Becoming the Alpha Read Free

time in the span of less than twelve hours. It was as if my past was intent on slowly overwhelming my present. The effect was more than unsettling.
    “You are causing quite the ruckus,” she murmured to me after I made my way to her side. “I hope you and Lukas know what you are doing.” That seemed to be the sentiment of the day.
    I could tell that everyone around us was trying to eavesdrop. “Where’s Cody?” I avoided her comment and looked around for her teenage son.
    “He’s too cool to hang out with his mom,” she said with an eye roll. “I planned to ground him for the rest of eternity for the little stunt he pulled last night, but it’s important for him to be part of what’s happening today. It’s not every day the clan names a new alpha.”
    “Isn’t this all a bit…violent?” I tried to keep my voice low so that it fell under the roar of the assembled crowd. I couldn’t help but think everything so far had a barbaric feel to it. It was clear that a bear match involved a physical contest pitting the two opponents against each other.
    Marilee gave me a long sidelong glance before responding. “We don’t do things here the way you full-blooded humans do things. I’d be careful about using that judgmental tone when you’re here in White Oaks.”
    “I wasn’t being judgmental,” I said defensively. It was better for me to follow the line of Lukas’s ruse for now. He had given me the perfect excuse for my usual line of incessant questions.  “I’m just here to observe the match and write it down.” At least that was the truth. I just wasn’t documenting the outcome for the annals of the clan’s history. “I will need to do some interviews too. That includes understanding what it’s like to be part of the clan in an integrated society.” Lukas’s lie was making me bold.
    “If you think we’re anywhere close to being integrated with the humans, you are delusional,” Marilee said with a snort.
    Her comment surprised me. I wanted to ask more, but I had to be careful. If I was there playing the part of clan historian, then there were things that I was supposed to know already. Unless, I stretched the fabrication of Lukas’s fallacy a little bit further.
    “Markus didn’t want the documentation skewed by his perceptions. He kept the information he shared with me to the bare minimum. That allows the narrative to grow organically and kept out any of his bias. He wanted it to reflect the opinions and attitudes of the clan.”
    “Have you ever even seen a shifter phase from human into their bear before?” Marilee asked bluntly. My head shook slowly. “I know that Cal Kramer writes articles for your daddy’s newspaper all the time. It seems like he would have been the better choice for something like that. Cal knows all this stuff. Seems like it’s a waste of time having to repeat everything to an outsider.”
    Cal Kramer was part of the clan, so of course that would make logical sense for her to suggest it. “Cal writes the fluff pieces that my dad knows I hate,” I said, trying to keep my tone neutral. “I went to school for journalism. Markus wanted a pro on this, and like I said, he wanted to keep the story neutral. It was better to bring in someone from the outside.” I had to be careful about how far I chose to embellish the story. I knew that it was always the little details that tripped up a liar.
    “If I didn’t know better then, I’d say this was some elaborate scheme to circumvent the mating process,” Marilee said. She gave me another look.
    There was a mating process? There was so much that I didn’t know, and Lukas had been woefully short on the details around any of that part of his plan. I wished now that I had taken him up on his offer to give me a few additional pointers before we arrived in the arena. I shifted uncomfortably under her gaze even as I drew my sweater closer around my shoulders. Lukas’s bite mark at the base of my collarbone seemed to burn