Page 25 of The Alpha's Chosen Outcast

He stops but doesn’t turn around. I can’t see him, but I know he’s smiling when he responds,

“Everyone deserves a good last meal.”

Ouch. He’s joking. Right?

He leaves and I sit down at the table with all the plates full of food and a paper cup with soup in it. I don’t know where to start. I decided that the best thing to do is to send Logan a photo of this.

He’s gonna flip when he sees it all piled on the plates. My stomach rumbles as I snap the photo and compose a message.

Me:Look at this feast!

His response comes back in seconds.

Logan:So jealous! Enjoy! Glad you’re doing something besides working.

At least Trey’s almost nice gesture serves to placate my friends. If this is my last meal, I’ll die happy. Sometimes, the little thingsmatter. After being basically imprisoned in a bridal shop with only a sink to bathe in, some good Chinese food totally matters.

I bite into one of the egg rolls and I’m in bliss. Eating alone is weird for me because I’m always at the diner. Whatever, it’s Sun Li’s. It reminds me of dinners with my parents and living here before my exile.

I thought all of those memories had trickled away, but one bite of that egg roll brings it all back.

I turn on one of my trashy reality shows on my computer as I eat, blending my new life with my old one. I wonder what my mother would think.

She’d probably laugh along with me at each drama-filled episode that we know is staged. I hope one day I’ll get to find out.

Chapter 8

TREY

It’s been almost three weeks since an exile started designing my baby sister’s wedding gown and no one knows she’s here but me and Violet.

Surprisingly, Violet is actually upholding her promise not to tell Brody, as far as I can tell, at least.

I’ve been back to deliver supplies to Heather a few times, and the tension seems to be calming a bit. I can see that Heather is still terrified of me, but it’s like she’s gotten used to it.

She doesn’t startle as easily. I think that might also be because she’s learned my smell. I’d expect that from any wolf, though.

Right now, though, all that matters is that Violet is happy.

I’m heading off to another meeting with my inner circle. As my father’s health continues its steady decline, I have to set up how I’ll run things when he’s gone. Luca, Grayson, Austin, and Samuel will be my lieutenants.

They know that something is happening but aren’t aware of how bad my father’s health really is. I think they might believe he’ll be abdicating his place and letting me take over before he dies.

I’m not swaying them one way or the other. Let them believe whatever they want as long as I don’t have to talk about my father dying.

We’re meeting at my office. The Hanovers have owned a printing press for several generations. In recent years, that’s grown to include some online media and a small studio for indie films. It was a project for one of my cousins that kind of went to the wayside when he lost interest.

We have some offices in one of the corporate buildings in midtown. The conference room there is much more secure than talking at a diner or any other public place.

I set up the room, making sure to have pastries and coffee on the sideboard where we always put the food. The guys will never pay attention if I don’t provide something sweet and some sort of caffeine, and I need them to pay attention to this.

They all arrive around the same time and load up their paper plates, make their coffee, and sit down. I’m standing. I want to show them that I command this room today.

I wait for them to settle in and give me their full attention. When they’re staring at me with their mouths full of pastry, I start the meeting.

“I’ve called you here because I have an important piece of possible legislation to discuss within our pack. This is something I’ve heard whispers about but not a ton of support for, and I want to gauge what you think before I decide to bring it to leadership.”

Now I really have them. They’re waiting for me to continue.

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