The Alpha’s Other Woman
Bonus Progress

Dane

From the moment I met Heidi, my well-ordered life veered completely out of my control. One minute I was the alpha of an extremely well-run pack that I shared with the beautiful and highly-competent chosen mate I had planned to spend the rest of my life with, and the next I discovered the one person I had never understood I needed, and a ton of unexpected complications that I had no idea how to manage.

Greenwoods had always been my life. My duty was to my pack. From my youngest years, my father taught me how to care for it as he did, and it had been simple to set aside my own mild interests and focus on that goal. As I grew older and didn’t replace my mate, I made the decision to choose one instead. Greenwoods needed a luna and an heir, and Carrie was in the same position as I was, and already a loyal member of my pack, so it only made sense to promote her.

But choosing Carrie had been no hardship. She loved our pack as much as I did and gave the luna position her all, and she was hot, and a decent person besides. She carried power with a level head, a like true luna. And she was easy to love. Our wolves were happy together. We were happy together.

When I found Heidi, it was like I was ripped into two pieces, torn between my reason and my instincts, stretched between two irresolvable choices.

Carrie was good for the pack, I had given her my word, and she was the logical choice. I knew I should choose her. It was what would be obviously best for Greenwoods.

But my wolf refused to allow me to even consider rejecting my mate. When I tried, he took over—for the first time in my life—and tried to mark Heidi, that first day we met. I managed to wrestle back control, but it was a near thing, and I almost lost the battle.

Suddenly, my wolf didn’t just contentedly allow me to make the right decisions for my pack, he was front and centre, trying to force his own instincts upon me. I was completely unprepared for the struggle against my own animal nature.

So I did not reject Heidi. A part of me was relieved, because how could I do that to her? She was sweet and innocent, and looked at me with trusting blue eyes, even though I almost forcibly marked her. She was understanding about my wolf’s desires. She obviously needed my protection, even from myself, my own choices, my own instincts. How could I tell her I had just proposed to another woman just before I had found her? I couldn’t replace the strength to hurt her with the truth.

Instead, I got back to Greenwoods, and I had to talk to Carrie, but I put it off as long as I could. When I finally saw her, I couldn’t replace the words to properly explain what had happened. I had just promised her my future, and now I was going to break that promise. I cursed the moon goddess for putting me in such a conflicted position. She should have brought Heidi to me sooner so that I would never have taken a chosen mate. Or she should have simply paired me with Carrie in the first place and everything would have been perfect between us. Either way, Greenwoods would have prospered without complications, like it had during Carrie’s time as my chosen mate.

But no matter how much I regretted it, my wolf just didn’t want Carrie anymore. He only wanted Heidi. I felt physically sick at the thought of touching the woman who I had been completely attracted to only days before. Frustrated and worried about the pack, I bullied Carrie into continuing her job, into showing Heidi what to do. An obvious powder keg, but I couldn’t see a better solution in the short term. Greenwoods needed Carrie, at least until Heidi could handle it, and my wolf needed Heidi.

Then Carrie challenged me, and my wolf freaked out, and I said things to her that couldn’t be taken back. Heidi overheard us, and the keg exploded, right in my face.

Heidi had been furious with me. Angry that I hadn’t just told her the truth from the beginning, that I had been coddling her, that I had allowed her to replace out everything in the worst way possible. She also—rightfully—blamed me for the challenge. Still, she let me train her, but she was furious the whole time and barely spoke to me. She would glare at me like she wanted to bite me if I dared to touch her.

The day of the challenge came, and I was terrified in the knowledge that my mate was going to lose. I desperately did not want her to get hurt, and my wolf was frantic. I didn’t know what my wolf would do to Carrie when that happened. My former chosen mate was as competent as a fighter as she was at everything else, and Heidi was inexperienced. I had done my best to prepare her, but there was only so much I could do in such a short time.

Yet somehow, against all odds, Heidi won. I had trouble believing the truth, but the evidence was before my eyes, Heidi’s wolf holding Carrie’s prone on the ground. The sight was not enough to sate my wolf. As my fear left, my anger replaced it.

With my wolf growling inside my head at the female who had tried to steal our mate’s position, I banished Carrie from the pack, and instantly regretted it.

Even more so when Heidi called me an asshole and stormed off into the pack house.

The next weeks did little to defrost her. She joined the pack officially and kept working at being luna, but she maintained a wall between us as mates. As sweet as she seemed—and was, when she wasn’t angry—my mate had an impressive, almost supernatural ability to hold a grudge, and I was the sole target of it. I would have been impressed at her ability not to be affected by our bond, if only it hadn’t made my wolf so miserable. I tried everything I could imagine to make it up to her, but I barely made any headway. It took a month before she would even hold a civil conversation with me when the pack members weren’t watching.

Then came the time for a meeting of the Alpha Assembly. We’d had another fight, yet again, in our hotel room. I had pleaded with her to let the whole thing go and called her unreasonable—although I stand by the assessment, my word choice had been unwise—and then suggested that we should reject each other if we never could get past it. I didn’t really mean it, my words came from my frustration with a situation I couldn’t manage.

Heidi had stared at me for a long moment, started crying, and rushed from the room. I just stood there, regretting everything before my wolf rightfully demanded I follow her. She made it to the elevator and it closed before I caught up, so by the time I’d followed her she was well out of sight. I tried calling her through the pack link—she still hadn’t let me mark her, so my communication with her was no stronger than that with any other Greenwoods wolf—and she blocked me out with her usual stubborn ability.

Instead, I followed her scent, and found her rushing from the washroom, replaceing none other than Carrie standing there staring at me. My wolf flipped out, I accused her of more regrettable things, and then her mate came and challenged my wolf, before full on making out with her in front of me.

I was shocked, but oddly my wolf backed down and let the whole thing go. Now that she was no longer a threat to our mate—preoccupied as she was—his former easy affection for her wolf returned, and he was...happy for her.

They took off, presumably to somewhere private, and I got over my surprise and went after Heidi.

I followed her scent back to our room. She had clearly been crying more.

“Go away, Dane.”

“No. We can’t keep doing this.”

“So why don’t you just reject me and be done with it?” she snapped.

“I don’t want to reject you!”

“You did!”

“No, I didn’t. Not really.”

She scowled at me, more tears flowing. “You don’t even really want me. It’s just the stupid bond.”

“Of course I want you, and it’s not just the bond.” Why did our every interaction seem to turn into this?

“I already know I’m not as good of a luna as Carrie was! I’m not as good of a fighter! I’m not even as good as a mate! I know that everyone thinks that, and I’m not stupid, even if everyone thinks I am! No matter how much I try I’ll never be good enough! I’m never enough!” Her voice grew louder with every word, almost screaming the last sentence.

“I’ve been trying to fix things,” I retorted, my voice nearing a shout, all the rage and frustration of the past months in my words, “But you won’t even let me try!”

“Why should I?” More tears.

“Because I’m your damn mate!” I snapped, and my wolf broke my control and lunged at her. She was on her back on the bed, and I was poised above her, my teeth just breaking her skin, as I regained my sanity. Shit.

She was crying, but not fighting me. She would passively let me do it, and my wolf pushed for it to happen. He’d had enough of the distance between us, and he was willing to break it in any way necessary, right or wrong.

I ripped myself away. “Not like this,” I said, raking my hands through my hair roughly as I backed away. I turned back to her, still lying on the bed like she’d lost the will to move. Like I had stolen it from her. “I’m sorry, Heidi...my wolf...”

“I know.” She sniffled.

“I’m sorry about everything. I’m sorry you’ve ever felt like less because I was with her before you. I shouldn’t have given up waiting for you.” I sat down beside her, and when she didn’t resist I pulled her closer to me. I’d missed the ease of the first few days I’d known her before she had overheard my argument with Carrie. Even in a situation like this, it felt good to actually have contact between us. “She was a good luna, I can’t deny that, and we were content...” More sniffles. “But it wasn’t like what you and I could be, if we get past everything. You’re the one who compliments me. My wolf is desperate for you, and so am I. It’s not the orderly, controlled thing I had always thought I needed, but I do want it, and I want you. And I don’t know any other way to say it so that you believe me, Heidi.”

“I believe you.”

The sweetest words I’d ever heard. For the first time since chaos had disordered my life, maybe I was making some progress in a positive direction.