MY BROTHER'S BEST FRIEND IS MY MATE.

Chapter Two: I'm getting married?

Levrae

I didn't sleep that night.

I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling and felt the mate bond pulse in my chest like a second heartbeat. It was warm, steady, and completely indifferent to the fact that the man it belonged to had walked away from me without looking back.

By the time the sun came through the curtains, I had made a decision. I was going to be fine. Last night was the wine and the birthday and the moonlight doing something foolish with my emotions. I was going to get up, wash my face, go downstairs, and be completely normal.

I was halfway through convincing myself when one of the house omegas knocked on my door and told me my father wanted to see me in his study.

Right now.

I knew from her face that it wasn't good.

Father's study always smelled like old wood. Filled with documents, papers, etc, of centuries ago. He was already seated behind his desk when I walked in, hands folded, expression arranged into the particular blankness he wore when he had already made a decision and was not interested in discussing it.

Jonathan was there too, standing near the window with his arms crossed. He looked at me when I came in and something passed over his face — guilt, maybe, or the beginning of an argument he had already tried and lost.

And then I saw Finn.

He was standing near the door, slightly behind my father's chair, exactly where a bodyguard was supposed to stand. He was still, straight, with his eyes forward. Like last night had happened to someone else entirely.

I looked at him for one second and then made myself look away.

"Sit down, Levrae," my father said.

I sat.

He didn't waste time. That was always his way. He told me about Lucas Thatcher. The Alpha Prince of Moonpack. The alliance that had been in discussion for months. The agreement that had finally been settled.

"You'll be married within the month," he said. "It's already arranged."

The room went very quiet that I could hear my own breathing.

"No," I said.

My father's eyes didn't even flicker. "This isn't a request."

"I don't care what it is." I leaned forward. "Father, you can't. I haven't even met this man. You can't sell me off to a pack I've never set foot in just because it's convenient for …"

"It is not convenient," he said, and his voice dropped in that way that used to make me stop talking when I was small. "It is necessary. The Vulturebane pack has been pushing our borders for two years. We need Moonpack's numbers. We need that alliance, and Lucas Thatcher's father will not sign without a blood bond between our families."

"Then let Jonathan .."

"Levrae." Jonathan's voice came from the window, quiet. "I tried, last night. He won't hear it."

I turned to look at my brother. He was still standing with his arms crossed but the guilt on his face had sharpened into something that looked a lot like helplessness, and Jonathan never looked helpless. It scared me more than anything my father had said.

"She's eighteen," Jonathan said, turning to our father now. His voice was controlled but I could hear the edge underneath it. "She turned eighteen yesterday. You sat through her birthday dinner and you already had this planned. You didn't think to warn her? To prepare her? To give her even one conversation before making the decision?"

"I'm warning her now," Father said.

"That's not a warning, that's an order."

"Yes," Father said simply. "It is. And this family follows orders when the pack's survival is on the line. Both of you know that." He looked at Jonathan for a long moment and then looked back at me. "Lucas Thatcher is a reasonable young man from a strong pack. You will be treated well. You will want for nothing."

I laughed. I didn't mean to but it came out anyway, short and hollow. "Except a choice."

He didn't answer that. Because he knew I was right and it didn't change anything.

I stood up. My legs were steady, which surprised me. "I need some air," I said, and I walked out before anyone could stop me.

I found a corner near the back of the east corridor, behind the old tapestry where Jonathan and I used to hide from our tutors when we were children. I stood there with my back against the cold wall and pressed my hands over my face and breathed.

I heard footsteps. I knew them before I saw him.

Finn rounded the corner and stopped when he saw me. He looked like he was going to say something careful and completely useless, and I didn't give him the chance.

"You were in there," I said. "You stood right there and said nothing."

"It wasn't my place …"

"Don't." My voice came out harder than I meant it to. "Don't give me that. You heard everything. You watched him hand me off and you didn't say a single word."

Finn's jaw tightened. He looked at me with those still blue eyes and said, "What would you have had me say?"

"Anything. Something. You could have …" I stopped, and swallowed. "Last night you felt what I felt. I know you did. And you still just stood there."

"Last night was a mistake."

The words hit me like a knife to my chest. I stared at him.

"This is exactly why," he said, and his voice was so quiet and so final that it made my chest cave in. "This is exactly why I told you to forget it. You are the alpha's daughter, Levrae. This was always going to be your life. Alliances. Arrangements. That is what you were born into, and I am not going to be the reason you fight against it and lose everything."

"You don't get to decide what I lose," I said.

"Someone has to." He took one step closer and lowered his voice further, like he was afraid of being heard. "Go marry Lucas Thatcher. Build a life. Be safe. That is the best thing I can do for you."

"The best thing you can do for me," I repeated slowly, "is pretend last night never happened, send me off to a stranger, and call it protecting me?"

He didn't answer.

"I loved you," I said. I was not going to cry. "For years. You knew that… I guess, and you let me anyway, every time I followed you around like an i***t, every time I made it so obvious, you let me because it was easier than having this conversation." I took a breath. "So don't stand here now and dress it up as something noble. You're not protecting me, Finn. You're just choosing the easier thing again."

Something moved behind his eyes. Something real and raw and there for just a second before he locked it away.

"Get some rest," he said. "You leave in three days."

He walked away.

I stayed behind the tapestry for a long time after that.

When I got back to my room, two of the house omegas were already inside. One was pulling dresses from my wardrobe and folding them carefully into a large trunk. The other was wrapping my jewelry in cloth and laying it in a smaller case. They moved quietly and efficiently around my space like I was already gone.

I stood in the doorway and watched them.

Three days.

I walked to the window and looked out at the pack grounds — the training field, the old chapel, the tree line at the edge of the territory that I had climbed a hundred times as a child. Everything familiar. Everything mine.

The mate bond was still there. It hadn't faded the way I had been desperately hoping it would. It sat in the center of my chest, patient and permanent, tied to a man who had looked me in the eye and told me to go build a life with someone else.

I pressed my forehead against the cold glass.

Behind me, the omegas kept folding. Kept packing. Kept quietly erasing every trace of me from this room.

I told myself I would be fine.

Finn wanted this to be a secret right? I'm good at keeping secrets.