Alpha’s Second Choice

The encounter with Olivia left a bitter test in her mouth. Jo was finally back to her room after a long hard day. Olivia paraded her with the noble ladies around the mansion to lunch, dinner and all the other discussions all day long. She was not even sure why she was being included and so suddenly?

Jo learnt that most of the noble women had high ranked husbands in the royal kingdom. Except for Veronica, the short, bobbed hair who was a widow. It was a tradition in the royal kingdom that widows were supposed to keep their hair short as an honour to their dead mate. Jo wondered why she never remarried, especially by the type of glances she was throwing at Don earlier at the canopy.

Jo heaved heavily as she sat on the bed thinking about her day. It tired her easily.

She had asked for her novel back from Daya. Right now, the girls were taking turns on reading each chapter and today was her turn. Yay!

As she opened the book, she read through all the chapters to catch up including the spoilers Lucy had told her. Her eyes soon got teary when she reached the part Drake married someone else.

But Jo did not stop there, she kept flipping through the pages. The villain in the book was Camilla and she was getting on Jo’s last nerve. If only if she could punch annoying characters in the book, she would die in peace.

There was a knock on the door as Jo rolled her eyes. What now? Jo thought to herself.

The door flung open before Jo could open it.

Dante walked in without waiting for her permission. His eyes were completely silver and he had a very different aura to him. ‘Jo-lene’.

‘Dan-te?’, Jo mocked him, not sure what the heck he was doing, barging in her room at almost midnight.

‘Mate’, he whispered as he started walking towards her.

And in a blink of eye, he pulled her in swiftly and devoured her lips.

Jo would have pushed him away but her body stayed stiff enjoying the kiss. It was enticing, addictive and the warmth from his lips made her melt right in his arms.

‘Don’t accept the rejection, mate’, a husky voice growled from Dante now.

‘But you were the one who-‘.

‘Dante is stu. pid. Please don’t accept the rejection. We need you’, another growl came, making it clear now that the Alpha wolf inside Dante was controlling his body.

‘But you are married’, Jo plainly replied, finally pushing the conflicted king away.

This seemed to have triggered the king to gain the control back as he fought internally for next couple of seconds.

‘I am sorry. Won’t. Happen. Again’, Dante finally spoke, his eyes not meeting Jo’s. And with that, he was gone.

Jo walked back to her bed with shaky legs and tried to sit upright to continue reading her book again.

Before she could read the next line, a few tears dropped on to the page she was reading.

Jo touched her face and realised it was wet with tears.

‘But why am I crying?’, she painfully asked herself as she put the book down.

The tears would just not stop. But she knew the answers already.

Dante’s kiss, his touch and his presence made her feel safe, more importantly he felt like home to her, something she had never had before.

*Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

In the queen’s chamber

Olivia gently removed the gown from the body as she felt the cold air touch her naked skin. She stepped into the hot bath that had been drawn for her. The warm water felt like heaven, it felt like all of her stress and tensions were dissipating along with the hot steam.

As she took a small sponge, she started lathering it with honey soap and glided it across both of her hands. Dante used to like the smell of honey on her body, used to….

There was a lot of things she remembered fondly of her memories with her husband.

But now, they did not even sleep in the same bed anymore. It had been like this for a couple of years now.

Olivia knew her husband was punishing her for being unfaithful. But it was only one night of carelessness. And how could Dante not see that he was also partly to blame. Being the king, he would be away from the royal mansion for months and months, leaving her all alone. At first, she had been waiting patiently for him like a good wife and also looked after the mansion diligently, like a good queen.

But one fine night, she lost it. In the heat of the moment, she had a heated intimacy with one of the warriors. He was young, energetic and mostly RAW. And wanted her sexually then and there. The young warrior was hard on her delicate body and pounded in her like his life depended on it. Dante was always gentle with her, never too hard or fast. But she knew it was because the knot of their marriage was not tied with love, it was because Dante was forced to do it.

Olivia hated thinking about it. She liked to believe Dante loved her and it was a love marriage. At first, she thought she would win his love slowly after becoming his wife. But nothing changed after marriage.

Dante treated her with respect and kindness but that was it. She did not feel the passion or love in his eyes, like someone would have for their true mates.

It was as if fate was playing a dirty game with her, Dante returned to the mansion and walked in when she was screaming the young warrior’s name. The look of horror and disappointment was evident on the king’s face.

To this day, she still remembered the hurt in his eyes. But the Alpha king did not say anything. The silence was more deadly and made Olivia anxious.

The next morning, she begged her dear husband to forgive her. But Dante only tiredly smiled at her and asked her to give him some space.

Out of anger, Olivia had the young warrior lashed to death. She felt dirty just thinking about it, that young warrior was a bad influence and he manipulated her. Yes, she would never cheat on her husband. It was because she was caught off guard by that disgraceful manipulative warrior.

But things did not get better with Dante. He had arranged a private chamber for her and asked for all of her belongings to be shifted there. Olivia was scared that rumours would start spreading about the royal couple sleeping separately. So, she alloacted her secret workers in the mansion to be her eyes and ears. They helped keep the royal affairs within the four walls. After all, Olivia was the niece of the previous Sand Warrior Alpha, Maverick. She could not taint he name and reputation of Sand Warrior Pack, or her father would just bury her alive. He was a brutal man.

As Olivia lathered her head and tried relaxing in the hot bath, she tried thinking of ways to win Dante’s affection again. Even after getting caught, Dante had not said a word about it or brought it up. This was killing her, slowly.

But deep-down Olivia knew, Dante was probably giving her a second chance for the sake of their marriage. She really needed to win him back.

After everything she had been through to the point that she sacrificed her own wolf to become Dante’s wife. She still had a lot of fight left in her. And nothing was going to come in her way.

Olivia’s thoughts traced back to today and she remembered the odd omega, Jolene. Her gut instincts said there was more to it and they were usually right, most of the time.

As Olivia stood up from the huge bathtub, she grabbed her bath robe and walked to her private chambers.

‘Von’, she called via mind link. Despite sacrificing her wolf, Olivia was grateful she could still mind link. Luckily, she had been able to use excuses every full moon about being sick and missed out on shifting during gatherings. Of course, no one dared to question the werewolf queen further.

‘Yes, my queen’, Veronica replied.

‘Send some of our secret workers and find out everything about that omega, Jolene’, Oliva ordered as her hands worked on drying her hair with a small maroon towel.

‘On it’.

Olivia wondered what little secrets that sharp tongued omega was holding. It was going to surface soon anyways. All she had to do now was wait.