Page 7 of The Alpha's Temptation
She nods.“Get some rest.I’ll see you in the morning.”
As we push to our feet, the door opens.
Foster walks in and freezes in his tracks when he sees me.
And that’s when everything changes.
FOUR
Foster
Rhodes is halfwaythrough an update on patrol rotations when I stop pretending to listen and blurt, “I scented my mate this morning.”
Silence drops over the council chamber.Rhodes, Alpha of the North, blinks once.Cyrus, Alpha of the East Pack, whistles low.Camden, Alpha of the West Pack, sits up straighter and frowns.
“Well, damn,” Rhodes says, leaning back in his chair.“About time one of us brought good news to these meetings.”
“Congratulations,” Camden says.He has a steady way of talking that lands like a hand on the shoulder.“Who is it?”
My throat works.I knew this part would be the hard part.“Selena.”
Several brows lift.They all know Penny.Which means they all know Selena by extension.
Rhodes’s mouth twitches, the closest he ever gets to a smile.
“Penny’s best friend,” Cyrus says, saying it aloud.“Red hair, blue eyes.The girl at the bookstore.”
“Yes.”
Yes.She’s ours,my wolf howls.
“You claimed her?”Cyrus asks, raising his eyebrows.
“No.”I shake my head.
Rhodes’s gaze sharpens.“Because?”
Because I’m an idiot.Because I made a promise I thought would be easy to keep until fate made a liar out of me.
“Because when Penny was younger,” I say, picking the words like I’m defusing an explosive, “one of her so-called friends pretended to be nice to her to get close to me.It gutted her.She asked me to promise I’d never pursue one of her friends.I did.I meant it.”
Cyrus groans like I made the biggest mistake of my life.
Camden scrubs a hand over his face.“Foster,” he says gently.“This is not that.”
“I know.”The words are raw in my throat.“But she won’t hear the difference if I don’t make it clean.I won’t break my sister to keep my wolf happy.”
My wolf shows me teeth.He’s not interested in my human definition of clean.He wants to bond now, fast, teeth in skin, the line between us erased.The memory of Selena’s scent—warm sugar, and rain on hot stones—slides under my defenses, and I lock my jaw.
“Penny grew up in a house where ‘fated mates’ was a bedtime story,” Rhodes says, his tone less mocking than usual.“She knows we don’t pick them like we pick dates for the Harvest dance.She’ll know this wasn’t you circling her social circle.You didn’t choose this, Foster.”
Camden nods.“And Selena knows the truth, too.Penny told her when they were kids, right?That’s not the same as some opportunistic human trying to gain the Alpha’s attention.It’s destiny.”
“Also,” Cyrus adds, counting on his fingers, “it’s been, what, a decade of them being glued together?You didn’t encourage it.You barely look at anyone, man.She knows.”
Rhodes’s expression doesn’t shift much, but his green eyes warm.“Your promise was meant to protect your sister from harm.Honoring the bond protects you, your future mate, and your Pack.Both truths matter.You’re not dishonoring one by acknowledging the other.You’re navigating the edge where they meet.”
I sit with that.The words don’t make the knot disappear, but they loosen it enough to breathe.
