Page 17 of The Alpha's Forced Bullied Mate

Population: 151

Beyond that was where the dirt turned to tar and led through a set of thick pillars carved with our Goddesses, the lunar moon cycle, and the Silverfang symbol, which consisted of a circle with two dots in the middle and a triangle underneath the circle. Claw marks of each member, including our youngest who were able to shift, marked the bottom of the pillars. It was a show of our strength in numbers.

After the pillars was a watch house on the left with a guard on duty who tipped his hat at me. I nodded back.

“Nothing like dragging home a prized pig for everyone to see,” Faye piped up. “Does he even care that I’m tied up back here?”

“He doesn’t question his alpha.”

She snorted. “You guys were always so backward. Women’s rights never reached your gates, did it?”

“That’s going to change under my rule.”

I happened to look in the rearview mirror and caught her surprised expression. Within seconds, she scrubbed the look from her face in favor of a sour demeanor that made me chuckle. Seeing me laugh made her expression harden. I shook my head while trying to figure out the best way to do this.

It wasn’t like I kidnapped my mate every day.

Another sigh sounded off behind me, this one sounding nostalgic. “I see nothing has really changed around here.”

“What are you talking about? We just updated the community building over there—” I pointed to the right. “And we installed a pool behind it.”

She sniffed. “A pool? Wow, what an update.”

“It’s not like we’re close to the beach or anything. We needed a water spot to commune.”

“What about a river?”

I grimaced. “Eh, fish fuck in it.”

She laughed. It was such a full-bodied sound that it felt unmatched by the tension that had been with us since she awakened. I smiled. I let it imbue me with hope for the moment—a great and desperate hope that she would warm up to her new position. It wasn’t every day an alpha chose a woman like her to be their mate. She was lucky.

I drummed the wheel of the car as I drove carefully down the two-lane road past the general goods store and the school that both sat on the left. I nodded toward the park on the right. “We installed tennis courts, too.”

“Oh, how fancy,” she cooed from the back, and then resumed her snorting laugh that meant she was highly entertained.

I squinted at her reflection in the rearview mirror. “What? You don’t think that’s progressive?”

“For a pack that allows his alpha to kidnap an alleged mate?Hell no.”

“We have bigger storage now. Individual storage lockers and stuff. Hiking trails. A giant perimeter fence.”

The laughing died. Faye coughed a couple of times and took a huge breath, then plopped her forehead against the window just as we were passing the trail signs that sat at the edge of the woods on the left. We were following a winding curve through a thicket of trees until we got to the core of the community—our central housing.

All around us were various family structures, mostly cabins, but some of them were two-story colonial homes that were recently renovated. Part of Adrian’s passing of the torch involved him making various improvements. One of those, I noted, happened to be Faye’s parents’ house. But I wouldn’t point that out to her, not when she was still sour.

In fact, I crouched toward the wheel as we cruised through the winding neighborhood, doing my best to ignore the sharp inhale from the back.

“I see everything got rebuilt,” she whispered, “after that tornado…”

I eyed the rearview mirror. “You remember that?”

“Yeah, unfortunately.”

“Yeah, that was freaky. Came out of nowhere.”

She inhaled sharply again, falling quiet. That was fine with me. This wasn’t about making friendly talk. This was about doing the right thing. This was about respect. If Faye felt intimidated about her parents being nearby, especially when they were an integral part of the community as pack organizers, then I wouldn’t hesitate to give them a different job. Out with the old and in with the new.

I bristled with guilt as we approached the open fields and farming section that rose on either side as we exited the neighborhood. Being old wasn’t the problem. It was just the old ideas. I couldn’t help thinking it as I saw my previous alpha’s home come into view. Adrian’s condo sat on the left with its modern, sleek white and pale phthalo yellow shutters. His Buick sat in the driveway, a modest car that probably needed an oil change again. He was always forgetting that kind of thing when he was alpha.

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