The Alpha's love slave

CHAPTER THREE: FORBIDDEN!

Dastan looked at the young woman in front of him highly entertained with the fact that she was practically drooling over a fallen soufflé. But when she turned fiery golden eyes in his direction, his heart lurched inside his chest, and he forgot his next breath. She was beautiful.

With her fresh face devoid of makeup, she looked young and innocent, and completely different from the other women in the room. Her pristine beauty stood out in contrast with her simple black dress, but her most salient feature was her exquisitely golden eyes flashing fire towards him.

His c**k hardened involuntarily, and he was appalled. He was no s*x-craved teenager who was on the lookout for a one-night stand. Hosting the ball had been his idea, when he’d desperately wanted to meet his mate and as an Alpha, he’d assumed others might be as impatient as him.

What he hadn’t expected was to feel attracted to someone who he felt no connection with. He was no saint, but for the past years his wolf Meir craved for its mate, and he was trying everything in his power to find her. But to find himself getting aroused for an unknown female without the mate bond between them was scandalous.

Who was that enigmatic creature? Right in the middle of the food table, enjoying her dish with such unabashed desire? If food could make her so passionate, he couldn’t help wondering how hot she would be in his bed. With that wild hair spread all around him, and her long legs tangled with his, her delicate hands wrapped around his c*ck…

“Why are you staring at me like an i***t?” she snapped annoyed, her hungry eyes roaming over the table as she searched for something. Her nose wrinkled as she sniffed in deeply, and her eyes closed in wonder to appreciate the smell.

Dastan was captivated despite himself. With her eyes closed, she looked like an innocent angel. He shifted his legs uncomfortably, feeling properly chastised. “I’m sorry,” he felt bound to apologize. “Do you want another one?”

She shook her head distractedly. “What’s smelling so good?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in that cute way. “Are there any baked pastries around?” she searched the long table from top to bottom with eager anticipation. “They are my favorites.”

He was about to respond when a fierce growl rumbled behind him. “Mine!!!” a familiar voice echoed at his side, and Dastan turned stunned eyes to his beta Eaton. No way! His heart stopped inside his chest as his gaze collided with an unmistakably possessive pair of green eyes. The angel was Eaton’s mate!

He felt like somebody had landed a punch across his torso, the blow as real as the physical one would have actually been.

It made him cringe with shame to discover that he was attracted to his best friend and beta’s mate.

Gulping down the lump past his throat, he took a few steps back. Eaton and Dastan were best friends ever since the kindergarten. They’d grown up together, been to school from start to end together, and had broken the same hearts together. But they both knew the meaning of the mate bond – it was rare and precious.

Dastan felt a pang of envy for the first time in his life towards his friend. Was it because he’d found his mate before him? Or was it because she was his mate?! Horrified by his latest thought, he felt his heart constrict in pain as he watched Eaton advance towards the beautiful woman in a proprietorial stride.

Powerless despite being his Alpha, he watched as Eaton grabbed her hand. “Mine.” he repeated fiercely, and she beamed in response to him. Dastan hitched in another breath as the smile completely transformed her face. If he thought she was beautiful before, the hero-worship glow she gave Eaton made her gorgeous.

Her eyes lit up with a smoldering intensity and she tightened her grasp in Eaton’s hand. “Mate,” she confirmed breezily. “My mate,” she repeated proudly.

A visceral bout of jealousy gripped Dastan so hard that he staggered under the force and his heart ripped apart when he saw Eaton bending over to take possession of her lips. Unable to watch, he veered away from them to stumble out of the ball room which had suddenly become too stifled for him.

“Dastan are you alright?” a worried Claire stopped him midway, but he thrust aside her concern to make his way towards the balcony. It was a good thing that he hadn’t had dinner yet for nausea caught up with him and he wanted to retch.

What the hell was wrong with him? How could he be attracted to someone other than his fated mate? Was two years too much for him, and the long time were taking a toll on him? It was becoming common for werewolves to no longer find their mates at the age of eighteen, and the proof was himself. At the age of twenty, he was still mateless, and it weakened his position as an Alpha.

It was not very disconcerting when Eaton had been in the same situation, but now to find himself being the only one to still be single was a great matter of alarm for him. That was it. He could hardly be attracted to his brother’s mate, for he considered Eaton Miller to be his own blood.

It had just been the effect of having gulped down all that wine at the wolf comity over an empty stomach. There was no way he could be attracted to…Who was she anyway? He belatedly realized he hadn’t even caught her name.

“Dastan?” an urgent voice called him, and he whirled back to find a petrified Eaton near the glass sliding door which led to the balcony. His friend’s wan face was the indication that something was fundamentally wrong, and Dastan cast aside his problem in a jiffy.

As an Alpha, he’d promised to ever be present for any member of his pack whenever they needed him. “Eaton, what’s wrong? You look pale,” he signaled him to close the door behind him.

In a slow-motion which didn’t suit his beta, he watched Eaton’s sluggish movement with growing alarm.

Why was Eaton here with him instead of his new-found mate? What had happened to that alluring beauty? Who was that woman who had suddenly appeared in their lives and created havoc at first sight?

“Eaton!” he commanded in his Alpha voice when his friend’s eyes glazed over in reminiscence. Thankfully, his beta snapped to attention, with jaw clenched tightly as he watched his Alpha with a grim expression.

Dastan’s chest filled with a dark sense of foreboding. “Eaton, will you please tell me what’s wrong. Where is your mate? How can you leave her when you’ve just found her? We both know how long you’ve been waiting for her?”

“Sh…she….H…. her..,” Eaton stammered incoherently, before dumping his huge body against the balcony rail. “Oh, Dastan,” he sighed in a voice thick with pain and regret.

“What? She’s already married, is that it? She seems so young. She does not want you? She’s already in love with somebody else? Has she rejected you? Why are you so crestfallen, my friend? Is there anything I can do to help?”

Eaton closed his eyes in dismay, his body sagging to the ground as he folded his knees up and held his head over them. Dastan had never seen his friend so forlorn; the latter had always been a great companion in battles or at school. Pain for his friend gripped him, and he wished he could wipe off Eaton’s misery.

However, all he could do for now was be a good listener. Eaton needed him and Dastan was going to be the friend Eaton had always been for him. Hadn’t Eaton taken the brunt whenever he’d been up to some mischief? Hadn’t Eaton been always around for him when his parents had died? Hadn’t Eaton been the one to save his life when that bloody Crystal Blood pack had attacked them during the night?

Oh no! Was she a member of the Crystal Blood pack?!!!

With a heavy heart, Dastan went down on his fours to look him in the eye. “Eaton, please talk to me,” he begged in a hoarse voice, forgetting that he was an alpha. It was not about ranks, but the fact that his friend was in abject misery.

“Dastan…. she’s from the Crystal Blood pack,” Eaton said with tears in his eyes. “Oh Dastan, why?”

Dastan breathed in deeply as he shrunk back from his friend – his hunch had been bang on. After that fated night when the enemy pack had attacked theirs, they had both solemnly sworn not to accept anyone from that pack, not even if it was their destined mates. But easier said than done.

Now that they were faced with the exact unlikely scenario, Dastan could feel his beta’s agony as if it were his own, and he knew it was not going to be easy for him to reject the much-awaited mate.

“It’s okay, Eat. It happened a long time ago. It’s time to move on,” he tried in a trembling voice.

He was lying – he would never be able to forget that night. But for Eaton’s sake, he was willing to put aside his enmity to bring a member of that pack to theirs. There would be conditions, of course. Like she would have to renege all bonds with her ancient pack and accept him as her Alpha.

Eaton’s head snapped upwards in his direction, his green eyes sparkling with outrage. “I can’t believe you are saying that! How can you ask me to forget the night I lost my parents? The night you lost your parents?! That’s not gonna happen. You asked for this stupid treaty, even when I can feel that Henderson’s wickedness through the table. But even then, I sit with you among those beasts because I respect you too much to go against your word. But I am not going to bring that man’s daughter in our pack!!”

Horror rumbled inside Dastan’s chest as he processed the latest information. Wait a second, wait a damned second! That pretty woman was Maera Henderson?! The last time Dastan had seen her was years ago when she’d been merely a toddler. There was no way he could have recognized her under that silky dress which had slithered over her body like a …

Okay, stop! Meir and his conscience both shouted at the same time bringing his carnal thoughts to a screeching halt. You are not going there!

He breathed in again. “Eaton, what are you saying?” he asked in a voice which he barely recognized as his own. “That woman is Jeremy Henderson’s daughter. Are you sure?”

He had to confirm, if she were indeed that beast’s daughter, there was no way she could be welcomed in their pack. No one would allow that under any pretext. There had to be some kind of mistake.

“She’s the one who told me! She wanted me to help her!” Eaton exclaimed his hands pulling at his hair like a wounded animal. “Dastan, I can never accept her! Never! My parents died because of her father. I can barely stand the sight of her. What kind of twisted fate it is to find out that she is my mate?”

Dastan sighed heavily. It was indeed painful, not to mention warped. “Listen, brother. Whatever you decide, I am with you. It’s your call.”

Eaton’s green eyes stared back at her in perplexity, and Dastan gave him a slight shrug. “You must know how precious you are to me. I don’t care about anyone else other than you. If you want that woman, you go get her and I will have your back. Like always.”

His words caused more tears to spill over Eaton’s cheeks as he trembled under the effort to reign them back in. When the storm had passed, he breathed in short gasps of air before stating out loud.

“I am going to reject her,” he announced brokenly, and Dastan gasped painfully. Everybody was well aware that the rejection between mates were more painful than death, and that was why it was not recommended. “I cannot live with myself if I accept her as my mate. Sorry.”

“Are you sure?” Dastan asked worriedly. “Is there anything I can do?”

“I don’t know. I will not be able to live with myself if I agree to ally with the likes of her. But she is my mate, and I might get weak with the decision when I face her. All I ask you is that if I feel the need to back down from the rejection, you must support me. Can you promise me that, Alpha?”

Dastan inhaled sharply, knowing what Eaton was asking of him. His friend wanted him to use his Alpha powers to coerce him to perform the rejection if the need arose. It meant that the entire world would see him as a commandeering Alpha instead of a benevolent one.

Was he willing for the world to see him as a villain instead of the hero he wanted to be? With a new resolution, he watched the pleading green eyes, and mercy filled him. “I promise you my friend that I will do whatever necessary to help you reject your mate.”