Page 5 of The Alpha's Stolen Mate

I glanced at Olivia, but she seemed uninterested in the topic of our political marriage. The king’s daughter was studying her perfectly shaped nails and popping a piece of pink gum in her mouth.

“With all due respect, Your Majesty, I think the amount of money we offered you is more than fair,” my father said.

The king slammed his fist on the table.

“Fair? You call this fair?” He snatched up the contract again and stabbed his finger onto the paper. “This offer is insulting. I almost didn’t even come to this meeting because it’s so low. How mismanaged are your funds, Everett? Is WaterLock in danger of going bankrupt?”

My father’s eyes blazed with anger.

“It’s more than fair and you know it,” my dad snapped, dropping the “Your Majesty” at the end of the statement.

I almost cheered.

“Especially since you’re only willing to offer us two members of the Royal Guard to protect WaterLock from the Rogue wolf attacks,” my dad continued. “How are two warriors supposed to defend my entire territory? You know that I don’t have a lot of warriors to patrol our borders.”

King Ezekiel raised an eyebrow.

“Are you insulting the warriors of my elite army?” the king asked. “You know the Royal Guard has successfully protected generations of my family.”

He glanced back at the two warriors who had escorted him and his daughter into the meeting room, as if wanting them to be offended as well. But the two hulking men stayed still and silent.

The Alpha King’s army was famous not only in our kingdom but throughout our whole world. Many rulers envied King Ezekiel’s Royal Guard, the ranks of which were filled by hundreds of warriors who had been strengthened by decades of war, a force WaterLock could only dream of.

“Obviously, that wasn’t what he was doing. Why are you—“

King Ezekiel cut me off.

“I’m not entirely sure why you’re speaking right now,” he said and glared at me with his beady little eyes. “This conversation is between us adults.”

I reared back like he had slapped me. Part of me wanted to point out that I was eighteen—technically an adult—but that seemed like a childish thing to do.

I clenched my fists under the table, attempting to control the rage spreading through my body. The king and my father continued to argue over the terms of the arranged marriage. I studied the Alpha King and Olivia. They had the same rigid posture, sharp features, and meticulously styled blonde hair. The king and princess looked almost too perfect, too good to be true.

When I agreed to my father’s plan to marry Olivia, I began to ask around about our king. I spoke to other Alpha inheritors in our kingdom, and one of them told me that the king might have a gambling addiction. Evan from the EchoLight Pack had heard that King Ezekiel was betting on the outcomes of battles with rulers of other kingdoms. I trusted that Evan wasn’t just making up a baseless rumor. Our pack had been aligned with EchoLight for hundreds of years.

Evan revealed that King Ezekiel might be part of an underground gambling ring with Whispborn’s two allies: King Montgomery of the Pyregate Kingdom and King Zachary from the Tideridge Kingdom. Whispborn’s alliance with these two kingdoms was one of convenience, because they were the closest to us. Our three kingdoms were also the only ones with a mostly shifter population.

Evan also said that our Alpha King was billions of dollars in debt to the other kings. Why else would a king need money from a political marriage?

The final thing that Evan said was that his father thought King Ezekiel was corrupt in some way, but he didn’t know how. The problem was that I didn’t have any proof that King Ezekiel was being nefarious.

The sound of Olivia’s voice startled me out of my thoughts. This was the first time she’d spoken since our initial greetings.

“Dad, I’d rather die than move out of the palace to live in a dump like this. I don’t think this place even has a mall,” Olivia said, wrinkling her nose. Her gaze swung to my father. “Where are we again?”

“Brindle Creek,” I answered before my dad could. “And we do have a mall.”

Brindle Creek Mall consisted mostly of stores with “Out Of Business” signs on their windows, but I wasn’t going to mention that.

“Right,” Olivia said and rolled her eyes. She turned back to her dad. “If I move two hours away from the palace, I’ll never get to see my friends.” There was a whiny tone in her voice.

I had to bite my tongue so I didn't call the Alpha King's daughter entitled. Olivia was royalty, and she was one year older than me. Why was she acting like a snob? It took every ounce of self-control that I possessed not to get up from the meeting and walk away. It was only out of respect for my father and my worry over the safety of my pack that kept me in my seat.

My mind went to the idea of marrying someone other than Olivia. I thought of the girl I spent entirely too much time dreaming about.

Summer Golding.

Everything about her captivated me. The way her long black hair moved in the wind. How her expressive blue eyes gave me a clue as to what was going on inside her head. And the way her willowy body moved so gracefully that it was almost like she was dancing.

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