Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 151489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 757(@200wpm)___ 606(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 757(@200wpm)___ 606(@250wpm)___ 505(@300wpm)
She sighed. “It feels like I’ve accepted it under false pretences. Hell, I have.”
“Not exactly. Your mom may have intended to give it to you and your true mate, but I don’t think she’d begrudge you having it just because you’d mated with someone else.”
“Of course she wouldn’t have…if the mating had been real.”
“This is real, Taryn,” he growled.
“Yeah I know. I mean if we’d mated with the intention of actually staying together, if we had feelings for each other. Now that’s something she would have understood because she was all about love and romance and all that stuff. Not this, though. She wouldn’t have understood this. She would have mated with Roscoe before renouncing her true mate.”
“The fact that you didn’t doesn’t make you a coward, Taryn,” he firmly stated, knowing that was where her thoughts had taken her. “Like you said, she was one of those romantic people. You’re more of a practical thinker, like me. Practical thinkers aren’t so much into self-sacrifices, they prefer solutions. And you’re not someone who’s prepared to wait around with the belief that life will hand you a solution, you go looking for one.” She smiled a little, but still looked troubled. “You don’t have to spend it. You don’t even have to open the bag. Put it away with your shoebox. She’d be happy enough about that, right?” Her smile widened then and he felt a pang in his chest. Nodding, she finally relaxed into him, pleasing both him and his wolf. As with all those other chest pangs he’d been feeling recently around her, he automatically ignored it.
“Ah come on, Taryn, don’t get all glum on us,” pleaded Dominic. “I tell you what, why don’t you come here and let me give you a great big hug, you can sit on my lap, and we’ll talk about the first thing that pops up.” Ignoring Trey’s growl, the gorgeous blonde pervert added, “I’ll even let you rub my lucky scrotum. Ow!” He still had the nerve to chuckle when Trey smacked him over the head.
When they returned to pack territory they found everyone waiting in the living area for news of how the meeting went. “Well?” prodded Trick.
“We got the alliance.” Trey winced at the loud celebratory noises.
“I checked the pack web earlier,” said Rhett. “You’ve got more Alphas requesting basic alliances. It really was a great idea to set up a pack web.”
“Yep, which means if it wasn’t for Taryn, we probably wouldn’t have any of those alliances,” said Marcus. He grinned as she flopped into the recliner and wiggled her shoulders, hinting for him to give her the usual massage. As always, he obliged her.
Greta snorted. “I still say you don’t need them. Or the hussy.”
Taryn looked at her with mock pity. “Isn’t it time for your nap yet, Old Mother Hubbard?”
“Listen to her. She’s never shown me any respect from day one. All common and no manners.”
“I just thought it was important that you felt comfortable around me.”
“Trey, you’re going to be the laughing stock of all the other packs having a latent as an Alpha female. Can’t you see that? I’ll bet she can, but she’s got it good here so she’ll drag this out as long as she can. Won’t you?”
Taryn simply smiled. “I’d tell you to stop having a hissy fit and act your age, but then you’d die so…Actually maybe I should just -”
“Oh yes make your smart remarks now, but it won’t be long until it’s time for you to go and then Trey will mate with a real Alpha female. One who’s not common and sarcastic, or disrespectful and slutty.”
“Come on, you have to admit I keep life interesting.” Taryn thought she had hidden pretty well just how Greta’s last statement had stung. It was only the truth, though. Taryn would leave, Trey probably would mate again, and the female he mated with for real would most likely be better suited to be an Alpha female. And what would Taryn be doing? Trying her hardest to find a pack who would take in a common, disrespectful, sarcastic, latent female.
Hoping against hope that her uncle might have replied to her message, she excused herself and went up to Rhett’s room to check her messages on the pack web. Apparently her hoping paid off. Smiling, she skipped down the stairs and re-entered the living room. “Hey, guess what, my uncle’s been in touch through the pack web.”
Trey frowned. “Uncle?”
“The one whose pack I was planning to seek refuge at if all else failed.”
“Oh. Right.”
“He’s invited us to a mating ceremony that’s taking place for someone in his pack a few weeks from now.” That was a hell of a lot more than Taryn had hoped for. She’d thought it might take a few web conversations before her uncle would be interested in them meeting up. An invite to a mating ceremony had definitely been unexpected.