Pregnant by The Fake Mate

02- Madson P.O.V

They were all acting like excited little girls trying to get the attention of the right guy, but none of them succeeded, and they all remained apart as they watched him successfully ignore them. Some said it had been months since Alpha Dylan had taken any woman to bed, that he was distancing himself from everyone around him beyond what was necessary in the council. Why? A secret mate? No, the pack's gossipmongers would have already discovered the "lucky" one who had captured his heart. Some dysfunction issue? Well, that would be a big scandal for an Alpha. Trouble finding a partner? Impossible, with so many chasing after him... literally. Had he already found his soulmate? No, he would have announced it to the pack as his future wife. "So, what will happen to the Alpha if he doesn't find any mate for Lupercalia?" my wolf asked, concerned. "It's not your concern," I replied, scolding her. "Why does it matter, who or what the Alpha will bed at this festival?" "Curiosity," she replied, wagging her tail happily. I rolled my eyes. Dylan was ten years older, and like most werewolves his age, he was only interested in someone in his own age group. Especially someone of his hierarchical level; not even his previous partners were younger than 28 and below the beta lineage. Even Katte, his last and longest-lasting partner, had already turned 29 when she became his concubine. For Dylan Palatino, the Alpha of the second-largest pack in the north, I simply didn't exist. I was just an adopted pup by loyal followers of the pack, who had a "bad gene" in the family and chose to raise their offspring away from the teachings and legacies. I was nothing more than dead weight, a reminder of what happened when children were raised as "normal humans." A reminder of what happened when we tried to be "too normal" in a society that didn't understand us.

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket and pulled it out, seeing my best friend Vic's name light up on the screen. My "lovely best friend" was determined to find me a "festival fling" after I told her about last night. She already had a partner, which was common among single wolves before the festival. But she was trying to set me up with one of her half-brother's three friends, all of whom seemed perfectly decent and had been straightforward in considering me "good for a festival hookup." Yet, Vic couldn't understand why I had turned down each of them every time she sent me messages since early in the morning with photos of each potential match. It was as if she saw a second head on my neck every time I tried to explain. I growled softly, answering the phone on the second ring, before the noise drew the attention of the workers below. "Hey, speak..." I greeted, gruffly. "Oh, Madson ..." I heard Vic's voice echoing in my ear. "Is that how you're going to talk to your fairy matchmaker? Hey, I talked to Tommy, and..." "Seriously, Vic. I don't need it, thanks." I replied, biting my lip, already in a bad mood on the phone. "Why are you always so prissy, Madson ?" she grumbled, taking a deep breath as if she were talking to a child. "Thanks anyway, Vic," I replied in an irritated tone, hanging up on her.

I tossed the phone back into my pants pocket, ignoring her subsequent calls on silent mode. I hated that feeling, the taste of not being able to tell Vic the reason for avoiding so many males. The reason for cutting her off every time she arranged a date for me, introduced me to someone she knew. "Because the truth was that I had a horrible, unswallowable trauma," I thought to myself, as I recalled the moment of the worst trauma. At the age of 18, a few months after my parents' death, my wolf surfaced while I was living in the orphanage. Fortunately, around the same time, my family's inheritance was released, allowing me to keep this secret hidden, or at least I thought I could keep it that way.

Josh was my first friend in the orphanage, my first boyfriend, my first love, and consequently my first man. Everything between us would have continued well if my secret hadn't exploded in growls in his face during a full moon while we were living together in my parents' insurance-inherited house. Not long after that, he burned down my house, my uncles found me, and they brought me to the pack. And the warning seemed even clearer after that, illuminated with fire and blood: "Don't trust men."

Since then, I had passed through two consecutive Lupercalia festivals untouched, and as thirsty as I got for s*x, I had never succumbed to my desires in any of them. I could manage just fine within the confines of my room. Or at least, until this last year, when my wolf took over my consciousness last night while I slept and decided to wander into the clearing and take a peek at what I was missing.

Not that I was a puritan, and they were well aware of what the pack members were doing out there. In our society, there was no such thing, as much as our exterior was human, there was something wild beneath that needed to come out from time to time. But unlike most of the girls in the pack, I refused to give in to it. I had been raised beyond that line of thinking, and I refused to surrender the reins of my sanity to a wolf. I refused to entrust the responsibilities of my life to a beastly, primitive, subconscious being.

I tried to sketch the alpha with fury on the paper, ignoring the new message that kept flashing on the screen with VIC's name after so many missed calls. When I looked back at the clearing, searching for the man who was shaping the image on my drawing, to my surprise and sudden terror, he was no longer there. I swallowed hard, realizing that I had lost sight of him while paying attention to Vic on the phone.

"Nice," I heard a low, husky voice next to my left ear. "But the nose could be much better."

I swallowed hard, gripping the paper tightly as I felt a chill run down my spine. I turned slowly to see the owner of that rough voice, and standing right behind me, looking at my sketch like a modern art appreciator, was him. The alpha. Dylan Palatino.

Before I could catch my breath, he looked at me, and our eyes met. I gasped, acutely aware that I was making direct eye contact with the alpha. And I immediately looked down, trying to show submission to the leader. No one in their right mind dared to look an alpha in the eyes unless they had a real intention in doing so. It could only mean one of two things: either you were challenging the Alpha's dominance and leadership, which was a suicide attempt, especially if it was Alpha Dylan . Or you were inviting the Alpha for s*x, which was also suicide if it was this alpha. Since I had no such intention, my only option was to avert my gaze before it was too late, before he remembered my lineage and decided to teach me a lesson. After all, I was below the line in the pack, and my family carried a stain in its lineage.

I began to pray that he wouldn't misinterpret the meaning of the look, that he wouldn't misunderstand the significance of the drawing, and would simply leave me alone.

There was a long pause, a silence so complete that it seemed almost deafening. I swallowed hard, feeling every muscle in my body tense with anticipation, my wolf howling a warning inside my mind. I used all my self-control and ignored her, locking her inside my mind so I could get through this embarrassing moment in peace.

I stepped back as he advanced, making it clear that I had no intention of challenging the pack's alpha. He raised an eyebrow, tilted his head as if studying a confusing puzzle. There was a long moment of silence, only the sound of the trees seemed to dissipate the tension in the air. I swallowed hard as I felt my whole body shiver with his thorough assessment from head to toe.

Finally, the alpha gave a rough smile that left me with a racing heart before he approached in a slow, predatory movement. There was a golden gleam in his eyes, his tongue playing with his lower lip calmly.

"Next time you want to draw me," he said in a malicious tone, "get close enough to look at every detail, she-wolf."

"Okay," I replied, hoping that this strange conversation would end soon. Then, as quickly as he appeared behind me by the river, Dylan Palatino turned and disappeared, leaving me by the shore, alone and with a pounding heart. I sighed, feeling every muscle in my body calm down with every meter of distance he put between us.

"Damn!" I muttered when the sound of his footsteps faded completely from my super hearing. It was not common to see the Alpha outside the mansion; all the pack's business took place in his house. Most of the time, we saw the Alpha in meetings, parties, and ancestral events, in other words, always in something formal. What had happened today was rare and just plain strange. I could already see, from the envious looks of the fangirls he left behind by the river, that this could get out of control much sooner than I expected. Even the "scent" of interaction with the Alpha would be seen as much more than it actually was. Especially if they detailed that it was with a young "low-caste" like me; that alone would be enough to drive the most hysterical girls crazy, stirring them all to try to get a taste of him during the festival.

I decided to finish the drawing to distract myself, to ignore the spiteful fangirls and continue dedicating my remaining morning in that clearing while my uncle and his son-in-law helped build the festival's furnishings. My uncle looked in my direction, extending an arm to ask if everything was okay, I nodded and waved back to him. I returned my attention to the paper, ignoring my thoughts about the alpha. But it took only a few strokes on the paper to realize that I was doing very poorly without the original template. I couldn't remember exactly where his tattoo started or ended, let alone where the scar was on his square jaw. The alpha was right; I could do much better if I could draw him up close. If I could get closer... see the necessary details to engrave him... but when could I be so close again? And the question is: did I really want to be so close to him again? And something deep in my mind whispered on the wind, "Yes," and it wasn't my wolf's usual tone.