In Service of the Alpha

Mara

“Your father asked me to take you off his hands,” Johnathan says in a straightforward, almost bored voice. “Actually, he put you on the open market. There was a fierce bidding war for you.”

My eyes almost bulge out of my skull and fresh tears burn my throat. How could my father do that to me?

He did not put me on that market to sell me to an Alpha. It’s a slave market where wolves sell their used up wives or unwanted daughters. Most end up as breeders or prostitutes in the wolf pleasure houses.

“Everyone thought you came with an inheritance and that you were worth the investment,” Johnathan goes on.

I have no idea how much he paid for me, but my father would not have settled for anything less than the compensation Kysan and Lucas demanded. “My father disowned me,” I whisper. “You won’t get your money back.”

“I know. Preston told me.” His eyes slide over my ravaged face. “That is not why I bought you. You do not need to fear me,” he says and leans over to take one of the drinks. “I don’t believe in hitting women…well, unless I have to.”

My stomach turns cold. I’m suddenly and starkly reminded of my place in this world. I’m still just an Omega, sold like a lame horse on auction, only good to be dog food. “Forgive me, Alpha,” I say softly. “If you can tell me your rules so I don’t transgress…”

For a moment, Johnathan just stares at me. “Rules?”

I nod. “For me. I…I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“You mean you don’t want to get beaten?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, but doesn’t elaborate. “I will not beat you.”

“Okay,” I whisper and sip my drink.

He has a strange manner about him. He’s direct, almost detached, and doesn’t appear to be in the least bit interested in me.

“I have no rules for you specifically. All I ask is that you carry yourself with the dignity of a Luna. Your father told me that he sent you to finishing school for Luna training?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

It says a lot about my life that I now look back on my time at the finishing school as one of the best years of my life.

I was the only Omega there, but I held my head down and did my lessons. The other girls at the school were all Alphas’ daughters and loved to taunt me, but at least they were never violent.

Upon my return, and on my nineteenth birthday two days later, I married Lucas in a lavish ceremony. I can’t remember my life before him, and I can’t imagine this new life after him.

“You can come and go as you please. Haven’s Crest is safe. No one here will touch you.”

“Thank you, Alpha. What…my household duties? What are they?”

“Johnathan,” he says. “You are to be my mate, not my servant. I have a full staff.”

He makes me nervous. He has a dark, dangerous aura, yet there’s something about him that I find at once alluring and utterly terrifying.

“I bought you because my pack needs a Luna. Your only duty will be to the pack and to serve them faithfully as such.”

Rhoda said that this was not a pack. And if it’s not a pack, why would they need a Luna?

“The wolves living here are all rogues,” Johnathan says, and answers my unasked question. “Me included. My plan is to form an official pack. I already registered with the council, but they will not recognise us until I have a Luna.”

I don’t talk. I don’t know what to say. Years of silence and obedience have turned me into a mindless, barely functioning, she-wolf. I feel like a moron, but my tongue refuses to move, and my mouth won’t form words.

“I’m given to understand that you are unable to bear children?” Johnathan asks.

I quickly shake my head. “I- no, I might be…I used contraception. I did not want to have Lucas’s children.”

A lazy smile ripples across Johnathan’s mouth. “Clever.”

I don’t think so, but I’m not going to contradict him. Johnathan keeps up a good front, but he exudes danger. The kind that can consume a person if they’re not careful, and I haven’t forgotten Preston’s warning that the Alpha has a temper.

“It doesn’t matter to me. I already have a son,” he informs me.

“Oh. How old is he?” I ask.

“Five. His mother abandoned him right after he was born.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he says without elaborating, but his chest puffs up with pride when he talks about his child. “His name is Gregory. He is the reason I want to turn Haven’s Crest into a proper pack. I want to leave him a legacy.”

I smile. This is the first time Johnathan has shown any real emotion. He clearly loves his son.

“Do you have any questions?”

“No, Al- Johnathan.”

He opens his desk drawer and removes a thick envelope. “Your documentation is in here. Your father gave it to Preston. There’s also a bank card with a pin. You will need clothes and such.”

A bank card?

He takes another, bigger envelope out. “Your divorce papers. Lucas asked that you sign them within the week and courier it to him.”

I stare at the thick brown envelope in Johnathan’s hand. “Do you have a pen?”

He nods and reaches into his drawer to produce a pen. I pull the documents out of the envelope and start to sign them. “You should probably read those first,” he says, interrupting me.

I look up from the paperwork. “Why?”

“Your divorce is for the human authorities,” Johnathan says and without asking takes the stack of papers from me. “According to their laws, you’ll be entitled to some form of alimony.”

“I don’t want it,” I say. “I don’t want anything from them.”

The Alpha doesn’t answer me. His eyes are flying over the typed pages. When he reaches the third page, he stops “Yes, see…this is what I mean. If you sign these papers, even the house your father bought for you will be transferred into his name.”

“He can have it.”

Johnathan looks up from the paperwork. “Man, he really beat all the fight right out of you, didn’t he?”

Shame starts to eat away at my guts like a hungry caterpillar. That’s the worst of it, I think. The humiliation. The burning, unspeakable shame of it all.

And Haley. My confidant. My friend. I swallow past the tears. I will not cry for them. I won’t.

“Your house is on human territory,” Johnathan goes on. “It does not fall under pack law. He can’t legally take it. That’s why he wants you to transfer it into his name.”

“Why does it matter?” I ask in a husky voice. “I won’t be going back there.”

“You’re not signing this,” the Alpha says, his voice taking on a dark, dangerous edge that scares me half to death.

“I- I have to.”

“No. My attorneys will fight this for you. You deserve that house, Mara. You can sell it, but you are not giving it to that…arrogant asshole.”

My eyes widen a little at his anger. Why does he care? He doesn’t even know me. I’m part of a business transaction and a necessary evil to get his pack recognised by the wolf council.

“Leave it with me,” Johnathan says and presses a button on his desk.

Within seconds, Chad walks through the door. “Alpha?” he asks.

“Show Miss Smith to her room,” he says. “Then arrange for a driver to take her into town.”

“Yes, Alpha,” Chad says. His voice is filled with adoration.

When I don’t immediately get up, Johnathan gives me a disapproving look. “That’s your cue to leave, Mara.”