The Prince’s Unwilling mate

200 Ayla

“We, need to go to Milo, baby, what are you doing?” I place my hand on Griffin’s shoulder to snap him out of it.

I found him, frantically watching the surveillance footage. He didn’t even notice me come in. And when I touched him he almost jumped out of his seat. Before shutting down his laptop.

“I am sorry, darling, I still feel like something is off and I want to keep you and our little pup safe.” He said, then pulled me closer and kissed my stomach.

Resting his head against my stomach he still didn’t get up. I raked my nails through his hair, over his scalp. Loving the way his skin was littered with goosebumps from my touch. It wasn’t the first time Griffin was overly worried about our safety. He kept telling me that he could feel it wasn’t over yet. Something I had felt for weeks, so it’s not like I didn’t understand. It was just that for weeks nothing had happened. Not since Hannah was declared rouge and Sam punished Cynthia.

We still kept a lot of the extra security matters. Neither of us would go out without at least one bodyguard. I felt safe and I feared Griffin was still traumatized by the fact he thought he lost me. He made me go to therapy, I was grateful he did. But he never considered healing from his own trauma. Maybe I should tell him to go visit the pack therapist too. It would have to wait. Tonight we had our taste dinner, Griffin had finally gotten up and changed into a clean shirt he had in his office. Then we finally made our way to Milo’s we would be a little late but we were

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200 Ayla

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sure he would understand. I sent him a quick mind link to let him know work ran a little late. Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“For starters, I have two options, these slow braised beef cheek tacos with a herb and yogurt sauce. Or the salmon and asparagus quiches” Our stomach rumbles as Milo serves us our first plate.

One look at Griffin and I know he feels the same. Both dishes are delicious. The tacos are so special to us. But while every wolf likes beef, not all of them love tacos.

“Milo, can we have both as an option and have people RSVP, with their choice of foods?” Griffin asks.

We were afraid it might be too big of an ask. Milo seems excited to be able to do both dishes. When he served the lamb racks, with sweet potato fries and roasted vegetables. And the seared tuna with wild fried rice and grilled green beans with walnuts. He instantly offered to do both dishes for our wedding too. The only problem with both dishes was that the proteins would be medium rare. Not cooked all the way through. Normally that wouldn’t be a problem. Now that I am pregnant, I cannot eat raw fish or meat.

Milo feels something about the dishes is not to our liking and his face falls. I know he is proud of his work. Now that he is cooking for the royal marriage, for his friends. It’s even more important to him. I almost feel like we should tell him, but that’s the one disadvantage of being in a pack. When humans marry it doesn’t matter if they tell the chef they are expecting. The chef most likely isn’t their friend, it’s a stranger who will accommodate the pregnancy and the restriction. In a professional matter,

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now we would not only be telling the chef. We would be telling a member of our pack, a friend. We would also ask him to lie, to his mate, children, and everyone he knew.

“Both dishes are amazing Milo but I think we would prefer to have one meal with a protein that is fully cooked. You know to accommodate pregnant wolves like my sister-in-law.” Griffin rescued me.

“Of course, sorry I should have thought about that before. I can substitute the lamb rack for gu inea fowl” Milo suggested and with that, we had the main courses figured out too.

For dessert, we would have the wedding cake and a sweets buffet. Milo wouldn’t be in charge of deserts though. Theo the royal pastry chef would be making those with his staff. We would have our cake and desserts testing tomorrow. After dinner, we join Milo for a tea out on his porch. Before he can offer us anything stronger, which he no doubt would have. We excuse ourselves since we had a long and busy day. Milo accepted it without any questions. And while it was not the only reason we left relatively early, it wasn’t a lie. This time I did not have to feel guilty about it which was a nice change.

***

An hour later we were both snuggled up in bed, we each had some reading that needed to be done for our work. Since we were tired and hadn’t had as much quality time as we would have liked. We decided that reading like this, in bed, snuggled up together music playing in the background. After a test tasting dinner for our wedding menu would be the closest thing to a night of quality time we could

have now. Tomorrow Mom, Grandma, and Kate would come over for two days. They would arrive in the morning so they could join me, Isabella, Jessa,

and Krystel in the wedding dress shopping.

The dress would need to be a flowy model that would accommodate my growing stomach. I was a bit worried the girls would figure out I was pregnant and I had wanted to postpone the wedding dress shopping. It was Isabella who pointed out that if I waited too long I would be very limited in my choice of dress. Since it was only two more weeks before we could tell them my mind drifted to the possibility of telling them all over lunch. Before we would go dress shopping.

Grandpa, Dad, and Tim would join their mates in traveling here. Not that they needed to but they could all get a few days off from their role in the pack. It made sense why be apart from your mate when you could join them visiting family instead.

“Baby, I know we said we would wake up another two weeks, but with my family coming over today. And with the wedding dress shopping would you mind if we have lunch before and tell everyone. Or well just our closest family we can tell the rest of the pack in two weeks?” Griffin closed the file he was reading and looked at me to answer my question.

His face softened and I knew what he was going to tell me. It was clear he still felt bad about the first flight we had. Or the first fight since I accepted him as my fated mate. A fight that almost stopped me from marrying him. Because he had almost taken the fun out of the wedding planning. I just hoped that his answer would be honest this time. Everything that involved our pup should be a joint decision that we both fully supported.

“How can I say no to you after what I did last time, Darling? You know I still feel terrible about that right? There is just one favor I have to ask you.” He asked me and just the tone of his voice told me that I would not