Chapter 53: Chapter 53

‘What’s happening?’ Amie asked in a joint mindlink with Sam as we walked into my bedroom. I didn’t want to have this conversation around the others, even if we could use mindlink. I was feeling my temper slipping. I needed a couple of more minutes to collect myself, so I just handed her the letter. The letter from the council telling me my brother had filed for a forced reconciliation of our packs. The council had set up a first meeting to discuss it tomorrow.

‘What the fuck!’ Sam sent to us as he read it.

‘They can’t take it seriously?’ Amie asked. She had put her hand on my arm and I took another minute to let the touch calm me.

‘He has tried before, and failed. But I have a feeling he is going to use the attack against us,’ I told her.

‘We will fight it,’ she said, sounding so determined I almost smiled.

‘Of course we will,’ Sam agreed.

‘We will. But we will keep this between us. I don’t want the others to lose focus on the games,’ I told them. They both nodded.

‘We have the right to bring two people to the hearing. You should take Amie, as she is the Beta. I will keep things in order here,’ Sam suggested. I nodded. It was good of him not to point out that Amie had a better chance at stopping me from losing control of my temper.

‘It would be good if you could head over to the Cayote Hill pack. They are our oldest and closest allies. We want to keep close ties with them,’ I told him.

‘I would like that, Medow’s dad has joined them as support staff,’ he said. ‘Speaking of Medow. Are we done here? I promised to call her before dinner,’ he added. Amie smiled.

‘Go. Tell her I will call her later,’ she told him. He nodded and walked out of my room. “Get up on the bed,” Amie said. I looked at her.

“What?”

“Sit on the bed and lean against the headboard,” she instructed me. I had no idea what was going on, but I was going to find out. I did as she told me, and to my surprise, Amie got into the bed and got comfortable in my lap, she wrapped her arms around my chest and leaned her head against my shoulder.

“What is this?” I asked as my one arm moved to lay across her legs with my hand resting on her hip and the other hand played with the end of the braid she had put her hair up in.

“Social touching. It’s your reward. Your neck muscles are about to snap with how tense you are. You need to relax. Dinner is in half an hour, I checked with Matilda. You have twenty-five minutes to either take a nap or just sit there and relax. I will make sure you get to dinner on time,” she explained. I took a deep breath and held it for a moment, letting Amie’s scent roll around inside me, before slowly releasing it. She was right, I did need this. I leaned my head back and took a moment to enjoy her body heat and the soft puffs of air she sent over my neck.

“I envy your relationship with your brother.” It was the first thing that popped into my head and I had spoken the words before I knew it. “You have been apart for ten years and you pick up as if you saw each other last week. The teasing, the caring. I wish I had a similar relationship with my brother.” She hummed softly.

“I guess we have always been close. It’s only about a two year age difference, so we have always hung out. I’m sure he at some point thought of me as irritating, but he has always been my protector. Maybe it was because of how close my parents were. It was just natural to be close as a family. Elder and I used to try and team up against mom and dad. We seldom won, but at least we lost together.”

“We were never like that. My father was a good father. I know what kind of reputation he had. But he was always loving towards his family. Most of his time was spent on the pack or on Ryan. He felt he needed to train Ryan to become the best alpha possible. It meant his time for me was limited. My mom... well, she is a different story. I know my parents loved each other, but she always seemed to adapt to him. If he spent most of his attention on Ryan, so did she,” I told her.

“Were you left to yourself?”

“No. I had Aunt Matilda. She lost her mate in a pack war when I was little, maybe three or four years old. She never took a new mate and never had pups on her own. So she would help my mother with me and Ryan. Well, mostly with me. It created the feeling of there being a separation in my family. It was my father, mom and Ryan and then there was me.”

“I’m sorry,” she told me.

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault and it’s an old wound. But I see you and your brother and I wish I could have the same relationship with mine. It makes me feel the loss of Martin,” I confessed.

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“I get that. Martin always reminded me of Elder and he helped me fill the void I had from being away from him.” We went back to sit in silence for a while. My thoughts swirled around in my head. I thought about my life before I split from my original pack. I could remember the frustration of feeling I had potential of helping the pack, but didn’t get an outlet for it. How much better life had become after I left, even if it sometimes were a hard life and the leadership could be a heavy burden.

“If the council forces the two packs into one again, I can’t go back. I will become a lone wolf,” I told her. When the thought had come to me, it felt like it was the only way.

“I know,” Amie told me.

“Maybe you can put in a good word for me with your old pack.” She started laughing.

“You and James would try to kill each other within the first week,” she giggled. The sound made me relax even more and I chuckled.

“You are probably right,” I agreed.

“We could always buy some land and settle on. But I have a feeling after seeing you in action during the games, packs would want to recruit you if they heard you were packless.”

“We?” I asked. She looked up at me.

“Have you changed your mind?” she asked.

“No. No! But if the pack is dissolved, I can’t offer you anything,” I said. She huffed and poked me in the chest.

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“Do you think I’m that shallow? I’m not going to join your brother’s pack while you go off and sulk in the woods on your own. I have lived in Beula before and I can do it again.” She settled down again. The feelings surging through me made me smile.

“I love you,” I told her and placed a kiss on her hair.

“I love you too. Stop being stupid.”

“I will do my best.” A small part of me feared she would still reconsider and go with her faited mate. I now understood her fear of me meeting my mate at the games. Why she had been so reluctant to commit to me. It was terrifying to know she had that connection to another wolf. I was greedy, I wanted her to myself. I would gladly fight Alpha James for her. I was confident I could win. I also knew Amie well enough to know she would hate it. If he got insistent, I would do it and figure out a way to make her forgive me after.

“Times up,” she said and got ready to move out of my lap. My arms stopped her.

“Or we could just be late,” I said. She kissed my cheek.

“Not going to happen.”

“But I need more social cuddling,” I objected.

“You have had enough social cuddling, now you need some pack socialisation. You know you always feel better after being around the pack,” she insisted. I hated that she was right. It made it hard to argue with her.

“Fine,” I agreed and let her get up.

“We will get through this as well. We always figure things out,” she told me before she opened the door. She was right. We would figure it out. The alternative was not an alternative. We would do well in the games, we would go back to our pack and Amie would come with us and let me claim her. It was the only outcome I would accept.