6. Selfish Alpha

After my short nap, I prepared myself for the conference meeting. It is already evening and the sun is setting, I enter the dining room to have a meal. Cora is already seated there while the servants are serving bountiful food on the table, her mouth is watery and those doe eyes are opened widely.

As I take my serving, she taps me lightly on my hand. Her eyes blink nervously - and shyly - when my eyes meet hers.

“It seems like I have a little problem here,” she tells me.

I remain silent, giving her a simple nod to go on.

“I have no idea how to use the cutlery.”

“You’re saying that as a joke, right?” I ask.

She nods in response, biting her lips in a manner that arouses me oddly. It is quite shocking to learn that from Cora, I know that she is not the Alpha’s daughter. Probably an omega that was used to supersede their daughter, but knowing that she has never used the cutlery all her life is a huge blow.

First of all, I dismiss the servants and guards in the room. I don't want them to have a bad impression of their Luna or see her as an obscenity and shame to her name.

“I’m going to show you how to use them but you must promise me that you’ll be a fast learner by tomorrow morning.”

She smiles, “I promise.”

I touch her right palm and a spark of electricity tinges our skin. We pull away her hands, and Cora cradles her palms to her chest with a confused look on her face.

“Did you feel that?” she asks curiously.

I nod, “It’s nothing to worry about.”

I shouldn’t have lied to her. Sparks don't happen unless you are in close proximity to your mate but it doesn't matter, Cora is my Luna after all. I hold her right palm again, this time around the tingling sparks are lighter and now tolerable.

“This is a spoon and it’s used to take food like this and straight to your mouth without dropping a grain.”

I demonstrate the process several times until she can do it on her own. Although her hands are shaking, I see no problem with that as long as the grains are not dropping.

“This per knife for cutting your meat into slices and a fork for stabbing it and taking it into your mouth… understood?”

“Yes sir!” She replies with enthusiasm.

I leave her to struggle with her meal while I finish mine.

“I’m going for a meeting, I’ll be late tonight.”

“I wanna go with you,” she blurts out.

“You can’t, this is solely for business purposes…”

“Am I not part of your business plan?” Her innocent voice sounds sultry in my ears and I drop my spoon.

“Say that one more time and I’ll be having you on this table.”

Cora zaps her mouth, focusing more on her on her food. I sigh, after all, she is now my responsibility to deal with, and leaving her alone when the environment is unfamiliar will not be safe for her,

“Fine, you can come with me…”

“Yay!” She screams and throws her arms around my shoulder, then she seems to collect herself, “Sorry about that.”

“On one condition, you won’t be causing any trouble.”

“Of course, Mr. Alpha.”

“It’s Zane,” I correct her.

“Whatever.”

We finish our meal and head to the car, Conrad looks taken aback to see Cora with me.

“You brought the Luna?” he asks me.

I allow Cora to enter the car first before answering.

“What was I supposed to do? Leave her in the pack house?”

Conrad chuckles, “You do care about her?”

“Say that again and I’ll silence you here forever,” I threaten, but not seriously.

Conrad rolls his eyes, “Save your threats later, someone else will need them. Let’s go.”

Cora looks excited all through our ride to the company, I take her to the waiting area that’s close to the conference hall.

“Stay here and wait for me, I’ll be in there for about thirty minutes.”

She nods and I leave her alone. The members of the board are already waiting for my arrival so the meeting starts immediately.

“What is the current profit on the stocks we have?” I ask.

“Fifteen percent…”

I glare at everyone in the room, “This is very poor. Do you all even want a salary this month?”

“We do,” they respond in unison.

“Then work on this or I’ll fire you all myself. How is the project management going?”

“Uhh, sir… There haven’t been any recent developments since last week.”

“What have you all been doing lately, huh?”

“Sir, the team went with Erika on the market research but has not reached out to us since.”

“Then, reach out to…”

I stop as a disturbing feeling washes over me. Cora’s strong scent is suddenly faint and slowly fading away. I stand up abruptly and hand over the meeting to Conrad to take care of, I excuse myself to check on Cora but she is not in the waiting area again.

My heart races fast as fear creeps in - the first time I am scared of losing someone. In Erika’s case, I only regretted not standing up for her but never feared losing her. This brown Doe who I care less if she wants to escape is making my heart race and beat faster.

I follow the faint scent to the elevator and down to the reception area, my eyes search for her until I sight her being dragged away by the security.

“Hey! What the hell are you doing?” I query the security men.

“Sir, we caught her snooping around the hallway. When we questioned her, she gave us no tangible response so we decided to walk her out.”

I sighed, the security men were just doing their jobs.

“Let her go, she’s with me.”

They release their grip on her and I drag her to the elevator.

“I told you to wait for me, why did you leave?” I ask her, anger is now surging through my veins at the thought of her disobedience.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” she whimpers.

“You are sorry? Do you have any idea what could have happened to you if those security men kicked you out? There are rogues on the loose for crying out loud!”

“Are you mad at me?”

She appears to be more fascinated than scared of my anger. Her face is smudged in a smile that she is trying to hide.

“Of course not, you can do whatever you wish. Don't have it in mind that you have one punishment waiting for you,” I smirk at her.

She shivers at the sound of punishment but I doubt that she is scared to face it. The elevator opens and as we approach the door, it opens and the board members step out. They are startled to see Cora behind me, I let go of her hand immediately.

“Who is she, sir?”

“Someone who is not important to you,” I reply sarcastically.

They nod and move on, I try to hold her again but she declines.

“You denied me in front of everyone,” she scowled.

“That’s not how it sounded to me,” I say flatly.

She scoffs, “You still care about your point of view, selfish Alpha.”

“You derive joy in calling me bad names,” I pout.

“Because you are a bad person!”

She storms off and Conrad follows her behind. Her words hurt me slightly, I thought that her mind about me was clear only for me to realize that she feels the same as every other person - that I’m the bad guy.

She faces the window all through our journey back home and by the time we arrive at the pack house, she is already asleep. I lift her in a bridal style and take Cora to her room, laying her on the bed and using the sheets to cover her body.

Then I retire to my room, my mother is standing at the window with her arms folded.

“What now?” I snap at her.

“You made her cry.”

“She hurt my feelings first,” I mutter.

My mother sighs, “You should learn to stop being selfish around the people you love.”

“I don’t love her.”

“The spark when you two touched…”

“That’s just the chilliness of the air,” I cut off, getting pissed off already.

“It is a sign of the mate bond and you lied to her about it.”

“Mother, I need to rest. It’s been a long day already.”

“You should be careful when you’re with her, goodnight.”

As I doze off, all my mind replays is Cora calling me selfish and a bad person.