Luci, the Alpha and Beta's Concubine

CH 7

Luci

She found Alpha Rafe’s eyes right on her as he stated he’d been able to accommodate her mother’s sleeping arrangements. She turned her own eyes to the floor and tried not to smile; Goddess she really did want to hug her mother right now. Loved her so very much.

“Why on earth would you request that?” she heard her father ask of her mother.

“Luci is an adult now dear, has her own suite inside our pack, and she needs her privacy here as well. There is a connecting door to our room.”

Her father was more than annoyed now, and she was not the only one to sense it. Even Alpha Rafe knew it was time to leave. “I’m happy I was able to accommodate this for you, Luna Addison. Please everyone settle in and then come down to the dining room for dinner. Orien, you recall where that is from your previous visit?”

“Yes, what time?” her father asked.

“Say, one hour. That will give you all time to freshen up after your long drive.”

“Luci in.” her father stated flatly.

“Yes, father.” She nodded and walked passed them all and into the suite.

“You’re welcome.” Her mother stated softly as she pushed the door open to Luci’s room and walked her in there.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t get caught.” Her mother murmured in a bare whisper, and walked off to look around.

Don’t get caught, Goddess her mother was the best. She had her own room and a lockable door between her and their room. She smiled as she looked around. It was amazing; had a sitting area with a plush-looking couch. A single step up into the bedroom area, and a whole wall of windows that had a view of the forest behind the packhouse. There was a large ensuite with a massive soaker tub and a large shower. If this was just a guest room, what did the ranked members' rooms look like?

She turned and looked at the four-poster bed. It was huge, a king-sized bed with a cream and mauve duvet and half a dozen fat pillows, it was also quite high off the ground, probably to suit tall Alpha males or their units. She climbed right up onto that bed and just flopped down onto it. “Oh my Goddess.” She practically moaned it was so soft and comfortable, a dream bed if ever there was one.

She closed her eyes and just enjoyed the feeling, it felt like she was on a soft fluffy cloud, her moment was spoiled by Thatcher climbing up onto her bed. “Hey, you got a better bed.” He whined.

“I’m an adult.” She told him. “Why are you in here?”

“Dad said to tell you, shower, dress appropriately and get ready for dinner.”

“Right.” She nodded, dress appropriately, in the jeans and baggy tee-shirts he’d packed for her. He was trying to make her look dowdy and she knew it. The man had been here before, seen the wolves that lived here. There must be some real nice buffed-up ones around, she smiled to herself, had to be if her father was trying to make her look less attractive to them.

‘Oh, father. You give yourself away too easily.’ She thought and got up to go shower as instructed. She dressed in her jeans and a dark blue tee-shirt he had packed for her. Twisted that loose-fitting material and tied it into a knot on her left hip. Smiled to herself, yes dress appropriately, she thought.

Slipped on her black ballet flats, she’d not been allowed heels or boots, brushed her long hair and left it out, to hang loosely down her back; It almost reached her waist, and she did love how dark her brown hair was. It was a shame she couldn’t straighten it, but it still fell nicely.

She stepped out of her room and into the hallway to wait for the rest of them, took the opportunity to stroll the hallway and look at some more of the artwork on the walls.

“What are you wearing?” her father asked her the minute he stepped out of his room and looked at her.

“What you packed father.” She smiled at him and got glared at in return.

“Behave yourself, girl.” He muttered. “This is not our pack, and you will act accordingly. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, father.” She nodded.

Found him staring right at her, “I mean it, Luci.”

“I understand.” She clarified, she would behave herself, until he fell asleep. She heard Kali snort with amusement inside her mind ‘, yeah, then we're sneaking out of here, got a whole forest to check out.’

Dinner here was the same as it was back in her home pack, a long line of buffet tables set up for perusing and selecting from a variety of foods. Her father walked all the way along the buffet with her, didn’t, it seemed, even trust her with getting food on her own.

“Please father, some breathing room, it’s just dinner.” She sighed up at him.

“Not a chance Luci. You’re an 18-year-old unmarked Alpha’s daughter in another pack. I will escort you everywhere myself.” His voice could be heard by all, and she realised it was not actually meant for her, but for those un-mated males in this room, that might get any idea’s where she was concerned.

She turned her eyes up to him. “Is that really necessary?”

“Yes,” he stated flatly, as he stared right down at her, now she knew that was aimed at her.

She sighed again and collected herself a light meal of grilled chicken breast and a walnut and lentil salad and put some balsamic vinegar dressing on it. She didn’t eat like everyone else in large quantities, didn’t have a wolf to rip out of her to burn those extra calories, that and she wasn’t hungry all of a sudden. She sat quietly at the Alpha table with her family and said very little.

It was expected of her to behave, so she would do just that, though she saw several younger children playing just outside on the grass beyond the dining hall and looking at Thatcher, she could also see that he wanted to get up and go make friends, play with the other children his age. “Just go.” She murmured to him softly. “It’s me, he’s watching, your free to roam. Go have fun.” She even nudged him a little to encourage him to go.

Saw her brother looking at their parents. Their father was chatting away with Alpha Rafe, but their mother waved the boy off to go play as well. He was gone in a flash after smiling up at her. Luci watched her father’s reaction, he glanced at Thatcher for only a moment, and then went back to his conversation. ‘Double standards’, she thought to herself. ‘I’d be yelled at if I got up and ran off like that.’

‘Always did have.’ Kali huffed. ‘It’s hot in here.’

‘Mm, it is a bit.’ Luci agreed, she drank some of the cold water in the glass on the table before her. It was chilled nicely and helped a little with the feeling of being hot, but not that much.

Dinner over and done with, and she was well-behaved the whole time, sat and smiled politely as was expected, and kept her eyes firmly on her dinner unless asked a direct question by her father, didn’t once even eye anybody off.

She was trying to get her father to relax and loosen his parental grip on her, not an easy thing to do. Certainly not with the drop-dead sexy beasts at this very table, and it was bloody hard not to look at either the Alpha or his Beta. The Gamma was Marked and Mated, not his Delta, though they’d both smiled at her and nodded in greeting, and she’d nodded back in return.

Luci had been called to go with her father to the Alpha’s office, was just standing in there looking around at the things in here. Even the Alpha’s office was huge. It was twice the size of her father's, and it had two desks in here. Though she did note that the room was split, its style remained the same, minimalistic in its furnishings, everything was neat and tidy and seemed to be in its place.

Luci knew that she was only actually in this room, because her father wanted to keep tabs on her every move while they were here. Not because she was needed to be in this room at all, her mother was also in this office, sitting comfortably next to her father with a cup of tea in her hand. She seemed to like Alpha Rafe and his Beta Jack, was smiling at them for the most part while they talked.

Luci’s eyes moved to Alpha Rafe and his Beta Jack. They were sitting on a black leather couch next to each other, looking very comfortable with each other’s presence. They had likely known each other their entire lives. Kind of like brothers, she thought, they were even drinking the same drink, a Bourbon on the rocks.

Her father had declined her drink when it was offered to her by Beta Jack when he’d been getting everyone else a drink. She’d said nothing, to her father’s words. If she did, he would just state she wasn’t old enough to drink or that she couldn’t drink it because she was wolf-less and couldn’t handle it.

Worked that word wolf-less into a sentence to let this Alpha and Beta know she was wolf-less. All she did was roll her eyes at his words and that had not gone un-noticed by the Beta. Jack’s mouth had twitched slightly in one corner with amusement, but that had been all.

She was simply just standing by, observing them, as was the instructions from her father, as they had walked to the office. “Stand and observe how an Alpha meeting goes. Don’t interrupt the conversation.” Had been his words. “You’re here to start learning about the Alpha duties and how formalities are attended to.” He’d told her, and she’d nodded though knew it was a crock.

They were all discussing the schedule for tomorrow and the next day. It surprised her more than a little that her father was here and going to be looking at how they trained their wolves as well.

Though she did know that he was looking to upgrade the training grounds back home, to something more strenuous, that would bring about more agility to his own wolves. It had been the same course he had run as a boy, and needed up-grading. But she’d not expected her father to be taking advice on training his wolves from another Alpha.

He was a bit of a stickler and didn’t like being told what to do or how to do it, and from what she’d seen he didn’t like taking advice from others on how he ran his pack. Either he liked this Alpha and respected him or he needed something else from him other than the training ground and was trying to show he was open to their input.

Luci found Beta Jack’s eyes on her after she’d finished taking a good look around the room. His eyes were wandering right over her actually, until, that was, his eyes met hers. She smiled right at him and raised an eyebrow. It had not escaped her attention that the man was unmarked. She did, however, know the rules though.

Alpha’s and Beta’s, hell, their whole units were off limits to her, unless one of them happened to be her Mate. Who knew why? Not her, that was for sure, but by the way this man was looking at her, he was interested.

She nearly laughed when her father cleared his throat noisily, realising that Beta Jack was eyeing her off right in front of him, openly so. She moved her eyes away from the Beta so as not to get into trouble herself, to the painting that was on the wall behind where he and his Alpha were sitting, as though she was studying it. If her father looked at her, he’d not think she’d seen that Beta looking her over.