Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 228(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45658 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 228(@200wpm)___ 183(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
“Great.” Morgan dragged his fingers through his hair and tried to get his thoughts in order. “How’s he seem?”
“The Omega?”
He nodded.
“Hard to say because the Purple Sky Alpha stopped me from having any sort of conversation with him. They weren’t in the house a minute before Berger was puffing his chest and growling at me so I put them in that room at the end of the east wing on the third floor and then I got everyone out of here.”
When Timothy Tiller’s unhealthy crush on Morgan’s brother had surfaced, their father had told Jerold to stay away from the young Omega, but Jerold hadn’t heeded the advice. Jerold’s defense had been that an Alpha’s instinctive draw to an Omega was exacerbated when the Omega was male so he couldn’t control his response to the Omega’s seduction. At the time, Morgan hadn’t put much stock in his brother’s claims, but after fielding irrational challenges from Iredell for seven years, he couldn’t deny the intensity of Timothy’s pull on Alphas. That put the Purple Sky Alpha’s rudeness in a new and troubling context.
“Great. So I just finished fending off one Alpha who can’t control his emotions because of a male Omega, and now I get to deal with another one.”
“Pretty much.” She bobbed her head. “Except the new Purple Sky Alpha is here as our guest, our overnight guest. Sending a message to our entire pack to stay away from the Alpha house for that long is unusual enough to cause panic. On the other hand, we can’t keep Berger and his Omega sequestered in a room the entire time. And if we withdraw his invitation, we’re basically kicking Purple Sky’s Alpha off our pack lands, which means we’ll have a bad relationship with a neighboring pack.”
“Uplifting synopsis of our non-options.” If anyone else was around, Morgan would have kept his posture straight and his mouth shut, but it was just him and Lillian, so he didn’t need to pretend. Shoulders curling together, he dropped his face into his hands. “Damn it. I don’t know how much more I can take, Lil. Seriously.” He was a powerful Alpha leading a happy prosperous pack who respected him. From the outside, people would have assumed he was thrilled. But Lillian knew he didn’t have the one thing he had always wanted—a mate and a family.
“Morgan?”
He dropped his hands and looked at her.
Eyes searching his, she pressed her lips together, shook her head, and then said, “You know what, fuck it. Send them home. What do we care?”
“Should I repeat back your points from two seconds ago?”
“I have more points.” Lillian held up one finger. “Berger may be a powerful Alpha, but he’s new and Purple Sky is small and fractured. He’ll need all his strength to save that crumbling pack. Engaging in a feud with you will make that impossible.” She raised another finger. “You’re only twenty-three and you’ve already been leading a pack for seven years. A large, powerful pack. And you’ve defended yourself against challenges multiple times during every one of those years. And it’s not just Keith Iredell. How many other upstart Alphas have swaggered onto our land thinking they could rule a powerful pack by taking out a younger Alpha?” She didn’t want for an answer. “You showed all of them that you’re a force to be reckoned with, Morgan. No other Alpha your age has your level of experience, and no other Alpha period has won as many challenges. So even if Berger is prideful and stupid enough to neglect his problems at home and go after you, you can take him down like you did the rest of them.”
“Okay, we need to slow down.” Morgan raised both palms. “The other Alphas wanted to take over our pack so I fought them to defend us. I’m not interested in starting a feud with anyone, even if I will win.” He didn’t need to meet the Purple Sky Alpha to know he could best him in a challenge. He was accustomed to dealing with older Alphas, more experienced Alphas, larger Alphas. And he was also accustomed to standing his own against all of them and making Golden Valley proud. Morgan may not be strong enough for the fates to deem him worthy of a mate, but he had been forced to learn how to lead, how to negotiate, and how to fight from a too-young age, and he had proven himself good at all of it. “But you’re right about Purple Sky. That pack has been shrinking for years. This new Alpha may be their last chance to survive. I don’t want to distract him from his mission.”
“Then what do you suggest, Morgan?” she asked, sounding tired.
Although they had grown up together, been the closest of friends, and even shared each other’s beds once upon a time, Lillian had all but stopped using his name when he stepped into the role of Alpha. She insisted on ‘showing him the proper respect’ no matter how many times he told her it wasn’t necessary. It was one of many ways becoming pack Alpha had stripped him of his previous identity. Silly though it was, hearing his name in her voice, especially so softly, filled him with warm memories of afternoons curled together in the meadows and evenings cuddled in bed, softly whispering dreams of the future.