Page 8 of Fated to the Enemy Alpha

The Ashford pack hadn’t asked for anything extreme in wanting to renegotiate their prices. They were only restructuring their prices to match the changing market. But, as usual, Magnus always wanted to get more than his fair share.

But the board knew better than to disagree with my father, and a murmur of agreement rippled through the room. I felt a blaze ignite at the back of my mind, telling me this was my opportunity.

With a surge of confidence, I straightened and said, “What if we offer a three-month agreement at a better rate as a trial period?”

I felt the weight of my colleagues’ scrutiny. They were looking to Magnus’s righthand man, his dutiful son, to have the solution they hadn’t thought of. At twenty-nine years old, I may be the youngest at the table, but I was the one that everyone counted on to handle every difficult deal. It was a reputation I’d carefully fostered over almost a decade of working at Blackthorn Corporation.

Garret frowned, not letting me get to the other part of my plan. “But Stephen, if we give them that rate, what will change in three months’ time?”

“In three months’ time, the deal I’ve been negotiating with a human company that possesses equivalent capabilities to handle the same distribution for us—exactly like Ashford—will be under Blackthorn’s umbrella.”

A mix of surprised expressions ran through the room. Magnus stared at me, a quiet, impressed satisfaction settling over him.

“What if this motivates their pack to act aggressively against us?” Garrett asked.

Confidence radiated from me as I assured, “If they know we have an option waiting in the wings—one that will effectively destroy their business—their leverage will disappear. They won’t kick off against someone so vital to their survival.”

Magnus’s eyes narrowed, weighing my words. After a moment, he leaned back in his leather chair, a look of respect dawning on his face. “Good work. Prepare a presentation for the Ashford pack outlining your proposal for tomorrow. You’ll head this deal, Stephen.”

A wave of exhilaration surged through me as relief swept over the room. I had navigated a precarious situation, solidifying our partnership while not losing our strength.

“Thank you, Alpha,” I said, masking the quiet simmer of anger always there with feigned gratitude. In the boardroom or in front of the pack, it was always ‘Alpha,’ never ‘Father.’ He insisted on it. He saw it as a sign of respect, an acknowledgment of his position. To him, it signified that I understood the weight of leadership and that I could separate personal feelings from business. Little did he know that my addressing him as Magnus was my preference, a wall I built between myself and the man who deserved the title of “Father” so little.

Magnus nodded curtly before dismissing the board. His giving me this deal running such a vital part of the company showed that his trust in me was complete—as complete as it could ever be for someone with a heart as cold and callous as Magnus’s.

With the meeting adjourned, my colleagues began filing out, and I hurried to my own car. We were entertaining at our family’s villa in Southampton tonight; Magnus expected me, as his beta, to be there, too. The two-hour drive out of the city was one of the few moments I got to myself.

As I drove back from the city toward the Hamptons, where Blackthorn Villa rested amidst luxurious grounds, thoughts about the past inevitably intruded. It had been five years since the attack I’d orchestrated at the mate ceremony. The scars I had were wicked. The way Victor and Ben had mauled and sliced me that day had ensured that the attack couldn’t be traced back to me while deepening Magnus’s trust in me. The way I’d protected him that day had meant his trust in me had gone from strength to strength, which had been the reason for instigating such an attack in the first place.

Not the only reason.

My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel as my thoughts fell to her.

Lina.

I thought of the moment she’d told me who she was and of her proposition that I intercede with her father over the arranged match. I hadn’t been able to intercede because doing so would have muddied my position and influence with my father. It was a risk I hadn’t been able to take, not even for her.

Some days, when I remembered her jasmine perfume and dreamed of the soft swell and slopes of her beautiful body, paired with her commanding voice, it was the biggest regret of my life.

After all, she was very much part of the reason I’d organized the attack on the ceremony. I hadn’t been able to stand by and watch her become bonded to my father. But then she’d disappeared during the chaos of the attack. An outcome that part of me was thankful for. Yet, despite five years having passed, there wasn’t a single day that went past, perhaps not a single hour, where she didn’t stray into my thoughts.

Too soon, the opulent décor of Blackthorn Villa appeared before me. A couple of our packmates were acting as valets, and Carson climbed into my car as I exited, the party guests for tonight already starting to arrive.

The doors to the terrace were thrown open, and already lots of elegantly dressed males and females from New York packs mingled on the terrace, the sea breeze welcome in the heat of the evening.

The garish décor of bright lights and too many flowers made me miss the understated stylishness the place had in my youth when Blackthorn Pack had been under the leadership of my mother. As I paused to look at the terrace, I could almost see my mother walking in a white linen dress. The driftwood she liked to have brought up from the beach gave an authenticity to this place, marrying into its surroundings in a way the gauzy lights and bling didn’t. It was hard to see this place washed out of its character. I remember when my mother had stood at its center, greeting shifter high society to these receptions with a strong yet caring and compassionate kind of leadership.

The Blackthorn pack’s original alpha had been my mother, Charlotte Blackthorn. Magnus had killed her to seize the alpha position. Although I’d never found evidence against him, it was the sole reason I was still here, working night and day to ingratiate myself into every aspect of his business and life so that I could eventually prove his crimes and destroy him. That fire had been burning in my soul for almost a decade since my mother’s death. It was a fire that had been fueled by the fact that he’d almost got his grasping hands on Lina, too. No female deserved such a fate. That’s what I’d told myself as I’d orchestrated the attack on their mate ceremony. But even now, as I stood on the terrace, thinking about Lina and how she’d disappeared that day was both a torment and a blessing.

Forcing myself to bury the past, I hurried upstairs to my room, took a shower, and donned a tux.

Soon, I was back down on the terrace, greeting my packmates—Blackthorns and Silvermoons—as well as the entrepreneurs and investors of other packs.

After the attack at the mate ceremony and the deaths of Hector and Miriam Silvermoon, their alpha and luna, the Silvermoons had been absorbed into Blackthorn. Their presence made many whisper about the possibility that Magnus had instigated the attack, a rumor my rogue, totem-marked wolves fanned whenever they got the chance. I felt a pang of sorrow at the thought of Lina losing her parents—parents who had been decent, honorable leaders—caught in the turbulence of an unwarranted power struggle.

“Hi, Caleb, how’s it going?” I greeted warmly, shaking hands with the heir of the Ashford Pack, one of the males I would be presenting to tomorrow.

“Hi, Stephen. I’m good, thanks. I need to be honest, though. I’m a little surprised my father wanted us to come tonight, given our current situation.”

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