Chapter 12: First

It was noon, when Nick showed up at the room.

I'd been on the bed, grinding my teeth from the pain, the burning of the cuts. They covered me in the most inconvenient of places, and I found it impossible to lay down, despite the exhaustion plaguing me.

My mothers words consumed my mind as I sat there, fitting the pieces together. What had Nick done, to deserve being treated like that? A father couldn't punish his own pup that terribly, it was against our nature. He couldn't have been older than five then, if the math added up right. Just a pup still, a little boy who needed his father, his mentor, his Alpha.

He didn't knock, but he opened the door slowly. Watching the ground, he entered the room and shut the door behind himself, walking toward the bed, never looking at me. Pulling himself onto the bed beside me, he sat there, legs folded in front of him, staring at nothing.

"I'm sorry." He said quietly, tone even, gaze lost and unfocused. "I should have had someone else, a Delta, do it. Jasmine enjoyed it too much. I can't... I can't punish her for doing her job, but I'll see to it that she doesn't go taking pleasure in it again. I don't deal with people that fucked up.

"But I can't apologize for the punishment, Darcy. This isn’t personal, this is politics. You don’t get to be nice in this world, as much as you might want to be. The pack will learn to accept her, with time. Just as they will with you.

"I know I have a duty to you. You're my mate. You didn't chose this, it was something forced upon you. But Darcy, I'm an Alpha. At the end of the day, my people will always come first. I've done some terrible things, gotten myself a terrible reputation, all for them. I pledged my life to these people, and part of that promise was to keep them safe. When that fails, I'm supposed to avenge them until they're satisfied. I can't spend my life protecting you against them." His eyes are soft as he regards me, in a way that makes me want to cry and shout all at once. “Everything in me wants to put you first, but I have a duty to my people. I owe them everything.”

His words made the anger dissipate inside of me. His tone was low, not angry, but... tired. He looked exhausted, and it'd only been a few hours since the trial. I felt guilty, seeing him like this, hearing him explain what our life would be. What my life would be.

It killed me, hearing him say I'd never be first. It physically made my heart ache. I'd always wanted to be the first in my mates life, like every other little kid. I'd be his first, we'd be in love, we'd have a dozen pups, and life would be so easy. But every second I spent here, in this house, with this pack, I realized that I really was a child. Mature wolves clearly didn't expect these things out of life. I’d always expected a normal man that could make me his highest priority; I never signed up for an Alpha, with his pack as number one.

My gaze trailed down to the bandage on my thigh, and the very thought of it made the wound beneath burn. I swallowed the anxiety in my throat, glancing up at him, afraid of even asking, of hearing the answer. "They hate me, right?"

He sighed again. Turning his dark gaze down to his hands, Nick gave a slight shake of his head, lips tilted into a frown. "Some. Some of them don't think you should be our Alpha female. Before you came into the equation, Jasmine and I were... she played Alpha female. We were a few months away from saying fuck it, marking and marrying. Make it official. It's why she's so... aggressive towards you. She feels like you cam in and usurped her life. They still want her, she was born and raised here, she's one of us. You seem weak to them, young and frail. Mercy isn't strong in this pack, and letting her treat you like she did last night, it made them see you as too weak to get vengeance for your mistreatment."

I didn't flinch, didn't let myself. They hated me. They'd love me if I was cruel and cold and uncaring. There were a few who didn't seem to want me dead; Natalie and Minnie had been nothing but kind to me. But I knew, without a doubt, that they were the minority.

We were quiet. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it was heavy. We were tired and angry and we both needed the silence. His presence made me feel good, warm, tired. Then, he spoke.

"Darcy, I have an idea. A kind of... far out idea. But I think it might be good, for both of us." He said quietly, tilting his gaze and looking at me with those big dark eyes that made my head spin and my heart thump faster. Longing, care, affection. I wanted to relish the look of those in his eyes, before they disappeared.

"What is it?" I asked, not fully paying attention. The animal was emerging, it wanted to stare into those eyes forever. It wanted to try out his lips, it wanted to run it's fingers through his hair. It wanted to do very bad things.

"Can you mark me?"