Chapter 1

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One Year Later

After graduating I move back to my pack and work on my parents flower farm and in their store.  I have a particular talent for cross breeding plants.  I still enjoy the smell of loam and water that I get from the green houses. I love to walk up and down the isles checking on my plants. There's more paper work to my job than I'd like, but I get to live my dream.
    I get up from my desk in the back of the store and put away the seed catalogues for next year when I hear the front bell.  Stacy worked in the store front today, but this close to closing I've sent her home.  I move out of the small office into the hall.  If I turned to the left I'd exit out to the farm with it's greenhouses.  I turn to the right instead and go into the store front.  It's filled with refrigeration units and glass cases. It's decorated in a rustic farm style to match the fact that this is a farm. Most of our flowers are whole sale to other shops, but we do maintain our own on the property.
There's a woman standing near one of the refrigeration units.  She turns to me when I come in.  Sensing me rather than hearing me.  I can move very quietly.  She must be a were. She looks to be in her twenties.  We all do.  Were cells don't age the way human's ones do.  Being perpetually young doesn't mean we live forever.  We can still die of violence, but we're much harder to kill than humans.
"Can I help you?  Most of the stock has been put away for the night, but if you describe what you want I'll see what I can get for you," I ask in my slightly condescending work voice.  Work with the public enough, in a store or over the phone and you develop The Voice while talking to them.  It's slightly condescending and overly sweet like you're talking to a child.  It can't be helped.  Everyone gets it with time.  Except easily annoyed people.  They get condescending and sarcastic.
"I'm looking for Chloe Chan.  Are you her?" The woman asks.  She has dark hair, and sharp blue eyes.  I can tell she's seeing through me.  She already knows I'm Chloe.
"Yes.  You got me.  What can I do for you?"
"I'm Victoria Davis.  Luna of the Moonlight Pack.  I need you to come with me."
"What is this about?  Connor rejected me, and I accepted."
"You're coming with me"
"No, I'm not," I return losing The Voice, and letting my irritation show through.
"Your Alpha already agreed."
"Let's call him."  I get my cell phone from my pocket rather than using the cordless office phone, and dial the Alpha's priority line.  Normally through regular channels you end up talking to someone else before the Alpha, but I don't have the time or patience for that tonight so I call his cell directly.
"Alpha, it's Chloe Chan. There's a woman here-"
"Yes, sorry," he breaks through, "She's a day early.  I was going to call you in the morning.  She's from your mate's pack."
"Ex-mate.  He rejected me."
"Well, that's the thing.  There have been complications.  Bring her to me.  I'm still at the pack house, we need to talk face to face."
Luna Victoria is still standing near one of our refrigeration units, but the hum of the motor wouldn't have been strong enough to drown out that conversation.  With werewolves everything may as well be speaker phone.  She smirks at me, obviously feeling triumphant.
"Let's go." She says.  She smiles openly, already knowing she's won. 
"You'll have to drive," I tell her. I don't drive.  I live in one of the bunkhouses of the farm, and don't need a car for work.
We travel in silence.  Well, I'm silent.  She's humming to herself in happiness.  Dominant weres are very competitive, and my showing irritation earlier is leading her to feel content in her victory.
The pack house is nearby, as much as it can be while also being out by itself.  We're one of the nearest neighbors, but there's a lot of wild land around it.  It's a necessity.  We're only allowed to run on pack land.
She parks with the other cars in the small lot at the house, and we both walk to the front porch.  The Alpha's already there sitting in one of the rocking chairs.  That doesn't surprise me.  He's too territorial to let a were from another pack into the house.
"Sit." He commands after we've climbed the steps to the porch.  I take the rocking chair closest to him.  It helps me feel safer from whatever she's scheming.  She boosts herself onto the railing in front of us.  Probably feeling superior from the height.
He turns to me, and I can see regret in his eyes.  He's going to say something that will upset me, and he's feeling bad about it.  "Chloe, the moonlight pack and ours have had a long standing treaty.  It goes back to the pack wars.  It's an old treaty that no one's invoked for a long time, but it's still legal.  I don't have any choice in the matter.  You have to go with the Luna and marry her son."
"He doesn't want me.  He rejected me." I point out.
"Not that son.  The other one."

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