Discreet

Detached

"I don't want this." his sharp voice alerted me to his arrival.

On any other average day, I would never dream of eavesdropping on a private conversation; however, in light of who was speaking, my instincts demanded I listen without being caught. From my location, a treehouse I still used as a library, I could hear every word spoken between the two, who walked from the driveway and stopped at the terrace beneath me as they argued. Today's guests were here to finalize a bargain by inspecting the goods they bought. Alpha Nicolas Normand and his son, Boris, were here to meet me, the she-wolf whose registered mate was now deceased.

When I was just eighteen, a month shy of nineteen, my life was derailed from normal. My mate had died before I had grown mature enough to sense him. A misfortune that made me eligible to be Boris's replacement mate. The hand fate dealt him was far worse than mine, or so I heard. His given mate was human. Not any random human, but a human whose parents were werewolf shifters. In a parallel world somewhere, this would perhaps mean nothing; 'And they lived happily ever after' should have been the end of his tale, only it wasn't. Humans born from wolves were labeled as cursed by the goddess. This was not a rumor but words carved into laws from the day the first human was born of a shifter couple. The Royal Five at that time declared the human's birth to be a punishment for their past lives. No one would ever know what crime the human born committed, but we all accepted the punishment came from the goddess. After all, the Royal Five were the five messengers of the goddess, anointed by her to carry out her will. They were the ones she blessed to rule over the werewolf world and to relay her words, the Kings of our kind.

"Your wants matter not," Alpha Normand barked. "Your duty is to the pack." He continued, making me hold my breath. The hairs on my body rose, and I felt his disapproval pulsing in the atmosphere.

"I didn't choose..." Boris tried speaking. His voice sounded like he had been fighting this battle for days. The feeling of rejection traveled with his voice and echoed with a wave of sharp invisible swords stabbing me from all directions. This man was my betrothed. Was he also choiceless in the matter?

"You are not exempted from the laws your royal ancestors set. You will accept this union." Alpha Normand interrupted. I could already tell this man embodied the rule of law. He was here for a business deal, and his son didn't appear to have any say in the transaction.

The Normand family descended from a Royal lineage that lived many generations ago. Even then, our secret world followed its own set of rules. We lived in a hierarchical system. Each pack was led by an alpha of its own, who managed them and reported to the Royals. During any given era, at least one of the five beings was there to enforce the Goddess's decree. They were kings, for lack of a better word. The strongest was always the leader while the other four moved up or down in rank with the birth or death of a new Royal. Though the title of Alpha was inherited, the Royals were born from any wolf. The goddess didn't set a bloodline for them, and very rarely would a Royal be born the son of an existing alpha. Even then, the leader of those five was still the goddess's choice. At present, a pure-blooded alpha who was the number five Royal had been elevated to number one when Chad Wong, my mate and Head of the Royals passed. One of four deaths that not only sent our werewolf world into chaos but also shattered my future before I even had a chance to dream of it; of him. The nonexistent memories of my mate stung my eyes each time I thought of him, the little I knew about who he was, and of what our lives should have been together.

Four of the Royals had been in a fatal car crash along with their driver. Chad had been in that car, and his death created ripple effects in all directions. The politically ambitious among us waged a war against the religious leaders. Both sides aimed to create a sphere of influence around the only remaining Royal by positioning themselves as advisors. I too became a chestpiece in this war. Either an able body for birthing babies as a surrogate for many, or a womb that would be assigned to one man without a mate to create an heir for him. The same death sentence either way from my point of view.