Page 2 of Alpha's Baby Girl
I swallowed as I took a step forward.
“My name is Thalia,” I answered, my voice steady.
“Kato,” he introduced himself with a purr. Sasha watched with excitement. Kato held a hand out. “I’m the leader of my pack.”
My defenses rose at that, but Kato just brushed it off. “You’ve not had a good experience with pack leaders as of late, have you, Thalia?”
I glared at Sasha. How much had my best friend told this stranger?
Still, I turned to him and shook my head. Kato cocked his head, smiled warmly, and said, “Tell me what hurts your heart, little wolf. You harbor so much anger in your golden eyes.”
And he was right, he had seen right through to that. In one sentence, he’d unspooled my pain and brought it to light in a sympathetic way that I hadn’t felt in a long time. With Sasha at my side, I sank onto one of the soft couches in Kato’s office and spilled my whole, horrible story. My mate’s rejection, my foolishness, the shame I’d brought upon my family and their shunning of me. I hadn’t just been rejected byanyone,but by an alpha of his pack, the mayor’s son. Nobody had ever stopped to think it hadn’t been my fault.
“Do you know about Operation Stripe, Thalia?” Kato asked once I’d finished. His eyes held a depth of the sort I didn’t entirely understand, but I was drawn in. Sasha was helping me—this man could help me.
“I don’t,” I answered.
“Good.” He nodded at Sasha. “Your arrogant alpha and his family have run this town for far too long, don’t you think? Don’t you think it could be so much more when not under the thumb of a greedy family who want to keep small-town riches to themselves?”
He leaned on the desk, looming over me. “Imagine a world where you didn’t have to go through what you did because nobody would force you to mate before you were ready. You could accept your bond whenyouwanted to.”
Kato lifted his head and began to pace. “Thalia, you could be the key to the whole operation. With our protection, we could send you back to your alpha under false pretenses. Trick him,betrayhim, the way he has betrayed you. Show him that nobody wants to endure this little existence he and his family have created.”
He paused his pacing in front of me. “Do you want to be powerful, Thalia? Powerful enough to make your own decisions in the face of a rejected mate? Powerful enough to make him bow to you and not the other way around?” He grinned, all teeth and ambition. “Powerful enough to, when the time comes, rejecthimand give him all the pain he’s carelessly put upon you?”
His words had sunk into me with such conviction that I’d taken Kato’s number there and then, promising I would help the organization. It was simple: I would meet the mayor’s son once again when the time was right, and I would have my revenge. But more importantly, I would find myself again.
Week after week, I returned to the warehouse to train with Kato and learn of his infiltration plans. Both in my wolf form and human form, he had me doing physical drills where he poured compliments upon me. And by the time I returned home each night, my family had gone to bed, and I found I didn’t have to be around them.
As the months passed, my shame lessened, and my resolve grew.
When enough time had passed, Kato offered me a contract to sign for my part in the organization. “Your alpha is worth nothing,” Kato had told me. “Nothing compared to what you will do to him. Be ready, my little wolf.”
And now that timehadcome.
Sasha watched me finish packing, zipping up my case, and stood in the center of my bedroom. Broken hearts healed, but the glue was often anger, and the reinforcements were revenge, and that was exactly what I was driven by.
Today, I was entering the Mating Games, and I would do Kato’s bidding and take down my mate once. He had ruined me; now it was my turn to unleash my vengeance and take back my pride. Yet, approaching the alpha of the pack who’d ruined me was no easy feat, I thought, as Sasha hugged me goodbye. A part of her would be lost without me in the family home, but she knew I would not be far.
All seven she-wolves that came for the Mating Games were required to live in a hotel together. We were preparing for a mate through several trials and dining together as part of the Game’s agenda. Only one of us would prove ourselves worthy.
In a velvet pouch in my suitcase was a silver band. That would be my way in. I would trick him, embarrass him, the way he had with me, and before our mating ceremony, when we were alone, I would give him my gift, weaken him, and take him down for good.
I smiled as I left and got into the car to the hotel.
Kato’s motto rang in my ears, a reminder of everything I stood to lose:Pride exists in solitude. One can only decide when to use it.
“Pride exists in solitude,” I whispered to myself, toying with the earring Sasha had given me as a token of good luck. I would win that alpha’s heart, and then I would win the
whole damn pack and my pride back.
Chapter 2 - Fenrys
There were certain expectations that came with being an alpha. Some of them were advantages: I got to make a lot of decisions, I got to have a loyal pack to live among, and I knew that one day I’d have a Luna at my side.
But there were other times when duty overrode pleasure, and I had to remember my pack’s future and secure it. I had to bear the weight of my town’s history and both my pack’s and my mother’s expectations.
“You cannot keep up this serial dating business,” my mother chided, pacing in front of me. A new watch was on my wrist, and I resisted the urge to impatiently check it. My mother had been the Luna of her pack when my father was alpha, and she was slow to let that go, especially when it came to pulling rank over me. “It was okay in college and we looked the other way but you have duties now. Now it’s time to start settling down, Fenrys.”
