Chapter 54

Nathan POV

Claire was gone.

I hadn’t been able to stop her. Not from leaving our home months ago, and now not from leaving the pack altogether.

And it was only now I realized just how desperately I’d wanted her to come home.

Home to our son, who missed her on a daily basis. Home to the house she’d run so well, and which now felt like it was falling apart.

Home to me.

My mate was gone, joining the Royal pack.

And there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

So I threw myself into work.

The Alpha duties I’d been neglecting suddenly seemed endless, and the election for Alpha President loomed large in the very near future. I felt like I’d been ignoring everything, doing the bare minimum instead of focusing on my duties before anything else.

Being an Alpha meant always doing your duty. And I had failed.

My Beta tried to convince me otherwise, after finding me in my office before him yet again one morning.

“Alpha,” he said, startled to find me there ahead of him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in yet.”

Then he paused, studying me. “Have you been here all night? Again?”

I set down the field report I’d been reading when he came in, scrubbing my hands over my face.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve neglected the issue at the southern boundary for too long. It’s threatening to get out of hand.”

He frowned, then went to the coffee machine to brew a fresh pot. “You sent your orders to the Gammas stationed there a few days ago, didn’t you? And a diplomat to meet with the Ghost Paw pack representative?”

The Ghost Paw pack had been contesting a boundary line along our southern border, and though our two packs had been peaceful with each other for years, worry over the possibility of the situation getting worse had been keeping me up for several nights in a row.

“Yes, but there’s been no report on any progress. I’m concerned it could turn violent if tensions keep rising.”

He looked surprised as he brought me a fresh cup of coffee. Black, no sugar or milk. I’d stopped trying to drink it any other way.

No one could make it right. No one except Claire.

I took the coffee and pushed any thought of Claire roughly to the side.

“Alpha…” Beta Evan sat down in the chair on the other side of my desk, and gathered his thoughts. “I’m concerned that you’re working too much. Are you alright?”

I paused in the act of picking up the report again, and gave him a cool look. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

He shifted, looking away. Then he took a breath and met my eyes again. “Alpha, if I may speak plainly?”

Raising an eyebrow, I nodded.

“I’m not the only one who’s been worrying. Others have mentioned how hard your working - the late nights, traveling all over the pack’s territory for days at a time. You’re rarely ever even home.

“I’ve assured them all is well, of course. But - well, perhaps you might think of taking a small break? A brief vacation?”

“A vacation,” I repeated, my voice flat and cold.

“Are you suggesting I’m not doing my job well? Do you think you can do it better, Beta? Get me out of the way on a little “vacation,” so you can take charge?”

Evan blinked in shock. “No, sir! I would never… All I’m saying is that I’m not alone in noticing how stressed you’ve been lately between your Alpha duties and the presidential campaign. Especially since - ”

He stopped abruptly, and looked like he regretted what he’d been about to say.

My eyes narrowed. “Go on,” I told him. “Since what?”

He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. He spoke quietly. “Since Claire left, it seems like you’ve done nothing but work. I worry about you, sir. Even an Alpha needs rest.”

I jumped to my feet, insult slicing through me. “Do you think me weak, Beta? Do you think I’d neglect my duties just because Cl - some Omega ran away from home??”

Embarrassed, I realized I couldn’t even say her name without pain slamming into me. So I fought it back with a sneer, insulting her instead.

Grabbing the newspaper on my desk, I slapped it down in front of him.

The headline read, “Silverfang’s Luna-less Alpha Faces Campaign Criticism.”

“Do you really think now is the time for me to abandon my duties and go sit on a beach somewhere? Look at this.”

I jabbed a finger at the article. “No matter how well my speeches and policy proposals are received, it keeps coming back to this. Even though I’ve announced an engagement, which everyone in Silverfang has celebrated, other packs don’t think it’s enough.

“They’re saying if I don’t have a Luna, there’s simply no way I’ll win the race to become the Alpha President.”

Sabrina POV

I arrived at the office just in time to overhear the conversation between Nathan and his Beta.

So Nathan was feeling the pinch about not having a Luna, was he?

Excellent.

I smiled to myself. My friend back in the Royal pack was the editor of the pack’s largest newspaper, a paper also popular in many other packs. It was nice to see our planning and hard work spreading questions about Nathan’s lack of a wife were starting to take effect.

If I was going to get Nathan to marry me, I needed to put him under as much pressure as possible.

Tiptoeing back down the hallway a few steps, I started forward again walking regularly and making a bit of noise, so they wouldn’t know I’d been listening.

My timing was excellent. Nathan was just dismissing, which meant I’d have him all to myself.

“Hello, Nathan! What a pleasant surprise so early in the morning,” I said as I walked in and Beta Evan walked out.

I went to the coffee pot to make him a fresh cup, then frowned when I saw the Beta clearly already had.

I liked to serve Nathan myself, to slowly get him to rely on me the way he clearly had with Claire. Yet I still couldn’t even make his coffee right.

Stifling that annoyance, I walked over to the desk and pretended to notice the newspaper.

Reading the headline out loud, I tsked.

“Why is it never enough for some people? Can’t they see how good a president you’ll be? Who cares if you’d be the first president ever to not have a Luna?”

Nathan sat back down in his chair, massaging the middle of his forehead.

“Apparently people do.”

I sat a hip on the edge of his desk, letting my legs brush against his. “So why don’t we move our engagement along?”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s issue an official marriage agreement. That should ease the pressure around the issue. It will assure the other packs you’re serious about bringing a Luna with you into office. We can do it today, before I have to go back to visit Father.”

I caught his small expression of displeasure, mostly because I was also fighting my own. I knew why I was unhappy about having to go back home - having the whole “long lost sister” thing to deal with - but it took me a moment to realize why Nathan didn’t like hearing about it.

And when I did realize it, I was immediately angry.

It made him think of his precious Claire.

The one who left him, and abandoned their son. And rejected him.

Why did he keep holding on to his feelings for her??

Biting down on the anger, I watched him file away his emotions, eventually acknowledging the logic of what I was proposing.

“The concerns of the other packs certainly don’t seem to be going away. And they’re serious enough that they could very well cost me the presidency.”

He sighed. “Alright, let’s do it.”

I slid off the desk, giving his shoulder a reassuring pat. “Okay. I’ll go draw up the papers and deal with the press releases and official statement.”

He nodded, not really listening, already shuffling through the reports on his desk.

Later, when I brought him the agreement, he signed it without even reading it.

And without noticing that I’d included an actual wedding date.

Or the fact that this agreement was also a legally binding contract.

Deeply delighted, I smiled to myself as I left the room, hugging the signed agreement to my chest.

Nathan would have no choice but to marry me now.