The Alpha's Wanted Queen

Chapter 1 - Planning the Ball

Annabella POV 

Jab. Cross. Right hook. Jab. Jab. 

I lay punch after punch onto Jeremy. But my top vampire warrior s***h bodyguard continues to block and duck away from every damn hit. I throw my arms down and huff in exasperation. 

“Why the hell can't I hit you?!” I yell. He smirks and, instead of responding, he rears up and throws a punch right back at me. I quickly lift my arm up —completely out of habit — and block his hard hit with my forearm with a sickening crack. 

“f**k!” I scream and cradle my arm against my body. 

“How many times do I have to tell you to duck, Bella? Stop blocking punches with the weakest bones in your body!” He berates me. I glare at him and keep my arm pressed gingerly against me while I wait for the bones to heal so I can feel my fingers again. 

“Bella!” the most comforting voice yells from across the training field. Eli strides right through my fiery training circle, pushes past Jeremy’s tall form, gently takes my arm into his hand while wrapping the other one protectively around my waist and inspects the smooth skin of my forearm. 

“It’s okay, Eli,” I murmur. 

“What happened?” he asks anyways. I ignore him. 

“I'm fine. It's healed already.” I turn my arm around, clenching and unclenching my fist to show him. He sighs and places a light kiss on my lips then turns and glares right at Jeremy. 

“What the hell Jeremy! Why was her arm broken?” I place a hand on his bicep to calm him down. 

“She needs to learn to duck instead of block with her arm.” He retorts with a shrug. 

“And to teach her that you break her f*****g arm?!” Eli growls but Jeremy, unfazed, just rolls his eyes. This has been happening for fourteen years now so the vamp is used to my husband’s Alpha antics. 

“She's a vampire! She's fine.” He huffs and Eli growls again turning his glare to me. 

“You two are done for the day. You're needed inside.” 

“For what?” I ask. He gives me a ‘what do you think’ look. “Which ones?” I ask through a sigh with an eyeroll to match that of my teenage children. 

“The twins are arguing about the ball,” I groan. Aaron and Alex are turning eighteen so we are planning a mating ball for them. We've been planning it for two weeks, and every single day has been spent fighting about one detail or another. 

“Those two are as bad as you,” I grumble, letting my circle die down to a simmer in the charred grass. He smirks at me and leads me towards the house with Jeremy diligently trailing behind us. It doesn’t take us long to hear the boys arguing in the small living room on the third floor of the pack house. 

“I said no, Aaron! I don’t want to be ogled all night just to discover she's not even there!” Something heavy slams into the floor. 

“Alex, you're being ridiculous.” Aaron yells with a groan. 

“No I —”

“Do it for mom.” Aaron’s voice is low and calm. Their bond with me is uniquely strong and only in rare circumstances do they use it against each other. In the silence that follows Aaron's comment, I round the corner into the room to be faced with the disaster the boys caused. They're both shirtless and glaring at each other while a chair lays in pieces on the floor and a plate is shattered in the sink. The other kids are eating quietly on the couches, wisely staying out of it. 

“What's wrong?” I ask even though I think I have the gist from what I heard coming up the stairs. 

“Alex is saying he won't attend the stupid ball,” Aaron tells me, glaring at his brother. 

“Even you're calling it stupid, and you're the one advocating for it!” Alex points out. I sigh and push my thumbs against my temples. 

“Clean up this mess and come sit in the living room and we can talk about it.” I tell them and drag Eli to the empty loveseat. I lean against him and allow the familiar comforting effects of the mate bond to calm me down. 

I scan the room, taking note of everyone here. Natalia and Samuel —Jake and Laney’s younger son —sit side-by side on the couch whispering quietly while their older son, Daniel, is reclining at the opposite end of the couch with his eyes closed. Max —Hannah and Nick’s oldest —sits in the rocking chair next to the couch frequently shooting subtle looks in Nat and Sam’s direction. Zander is cross-legged on the floor with Hannah and Nick’s younger son, Joshua, and their best friend, Conner. Conner is a fourteen-year-old born vampire Zander met at the clan. The three of them became friends immediately. Him and his parents decided to let the kid live at the pack house with me and Zander. It has been a great help in the integration of the two species. 

Aaron and Alex stomp into the room collapsing onto the couch between Natalia and Daniel. 

“So, someone please tell me exactly what the problem is with this ball.” I say but they remain silently glaring at the carpet. Natalia rolls her eyes. 

“They want to wait to have the ball until they become Alpha,” she explains. 

“Why? We will just have another one when that happens.” I shrug. 

“And another when we actually find our Lunas? Mom, that’s so many balls.” Aaron whines. 

“You could find them at your mating ball,” Eli tells them and Alex rolls his eyes. 

“We all know we won't. We've been eighteen for months now, so we know it's no one in our pack and the chances of them being two of the few coming from the other packs is slim.” Alex mutters. I get where they're coming from but there's nothing wrong with having several balls. And for all we know, they could very well find their mates at their mating ball. 

“Why can't you just hand the position down? You know we’re ready and you say all the time how you wish you didn’t have to deal with all the stress anymore!” Aaron yells looking over my shoulder to his father. 

“Son, it's not about you not being ready,” Eli starts but I cut him off. 

“No, Aaron. It is not the time for you to be taking over. We've talked about this over and over. You kids are not taking over until after this damn war is done. You guys can worry about finding your mates and training and starting school.” 

“Do you think they’ll share a mate?” Natalia asks randomly. 

“It's possible, a lot of wolf twins do but that doesn’t mean it's a guarantee,” Eli tells her. No one says anything for a moment while they digest that possibility. 

“We won't.” Alex says. 

“How could you be sure?” Aaron huffs. 

“I don’t know, Aaron, I just know that we won't. And anyways, I'm okay with waiting to be Alpha, I don’t know why you're so rushed about it. I just think this ball is unnecessary.” He shrugs casually even though what he said is anything but nonchalant. I look at my son, study his face, waiting for him to accidentally give away his true feelings on this matter. Yet, he remains impassive. 

Aaron is so gung-ho about becoming Alpha but for some reason, Alex seems like he couldn’t care less when they take over. I look to Eli over my shoulder but he looks equally as confused. Aaron snaps me back into the present. 

“What the hell is your problem, Alex?! Why are you being so negative about being Alpha? We’re ready for it and once we find our mate, we’ll have a Luna to help us lead well.” Alex just rolls his eyes again. 

“Well, I’m excited for the ball! And I can't wait to find my mate!” Natalia squeals alleviating the angry atmosphere. Eli snaps his head to his daughter so suddenly that his chin knocks into the back of my head. 

“Elijah!” I reprimand but he completely ignores me. 

“Princess, let's not think about that yet, yeah? You're only sixteen, you still have two more years until it's time for you to start looking for your mate,” he tells her softly. Samuel chuckles quietly while Nat just rolls her eyes in the same fashion as her older brother. I shift my gaze to the rocking chair. Max is sitting still as rock glaring at the spot where Sam’s hand rests on Nat’s arm. He’s had a crush on my daughter since the day he met her in my hospital bed. I give him credit for hiding it from the rest of the guys, but a mother always knows. Hannah and I have our own theories about it that we continue to keep from Eli. 

“How about we just remember that this ball isn’t just for you two. It's for Daniel and Max, too, and since it's Max’s birthday the day of the ball, he could very well find out his mate is someone in this pack.” I remind them while keeping my gaze locked on Max. 

“And Dan’s only been eighteen for two days and is basically a hermit, so we all know he hasn’t met enough she-wolves to know if his mate is here or not,” Sam adds teasingly. 

“Can we get back to Nat being excited about this ball?” Aaron says. “What are you wearing? We have to approve it.”

“She's having a guard right?” Alex interjects turning to me and Eli. 

“Um, no,” I say at the same time Eli grits out, “definitely.” 

“You are not approving my dress and I'll stay with Sam, okay?” Nat sighs trying to appease her overprotective brothers and father. 

“So, we’re done fighting about this right? It's three days away, and none of the finer details are planned,” I say.

“What are the ‘finer details’?” Alex asks. 

“Well, we need to decide on the color scheme and the layout. I also need to know if you guys all want announced or not and how many synchronized dances we will have …” I trail off thinking about what I would have wanted when I met Eli. 

“I can answer all of those questions,” Alex mutters, “you, aunt Hannah and Laney can pick the colors and layout ‘cause we don’t care.” Aaron chuckles. 

“Agreed. We definitely don’t need announced either,” Aaron adds. 

“Maybe we should just do a relaxed kind of ball. No announcements or synchronized dances, just everybody mingling and drinking and dancing as they want,” Daniel says and shrugs. The boys all nod in agreement. 

“What do you think, babe?” I ask Eli. 

“Flower, this is up to the kids.” He presses a kiss to my head and sighs, “Honestly, Bella, I agree with them. If I had met you at a mating ball, I wouldn’t have wanted to find out when I'm on a staircase with my dad presenting me to all the she wolves that showed up.” He wraps his arms around me as I let the words sink in. 

“Okay, that actually sounds really nice. I'll talk to Hannah and Laney about the other things but if that’s what you guys want, then it can be more casual. Maybe do shorter dresses instead of ball gowns and song requests or something.” 

“Are people from the clan coming too?” I turn to Zander who has turned around to speak. 

“Yeah, angel, I was thinking all single kids between like, maybe, eighteen and twenty. Do we have the room for that, Eli?” 

“Yeah, the ballroom is big and only unmated young wolves and the higher ups are coming from the two other packs, so we should be fine.” Zander and Conner start whispering excitedly while Joshua just smirks listening to them.  

“Well, this has been incredibly enlightening,” Eli drawls. “Next time you boys decide to destroy my living room, don’t expect me to grab your mother to mediate.” I roll my eyes and grin at my boys’ paling faces. “Also, we have a pack meeting tomorrow after breakfast, and I expect you four boys to be there.” He stands up from behind me and pulls me to my own feet into his hard chest. “Now, I am going to go spend some alone time with my wife.” 

“ELIJAH KING!” I chastise over the chorus of groans coming from the kids. He just chuckles and sweeps me up throwing me over his shoulder like a caveman. The atmosphere around us changes drastically when we cross the threshold to our room and he tosses me roughly onto the bed, crawling after me to loom over my body. His lips raise into a wicked smirk as I stare into his royal blue eyes. 

“Now I know why you're acting like a beast,” I whisper breathily. He shoves his face into the crook of my neck and nibbles on my mark. 

“Well, then, my delicate little mate, let me show you how beastly I can be.” He growls before claiming my lips harshly with his own.