Chapter 69 Meeting with the Alphas
I walked into the dining hall with my heart in my throat. Phenrys hadn't spoken a single word to me the entire time I fixed my hair and makeup. Instead, he'd chosen to glare at me as if I were a rodent he wanted to exterminate. It was unnerving to be the only one talking while the other person examined you like something he wanted to hurt. The moment the dining room came into view, I paused as the pack rose to their feet. The alpha's table was empty, causing my hackles to rise. Usually, I sat with them to avoid my father's table. I searched the room, only to be nudged forward by Phenrys.
"Move it," he ordered, causing me to start forward without finding the alphas.
The pack remained on their feet as I moved between the rows of the tables, heading for the one at the hall entrance. I hadn't sat there since I was a child, trying my best to escape my father's attention. Now I was being forced to sit there again, and my body wanted to turn my ass around involuntarily, high- tailing it back to my bedroom and the safety it offered me.
I stalled at the sight of the blonde woman sitting beside Saint, her big green eyes on him with a look of possessiveness that made my stomach churn. Clos- ing off my emotions, I stepped up to the chair, dragging it out to sit where Phen had directed me. Across from Saint, instead of beside him, where he'd pur- posely placed the blonde. It was my spot, and it wouldn't go unnoticed by the pack.
My eyes slid over the female who returned the slow examination before turning up her nose at me. Her hand slipped through Saint's elbow, pulling him closer as she whispered into his ear, causing his eyes to meet and lock with mine. They sparkled as if she was telling him a secret.
Dismissing them both outright, I glanced down the length of the table, filled with hunters, demons, and the wolves of varying breeds Saint had brought with him. There wasn't a single person seated at the table that I recognized from my pack, and none of the alphas were here. "You look beautiful, Braelyn. You're the spitting image of your mother,"
Leif announced, causing my gaze to swing to his in shock.
"Thank you," I said softly, if not a little hesitantly.
"The pack respects you," he continued as if everyone else wasn't listening to his every word. "They do, but then unlike my father, I work beside them."
"Indeed, you do. Your ability to keep up with your pack today impressed me. You remind me of home. I longed for the fjords for the first time in a very long time, Braelyn. Had your pack not been so weak and feeble all those years ago, I may not have slaughtered them so easily. You would have stayed my hand had you been born when I set siege to your line."
I blinked, trying to figure out what the hell one said to the maniac who chased our pack from the shores of Norway eons ago. This man slaughtered my grandparents, murdering them for being different. Holding his stare, Leif smiled, fully aware that he'd left me without recourse to say something.
"Do you not work beside your pack?" I asked, watching his lips jerk at my question. Lycans usually don't live in packs, but it was rumored in certain circles that Leif was indeed working to integrate a large number of Lycan wolves into a pack. "Or, are we supposed to pretend that you're not trying to build a pack?"
Leif smiled before nodding his head. "You do remind me of your mother. She had a fire in her eyes and soul. It saddened me to hear that she passed. Having a babe, wasn't it? It was stillborn, and she could not deliver, right?"
"My mother didn't die giving birth or because of pregnancy complications," I stated, slowly turning to find Saint and the others hanging on my every word. "My father discovered my mother carried another daughter. Displeased, he took an ax to her as she tended to the fire in our apartment. He then removed her heart, leaving her and his child to die on the floor."
"And you did nothing to prevent it? Fenrir women are warriors from birth."
Leif's accusation stung as his words hung in the air. "I was five when he murdered my mother. She'd told me never to allow my father to see my emotions. I was terrified of him, and he knew it. He wanted an heir that could hold the pack by the blood in their veins."
"Fenrir packs are normally led by their women, born as natural alphas to their packs," he stated, pouring bourbon into a glass before pushing one across the table toward me. "Harold wasn't aware that you were his alpha heir, was he?" "No, and since I had beta tendencies, it was easily kept hidden. I wasn't aware that I was an alpha until nine years ago. I suppressed it after that, but my father noticed. It's why he'd agreed to allow Carlson to take me as his mate. My father wanted me away from the pack so that I couldn't take it from him."
"Because you would have by right," Leif laughed, shaking his head while holding my stare.
His eyes sparkled with the laughter, reminding me of the pictures my mother had shown me of the Nordic seas and fjords. Leif wasn't pretty, he was gorgeous. He had a rugged look of masculinity and sin combined into a perfect package. His hair was inky black and adorned in warrior braids that would have looked silly on anyone else but fit him perfectly. The flannel shirt he wore was opened in the front, revealing his heavily tattooed chest that was a feast for my eyes.
"To your mother," Leif held up his glass while waiting for me to do the same. "May the gods bless her soul and cherish her during her eternal rest." The sound of glasses clinking together echoed through the hall as I tipped mine back, downing the bourbon, burning its way down my throat. "And she drinks like a Viking," he announced, refilling the glasses. "So she does," Saint grunted, his eyes slipping between Leif and me with something similar to jealousy burning within them.
"Braelyn, isn't it?" the woman beside Saint asked, her venom-laced tone grating over my nerves. "I'm Carleigh. Saint and I spent a lot of time together over the past ten years."
1 blinked while waiting for her to continue, but she reached for Saint's hand, threading their fingers while studying me. The entire room went silent, and the tension at the table was growing until Leif laughed, pushing the glass back toward me.