Heiress by law, mate by fate

Old laws

***Mary's POV *** 

“Meet me in the bedroom in five minutes love,” Jared ordered when he left the car and went to his office. And I obeyed. I went there, preoccupied with my sadness and all my doubts. I knew that I had to send Lucinda away, but it hurt nevertheless. She was to uncover what I was hiding for 18 years from her and from everybody else. The only other person on earth that knew my secret was Ava. Stephan's sister. She was scared for me and my pup long before my beautiful Lucinda was born. She knew then and there that Lucinda would not be safe in Shadow Woods forever. It didn't matter that I chose life next to Jared, who depicted me his chosen mate. Building my life with Jared couldn’t erase Stephan from my mind or heart. So the only way was to get Lucinda as far away from Jared as possible and banishing her was the easiest and most believable path I saw. Jared had to believe it. He had to believe that he banished his daughter for good. It was the only way for him not to sense Lucinda’s real power. I feared that I was too late when Cele tried to make Ashley submit, but Jared had not caught on her sudden raise in power. No real alpha blood runs through his veins so he couldn’t feel the change. We got lucky though, I could cover Lucinda’s power within my own for the last 18 years but no longer. She was more powerful than I could ever imagine and that made her a threat for Jared and his position as alpha. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply. My feelings for Jared were complicated from the beginning. There was love. There was respect and longing but also despair.  I sat on the bed and hid my face in my hands. I would not, could not cry.

I sat there for twenty minutes when the door finally opened, and Jared came in. “Let me comfort you, Marysol,” he said and sat next to me. “You know there was no other way, Lucinda has broken a fundamental law, and I am proud that you quickly decided what to do with her. It made us look strong and united today,” he stated and pulled me closer. My body reacted to his closeness. I wanted him then and there. I always did. Conflicted feelings aside, our bond was strong. I had chosen him after he had killed Stephan DaSilva, the rightful heir to this pack. I had chosen to be Luna of this pack; it was my duty after my parent’s death. My father Romeo Ramirez was the former alpha of a pack that had long befriended the former alpha of Shadow Woods.  My father was a true alpha by blood, so was my mother Julianna. They had arranged my wedding to Stephan long before I had met him. When they’d died shortly before my birthday, I was sent to Shadow Woods pack who had just lost their alpha to a natural cause of death. The elders of the pack had postponed Stephan’s alpha ceremony to the day after our wedding three days after my arrival. They wanted the pack to stay strong and for their alpha to come into power with his Luna at his side. But I never came to that.

If the future alpha of a pack is unmated or unmarked, he can be challenged for his position by any wolf within the pack. The challenger will take over by killing the future alpha. He is granted the title alpha by law.

Jared had challenged Stephan the day of our wedding ceremony and Stephan had lost his life in the process. Jared offered me to become his wife instead, to become the Luna I was supposed to be. Having no one left, I accepted.

“What are you thinking about, love,” Jared asked when I did not react to his statement. “Now, I am all alone, Jared. With banishing Lucinda, my family line is dead.” In my mind I couldn’t stop but recite the laws that sealed all our fates.

A true alpha by blood is any wolf whose sires – maternal and paternal – are an alpha by blood.

An alpha by blood is a male wolf who is born to an alpha wolf by law mated to his rightful Luna – regardless of how the sire became alpha or whether the Luna is his destined or chosen mate. A female wolf sired by this relationship has no birthright within the ranks of the alpha’s family.

The laws made my head swirl. My parents had me study them for hours when I was younger because I was a true alpha by blood. Our alpha family tree dated way back to the first wolves. I never bothered to learn all the names. Stephan’s family tree was equally noble although it didn’t date back as far. That’s why my parents chose him for me. Our union would have made both our packs stronger. Jared however was the son of a gamma. He was strong, stronger than Stephan at the time, so when he became alpha of Shadow Woods, he became an alpha by law.

A first-born daughter of an alpha can only become his heir if she is a true alpha by blood.

According to the laws our pack was abiding to, Lucinda was nothing in their eyes. And although I could have petitioned for Jared to change the laws – as an alpha he could – I never did and he never offered.

No one knew that I had met Stephan before. No one knew that I had fallen in love with him in New Orleans only days before my parents had died. He was there celebrating his sister Ava’s birthday. I was out with friends when he spotted me in the crowed. He knew then that I was his mate. He could feel the bond although I was not eighteen yet. Our alpha blood sang to each other and so did our bond. We mated but he chose not to mark me because I couldn’t feel the bond fully then. We had spent the most erotic night together, first he cherished every inch of my body with his tongue, then he gently took my virginity and finally he bend me over and fu**ed me hard. He made me c*m over and over again, moaning and screaming his name until I was hoars. And I returned the favor. He c**med in me again and again. We did not bother with protection then because I was to marry him in a matter of days – we could not foresee what fate had in tow for us. When I arrived at Shadow Woods I was so glad to see him. He took me in, telling everybody that he’d mate and mark me after the wedding that he’d give me time to grief and adjust – and he did all that. In secret he held me close and made love to me carful and gentle every day until we were supposed to be wed.

I was in the back of the pack house getting ready when Jared challenged Stephan. I ran to the door to see what the commotion was about when I felt a delicate string in my body breaking. Only when I saw Stephan lying on the ground lifeless and broken, I realized that I had lost my-mate-to-be. Had he marked me before I might have died with him. I was so in shock and in grief that Jared proposed to marry me the next day to secure his and my positions in the pack, I accepted. After all, I had nowhere else to go.

The elders insisted on us mating and marking each other after the wedding so Jared took me to the alpha’s bedroom and fu**ed me gently – as if I were a delicate female that would break any moment when he was too rough. And I respected with him for that –because he did not know what I was really grieving for. After we had mated and marked each other he left me all the space and time I needed but then I realized that I was pregnant. When Jared learned of the pregnancy, he was overjoyed at first and I started to love him for that. I truly hoped that the pup was his, that we’d build a strong alpha line together but when pack doctor told me how far along, he expected me to be, I realized that the pup couldn’t be his. I sought Ava’s council and she told me to keep the information secret, that she’s talk to the pack doctor on my behalf and after that, the doctor apologized to me telling that he had miscalculated the last time I was there so in the end the data matched with Jared and my mating. I hadn’t seen the doctor after. He had left to live with his daughter’s family at the other side of the country, Ava told me. Only later did I learn that she had paid him handsomely to leave and take my secret with him. As Lucinda had taken it with her forever now.

“She is gone for real”, I muttered. Jared sighed understanding and scooped me up in his arms. “I will be there for you, always Marysol! I don’t know why the moon goddess denies us more children, but I believe in the old laws and I believe in her. Whatever is to be, will be. You know as well as I do that this is what brought me into this position. I never had the same bond with Lucinda as you did, but I did not want to banish my only child,” he consoled me. It was hard to explain to him why he never felt a strong bond between himself and Lucinda. All werewolves share a bond with their offspring. The moment I felt Lucinda’s first kick, I fell in love with her, felt the connection become stronger every passing day. I remembered what my mother always told me about the bond between mother and child and it was undeniably there. I was afraid that Jared would find out right then when he held Lucinda in his arms for the first time, but all he registered was that she was a girl. And the old laws were clear, because of his blood, she would never be his heiress. We raised her in the pack house, and I snuck away with her any minute I could. I loved her fiercely and strongly, but Jared barely registered her existence.  Every day I prayed to the moon goddess that it would stay that way, that he would not look closely because I could see Stephan in her and that made her a threat for the only thing Jared really cherished above everything else: his position as alpha.

If an heir turns 21 or is mated and marked, the alpha in power must pass on the pack unless the heir rejects the position of alpha.