Page 6 of Ruthless Alpha Beast

The coven that my fellow Alphas are so hell-bent on allying with has been pestering me to set up a marriage between one of my pack mates and one of their witches. I can’t say I fully understand why, given how resistant we’ve been to all the inter-species changes going on around here, but they won’t quit.

The thing is, the witcheswerehelpful, and I understand why Sawyer and Ellis are allied with them, but why should that mean that my pack has to get involved, too?

I can accept things (just about) from the distance that I’m at, but their coven leader seems determined to set something up.Penelope. She’s honestly insane.

She even got Ellis and Sawyer to bring it up in an allied council meeting; it was done so subtly,as if I wouldn’t notice what was going on. I told them exactly what I thought of them colluding like that with a witch.

I know I can be a little harsh, but the thing is, I just couldn’t force any one of my pack mates to go through with an arranged marriage. I know how uncomfortable it would make them, I know how uncomfortable it would make me, so who am I to force anyone? Especially when I don't believe in the premise of it at all.

Ellis and Danielle work, sure, but he’s different. His pack is different. I respect the way he runs things, and I expect him to respect how I run my shifters, too.

So, with all the issues and changes going on in the valley, it felt good to finally have a morning to myself.

After five minutes of sitting alone in my big, empty house, I decided that I had to move. I’m not made to be sitting around.

I decided, for some reason, to go to the witches’ market. Looking back on it now, it was a stupid idea, ludicrous actually. But at the time, I reasoned that if I was going to have a morning off, I might as well do something productive.

Okay, I asked myself, what would productive look like?

I could have worked out some more, I could have joined my shifters on a surveillance run, I could have gone hunting,but all those things didn’t feel truly productive as they were still avoiding the problem.

The problem is that we have a decaying forest.

Now the witches use spells, potions, herbs all the time, and that’s what they’ve used to help us save the forest, right? So why can’t I use some too?

I told myself that I was heading to the witches’ market to get some witchy supplies to prove that my pack doesn’t need an alliance, that we can do this all on our own.

I told myself that, but realistically, I think I was just bored.

I don’t usually have time to get out, and why I chose a witches’ market of all places, I don’t know. It was idiocy.

Only a few seconds into the market, I got what was coming for me. Penelope was there, her face animating with intrigue as soon as she saw me.

I knew how it looked.

After months and months of her pestering me to meet up with some witches, to survey, to see for myself—me coming to a witches’ market looked like I was finally doing just that.

So, I panicked.

Lucky for me, being so tall, I didn’t exactly make eye contact with her, but that didn’t stop her from chasing after me. As mentioned, she’s pretty insane and persistent as hell.

I scanned the premises desperately, eyeing an escape, considering shifting (although I doubt that would have gone down well), when suddenly I saw a familiar figure. A figure that’s been etched into my brain like a tattoo.

A figure that I know nearly as well as my own.

Tara.

I panicked, made a spur-of-the-moment decision, and kissed her, and now here we are.

God, is she beautiful. She’s human, full-blown normal human, and yet there’s something so otherworldly about the way she looks. Something so intriguing, I can’t stop staring at her even as her eyes harden, and her upper lip turns stiff.

“Jasper,” she begins.

But now Penelope is beside us, her face plastered with shock as she stands with one hand on her hip. She clearly doesn’t care that she’s just interrupted what obviously appears to be a private moment.

Penelope doesn’t seem to be in the business of holding back.

“What a surprise to see you here,” she says, “and with Tara... it is a surprise indeed.”