Page 10 of The Alpha's Arranged Mate

She got as far as the edge of the trees before her resolve gave out. From here she could see the construction site—see the wolves working on it, talking and laughing in the summer sunshine. Once, she’d have thought nothing of joining them, of lending a hand to whatever effort needed manpower. But how could she do that now? She wasn’t a member of her own pack any more… nor was she a member of Reeve’s, not in any way that counted. Utterly defeated, she turned on her heel and ran until she reached the beach again. Her wolf’s confusion was palpable as she paced restlessly back and forth along the sand. She wasn’t cooped up on that boat anymore, her wolf seemed to be telling her. They had a whole island to run around on. Why did she still feel so trapped?

And so it was that she found herself, human-shaped and utterly dejected, sitting atop the low cliff that rose over the beach’s far end, overlooking the sea. There was the yacht, bobbing peacefully in the swell—had they noticed she was missing yet, she wondered? She knew she’d have to return to the hated vessel sooner or later, but right now she couldn’t bring herself to think about it. Lyrie curled into a ball, knees pressed tightly against her chest, and finally let out the tears she’d been holding back for weeks.

It might have been seconds or hours later, but the next thing Lyrie became aware of was the fact that she wasn’t alone. She stiffened a little, immediately putting a stop to her weeping, though she stilled the urge to dash the drying tears from her cheeks. Footsteps, behind her. A presence that she sensed in her bones could never be a threat to her. She turned, a smile already breaking out across her face, to see her Alpha moving up beside her with a look of worry on his gravely handsome face. Ashamed to have been caught at such a moment of weakness, she scrubbed at her face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt, and Darion sat down beside her without a word. For a moment, they sat in the quiet, staring out over the ocean. There’d never been any need for small talk between them… and this was a question Lyrie had been formulating all week.

“Why didn’t you tell me he was your brother?” she said quietly, the wind threatening to whip her words away completely. But he’d heard her. She could tell by the way he’d gone still as a stone beside her, the fixed look on his face when she stole a sidelong glance at him. That face she’d known her whole life… the face of the man who’d come to tell her that her parents wouldn’t be coming home again, all those years ago. He’d been barely out of adolescence himself back then, but he’d still seemed like a mountain to her, all of five years old and sobbing fit to burst in arms that held her without judgment or reproof.

“I should have warned you,” he said finally. “I apologize for that, Lyrie. I find the subject… difficult.”

“I just wish—” She bit her lip, but the gentle nudge of his elbow against her ribs told her she could speak freely. “It was a surprise, opening my eyes to see…” You, she wanted to say. For a moment, I thought I was swearing myself to you.

“I’d hoped the resemblance had grown less pronounced with time. We never were hard to tell apart, even when we were very young.”

She nodded, half-smiling despite herself. “The minute he moved I could tell he wasn’t you. But—Darion, for a split second there, I thought… It disarmed me. I showed weakness. Weakness he used against me barely an hour later,” she added, hearing the heat in her voice and wishing she hadn’t phrased it in a way that made her sound like a pathetic little kid.

She couldn’t remember the last time they’d talked so openly—it must have been years. With the mission to Kurivon preoccupying his mind, the division of the pack, and then this new complication with the Rite of Harmony, there had been no time for this kind of long conversation. But there on the cliff’s edge, she found herself talking faster and faster, every small frustration of the last week and beyond spilling out of her as though some dam deep inside her had burst. And Darion sat like a stone and absorbed it all, unmoving. He had always been the best listener she knew.

“I’m sorry this has been so hard on you,” he said, when she’d finally fallen silent. “I knew it would be difficult. I knew there was nobody else in the pack I could trust to stay strong in the face of my brother’s tricks.”

Stay strong, she thought numbly. That had been a recurring refrain for much of her life. She’d stayed strong through the heartwrenching loss of her parents, she’d stayed strong through the punishingly difficult training that had absorbed most of her childhood and adolescence. She’d stayed strong when she learned that her mentor was leaving her world for good for this mission to Kurivon. And she’d stayed strong when she’d been ripped away from what she’d been working for her whole life back on Halforst. Was that really the only solution he could offer her? Was strength really the only way forward, still?

“You’ve always trusted me, Lyrie.” His voice was softer now, and she lifted her eyes to meet his as he finally turned to her. “And I have always treasured that trust. Once as your Alpha, and now as your brother… and, I hope, your friend. All I ask is that you continue to trust me. You may not be part of my pack any longer, but I will still do everything I can to support and protect you.”

It was a longer speech than many would ever have heard the taciturn Alpha utter, and the words sank into her, filling her with fresh purpose… and a tinge of embarrassment that she’d allowed her feelings to get the better of her.

“Thank you, Darion,” she said softly. “I can—Iwillweather this storm.”

He smiled at her then, and rested a hand gently on her shoulder for a moment. Then, without another word, he rose to his feet and disappeared into the trees. The last thing she heard was the rhythmic thudding of his paws against the soil. She fidgeted with the ring that still felt strange on her finger, tracing the runes on its surface as she looked out across the water. It was a relief to know that Darion still considered her part of his family.

Lyrie lifted her eyes to the yacht moored in the distance, filled with fresh determination. Darion had seen Alpha material in her. It was time to prove him right.

Chapter 7 - Reeve

Reeve had always had a habit of avoiding his problems. In his defense, it had always worked out pretty well for him—after all, if he hadn’t decided to run away from his pack, he’d have never built the billion-dollar empire that he presided over here on Earth. The other side of that coin, of course, was that running away had also caused this whole dreadful feud with his brother. Losing his brother’s love was a price he’d been willing to pay. But he hadn’t expected that the resentment would spring up to drag so many more innocent wolves into its orbit. His pack—every wolf he’d brought to this blasted island—they were his responsibility, and as long as the unpleasantness with Darion continued, they were in danger from his brother’s wolves.

But the person he really felt guilty about involving was Lyrie. And that was why he spent the first week of their union hiding from her every chance he got.

He kept an eye on her from a distance, of course. He had frequent meetings with the domestic staff on the yacht, who were doing their best to make her feel welcome, but what he heard didn’t exactly reassure him that Lyrie was settling in well. The language barrier was a problem, but it sounded like there were some cultural issues there, too. At any rate, Lyrie had pushed the staff away, and was refusing even to let them cook meals for her or to clean her room. That last part was particularly galling for his head steward, who had some firm words to share about the state of the bedding, which was covered in shed fur. Lyrie was insisting on spending as much time as she could in her wolf form, then. There was something almost charming about that—not that Reeve was going to make that observation in front of the steward, who was clearly on the brink of exploding with rage.

But his guilt about her situation wasn’t entirely because she’d been dragged away from her life to live here on the yacht with him like some kind of quasi-willing hostage. The guilt ran a little deeper than that—and a lot dirtier. He just couldn’t stoplookingat her. There was something about her that just arrested him every time she stepped into a room. It was like walking in the woods and suddenly coming upon a wild animal—she struck him like lightning every time, took the breath out of him, made his wolf startle awake as though they’d just spotted prey to be hunted. It made him feel like a disgusting, lecherous old man. The day he’d done his best to introduce her to the senior advisors of his company had been particularly bad. She’d stalked into the room, that electrifying presence of hers making his skin tingle even from ten feet away, and it had been all he could do to keep his mind on the meeting with her sitting in the chair beside him. The faint scent of her… at the wedding, he’d assumed she’d been wearing some kind of perfume or ceremonial oil. But that had been nearly a week ago, and she’d brought no such items with her onto the yacht. He was forced to conclude that the delicious, intriguing, intoxicating scent that followed her was simply the scent of her skin.

Disgusting old man, he barked at himself, over and over. Stop being a disgusting old man. What was wrong with him? He’d had his fair share of dalliances with beautiful women over the years, of course—he’d been handsome, rich and available in New York City, after all, and his rising star had drawn more than a little interest from shifter and human women alike. The thrill of flirtation, the unmistakable tingle of sexual chemistry—it was all great fun, sure. But he’d never had trouble disengaging from those feelings when he needed to focus. Not until this young woman had come prowling into his life like some specter who represented everything that he’d tried to run away from all those years ago. There was something almost spiteful about it, as though some higher power was mocking him. Maybe he deserved it.

Maybe she’d settle in eventually, he kept telling himself. Maybe it would just take a little time for her to adjust to the yacht… and for him to adjust to the need to suppress the urge to grab her every time she was anywhere near him, he thought with a grimace. It would help if he could teach her a little English. He’d done his best to share a little of the old language with the higher-level wolves of his company, but one look at her face when they’d tried to greet her with what they’d learned told him that it wasn’t enough. Of course she was frustrated here. Back on Halforst, her brother had been grooming her for leadership since she was a child.

It was the day after the disastrous online meeting with his advisors that she surprised him again, marching into his private dining room just before breakfast and sitting down at the table opposite. How did she move with so much poise, he wondered? That confidence in her movements, that infectious attitude that she was precisely where she was supposed to be—it had taken him years of careful study to develop that for himself. He could see why his brother had taken her under his wing the way he had.

“I have some thoughts about the construction issues,” she said without preamble, as though they were picking up a conversation they’d left off a few minutes earlier. He swallowed his mouthful of coffee and tried to look more awake than he felt. He was still in his dressing gown, for crying out loud. “From what I can see, the problem is communication.”

He nodded agreement, then frowned. “Wait, what have you seen?”

“I visited the residential construction site yesterday,” Lyrie said, a note of impatience in her voice as though this should have been obvious to him.

“How? Neither of the tenders were taken out yesterday—”

“I’m not yet so reliant on the luxuries of your life that I can’t make a short swim,” Lyrie said, and he felt his jaw tighten. He’d forgotten about her knack for delivering the ego equivalent of a sharp elbow to the softest part of the belly. His attraction to her made it all the easier for her to sucker-punch him when his guard was down. It was hardly fair.

“Okay,” he said, pressing down the urge to snap back at her like a child. “So you visited the construction site.” Could be trouble, he thought grimly. It seemed like just about anything could stir up that particular powder keg. Darion’s wolves were incredibly skilled at finding things to take offense over without actually explaining the nature of the offense caused. Perhaps the fact that Lyrie had visited but Reeve hadn’t would be the reason for the next dreadfully unproductive three-hour meeting.

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