Ruthless Alpha, and his Curvy Saint-Chapter 84

Alpha Terrell’s POV

I saw them coming and I nearly smiled.

There it is.

I had known. The moment I had walked out of the dungeon last night and heard Merrick calling after me, had seen Sheena waiting in my room, I had known it wouldn’t hold. Sheena’s loyalty was to the goddess’s law first and to me second, in that order and without apology, which was why I had kept her close for many years and why she was magnificent at her job and why tonight she had done exactly what I expected her to do.

I had prepared accordingly.

I kept my face neutral as they approached through the parted crowd - my brother, disheveled and burning-eyed, and Sheena beside him in her full ceremonial robes, her expression carrying the looks of a woman who has made a decision and is entirely at peace with the consequences.

The gathering had gone very still.

"Sheena," I said pleasantly. "You’re late."

"Alpha." She inclined her head. "I apologize for the delay." A brief pause. "I could not in good conscience proceed with the marriage rites."

"Is that so."

"The moon goddess came to me." Her voice carried across the beach. "In a dream, last night. Her message was clear - the ritual of confirmation must be performed before any bond is sealed." Her eyes moved to mine. Steady. Certain. "I will honor her wish."

I looked at my brother.

He looked back at me with silver eyes that matched mine exactly and a jaw set with the particular stubbornness of a man who had spent the night in a dungeon deciding what he was willing to fight for.

Beside me, I felt Angel go very still. Listening.

"Fine," I said.

The word landed in the silence like a stone in water.

Merrick’s expression shifted - surprised, recalculating. He had prepared for resistance. I had declined to provide it.

Let it play out, I thought. I’ve already made my preparations.

I released Angel’s hand.

"Perform your ritual, Sheena," I said. "Let the goddess speak."

What followed was old - older than the castle, older than my title, older than almost everything I had built. The ritual of confirmation was not performed often, precisely because the circumstances that required it were rare. Two potential mates. One woman. A bond that needed arbitration beyond the Alpha’s authority.

Sheena moved through it with the gravity it deserved.

She built the fire at the water’s edge - blue-flamed, the specific compound that burned that colour only under the full moon, the smoke rising straight despite the sea breeze as though the air itself was cooperating. She spoke the invocation in the old tongue - words I knew by memory, that Merrick knew by memory, that the elders knew and murmured along with from their positions at the perimeter.

Angel stood beside me and watched all of it with her jaw slightly open. She looked... fascinated.

Despite everything. Despite her resistance at being here.

She was watching a moon goddess ritual on a beach under a full moon and she was fascinated and something about that was so entirely her - so innocently her that it hit me in the chest with a warmth I had no business feeling right now.

Sheena called us both forward. Merrick on one side of Angel, me on the other. She spoke the binding words - not a marriage bond, not yet, just the question. Goddess, who is this woman’s fated mate? The fire flared. The smoke changed direction, moving between us, and the elders leaned forward as one.

Then the smoke stilled.

And moved toward Merrick.

The beach went completely silent.

I looked at the smoke.

I looked at Sheena’s face.

She met my eyes.

"The goddess has spoken," she said quietly. "Lord Merrick is the fated mate of Angel."

The silence broke into murmurs.

I stood very still.

After declaring she was mine weeks ago. After everything that has happened since the moment I returned from the siege at Hounds pack. After begging me to go after her. After my wolf had accepted her at first glance. After a thousand years of...

I almost laughed. Almost.

"You’re joking," I said. Very flat. Very very controlled.

"Alpha..."

"You declared it yourself." I looked at Sheena directly. "In my room after my return. You heard the message from the moon goddess and you announced it." My voice was still controlled. "And now the moon goddess has changed her mind?"

"There is more," Sheena said.

I waited.

"The goddess had a second message." She held my gaze steadily. "Your true mate, Alpha - she has also been revealed tonight."

The murmuring intensified.

I looked at Sheena.

At her carefully arranged expression and her hands folded in front of her and the way she was looking at me with something that was not quite the composure I was used to seeing on her face, something underneath it that was - that I was only recognizing now, only in this moment with the moonlight and the blue fire and the goddess’s smoke settling - that was hoping.

The understanding arrived slowly.

Then completely.

I looked at Sheena.

I looked at the expression she had stopped trying to hide.

And the laugh came out of me before I could stop it.

"You?" I laughed out loud.

Sheena held her ground. Lifted her chin by a fraction. "The goddess does not ask our preferences," she said quietly. "She only speaks what is."

I pressed my hand over my mouth, holding it in.

Looked at the moon.

Looked back at Sheena - Sheena, who had been in my court for decades, who had once been my lover, who had prepared every ritual and kept every sacred law and stood at my shoulder through every impossible thing, who had freed my brother from my own dungeon tonight and I had known she would and let her do it...

Beside me, very quietly, Angel said: "Is anyone else finding this evening completely extraordinary, or is that just me?"

I turned and looked at her.

She was looking back at me.