Page 4 of Alpha's Arranged Mate

Braxton gritted his teeth against the barrage of questions and comments. They continued for a few moments more while he scrubbed his face clean, or at least as clean as possible. He then drank several swigs of the water before upending the rest of the bucket over himself in an attempt to remove some of the dirt and grime that had coated itself thickly all over him.

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you,” he scoffed, throwing the empty bucket down to sit on instead of the cold stone floor. Compared to hell with its ever-burning fiery pits, the dungeons were freezing, and Braxton felt that even if he ever saw the light of day again, he would never feel warm again.

“Come on, Braxton, you have to tell us something,” Molly, one of the braver she-wolves, demanded. The two of them had been close as children, even having a fling or two during their adolescence, but she still had no right to demand anything from him. He was the alpha’s son—or, if Dash’s words were anything to go by, he was the alpha now.

How was he supposed to tell them about the Silverdale wolf who had helped him escape while they were all soundly asleep a week before? He had kept his lips stitched on that front for too long to reveal it now. Besides, how was he to know that one of them wouldn’t give up such information in return for their own freedom? Demon wolves were one thing for sure: they were selfish, just like his father always had been. It was the very reason they all found themselves here in the first place. He wasn’t about to give a single one of them the opportunity to be so again.

How could he tell them that the Silverdale wolves had kept him locked up in a private cell for over a week in order to try and get information out of him? If he were to go through with the alliance, they would never follow him if they believed the rival pack had done anything to harm him.

Instead, he simply said, “Dash Silverdale offered an alliance.”

The gasps of shock and perhaps even horror that followed were enough to tell him he was right not to tell them anything else.

“What kind of alliance?” Molly demanded.

“You aren’t seriously thinking of getting into bed with those bastards, are you?” Molly’s partner, Frank, snapped. He came to stand beside his petite partner, and in the near-darkness Braxton could see his dark eyes blazing with hatred. “They’d just as soon chew us up and spit us out than form an alliance with the likes of us.”

“My father would have us think so, wouldn’t he?” Braxton scoffed, thinking of all the terrible things his father had told him about the Silverdale wolves over the years. And yet, save for putting him and his pack members in cells, he hadn’t seen a single ounce of violence from them. Hatred and mistrust, yes, but not outright violence.

It made him more than a little thoughtful, hopeful even.

“What kind of alliance?” Molly repeated, clearly ignoring her partner’s comment. When Frank glowered at her, she shot him a dark look that made him silent yet clearly resentful.

“By the sounds of it, I would take leadership of the demon wolves and we would all be set free,” Braxton explained with a shrug of his shoulders.

Murmurs of hopeful confusion sounded behind Molly and Frank and Braxton felt the weight of his entire pack pressing down on him.

“They can’t be trusted,” Frank snapped. “Why would any Silverdale ever offer us those terms?”

“Because they plan to marry me off to one of their own to ensure it,” Braxton admitted. More gasps of horror followed, causing him to grit his teeth against their mixed feelings.

“You can’t be serious!”

“You couldn’t possibly consider it!”

“How could you possibly marry a Silverdale?”

The words were spat at him from every direction, and he cringed against them, feeling as though they were physical blows. He knew that they were right, and yet he also knew he had very little choice. How else was he ever supposed to lay eyes on his children again?

One more thought intrigued him. What if Lottie was offered up for the alliance?

Could he possibly accept it then? Worse than that, would she ever accept him?

“Enough!” he yelled, not only at his pack but at his own constantly whirling thoughts. “I need time to think.”

With that, he turned his back on his pack and slumped down onto the cold floor, searching almost blindly for the threadbare blanket that had been left somewhere in his cell the last time he had been there. What he needed more than anything was sleep, but the murmurs that continued in the next cell told him he would get very little, if any.

Suddenly, the cell that he had been desperate to get out of for a week seemed far more inviting, and a part of him wished he could go right on back. At least there he would have been able to think of Dash’s proposal in peace.

Chapter 4 - Lottie

Having dreaded guard duty ever since that night, Lottie spent most of her shift on edge. Even sitting on the rickety chair in the basement, playing cards opposite her fellow pack mate, she couldn't control the tension in her body.

In the near-darkness, she tried to focus on the cards in her hand, only to realize that they were trembling almost as much as she was.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Dax asked, looking over his hand of cards at her with one dark eyebrow raised. Like many of the Silverdale wolves, he was dark-haired, pale-eyed, and handsome as hell. He was also exceedingly infuriating, especially now, as he seemed unable to stop from worrying about her.

"Fine," she growled through gritted teeth. Slamming her hand of cards down onto the table, she shoved herself to her feet. One glance at her illuminated wristwatch told her it was almost time for shift change. She had made it this far without doing anything stupid—almost four whole hours fighting the urge to go down into the dungeons. And yet, she knew that if she didn’t do it now, she would miss the opportunity to go down there while she had a valid excuse. "I'm going to go down and double-check the cells."

---