Page 6 of The Alpha's Arranged Mate

But then she stepped into the hallway to find Darion waiting for her, leaning against the wall of the corridor with his great arms folded across his chest. They met each other’s eyes for a moment, and Lyrie knew that there was no need for words. She could see from the look on his face how proud he was of her, how much he appreciated the sacrifice she was making… and with that, her mind was made up. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her Alpha. Nothing in this world, and nothing in the one that lay beyond that portal, either.

“Westly will take good care of them,” she said finally, her voice a little hoarse. As if the wellbeing of her pack was the only thing she was worried about. Darion gave one of his faint little smiles, his face barely shifting.

“You’ll be missed, Lyrie. Sorely. Your sacrifice is the pack’s sacrifice, too.”

Sacrifice, she thought faintly, the word filling her with a resigned sense of dread. It was a dramatic way to think about pledging herself to a man she hadn’t met. Some people sacrificed their bodies or even their lives to protect their packs or their loved ones. All she had to do was play nice with some asshole Alpha. And who knew what kind of good she might be able to do from inside of a pack like that? The Rite may have been a symbolic gesture designed to make pack members fall in line, but Lyrie was cautiously hopeful that she might be able to make more changes than that.

Just before they stepped through the portal together, Darion took her hand in his. The warmth of it and the sweetness of the gesture was almost enough to make her burst into tears… and then the chaos of the portal was around them, and she was mercifully distracted. After an unknowable stretch of darkness, permeated only by pressure, light and sound she couldn’t make any sense of, she took a deep breath of unfamiliar air. Humid air, touched by a strange, salty tang that she realized belatedly must belong to the ocean.

And Lyrie opened her eyes to see Kurivon for the first time.

What struck her first was how green it was. Back home on Halforst, they were well into fall, with the leaves on the trees showing every shade of yellow, orange and red. The trees she could see here, though, were nothing but the vivid green of a climate with no shortage of water. She looked around cautiously, feeling Darion’s hand slip out of hers as he stepped forward to greet the unfamiliar wolves who were waiting for them by the portal’s edge. Situation first, then introductions. She was surprised, actually, by how pleasant it felt here. She’d been bracing herself for thick, stifling humidity to lay heavily across her like a blanket, but there was a pleasant sea breeze stirring the air and cooling the dampness on her skin even as it collected.

Darion gestured her forward once he’d sensed that she’d finished taking in her surroundings, and she faced the curious eyes of the strangers without fear. Was one of these unsettlingly tall men her mate-to-be? Four of them, each of them tall and strong with the unmistakable bearing of a warrior—especially the enormous man Darion introduced as Blaine. Torren was tall and lithe, with floppy blonde hair and an easy grace she’d always associated with talented swordsmen, and the reserved red-headed Belmont had a stillness that she had a feeling could give way to a terrifying flash of speed when he wanted it to.

Renfrey was the final introduction, a dark-haired man with a fading scar on his face and a smile that didn’t quite hide his exhaustion. Lyrie had nodded politely to each of the other Alphas as befitted their equal ranks, but Renfrey she offered a more formal bow. It had been explained that Renfrey was the leader of leaders, the Alpha who was overseeing the entire settlement. Only his rank eclipsed hers… for now, at least. When the ceremony was complete, she supposed she’d take an inferior position to Reeve. Yet another entry on the long list of grievances she’d need to work her way through.

“We can’t express enough how much we appreciate what you’re doing,” Renfrey told her when the introductions had been made, and she could tell he meant it. “I know you’ve given up a great deal to be here.”

“Bringing peace to Kurivon protects all wolves, myself included,” she said, her tone flat and declamatory. “I act as any other would in my situation.”

“Not any other,” Renfrey said, glancing at Darion who stood impassively at her side. “There are many wolves who would give priority to their own desires, in a situation like yours.”

“I don’t make a habit of comparing myself to the selfish or the weak, Alpha,” Lyrie said, hoping the respectful epithet would lessen the implied rebuke of her words. “The maxim that strength can’t be gained by training with the feeble goes just as much for moral strength as it does for physical.”

“Well said,” the red-headed Belmont murmured, his silver eyes sharp on her. She suppressed the urge to glance sidelong at Darion, hoping he recognized that it was him that she was quoting. All of her most valuable lessons had come from him.

Temporary accommodation had been organized for Lyrie in what the Kurivon residents referred to as the old library, a building on the northernmost edge of the settlement that had stood since before the current settlement. She was surprised when she met the library’s chief caretaker, Syrra. Darion had had nothing but praise for the island’s chief lorekeeper, who had been instrumental in knocking back the demonic forces that had almost swallowed the island whole. He hadn’t thought to mention that she wasn’t a wolf. Lyrie knew she was probably being unforgivably rude, but she couldn’t help staring at the curvaceous woman’s bright blue eyes as she bustled about in a small room on the library’s top floor.

“Renfrey apologizes at length for the accommodation,” Syrra said, gesturing around the perfectly pleasant little room. “We’re well behind schedule on the construction of residential buildings, as Darion might have mentioned—most of his pack and Reeve’s are still sleeping in tents.” She paused, a pillow under one arm. “You haven’t met a human before, have you?”

“Sorry,” Lyrie said automatically, averting her gaze. “I shouldn’t stare.”

“It’s alright,” the woman said warmly. “I get the same treatment from your whole pack, actually. At least you’re not scowling at me.”

Lyrie hesitated. She understood why her fellows would be treating this woman with suspicion—the old teachings stressed the importance of blood and kinship ties when it came to keeping demons at bay. The markers of wolfhood—especially their silver eyes—were difficult for demons to imitate, and anyone who lacked those markers… well, it was all the harder to tell them apart from the ancient threat. And when it came to demons, even a moment’s hesitation could spell death for the whole pack.

“They shouldn’t be unfriendly to you,” Lyrie said finally, aware that the silence in the room had stretched out uncomfortably long. “You’re the mate of the superior of their Alpha—they owe you more deference than that.”

Syrra chuckled, seeming to find the idea amusing. “I’d rather they respect me for my achievements than for my soulmate’s rank.”

“I’ve offended you.”

“No, no.” Syrra tilted her head, those curious blue eyes strangely piercing as she studied Lyrie’s face. “Is that why you agreed to do this? To pledge yourself to a man you’ve never met, to take on a soulmate your wolf doesn’t want? Because of the deference you owe your Alpha?”

“I’m an Alpha in my own right,” Lyrie said stiffly, stung by the question. “I owe no such deference to Darion. He could no sooner compel me to do this than any member of my pack. I act of my own volition.”

“Now I’ve offended you,” Syrra said apologetically. Lyrie forced a smile she didn’t feel.

“We’ll call it even.”

No wonder they were having such difficulties getting the settlement underway, Lyrie thought when Syrra had left her to settle into her room. From what Darion had said about Syrra, she was the island’s head lorekeeper, and a well-trained one at that. If someone in such a position of ideological authority had such a shallow understanding of how a traditional pack like hers actually operated… well, she shuddered to think how uneducated Reeve’s pack was going to be. Reeve’s pack, she thought grimly. Soon to beherpack, too.

The next three days passed uncomfortably quickly, and Lyrie found herself dreading the ceremony more and more with each passing minute—not just for what it represented for the rest of her life, but for the event itself. There was more preparation required than she’d expected—strange old oaths to learn and traditions to uphold, long meditative walks around the island, even very specific garments that had to be specially fitted. She felt ill-at-ease being fussed over like a little doll, but she let the lorekeepers do their work, grateful at least to see some familiar faces. Darion had taken many of the pack’s more senior lorekeepers with him to Kurivon, and while they’d always frightened Lyrie a little when she was younger, she now felt a sense of relief and nostalgia when she greeted the stern-faced old men and women.

She didn’t see much of Darion in the lead-up to the ceremony, to her dismay. He was busy with the construction site, of course, keeping an eye on things down there, ensuring that Reeve’s wolves weren’t installing yet more technology that hadn’t been cleared with pack lorekeepers. The mood on the island was sour, and it didn’t help that she’d been strongly discouraged from making too much contact with the local residents before the ceremony… either her new pack or her old one. It would have been nice to spend some social time with her former packmates, or at least to start learning the names and faces of her new ones, but the rules of the Rite were clear. The participants were to spend as much time as possible in solitary contemplation in the lead-up to the ceremony itself.

That explained why she hadn’t met her betrothed, too. She had mixed feelings about that whole situation. On the one hand, she had a grim desire to get it all out of the way as quickly as possible, to tear the arrowhead from the wound in one fell swoop instead of inching it out by excruciating degrees. But on the other, knowing what he looked like would only make the whole situation more real. It was bad enough to know his name, to know that he was old enough to be her father—he had nearly forty years to her scant twenty. She’d made a face when Darion had told her that, at which point he’d huffed a rare laugh and informed her that he and Reeve were the same age. After that, thoroughly embarrassed, she’d refrained from making any more comments about the stranger’s age.

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