousands.

Kelsey was a lone wolf who moved into Westin territory without any proper protocol. I had been away at college for much of their early years, but even I had heard of the scandal and uproar it had caused. Kyle was CEO of Westin Foundation at the time, having taken the position over from our dad after he graduated college. He hired Kelsey and made it clear that no one was to touch her. It had been years later before we all found out that was because she was his one true mate. I consider it a blessing that I was away during that period of Kyle's life, especially since he had been such an idiot and refused to act on it.

Later on we all learned that Kelsey knew she was a wolf, but she thought she was a werewolf like they depicted in scary movies. She didn't know anything about shifters. If Kyle hadn't been so stubborn, they'd have gotten together a whole lot sooner. Turned out there was a reason Kelsey didn't know who she was, though. Her backstory was pretty rough to discover. She's an Alpha she-wolf. For thousands of years, Alpha she-wolves had been thought too dangerous to live. Death sentences were placed on them at very young ages when their powers first surfaced. In Kelsey's case, that had been age four. She had been a triplet, and when her sisters were killed, their individual powers all transferred to Kelsey.

I didn’t really understand how all that worked, but her parents had smuggled her out before she was killed and kept her hidden away until they were killed when she was twelve years old. They never told her what she was.

It had been difficult for her to find out everything, but also a relief to no longer be alone. Wolves by nature don't do well in solidarity, though sometimes it would be nice to have some alone time; having four siblings, even with all of us grown, means there never seems to be a dull moment or time alone.

Kelsey, we now knew, was from the Bulgarian Pack, and their Alpha broke all truces among the packs to get her back and finish what had been started when she was four years old. That didn't go over so well with Westin. Kyle and Kelsey had already mated by the time her past came to light. The first of several battles had left my dad near death—Mom, too, as they are fully bonded. Fully bonded mates share a strong connection that, once severed, destroys them both. If one mate dies, the other does, too.

My phone beeped with a reminder. My nephew, Zander, was turning one and the family was celebrating at Mom's Tuesday night family dinner. I still had to run out and pick up a gift for the little guy. I glanced at the time on my phone. One thirty. I had worked through lunch again, a bad habit I'd gotten into while trying to just keep things in order. There was always some sort of emergency or some fire to put out in the office. It was never-ending and often overwhelmed me.

If someone had told me a year ago that I'd be flying solo in the CEO position, I'd have laughed in their face. Kyle had been trying to transfer the position over to me before his baby was born, and Dad had recovered enough to try to step in to “help.” I loved them, but they were both control freaks who weren't ready to let go of the reigns. Even after Kyle finally stepped back, consumed with his new Alpha duties, I still had Dad hovering around.

Dad's injuries in the first battle with the Bulgarians had been extensive. Kelsey's extra powers, one of which was healing, had saved him, but the ordeal had weakened him to the point that pack power had transferred to Kyle and without a fight to the death, there was no getting it back. Dad would never fight Kyle for a position he would have eventually held anyway, so that left Dad plenty of time to groom me for the duties of a Westin Foundation CEO. It had been a very trying time for both of us, but once Zander was born, he and Mom had been so consumed by love and grandparent duties that he had slowly eased up on me and channeled all that focus onto Z. Sorry, little man. Someday I was going to owe that kid big time for it.

I pushed the intercom button on my phone. “Chris, what's on my schedule for this afternoon?”

“Nothing, sir. You had asked last week to clear today for Zander's celebration.”

“Thanks,” I replied, grateful for the break.

Chris, or Christine Canine, was my administrative assistant. I hadn't wanted her to be at first, but she had turned out to be a damn good one. I couldn't function day to day without her . . . not that I'd ever admit that to her. Chris and Kyle had been close friends growing up, so I had known her forever. When they had turned eighteen and discovered they were not true mates, she had changed into someone I couldn't stand. Heck, most people couldn't!

When Kyle mated Kelsey, they had to face what we call the Challenges. It's a pre-determined period during which any wolf can challenge either mate for pack position. It's used often to advance one's place in the pack and as future Alpha, with the Pack Mother role on the line, Christine had jumped at the chance to battle Kelsey. She had lost, but while the challenges were usually a fight to the death, Kelsey had chosen to spare her at the last minute. The gesture had humbled Chris and although she could still be a bit high-strung, overall, we'd found an easy routine and worked well together.

Grabbing my keys off my desk, I headed for the door. “I'll be out the rest of the afternoon. Call my cell if there're any emergencies. I'm going to head down the mountain to see about a present for the little man.”

“Sure thing, boss. When I saw him last week at the park, he was mesmerized by a group of guys playing basketball. If he doesn't already have a hoop, consider that?”

Basketball? For a one-year-old? I shrugged. “Seems like a weird gift for a toddler, but I'll look into it. Thanks for the suggestion.”

The phone rang and I used it as my signal to leave. If there was one major fault with Christine Canine, it was that she loved to talk, and sometimes it was hard to escape her.

Driving down the mountain with the music blaring, I felt strangely relaxed. I had been so stressed as of late that I wasn't sure I remembered what it felt like. It was so nice of a change that I decided to stop at the Watering Hole to grab a drink before beginning my hunt for the perfect gift for my nephew. The Watering Hole was appropriately named, a restaurant and bar on the lake at the base of the mountain below San Marco. The views were gorgeous, and it was a popular eatery for tourists, too.

As I sat at the bar and ordered a root beer, a small child climbed up in the seat next to me. I looked down at him as he stared back at me. He couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old. The bartender noticed our new arrival and shook his head with a scowl.

“What's your son having?”

I started to protest, but the kid answered instead. “Chocolate milk, please.”

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