Lyndon
Everyone held their breath as Liv walked towards the alpha. Her mother bit her lip to stop herself from uttering the protest everyone could see brewing on her face. He could see the uncertainty on his mate's face but she held her head high and stood before the alpha.
The alpha stared deep into her eyes and Liv kept her composure. Don knew how uncomfortable it was to have an Alpha or an ancient alpha look deep into you. The alpha before them was a retired one. Even though she looked to be in her late twenties, by human standards, he could tell she was in her fifth century. Which meant she had most likely found the fullness of her power.
"What is your full name child?" She asked.
"Olivia Caroline Wainwright." She replied.
Her voice caused a shiver of pleasure to fall down his back. It was light and sensuous, beautiful and mesmerizing. He could now scent her. A delicate wild orchid scent that spoke of fragility yet endurance. He could also sense her power potential. From it, Don was sure she had the blood of a strong werewolf line, he just couldn't sense which.
"Olivia Caroline Wainwright, I alpha Eliana Matthews accept you within the pack. Will you accept me as your alpha?"
It was a more abrupt version of the acceptance ceremony into a pack. Normally, the new member would be told the pack rules beforehand. And then on the day of acceptance, they'd be told what it meant to be under the rule of an alpha.
"I Olivia Caroline Wainwright accept you, alpha Eliana Matthews as my alpha." His mate replied.
"This will be temporary until you are accepted by your true Alpha. In the meantime remember that everything you do will reflect upon me. I hope you will not bring shame to my name." The alpha said with gravity.
Don saw Liv stand up taller, her shoulders drawing back. "I will do all that I can to honour you as my alpha."
He was impressed that she had the right inflexion on the title for the retired alpha, the right reverence. The alpha smiled her approval of her and he saw how that affected her. The same peace he remembered from the times his Alpha had praised him. The Alpha before Jake.
As the alpha took Liv away for her first shift, his jaw tensed at the thought of that bastard and what he'd done. Not only to Nia but to all the other girls in their pack. How could a man betray all he was like that, an Alpha? He wanted to kill the bastard for that.
There was nothing he could do about it right now though, besides that Jake had a pack behind him and even if Will was a better fighter than Jake he could never defeat the Alpha. The other Alphas in their alliance had been jealous of Jake being the youngest Alpha ever and had abandoned their duty to the Dark Carnage.
Even as he held onto his honour, Don was disillusioned by his race, unable to hide from the fact they were leading themselves to ruin. Was the moon goddess driving them to that extinction, using him? Why else would she take an interest in them?
With a deep breath, he forced himself to calm down, to focus on the fact that he'd found his mate and she'd marked him. Even though she had no idea what it meant, they were now tied together for the rest of their lives.
"Now Dr and Mrs Wainwright, I believe you had some questions?" The alpha said as she walked back in with Liv and closer to where they were seating.
Don was amused to see how intimidated the Wainwrights were by the alpha. There was a sense of dignity about her, confidence that told of a being so content to be that they needed nothing from anyone.
"Yes." Liv's mother stated with a lift of her chin that showed she wasn't going to give in to the wariness still in her eyes. "You said Liv couldn't have survived much longer, if that is the case why was she given up for adoption?"
The alpha took a seat close to the couple, her people moving to stand guard. "I recognised that your daughter is from a delta bloodline." Don felt a rush of shock at that. He knew he was from a strong bloodline and his mate would have to be strong but for some reason, he hadn't thought Liv would be from an elite bloodline.
The alpha continued. "Even in the unlikely event that her parents didn't want to keep her, they would never have given her up to humans. We are a primal race and giving up a child of our people to humans is a capital offence and calls for the death of everyone involved. Let alone a child who would have been either an only child or one of only two."
"So you're saying she was stolen from her parents?" Her father asked, his jaw hardening.
"That's one of the probabilities." The alpha agreed "Either by an enemy of her family or by humans while her family were here. In which case they would've had to kill her birth parents to get to her. Which doesn't explain why they would target them or even succeed."
Don looked at his mate and saw she held herself still as she stood beside the loveseat her parents were in. Her hand was on her mother's shoulder, a comfort, a show of solidarity. Her features were set, as if she braced herself to endure whatever else might be revealed about her.
"What other possibility is there?" Mrs Wainwright asked.
"There was a group of our people banished to the human world about three thousand years ago. It's possible, though unlikely, that she is a descendant of them."
"How is that even possible?" Will asked of the alpha.
"As I said, it's unlikely, but there's a chance that a few of them found a way to survive. If we mate with humans, our blood always breeds true and if they managed to suppress the need to change they can, theoretically, still be alive."
"The drive to shift is impossible to resist," Will stated.
"Yes, but that's because our wolves are in a state where shifting doesn't endanger us. Can you imagine your wolf pushing you to shift when knowing doing so would hurt you?"
Will frowned at that, his eyes thoughtful. "No." He conceded
Don frowned as the alpha continued to explain things. The last thing he'd ever expected was to find a mate in the human world, one who had ties to humans. Like most betas, Don liked things to be orderly. Everything had its place and he did not like to be in the centre of things unless he had to be.
Now here he was a Beta whilst he was too young, without a pack and now this. He was sure the alpha would have to report Liv's existence to the royal council and he'd have to stand for her since she had no idea how their world worked. He knew she wouldn't want to be separated from her human parents and would look to him for that not to happen. Unfortunately, werewolves didn't allow humans in their havens and she wouldn't be allowed to stay.
He kept still as the alpha explained that particular dilemma. The scent of the small family's pain dug a hole inside his heart, especially the pain his mate felt. He wanted to do something, to comfort her but he sensed her parents wouldn't let him, maybe even Liv herself.
"This is all your fault." Her mother accused again with a glare at him. "If you hadn't..."
"Mrs Wainwright," the alpha interrupted in a tone that personified command. "You need to grow up."
Liv's mother reared back as if she'd been slapped, her eyes wide with shock. Shame wafted from her as pain and confusion flashed across her face. Don understood the backlash of an alpha's rebuke and felt sorry for her, despite her continued animosity toward him.
"Excuse me?" Liv's father demanded. "How dare you come into my home and insult my wife?"
"Lyndon didn't make your daughter a werewolf," the alpha stated in a hard voice. "He didn't force you to adopt her nor is it his idea that she's his mate. He has the right to go wherever he wishes and that's the only reason he's here, not because of your daughter.
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it you who called him here? Didn't your daughter choose to mark him?"
No one replied to her so she continued. "Here's the hard reality, it's unlikely your daughter would've reached her twenties without being discovered as a nonhuman. The best that would've happened to her is that your government found her first, in which case they inform our king."
"What would happen then?" Something in the tone of her mother's voice had Don thinking the human government had already found her out.
"She'd either have to go live within the king's court until she's mated or the king would have had her killed if she refused." There were shocked gasps from everyone except the Weres. "As I said, we're a primal race. We also have enough magic in our blood to tempt quite a number of other races.
Should your daughter be killed by any of them, it gives the impression we're weak and we'd have to retaliate. If there's no clear culprit the humans would have to bear the brunt of that retaliation. The only solution would be to kill her himself to avoid that."
"That's barbaric," Liv stated with a raised chin.
"Would you prefer the death of thousands instead?" The alpha questioned in a mild tone.
Liv looked like she wanted to say something but couldn't think of a valid argument. She exchanged looks with her parents, worried looks. Don could guess they'd hoped Liv could possibly live in the human world and were now getting a glimpse of reality. He understood why his mate's mother was taking it out on him, she was afraid of losing her only child and someone had to be at fault.
The alpha continued to explain more about their world and its hard rules and expectations but Don tuned her out. He'd always wanted a calm predictable life but Jake had made that hard now he found a mate who had human parents. His fate seemed to be conspiring against him and he didn't know if he could adjust to it