Chapter 5

“I’m sure you’ve heard all about how I supposedly beat the hell out of my own father when I was fourteen. Well it’s true. I did. And for very good reasons, none of which are important right now. I won the right to be Alpha, but my dad, my uncle and many other males banded together to banish me. I was just a juvenile; I couldn’t take them all on. So I left, along with some from the pack who disagreed with what had happened. We formed our own pack, which we called the Phoenix Pack -”

“That was my idea,” interjected Dante. “You know…because we rose from nothing.”

Clearing his throat, Trey continued, “Anyway, we then got ourselves some territory and we’ve been content enough here. I was never interested in getting involved with any political bullshit or making alliances, so we always kept pretty much to ourselves. Unfortunately, that’s come back to bite me right on the ass.”

He settled back in his seat, crossing his legs beneath the table. “A few weeks ago, my dad passed away. Since he was Beta, my uncle has now taken over as Alpha, but apparently that’s not enough for him. He has applied to the council for his pack and mine to be united as one again with him as Alpha. Personally I think it’s because he wants our territory, but it’s probably to piss me off too. The council arranged a date for us both to meet in the presence of a Mediator to see if the issue can be resolved without violence.”

Shifter councils only formed to appease anxious humans who didn’t like the shifter way of solving disputes – namely violence. Taryn didn’t much like it either, but it had always been part of shifter culture. The agreement made with the humans was that the shifter council would insist that packs would have to appeal to the council before starting any disputes with other packs. If the matter couldn’t be solved through Mediation, the protocol was that exactly three months had to pass before either pack could act on the challenge made – the council’s way of giving tempers a chance to calm, hoping an amicable agreement could then be reached within that time period.

It was clear to Trey by the expression on Taryn’s face that although she was listening intently she didn’t have a clue where he was going with this. “Of course I’m going to oppose his request, which means he’ll then have to back down or officially challenge me. I know him well enough to know he will not back down. An agreement won’t be reached within the three month period that the council will impose, not in this case. There’ll be an out-and-out battle between the packs – one that I have absolutely no problem with. But I know my father had plenty of alliances and all of those will now be my uncle’s. Naturally he’s going to ask for aid from those alliances and we’ll easily be outnumbered.”

Taryn gave him a helpless shrug. “I’m sorry to hear things are pretty shitty, but I really don’t see what I can do – unless you’re interested in a sarcastic comment – and I don’t see what any of this has to do with Roscoe.”

“This has to do with me needing a mate…and you needing a way of being out of Roscoe’s reach.”

Taryn’s entire body stiffened. Surely he wasn’t suggesting what she thought he was.

“I need alliances, Taryn. Your dad collects them like they’re coupons. If I had an alliance with him, I would have a link to his alliances and then I’ll have plenty of wolves to call on for this battle. Maybe it will make my uncle hesitate, maybe it won’t. In any case, the situation will be evened out.”

Alliances, alliances, alliances. “So, you’re asking me to reject a guy who wants nothing more than an alliance with my dad, all in favor of a guy with exactly the same motive?” She snickered. “You could probably arrange an alliance without using me, so why not just contact him?”

But she already knew the answer to that. Her dad was cunning and ruthless, known for sniffing out a person’s weakness and leaping on it. He would see how much Trey needed him and would exploit it. Probably by demanding some of his territory or by insisting he owed him a ‘favor’. Being indebted to an Alpha like him was never a good thing. Alliances formed through a mating, on the other hand, were more balanced.

“There’s a very big difference between what it would mean to mate with me and what it would mean to mate with Roscoe.”

“What’s that?”

“With me, it doesn’t have to be permanent.” And he’d never hurt her, unlike Roscoe.

Confused, Taryn shook her head. “Wolves mate for life.”

“Yes, but I don’t want cosmic, soul-moving, imprinting shit in my life.” In fact, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be capable of feeling the kind of emotions that kept a mating alive. “Of course we have to make everyone believe this is the real deal and that we’ve mated for life, but all I need is for you to remain with me as my mate until the battle is over.”

“Well then you don’t necessarily need me to mate with you. You just need me to act as though I’m mated to you.”

He shook his head. “That wouldn’t work because I’d need to mark you. The second I do, you’ll be classed as my mate. It will be a real mating, just not a forever-after one.”

A big issue, though, was that Taryn was sure her wolf would be accepting of his mark and wouldn’t understand that this was to be a short-term thing. It still wouldn’t be difficult to break the mating link because she and Trey wouldn’t imprint on each other, but it would be very uncomfortable for her wolf. And that was just one of many problems. “Look, even if I wanted to take you up on your offer, I couldn’t. My dad and Roscoe have signed contracts and my dad’s elated at the idea of having an alliance with Roscoe. He won’t stop it.”

He had thought as much. “Unless you make him believe that we’re true mates.”

Her tone was flat as she spoke. “I told you, my mate is dead. Everyone in the pack knows I lost him.”

“Many times shifters have mistaken a close childhood friend as their future mate. You’ll just need people to believe that was the case with you.”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t do that to Joey, I couldn’t shit on his memory like that. I won’t shit on his memory like that.”

Knowing he needed to tread carefully, he kept his tone gentle. “You think he’d prefer for you to be stuck in a mating with a wolf you don’t want? Do you think he’d want that for you? Would you have wanted it for him?”

“It still doesn’t seem right,” she mumbled.

He was impressed by her loyalty. “It’s not like we can make it look as though we met, fell head over heels and then decided to mate. We don’t have the time, and given my reputation, it wouldn’t look realistic. It would also give your dad room to argue your choice of mate. If it’s believed that we’re true mates, he can’t oppose that – it’s beyond his control.”

“What about your pack? Won’t they know it’s bullshit?”

Not wanting to go into the specifics, he kept his reply vague. “It’s a shitty story, but let’s just keep it at I hadn’t acknowledged to others that she was my mate.” That had made her death all the worse and then he hadn’t felt like he had the right to speak of her. Not many knew the complete truth and that was how he liked it. “When I informed my pack a few weeks ago of my plan to mate, I also informed them that my true mate died a long time ago. That’s all they need to know.”

And that’s all you need to know, he didn’t say but Taryn heard. She might have bristled at that but it would have been hypocritical; losing Joey wasn’t a matter she spoke of unless she had to.

“They will play along that we’re true mates if it helps us keep our territory and stops my uncle from taking over the pack.” Unfortunately, not all of them were supportive of a Warner being in their pack, but telling her that wouldn’t be a wise move.

A part of Taryn wondered what she was hesitating for. She wanted to get away from Roscoe, didn’t she? Well here was her chance. But it wasn’t as simple as that, was it? No, because her chance came in the form of another big bad Alpha who had a price for his help. Hell, two wolves suddenly wanted to mate her – two alpha wolves – yet neither actually cared even a tiny bit about her. She was a means to an end. Not exactly flattering and it certainly stung.

Taryn was surprised by just how much it stung considering that she hadn’t envisioned ever wanting to take a mate; it would have felt like she was betraying Joey. Yeah, that might not make a lot of sense given that they were kids when he died, but Joey had been the one person in the world created for her, just for her. Created to care for her, to accept her, to love her.

And because of that, just as Trey had pointed out, Joey wouldn’t have wanted her to be trapped in a mating she didn’t want. Joey would have wanted, no, expected, her to do whatever it took to escape that fate. This particular avenue, however, might be a bit too complicated.

“Even if I did agree to this deal, I don’t see how we could fake a mating bond. It’s an extremely intimate thing. Mates are all touchy-feely, they don’t spend a minute apart, they smell of each other, they wear each other’s mark and they have some kind of link that helps them sense each other’s mood. How in the hell could we ever fake a metaphysical connection like that?”

“We’ll only need to fake it when anyone outside my pack is around and that won’t be often. Knowing that your freedom from Roscoe depends on this should help you dramatically with your acting skills.”

The man has an answer for everything, grumbled Taryn inwardly. Could she do this? Could she pull this off? It wasn’t in her nature to cower from anything challenging, no matter how much danger or risk it involved. Maybe it was a lot to do with her latency; continually proving herself had always been a way of gaining some measure of respect. But this wasn’t just some kind of dare. This was her life and all about what direction she wanted it to take.