The Alpha’s Terms

Caroline's POV

My eyes wandered to the stranger in my bedroom, then at the dress, then at Alex.

“Fine. I'll wear it.” I agreed.

Alex turned his hand into fist as he blew the empty air. “Yes!”

I couldn't help but smile as I took the dress away from him. “Thank you.” I said. “Thank you for everything you have done for me.”

He didn't respond, instead he stared at me with that grin still present on his face.

And his next action took me off guard. He walked briskly towards me and planted a kiss on my cheeks and immediately I knew it turned red.

“Are you trying to ruin me?!” I asked and I wished I had said it out loud for him to hear, but then his voice distracted me.

“I gotta go before my mom starts yelling. You can test the dress and see if it fits.”

Before I could reply, he had zoomed off including the stranger in my room.

I closed the door behind me as my eyes took in the beauty and elegance of the dress.

I removed my tattered clothes one after the other till I was left with just my panties. Then in one swing motion, I wore the dress and immediately, I noticed my little and powerless wolf became silent.

I couldn't feel my wolf anymore — It always happened whenever I'm overjoyed about something and that was the sign I needed because I have become so delusional that Alexander would be my mate — A royal blood who every other girl would love to be with.

It seems Alex knew my exact body measurement — It fitted so perfectly.

Suddenly, I heard a bang on my door. Thankfully, I had locked it from behind, I would have been exposed before the ceremony even started.

“Who is there?” I asked while I hesitantly pulled off the dress.

“Are you really asking me that question?”

That was Sienna — The moon goddess damn you, Sienna. I cursed.

“Hold on a minute!” I yelled under my breath as I returned the dress back into the box, then sliding it under the bed.

And with one leg gap, I pushed myself forward towards the door and opened it.

Sienna frowned in disgust. “What were you doing? And why are you naked?”

I stared down at my boobs and then back at her. “I need to wash my clothes.” I lied.

“Don't you dare curb the mating ceremony. I need you out of this place as soon as possible with a mate or without one.”

Without one? Does she want me dead?

The tradition of the pack stated that during the mating ceremony, if you are without a mate, you are considered a bad omen and you'll be killed without remorse.

That's why most Omegas refused to attend the mating ceremony…

“I won't curb the mating ceremony.” I assured her.

In a swing, I closed the door behind me while I stared at the dress from where I had kept it. Now, I wished I had said no.

***

The mating ceremony took place in the grand courtyard of Elroi Lair and the moment I stepped inside, the dress I had worn made me feel like I belonged, but deep down I didn't.

My eyes found solitude in the lanterns lined in every corner of the room as I walked down to the nearest corner of the room to avoid getting all the attention to myself.

Before I could settle in that safe space, Sienna found me. Her eyes scanned my dress and I knew I'm due for a ridicule…

And to make matters worse, she was with Jade and the other girl that I have forgotten her name because it was so hard to pronounce.

Then the first question came in. “Where did you get that?” Sienna asked loud enough to be a performance.

She folded her arms akimbo and stared at me with enough jealousy.

“Can't you respond? Who did you sleep with to get this?”

“Or maybe she stole it.” Jade added.

"I got it for her." The voice came from behind me and I turned to find the same stranger who had stood quietly in my bedroom with Alexander.

“Do you have any problem with that?” I did not even know his name, but he stepped forward without hesitation and looked at Sienna with the kind of unbothered steadiness that made her press her lips together.

She was speechless and I loved the sight of that.

“Do you?” The stranger asked again.

Sienna's eyes moved between the stranger and me and then she let out a short sound that was not quite a laugh before turning back to her friends, and just like that the moment closed and I exhaled slowly and faced forward.

“Thank you.” I moved my mouth without saying anything.

He smiled as he closed the gap between us. “I'll be behind you till everything dies down. On the orders of Alexander.” He said.

I tilted my head and watched Alexander at the front of the hall. Before I could start daydreaming about him, the courtyard went quiet because Jarek had walked in.

He was dressed in all black with unhurried steady steps like he owned everyone in the room. All the girls including Sienna straightened without meaning to and the high priestess stepped forward.

She began the words of the ceremony. The usual old ones about the moon goddess and the bond she laid between two wolves who are meant to find each other.

I have heard those words my entire life without ever believing they were meant for someone like me.

Jarek stepped down from the front and moved into the crowd and every girl he passed held her breath and let it go slowly when he kept walking.

And I was not watching him the way the others were because I was watching Alexander, telling myself that tonight the moon goddess would finally answer the prayer I had been sending her since I was old enough to know what I was asking for.

I was still in that thought when the person in front of me stepped away and the space around me opened up and I looked up and Jarek was standing directly in front of me.

The silence had teeth in it…

I felt every eye in that courtyard land on me at the same time and the murmuring started with a whisper and grew quickly.

I heard my mother's name first and then the word that always followed her name in this pack.

“Isn't that the child of the whore?” That question passed from one mouth to the next like it was something worth sharing.

Then came the accusation that I had crossed the boundary to find a charm and used it to pull the alpha toward me, and that one spread even faster than the first.

I felt his wolf standing close to him. It was like a persistent, yet quiet pull that moved through me the way a current moves under still water and it was impossible to dismiss entirely.

But my wolf gave me nothing and I stood there in the middle of all that noise with no ground under my feet.

Then Jarek looked at me and said, "Step aside,"

I didn't know he was talking to me till I looked him in the eyes. Immediately, I stepped out of the way.

“Sorry.” I whispered under my breath.

I moved and he walked past me. Then he stopped in front of a girl who was near the center of the crowd and immediately, the courtyard came alive in a way it had not for me.

I watched as they all congratulated her and for some reason my imagination felt a lot of eyes on me. I pressed myself back toward the edge and breathed and told myself it was fine.

The ceremony went on and the courtyard filled with the sound of people finding each other and I watched all of it while I looked at Alexander in the crowd.

And then I noticed him standing still with his eyes slightly closed like the way people look when they are trying to see something clearly. 

Then he opened his eyes, turned, began walking and I tracked his direction without meaning to and he stopped in front of a girl from the east wing and she smiled at him the way someone smiles when they already knew and had been waiting, and Alexander smiled back at her the same way.

The moon goddess had not answered me…

I had already known that was possible but knowing something and watching it happen in front of you are not the same thing at all and I felt the full distance between them standing there at the edge of that courtyard while everyone around me found their person.

I became aware of the elites gathering near the front and speaking quietly to each other and then one of them looked in my direction and I understood before a single word was said to me because I knew the tradition and I had always known this was one of the ways the night could end for someone like me.

Two guards reached me and closed their hands around my arms and I did not fight it because fighting it would only make the punishment worse when it came.

“She is without a mate,” Jade squealed behind Sienna.

“She has taken the sins of her mother. This is so miserable.” Another person added.

“Let her die. At least we'd have breathing space and less of a person consuming our food.”

Then from the very corner I saw Alex someone yelled.

"Let her go." Alexander pushed through the crowd toward me.

But the guards did not slow down and Alexander's words, as sincere as they always were, did not carry the weight that stopped men like these and everyone in that courtyard knew it.

“Didn't you hear my brother? Let her go.”

Then the guards stopped on their own.

I turned and it was not Alexander behind them. It was Jarek, and he was not looking at the guards or at me but at the elites near the front, and whatever they saw on his face made them go still.

Everyone in that courtyard was surprised, including me…

Jarek looked at me then and said, "I will spare your life and in return you will leave Elroi Lair and move into the Alpha's Quarter." He held my gaze and I held his. "Those are my terms."

The courtyard was completely silent and I could feel Alexander somewhere behind me now and I could feel the eyes of every person on me.

And I stood there in the dress that had started all of this tonight and I said the only thing I could say.

"I agree."