The Personal Choice

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The smell of her favorite breakfast meat floated up to Ali’s nose and helped her to get up out of bed. She looked over at the time to see that it was eight in the morning. She’d slept for a few hours after her grueling workout with Damien; and her body was definitely letting her know that was never happening again.

She lifted her arms above her in a full body stretch and caught a whiff of herself. She wrinkled her nose and got up to take a shower.

Twenty minutes later, showered and dressed, Ali followed her nose to what she could only assume was the kitchen where the smell of the delicious bacon was wafting up from.

She happened to walk into a very nice dining room. She wasn’t going to stop and say anything to the people sitting there, eating and chatting, but someone called her name and she froze as all eyes were on her.

“Allison! Look everyone, it’s Damien’s new mate!” exclaimed Luke. He had a huge grin on his face that some people might have found boyishly charming but Ali could tell that he wasn’t being friendly.

She looked around the room, people of all shapes, sizes and ethnic backgrounds sat around the huge table staring at her.

Ali’s heart was pounding so loudly in her ears she didn’t hear when Damien came up beside her and put a large hand around her waist.

“Yes Luke, this is my mate. Everyone I’d like you to meet Allison McBride; though she goes by Ali for short. I would like you all to welcome her and treat her as part of the pack; and treat her with the respect of your Alpha Female.”

There were many smiles in her direction after that, some genuine, and some faked because they didn’t want to look malicious towards their leader’s new woman.

There were also a good amount of disinterested looks; like they didn’t care one way or the other about her and those went right back to eating. But there weren’t any actual hostile looks, except for one.

She happened to rise up from her chair, and Ali watched as she kept going and going as she stood up. The woman was tall, blonde and absolutely beautiful. Low self-esteem or not, this woman would make any woman jealous.

Ali swallowed as she glided over to where she and Damien were. She looked up at the woman, she was almost the same height as Damien but she also had on ankle-breaking stilettos. She was probably pushing six feet tall without the death traps.

“Damien,” she said with a pout of her full, pink lips, “I thought we were going to get married?”

Ali barely contained her gasp; instead it came as a sharp intake of breath. The blonde ignored her whether she heard it or not, but Damien looked down at her with concern.

“Ali, I’d like you to meet Vicky; Vicky this is Ali. She was my bride-to-be, I guess you could say, but I found you instead,” Damien said with a smile.

Vicky smiled as well but Ali could tell it was anything but friendly. She stuck out her hand and said, “Pleasure to meet you.”

Ali looked down at her well-manicured hand and then looked at hers; she hadn’t gone to the beauty salon in months, and her recent phase had her nails looking ragged.

She took Vicky’s hand, as not to be rude, and shook it, “Pleasure’s all mine,” she said in response; feeling incredibly short, fat and ugly around this woman.

The blonde woman smiled at Damien and said, “Well isn’t she just absolutely adorable? Your pups will be the cutest thing; that is if they don’t take after their mother, but if they do they would look like fat, little dumplings.”