Chapter Eighty-Five
Graham’s feeling of dread deepened as he drove closer to the packhouse. He parked his bike and took off his helmet. His gaze focused on the five suvs parked in the circular drive. A whistle had him turning his attention to the front door where Lucas and Theo waited for him. Graham could tell by Lucas’ face that whatever was going down wasn’t good. He groaned and shoved his helmet down before stalking toward them.
“Jensen’s waiting in his office with the others,” Lucas announced.
Graham nodded and the three of them walked into the packhouse. “Who’s here?” he asked as they walked across the foyer.
“All of ’em,” Theo answered.
“Including Dane?” Graham asked, giving Lucas a sidelong look as they walked down the hall.
Lucas snarled and nodded. “Brought another bitch with him.”
“Poor thing,” Theo said with rare sincerity.
“What has Jensen told them?” Graham asked.
“Everything,” Lucas answered as they stepped up to Jensen’s door.
Graham pressed both hands flat against the wood and hung his head for a second.
“Dammit,” Graham groaned before shoving the door open.
The office went quiet at his entrance. Theo and Lucas flanked him as he entered. He glanced at Jensen who sat behind his desk with Mark and Henry within arm’s reach. Lucien sat in his usual armchair with a grin, telling him the conversation hadn’t been pleasant. Elliot and Dane were on the couch, arms spread wide while Gerald was in the other armchair, his arms crossed and his expression hard. Graham nodded at the various guards stationed along the walls prepared to defend their alphas if needed.
“Bout fucking time,” Dane grumbled.
Graham’s glare focused on the mountainous alpha. The level of disgust he felt for the man soared to new heights with the thought he had any claim to Catherine. He felt Lucas’ hatred for the man radiating off him like a pulse. Graham could practically hear his friend praying to the Goddess for the alpha to give him a reason to be laid flat.
“Dane,” Graham growled.
Dane’s eyes narrowed. “That’s Alpha Dane to you, Boy.”
“Not while you’re in my pack,” Graham chuckled.
“Your pack?” Dane stood up, his fists clenched so tightly they were white. “You’re not even Beta yet. Hold your tongue or I’ll cut it
out.”
Lucas moved but Graham caught him by his jacket sleeve. “Take a walk, Luke,” Graham ordered, tightening his hold when Lucas didn’t immediately obey.
Lucas yanked his arm away and stalked from the room, slamming the door behind him.
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Alpha Elliot stood then, trying to diffuse the situation. “Now, now, fellas, we don’t need to cause a scene. We’re here to celebrate. We can continue our negotiations at a later date.”
“There will be no negotiations,” Dane growled.
“Agreed,” Gerald piped in. “We’ve made deals. Jensen, you will uphold them.”
“Or what?” Graham asked.
Gerald’s piercing yellow gaze focused on him. “Or your alpha dies and then you and I go to war.”
Graham guffawed. “Morgan will find a better match. I won’t mate with your daughter and I won’t let anything happen to my alpha.”
“Like he has a choice,” Dane interjected, wanting the focus back on himself.
Graham rolled his eyes, having great difficulty keeping his neutral expression in place. “Deals between packs are changed and manipulated every year.”
Dane took a few steps forward. Graham felt Theo tense behind him. The sinister smile on Dane’s face did not bode well. “Not ones bound in blood,” he whispered.
Graham’s eyes slowly ticked sideways until they landed on Jensen. “What?” he growled, low and deadly.
Gifted lycans are unable to procreate. I never thought I’d have a daughter to barter, Jensen explained through the mindlink.
Graham shut his eyes hard and groaned. He opened them and set his deadly glare on Dane. “You’ll not be taking my mate from me. Whether I have to challenge you or not, I’ll die before I’d let you even share the same air as her.”
Dane smirked in triumph. “Hormonal pup. Maybe when you get a century under your belt you’ll begin to understand. We’re lycans. We aren’t like the barbaric wolves who fight til the death for leadership. Strength breeds strength. That’s why Jensen made these deals years ago and sealed them in blood before emotions could cloud his judgement. Your mating with Morgan will add new, may say, high quality genetics to our hierarchy. My mating with… Jensen’s little gifted Catherine will do the same and then some.”
some
Perhaps since meeting Catherine, Graham had lost the ability to control himself. Perhaps only having marked his mate a couple weeks ago made him more protective and/or possessive. Maybe it was because they’d just gone through their first heat together. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. One moment he was a few feet from the door feeling his chest shred to pieces with each of Dane’s words, the next he had the alpha by the throat. Graham towered over him in his lycan form. He snarled down at the alpha who quickly hid a spark of fear.
“Mine,” Graham growled in his lycan voice. Graham’s clawed hand tightened and the alpha’s eyes bulged.
“Release him, Grey,” Jensen commanded.
Without the ability to hesitate, Graham’s hand betrayed his mind. He took a step back and shifted to his human form. He spat at th alpha’s feet. “Don’t forget that when Jensen goes against his blood oath and dies, I’ll be the new alpha. Any deals or treaties you’v made with him become null and void. You will deal with me.” Graham stepped forward, invading the alpha’s space who refused to back down either. “Maybe you’re right and when I’m older I’ll know better. Today though, I may be young and dumb enough to damn the consequences for killing you for no other reason than I want to.”
“And will you do the same to me, Grey?” Gerald asked, having lost the note of violence in his voice after Graham’s display of strength. Gerald stood and gestured around to the other alphas. “Will you kill all of us when we come to collect on deals Jensen ha made? You act as if we are robbing your pack when, in fact, Jensen here has been reaping the rewards of our deals for decades whil we waited patiently to receive our own.”
Chapter Eighty-Five
Elliot spoke up then, “Being beta, or alpha for that matter, is not just about dominance and war. It’s about diplomacy. You must put feelings aside and think of your pack’s future before anything else.”
“Don’t speak to me as if I’m a child,” Graham warned.
Elliot raised his hands in surrender. “I’m only trying to help.”
“All of you are here at our invitation as a show of inclusion,” Graham began. “I hold no ill-will toward any of you. I came into this position because I was challenged, not because I hold some irrational desire for power. I’ll perform my duty as beta with my true mate by my side.” He looked pointedly at Dane and Gerald for emphasis. “I will not go against the Moon Goddess and I advise you to follow suit. If, however, either of you wish to give it a go, I’ll be more than happy to fulfill my duty to my mate and to protect her
with my life.”
The alphas glanced around each other. Dane and Gerald glared at Jensen who continued quietly tapping his fingers against his desk.
“This will not stand, Jensen,” Dane said, pivoting his stance to take on the alpha.
L
“We made these deals and kept up our end,” Gerald agreed.
Jensen sighed and tapped his knuckles three more times. “We will come up with new terms that satisfy both your need for better bloodlines and reparations for the benefits I’ve received from you.”
“How on earth do you expect to find a comparable mate to one who’s gifted and has alpha DNA?” Dane bellowed.
“We never agreed upon a gifted child,” Jensen sighed, scrubbing his face.
“No, we agreed upon your daughter who happened to be gifted. If your beta wants to discuss defying destiny then perhaps you should consider the repercussions of going against your blood oath. I want her and I will have…”
Graham’s fist connected with Dane’s jaw. The suckerpunch succeeded in catching the alpha off guard. His body hit the floor with a thud. Graham stretched his hand and shook it. He glared at the unconscious alpha and ignored his two guards trying to bring him to his knees. He was seconds away from a haze and no gamma would have the ability to budge him. Theo came in to help and shoved the two guards away.
“Enough!” Jensen roared.
He stood up and splayed his hands on his desk. His chest rose and fell sharply as he glared around the room. Lucien started to chuckle in his seat and Elliot awkwardly joined him a moment later. Jensen slammed his fist against the wood, splintering it.
“As Dane said, we are not barbarians. We are a civilized species. We have laws and one of those laws is that a destined pair cannot be forcibly separated. You have all been invited this weekend not only to participate in these ceremonies and to recognize the change in leadership of this pack but to come back to the table to renegotiate the hand of my daughter and my new beta.”
Jensen glanced at the man still staring in shock at an unconscious Dane. “Gerald, I will find a suitable match for Morgan. We both know she wasn’t happy with Stuart and while she has never hidden her infatuation for Grey, he has marked his fated mate and cannot be forced to reject her for any means. Dane will…”
Jensen sighed and fell back in his chair seemingly exhausted from the hours of arguing that had gone on before Graham arrived.
“When Dane wakes up, he and I will have a private conversation and try to come up with a compromise.”
“And if he refuses?” Elliot asked.
Graham glanced at the second oldest lycan in the room. In his three hundreds, his face showed his wisdom and exhaustion from so
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Chapter Eighty-Five
many years in power. His salt and pepper hair was a rarity in lycans and one that made him stand out. He had been fortunate to find his mate young and, as far as Graham knew, remained loyal to her to this day. Of all the alphas present, Jensen included, he always admired Elliot the most. He asked Jensen a loaded question and Graham waited for his response.
Jensen shrugged and interlaced his fingers in his lap. “Then the blood oath will do its worst and he’ll have Grey to deal with.”
Gerald, finally surfacing from his sea of disbelief, stood sharply, drawing all eyes in the room to him. He glanced at Jensen with narrowed eyes and then Graham. He walked up to Graham. Graham stood taller, expecting the same hostility he’d received from
Dane.
“I had hoped you would one day be with my daughter. Morgan deserves a strong mate like yourself.” Gerald glanced down at Dane again for emphasis. “She will make a fine luna one day. She is strong, and willful but also gentle, graceful and beautiful beyond compare. Even now she’s at Teodora Spa just so she might impress you tonight.”
Gerald missed the flash of panic that crossed Graham’s face as he turned to face Jensen. Gerald shook his head while Graham’s stomach coiled in knots.
“I will continue to hold up my side of the bargain. Perhaps, one day sooner than we may think, Graham will need a new mate and we can finalize our deal once and for all.”
Gerald nodded at his two guards and together the three of them left the room. Theo came to stand beside Graham while the other alphas bid their farewells and left to either explore Blackmoore or attend meetings between themselves. Dane’s two guards, pale in fear for when their alpha woke, lifted him to the couch.
“What the fuck was that supposed to mean?” Theo asked.
Graham pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Thomas who he had assigned to watch over the spa during Catherine’s appointment. “What?”
“That whole ‘perhaps one day soon he’ll need a new mate’ thing Gerald said,” Theo reminded him.
“I don’t know. Hey, Thomas, have you seen anything going on in the spa?” Graham asked.
“Uh, no, like what?” Thomas asked.
Graham sighed. “Like a redhead approaching Catherine?”
“What’s going on?” Theo asked.
“Catherine is at Teodora’s,” Graham told Theo. “I dropped her off before I came here.”
