The Prince’s Unwilling mate

216 Griffin

Of course, Ayla figured out something was wrong. That’s the problem with having a mate who is as intelligent as she is kind. She knows when something is wrong with me, and she cares enough to want to know so she can try to make it better. Try and make me feel better about whatever it is that is bothering me. Only I know she can’t and I don’t want to take away from this moment. I need to get my head out of my ass. This way it looks like I am not excited about telling the pack that we are pregnant and I am.

Every single member of our pack will be happy about this news. Well, all but one, but I don’t think she will be present tonight. She never goes to pack meetings anymore. In fact, she hardly spends time with the pack. If she is not working her human job she is spending time with her human friends. Going as far as to spend some nights there. From what I understood she always asks Sam if he is okay with her going out and spending time with her friend. Only Sam still has a blind spot about his daughter. Now that she seems to be doing so much better on the surface who can blame him for letting her have some fun with friends? Especially since her behavior left her without any friends in the pack.

Even Anna no longer wants to be seen with Cynthia, turned out Aaron a member of our pack who went to college to get a law degree because he wanted to be the pack’s lawyer is her mate. He still was involved with the pack business, he even came home during all the breaks from college. Breaks Anna and her parents would spend at her father’s old pack, with her paternal family. That’s why it took them so long to find out they were mates. Anna was elated to find out Aaron was her mate,

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and I get why. He is a good guy, most she–wolfs find him attractive, I can even say as a straight guy that he is a good–looking fellow. They went to pack high school together, shared some classes and they would always get along great.

Aaron on the other hand, has so much loyalty to the pack, and he has accepted Ayla without a shred of doubt. That he was disappointed that his mate had behaved like she did. He had asked Mom for her advice as the Luna. He loved her, he loved the girl he knew she could be, the girl who could be the perfect mate for him. The girl that he wanted to accept. as his fated mate in a heartbeat. But the thought of his fated mate, his marked mate being someone who did not respect the leaders of his pack like he does, stopped him from making a decision.

Anna was never the one who started things, she seemed to get swept up in Cynthia’s plans. Mom told Aaron as much and convinced him to give her a chance. He did, he never told Anna to stop seeing Cynthia either. He would just make it a point not to spend time with Anna if Cynthia was there too. Already fed up with the problems it caused her, one day Anna had told Cynthia they were no longer friends. It was nasty half the pack saw the fight. A fight that Cynthia had once again started. Ever since that fight, she started spending more and more time outside of the pack. And every time she did and did not cause any issues Sam saw it as change. Most other pack members did too.

Cynthia was still a bit of an outcast and she would never not be. She had done too much harm to the pack before. But everyone figured she had finally learned her lesson. Most were nice to her. Not kind, it was a little distant but nice enough. Everyone figured Cynthia had her fill of social interactions with her human friends. To me, it didn’t add up though. She could not go on a run with her human friends. Not unless she had told them what she was which would cause a whole other set of issues. There

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was just something wrong about how well–behaved and quiet she had been lately.

I did not want to but ever since Ayla told me Hannah works in the human mall, my mind had been racing. I tried to push those thoughts down, after all, I promised my mate and my family I would not stress out so much about our safety anymore. Last night when Ayla was sleeping peacefully beside me, I finally caved. It had been another three hours of staring at the ceiling hoping I could fall asleep, as my mind kept buzzing with questions about Hannah Cynthia and their connection. I

remembered Hannah telling Cynthia something when she was banned from the castle grounds. But for the life of me, I could not remember what it was.

In the end, when I was sure I wouldn’t fall asleep I got out my laptop. Pulled up the security camera records of when the two she–wolves were locked up together. They both had their own cell. We believe even prisoners need to be treated fairly and have some privacy. I knew their cells had been across the hall from each other. Having looked back at the camera records last night. I could see they spent most of their days chatting. There was no sound so I could not hear what they had been saying. But in the hours between closing my laptop and now making my way to the pack canteen for the big meeting. I had thoroughly convinced myself of the fact that Hannah and Cynthia were planning something together.

Ayla said she saw Hannah startle, and she could tell it was genuine. And I don’t doubt that, but seeing the person you are plotting against walk into your place of work must be a bit daunting too. It could very well be that Hannah just had a jump scar thinking she and Hannah were caught

in the act.

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216 Griffin Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

1288 Vouchers

We had reached the canteen now, and after a quick sweep of the room, I saw Cynthia was a no–show indeed. It meant that tonight we would have one more peaceful night. A time to enjoy the best news I had gotten since Ayla accepted me as her mate. I would enjoy celebrating it with my pack, and my loved ones. Telling myself not to let the fear of the known and the unknown ruin this special night. We had too many special moments ruined already. Tomorrow I would look into Hannah and Cynthia more to be sure that I was keeping not only my mate and unborn pup safe, but the rest of my pack too, and with it the nation. I just had to make sure Ayla would not find out about it. Not until I was sure something was wrong, or maybe I was wrong and in a week from now I could tell her she had been right. Confess to her how I had tried to find another danger lurking around the corner, but that there wasn’t any. She might be mad at me for a few days but I would always prefer that over not keeping her and my pup safe when my gut told me that something was wrong.

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