Chapter 244 – Mated to the Alpha and His Beta Novel PDF Online Free

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My mother nodded, her expression full of shadows. “After you all left, Lanie, things were very dark here. Orion’s death changed so much, and the High Council was out of control. I think the pack truly believed we were going to all have to go rogue. Everything was utterly falling apart.”

I didn’t know what to say. If I tried to apologize, I knew my mom would try to tell me it wasn’t my fault, but that wouldn’t stop me from trying to take the blame. Because it was our fault…me, Xander, Zane, Mason. We hadn’t been the ones to set anything in motion, but we’d been the ones to make sure the High Council couldn’t simply keep on doing what they’d been doing all those years.We’d broken the pack.

Now, we’d have to work hard to put it all back together.

My mom cleared her throat and said in a brighter voice, “Your dads are beside themselves. They’ll be back tomorrow or the next day. They’d have been here sooner, but they were sent so far away, and the High Council made it so hard to get back here on purpose.”

Tears shone in her eyes, but there was hope and happiness in her voice.

If I couldn’t wait to see my dads, I could only imagine how much my mom was looking forward to it. I let my gaze linger on my three mates bent over their plates as they talked to Monroe and Maxim. It felt impossible that I could survive being separated from any one of them for longer than a few hours, much less months. Years.

“Goddess,” I murmured, mostly to myself. “Has it truly been more than a year?”

For all I could tell, it could’ve been closer to two. Three, four…I shook my head. It couldn’t have been that long, but I had completely lost all track of time while we were gone.

“If a mother judges the passing of time by the way her children grow,” my mother said, “I can see why you’re not sure.”

She hugged me again, and then we joined Mindy and Alaina with freshly filled plates. Isaac had moved to the other end of the table with his fathers and the High Guards. It was a clear separation, and my heart panged at the sight of my little boy beginning his journey into manhood.

Mindy saw me looking and paused with a forkful of food halfway to her mouth. She let out a snuffling sob and put the fork down. “He’s so big! Lanie, how do you st-st-staaaaaaand it!”Alarmed, I patted her shoulder. Emotions rose, swelling and swirling all around us. Mindy had always been excitable, but this seemed kind of extreme, even for her. I chalked it up to all the upheaval with our return, and in seconds her wails and tears turned to laughter. She swiped at her eyes.

“Sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I missed you so damned much, Lanie. I was so scared I’d never see you again. I missed my bestie!”

We hugged, laughing and crying while Stella shook her head with amusement. Alaina watched us both carefully, her brow knitted. She was clearly studying what was going on but not sure what to think about it. I held out my arms hand for her to take.

“Don’t fret, sweetpea. We’re all just diving way down into our feels this morning,” I assured her while Mindy sniffed but beamed a wide grin beside me.

Alaina didn’t smile. She squeezed my hand and then let it go. “May I be excused?”

“Sure. Where are you going?” I didn’t want her running off until we’d had some time to get settled.

“Daddy’s going to be calling a pack meeting for everyone pretty soon, and we want you there for it.”

“I’m just going up to my room,” Alaina said and left the room.

Stella watched her go. I couldn’t read her expression. I touched her hand until she looked at me.

“Stella? Everything okay?”

She nodded and smiled, but her gaze was locked on her sister’s retreating form, and a tiny shiver tickled my spine until she looked at me. “Yep. All good.”

But something felt off.

Mason–

The air in Xander’s office crackled with an electric tension as we gathered around his desk. He’d called for the pack meeting to be held in the town square and put out the word that every pack member able to make it should plan to attend. There’d be many who couldn’t make the journey in time, but according to Zane’s statistics with confirmation from Maxim and Monroe, we were looking at a huge group.

“Zane, you’ve got the lead on the speaker system and all of that?” I asked.

Zane nodded. “Yep. Maxim and Monroe have put together an amazing communications setup, too.

Great job.”

Maxim laughed and jerked a thumb at his partner. “Blame this guy. I’m just the one who installed the equipment. He’s the one who planned the system.”

“It looks state of the art to me,” Xander said with admiration lacing his tone. “Something my father would never have embraced. Too much access to information, too much transparency about what the Alpha was doing? Fuck no.”

“But you’re not your father,” Zane told him. “And this is no longer your father’s pack. Or the High Council’s.”

Maxim and Monroe nodded. I was still having a hard time telling them apart. They were the same size, same shape, their voices sounded the same, all of it. They looked more alike than Xander and I did, but Zane had told me they weren’t brothers.Not so far as anyone knew anyway. That was my private thought, which, admittedly, was probably formed by my own existence as the son whose father hadn’t known about for a long time.

I looked out the window toward the town square. I couldn’t see it from here, but the rest of the mansion grounds were bustling with activity. I let the curtain fall and turned back to the room.

“We want there to be a solemn but also joyous feel to the meeting. We want the pack to be assured that Xander and I are a team, working together, to protect and lead. But we can’t promise that every threat’s been extinguished. There are still those hybrid testing places out there, for one thing,” I said.

“On my list to immediately disassemble,” Xander added. “But we can’t just go in with teeth and claws. There are innocents in those places.”

“They’ll need compassionate care once they’re released,” Zane said quietly. His gaze darkened.

“Some of their families may not be around any longer to take them back in.”

“Got it.” Maxim tapped the keys on his laptop and squinted at the screen. “Fuck. I think I need glasses.”

“I’ve got the catering team working on putting out snacks and drinks,” said Monroe, tapping on his own laptop. “Unless you think it would be more appropriate for the Luna to handle this?”

“Let’s give Lanie a bit of time to get acclimated, especially since you two have been doing such great job handling shit while we were gone.” Xander got up from his seat and went to the same window I’d looked out of. He turned back to his friends and grinned. “I gotta be honest, guys, I thought I’d be coming back to a real mess.”

Maxim and Monroe both grinned back at him.“Gotta say, kind of the same thing on our end,” Maxim said with a look at me. “We figured you might be returning in pretty rough shape. Looks like your co-Alpha and your Beta took good care of you.”

The fact they were clearly accepting and making the effort at acknowledging me went a long way, but it was still going to take some time before I could fully get comfortable here. In Stillwood, I’d known my place. My friends had become my family. Here in Constantine, I had friends, and I had family, but I’d also need to join this pack. That was something I’d never been a part of.

“Hey…Mason. I just got a ping,” said Maxim, looking at his laptop. “Some new arrivals. A…Quinn and Sable from Stillwood?”

A wide grin spread instantly across my face. “Yeah? They’re good. You can let them in. Is there anyone else with them? A man? Asher?”

Maxim tapped a message into his computer and waited a couple of seconds before shaking his head. “Nope. Just the two women. They said they know the Luna?”

“They’re the mom and sister of my best friend from Stillwood. Yeah, they know Lanie. Sable delivered Stella. Can you have someone let her know so she can greet them at the front door?” I told him.

Maxim nodded and took care of it while Xander let out a small whistle. He put his hands on his hips.

“I guess this shindig’s getting bigger by the second.”

“Should we hold it off?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. The pack is going to be eager to see us, and we owe it to them not to fuck around much longer. They deserve to be told as much as we can. And, you deserve to be greeted and welcomed as their new co-Alpha.”

“Right,” I said, but inside, I wondered if that was how all of this was going to go.I’d have to face a crowd of people Orion had betrayed. What if they decided I was a good target to take the punishment he’d never had to face?

Xander–

I’d called for the entire pack to congregate here, but I hadn’t thought so many would be able to make it. As it turned out, pack members had traveled hard and fast to get here. They were still pouring into the square, hanging out of the window of storefronts, and lined up along rooftops.

I shaded my eyes to look out at the crowd from my place on the small stage Maxim and Monroe had arranged to have built. With my brother on one side, Zane on the other, and my High Guards behind, we waited for the crowd to settle, but they weren’t. The tensions were high and rising.

Nobody was getting rowdy, but they could go that way, if we weren’t careful about what we said…or how we said it.

My father had often addressed the pack like a beneficent king, but one who definitely expected you to kiss his ring or find yourself facing a not-so benevolent ruler. I didn’t want to approach any of this the way he had. It was going to be hard enough to hold onto the good memories I had for my dad without trying to behave in his bad ways.

“They’re getting restless,” Zane thought to me. “Even if they’re not all settled, you should probably start to address them. I can sense a growing dissatisfaction, some fear, a lot of curiosity.”

I looked at him with one brow quirked. “Could you always do that?”

“I think Stella lent me some of her empath talents,” Zane sent through the mind link.

I didn’t have time to consider this or dwell on what that might mean for my Beta, or even if there was a chance that our daughter had done the same for any of the rest of us. The crowd was swelling, pressing up toward the base of the stage. Their murmuring voices were rising, and I could catch bitsand pieces of what they were saying. Some of it was regular excited chatter, but there was also some undertones of discontent.

“Let’s get started,” I said aloud so Maxim and Monroe could both hear me, too. I switched on the mic Maxim had tucked into the color of my Henley. I saw Mason do the same. I faced the crowd.

“Greetings, Pack Constantine!”

My father would never have used technology to address a meeting like this. He’d have expected his voice to boom out over the restless crowd and that they all would simply shut up and listen at rapt attention. Hell, he probably would’ve had guards stationed throughout the crowd to haul off anyone who wasn’t listening.

“I am not my father,” I said to them all. I kept my voice as slow and steady as I could. I let my eyes sweep the crowd, making contact with several people here and there. I looked upward to some on the roof, too. I wanted them all to feel like I was looking at them as individuals. “So let’s just start off with that, okay? I’m Alpha Xander Constantine, and I’m here today to let you know that…well, from here on out, things are going to get better.”

I wasn’t prepared for the thunderous applause. It was so loud it reverberated through my mic and almost caused a squeal of feedback before it softened. My heart thudded as emotions swept over me. I caught Zane’s eye. He was channeling some of the crowd’s feelings so I could get in touch with them.

“Thanks,” I sent to him.

To the crowd, I said, “As I’m sure you all know, the High Council has been disbanded. Destroyed, actually. And I know some of you have concerns about that, what it means for our pack overall, as well as for the families of those council members. So first, I want to let you know that anyone who’d like to discuss it can make an appointment with me or my co-Alpha. My brother, Mason.”Silence.

Then, the rustle of voices.

I didn’t give them time to start shouting. I held up my hands, and the crowd obeyed.

“I know the rumors have preceded us, so I want to set all of your minds at ease. My brother Mason–

is also a son of Orion, and when our father died, Mason inherited Alpha powers. Same as me. I know this isn’t how it usually works, but this is how it works for us. So if you have concerns about that, you can also make an appointment to see us. We’re here for you, the entire pack.”

I could hear questions being shouted, but Zane pulsed feelings toward me. Mostly acceptance, tinged with confusion and a lot of hope. There were a few bits of discontent, but it was outweighed by the positive.

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