Page 9 of Alpha’s Hated Mate (Shifters of Clarion)

T he Alpha King Leon, as it turns out, was subject to a coup at the beginning of his reign.

I’ve been sitting in the Spiral building in one of the secluded study rooms off to one side on the first floor, working on the extra credit assignment Professor Robertson gave me, and that’s been the most interesting part about him thus far. His life reads like a lot of stories I’ve heard before from packs with more than one male heir. Only one can lead the pack, whomever the Moon Goddess chooses. It probably seemed like the obvious choice to everyone in his pack, considering he’s the only one who can change into three forms in all of Clarion. Either way, uncles and brothers often end up fighting over the title. Sometimes, it’s through a formal challenge, but other times, like what happened to Alpha King Leon, it involves a lot of backstabbing and plotting.

So far, the interesting thing isn’t the coup itself. The passage I just read stops me in my tracks, so I read it again:

On the eve of the Alpha King’s union with his Luna, his throne was threatened by his brother, Prince Raphael, and his brother’s consort, Natasha of Hino . . .

Above the paragraph is an image of the royal family. Alpha King Leon stands tall and proud with his brother, Prince Raphael, at his side. The photo must have been taken after their parents passed but before Leon’s marriage to Luna Queen Crystal. It looks like every other family photo that I’ve seen a million times in a million packs. Sometimes, they’re oil paintings and sometimes they’re modern photographs. But they’re all the same. It’s always a snapshot of the cream of the crop among wolves, standing in their royal best and looking down on the camera as if to assert their dominance over the world.

There’s a photo like that hanging in my home back in Claymore. It’s of my father, mother, me, and my sister. We had it taken when I was young, no more than eleven or twelve, and the only thing I remember from that day is thinking that my suit was too itchy.

I used to look at that portrait in our foyer and wonder what mine was going to look like once I was Alpha.

Now I am an Alpha, and I’ve yet to take that portrait. I imagine I won’t have to do it until I’ve at least taken a Luna. Maybe I’ll do one, anyway. Just me and my sister like the Alpha King did. Or maybe I won’t do one at all. Tradition has kind of been fucking me lately. Maybe I’ll fuck it right back.

I smell her almost immediately after I finish that thought. The rosewater scent wafts around my head, dragging my attention away from the book in front of me. I look over my shoulder and through the study room windows just in time to see Saffron walking through the front doors.

The sunlight shines through the black stone doorway and catches her hair, making it glow like a crimson halo as the breeze brushes it from her shoulders. She’s back in uniform— a black dress shirt with several buttons undone, giving a hint of cleavage, and a black pleated skirt that’s a touch above the recommended length, showing a bit of her thighs.

As soon as my mind registers the creamy shade of her skin, I turn away. Ever since that night, I’ve been trying to get her off my mind, but it just isn’t working . . . especially since she looks the way she does. It must be some part of the lure of Scarlets to be so fucking beautiful. It makes it even harder to forget what it’s like to be with her.

And my dreams are filled with visions of her. Her legs around my waist, her mouth on my neck, and her hands in my hair . . . that damned scent swirling around my head. When she came in my arms, the glow in her eyes as she fully surrendered to me . . . the way her body felt wrapped around my cock . . .

I rub between my eyes and push out the memory. There will be other women, other conquests. No sense in getting caught up with the one that I can never really be with.

I look back down at the pile of books around me. I might as well pack it up for the day. I won’t be able to concentrate as long as Saffron’s in the same building as me.

“Aydan?”

Her voice pulls me out of my thoughts. I look over to see her standing with a tentative smile. I clear my throat. “Saffron. Hi.”

“Hi. I don’t mean to interrupt your study session here, but . . . but I need to talk to you.”

She looks remarkably unscathed, considering how rough our sparring session got. Not a single bruise to be seen on her lovely face. Maybe this is some kind of apology for losing it in class. “Don’t worry about it, okay? All’s fair in the sparring circle.”

She frowns a little and says, “Excuse me?”

“That’s what this is, right? An apology for losing your head? It happens. And nobody got hurt so—”

“I’m not here to apologize. I’m not sorry for what happened in class. You provoked me.”

I scoff as I turn to her. The nerve. “ I provoked you? You started it with that cheap shot.”

She rolls her eyes and glances around. We’re not talking loudly, but a few students are looking up at us. She sits down next to me.

“I didn’t come here to argue with you,” she says. “I need . . . I need to talk about what happened between us.”

Oh, boy. I hope this isn’t about to turn into some silly talk about what other people think. I sigh and say, “If you’re worried about your reputation, don’t worry. I have no intention of telling anyone what happened.”

She recoils from me and says, “Yeah, okay. I think you got that backward. My reputation would be fine if everybody knew. Can’t say the same for yours. Or did you forget about what they say about us dirty Scarlets?”

I stiffen, instantly shut down by that response. When she’s right, she’s right. “Okay, so then what? You looking to do it again?”

Her face flushes a little, and she spits out, “No! Of course not. Look, I think that us being around each other might have something to do with the visions I’ve been having lately.”

I raise an eyebrow at her. “What do I have to do with your visions?”

“That’s what I want to figure out. Since you got to Moonhelm, they’ve been worse . . . and way more intense. I’ve been running hot too since we . . . you know. Not to mention, there must be some reason why we can be together that way.”

I don’t see how one has to do with the other, but I’m game, I guess. Better than reading these old, moldy books. “Okay. What’s the vision about?”

She starts telling me about it. A pregnant wolf with dark hair being tortured by an older male wolf . . . Saffron running through the woods from some unseen horror . . . a raven flying toward a cabin. I stop her midway through.

“And where am I in these visions?”

“You’re not in any of them.”

“So what does this have to do with me?”

She huffs in frustration. “You know what? Maybe this was a mistake. Sorry to bother you.”

She stands up, and I grab her arm to stop her. “Wait, hold on. Don’t be that way. I’m just trying to make sense of it, all right?”

Saffron looks at me with skepticism, her blue eyes glinting like jewels in the dim light around us. She pulls her arm out of my grasp and sits back down. “I don’t know what the connection is, Aydan. I just . . . you’re not like anybody I’ve ever known. I pick up your scent from just about anywhere on campus and, and . . .” She stops herself, her lips tightening into a thin line. She doesn’t have to say anymore. I know exactly what she means.

“Let’s not kid ourselves,” she says, “Something happened between us that night. Good or bad, I think it’s worth investigating.”

I guess I can’t argue with that. “Okay. Maybe we can start with the visions. What do you think they mean?”

She shakes her head, her eyes drifting down to the pages of my book. “I don’t . . .” Her face changes as her eyes focus on the page. “Who is that?”

I follow her gaze to the page with the photo of the Alpha King and his brother. “It’s Alpha King Leon.”

Saffron rolls her eyes. “I know that . I mean her.” She taps her finger on the portrait of a woman further down the page. We both look down at the tiny print under the photo.

“Natasha of Hino,” she reads out loud.

“Yeah, she conspired with the prince to overthrow Alpha King Leon.”

She looks up at me, then back down at the page. “That’s the woman in my vision.” A deep frown settles over her face as she studies the picture. “It’s her. I’m sure of it.”

“Natasha of Hino has been dead for over twenty years. And she was never pregnant.”

“Are you sure about that?”

I sigh, flipping through a few pages. “Well, if she was, I think there would be some record of it, right? She and Prince Raphael tried to overthrow the Alpha King, and they were both killed in the failed coup. End of story.”

She looks at me, then back at the photo. “It’s her, Aydan. She was in my vision. And she was definitely pregnant.”

Saffron has this look in her eyes. Determination, I think, or conviction. “Okay, so . . . maybe the woman you saw is symbolic of somebody else.”

“It’s not like a dream,” she says, her voice raised slightly. “There’s no hidden meaning usually. It’s more like . . . like a movie. Sometimes I’m in it playing somebody else, and sometimes I’m watching it. But the people in my visions are who they really are.”

“What about the bird, though? That’s got to be symbolic, right?”

She opens her mouth, then closes it, her lips tightening again, then she shakes her head. “I don’t know.”

I take a deep breath, thinking about that. “And you’ve never seen this woman before now?”

She shakes her head. Her eyes are suddenly big and watery. “I don’t get it. If she’s dead, then whatever I saw can’t be the future. Why would I see her past?”

I look back down at the photo. Natasha’s involvement in the coup is a small footnote in everything I’ve read so far. In fact, there’s hardly anything written about her from what I’ve seen so far.

“Maybe this pregnancy happened before the coup?” I say. “In history class, the professor said that Natasha of Hino was supposedly Alpha King Leon’s presumed consort before he met Luna Queen Crystal. Maybe the Alpha King has an illegitimate child or . . .”

She’s biting her nails now, the worry deep on her face. “Whoever was holding her hostage . . . I think he was experimenting on her,” she says. “Who would have the balls to do that to a member of the Alpha King’s court and the prince’s consort?”

“No one.” I look up at the time. I’ve got class soon, but somehow it doesn’t seem all that important now. “What are you doing for the rest of the afternoon?”

“Nothing,” she says. “I mean, I’m supposed to go to class, but I was planning on skipping, anyway.”

“Good. I think we need to find out exactly who Natasha was.”

Her lips turn up slightly, all her trepidation washed away. “So now you’re interested?”

I smirk. “Let’s just get to researching, shall we?”