Alpha Lance

Chapter 6 - Lanced through the Hart

Lance’s POV

I intended to just show up to the date and hang back while Alex gets to know his future Queen Luna since everyone kept insisting upon it. Which I assumed was because Alex just didn’t want to be mated to Princess Calliope for some reason he chose not to divulge to me. I was well aware that there was little to no chance that the Princess would ever choose me over being the Queen Luna of the Emerald Kingdom, a large and prestigious werewolf kingdom. Not unless she were my true fated mate. And what could be the chances of that?

Apparently the chances are 100%, as it turns out!

I thought her the most gorgeous and graceful she wolf I’ve ever set eyes on from the moment Calliope entered the room, along with her gamma escort. Long and flowing blonde hair, eyes pale blue-green like the icy glaciers of the north, she’s almost an exact copy of her mother, except for being curvier compared to her waif thin mother, and with a softer and slightly more rounded face.

Human, that’s our mate, Blade informs me the moment she walks up to me and I’m hit with her faint yet amazing scent, like a warm buttery sugar cookie dipped in caramel with a hint of sea salt. I want to lick her to see if she tastes as good as she smells, but I somehow manage to control myself.

I’m very eager to claim Princess Calliope, and then take her in my arms and kiss her just as soon as she recognizes that I’m her gift from the moon goddess, but something seems to be off. She doesn’t act like she recognizes me as her mate at all! Is this some trick?

“Good evening, Princess Calliope,” Alex says in his most polite and disinterested tone. “I am Lycan King Alexander the second, but you are welcome to call me Alex. And this is my triplet brother, Alpha Lance of Bull Run. We are both delighted you could join us this evening.”

“Thank you, Alex. That’s very kind,” she says, taking her seat. Her gamma insists on pushing the chair in for her, so we take our own seats.

“You can just call me plain old Lance,” I suggest, not wishing to be left out of the conversation.

“OK, plain old Lance!” She says, laughing at me. Then she turns back to Alex, and I’m feeling the first stirrings of jealousy. It’s very difficult to hold in my feelings and not growl out loud in frustration.

“So, Princess, do you prefer to go by Calliope, or Callie?” Alex asks her conversationally.

“I usually go by Calliope,” she says, then claims Callie as a nickname given to her by her mother as a child.

“So you really are the little girl I made laugh at the state dinner when we were young pups,” I exclaim excitedly, and attempt to do the same trick as before. Only it doesn’t work, and I become frustrated.

“That’s OK,” she says, patting my hand in consolation. I can feel the beginning sparks of the mate bond at her touch, and I’m hopeful that she feels it too! “I think I do remember you showing me that trick. That was a very long time ago.”

“Yes, it was,” I say, looking right into her eyes, praying to the goddess that she recognizes that I’m her mate. She seems almost like she’s drawn to me for a moment. But then she blushes and suddenly turns back to Alex to starts discussing the weather with him. The weather. With ALEX! I am not liking this situation at all, and stab at my salad a little too aggressively.

Careful, bro, or you might break the plate, Alex warns me via mind link.

What the actual f**k is going on? I question Alex back in disgust. Blade claims that Calliope is my fated mate. Why isn’t she acting like it?

Patience, bro, she’s still underaged, Alex explains to me. In about three weeks time she’ll be glued to you at the lips.

Only if I can manage to become Lycan King of my own bleeding country by then! s**t, I am SO screwed here!

I’m definitely not very happy about this fun little twist of fate. I have a mating alliance contract with my own goddess gifted fated mate, and yet that doesn’t guarantee me a single damn thing! I have until the next full moon to meet the requirements of the contract, requirements of a Herculean nature no doubt, or she will become my brother’s contracted mate. And even if I could manage to meet the conditions of the contract in time, there is still the possibility she might not accept me as her mate if she prefers Alex over me. She certainly appears to be more interested in him!

Try to join in the conversation instead of brooding in the shadows like a nimrod, Blade suddenly suggests. We aren’t quitters!

I suppose it’s worth a try. I make several attempts to join the conversation throughout the evening, and actually got Calliope to really talk with me twice. She even seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say about my pack! But halfway through the date she left to use the restroom, and when she came back it was as if I didn’t even exist. I just sat there growing more and more disheartened and jealous of my brother with every bite of beef Wellington and rhubarb crisp I ate while Alex and Calliope managed to get on fairly well.

And then it was thankfully all over. Calliope allowed us to kiss the back of her hand in parting like we were some weird Victorian gentlemen of days gone by, and then she left.

“You should have backed off more and let me chat with her,” I complained bitterly as soon as I thought the princess was out of earshot. “She is my mate!”

“I actually did try, but I couldn’t exactly ignore her either,” Alex explains. “You must understand my position here. It’s not like I actually WANT to steal away someone’s fated mate, least of all one of my own brothers. But I may end up forced into doing just that unless you step up. So it would be preferable if I were on good terms with her, don’t you think?”

“Maybe, I dunno,” I moan, flopping back in my chair as a wave of despair washes over me. “It does seem pretty hopeless, doesn’t it?”

“Well, no,” Alex claims, lifting my chin up until we were looking eye to eye. “Not if you believe Calliope is worth fighting for, and believe she will return your love once she’s of age. So do you?”

“I don’t know, but I feel like I should at least try,” I admit, while batting Alex’s hand away from my face. Blade cheers in the back of my head while claiming that he’s ready to do any number of chivalrous tasks to win the hand of our fair maiden. “What exactly do I have to do?”

“That’s the spirit,” Alex says, clapping me on the back in a friendly but slightly combative manner. “You should probably talk to dad about this. He will be a better advisor for this than I, since you’re probably going to be taking a good chunk of my territory from me if this has any chance of working out.”

I don’t fail to notice that Alex didn’t just offer to hand the territories over to me. Hmm.