All Novel Sweet
99
I was catching up with Jane and Julia on the latest gossip when I hear chairs hitting the ground and someone yelling “MATE!” We all froze, and as he came closer, John pulled me out of the way as a frenzied Konstantin picked up Julia and buried his nose in her shoulder.
“LET ME GO,” she yelled, “I’M ONLY FIFTEEN YOU IDIOT.” He immediately relaxed and set her down, where her brother quickly grabbed her and pulled her behind him. Alpha Esca was about to shift, but Eleanor put her hand on his arm.
Konstantin looked at them, then back to Julia, his shoulders slumping as he realized what was happening. It only took a moment before he straightened his back, turning and lowering his eyes to the visiting Alphas. “Alpha Esca, Luna Eleanor, my apologies for my behavior. I am Konstantin Kirolinko, Alpha Heir of the Kstovo Pack in Russia, and the mate of your daughter…”
“Julia,” Eleanor said. “Julia is your mate, her sister Jane next to her, and our oldest son Sean.” She broke the ice, coming forward and giving him a quick hug. I looked over at the twin girls, Julia was crying and ran out of the room, her siblings with her, and James following.
“Alpha Esca,” the old Alpha said brusquely as he shook Konstantin’s hand. He kept the handshake going a little too long, the strain evident in his arms as I heard bones starting to crack in Konstantin’s hand. “Go take a shower, you smell of sex and it’s upsetting your mate.”
“Yes sir,” he said as he turned red.
Viktor and Patrick followed him out as they went back to their rooms, while Marina and Mischa came up next to me. “Never a dull moment,” John said as I watched them go.
“Konstantin needs to go to the florist and ask what arrangement says, ‘Sorry I was a horn dog who screwed anything with a pulse until I found you,'” Mischa said with a sigh.
“Or a Kobe ring,” Marina added. “That boy. Finally finds his mate, and he has three years to wait for her.”
Mischa started to laugh. “This is SO Luna. He was teasing me so much about me having to wait six months for Patrick, now he gets to wait thirty-six!”
Marina just hugged her. “I guess you’re not getting out of the pup pressure anytime soon,” she said.
“Konstantin is a lucky man,” John said. “Julia is a fine young lady, raised to be a Luna, smart as a whip and talented. She has an amazing singing voice and is an accomplished pianist.”
“Why was she crying? I mean other than the obvious thing with him.”
John sighed. “She always wanted to graduate from college and travel the world before finding her mate. Once you are mated and pregnant, she thought she’d rarely be allowed to leave Pack lands. Now she has the overprotective mate without being mated yet.”
John went to schmooze with the other Alphas, while I went with Mischa to check on the twins. Soon we were laughing ourselves silly, with Mischa telling hilarious stories about her older brother while we plotted her revenge. She wasn’t going to reject him for not waiting for her, no… that would be too easy. He was going to have to work for forgiveness before she would offer him her neck.
“Jessie, our Pack members are here,” John said over the bond. I left them to their stories, giving Gamma James a big hug as I left. He was standing guard outside their rooms with orders to make Konstantin bleed if he tried to force his way in, and those orders he was very happy to carry out if needed.
The SUV’s pulled into the driveway, and fourteen young men and women got out and looked around. The weather was similar, but the scents here were completely different. I greeted each and introduced them to the Alphas as they arrived. They had already checked in to the nearby hotel but were here for dinner and a Pack run with their hosts.
When I gave my favorite teacher a hug, Katya Semulskaya froze and started sniffing my shoulder. “He’s here,” she said as her wolf came forward. “WHERE IS HE?”
“Your mate is here?”
She nodded, moving past me to enter the house. People noticed her behavior, the mated ones standing aside, the unmated males with their noses up hoping the beautiful young woman was theirs. She caught a whiff and took off running for the stairs, with me following close behind. She paused at one hall before running down it, and turning a corner she let out a primal growl before she launched herself at a male, wrapping her arms and legs around him. “MATE,” she said as she pulled his shirt aside, biting down with him as he marked her as his forever.
“Wow,” I said as they continued to hug each other. The door opened, and Jane and Julia looked out, Mischa behind them. “Give Gamma James some privacy,” I said.
“Get them to his room before their first mating occurs in the Alpha’s hallway,” Mischa said with a grin as she closed the door. She was right. Never a dull moment.
Jessie’s POV
I could hear the party before I even got to the door. “You sure this is all right,” I asked Stan as he escorted my bridesmaids and I to the doors of the club.
“Of course,” he said. “Not all human traditions for marriage translate for us, especially those associated with bachelor parties. Once you’ve met your true mate, there isn’t desire for another, and if a woman tried to kiss him, he’d probably throw up. This is a celebration, a chance for all the guests to get together and have fun before the ceremony tomorrow.”
“No drinking?”
“Lots of drinking, but we’re wolves and you’re pregnant so we’ve got lots of non-alcoholic drinks for you,” Mischa said.
“I’ve rented the whole venue, the bartenders and staff are all Pack, and we have buses to get people back to their hotels or our Pack House,” Stan said. “Relax and have fun, tomorrow is going to be a blur.”
I stepped into the club and an attendant took our coats. I was dressed in a clingy red sleeveless dress that came down to mid-thigh and showed the beginning of my baby bump, with matching heels and gold jewelry. Mischa looked older than her seventeen years, in a silver dress that barely covered her ass and had a daring plunge to her bustline. “Patrick is going to freak over that dress,” I said as I looked at her.
“Then he better not leave me alone,” she said as she pushed through the doors into the club. The beat pulsed through the room and the lights were going, the place was already packed, and it was only ten at night. Young couples were on the floor, mated couples with eyes only for each other, and single males looking for Miss Right Now until Miss Right shows up. The music stopped, and people turned towards us, most bowing slightly towards their Alpha as the other leaders joined us at the doorway.
“Thank you all for coming to celebrate my marriage to Alpha-Heir Jessie Donato,” John said as we pulled me to his side. “It means a lot to us that you would travel here to be with us as we join together in the human world.” There was clapping and calls for us to kiss, calls I was all too happy to meet.
It seemed like hours, meeting and greeting all the guests from across North America and Europe. “I haven’t seen a gathering like this in a long time,” my mate said to me as we took a table overlooking the dance floor. “It’s been good for everyone.”
“Matings are a good thing,” I replied as I saw James and Katya walking over. I got up and hugged my friend from the Moscow Pack, while John congratulated the Gamma of his former Pack in Scotland. “I’m so happy for you,” I said.
“Me too, he’s amazing,” she said.
Tears on her face and fear in her eyes betrayed something, and I pulled her into the chair next to me. “What’s wrong, Katya?”
“I’m going to miss my kids,” she said. “James’ Pack isn’t as big as ours, and the children go to school with humans. I’m going to have to leave them all and start over,” she said.
It was the norm, she wasn’t a ranked wolf and thus would move with her mate. I had an idea, but I needed to know if they would even consider it. I linked the idea to John, and he agreed with me. “Katya, if we could arrange it so you two would stay in Moscow, would you do it?”
She looked over at James, who nodded. “I don’t have family in Scotland, my parents are gone and my sister is living with her mate’s Pack in Germany. I do have responsibilities, though.”
“Let me work on it,” I said. “Meanwhile, have some fun before you head back to bed,” I said with a knowing grin. I got up, taking John’s hand and walking over to the table in the bar area where Alpha Esca, Luna Eleanor, Betas Jack and Sarah, and daughter Julia were sitting. Konstantin was seated between Esca and Jack, looking rather subdued and uncomfortable since Julia was ignoring him. “Where’s Jane?”NôvelDrama.Org: owner of this content.