Page 2

Gabriel POV

*Two years later*

The Alpha King shoved the marriage contract across the table with a sneer.

“This contract is bullshit,” King Ezekiel said bluntly. “Who wrote it?”

“Gabriel and I did, Your Majesty,” my father replied with pride in his tone. “He’s starting his own business after he graduates high school. I thought it would be good practice for him.” He clasped his hands together, something my dad only did when he was trying to stay calm.

“Well, your terms are a joke. If your pack wants to align with the royal family of the Whispborn Kingdom, you're going to have to offer me more than this.” King Ezekiel stared down at the contract like it had called him a crude word.

I shifted uneasily in my seat. This was the first meeting my father and I had had with the Alpha King and his daughter, Olivia. Before this, our sole communication had been through email. Only a few minutes into the meeting, I had to admit that I preferred email. At least the meeting was being held in our territory. The cream-colored walls, wood floors, and large windows of our pack’s meeting room were comfortingly familiar to me.

When I turned eighteen, my father proposed the idea of setting up an arranged marriage between Olivia and me. At first, I rejected the suggestion immediately. But my dad said that aligning with our king, who had access to our kingdom's most skilled army, was the only way to ensure protection for our pack against the Rogues. Ever since Summer was attacked two years ago, three of our pack members have passed away from Rogue wolf attacks. After our neighbor, Mrs. Atteberry, died from an attack a month ago, I agreed to my father’s idea.

I glanced at Olivia, but she seemed uninterested in the topic of our political marriage. The king’s daughter was studying her perfectly shaped nails and popping a piece of pink gum in her mouth.

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, I think the amount of money we offered you is more than fair,” my father said.

The king slammed his fist on the table.

“Fair? You call this fair?” He snatched up the contract again and stabbed his finger onto the paper. “This offer is insulting. I almost didn’t even come to this meeting because it’s so low. How mismanaged are your funds, Everett? Is WaterLock in danger of going bankrupt?”

My father’s eyes blazed with anger.

“It’s more than fair and you know it,” my dad snapped, dropping the “Your Majesty” at the end of the statement.

I almost cheered.

“Especially since you’re only willing to offer us two members of the Royal Guard to protect WaterLock from the Rogue wolf attacks,” my dad continued. “How are two warriors supposed to defend my entire territory? You know that I don’t have a lot of warriors to patrol our borders.”

King Ezekiel raised an eyebrow.

“Are you insulting the warriors of my elite army?” the king asked. “You know the Royal Guard has successfully protected generations of my family.”

He glanced back at the two warriors who had escorted him and his daughter into the meeting room, as if wanting them to be offended as well. But the two hulking men stayed still and silent.

The Alpha King’s army was famous not only in our kingdom but throughout our whole world. Many rulers envied King Ezekiel’s Royal Guard, the ranks of which were filled by hundreds of warriors who had been strengthened by decades of war, a force WaterLock could only dream of.

“Obviously, that wasn’t what he was doing. Why are you—“

King Ezekiel cut me off.

“I’m not entirely sure why you’re speaking right now,” he said and glared at me with his beady little eyes. “This conversation is between us adults.”

I reared back like he had slapped me. Part of me wanted to point out that I was eighteen — technically an adult — but that seemed like a childish thing to do.

I clenched my fists under the table, attempting to control the rage spreading through my body. The king and my father continued to argue over the terms of the arranged marriage. I studied the Alpha King and Olivia. They had the same rigid posture, sharp features, and meticulously styled blonde hair. The king and princess looked almost too perfect, too good to be true.

When I agreed to my father’s plan to marry Olivia, I began to ask around about our king. I spoke to other Alpha inheritors in our kingdom, and one of them told me that the king might have a gambling addiction. Evan from the EchoLight Pack had heard that King Ezekiel was betting on the outcomes of battles with rulers of other kingdoms. I trusted that Evan wasn’t just making up a baseless rumor. Our pack had been aligned with EchoLight for hundreds of years.

Evan revealed that King Ezekiel might be part of an underground gambling ring with Whispborn’s two allies: King Montgomery of the Pyregate Kingdom and King Zachary from the Tideridge Kingdom. Whispborn’s alliance with these two kingdoms was one of convenience, because they were the closest to us. Our three kingdoms were also the only ones with a mostly shifter population.

Evan also said that our Alpha King was billions of dollars in debt to the other kings. Why else would a king need money from a political marriage?

The final thing that Evan said was that his father thought King Ezekiel was corrupt in some way, but he didn’t know how. The problem was that I didn’t have any proof that King Ezekiel was being nefarious.

The sound of Olivia’s voice startled me out of my thoughts. This was the first time she’d spoken since our initial greetings.

“Dad, I’d rather die than move out of the palace to live in a dump like this. I don’t think this place even has a mall,” Olivia said, wrinkling her nose. Her gaze swung to my father. “Where are we again?”

“Brindle Creek,” I answered before my dad could. “And we do have a mall.”

Brindle Creek Mall consisted mostly of stores with “Out Of Business” signs on their windows, but I wasn’t going to mention that.

“Right,” Olivia said and rolled her eyes. She turned back to her dad. “If I move two hours away from the palace, I’ll never get to see my friends.” There was a whiny tone in her voice.

I had to bite my tongue so I didn't call the Alpha King's daughter entitled. Olivia was royalty, and she was one year older than me. Why was she acting like a snob? It took every ounce of self-control that I possessed not to get up from the meeting and walk away. It was only out of respect for my father and my worry over the safety of my pack that kept me in my seat.

My mind went to the idea of marrying someone other than Olivia. I thought of the girl I spent entirely too much time dreaming about.

Summer Golding.

Everything about her captivated me. The way her long black hair moved in the wind. How her expressive blue eyes gave me a clue as to what was going on inside her head. And the way her willowy body moved so gracefully that it was almost like she was dancing.

But my favorite thing about Summer was her unyielding compassion for the people she loved . I was a lso impressed with her inner strength and resilience after the Rogue attacked her. Instead of shying away from her wolf, which could happen after an attack, Summer embraced her other form. She first started shifting six months after the Rogue bit her , and when we were running in the woods as a pack, I always looked for her. The happiness in her eyes when she was a wolf made my heart lift with joy.

She was also dating my best friend and brother, Axel. They had been going out ever since her attack when he had asked her out at the hospital. From what I could tell, they were happy. Over the past two years, I’d buried my growing feelings for Summer. But these staggering emotions just kept expanding like a giant bubble about to pop. No matter how hard I tried to suppress the feelings, there was nothing I could do to stop them.

Every time I thought about her, guilt would stab me like a rusty, serrated knife. How could I betray Axel by fantasizing about his first serious girlfriend? And how could I get lost in thoughts about another woman when I was in a political marriage that would result in securing the protection my pack so desperately needed?

“Young man! I asked you a question.” The Alpha King’s voice snapped me back to reality.

Shit.

That was the second time I’d spaced out during this meeting. That wasn’t how an Alpha inheritor should behave. Even if I wasn’t fond of the people on the other side of the table from my father and me.

“Everett, you need to teach your boy some manners,” King Ezekiel chided my father.

Before I could point out that his daughter was the one without manners, my dad put a warning hand on my forearm.

“King Ezekiel wanted to know if you were planning on having children,” my father explained in a tight voice before I blew up at the king. “I already told him that since you're only eighteen, it's a little too early to think about that right now.”

“Oh,” I answered. “Um, well, yes, eventually, I hope to have children.”

Without my permission, an image of Summer holding a child popped into my head. Not just any child, my child. But that could never happen. She was dating my brother. And I had to get married to Olivia for the safety of my pack.

The meeting came to a close, and the Alpha King stood up, his daughter following his lead, pulling out her phone to look at a message.

“You're going to have to offer me more money if you ever want to align with the royal family and have access to my army,” King Ezekiel said brusquely. “Contact me again when you have more to offer me.”

“Please, Your Majesty, good people are dying in my kingdom. I need extra protection from your warriors. This is my only option to keep the people in my pack safe from—”

King Ezekiel cut my father off.

“I've told you my terms. Get back to me when you can meet them,” the king said.

Without a goodbye, the Alpha King left the room, Olivia and his guards following after him.

Once they were gone, my father let out a loud sigh. It reminded me of the time I got a flat tire on my bike, and I could hear the air slowly escaping while my tire deflated.

My dad sat back down at the table and ran a hand through his graying hair. He pulled his notes on the meeting toward him and then grabbed our pack's budget report from our meeting with the Elders earlier this week.

Once a week, my father, his Beta, and I met with the Elders of our pack to discuss everything from the pack's budget to how to protect them against the increasing Rogue wolf attacks. Most of the time, we focused on the latter. Summer's father, Delta Theodore, attended as well, since his role in our pack was commanding our small army. Whenever I saw Summer's dad, he looked just as stressed as mine.

“I'm going to have to find more money. We need those warriors,” my dad muttered to himself.

“Dad, why do we have to work with the Alpha King? Remember what I told you last week about what I heard from Evan of the EchoLight Pack? How King Ezekiel might be betting on outcomes of wars with the kings of other kingdoms? What if that's true? What if the king is corrupt in some other way, too? Why would we want to align with him? Can't we find another way to protect our pack?”

My father scrubbed a rough hand down his face and put his other hand on my shoulder.

“Son, I’ve heard those rumors as well. When I had the idea of the arranged marriage between you and Olivia, the Elders and I conducted an investigation to see if they had any truth to them. We couldn’t find any. King Ezekiel might be a jerk, but he isn't corrupt. I'm sorry. The reality is that the only way our pack will survive these Rogue wolf attacks is for you to marry Olivia,” my dad said.

I could see the pain in his eyes. I knew it hurt my father to take away my choice of a partner. My parents are Fated Mates. They met when they were eighteen, and it was like a lightning bolt struck them, creating a supernatural bond. Ever since then, they just knew that they were meant to be together in their very souls.

Even though they'd been through hardships, my parents’ love had never wavered for each other. My mom and dad had always wanted me to find the same kind of love that they had until the Rogue wolf attacks started in our pack. Now, they thought this political marriage was the only option. Even if I were to find my Destined Mate, I believed my parents would still want me to go through with the marriage. They thought it was the only way to ensure our pack’s safety.

But what if it wasn't the only way?

“Dad, can't we just talk about other ways to protect the pack? You, me, and Delta Theodore could meet and—”

“Gabriel, Delta Theodore, and I have talked about this. Numerous times. Don't you think, after his own daughter was attacked, Delta Theodore didn't look at every possible option to increase our pack's army? Aligning with another pack isn't possible because no one else but the Alpha King lives close enough. If an attack were to happen, it would most likely be over before any warriors could get to our pack. Even if we did live close enough to the packs we are aligned with, they don't have the warriors to spare because they are dealing with the increased number of Rogue wolf attacks, just like us. We just don't have enough strong shifters in our pack to create an army. I'm sorry, but this marriage is our only option. I just have to find the money somewhere.”

He looked down at the budget report again, and I knew that I was dismissed.

I walked out of the meeting room with only one thought in my mind.

There must be another way.