Loving The Beast Within (Sequel to Shifting Love)

Chapter 1: Chocolate Cake Tastes Better When There's A Fight

Pauline's Bakery had over twenty flavors of cake and fifty flavors of buttercream to choose from on her cake order form. Over the last couple of weeks I had tasted all twenty cake flavors with each type of buttercream. It was safe to say that I was now an expert on cake and lucky I hadn't developed diabetes.

Every day my mother dragged me down into the village for something to do with the wedding. And every time I made sure to drag Hannah down there with us. She complained daily whenever my mother started to drive us insane. But I reminded her it was all in the name of being my maid of honor.

It was usually customary for the fiancé to be picking out the wedding cake with his bride but Dante was never around anymore. He and the other Alphas were dead set on locating Walter, his missing pack, and the other hunters.

Dante told me to pick out whatever I wanted and that would be fine with him. His lack of enthusiasm had me seething. I almost picked out flavors I knew he would hate, but I really didn't want to be stuck eating Red Velvet cake on my wedding day.

The only reason I hadn't complained yet was my mother. For the first time since my father died my mother was constantly smiling every day. She was ecstatic that Dante and I were engaged. While she was turning out to be a pain I was okay with it. I would do anything to make her happy.

But it was hard being away from Dante for long periods of time. He would take Teague and a few of our best wolves on the search. Usually he was only gone for a week at a time. The longest time he had been gone so far was a whole month.

I went crazy two weeks in. Everyone steered clear from me until he returned home. When he came back empty handed I exploded on him. He promised to never leave for that long again.

The night Dante proposed, Teague beat out Cooper and Theo for the coveted Beta position. I felt bad for the both of them and didn't want their talents to go to waste. My mate agreed but his thoughts were elsewhere on the matter.

He posted Cooper to my side day and night like a bodyguard. It was annoying that he felt I needed a babysitter to take care of me but after being kidnapped twice last year I allowed it. Cooper and I became best friends because of it.

Since we were all in the same situation I spent a lot of my free time with the other Alpha females when I wasn't planning my wedding with my mother and Hannah. Their mates, while not as absent as mine, were just as obsessed with finding Walter and the hunters.

I knew Dante took it personally with the loss of his twin brother, my father, and my kidnapping. But all the Alphas wanted to help keep everyone safe and punish Walter for his crimes. Their wives gave me some wise advice on how to handle Dante's constant disappearing act along with ideas for the wedding.

Sarah, Christian's mate, was also new to the whole ordeal of being an Alpha female. We took to each other pretty fast. Only Alphas and their mates were allowed in closed pack meetings. The wives were the only ones I could talk about things with that wasn't public knowledge. Anything I wanted to talk about I went to Carla. She and Sarah were the only ones I could trust.

It became apparent to me after just one Alpha dinner just how much influence the wives had over their mates. I once saw Terrence as a terrifying man but Stephanie knew just how to control him with just a touch of her hand on his shoulder. I asked her about it while we were clearing the table and the men were in the living room talking. She denied anything had even happened but I saw the mischievous glint in her eye that said otherwise.

After that night I promised I would learn how to do that with Dane one day.

For the past month my mother begged me to set a date for the wedding but Dante was never around. It was hard for me to know when he would actually be present for the day. I still hadn't chosen the cake flavor, found the perfect dress, or gotten Dante to stand still long enough to be fitted for his tux. The only thing I got him to do on his own was choosing Cooper as his best man.