Page 13 of Alpha's Baby Girl
Under her breath, Shiba muttered something that I couldn’t work out but she was supposedly still pouting about not getting the night with Fenrys that she’d hoped for. Part of me was happy, despite my teasing him last night. He hadn’t wanted her; he’d wantedme.
As he walked past me, Fenrys’s gaze was weighted. I’d been worried about speaking to him the way I was, but he only regarded me as though he was more intrigued. He brushed close, his hand brushing my own. “I wish you luck on the next trial, Thalia.” His eyes swept over me. “I hope you win.”
Despite my intentions to be here, heat swept through me, and I tampered it down, knowing he might be able to sense it.
“Thank you,” I answered sweetly. I hoped so as well. Even if Shiba had been sent away, I knew I wouldn’t be. Getting Fenrys alone would be the best opportunity to slide that silver bracelet onto him that I’d stashed away. I tried not to think too hard about either side of my decisions: kissing him, or rendering him weakened for Kato to take. Risking not winning was a chance I didn’t want to take. Trying to win a trial was my best bet. The next one was to do with survival, and I needed to make sure I knew the area as best as I could.
I approached Dakota. “Want to scope out the area ahead of the next trial? I’m thinking of exploring Silverlake Valley and the woods.”
“Are you new to the area? You don’t sound out of town.”
“Nope, I was born and raised here, I just want to give myself the best shot at winning. I’m thinking of checking out Silverlake Valley as a human, then going into the woods later when shifted.”
Dakota smiled brightly. “Sure. I’d love that.”
As Fenrys headed off, out of the doors of the hotel, Dakota and I set off for the main town. True to what Fenrys had said, Silverlake Valley wasn’t big. It wasn’t known for its clubs or night scene. It didn’t have masses of industrial estates or commercial hubs. It did have easy navigation, quiet roads, and stores owned by friendly faces. I liked that about it. Despite what I thought of Fenrys and his predecessors, the pack had run the town fairly, from a small governing body to ensuring safety. Silverlake Valley was a place of peace with so much woods area to for shifters.
The central part of town was small. One main thoroughfare on a crossroads. It was simple: a bookshop, a library, bakeries, and clothes stores lined one road, and another road led to the area where the church, town hall, and schools were. The other two directions were the woods, and the more upscale area where we were all staying in the hotel. We had one college on the outskirts of town that only offered a few specific majors. Sports, business, finance, that sort of thing. Things that would keep the town growing without the need for newcomers. Silverlake Valley wasn’t snobby about new people settling but we were a community.
I had lost that sense of it a lot after Fenrys’s rejection but as I led Dakota into my favorite bakery, I started to remember what, exactly, it was that I loved about this place. I had lived my whole life here. Watched my father have a successful career on the council, watched my mother teach so many of my peers, attended college to study business management—a boring thing I’d found but did so to take after my father—and then became more aimless after the rejection.
My father had been best friends with the mayor, Fenrys’s father. He was on his way to being the mayor’s second. Shortly after Mayor Randon’s passing, and my rejection, he’d handed in his resignation. We had fought about it endlessly: how my stupidity and naivety had caused my father so much humiliation that he could no longer look the mayor’s family in the eye. After the mayor’s passing, my father had felt lost, and without his best friend there to defend him, the shame had followed my father around. He’d eventually resigned and struggled to find good work elsewhere that matched the salary. Fenrys’s mother had automatically taken the position of mayoress until it was assumed that Fenrys himself would take over one day. But what if hedidn’t?
My mother had also borne the whispers of my rejection. Small towns didn’t let gossip go, and even less about the girl who’d confronted the mayor’s son only a week after Mayor Randon’s death. As a teacher in the college where it had happened, those whispers had followed her, and I hadn’t known how to fix anything. There had been talk of me leaving town to go live with my mother’s sister for a while until things blew over but then Sasha had turned up, and I had found a reason to stay.
While Fenrys’s pack was fair, and he worked closely with the council to always be on top of new laws and receive community feedback, Kato had a larger vision for Silverlake Valley’s population. Expand the town a little, invite more species in, make it a better place. Part of me liked that it wouldn’t just be wolves here anymore. We were held so rigidly by mating and bonds and rejection that sometimes the town felt too small.
I’d crossed Fenrys on so many roads since the day he’d rejected me found new routes to avoid him, or his pack, but there were only so many diversions I could take, especially when his pack had found jobs after college in every store I went in. Conall had been in the local bar, tending. As Fenrys’s best friend, I knew him well enough, especially after my own college friend, Anya, had been involved with Conall for a while. After that, the bookstore had been manned by one of the women in the pack, and even the library had seen itself filled by another of Fenrys’s pack. They were everywhere; I hadn’t been able to escape them. And if I couldn’t, and my family couldn’t, it had reduced all our chances of closure.
Fenrys had been such an unexpected part of my life for so long, cropping up where I didn’t want him to, and now, with Kato’s help, I’d planted myself right in front of him, now forcing him to notice me.
The bakery was, blessedly, one of the pack-free places, and I took Dakota there for breakfast. She ordered a Danish pastry, while I picked a jam-filled puff pastry. We ordered coffee and, as much as I liked the inconspicuous feel of the bakery, I wanted to explore the town through her new eyes. I’d researched this town in depth, had lived here all my life, but seeing it from a newcomer’s perspective would freshen my outlook on it. We walked down Main Street, and I tried not to look for glimpses of Kato on the street. A claw of dread had been pricking the back of my neck ever since last night, as if he would know what I’d done. Would he think that kissing Fenrys was part of the plan? He’d only ordered me to compete, not grow physically close to Fenrys. The kiss, as much as I wanted to deny it, had been all me. Not part of the plan at all.
“Did you know Fenrys’s father was the mayor?” Dakota asked me.
“I did,” I answered, chewing my lip. “Where about are you from?”
“Apparently, he was the one to order the construction of the statue in the town square,” she went on, ignoring my question to change the topic. “Sir Fenrys Randon, Fenrys’s grandfather, was the mayor before him. I believe every son is named the same.”
“Right,” I answered. These were things I already knew, but it was clear Dakota wanted to show off what she’d learned ahead of the Mating Games. “Do you want to head to the statue now?”
“Sure! It’ll be cool to show my parents a picture. They think the Randon family is inspirational. They’ve kept this town going for generations and have made it so safe. Sorry—you asked before if I’m from here. I’m not, I’m from Oak Hill, not too far from Atlanta, so coming here is a bit of a culture change. But Fenrys’s family is pretty popular throughout Georgia, so I know most of the other she-wolves here all know him. It’s why we’ve all traveled.”
Sourness curled through me. Oak Hill had been the team Silverlake Valley had played that day. The association gripped me for a minute. “What will you do if you win?” I asked, curious.
“I don’t know,” she answered. “Move here. Ask my family if they’d consider relocating too. Either way, my duty would be to Fenrys. Isn’t that what we’re all here for?”
I kept my gaze on the road ahead as I answered, “Yes, we are.”
Ten minutes down the road, we came to the center of the crossroads. It was a large roundabout, and in the centre, was a large bronze statue of a wolf. A plaque beneath the statue readSir Fenrys Randon, Mayor of Silverlake Valley, appointed 1970.
“Impressive,” I muttered. No wonder Fenrys thought of himself so high above everyone. Ordidhe? I’d started to see a side of him that was new. While different, it was nice to get to know it.
But who was he: the man with a whole town’s history on his shoulders to bear the weight of or the cocky mayor’s son who knew where he came from and flaunted it? Perhaps he was both, depending on who he spoke to. I had known the cocky mayor’s son, but I was afraid to learn of the man with the weight of history upon him. Thinking of him as the man I knew three years ago was easier. Easier to think about destroying him, and his reputation.
But as I looked at the statue, and thought about the town and what Fenrys’s grandfather, and then father, had done for it—the support he had put into local businesses and schools—I found it hard to not think of Fenrys struggling to live up to that.
Did I want there to be more of him than what I already knew, or would that make it harder to get my revenge?
