2: Balance

                “You look like you’re ready to start war negotiations with an enemy pack instead of meeting with a long lost relative,” Dmitri teased, taking in the ink black power suit with silver pin striping, I’d put on.

                I’d wanted to look strong and confident, not hostile. “You think I should go softer?” I frowned, “Or lighter?”

                I was still struggling to find just the right way to dress for my new rank. Alphas usually wore black; their Lunas wore white, two halves of a whole, balancing each other out. I was an Alpha’s mate, but I was also an Alpha in my own right, at least that’s what we told the world.

                The truth was I was so much more than that. I wasn’t just your average lycan. I wasn’t even like the other rare female alphas. Half of me wasn’t even mortal. It was a secret that only the two of us knew.

                “You know I’m biased,” he stepped behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and kissing my shoulder, “I think you’re most beautiful in nothing at all.” His eyes took a long hungry look at me, “Or just a bit of rope.”

                “Dmitri, I’m serious!” I frowned, “I thought I should look like an Alpha that knows what she is doing. But maybe I should look more like a Luna. I don’t want him to think we’re weak.”

                “You showed a hell of a lot of strength last night when you held sway over an entire room of Alphas, while shielding everyone in our pack from the command.” His arms pulled me against his chest, a warm calm radiated through me from his touch, “I can feel your anxiety; it’s making you over think everything.”

                I nodded, trying to reign in my emotions so that he felt less of them through our bond, “He’s dangerous, I just don’t know what threat he poses, so how am I supposed to be prepared? Is he looking for a weakness to exploit, or is he looking for any sign that I’m worth starting a war over?” He nuzzled the spot where my neck and shoulder met, nipping his mark to send sparks swirling from his lips through my body. “You’re trying to distract me,” I complained. “Maybe, I should wear something that displays your mark better.”

                “He’s seen it,” he turned me around to face him, “and yours on me. Everyone from last night is a witness. I am yours; you are mine, and there’s nothing that he can do about it.” He kissed my forehead, “We just have to be good hosts while he’s here. We don’t have to tell him anything about you than we’d tell any other alpha.”

                We’d been keeping a lot of information about me hidden from the world. There were things that only our pack members knew. The fact that my wolf form was pure white with gold eyes had been altered for public knowledge to almost pure white. I could phase shift between my human and wolf forms instantaneously, a gift I’d been able to share with others in the pack. It was our packs new secret weapon. And no one spoke of my ability to give those without a wolf spirit access to the pack link. It was something I had to do in person, and it took a while to teach them to control it.

                Some things less than 10 people knew about. I can survive lethal amounts of wolfsbane without even feeling sick, but it’d render me basically human. The pack doctor chalked my immunity up to the fact that I had a healing ability that surpassed what was extraordinary for even an alpha. Fewer people knew that I could accelerate another’s healing as well. Stranger though, was that even before I was a part of the pack, I could override Dmitri’s commands. I could even use my sway to alter someone’s memory, not completely, but enough to change a few details and hide things from their own mind. I could even force someone to hand control to their wolf and then force the wolf back if I wanted.

                We knew there was still the potential that I was capable of more. But I was also severely undertrained in combat, and not just as an alpha. I lacked the lessons that usually went into becoming an alpha. I hadn’t even been brought up knowing how to be a luna, even though it was planned that I be Dmitri’s mate when we were children. I was uneducated beyond the basics of interpack politics and laws. Other than myself and my abilities, I brought no assets to the pack. On paper I was a liability.

                I gave Dmitri a nod, not really listening to what he said while I was lost in my own thoughts. Shrugging out of his arms I moved to do my hair and makeup while he finished dressing. I decided on soft makeup, with dark purple eyeliner to make my green eyes pop. My hair was pulled into a half up do, letting the red curls fall around my shoulders and down my back. I hoped I looked feminine, but also like a strong alpha.

                Dmitri dressed exactly how you’d imagine an alpha. He was tall, muscular and handsome. He always looked like a perfectly polished and composed businessman. But under that expensive suit was a body of solid muscle that could rip a man to shreds. He commanded attention just by walking into a room and easily dominated any situation he was in. Well, almost any situation. He spoke eloquently, and could control his shift no matter what phase the moon was in. He could even shift into a hybrid between wolf and man, a skill I was still struggling to start, let alone master.

                Under that vestige of the perfect alpha, he was just as anxious and worried as I was, maybe even more so. I was his biggest vulnerability. We both knew there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do and there was nothing he wouldn’t give up for me. He’d proven as much at our mating ceremony when he asked the pack to either accept me as an alpha to lead with him, or release him to leave the pack with me.

                My cheeks were still sore from all the fake smiling I’d done the night before, but I didn’t want anyone else to feel the sense of dread I had about the visitor heading our way. Least of all, my Beta Sophia, Dmitri’s twin sister and the former pack Luna. It had been a regular practice of his to not worry her if he could help it, and I’d adopted it as well. I was just much more selective about what I would hide from her than he was.

                Once free of her fear of being mated to a random male as a lesbian, she’d become quite the social butterfly. No longer hiding away from the pack in her personal suite, she set up daily group meals for the end and start of each day. With such a large pack, most people still ate in their own homes with their own families, or the cantina. But in the main pack house, everyone that held rank or lived in the house was expected to attend her meals.

                Dmitri and I made our way to the table in the main dining hall set up for our little group. In some ways it was as if we’d been two packs that melded together, 2 Alphas, each with their own Beta, and their own enforcers. But none of my entourage came from my origin pack; they all came from the pack that had accepted me as one of their own. While the majority of our enforcers ate at the tables placed around ours, only our head enforcers ate with us.

                Sophie frowned at me, and I realized that she’d asked a question but I’d been too focused on trying to smile and push food around my plate while I got lost in my own thoughts. I ran through the list of things that I could remember still needing to be finalized. The most pressing thing on my schedule had to be the baby shower we were planning for Kelly. She was the mate of Dmitri’s head enforcer, Blake. “I’m sure that you’ll make the right call, Soph…”

                Nathan’s glare cut me off as she began to squeal and clap her hands. “Please tell them that I don’t need to move upstairs,” Nathan turned his glare from me to Dmitri. His alpha just continued eating while a smile of amusement played across his lips. “Shouldn’t you two save those rooms as a nursery or something for down the line?”

                I let my smile drop, effectively sobering Sophie’s mirth. “Nathan, as much as I agree with Sophie that you shouldn’t still be living down with the single enforcers like a sad frat guy, if you really don’t want have more personal space and a private bathroom, we’re not going to make you move.”

                “Hmph,” if you didn’t know him well enough, you wouldn’t have seen the slight crack in his mask of annoyance. It was probably the lure of not having to share a bathroom that had him considering it. “I’ll think about it.” Sophie started to squeal again, but squeaked and fell silent again when he shot her another glare.

                I paid attention to the rest of the conversation through the meal. Nathan was going to be covering Dmitri’s schedule for the day so that he could stay glued to my side as promised. Sophie would handle mine. While they kept the pack running smoothly for another day, Dmitri and I would be entertaining my uncle.