Tyla's Arrival

Now, Tyla wasn't a completely spoiled brat like Tymarie. She shared the same unlimited funds and fun shopping sprees, but she didn't expect to be waited on hand and foot or for the world to revolve around her every need. She didn't complain much about her life; what was there to be ungrateful about? But as she drove herself to the Chosen Bride Pairing, she was cussing and cursing that she was arriving behind the wheel of her little sports car and not being chauffeured up to the red carpet by a limousine with a driver.

Damn her family. They always did this, put her last and left her behind. Now, she was going to have to pull up at the event and be gawked and stared at in all the wrong ways. Sure, plenty of people didn't have chauffeurs or limos, but her family did, so it would be gossiped about. Members would speculate that she had been cast out of her family by her father. Perhaps she was pregnant with a forbidden male's baby? Maybe she had been tossed aside from her parents and kicked out of the pack? Or maybe they would say she had partied too hard and missed her ride, and now would be labeled a drunk or addict? None was true, but that is how the talk spreads and sticks among the packs.

As Tyla pulled up to the front of the building, she was relieved to see that only a few valets were still outside. Good, maybe she could avoid being the star of gossip for the night. One valet helped her from the driver's seat, which was much appreciated in her painful heels. The other valet took her keys and drove off to park her car.

Tyla made each painful step up to the door and entered the grand packhouse. Her parents had built this new packhouse when her father took over Alpha from his father. Some packs only have barns or small buildings as their packhouse meeting grounds, but not the high up packs. It was a pissing match for them. Who could build the bigger, best packhouse? Her parents were definitely at the top of that list. This packhouse was more like a wealthy country club that only the most elite could afford memberships too.

On the outside grounds, the packhouse had its own swimming pool, golf course, tennis courts, basketball court, and tea garden. On the inside, the place was magnificent. There were multiple meeting rooms, dining areas, a theatre room, a game room, and a huge ballroom for events like this that included a stage. It all seemed like such a waste of funds to Tyla. She knew there were many poor members of packs around them, surely high ups could shower the needy with funds instead of packhouses like this, but her father said she had a bleeding heart that was a weakness to her.

Tyla was glad to see that she was glad to see that she hadn't missed the ceremony. Her sister may make her angry at times, but it was a big night for Tymarie and Tyla wanted to witness the pairing for her. She saw her mother ahead at a front row table and made her way through the ballroom crowd to take her seat beside her.

"Where have you been?" Her mother asked. "You are super late."

"Um, you guys left me." Tyla reminded her mother. "And the other limo is in the shop for the day. I had to get my car from the garage and stop for gas."

"It's always an excuse from you." Her mother waved her hand in disapproval and then greeted another Alpha's wife as they caught eyes with her at the next table.

The two Alpha wives began talking and Tyla scooted back into her chair in hopes that no one would want to speak with her. Her heels were still killing her feet, she surely had blisters already. No one would notice if she popped them off under the white clothes table, so she slipped her feet out of the heels and sighed in sudden ecstasy at the comfort their absence brought.

"Get up." Her father demanded. She hadn't noticed him coming up from behind her. "Come with me, now."

"Geeze, I was only a few minutes late." She never expected it would anger him so much.

"Now." He grabbed her arm and snatched her up from her seat. She didn't even have time to put her shoes back on as he led her away from the table and backstage.

So much for not being the star of gossip that night. Her father had just made a scene that was certain to be noticed and speculated upon by the rumor mill.

"Give her something sky blue." Her father directed his Beta.

Beta Greg hurried off to do as directed. The man was in his fifties now, but still moved swift and fast like a young wolf.

"What the hell, dad?" Tyla pulled her arm from his grasp. "You're hurting me. What is going on?"

"Shut your mouth and listen to me." He grabbed both of her arms and squeezed tighter. She winced out in pain, but her father hated weakness, so he only grasped tighter. "There has been a change of plans. Your sister will no longer be a Chosen Bride. You will take her place, right now."

What? What the hell did he just say? Tyla shook her head in disbelief and confusion.

"Where is Tymarie?" She looked around for her sister. "Is she okay? What's happened?"

"Shut up!" His aura filled the room, but she didn't cower like others did. Her fear for her sister was stronger than her fear for herself at that moment. "Get out there and choose your mate."

"No!" Tyla objected. "I'm not a Chosen Bride. Tymarie is. Where is she? Why can't she go out there? I need answers! I never went through the process of a chosen. It's not right."

"Enough!" Her father slapped her across the face. It took everything in her to not fall to the floor. The sting wrung her ears and stunned her senses for a moment, but she stood her ground and didn't fall.

"No!" She screamed. A growl came from within her, and she could feel her wolf begging to come out.

"Don't challenge me, girl." Her father growled and it shook her body.

Music started playing and she knew the ceremony had started. The Chosen Brides and Grooms would be taking their place on stage at that moment. She couldn't see them from the area that she was in, but they must've been on the opposite side of the backstage.

"Here, sir." Beta Greg came rushing up with a sky blue throw he must've gotten from a member in the audience.

Her father grabbed the throw and wrapped the material over her shoulders.

"I don't want to do this, father." Tyla begged. "Please, Dad, don't make me."

"I am your Alpha!" His eyes began to glow yellow. "And I command you to do this."

Tyla made a run for it. She thought maybe if she could escape backstage and into the audience, her father wouldn't harm her in front of the other packs, but she only got a few feet before Beta Greg tackled her face first onto the floor. He pressed his knee into her back as her father walked around to see her.

"You will go out there and you will participate in the pairing, or my Beta has orders to drag you out back and rip your fucking head off." Her father threatened. "Don't think that I won't hang my own daughter's head on display in front of these wolves to prove my point."

"This isn't right." She kicked and wiggled but made no difference in the Beta's hold on her body.

"If she's not out on that stage in one minute, kill her." Her Alpha father directed his Beta.

Alpha Tyler straightened his suit and tie, and then headed around the stage to take his seat among the audience.

"Get up." Beta Greg pulled her up from the ground and led her to the stage. "Just listen to your father and pair with William already."

"How do you know it will be William?" Tyla asked.

"Just go, girl. I don't want to have to kill you, but make no mistake, I will." He shoved her toward the stage.

Defeated, Tyla sighed as she headed out onto the stage and took her sister's place. The other Chosen Brides and Grooms looked over at her in shock, but none spoke up and showed that there was any error among the ceremony. A few gasps came from the audience, but if any member had a problem with the situation, none spoke up.

Tyla stood there barefooted and bruised, her ego just as wounded. Her father had never shared any intensions with her about this plan, and she had always imagined that she would have the freedom to find her own mate. Maybe go to college. Maybe travel. Maybe move to a city and be welcomed into a new pack. She had never decided what it was she wanted to do, but she didn't know that her fate would be decided for her.

Her mind was a blur, and her father's blow to her head and Beta Greg's tackle to the ground probably helped ass to the fogginess of her brain, but it seemed like the whole ceremony blew by within seconds and suddenly she was being ushered over to the bucket of rocks to choose her mate. Her hand reached forward, without her own direction. She was an outsider, it seemed, watching herself from afar.

"William Fitzgerald." The Chosen Wolf announced to the crowd.

Beta knew. That damn male knew who she would pick, which meant her father had rigged this whole thing. Of course, he did. Alpha Tyler was too narcissistic to allow fate to control the pairing.

"Kiss your Chosen One…" The Chosen Wolf was uniting the couples, and this would seal the deal.

Seriously? William Fucking Fitzgerald? Of course, he was handsome, but he was also arrogant and cocky, like the rest of the privileged pricks in these packs. Kiss him? Marry him? Did that mean he would expect to mate this night?

Tyla pondered running off stage and making an escape, but when she looked to the side of the stage, Beta Greg was standing there waiting. This was a damn nightmare. Maybe she could fall over and pretend to faint before the kiss? That would at least postpone the unity. Yes, that's what she would do.

Just as she was about to make her dramatic fake faint, William's lips met hers and sealed the marriage. It was a fast kiss, long enough to make it official, and long enough to send warm tingles down her body. She hated herself for enjoying it.

"Go, be with your Chosen One." The Chosen Wolf told them as he wrapped up the ceremony. "Be one under our precious Moon, in unity and strength, for forever more."

Tyla followed the other Chosen has they all went off stage and celebrated with their new pairs. William was up ahead, and she figured she could at least speak to her new groom.

"Well," She smiled at him. "It could've been worse."

"Could it have been?" He was angry and, without warning, he suddenly pulled her into an empty nearby closet and pushed her up against the wall. "I don't want you. I won't have you."

Tyla was taken back by the rage in his eyes and the disappointment in his words.

"Good, I don't want you either." She shoved at him, but he pressed further against her.

"I won't." William's lips went onto her neck, and she could feel breath hot upon her skin.

"Good." Tyla didn't know why, but her own hands were grasping his hips and pulling them toward her.

She could feel him harden against her. Before she could even comprehend her own actions, she was unbuckling his pants as he was hiking up her dress. His teeth scrapped across her neck, and she moaned with excitement, wishing he'd pierce them into her skin and claim her right there and then. He lifted her up off the ground, and she wrapped her legs around his thighs in anticipation of what would come.

"Do it." She told him as he rubbed himself between her thighs. "Do it, now."

William growled a sexy growl; unlike any she'd ever heard before. He was about to enter her when a female voice called out on the other side of the door.

"Fitz!" The voice was loud and screechy. "Have you seen Fitz?"

"Fuck." William put Tyla back down to the floor and nervously zipped his pants up.

"Who is that?" Tyla asked.

"It's my girlfriend." He smirked.

"Girlfriend?"

"I told you, I don't want you." He meanly said again.

"Good, I told you, I don't want you." Tyla rearranged her dress.

He looked over her once more. The anger was still there but there was a spark of something else as well this time. The male disappeared from the closet, and she was left alone to ponder just how much she hated William Fitzgerald, her new husband.