Page 19 of The Alpha's Arranged Mate

“Ready?” Reeve asked, rising to his feet and extending one hand to her. She nodded coolly, not quite trusting herself to speak. “Alright. Let’s go get this divorce.” The English word was unfamiliar, but she took an immediate dislike to it based on context alone—and she brushed past him without taking his offered hand. It made her feel like a monster, but she couldn’t risk the touch of his skin undoing her. Not right now.

The main hall of the old library felt very different, set up as it was for the dissolution hearing. Instead of the comfortable round-table setup of the Alpha Council meetings, the room had been arranged in a much more hierarchical fashion, with a long table at one end of the hall for the panel to sit at, and the invited audience of senior pack representatives sitting on either side of the hall. She and Reeve were invited to sit in two chairs in the center of the hall before the panel. There was a low murmur of voices, and she focused on her own breathing, trying not to make out any of the conversations that were going on around them.

All five of the Alphas were present, seated at the high table. Even the usually smiling Torren looked solemn and stony-faced—she had a feeling he’d been seated next to Belmont to ensure that he remained so. Renfrey was in the middle of the panel, looking every bit the imposing leader of their little settlement. But it wasn’t just their fellow Alphas who would be presiding over the meeting. The panel was filled out by lorekeepers, stern-faced old wolves who each had their ceremonial weapon placed neatly on the table before them. It was a relief at least to see a friend among them—Syrra, her blue eyes downcast, resplendent in her formal robes. Anxiety gnawed at Lyrie’s belly. Could she trust her new friend to keep her secret as she’d promised? She hoped so. Beside her, she could see Reeve scanning the panel, too. She wondered if his gaze was straying back to Darion over and over. For her part, she was doing best best not to look at him. She’d been dealing with increasingly uncomfortable feelings about her mentor ever since she’d started learning more about his relationship with his brother.

It felt like hours before Renfrey finally called the meeting to order. He spoke words she recognized as belonging to the Rite, clear and confident, and she hid a smile as she pictured Syrra coaching him on his delivery. The two of them weren’t especially demonstrative of their love, but she could see the way it burned between them even as he cast a quick glance up the table as he invited her to take the floor. You could always see the soulmate bond if you knew what to look for, she thought, wondering why it made her chest ache.

“We are here to discuss, without blame or recrimination, the outcomes of the Rite of Harmony, conducted a full three moons ago to join these two wolves in symbolic and true union.” Syrra’s voice was high and clear, carrying effortlessly to the corners of the room. Despite her relative youth compared to the more senior lorekeepers at the table, it was clear why she’d retained the title of Head Lorekepeer here on Kurivon.

The hearing dragged on, and Lyrie’s anxiety only grew. The two of them wouldn’t be asked to speak for some time—first, they had to hear from each pack about how the Rite had affected the conflict between them. As heartening as much of that testimony was, Lyrie was finding it harder and harder to focus. There was a lorekeeper on the panel she didn’t recognize, seated beside Darion, an elderly man with a close-cropped silver beard and a ceremonial blade of what seemed like a different material to the others. Lyrie watched Syrra closely, waiting for her to turn her gaze towards the newcomer… and when she did, the expression that flickered across her face made Lyrie’s heart sink. Stay the course, she told herself firmly. Be strong. Weather the storm. There’s no need to assume the worst, just because Syrra looked more worried than she’d ever seen her…

Darion’s testimony on the conflict between the packs was surprisingly glowing, dwelling at length on how much more respect and goodwill had grown between the groups since the Rite of Harmony had taken place. Lyrie would have felt more grateful to him if she wasn’t certain that he was only being so positive because he was eager to have her relationship with his brother terminated. She heard Reeve sigh with relief beside her when his brother returned to his seat. Darion’s testimony had been his most pressing worry when they’d discussed the ceremony the night before. Had she been wrong to hold back what she knew, to leave him in the dark? Perhaps. She’d intended to tell him, she really had—but when the moment came, her strength had failed her. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and one that shamed her.

At long last, it was time for Lyrie and Reeve to speak. They each issued a simple statement they’d prepared about the three months they’d spent together, and the reasons they felt that it would be best for the relationship to be dissolved. Syrra had pored over old records of similar occurrences in the past to study the reasons why the bond had been dissolved. Most of the time, it had to do with one or both of the wolves in question having met their soulmate outside of the match. But there was also precedent for other justifications—fundamental incompatibility of lifestyle was the one they’d gone for. Lyrie could see Darion’s face growing more and more stony as Reeve spoke at length about the lifestyle his work here on Earth required, with extensive travel required and a strong reliance on technology. When Lyrie spoke, she exaggerated her discomfort with the world of Earth and all its modern wonders, emphasizing her preference for a traditional life back in Halforst. The words felt hollow in her mouth, but she could see the gathered representatives from her pack nodding in agreement and knew that they’d made a strong case.

Then came questions. This had been the part Syrra was most worried about, but Lyrie knew that Reeve’s gift for public speaking would be their saving grace. Just as she’d predicted, he was flawless under pressure. He dodged even Darion’s most insulting questions, taking every stab with a mixture of humility and humor that even managed to win a quick smile from one of the solemn-faced lorekeepers at the table. He painted a picture of the two of them that she barely recognized… two people who’d done their absolute best to build a life together for the common good, before realizing that the best thing they could do for their packs and for themselves was to part ways.

“I’ll always treasure the time we spent together,” Reeve said softly, turning to give her a smile that made her chest ache. “I’d be lucky to find myself a soulmate who’s one tenth the wolf that Lyrie is.”

She nodded stiffly, murmured some halting compliment to him in response, hearing her heart pounding in her ears. The ceremony seemed to be coming to an end, and everyone on the panel looked as though they were happy to accept the dissolution… so why did she feel like something deeply horrible was about to happen? Or was it just that deep down, the truth was that she didn’t want this relationship to be dissolved at all?

And then it happened. The lorekeeper she didn’t recognize rose to his feet, lifting his strange glinting weapon and adjusting his robes as a hush fell over the room.

“Only one part of the ceremony remains, then,” he intoned, his voice deep and smooth as glass. Lyrie glanced at Syrra uneasily, saw her friend looking stricken. According to their plan, the hearing would be over once the couple had been questioned. What was going on? “The three final questions. Which of the couple has been chosen to answer?”

Lyrie felt frozen to her chair. They hadn’t discussed this, hadn’t prepared for this—but Reeve rose to his feet as though they’d rehearsed it a thousand times, smiling easily as he stepped forward. Lyrie was beginning to put the pieces together—the new lorekeeper with the unusual weapon, the deeply worried look on Syrra’s face, the thudding terror in her ribcage. There was an optional extension to the dissolution ceremony that was rarely included due to the difficulty of the magic involved. She remembered Syrra dismissing her concerns about it, promising that no lorekeeper from Kurivon was capable of the relevant ritual.

But this lorekeeper wasn’t from Kurivon.

“The first question,” he intoned, and there was an eerie resonance to his voice that made Lyrie’s skin crawl and tingle. She wasn’t alone—even the Alphas were exchanging glances as the lorekeeper’s magical resonance crackled through the space. He was holding his blade aloft, and she realized with a jolt of shock that it was glowing. “Answer true, Alpha Reeve. Did you try with all your heart to uphold the vow of the Rite of Harmony?”

Reeve’s eyes were wide, and there was a dreamlike quality to his voice when he answered, as though he was talking in his sleep. “Yes,” he said simply. “I gave my heart.”

“Answer true, Alpha Reeve,” the lorekeeper said again. Lyrie was frozen to her seat. She’d never seen magic performed like this, so directly. “Do you believe your sworn mate did everything in her power to uphold the vow of the Rite of Harmony?”

“I do,” Reeve said, his voice stronger. “She is the strongest woman I have ever met.”

The panel looked pleased. Lyrie was holding her breath. Only one more question—was there a chance they’d make it through this after all?

“Answer true, Alpha Reeve,” the lorekeeper repeated for the final time. “Did this union between your two hearts remain unconsummated by flesh?”

“No,” Reeve said in that same dreamlike voice. His expression didn’t change, even as the hall erupted into chaos. Lyrie stayed frozen to her chair, her breath stuck in her throat, the horror of that simple revelation banishing every thought from her mind. She could hear Renfrey shouting for order, feel the uneasy crackling of shifter magic in the hall as the attendant wolves wrestled their instincts under control. The unfamiliar lorekeeper lifted his weapon once more and closed his eyes—and with a strange shifting of pressure in the hall, the spell was done.

Reeve staggered a little as the lorekeeper’s magic released him. For a moment, she wondered if he even remembered what he’d said—but when he turned to look at her, the mask of horror on his face told her that he did. He was opening his mouth to speak as he started back across the hall towards her, but before he could even get a word out, he was knocked to the ground by a blur of all-too-familiar dark fur. Darion, she realized sickly. Darion had leapt over the table and shifted in a heartbeat, and though Reeve was quick to transform, he was already pinned under his brother’s full weight. For one horrible moment, Lyrie was convinced that Darion was going to tear out his brother’s throat right there on the floor of the hall.

But there were more wolves around them now, leaping in to restrain Reeve and pull Darion back. Lyrie felt curiously detached from her body as Renfrey shouted orders over the hubbub, wolves shifting back into their human forms one by one until a shellshocked-looking Reeve and a furious Darion were standing face to face. Darion’s wolves were holding Reeve’s arms behind his back, but it was clear from the look on his face that he had no interest in fighting. Her heart felt like it was going to break when he looked at her, the horror at what he’d said abundantly clear on his face.

“This wolf has attempted to lie to the Council and to violate a sacred rite,” Darion thundered, his voice impossibly loud as it swelled to fill the hall. “It is clear to me that the source of the conflict between the packs is Reeve alone. He must be removed before peace can truly flourish. I am left with no choice. Before the esteemed panel and the representatives of both packs here, I hereby lay down my challenge. The Blood Rite of Unity.”

Renfrey looked stricken. The silence that followed the proclamation was broken by whispers—it was clear that few of the wolves present knew what had just taken place. Lyrie wished she was one of the ignorant ones. Everything she’d done… everything she’d sacrificed, everything she’d struggled through, it had all been to avoid this.

And now she had to face the fact that it had all been for absolutely nothing.

Chapter 13 - Reeve

On reflection, the most awful night of his life could have gone a lot worse.

When his brother had tackled him to the ground, he’d been convinced that he was about to die. It had been his wolf who’d taken over to defend him, not his conscious mind, and when he found himself human-shaped again being forcibly restrained by wolves who’d once been his packmates, he found himself wondering if he was even relieved to have survived. All he could think about was how badly he’d let Lyrie down. What had that old man done to him? The moment he’d spoken it had been like he’d been a thousand miles underwater, his voice emerging from a part of him that he had no control over at all. He’d always been told that lorekeepers had a great deal of power, but it hadn’t been until today that he really believed it. Reeve had been practicing the art of spin and deception for a decade, and with a single question, that man had reached into his heart and yanked out the truth like it had been no effort at all.

---