Mated to the Alpha and His Beta

Zane

“No. Don't even think it.”

“It could work...” Xander raised an eyebrow at me.

“No. S hit is complicated enough without doing that. And we can’t even guarantee that the elders will assign Alice to us as a second mate.”

“We can find a way to force their hand. Surely there must be something we’ve overlooked when it comes to second mates. We haven't gone over those laws as closely...”

“And we're not going to, Xander. You're playing with fire even thinking about that.”

“Am |, though?” Xander walked over to his desk to the massive book of pack laws spread open on top of it.

“There’s no way Lanie will go for that. Not in a million years. And she’s a feisty one. She could cause trouble for us if we don’t handle her correctly.”

p

After I'd yelled at both her and Xander to shut the f uck up, Lanie had stormed off to go d only knew where. Which was probably for the best.

We all needed to cool down a bit, and some distance between us would help.

Because f u ck if we could think rationally with her scent seeping into our pores.

Her sweet, sweet, in-heat scent...

| shook the thoughts out of my head.

“It doesn’t matter if she goes for it. She has no choice. If she refuses, then she'll be mated to...” Xander paused a moment. “Hell, | don’t know. They'll find the oldest, grossest pair for her. You can believe that.”

He shrugged as if to say “not my problem.”

“Xander. This isn’t like you.” | moved to stand behind him as he bent over the desk, flipping page after page, scanning through the tiny words, looking for a needle in a haystack. | placed my hand on his shoulder and squeezed lightly.

When he looked at me, his eyes were filled with sadness.

“We can’t let her go to them. And we can’t let her end up with someone worse, Zane.”

| nodded. “I know.”

Dam mit, he was right.

As much as | wanted to play by the rules and keep everyone happy, we couldn't.

Alice was our mate, and we had to do whatever we could to protect her, love her, have her.

Even if it meant taking on some collateral damage in the process.

“We'll give Lanie a good life. We'll find a way to make her happy. Once she has a pup or two, she'll be busy with

them. And, hell, if she wants to keep someone on the side, that’s okay, too.”

Xander resumed looking through the tome, his finger running over the words line by line, looking for mentions© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

of second mates.

| hated the thought of everything, but when | conjured up and image of Alice-our Alice-mated to anyone else...my heart seized and the wind was knocked out of me.

Whatever we had to do, we'd do it.

Xander

We were running out of time.

Zane and | had spent hours looking through the by-laws, and we were no closer to a solution.

| had no idea what we were going to do.

But if we didn’t mate with Lanie tonight, we wouldn't have a choice.

And | didn’t do well with not having a choice.

Not one bit.

I'm sure it was the Alpha in me who wanted to have everything my way no matter what.

| know for sure that I'd expected to have my way when it came to Alice.

We'd bided our time and waited. And waited. And waited...for four mating ceremonies after we'd started sleeping with her when she turned eighteen.

| sighed somewhat wistfully.

“I know,” Zane said.

Sometimes our bond was a curse. It'd be nice to have my own thoughts and feelings without him always being in tune to them. And then there was the annoying Alpha thing where if | felt something too strongly, it would push those emotions out to the whole pack.

That was...not awesome.

“Remember when we first saw her?”

I smiled. “I do.”

“The f ucking pigtails and ice cream cone.” Zane chuckled.

“She knew what she wanted, and she knew how to get it.”

It was forbidden for anyone, no matter their age, to sleep with a she-wolf until she was eighteen, and then’

she-wolves were mated.

But sometimes, there was a bit of a grace period, depending on when their birthday fell. And for Alice, she had six months of freedom before she was mated.

And she’d decided that those six months would be spent with us.

And she'd