Page 9 of Alpha's Arranged Mate

Bile rose in the back of her throat. Everything seemed to be hanging by a thread, and she truly had no way of knowing which way the balance might tip.

"Lottie! I know you're in there!"

The familiar voice made her grit her teeth, the banging on her bedroom door all too loud for her to have been imagining it. From the sound of it, her sister had been there hammering for a while, and she was astonished she hadn't awoken from her dream sooner.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming!" she yelled at the door, clambering from bed, not nearly as naked in her silken shorts and short sleeve button-up as she had been in her dream.

Shoving her feet into her slippers, she crossed the room, unlatched the lock on the door and yanked it open so fast that her sister almost somersaulted right over the threshold.

"What in the wolf god's name is wrong with you?" Lottie demanded, one manicured hand on her hip and the other on her door handle.

"Get dressed," Macie instructed sternly.

"Why?"

"Dash has called a meeting."

"Fuck that," Lottie grumbled. She reached over, grabbed her leather jacket and pulled it on over her pajamas. Whatever Dash had called a meeting for in the middle of the night had to be exceptionally important. No doubt it was something to do with the demon wolves, and Lottie wasn't about to waste a single moment getting changed to hear their fate.

"Lead the way," she told her sister. The raven-haired woman remained right where she was, her arms crossed over her chest.

"I am not going anywhere with you looking like that," Macie snapped. "A room full of male werewolves is not the place to go dressed in pink silk with your lace bra spilling out."

Even as she spoke, she glanced down the length of Lottie and stopped on her fluffy pink slippers.

"I never understood you and pink."

Lottie growled deep in her throat, made a show of zipping up her jacket and kicked off her slippers in favor of her white combat-style boots.

"Just because we’re werewolves does not mean we have to spend our lives wearing black and red like those damned human movies suggest," Lottie snarled, barging her way past her sister in order to take the lead. If Macie wasn't going to hurry up, she would.

Trying her hardest to keep a strong yet steady pace, she made her way down the hall, down the stairs and in the direction of the dining hall that transformed into a meeting hall whenever something important was going on within the pack.

Though the room was huge, it felt exceptionally small with the entire pack squeezed inside. They had taken on so many new members over the last several years that it was almost impossible to fit everyone in. Lottie was certain that one day soon they would have to begin meeting outside on the lawn when there was ever a reason for the entire pack to attend meetings.

As it was, every senior member of the pack and the honorary members—namely the Michaels witches and the three demon werewolves who had helped them fight off their own pack—fit into the room like sardines in a can.

Dash, Max, Cole, Daemon and their mates all sat around the Silverdale dining table while everyone else piled in around them.

Lottie felt as though she was so far in the back of the crowd that she might as well have not bothered to attend. Once, as a Silverdale herself, she might have insisted upon barging her way through to the front, but right then she was in no mood for hierarchical bullshit. If someone tried to confront her about it, she might well rip their head clean off, and then she wouldn't even have a position within the pack. She'd be lucky to be exiled. At worst, she would end up in a cell right beside Braxton.

For just a second the thought appealed to her, but then Dash started to speak. “I am sorry to call you all here so late, but I wished to announce the news while it is still fresh."

Bile rose in Lottie's throat. Had Braxton denied Dash's offer? Was the execution of every demon wolf in the cells below them set? If that were the case, what would she do? She couldn't very well sit by and watch while he, along with his entire pack, was marched into Silverdale's main square and executed for all and sundry to see.

Murmurs spread through the room, and from the sounds of them, Lottie guessed that the rest of the pack had also decided an alliance would never be struck. The bile threatened to choke her. Her own silly anxiety were bad enough, but if the rest of the pack felt it too, was it really so silly?

Again, she tried to stamp it down.

"Well? What is it?" one pack member asked.

"Go on," another insisted, "Tell us."

Both were males, clearly eager to learn the fate of their prisoners.

Dash, who had been sitting calmly at the head of the table, pushed himself to his feet and cleared his throat. Running his fingers through his glossy black hair, he announced, "Braxton Travers has agreed to my terms. An alliance is to be made, solidified by the marriage between the new alpha himself and a Silverdale she-wolf."

The response from the pack was an odd mixture of shock, anger and relief. Some were clearly not happy with the thought of an alliance with their bitterest of enemies, and who could blame them when they had lost sons, daughters and friends to the war? Others sounded relieved that peace might finally reign, while yet more still sounded apprehensive as to who might be the unlucky she-wolf.

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