Me:Can you meet me at the Kendal cottage asap? It’s an emergency! x
Alice:Are you there now?
Me:No, I’m on my way
Alice:See you there soon x
When Alice eventually arrives at the cottage, I’m already sitting on the floor of the study with every relevant book pulled off the shelves.
“Um, when you said it was an emergency, I wasn’t picturing emergency studying,” she says as she walks into the room.
“I have two days to find a way out of this, and I need your help.”
“Two days to get out of what, exactly?” she asks.
I explain the peace agreement that my mum and Alpha Kelly have had me sign and how the main proponent of it is that Niamh and I get married.
“Holy shit. That’s fucked up. Why can’t you ask them to let you marry Connor instead?” She raises a valid point. However, it highlights an essential bit of information I’ve withheld from her since she discovered us.
“Because Connor has been promised to another member of his pack since he was sixteen years old,” I say it quickly to rip the plaster off because I know this news will go down like a lead balloon.
“He’s been engaged to someone else this entire time? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Not exactly. They were meant to get married when they both turned twenty-one, but Cee has been putting it off for years, and we always figured there would be time for him to find a way out of it,” I tell her, sighing at the mess we’ve got ourselves into.
“Okay. Truth bomb to one side, you can’t marry Connor’s sister; not only is it gross as fuck, he’s your mate, Nix. You have to tell your mum you can’t go through with it. They’ll find another solution,” she says, like it’s all so simple.
I try explaining why I can’t do that, but I literally gag on the words. I need to take a different approach. Picking up the book I found earlier, I hand it over to her with the relevant page open.
“I need you to read this book and listen to exactly what I say. Ihaveto go through with marrying Niamh. I donothave a choice, okay?” She raises an eyebrow at me but reads the page before her.
The book I’ve given her is a book on the Wolf Shifting Code from 1901; the page she’s reading is on the laws pertaining to Alpha Orders. Alice audibly gasps when she reaches the relevant section, and my shoulders sag in relief that she’s worked it out.
“She didn’t?!” She looks furious. If she were a cartoon, steam would be exploding out of her ears in plumes. I physically cannot confirm or deny it, so I just stare at her pleadingly, needing her to understand my lack of any response for the admission it is.
“Oh my god—she did.” Her words are hardly more than a whisper, and my relief is short-lived when I see the expression on her face. She looks devastated. I never wanted to burden her with this, but I can’t do this on my own.
My mum showed up at the safe house shortly after I received those cryptic texts from Jasper and Cee. She asked me to take a walk with her, and regretfully, I did. She informed me she and Alpha Kelly had come to an agreement that would not only keep Jade and the baby safe, but would bring an end to the feud between our packs. The pit had formed in my stomach before she even told me what they’d agreed, my brain replaying the texts I’d already received on a loop.
She told me they’d agreed I will marry Alpha Kelly’s daughter, Niamh. That once the ceremony has taken place, Niamh and I will move onto the Yorkshire territory and start to build our own pack there.
We got into a massive row. I was so livid I could hardly even see through the red mist of anger. It was probably the first time in my life I’d ever really stood up to her because she isn’t just my mum—she’s my Alpha. Being a pure beta, everything inside me screams for me to follow, to submit, to not break rank. But there was no way I could marry Niamh when I already knew her twin brother was my mate.
I had debated telling her about Connor right then, but I knew the risks to her finding out I had been lying by omission—foryears. The party line of the pack had always been clear on one thing—no fraternising with members of the Kelly pack or risk expulsion. I had no doubt, that as her son, I would be used to set an example, familial bonds be damned.
My mum and I have never had the easiest relationship; I think she loves me deep down in her own way, but I’ve always been acutely aware that I’m expendable to her. Jasper is the Alpha Heir, and I’m not even the Alpha spare because, as I said—I’m a pure beta. My mum had laid the guilt trip on thick, telling me it was a noble sacrifice to protect the future Alpha line of our pack. She told me I’d be doing my part to end the war and keep everyone safe.
When that didn’t work, she tried telling me how beautiful Niamh was, how I’d be lucky to marry a woman as pretty as her, and I just felt sick to my stomach. And finally, when she realised I was still unconvinced, my mum did the unthinkable, the unforgivable.
She gave me an Alpha Order.
She Ordered me to go through with the marriage, and to top it off, Ordered me not to breathe a word of it. It seems she learned from her mistakes in that regard; it was watertight this time. The page Alice just read details the laws that were put in place to stop Alphas from doing precisely this.
Alpha Orders supposedly existed as a way to keep pack members united and safe. However, there are still Alphas who use their Orders to control and manipulate their pack. Amongst most packs, though, the general consensus is that there’s very rarely an excuse for an Alpha to use their Order.
“Does Connor know?” Alice's question brings me back to the tangled web of issues at hand.
“No, I tried to explain the best I could, but he was too upset to hear what I was saying. Even if I could find a way to tell him, if I can’t offer a solution, then what’s the point?”
