The Alpha's Unwanted Mate: (BWWM) Paranormal Romance Standalone (3 page)

Swallowing thickly, she forced a greeting from her mouth. “Hi. Um…is my mother expecting you?”

The man’s eyes widened. “You’re Madeline’s daughter?”

To her surprise, despite the man’s rugged appearance, his voice was a low, mellow tenor that both delighted and titillated her senses. He didn’t growl, he didn’t bluster, and he didn’t leer. But he was still a wolf.

“I…yes.” The question caught her slightly off guard. I think she’s in the shower…or the bathroom. I’m sorry, come in.” She barely remembered to step back and make space for the man, who had to stoop to get in through the doorway.  He carefully laid his jacket across a chair in the foyer as she closed the door behind him. Angeline took the opportunity to take him in from head to toe while he wasn’t looking.

The man was certainly
fine
. He had physical appeal, yes, but there was something about the way he spoke and the look in his eyes that intrigued her as well. One could see from first glance this wolf was far more experienced than those who usually traipsed in. Though she was immediately on her guard, as she had learned what to expect from his kind, it was hard to swallow the acute attraction that immediately sizzled deep in her gut.

“I’ll go…check on my mom.”

With that, she tore her eyes away, hurrying down the hall and up the stairs. She found her mother on the way out of her room, running fingers through her short, graying locks. Madeline Hayes looked every inch of her fifty-five years, and she didn’t mind one bit. She had been independent for most of her life and raised her daughter to be the same way. In every respect, she was a strong role model, and influential in their small community. But she hoarded her secret like a precious gem.             

“Mom.” The elder woman’s face jerked up, exposing sharp brown eyes and plump lips identical to those of her daughter. “There’s someone…a wolf here to see you.” Madeline’s eyes widened.

“Christ, child. When did you get here?”

At her reaction, Angeline couldn’t help a small smile. “I told you I was coming to get my sweater, didn’t I?”

“Ah. So you did.” Madeline continued to pat her hair into place. “Well I’m lucky you happened by. I might have missed Clyde otherwise.”

So his name was Clyde. Interesting. It suited him – from silvery eyes to booted feet, Angeline mused.

“So you know this one already?” Usually, Angeline tried to keep herself out of matters containing wolves and their matches, but this time, she couldn’t put a handle on her curiosity.

“Know him?” Madeline chuckled in amusement. “Honey, he’s the one that made the pact for his pack in the first place.”

Angeline’s stomach clenched immediately in shock; him, she thought, he was the one who had made the arrangement for all those young women of color to be spirited off into the middle of nowhere before they’d even begun to reach their full potential?
That
man? With the cultured voice and mysteriously alluring eyes.

“
That’s
the Alpha?” Her surprise was evident in her high tone and her mother merely shook her head, shrugging into a deep blue cardigan.

“His brother. I might have mentioned to you that the Alpha already mated – before this whole arrangement.” The elder woman pressed gently past her daughter. “I have a meeting now, darling. You’re welcome to stay if you want. We’ll just be in the kitchen.”

Angeline had absolutely no intentions of staying anywhere near the man. He was the cause of all her trouble. Once her mother had moved past her, Angeline dropped her wary smile before racing into her mother’s room to shut the door behind her. She took a deep breath to compose herself, trying to quell her anger.

That
man was the one who had changed her future forever. Of course, she would have been attracted to him at first sight. The world was utterly screwed up that way. She wanted nothing more to do with him. Hopefully, his business would be finished within the hour and then he’d be gone. If she never saw him again, it would be too soon. Angeline waited about three minutes until she was sure her mother would be engaged in conversation with
Clyde
, before she slipped back down the staircase and fled the house, grabbing her sweater on the way out.

Once she was outside, in the fresh air, she felt a bit better. Her mother may see it as her inherent duty to make sure that wolves got human mates, but Angeline had long decided that she didn’t quite approve of the methods involved. In her opinion, young women were tricked into going with men who, for all she knew, could be monsters.

When her best friend, Samantha, had been handed off to one of them a year ago, the two had parted tearfully, with the new bride promising to call often to update Angeline on her progress. The two had known one another almost their entire lives and had barely gone a day without speaking to one another.

Angeline hadn’t heard from her since the day she’d watched her drive away in a beat up truck, her new mate by her side. To be completely honest, she resented the secrecy of this pack and its traditions. Even though she knew the few things taught to her by her mother, it wasn’t enough to reassure her that Samantha was, indeed, safe. If she wanted that proof, she’d need to see her friend herself. And that was impossible.

Angeline spent the rest of the day in quite a mood. Even lunch at her favorite restaurant and a movie couldn’t put her at ease. What she wanted more than anything was to speak to her mother about the morality of what she was doing. Couldn’t she see that she was putting young girls in danger, thought Angeline bitterly. They hadn’t heard from anyone that had gone to the wolves’ den and still they continued to siphon women into the location in and endless cycle.

What gave her mother such absolutely, unshaking loyalty to these beasts anyway?

Over dinner, Angeline decided that she
had
to talk to her mother about what was going on. It had been a year since Samantha, and she had to live every day knowing
her
name was on the list of potential mates. Though she was comforted by the idea that her mother would never give her away so callously, that didn’t help comfort her about the other girls.

Later that evening, the young woman left her apartment. She knew her mom would still be awake at this hour because she often stayed up into the wee hours of the morning, contemplating matches. Angeline quietly let herself into the house and found her mother sitting at the kitchen table.

However, instead of poring  over her extensive list of possible young woman, Madeline Hayes was instead staring off into space and, queerest of all, smoking a cigarette. Angeline’s mother had given up smoking years ago, so the sight of a cigarette in her hand now slightly alarmed the young woman.

“Mom? Are you ok?”

Madeline seemed startled by the sudden presence of her daughter. She jumped, spilling a bit of ash over herself before smiling absently at the young woman in the entryway. The woman’s eyes seemed somehow thoughtful and far away as she gestured her daughter into the space.

“Hey baby. Come over here, will you? We need to talk.”

With a sigh, Angeline walked into the kitchen to sit across from her mother, eyeing the elder woman skeptically. “Mom…I thought you were done smoking.”

As if she’d just noticed that she had a cigarette in her hand, Madeline glanced at the object between her fingers in mild surprise before stubbing it out in the half full coffee cup before her. Her brown eyes lifted to fix her daughter with her intense gaze before she reached across the table to take her slender hand between both of her own. There was an emotion on her face that Angeline couldn’t quite read, sadness, hesitance, and confusion, something that made the depths of her stare shimmer with uncertainty.

For a moment, the fire in her dimmed somewhat. She’d come over in order to speak with her mother about something she’d come to feel passionately about. She wanted to understand exactly why the woman who’d raised her felt the need to send tens of young, intelligent women off into the boonies to be broodmares. That wasn’t the way that Madeline Hayes had been raised, and to see her perpetuating the idea now…it was something that Angeline didn’t think she could take for much longer.

But now, the words she’d wanted to say died on her lips. Her mother looked upset. Like any well-meaning child, she was loath to make her parent feel worse than she already did if there was a prior issue to be tended to. Madeline was normally a sunny, smiling rotund figure of a woman, and it was clear that something had her more pensive than usual.

“I am done with it, darling. There are just…a few things on my mind and I thought it would be nice to have one.”

Now Angeline was slightly alarmed: what could possibly be on her mother’s mind that was driving her back into dangerous, old habits? This was a woman who had made her daughter swear that she would never pick up a cigarette for the sake of her own health.

“Mom…what’s going on?” Angeline kept her tone soft, gazing down at the hand her mother held. The last thing she wanted to do was exacerbate an already existing problem, and so, she let her mother speak first.

“Sweetheart…I’d like you to consider being mated to Clyde.”

Angeline felt her heart drop into her stomach as her mouth fell open. For a moment, she could only stare in utter and complete shock at her mother as her mind whirled. Mated?
Now
? She’d just began to hope she’d be able to avoid the process altogether, that she could speak to her mother about the way the system worked, and Madeline put her name forward
now
? 

Remembering the male that had wandered into her mother’s foyer earlier that day, Angeline’s blood began to boil. He was the one that started all this. She couldn’t,
wouldn’t
be mated to such a brute. She didn’t care if he appeared cultured, or even if the mere sight of him made her knees weak – he was against everything that she stood for.

“Mom…I…I can’t.”

It was the first time she had refused her mother anything. “Not with him.” Nor with any of them, really, thought she. But that was a subject she hadn’t quite been allowed to get into.

However, instead of appearing upset, Madeline only looked her daughter over, gripping her hand more warmly. “Why not with him, darling? What do you know about Clyde?”

What a question. “That’s just it!” Angeline said, letting her emotions get the best of her. “I don’t know anything about him, other than it was
he
who started all of…
this!
”

Madeline arched a brow at the strength of her daughter’s outburst. “And what is ‘this’?”

Groaning, Angeline shook her head. She hadn’t wanted the conversation to go this way but dammit, if it was the only way she was going to get her opinion heard, she’d take it. “Mom, don’t act like what we do…what you do is normal. You recruit young women of color who have their whole lives ahead of them – college educated, bright and beautiful – and convince them that one of their best options is to be spirited away to some secret rural location to lay flat on their backs for a group of men who are half beasts! I understand the lore and the stories, but this…I don’t know. My stomach has turned sour on it recently. And now…you’re asking me to become part of this…’legacy’?”

For a moment, Madeline’s gaze searched her daughter’s face. Where Angeline had thought she might become angry or irritated, the elder woman only retained the utmost calm. “Angeline…” The name escaped her on a sigh. “I owe you an apology. I spent your entire life building you up on fairytales and myths without telling you the truth about how the wolves became involved in my life. Perhaps once you understand the truth, both about me and Clyde, you’ll understand why I do what I do.”

There was very little, Angeline imagined, that her mother could tell her to make her feel better about this entire affair. However, she quelled her protest and simply nodded in silent assent. With a small smile, Madeline captured her hand and began anew.

“When I was younger, I met a young man who I was intensely interested in. I never met his family, nor he mine, but we developed a passionate, strong love for one another. This love was tested when I found out that he wasn’t entirely what he seemed. He was a wolf – the first I’d met. Though I was frightened at first, I came to realize that it didn’t matter what shape he took. My love remained just as strong.

However, Madeline’s tone darkened as she went on, “His people weren’t very happy to discover that one of their males had taken to a human female. Because of our differences, we were separated. The wolves of that era knew relatively little of the human world or the people that inhabited it. It was their understanding that humans were a threat to their kind and could never be anything more.

“I never saw the boy I loved again, but I never forgot him. And I swore if I ever got the opportunity to better the lives of any future wolves I met – to ensure that their world meshed better with ours, I would take it.”

Angeline could only stare down at her mother, speechless, as the elder woman continued. “You might think these young women could make more of an impact as doctors or engineers, and the fact of the matter remains that, someday, they might still become those things. For now, it’s of the utmost importance that wolf clans are brought into the new age. These girls will teach them about technology, modernity and society. Yes, they are leaving their families and our world for a time, but they will return, and both of our worlds will be better for it.
That
is why I do what I do, and that is why I believe such an option may be the best choice for my only daughter.”