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Valen POV
I wasn’t proud of my actions after leaving the hotel and my mate. Ashley wouldn’t stop crying and demanding to know who Everly was to me, but I also knew if I told her right now, it would be all over the city by the end of the day, and the last thing I wanted was the media hunting Everly down and harassing her. So, I remain quiet the entire drive until I pull up out of the front of her house. Ashley reaches for me, and I pull
away.
I can’t stand her touch; it repulses me, and my entire body is pulling me back in the direction of my mate. I know I needed to figure out something fast. I had been away from her for only five minutes. I don’t know how my father survived my mother dying. This was agony, and barely any time slipped past.
“Get out!” my voice escapes as more of a growl. Startled by it, Ashley jumps, looking at me nervously.
“Get out,” I repeat at her when she sits frozen in her chair, staring at me. The command rolls over her, and her hand reaches for the door handle before hastily getting out.
“And Ashley?” I ask as she climbs out of the car. She stops, her hand still on the open door and looks back in at me.
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“Don’t come looking for me. Stay the fuck away from me, or you will find yourself living with the rest of the forsaken,” I tell Ashley.
She gasps; I had never banished anyone from the city before. We try to usually avoid forsaking wolves, but she just made finding my mate an entirely new struggle when she couldn’t remain in the Goddamn car like I asked. Her puffy red eyes blink at me in shock at my words before she nods and slams my door shut.
I start the drive home with a sigh, wanting nothing more than to go back to the Mountainview Hotel and retrieve my mate. I can’t understand why she didn’t want me. Wasn’t that all she- wolves wanted was to be mated to an Alpha? Yet, she tossed me aside like she felt nothing for me. And she is a damn rogue. She should be jumping for joy.
The chances of an Alpha being bonded to a rogue were rare. It isn’t like it has never happened, but most Alpha’s are bonded to other Alpha’s; I only know of two other Alphas in the country mated to someone of lower rank. But Everly is the first rogue I had heard of being bonded to Alpha.
However, I didn’t care; I just wanted her; she could have been a freaking unicorn for all I cared. I have always wanted my mate; I trusted the Moon Goddess to make the right choice for me, and after seeing her. I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. My mind is entirely consumed with her, her scent, the tingles that rushed over me when she touched me.
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But something is off, right on the tip of my tongue. I have this weird sense of déjà vu, which I knew was insane. I definitely would have recognized my mate had I seen her before, but even her name, I swear I had heard that name before. Why couldn’t I place it? Had it been a dream?
One thing I do know is that have to find a way to win her over. Technically, I could mark her forcefully. It is allowed by our laws, as Alphas can be weakened without their mates. It is considered unacceptable for an Alpha to be debilitated because they were longing for their Luna.
If the Alpha is limited by his mate, the entire pack is put at risk, and I couldn’t allow that. I need her, and she needs me. She will feel the pull; it is inevitable. She is good at pretending I don’t affect her, but her heart rate said otherwise, the way her breathing increased at my proximity. But no one can live without their mate, or so I hoped, and she would be mine.
Pulling back into the parking lot of my hotel, I groan when I see my father’s car still parked where it was. I was hoping Marcus could get rid of him while I was gone, but what intrigued me the most was the car parked beside it. A growl escapes me when I see Alpha John’s car parked in my reserved parking spot beside my father’s. What the fuck is he doing here?
Jamming on the brakes, I stop, and the valet rushes over when I toss my door open, leaving the car running and stalking inside.
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The receptionist jumps at the growl that escapes me, echoing off the marble floors and the windows vibrate.
“Where is he” I snap at her.
“Conference room one, Alpha, with your father and Beta,” I nod, heading for the stairs instead of the elevator, not willing to wait. I take the stairs on the left and race up the steps to the first floor.
This side of the first floor was mainly office buildings and off- limits to patrons; the other half was the sectioned–off and all restaurants and bar areas. When I reach the door, I swipe my card to let myself in and then hear the click of the locks before the door swings inward. Walking past a few open doors, I can see pack members look out at me nervously. It is no secret that Alpha John and I didn’t get along.
We are constantly in the media and had even a few public incidents recently that had the entire city on edge that a war was coming. Honestly, it was inevitable; Alpha John had been overstepping and recently had a few of the smaller pack businesses shut down, burnt out, or even robbed.
He wanted part of my pack’s border and was willing to try and get it by any means necessary, no matter who he was hurting in the end.
And since the main streets and the streets behind it were neutral territories, he couldn’t stake a claim to the land, but that didn’t stop him from driving those living there or owning
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businesses there out.
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Unfortunately, without proof and no one wanting to get involved, there wasn’t much anyone could do; he had them running scared. Alpha John was a sneaky bastard, never doing his own dirty work, and there had been rumors he had been even getting help from the higher–ups in the human cities.
This was not a time to be having a war in our own city, not when so many people had gone missing recently. We have kept track of many she–wolves, and even a few forsaken wolves had gone missing. Talk of hunters coming back had the entire city worried already. The last thing we needed right now was for our city to look divided; it would make it easier for the city’s human communities to pick us off.
It was no secret that werewolves existed, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t extremists amongst the humans that wanted to eradicate our kind. Our cities have lived in peace now for centuries. However, werewolves and humans have clashed every now and then.
The conference room door bangs against the wall loudly when I shove it open. Marcus leans against the wall with his arms folded, looking rather angry about something. My father and John stop whatever they were discussing to look up at me when I notice another girl in the room.
She did not look impressed to be here, but I could tell she was Alpha John’s daughter by her scent. I had heard of her a few
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times and seen her in the papers. Alpha John had been struggling with her, she could be quite the troublemaker, and I had even seen a few inappropriate photos and videos surfaced of his daughter drunk and him dragging her out of different establishments.
“Ah, son, just in time,” my father says, standing up and motioning for me to sit. I walk over to the table but don’t sit down. I don’t like whatever the heck was going on here. My father hated Alpha John more than I did. Yet, he never did tell me what started their feud, so I was a little shocked to see them sitting around chatting like they were friends.
“What the fuck are you doing on my territory?” I ask John. He
sits back in his chair and folds his arms across his chest with a smirk on his face.
C
