Alpha Alexander

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I stared at my reflection, my fingers tickling my neck where the pentagram mark stood out starkly against my naturally pale skin, recently freshened up by my mate. One of the eighty-dollar red lingerie sets was shredded in the wastebasket a few feet away from where I sat at the vanity in the bathroom—the third set to be torn off my body by a very impatient Alpha male.

I had filled in my dark eyebrows and put on some spot concealer for where my stress-pimples were emerging on my cheeks and forehead, but that was all Chloe allowed me to do. I needed to look natural for the ceremony, not made-up like a doll or a runner-up for Miss America, she said. She brushed my hair to make the curls she had made a little looser and softer. I caught her eye in the mirror, my fingers still pressed lightly against my neck. 

Chloe smiled at me, "Are you excited?"

"More like terrified," I sighed.

She chuckled. "You'll be all right. It'll be over before you know it."

I swallowed. "Chloe . . . can I ask you something?"

"Of course you can, Phoebe."

I hesitated, "Um . . . how . . . how old are you?"

Chloe's hand faltered. "Why do you ask that?"

"Well . . . you're human and you don't look much older than I do, but you talk about being mated to Gerald like you've been together for decades. How is that possible?"

Chloe stared at me, expressionless, for a few seconds before putting down the brush and sliding her body onto the countertop. Her hands rubbed her knees as she took a breath and said, "I was eighteen when Gerald found me. I was at the cinema with my girlfriends. I even remember the movie—It Happened One Night. He was waiting for me outside the theater with a group of men, one of them a cousin to one of the girls I was with. We all went for a drive and then he asked if he could drive me home. I said yes because I felt . . . connected with him. When we got to my house, he asked if he could call on me, and I again said yes.

"Later that night, my father came home drunk, which wasn't uncommon. He struck my mother, which was expected after he'd had a few drinks. When she didn't fight back like she normally did, he came after me. Everything happened so fast—one moment I'm screaming, covering my face with my arms, and the next, a giant wolf bursts through our front window and tackles my father to the floor. I panicked and ran out the front door, in my nightgown and no shoes. Before I made it down the driveway, he had me in his arms and placed me inside his car. I fought like hell, called him every name in the book—including the ones no proper woman should even think about, let alone say aloud."

Chloe's eyes glazed over, as if she was lost in her own thoughts. Her fingers absently toyed with the handle of the brush still in her hand. 

"The Sophos doesn't belong to a pack. This is so no Alpha can claim him as one of their pack members, which could be seen as political advantage. He has his own secluded territory in north Texas, where werewolves come to speak to him regularly. The drive from my hometown in California to Texas was a long one; it took us nearly three days in that cramped Rolls Royce to reach his territory. We would stop at motels for nights. I tried to run away countless times, but he always caught me before I even reached the door. I climbed out a window once," she chuckled. "He was already on the ground beneath it, and caught me as I fell."

She finally looked at me. "I was born in the summer of 1916, Phoebe."

My jaw dropped. 

"Jesus, you look good for an old lady," came out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

She laughed, her blond hair falling around her shoulders as her head tilted back. "I am human, Phoebe. But I am also mated to a very dominant, very old wolf, just as you are."