CHAPTER ONE
“No, I won’t marry you,” Kelly told him, her heart thudding against her chest.
“You say that as if you have a choice in the matter,” Cullen replied.
“I do have a choice.”
He chuckled, but it wasn’t the sound of an amused man. It was dark, sinister. It was something to fear; the man behind it was cruel and dangerous. Her body felt like ice, as if she might never be warm again, but she stood her ground.
“I’m going to let you continue thinking that, for today. I’ve somewhere else to be and don’t have time to deal with your insolence. We’ll talk about it when I return.”
Kelly didn’t respond. She stood there, frozen. He stepped toward her and she flinched as he kissed her on the cheek. It felt like a kiss of death, as if this were the mafia and he was marking her for dead, but what he had in mind was a fate far worse than death-at least that is the way she saw things.
She didn’t move from the spot on which she was glued until she heard his footsteps finish making their way to her front door, waiting for the tell-tale croaking as it opened and closed. It was only then that she let out the breath she had been holding since the moment he had leaned in to kiss her. He was gone.
“You’re an idiot,” a voice said from behind her.
Her heart dropped into her stomach and then lurched upward again, beating irregularly before returning to its normal pace. She took another deep breath, bringing in more oxygen to make up for the previous denial of constant air flow and tried to calm herself before turning toward Muriel, who stood in the doorway behind her.
“What makes me an idiot?” she replied, keeping her emotions in check.
“Any girl in this town would kill to be with the alpha male of the pack and you’re just shitting it away like it’s nothing.”
“They can have him.”
“Perhaps, but he doesn’t want them. He wants you. Do you really think he is going to take no for an answer?”
“What else can he do if that is my response?”
Muriel laughed and looked at her as if she were insane.
“You’re kidding, right? He’s the alpha of this pack and there is no saying “no.” You’ll not be welcome anywhere and no other bear here will touch you. No one is going to go up against the most powerful shifter in this pack just to be with a lowly omega shifter.”
The distinct air of condescension was unmistakable. Muriel was a full-fledged bear shifter. They all saw omega shifters like Kelly as inferior, which they were, in terms of raw power. Their only real value in the pack was to the males, who often selected them over the much stronger female shifters based on their ability to have a large number of cubs.
Whereas someone like Muriel could only have a few cubs at a time, an omega shifter like Kelly could have ten or more. Alphas were especially fond of them as a large family was more power for their pack. Cullen had only two cubs by his first wife, who had died while having them. The cubs had subsequently been killed in a fight with a rival shifter pack. So, now he was looking at a late start on a new beginning.
“He doesn’t love me,” she told Muriel.
“Love? Since when did that matter in this pack?”
It was true. Female omegas were often mated not only to their spouse but to a number of pack members considered to be of superior stock, in order to bolster the number of cubs of strong bearing. Since they followed basically the same biology as regular non-shifting bears, they could become pregnant by multiple shifters and have a litter every six to eight months.
“I’m not some sort of baby incubator. I won’t be.”
“Tough luck, kid. Making babies is what omegas were born to do,” Muriel said dismissively, disappearing back down the hallway.
Kelly was furious, but she wasn’t sure if it was because of what Muriel had said or the knowledge that she was right, at least as far as this pack was concerned. She went to the kitchen and got a glass of water, standing at the sink to drink it while she tried to sort all of this out in her head.
Muriel was right about one thing: She had no future here. If she married Cullen, she would be pregnant within the first weeks and she would stay that way as often as it could be managed between litters. He would loan her out to other members of the pack. He would fuck other shifters, perhaps humans, too, behind her back. There was no love in this equation. They hadn’t even dated in any real capacity.
If she didn’t marry him, she might suffer the same fate without even the benefit of status. As the alpha’s wife, she would be revered, at least by others in the pack. She’d have everything she could ask for in regard to a home and material possessions. Otherwise, she’d just be an outcast and a whore, as she had no doubt the bears in this pack would take what they wanted by force.