The Alpha and the Oracle (The Belesone Pack #1)

Chapter 8

Milo walked back to his house and nodded to the two guards who stood outside.

He wandered around the house, locking it up for the night. He saw Leo waiting at the top of the stairs when he reached him, but all he could do was avoid him for a moment. He didn't want to talk about what was happening. He didn't want to have to acknowledge it.

Instead, he stopped in at his father, Oswine's bedroom to check on him. He was sick most of the time now, but lately he had been well enough to sit up in a chair at the window and watch pack life from afar. That was how Milo found him; sitting in a chair by the window, with a book in his hands.

"Father," he cleared his throat and approached quietly, so as not to frighten him. The last thing he needed was to be surprised, transform and tear open his old scars again. His father hated being sick, but the doctors said it wouldn't be permanent, just another year or so. But turning into his wolf was out of the question. It opened too many wounds and did too much internal damage.

"Milo, my boy." His father croaked as he lifted his head. "You look...disappointed." He noticed.

Milo smiled at that. If he was honest, he was. He never had been able to keep his feelings from showing clearly on his face. At least with his father. Milo wasn't sure what to do so he told the truth.

"Father, the council have found me a mate." He spoke the words with a far happier smile than he wanted to show. His father had been looking forward to his union for so long now, that he couldn't hurt him by letting on that he was less than happy at the match.

Oswine beamed at him as if he had never heard any better news. "Who?" He gasped.

"Katarina Torlov." Milo's smile faltered as he said the name. But, to his surprise, his father didn't look disappointed at all. He didn't even look upset. He was still beaming at him and that was even more disturbing than having to spend the week with Katarina.

"Yes. Katarina. She's such a sweet girl. So strong and smart." Oswine talked away as he glanced out of the window thoughtfully.

Milo tried not to say anything derogatory about the girl he was to be mated with, now that his father seemed to think it was a good match. He just perched on the window seat and kept his father company for a little longer.

"She will make you a good mate, Milo. You may not think so, to look at her, but the girl is special." He insisted, with a wink.

Special. Why did everyone keep equating that word with Katarina lately? Milo didn't see anything special about her, but he didn't say that to his father.

He smiled and listened as his father talked longingly of the life they would have together and the feelings their mating would bring out in them both.

It was a simple event. The union would take place on the evening of his birthday and that night, on their 'honeymoon', they would make love for the first time. That was what connected them.

A couple weren't actually married or united officially until they had made love, both as humans and as wolves, because that connection was stronger than any other for wolf-shifters. Without that connection their union meant nothing to the pack. And once they made that connection, whatever feelings they had for each other became unwavering, intense and bordering on obsessive.

"The children you will have. Oh, they will be something spectacular." Oswine was still gushing about the union.

Milo zoned back into the conversation. He wasn't sure he agreed, but he nodded anyway and tried to plaster a wistful look on his face.

His father laughed. "You had better turn in, son. Get some sleep and prepare yourself for courting this girl." He suggested, shooing him away before Milo could protest.

He gave his father a quick hug and left the room, to find Leo still hovering.

"Well? What did she say for herself?" The Beta wondered.

"She's convinced she can manipulate the council into giving me more time to find my true mate." He sighed, raking a hand through his hair as he contemplated the consequences if they were caught.

He couldn't get the happy look on his fathers face out of his mind. Did his union with Katarina really make him that happy?

"She's sure that if we play it convincingly on Friday, I'll present my true mate to the council and we won't have to be united. If they try to unite her with anyone else, she'll leave the pack." He admitted, rehashing everything Katarina had told them both before. He guess that Leo had expected her to change her mind on their walk to her house. But it hadn't happened.

Leo was shocked and he couldn't blame him. How could a lone female wolf, especially one as weak as Katarina, exist in the world without her pack?

"Why?" His Beta asked.

"Because she feels that she'll bring shame to any man they try to mate her with. So she won't allow it." He shrugged, since he wasn't exactly sure why. "And if I don't find my mate, we'll pretend to agree to a union between us until the Friday night, when she'll leave." Milo explained wearily as they headed over to his bedroom suite.

Leo stayed in the room next door, as his Beta, on hand at every moment for any emergency. "So either way she's going to leave the pack?" Leo guessed.

Milo couldn't believe it had come to such drastic measures. If the council had just chosen another girl, Katarina would have gone on to live the spinster life she wanted. But because she had been chosen as the mate for the Alpha, her whole life was ruined.

"Will you let her, Alpha?" He asked, unable to stop himself.

Milo turned to look at Leo, from where he was closing his window shutters. He wasn't sure how to answer that. He wasn't sure what he would do. He was Alpha and he had the right to stop her from leaving, now that he knew what she was planning. Would he?

"I don't know, Leo. It's probably the best thing for the pack. Everyone always said that the pack is only as strong as our weakest member." He recalled, though he had never quite believed that himself. "Well, Katarina is our weakest member. On the other hand, my father always told me to treat every member of the pack as important. And that means keeping Katarina here...for her own happiness."

He didn't want to keep going on. Getting rid of her would eliminate any risk of being united with her in later years, if he was still unable to find his true mate. But keeping her around would keep her family happy and put him at risk. The longer he couldn't find his true mate, the longer the council had to find him another mate, or find Katarina if she did leave. As far as he saw it, Katarina leaving wasn't any indication that he would be free.

His only chance, was to find his true mate before Friday night. But how could he do that while spending nearly every waking moment with Katarina? He still had homework and Alpha duties to the pack to attend to, in whatever time he had to himself.