Page 17 of The Alpha's Arranged Mate

Initially it was on Kurivon, mostly, where she always seemed to be making herself useful. Hard to avoid running into her when she seemed to be everywhere he visited—the construction sites, the old library, even the dock now and again when he pulled in. He gave up trying to avoid her on the mainland, reasoning that it would be good for them to be seen together by the packs as much as possible, using that to justify their cordial interactions. And then, as the days went by and the awkwardness of their night together receded into the past, he stopped putting so much effort into avoiding her on the yacht, too. And to his surprise, the cordial relationship between them continued. By the time a month had passed, they were even having meals together semi-regularly, using the time to talk about what was going on with construction and what more could be done to make sure the rift between the packs was well and truly mended by the time their match was dissolved. It felt … well, if he was honest with himself, it felt nice, and he was dreading the day she left for good.

If nothing else, having her around had taught him how good it was to have someone at your side, professionally speaking. True to his word, he ensured she attended all the Alpha Council meetings with him, and it quickly became clear that she was a valuable addition to the room. Her contributions were concise and insightful, and the sharp attention she focused on every speaker made all of them sit up a little straighter. Unfortunately, the downside of her presence was a certain racketing up of the tension between Reeve and his brother. He hadn’t spoken a word to Darion since their deeply unhelpful conversation after the last Council meeting, but he could feel his brother’s eyes burning through him at every meeting. If Lyrie was aware of the way her old Alpha felt about him, she didn’t mention it. And to his relief, Darion seemed willing to restrict his unpleasantness to just the glaring—there were no more after-hours confrontations as the weeks wore on.

With the two packs getting on noticeably better, Reeve had almost begun to allow himself to relax a little. His advisors were pleased with the news that progress was being made—they were always thrilled when he brought them good news that they could in turn give to the shareholders—and with Lyrie at his side taking on a fair portion of the day-to-day work on the island, he found to his surprise that he was staring to get on top of his to-do list. Was it possible that there was an end in sight to his punishing regime of fourteen-hour days? He felt a strange hope blossoming in his chest… which was almost immediately dashed when he remembered that Lyrie would be leaving in just a few short weeks. If anything, having all that extra time on his hands was going to be a curse, not a blessing.

It was too much to hope for that things would stay so quiet on the island, of course. It was two weeks until Lyrie was set to leave (fifteen days, actually, not that he’d admit to anyone that he was counting) when Syrra brought troubling news to that week’s Alpha Council meeting. It was unusual to see the senior lorekeeper at the meeting. Renfrey would bring regular news from her, of course, but as a general rule she stayed clear of the meeting itself. Someone had to take care of the twins, after all—though Reeve had a feeling that she’d jumped on that excuse to get out of the obligation to sit through the long meetings.

Lyrie seemed pleased to see her. He’d noticed the two of them growing a lot closer over the last few weeks, which he was pleased about—but also deeply, deeply curious. What kind of things did they talk about on their long afternoons in the library, he wondered? Surely the conversation strayed beyond the practicalities, beyond the archives and the building repairs. Syrra probably knew more about his so-called soulmate than he did. What he wouldn’t give to overhear a conversation, just one. Surely Lyrie wouldn’t have told Syrra about their night together. Friend or not, she wouldn’t be foolish enough to trust a lorekeeper with a secret like that.

Reeve scolded himself for his paranoia once Syrra had begun to speak, her expression grave. The concern she’d brought to them quickly eclipsed his childish worries about what Lyrie had told her about him. Demon activity on the island, which had for months been at a low ebb, had begun to show signs of a slow increase a few months ago, something the lorekeepers were keeping a close eye on. Syrra was here to tell them that those signs had begun to rapidly accelerate.

“We’re looking at an attack in the next few weeks at the latest,” she told them, her voice hard and her blue eyes full of a steely determination that reminded him of what she’d been through here on Kurivon, long before anyone else in that room had arrived. “It won’t be anything like the Hive that we took down when you all first got here, but we need to be vigilant. We’ve got a lot more wolves on the island this time, which means a lot more souls who could potentially be caught off guard.”

He appreciated that she didn’t single his pack out specifically, but everyone in the room caught the subtext regardless. Reeve’s pack were all from Earth, and while wolves from Halforst were indistinguishable from Earth wolves when it came to inherent demon-fighting ability, that didn’t account for experience… and precious few of his guys had had any experience at all fighting demons. He took a breath, pushing down the urge to make a defensive little quip. Lyrie was sitting calmly by his side, and he didn’t want to incur her disapproval any more than he already had.

“Weeks is good,” he said, looking around at the other Alphas. “Weeks gives me a chance to prepare my pack for what they’ll be up against. As you might imagine, they’ve been briefed on the dangers before coming here, but none of them have actually fought a demon. Myself excluded,” he added, winning a few laughs from the wolves he’d fought beside in this very building.

“How do you intend to prepare them?” Syrra asked.

The right answer came to him in a rush, but he couldn’t help but hesitate, aware of his brother’s resentful glare burning into the side of his head. Darion would be so smug about what he was about to say… but he couldn’t keep letting spite for his brother guide his decisions, could he? Not with so much at stake. And not when it risked letting Lyrie down.

“I intend to ask for help,” he said. He heard Lyrie’s weight shift a little in her chair, and knew she was resisting the urge to look at him sideways with those sharp silver eyes. “Alpha Darion, I’d humbly request that you allow my wolves to undergo preparation for battle with Master Trinn, and with any other battlemasters who are willing and able to lend their expertise. We both know from experience how valuable their wisdom is,” he added, gesturing to include Lyrie in this statement. She nodded agreement, for all the world as though they’d discussed this ahead of time.

“They don’t speak the language,” Darion pointed out gruffly. He glanced sidelong at Lyrie, who had tensed when she’d heard her old Alpha’s voice, but before he could open his mouth to offer a rejoinder, he heard her speak.

“That’s not quite true any longer, Alpha. Both packs have been developing a curious language of their own, a mixture of both tongues that’s mutually intelligible and has been helping each side learn the pure form of the other language faster.”

“Besides, I don’t remember Trinn letting us keep breath in our bodies long enough to do much talking on the training ground,” Reeve put in, unable to resist. Lyrie surprised him with a smile of agreement—a real smile, too, one that warmed her eyes as well as curving her lips upward. He averted his gaze quickly, knowing that if he looked at her for too long his own face was going to betray him.

“It would be valuable for the wolves of both packs to train together,” Lyrie put in, her gaze returning to Renfrey. “Every wolf here knows how strong the bonds forged in battle can be. And each pack stands to learn something new from the other.”

“Sounds like an excellent plan to me,” Renfrey remarked, glancing around the room to see the other Alphas nodding enthusiastic agreement. “Alpha Darion, what do you say?”

“I’ll have to consult with Trinn and the other masters to ensure that their own warriors will not suffer from lack of training,” Darion said gruffly. Reeve glanced at Lyrie again, saw the slight crease between her brows that told him she was deeply unhappy with what she’d just heard. For a moment, he wondered if she was going to speak up against her old Alpha, take him on in an argument in front of the Council. He readied himself to back her—but she simply nodded and sat back in her seat, and he did the same.

Later, they walked back towards the dock together. It was a clear, fine evening, the stars bright above them, and Reeve tried not to think too much about how pleasant it was to simply be in her company. Fifteen days, his mind whispered. Closer to fourteen, now.

“That was rude,” he said abruptly, feeling a need to break the silence. “Of Darion, I mean. Telling us he’d have to check his damn calendar.”

He felt her glance up at him, braced himself for a cool reproach—but to his shock, none was forthcoming. Lyrie simply nodded. He almost stopped dead in the middle of the path, then hurried to catch her up as her deceptively long strides outpaced him. “I’ve been reflecting on the grudge he bears you,” she said. “Having given the matter some thought, I think I agree that he takes it a little further than he should.”

“You have no idea how good it is to hear someone else say that,” Reeve said faintly, feeling like some huge weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. “He’s been an absolute nightmare ever since we reunited for this whole mission, and it’s just not getting any better. I can’t understand it. It’s been twenty years since I left the pack—how can he still be angry about it?”

“I don’t know,” Lyrie said softly. “I can’t pretend to know much about Darion, I’m afraid. He’s one of the closest people in the world to me, and I love him like a father. But I’d be lying if I said he shares the deepest part of his heart with me.”

This was more vulnerability that he’d ever seen from Lyrie, he realized—and that included the night they’d torn each other’s clothes off. So why did it feel like he was the one standing naked before her? There was a strange, aching sadness in the middle of his chest, and he couldn’t tell if it was sympathy for this powerful young woman calmly admitting that her mentor and father figure had never truly been close to her… or whether it was a projection of his own feelings about the brother he’d lost years ago. He felt the instinct flare up in him to make a joke, to dissemble and avoid, to press that feeling back down into the dark where it belonged. But for once in his life, he stayed the course.

“We have that in common,” he made himself say. Lyrie was looking at him, not quite hiding the strange expression on her face.

“But he’s your brother.”

“My twin brother,” he agreed. They’d almost reached the dock, but he found himself slowing his pace, lingering at the treeline. This conversation couldn’t continue in earshot of anyone else, and he could see one of his staff waiting on the little boat that had brought them ashore. “You’d think we’d have been close, right? Growing up together? Twins usually are. There were a pair of twins around our age in an allied pack,” he said, smiling a little at the memory of the serious young girls he and Darion had met when they were nine or ten. “They were absolutely inseparable. Best friends, knew all each other’s secrets, basically spoke in unison when they wanted to… meeting them was when I realized Darion and I had never been close, not really. Even when we were tiny, he always kept himself closed off.”

“Was that why you left?” Lyrie asked softly. He realized with a start they’d never actually talked about this. He’d assumed, from the stiff way she treated the subject, that Darion had told her his side of things—but for the first time he found himself wondering just what that side of things actually was.

“I left because there was nothing for me there,” he said softly. “You know Darion. He’s everything the pack holds as perfect. He’s strong, he’s commanding, he knows every tradition and he honors it with every move he makes. Next to him, the only thing I could ever aspire to—the highest possible achievement I was ever going to reach—was second best. I had to find my own world to rule. I think he was relieved when I told him I was leaving. No more little brother hanging around, slowing him down.”

Lyrie was listening to him with that frightening intensity he found so captivating. At that last part, though, her gaze flickered. “That’s not how I heard it.”

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