Page 7 of Golden Valley
“BrianBerger but yes.” She licked her lips. “He arrived and he brought his Omega.”
“Okay?” Morgan kept his gaze locked with Lillian’s and waited for her point. Visitors were fairly common in a pack as large and prosperous as theirs. If they didn’t want to scope them out with the goal of waging a take-over, other packs wanted to get into their good graces in the hope of gaining access to their resources.
“Berger’s protective of his Omega to the point of rudeness.”
Shifters could be possessive of their mates, and Alphas were protective of their pack, especially Omegas who were smaller, gentler, and more sensitive than other wolves. It only made sense that an Alpha wolf blessed to have his own mate, particularly an Omega mate, would cherish her to a point that exacerbated his natural tendencies. Intelligent, thoughtful, and calm, Lillian wouldn’t normally be alarmed by a little growling and rudeness, and she certainly wouldn’t remove their pack members from the Alpha house because of it.
Confused about her actions, he said, “Can’t promise I won’t behave the same way if I have his fortune.” Morgan prayed he would be that lucky. He was only twenty-three, still young enough that not having met his mate yet shouldn’t be a cause for concern. But despite being constantly surrounded by people, his days were lonely and his nights lonelier. He had hoped to be mated by this age and despite Lillian’s insistence that the legends about Alphas rarely being blessed with mates were false, Morgan’s greatest fear was that he wasn’t a good enough Alpha to be a worthy of a mate and he would live his life alone. Forcing himself to smile despite the pang in his heart, Morgan said, “Hell, Lil, if I had a mate, we’d need to get a second chair for my desk because I wouldn’t want her to leave my side for even a second.”
Lillian squeezed his shoulder. “Who are you kidding?Whenyou find your mate, she’ll be sitting on your lap.” She sighed and dropped her hand. “And it’s him not her.”
Morgan tilted his head to the side in question.
“The Omega currently visiting our pack lands is male.”
Instinctively, Morgan’s muscles tensed. The only male Omega he had known had murdered his family, thrown his pack into chaos, and decimated his dreams. He now understood Lillian’s actions. If the two of them were anxious about the presence of a male Omega in Golden Valley, the rest of the pack’s reaction was sure to be worse. No wonder she had cleared the house.
“Great.” Morgan dragged his fingers through his hair and tried to get his thoughts in order. “How’s he seem?”
“The Omega?”
He nodded.
“Hard to say because the Purple Sky Alpha stopped me from having any sort of conversation with him. They weren’t in the house a minute before Berger was puffing his chest and growling at me so I put them in that room at the end of the east wing on the third floor and then I got everyone out of here.”
When Timothy Tiller’s unhealthy crush on Morgan’s brother had surfaced, their father had told Jerold to stay away from the young Omega, but Jerold hadn’t heeded the advice. Jerold’s defense had been that an Alpha’s instinctive draw to an Omega was exacerbated when the Omega was male so he couldn’t control his response to the Omega’s seduction. At the time, Morgan hadn’t put much stock in his brother’s claims, but after fielding irrational challenges from Iredell for seven years, he couldn’t deny the intensity of Timothy’s pull on Alphas. That put the Purple Sky Alpha’s rudeness in a new and troubling context.
“Great. So I just finished fending off one Alpha who can’t control his emotions because of a male Omega, and now I get to deal with another one.”
“Pretty much.” She bobbed her head. “Except the new Purple Sky Alpha is here as our guest, ourovernightguest. Sending a message to our entire pack to stay away from the Alpha house for that long is unusual enough to cause panic. On the other hand, we can’t keep Berger and his Omega sequestered in a room the entire time. And if we withdraw his invitation, we’re basically kicking Purple Sky’s Alpha off our pack lands, which means we’ll have a bad relationship with a neighboring pack.”
“Uplifting synopsis of our non-options.” If anyone else was around, Morgan would have kept his posture straight and his mouth shut, but it was just him and Lillian, so he didn’t need to pretend. Shoulders curling together, he dropped his face into his hands. “Damn it. I don’t know how much more I can take, Lil. Seriously.” He was a powerful Alpha leading a happy prosperous pack who respected him. From the outside, people would have assumed he was thrilled. But Lillian knew he didn’t have the one thing he had always wanted—a mate and a family.
“Morgan?”
He dropped his hands and looked at her.
Eyes searching his, she pressed her lips together, shook her head, and then said, “You know what, fuck it. Send them home. What do we care?”
“Should I repeat back your points from two seconds ago?”
“I have more points.” Lillian held up one finger. “Berger may be a powerful Alpha, but he’s new and Purple Sky is small and fractured. He’ll need all his strength to save that crumbling pack. Engaging in a feud with you will make that impossible.” She raised another finger. “You’re only twenty-three and you’ve already been leading a pack for seven years. A large, powerful pack. And you’ve defended yourself against challenges multiple times during every one of those years. And it’s not just Keith Iredell. How many other upstart Alphas have swaggered onto our land thinking they could rule a powerful pack by taking out a younger Alpha?” She didn’t want for an answer. “You showed all of them that you’re a force to be reckoned with, Morgan. No other Alpha your age has your level of experience, and no other Alpha period has won as many challenges. So even if Berger is prideful and stupid enough to neglect his problems at home and go after you, you can take him down like you did the rest of them.”
“Okay, we need to slow down.” Morgan raised both palms. “The other Alphas wanted to take over our pack so I fought them to defend us. I’m not interested in starting a feud with anyone, even if I will win.” He didn’t need to meet the Purple Sky Alpha to know he could best him in a challenge. He was accustomed to dealing with older Alphas, more experienced Alphas, larger Alphas. And he was also accustomed to standing his own against all of them and making Golden Valley proud. Morgan may not be strong enough for the fates to deem him worthy of a mate, but he had been forced to learn how to lead, how to negotiate, and how to fight from a too-young age, and he had proven himself good at all of it. “But you’re right about Purple Sky. That pack has been shrinking for years. This new Alpha may be their last chance to survive. I don’t want to distract him from his mission.”
“Then what do you suggest, Morgan?” she asked, sounding tired.
Although they had grown up together, been the closest of friends, and even shared each other’s beds once upon a time, Lillian had all but stopped using his name when he stepped into the role of Alpha. She insisted on ‘showing him the proper respect’ no matter how many times he told her it wasn’t necessary. It was one of many ways becoming pack Alpha had stripped him of his previous identity. Silly though it was, hearing his name in her voice, especially so softly, filled him with warm memories of afternoons curled together in the meadows and evenings cuddled in bed, softly whispering dreams of the future.
“Come here, Lil.” He reached out, wrapped his arm around her, and drew her close. “It’s going to be fine. They’re just a couple of wolves, not the boogeymen.”
Her posture remained stiff and tense, but when he ran his palm over her head, she relaxed and melted against him. The sexual attraction they’d shared as youths had long since disappeared, but their joined history had grown deeper and stronger. When he had been forced to step in as pack Alpha at age sixteen, Morgan had invited eighteen-year-old Lillian to serve as one of his Betas. His father’s inner circle worked with her and, as she did with all things, she learned quickly. Now she was head Beta of Golden Valley.
“Thank you, Lil.”
Raising her head, she looked at him questioningly. “I just gave you awful advice. Why are you thanking me?”
“Because I couldn’t do this day in and day out without you.”
