Bride of the Alpha (4 page)

uncle told her that she had to marry you, she was placed under guard. This was the only way.”

“I see.” He nodded.

“How did you know I wasn’t Camille? How did you know about the charm?” I asked. “Nobody else

could tell. It even fooled her uncle.”

He shrugged. “I knew from the minute I saw you,” he said.

“You knew all along?” I echoed dumbly. And he still married me? Why?

“How did you know?”

He smiled at me. “We all have our secrets. I may tell you some day.”

I wanted to demand an answer, but I was hardly in a position to do so.

“I’m really sorry about the problems this is going to cause,” I said, sincerely. “I just didn’t want to see her forced into an arranged marriage. So, I guess I should leave now…”

He looked at me questioningly.

“Leave? For where?”

“Well, you’re going to want to arrange an annulment right away…hey, Kray said that he could arrange

for someone else to marry you. Maybe he’ll do that?” I said, my voice quavering. For some reason, the

thought of someone else marrying Max made my stomach lurch.

“Who says we’re getting an annulment?”

“But…”my jaw dropped. He was joking, right? He had to be joking.

I gestured at myself. It was a hot day, I was sweating, and the dress I was wearing clung to me in all the wrong places. I’m a pear shaped girl with wide hips and big boobs and a big butt. I have a generous belly.

He looked me up and down, his gaze roving slowly over my body. His eyes gleamed with appreciation,

and his gaze lingered on my face, then my breasts, sweeping slowly downward…

It felt like a warm caress, and I shivered with desire under his appreciative appraisal.

“I like what I see.” His voice had gone low and rough.

“Y…you do?” My voice quavered. “But…I’m…rather large.”

“Child-bearing hips, as my mother would say.” He flashed a wicked grin. “The better to grab and hold

you with.”

“Most guys want someone slimmer. Someone who can run through the woods and look good in a

bikini.”

“Oh, I’m sure you look positively delicious in a bikini.”

I couldn’t hide the shock on my face. Me? In a bikini? With my ripply belly and big, soft thighs?

He walked over and seized me by the hips, pulling me up against him. I felt his thick, hard cock,

pressing into my stomach. He held me there firmly, looking down into my eyes, and I felt a wave of desire so intense that it turned my knees to liquid and I stumbled.

“You question whether I’m attracted to you?” His voice rumbled up low and sexy from his chest.

Oh, my God. This was so unfair. I was in a bedroom full of sex toys with the hottest guy in the

universe, and he was technically my husband, and he was pretending to flirt with me.

And he was undoubtedly trying to mess with my head to get back at me for tricking him, which sucked.

I grabbed his hands, pulled them off of me, and took several steps back. I was still turned on, but also kind of mad. He was making fun of me, which really hurt.

“There’s no way you want to stay married to me,” I said. “You wanted to marry Camille because she

was beautiful and would look good standing next to you at all those pack meetings, and because her uncle’s pack is wealthy and powerful so they’d make a good alliance. I don’t come with either of those attributes.”

His gaze turned dark. “Everybody seems to be telling me what I want in a bride today,” he said. “Are

you a mind-reader?”

“What I’m trying to point out is, you wanted to marry Camille, and I’m completely different from

Camille! I would make a terrible Alpha’s bride!”

“Why’s that?” Now he looked amused. He hadn’t moved towards me again. So, yeah, he wasn’t really

into me; I mean, sure, he was probably kind of turned on, because we were both standing there next to a bed full of sex toys. But that was obviously as far as it went.

“Well, I’m not political at all. I tend to speak my mind, and I’m not always tactful.”

“So you’d be perceived as strong and unafraid.” He nodded approvingly. This really wasn’t going the

way it should. I should be halfway off the property by now.

“I’m opinionated. If things were going on in the pack that I didn’t like, I wouldn’t be able to sit there and keep my mouth shut.”

“What kind of things?”

“Oh, I don’t know…bullying…abuse…stronger pack members taking things from the weak just

because they can…”

“You think that’s how we run things in the Timber Valley pack?” Now he looked mildly offended.

“No! Well, er, maybe…okay, yes…you guys do have kind of a reputation.”

“And you believe everything that you hear?”

“No,” I said, exasperated. Why was I letting him put me on the defensive? I was in the right here, wasn’t I?

“So, it’s settled. Let’s go meet my family.”

“What?”

“You’re going to meet my family. That’s what brides do. Also, we’ll eat some lunch. You’ll need your

strength for the Running, and definitely for the Claiming.”

“Which involves what, exactly?”

“You’ll find out soon enough. Why ruin the suspense?” That wicked grin quirked his sensuous lips

again. Oh, he was positively evil, this one.

He went to the closet, rummaged around, and came out a few minutes with a shirt and shoes. I let him

lead me out of the room. Was I actually going along with this farce? Apparently. My head kept telling me to run for it. Other parts of my body kept telling me to do whatever the sexy man told me to do. I’d like to claim it was my heart talking, but it was actually something a little lower down.

I cast a regretful look back at the bed and the sex toys.

“Don’t worry,” he said, as he led me to the truck. “We’ll have plenty of time for those later.”

“That is not what I was thinking!” I said indignantly. “In fact, I was thinking what a total pervert you are!”

“Of course you were,” he said, with a knowing wink.

I stood there at the passenger door to the truck, desperately trying to think of a way to get out of this.

Yes, he was incredibly hot, but this wasn’t a one night stand we were talking about here. This was marriage.

To an Alpha. A lifelong commitment, the future of his pack…

“Your family thinks I should look like Camille,” I protested. “In fact they think you married a woman

named Camille.”

“They don’t know what you look like because you were wearing a veil. I’ll explain the change of plans,

and they will go along with it. Like I said, I’m the Alpha.”

“If you stay married to me, you’re going to royally tick off Kray Renker,” I reminded him.

“Oh, I’m pretty sure that already happened when I went wolf on him an hour ago. We’ll deal with him

on Monday.”

“I’m…I’m not a stay at home type! I teach grade school! I love teaching!”

“Surprisingly enough, we here at Timber Valley send our children to school. They hire teachers at that

school. I’m very progressive. I don’t mind if my wife wants to work,” he said, and literally picked me up and put me down on the passenger seat. He stood there blocking my exit, and raised an eyebrow at me.

“So. What else you got?”

Oh, I didn’t know if I wanted to slap that smug smirk off his incredibly handsome face, or kiss him.

“So, should I call my family and the Alpha of my pack, and tell them that I am now married to the

Alpha of the Timber valley pack?” I bluffed.

“That would be the kind of thing they’d want to know, wouldn’t it?”

Damn him. Nothing rattled him.

And he slammed the truck door firmly shut and walked around to the other side of the truck to climb

in.

I sat there, completely stymied. When was he going to quit playing this ridiculous game?

“Seatbelt,” he said, as we pulled away. “Safety first.”

“Fuck you,” I grumbled as I pulled my seatbelt on. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea how much.”

“Let me know whenever you want to stop this farce and admit that you don’t want to be married to

me,” I said irritably, turning to stare out the window.

“You’ll be the first to know.”

We drove to the special events building which housed the reception hall.

There were hundreds of shifters gathered outside. There were garlands of flowers everywhere, and a

giant “Congratulations!” sign. The décor was rustic chic, with burlap bows around mason jars of flowers, and burlap tablecloths, and heart shaped garlands made of twigs.

Now I really felt bad. All these people had put in all this time and effort to create this absolutely beautiful décor for a fake wedding.

A band on an outdoor stage played country music. Couples were dancing on the dance floor. Everybody

was dressed casually, just as Maxwell was – and me too, in my sundress and sandals.

There were tables laden with food which made my mouth water. Whole roast pig with an apple in its

mouth, hams with cloves, turkey, goose, roast beef, fresh fruit, desserts, little appetizer platters, chocolate fountains surrounded by pastries for dipping, platters of cheese and bread…they’d gone all out.

Max took me over to the stage, pulled me up the steps, and gestured at the band; they stopped playing.

He grabbed a microphone and called out to the crowd, “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to my new

bride – Josephine, of the Southpaw pack!”

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then everyone began murmuring amongst themselves. Then a

roar of approval went up, and a chorus of howls twined up through the air.

Good Lord. They were okay with it.

I was speechless as Max guided me through a crowd to a group of people who looked just like him.

Some of the guys who’d been standing outside his house earlier were there now. A handsome, very

muscular man in his fifties, whose very presence screamed “Alpha”, absolutely had to be Max’s father. A beautiful, stocky woman of about the same age, with black hair that had one white streak in the front, stood next to him. She had beautiful green eyes.

“Any time now,” I whispered to Max, as panic rose up in my throat and threatened to choke me. He

smiled politely, as if he had no idea what I was talking about.

We were standing right in front of them. Oh, my God.

“You play a mean game of chicken,” I muttered.

“I play a lot of mean games. But I promise you’ll like them,” he said, with a meltingly sweet smile and an evil gleam in his eye.

“Mother, father, this is Josephine, formerly Josephine Southpaw, now Josephine Battle. Josephine, this

is Vince and Jade Battle, my parents.”

He’d called me Josephine Battle. Oh good Lord Almighty. My name had changed. I now had the same

last name as my husband.
My husband.

What had I done? I swayed where I stood, and a wave of dizziness swept over me.

Chapter Five

Max caught me quickly, and before I knew it, a chair was shoved my way and I was sitting down.

“My goodness, did you feed her at all today?” Jade asked indignantly.

“Well, no, I mean, I-” Max was actually nonplussed. Finally, something rattled him.

“Bring her some food!” Jade demanded. A tray full of food appeared in front of me almost instantly,

and I realized I was famished.

“Thank you so much,” I said, stuffing food into my face. “I’m so sorry for making such a terrible first impression.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s entirely my son’s fault. I don’t want you to think I brought him up that way; we do feed our guests!”

“She’s not a guest, dear, she’s family,” Vince chided.

“Of course. Silly me. Do you want another roast beef sandwich?”

Shifters were crowded around me, shoving trays of food at me. I looked over what they were offering,

and saliva pooled in my mouth.

“That was delicious. I believe I’ll have an éclair, thank you,” I said, plucking one off a plate.

His parents were incredibly nice, welcoming people. I was really starting to get pissed at Max for letting things go this far. What were they going to say when they found out this wedding was a sham?

“What time do you want to start the Running?” Vince asked Max.

He glanced up at a wall clock. “I’m thinking an hour from now,” he said.

His mother nodded. “That sounds like a good plan. We’ll have time to introduce you around to

everyone.”

She led me over to a group of people. “These are my sons Pierce, Lance, and Troy. This is my daughter

Virginia.”

They crowded around me, insisting that I tell them all about the Southpaw pack. Somehow, they

managed to make me feel as if my wacky, hippie pack of misfits was exotic and intriguing.

Max introduced me to his brothers, Lance and Pierce, who looked a lot like him but had much more of

a Beta vibe about them, and his younger sister Virginia.

Virginia was a pretty teenager with shiny brown hair and an unusual eye color; one eye was green, one

was blue. It was a genetic anomaly that meant that she was a Healer. If someone were gravely wounded, she could heal their wounds and pull them back from the brink of death. At her age, she was just in the training stage, but by the time she was in her mid-twenties she’d be a full on healer and a valuable asset to her pack.

“So you’re an artist?” Virginia said. “That’s so cool! Your pack sounds like so much fun. I should go

live out there.”

“No way in hell,” Pierce and Lance said at the same time.

She glared at them. “I’m eighteen. Get it through your thick skulls. I can do whatever I want.”

“No, you can’t. You’re a Battle, which means you are under pack protection,” Pierce said.

“I’ll show you a battle,” she snapped, glowering at them. “Mom! Tell them to stop trying to boss me

around!”

“No, tell her she still acts like a baby and-”

“Hey, want to see me turn a napkin into a bird?” I said, and quickly grabbed a paper napkin and folded