Bridenapped: The Alpha Chronicles (8 page)

“That is our deed. The one that nobody could find.”

“Yes, it is.”

She leaned closer to stare at it. “And it’s authentic.” The wolf paw stamp proved it. 

“It most certainly is.”

“Where did you get that?” she demanded angrily. “Town hall. You have access to those records. You took it, so you could get in good with the pack.”

              He shrugged. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.  It really doesn’t matter. If you cooperate with the media outlets who are seeking your attention, then I will return the deed to you on your wedding day.”

              “Given that you’ve just proved that you’re a slimy, untrustworthy sack of toad barf, why should I believe that you’d give it back to me?”

              He shrugged, not the least bit put out by her opinion of him. “Well, if you didn’t, you could back out of the wedding, which would cause me considerable financial harm.”

              “That’s not all that I could do.” She slid her hand into her purse and quickly pulled out her cell phone, then tucked it away again. “I have this set to record. If you screw me over, the entire world will know.”

              All traces of the genial, friendly politician vanished. “You treacherous little bitch,” he snarled.  He made a move as if to grab it from her, and she leaped to her feet. Frank swiveled their way, and his eyes glowed a terrifying yellow. He let out a long, loud growl.

              “Go ahead, try it,” Caitlin taunted him. “Attack the Alpha Queen in front of him.”

              The mayor glared at her, but settled back in his seat as Frank stalked over to them.

              “You all right?” his voice rolled out in a snarl, and his fangs briefly descended.

              She nodded.  “For the moment.”

              The mayor managed an ingratiating smile. “Everything’s just great here. Isn’t it, Caitlin?”

              Caitlin didn’t answer. She sat there stewing, and considered her options. She’d tell her aunt and uncle about it, of course, and they could tell their lawyer, but without the deed, she had no proof.  The mayor would deny everything, and it would be his word against hers. Even with the recording, he could   pretend that he’d lied, in order to get her to help out the town by cooperating.

              She needed that deed. And if she agreed to go along with the media blitz, that would at least buy her some time.

              “Fine,” she gritted. “I will grant interviews to the media.”

              He immediately broke out into a huge, beaming smile. “I knew you’d want to help out your home town. You Bellefonts are among our finest citizens, that’s what I’ve always said.”

              She shook her head disbelievingly, then glanced up at Frank. “I believe the mayor was just leaving.”

              “Good thing,” Frank said, his lip curling. Another growl escaped him, and the Mayor’s smile wilted a bit.

              “Kristofer wants to see you,” Frank added, as the mayor hurried from the room.

The lake was vast and silver, a flat mirror for the fringe of green trees that pressed up against its shores.  Under the water a ripply, wobbly world was reflected back up at them, with white clouds floating in an endless blue sky.

Kristofer was waiting for her by a wooden dock, standing next to a large rowboat which was fitted with comfortable chairs. He’d brought a picnic basket with a red and white checked blanket, she saw.

“I’m going to take you to one of my favorite places here,” he said, as he helped her climb into the rowboat.

Frank unmoored the rowboat, and Kristofer began rowing. She settled in her seat and watched the muscles of his biceps bunch with each stroke.

The sun bathed them in golden light, and the gentlest of breezes cooled her. The further they got from the shore, the more silent and peaceful it became. 

They were rowing towards a small island in the middle of the lake, she realized.

“I like it here because it reminds me of home,” he said. “We had a lake just like this on our pack lands.” She realized she heard the faintest hint of homesickness in his voice. It must have been hard for him to drop everything, leave his entire life behind and move to a foreign country, she realized. Despite all the privilege that came with being an Alpha, there were obligations and sacrifices too.

“It’s beautiful out here,” she said.  He paused in his rowing, letting the boat drift.

“Isn’t it though?” He opened up the picnic basket and pulled out two frosty cold beers. He quickly uncapped them and handed one to her, then took a long pull on his.  She followed suit, relishing the mix of sweet and bitter.

“Excellent,” she said, looking for a label on the bottle. She didn’t see any.

“Our own brew. We make it here,” he said.  “How was your first day so far?”

“Different. I mean, the pack property is stunning. It’s really weird getting used to people bowing and curtsying and addressing me as if I’m royalty.”

His lips twitched in a smile of amusement. “You are royalty.”

“Was it strange, growing up with everyone deferring to you?” She couldn’t imagine it. Few humans could.

“I don’t know any other way of life,” he said. “It’s not quite as easy as it looks to an outsider. The Alpha is deferred to, but he has to earn it, to be worthy of it, and if he isn’t, he won’t be Alpha for long.  He’s the leader of his pack. He has to learn to be a leader who is both fair and strong. He has to excel in every area, from physical combat to business.  I began my training basically as soon as I could walk. What about you? What was your childhood like?”

“My parents were very close. My father passed away from a heart attack a couple of years ago. I’m close to my aunt and uncle and nieces.”

“I am sorry for your loss. What about your mother? She lives with you, as I recall.”

She winced.  After all this time, it was still hard for her to talk about. “She’s…we think she has some kind of dementia. She started getting sick a few years ago, and doctors haven’t really been able to determine a cause. I don’t like to dwell on it, really.” Worry cramped inside her as she thought of her mother, and her family’s uncertain future.

              He nodded. “Fair enough.  Did you enjoy growing up here in Lakeville?”

              “For the most part. Once I hit high school, there was a fair amount of teasing about my weight.” She kept her tone light, but the sting of those taunts and pranks still jabbed at her to this day.

              He frowned in genuine puzzlement. “I don’t understand that.  Werewolves have always valued fuller figured women.  We view them as healthier and more fertile.”

              He said it with utter sincerity.  She had a feeling that this was a man who never felt the need to lie. She was starting to question a lot of her assumptions about him. Was it possible that he hadn’t chatted her up in an attempt to gather intel about her family’s land, on that first night that they’d met? Or was this charm offensive part of some other con that he was running on her? For the life of her she couldn’t figure out how he’d benefit from bridenapping her. He’d already taken everything that her family had.

              She took another long sip of ice cold beer, and settled back in her seat again.

              “What about your parents?” she asked.

              “My mother and father are coming out for the wedding. You’ll meet them then. I already sent them pictures of you, and they congratulated me on my good fortune.”

              Dear. God. Did he
have
to be so sweet and nice and charming?

              “Where did you get pictures of me?” she wondered.

              “I have my ways.” He grinned devilishly.  “As you know, I’ve had my eye on you for a while.”

              His gaze roved over her slowly, appraisingly.   It was almost like a physical caress, and she couldn’t help but remember what it felt like to have his hands moving over her body.

              Quick, change the subject, she thought.

              “Taddeus was the old Alpha’s son, but he wasn’t chosen as Alpha. They chose you,” she said. “Why was that?”

              Kristofer’s expression grew somber. “It’s best if you don’t speak of it in public, but there were a number of complaints about him to the Alpha Congress, so he was brought before them for a formal review.  They didn’t release the reason for his rejection, but I suspect it was leadership.  He’s known as a fierce fighter, and he’s got a good head for business, but he has an imperious manner and is not well liked by most. There are some hard core old school types who do like him here, but they’re in the minority.”

              “You named him as your Beta.”

              “Tradition,” he said, which seemed to be the final answer to everything here.

She leaned over and trailed her fingers in the water. “When I was younger, I thought I could see women who lived in the water, just below the surface. Beautiful women, who I could talk to. I could hear them singing.” The memories were so vivid that she frequently thought she must have she’d seen something like that in a movie that she just couldn’t remember.

              “Your lake must have had nyads in it,” he said, with an expression of interest.

              “Nyads? Like from the Greek myths? You think they’re real?”

              He laughed. “I know they’re real. Some lakes have them; this is one of them. Just like dryads, tree spirts, are real. Some trees are inhabited by a human spirit.”

              “Why wouldn’t other people be able to see them, then?”

              He leaned back in the boat, soaking in the sun. “Humans have spent centuries rejecting the magical and the mystical, and embracing the rational.  You don’t let yourselves see the magic around you.  The only reason that you accept werewolves is because we’re right there in your face, and you can hardly deny our existence.”

              He glanced over at her. “Also, not all humans can see nyads or dryads. To see them, you’d have to have a trace of magic in your blood as well. That’s maybe ten percent of the human population.”

              “I don’t see them any more,” she pointed out.

“That’s what happens. As you grow older, you lose that ability to believe without question. You could see them again, talk to them again, if you really tried. If you let yourself believe that they’re real.”

              She fell silent, pondering this, and, leaning over the edge of the boat stared hard into the water. 
Nyads are real, nyads are real…
for a brief moment, she thought that the swirls of water deep beneath the surface were forming patterns. They looked like people, didn’t they? Did she see women swimming hand and hand, long hair streaming behind them?

              She blinked, and the illusion vanished.

              She sat back up, and looked at him. “How would I have magic in my blood?”

              He shrugged. “It’s genetic. People evolve with different traits. Some people are redheads. Some people are born with a natural athletic talent. Some people are naturally good artists. Some people are nyads.”

              “So there’s all these humans walking around who have magic abilities, or who are connected to tree spirits and water spirits, and don’t know it?”

              “Yes, that’s about the size of it.  They all knew it when they were children. That’s where fairy tales come from.”

              She fell silent for a few minutes as the boat drifted slowly across the vast, still lake.

Then she turned to look at him, at the light caressing his handsome face. He was looking at her in that way again…as if he wanted to ravish her.  “Why do you really want to marry me?” She felt a sharp stab of fear as she asked.  Would he tell her it had all been a joke? Would he admit that it was just to get her land?

Taunts from her childhood played through her head.
Fatty, fatty, two by four…

              “For all of the reasons that I told you before. Is it really so hard to accept that I find you beautiful and desirable? Even after last night?”

              “Yes,” she answered honestly.

              His expression grew serious. “Then shame on whoever made you feel that way. And I will spend a lifetime showing how wrong they were.” He took her hand in his, and she didn’t resist.

              His fingers traced slow circles in her palm, and then trailed up her arm.

              She felt hot arousal flowing through her veins. Oh, God did she want him. She wanted him to tear her clothes off of her and take her right there in the boat.

              He slowly withdrew his fingers and favored her with a lazy smile. “Your skin is as soft and smooth as silk. You feel as delicious as you taste.”

              At that, her face flamed crimson. An image of him between her legs flashed through her mind.

              Desperate to change the subject, she blurted out “I have a question.”

              “I may have an answer.”

              “What does it mean that Twyla is a cleaner, so she couldn’t be a chef? And why do people with different classifications live in different neighborhoods?”

              He nodded. “I’m sure that seems strange to an outsider, but many packs operate like that. That’s a tradition that goes back to the middle ages, like many of our traditions.  Our pack is made up of clans. It’s sort of the human equivalent of a guild.  People tend to carry on the job that their parents, and their parents' parents and so on, had before them.”

              “They tend to, or they have to?”

              He hesitated at that. “Well, they are formally inducted into their clan when they turn 13.  On occasion, if they have demonstrated extreme talent in some other area, they may be accepted into another clan.”

              “How often does that happen?”

              “I guess not that often.” He shrugged. “People are happy with this system.  Werewolves are very traditional. They are honored to carry on the careers of their forefathers.”

              “Are you sure they’re happy? I mean, realistically, who’s going to come to you to complain, if they’re unhappy?”

              He looked puzzled. “I pride myself on being very approachable. I have taken it upon myself to visit all of the clans and ensure that all is well with them.”

              “Hmm,” she mused. “Do you enjoy cleaning? Mopping, sweeping, scrubbing toilets?”

              He laughed. “I cannot tell a lie. I’ve never done any of those things. Why do you ask?”

              “Well, I suspect that some clans are happier with their jobs than others. Would you like it if you were told from childhood that your entire destiny was cleaning up after other people?”

              “Ahh…..” he looked thoroughly bemused. “I’d never given it any thought, really.”

              “I’m not in any way saying that there’s anything wrong with being a janitor or maid, but people should have a choice. Or perhaps people from all the clans should take turns doing the drudgework. I notice that the houses of the cleaners are much smaller than the houses of people from other clans. Why is that? It’s like you’ve created a permanent underclass. Just ask yourself if you’d want to pick up garbage all day, every day, if you had the option to do something else.”

              He looked thoroughly baffled at that.

              “I see,” he said. “This has never come up before. I’ll give it my full consideration.”

             
I bet you will
, she thought skeptically.
It’s easy to say everything in your society is perfect when you’re royalty.

             
Another thought popped in to her head. “I saw how Pierre was looking at her. He’s a chef. If he wanted to date her, or marry her, could he?”

              “Well, ah…I mean, generally we marry within our own clans. And now,” he added, “shall we enjoy lunch?”