Page 3 of Alpha's Baby Girl
I sighed, standing up. I grasped her wrists and gently encouraged her arms back to her side where she’d been clasping them as she spoke.
“Mother,” I said softly. “Relax. I already agreed to the Games, didn’t I?”
“I was already mated to your father by your age,” she said. Her fretting was unraveling my annoyance at even having to participate in the Mating Games. I was analpha, one of the two from Silverlake Valley, and that in itself made my competitive streak want to rear its head.
If anything, that was why my pack members had encouraged me to go for it. It had been a long time since I’d had a little competition with other pack alphas, and they wanted to see me lose some hard-won control.
They were my brothers, and we had charmed our way through Silverlake Valley’s college roster in our older teenage years and earlier twenties. While they hadn’t quite left that lifestyle behind, with their beds rarely cold, I had broken off from it, maturing up to be the alpha my mother expected of me.
And now they wanted to see me off and mate. Perhaps they missed having an omega in the pack, but part of me hated the thought of bringing a woman into the pack to rule alongside me. It should have been any alpha’s dream—an omega to help through ruts, a woman at my side through it all, to share an eternity with. But all of it just feltwrong. Like I wasn’t ready to give up the life I had found comfort in.
Maybe that was just the last layers of immaturity I had yet to shed.
“I want you to take them seriously,” my mother ordered. “No exceeding curfew. No cheating. No betraying whoever your chosen companion is.”
“Seriously, Mom?” I scoffed. “I’m not eighteen anymore. I know what is expected.”
Her hand cupped my face as her expression softened. “I know, but I want this to be something joyful for your life. Something youwant, not only be expected to have. Mating prospects are part of our natural biology, Fenrys. When you meet her, and mate, you’ll look back on this process fondly, so try to enjoy it.”
“Sure, sure,” I muttered. “I have to get going, or I’ll be late to check-in. I want to see the boys before I head off.”
“Remember who you take after,” my mom said, as I left our home. It was a white-walled mansion overlooking the forest, built purposefully as the stronghold of Silverlake Valley, marking our territory as the biggest pack in town. Of course, the other alphas participating in the games would have a hard time competing with me.
As I made my way to the collection of hot springs a short distance from the house, where my pack would be, no doubt in their human forms for now, I wondered what I wanted in a mate. I hadn’t thought about it, not in years. Not since I had rejected a former lover who had claimed to be my mate. Butmanywomen had. Some saw power and the size of my pack, and declared we were fated. Others saw it as a way to be the adored female in an all-male pack, trying to go against our wolf instincts of monogamy.
But while my bed remained warmed most nights by different women, I wasn’t sure what I thought the one I would settle down with would look like.
My mind kept conjuring up the girl from three years ago. Thalia, most memorable in my mind for her white hair that she always braided back to expose a soft-featured face, but her eyes betrayed that softness. In them, she’d held power. Until I’d broken her heart one week after my final win during my sports days at college. We’d both attended there, and I had known her, felt her presence, but the fact of her being my mate had terrified me. At the time, I’d already had too much to deal with. I hadn’t been ready to commit to a mate.
I didn’t know if I even was now.
All I knew was that my mother needed me to step up and participate at least, and, if anything, it would give my pack something to laugh about.
As expected, they were hanging out by the hot springs. My pack’s beta, Conall, slipped into the pool, forgoing shorts. He shook stray droplets from his long brown hair and pushed the length back, off his forehead. His green eyes were hooded as he squinted in my direction. As a wolf, those green eyes were piercing through the dark woods, and he’d been the best wolf at my side for years now, scrapping with other boys, and then in proper fights as we grew up.
He’d been my best friend since we were in ninth grade. We’d both wanted the quarterback position on the football team in high school, but when I sprained my ankle the day of try-outs, Conall had dropped his own chance to help me limp to the nurse’s office to get checked out. We’d been inseparable since. I still had been the quarterback, though. From there, we both pursued a sports scholarship to Silverlake Valley College, glued at the hip. He'd sworn his loyalty into my pack when we turned eighteen.
Two other men and their girlfriends surrounded Conall. Some were sprawled on rocks, some on the side of the pools, and others bracing their arms back on the pool’s sides, their bodies submerged. Beer cans littered the area.
I snatched one up, crushing it, to take it into the garbage. “Make sure you’re cleaning up afterward, right?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Conall called, saluting me. “We’re just having a little farewell party for you.”
“Hard to have a party when the guest of honor isn’t there.” I raised a brow at him, figuring some of them hadn’t even slept yet. Conall tipped his head back against the pool’s edge and cracked one eye open at me lazily. When he saw it was me, he was immediately alert.
“It’s time already?”
“It’s midday,” I reminded him. “You’re the one who got me signed up, remember?”
“I’ve got your back, you know that. Anytime, anywhere. Call me. I don’t care what I’m doing; I’ll be there.”
“Just keep these guys in line while I’m gone, okay? “
I grinned at my pack, nodding at them as I left. I loved them like brothers, and while we fought like brothers, too, wegotone another. I’d formed my pack carefully, letting the best and most loyal stay. Now, I wouldn’t switch any of them out. Most of them had followed me from high school, into college. We’d played together as boys, and hunted together as wolves. When some of them had met their mates, I’d welcomed them too. Yet each time another mate joined the pack, I couldn’t help the envy that ignited in me.
I trusted Conall to keep them in line. As I said my goodbyes to each one, landing a quick jab as I did for even getting me to sign up, I made sure to leave them all with duties while I was gone. Maintenance, survival, hunting territory. It was things they all knew, but I felt uneasy being away from them. I would visit, of course, but I was leaving them be for now.
As I got into the car to pick me up to take me to the hotel for the games, I saluted Conall. The games could be good. I would make my mom and dad proud. My dad had entrusted me with his legacy. Now, it was my turn to continue it and continue itwell.
