ALPHA DADDIES &more: HOLIDAY EDITION

Getting both dreams

Loretta’s POV

I've done it. There's nothing holding me back.

Absolutely nothing stopped me from leaving this pack in the dead of the night for another pack despite the risks involved, but that was the only moment I had to plan my escape out of this country to pursue my dreams.

Yet I haven’t been able to stop looking back. Being the bad friend that I was, I never told Scarlet about my Master’s scholarship.

And being the selfish person that I was, I bolted out of the pack, out of the city for a week before getting on the flight to Italy.

I never thought it’d be easy. And despite my desperation and plans, I never saw myself getting what I’ve wanted for the past 3 years come to pass.

But it did happen, however I also had a dream to make something of myself. Being marked as the alpha's mate didn’t make me Luna. It didn’t mean Scarlet would accept me as her stepmom or that the pack would see me as someone other than a slut sleeping around.

I didn’t want that to define me, but the mate bond tugged at me insistently, painfully, such that I considered booking a flight back to the country the week I landed here. But it's been 8 days of making preparations to register at school during the day and constantly relieving myself with or without lube at night.

My toys have died countless times but none could help me relive the stimulation my body felt when he was inside me. Regardless of the level or how full the battery is. Regardless of how I touched myself to relive it—his big hands, his kisses—I could never recreate them, and that was a painful fact I needed to accept.

My wolf was even more restless with the yearning, but this was a decision I made. I couldn’t look back.

Or that was what I thought until I heard my name in the alley on my way back from the university.

“Loretta.”

The sound was throaty, dry, desperate, yet familiar.

Heck, I’d imagined several times how our reunion would be, but I never thought it would be this soon. Neither did I think it would be this painful.

It’s just like how our s*x had beaten every single one of my imaginations and wet dreams for 8 years.

I stood frozen in place, refusing to turn back to the dream I ran away from. I made a choice and I couldn’t go back.

I needed to close that chapter of my life and leave it behind.

“Please, Lorry, the pack is crumbling. We need you back.”

I stilled even more.

Stella? What was she doing here?

I turned around. “Am I imagining things?” was what I asked first when I saw Secretary Li round the corner, breathless and asking, “Did you find her?”

I pinched myself to confirm it was real, but it failed to make anything make sense.

Why would anyone travel miles just to find me?

Was this to punish me for my greed? I thought for a moment but threw it out the moment I looked again. These three were key and needed to keep the pack running, so if they sought me to have me punished, then I could only feel more confusion in my heart.

Would I still run away after seeing how much pain my absence had caused?

“We came to find you,” Victor stepped forward, but I took another step back simultaneously.

“Please don’t come closer,” I pleaded desperately. “Please just let me leave. I know I was wrong and I shouldn’t have done it.” I let my head fall, but the tears blinded my eyes from seeing my feet.

“If there’s anyone to blame here, it should be me, Loretta,” Victor said from the distance without moving closer, but I shook my head.

“That’s not true,” I sniffled. “I betrayed everyone’s trust because of my stupid fantasies, because of my greed, because I wanted my best friend’s dad. That’s ridiculous and I’m evil for it and I’m—”

“Please don’t blame yourself, Loretta.”

I didn’t realise when she had gotten so close or how I wasn’t able to smell her scent until she was so close, and the grip of her hug?

How did she get so strong?

This wasn’t the time to ask that though. I doubted I had any rights to call her my best friend again.

“My dad hasn’t been the same since you left. He’s been living in a nightmare. Don’t you know how devastating it was for him to discover that his mate was gone for the second time again?” She looked at me with tear-stained cheeks and that’s when I noticed the darkness under her eyes and the paleness of her cheeks.

“You knew?” I asked.

“Of course. Why else would I search desperately throughout the country, go back to our uni only to find out that you were offered a scholarship—one you never told your best friend about, by the way.”

“I’m sorry, but I was planning to tell you if it hadn’t happened. However, what was supposed to be good news between us two turned out to be my escape plan. I’m sorry, Scarlet.” I felt the extent of my betrayal deep in my bones. It troubled me and kept me up at night for these past two weeks.

“If you are so sorry then promise to never keep secrets from me again. Promise to never run away again,” she said as she gripped my shoulders.

I was just about to nod my head when I looked in Victor’s direction.

He looked gaunt, and his eyes were sullen like he hadn’t had any sleep since I left.

I felt my heart drop in a well and my wolf rear to embrace him.

“What do you mean you can’t promise? We are your family, we are your friends, we love you, so why would you run to a far-away land with none of those things just to live alone? It doesn’t make any sense!” Scarlet was yelling at this point, pacing to and fro and brushing her wolf-cut hair back from her face, making the tattoos on her biceps flex under the moonlight.

She was visibly angry, and I could feel the emotional frequency too. It was low and troubled, and it was my fault.

“But I won’t be able to find my own person if I stayed in my comfort zone. You mean everything convenient to me and after ruining it by getting with your dad, the least I could do was get out of your sight to save you the disgust!”

“What?” She scoffed. “Did you think I didn’t know about how much you idolized my dad?”

My eyes widened.

“At first, I thought it disgusting. My dad was nothing special. No offense, Dad,” she turned back and forth between us both.

He waved his hand.

“But then I opened my head and realised that people can want different things, and as long as there is explicit consent, no manipulation whatsoever, and no one is getting hurt… then you are free to love whoever you want! Even if…” She paused and looked backwards and once again shared that look with Secretary Li who tore her gaze away too quickly this time.

“You knew?” I gasped.

Then why didn’t she stop me? Why didn’t she hate me for it?

How did she manage to keep her knowing a secret? Then I thought back to myself—I’d done the same.

“Of course, and I secretly rooted for you. Not those other women always trying to get with my dad. You’re the only one I could trust with him after Mom. And you knew this. Why did you think I always told you about the women who were plotting and why did you think I let you have the gifts they brought? I didn’t have to, yet I did. So why did you leave and let him shatter into pieces like that?”

She was fuming again, but this time, despite the high pitch of her tone, I didn’t sense anger—it was concern. For her dad. For myself.

My best friend was carrying such a huge load of responsibilities and I was one of them.

My heart tore with guilt but my greed had just been easily accepted like that.

“I’m sorry,” I said as I pulled her into a hug. “I’m so sorry, Scarlet!”

“I’m so sorry for being selfish,” I sobbed into her shoulders but she patted my back and said, “Being selfish granted you your happy ending—and Dad’s too.”

She broke the hug.

“I’m sorry too, Loretta!”

We hugged each other for what seemed like an hour before I let Victor step close.

“I’m sorry for not making you feel safe enough and I swear on everything that I’m made of that I would spend the rest of my life making it up to you,” he said and my eyes watered, brimming with another round of tears.

“Victor,” I sniffled, “I’m sorry for leaving you in the dead of the night. I was so confused and I didn’t know what to do except what I’d planned.”

It was the only thing keeping me going from the guilt in my heart.

He hugged me back and in the middle of that, Scarlet excused herself.

Tears still streamed down my face, but she wiped them with her thumb before nodding in the direction of her dad. “And Dad’s too,” she said as we both turned our heads in his direction.

Victor smiled and waved at us.

“I’ve never seen him smile since Mom died,” she said, but I still apologized.

“Are you comfortable with calling me Mom now? It’s a little weird to have my best friend as my stepdaughter,” I smiled as we hugged again.

“Well, I guess not every friendship is as special as ours.”

This truly was a special direction for our friendship to take and in that moment I felt her love, approval and understanding.

“You both can return to the pack now, it needs a ruler.” Victor soon joined us in a bear hug.

“But…” I paused, my heart leaping as I wondered if we were going back on the agreement.

After all, I’d taken off without telling anyone and I owed them that much.

“Scarlet is Alpha now, so I’ll be staying back with you till I’m able to function properly,” Victor said as if reading my mind.

His answer eased my soul but at the same time brought more confusion.

“What do you mean?” I asked as I turned to Scarlet who was beaming.

“A lot happened while you were away, but it also gave me the chance to become the first female acting Alpha and Alpha in charge,” Scarlet explained.

My eyes welled in tears as I thought about how so much could truly change within 2 weeks.

“I’m happy for you bestie,” I smiled.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said and we both chuckled at how ridiculous it sounded.

“I brought the car,” Secretary Li said as she approached us.

It was a bittersweet reunion but I was glad it happened, and soon it was just Victor and I in the alley.

“It’s pretty dark here. Why don’t we go home?” He asked and I nodded, leading the way.

But he caught me and threw me over his shoulders instead. “Don’t your feet hurt in those heels? I noticed you were leaning against the wall earlier,” he said and my eyes welled with tears at how touched I was.

In the middle of all that, he had still noticed when I was inconvenienced.

“I’m so sorry.”

He spanked my ass causing me to yelp as he rounded the corner leading into the street I resided in.

“You’ll be sorry when I’m done with you,” he said, but his hand still hadn’t left my backside, and lowkey, I loved the feeling—craved it even.

So the moment we stepped in, I was not only surprised that he’d known exactly which apartment was mine, but also by the fact that he didn’t drop me until we reached my bedroom. Then he locked the door behind us and gasped at the sight of my toys.

“Did you miss me that much?” he asked.

My cheeks flushed at the question.

“Yes, but I need you to sleep and eat first. I don’t want Alpha Scarlet to worry.”

I said, expecting some sort of resistance, but he ripped his clothes off instead and asked to use my bathroom.

When I asked why, his reply was, “Being commanded by you was one of the things I went crazy for. You are the only one that strips me of my very form of authority,” he said.

But that night he fulfilled his promise of giving me something to cry about.

And it was so cathartic because I craved more, even till the morning.