Alpha's Choice

Chapter 21 Unexpected

Xander’s POV

*potential trigger warning*

After Xerxes and Xavier’s dramatic exits I was left to think about what it all could mean. What if it was supposed to be Xavier’s turn? It’s not like the Goddess was the one who willed away Xavier’s claim it was my own mother. Even if I helped restore his statuses as a pack member, I could never be the one to restore his birthright. The more I thought about it the more it plagued me. Xavier had always done everything I had ever needed him to and more. He was kind, attentive, resilient and fair. He was also strong as the day was long despite him being several inches shorter than me, he was every bit as wide, and his wolf was just as big.

That was actually the thought that scared me more then any others. If Xavier was meant to be Alpha so be it, but I was not in any mind to engage my own brother. There have been plenty of sibling blood spilled over the years in the name of succession, but it wouldn’t be my pack. I owed Xavier to much and vice versa. Hell, Xavier was my favorite person in existence other than Alexandria now, and I had no to desire to fight him. It would be such a devastating fight. The giant golden and black wolves in a face off would be one for the millennia.

Today Xavier also did something he has never done before. He withheld information from me and father. It was obvious it had something to do Xenobia. I figured he would relent the information when I came clean about everything to do with Alexandria, but I think maybe all the Dumas men were struggling tonight. Xerxes had to go tell Zoey her son might not be Alpha anymore despite all her best efforts. Xavier has to tame the power-hungry she-devil and I have a mate halfway claimed that despite my best efforts I can’t keep my hands off.

I drank the night away with one decanter after another. Alexandria went to bed hours ago. She was sleeping in my bed. Xerxes was no longer worried about what it would mean if the ritual wasn’t considered successful. One question that probed my mind the more I drank and the more I mulled it over. Did I even want to be Alpha anymore? Wouldn’t it be nice to just have a quiet existence with Alexandria, playing all those games carried she carried around in her pretty little head. The very thoughts that brought be to my knees before her.

I know I had too much to drink as I processed these ideas, but it was the only reprieve I had from feeling like a failure. I was losing everything around me. It was all crumbling and falling to the wayside. I was trying to justify not needing Alpha to be happy, but I had been doing it so long I had no idea who I was without the title. I was trying to console myself with thinking my little troublemaker would be enough, but mostly I was just finding more reasons to tip the bottle to the sky and wallow in my own self-pity. I stayed there staring into the raging fireplace lost in my thoughts until the black sky faded to an orange haze.

Alex was making soft noises in her sleep that eventually distracted me from my train of thought. I thought then about how she must feel in all this. She had no idea about shifter laws or traditions. She knew nothing of mate bonds. She was just a girl worried that she was costing me everything I ever worked for and that wasn’t fair to her. Especially since none of this was her fault. It was all written in the cards long before she was ever a thought. There was no telling her that though. I could sense her thoughts often and got many views into her mind, and it was the gentleness and concern I found there that were winning me over even more then her raunchy ones. She was the perfect combination of sweet and saucy.

I went to her. I couldn’t help myself, like a siren she called me to her even from sleep. I was also drunk and irrationally beating myself up over circumstances beyond my control. She was something I had control over though. She wanted me to control her.

I swear something in me snapped in that moment as her scent hit me and the soft sound of her sigh as I curled my body around hers. I needed her and I could feel it all the way to the center of my being. When all this was over she was the one guarantee of what would still be mine. It was my greatest temptation, not being able to have what I knew was mine.