Wolf and Prejudice (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 2)
Read Wolf and Prejudice (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 2) Online
Authors: Theodora Taylor
Tags: #Romance
Wolf and Prejudice
Published by Amorous Publishing
Copyright Ⓒ 2013 Theodora Taylor
ISBN: # 978-0-9849193-8-3
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
1
“
I
t is a truth universally acknowledged that a single alpha in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife,” Alisha whispered to her friend, Chloe, as they watched her parents shamelessly shove her older sister, Janelle, at Maguyuk Lonewolf, Alpha King of Wyoming. Janelle was in the middle of the dance floor, but Alisha could feel her sister’s abject discomfort from where she stood with Chloe.
“Stop,” Chloe hissed, widening her eyes and shaking her head frantically. “Stop it right now! You
know
I can’t be seen laughing at one of Rafe’s best friends.”
This was probably true. Chloe was engaged to the event’s host, Rafe Nightwolf, Alpha Prince of Colorado. And tonight’s party was being held in honor of his friend and ally, Mag. So making fun of said honoree probably wasn’t a great idea. In fact, Alisha’s own father, Tikaani, Alpha King of Alaska, definitely wouldn’t approve. Mag Lonewolf was an Alaska Native like Tikaani and had fought the former King of Wyoming’s son to the death for the Wyoming kingdom.
And as it turned out, Alisha’s sister, Janelle, had been engaged to the loser of that deathmatch, so she was now in need of a new fiancé. Alisha supposed in her father’s head, pairing her sister up with the wolf who killed her fiancé made perfect sense. Unlike human kings who’d actually evolved in their thinking over time, wolf kings were still of the opinion that the primary purpose of a wolf princess was to help kings form alliances with other powerful states through marriage.
So what if Mag had grown up in Inu-Amaruq, literally “Bad Wolf,” a nomadic pack made up of wolves who didn’t recognize King Tikaani’s state sovereignty? So what if he’d recently had two dark lines tattooed from the corners of his mouth to his earlobes to denote his killing of two fellow wolves? So what if he looked at Janelle like he was planning to eat her rather than offer her his pledge of mateship?
So what? King Tikaani wanted to be allied with Wyoming so why not throw his oldest and most beautiful daughter at its new king?
Alisha could practically see the empire building going on behind her father’s almond-shaped eyes. And though it wasn’t very mannerly to make the future Queen of Colorado laugh at the expense of her fiancé’s best friend, Alisha simply couldn’t help herself.
“On tonight’s episode of
Game of Wolves
, the Alaska king offers up his eldest daughter to the “bad wolf” King of Wyoming in the hopes of forming another important alliance within the lower forty-eight and of course, gaining a second who will keep him in power until further notice.”
Chloe snorted and covered her mouth to hide her smile. “Please stop. You’re going to make me laugh, and I’m already in enough trouble with Rafe as it is.” She took a deep, calming breath. “One: I talked to you about life in post-colonial Alaska instead of mingling during the aperitifs. Two: I spoke out of turn to your mom during dinner. And three: I’m wearing the wrong dress for this kind of event.”
Alisha rolled her eyes. As much of a catch as Rafe was considered, especially for someone like Chloe who hadn’t been born with a title, he was forever and a day picking on his fiancée. Yes, Chloe had only talked to Alisha during aperitifs. That was because there were only a handful of African-Americans at this event and neither Alisha nor Chloe hailed from kingdoms that held a ton of black people. Most wolf states were pretty progressive in terms of race, but Alaska’s human population was only three percent black, and its black
werewolf
population even less than that. Alisha loved her Alaskan Native and white pack members just like any good princess should. But it had been lonely for her, as one of the very few half-black wolves in her state pack, and one of three in Wolf Lake, their kingdom town.
To top it all off, Chloe was intelligent, curious, and interested in Alisha’s field of historical expertise: post-colonial Alaska. So clearly they were going to talk. But Rafe acted like they were committing some crime against humanity whenever they spent what he deemed as too much time in each other’s company.
And as for Chloe’s dress, Alisha loved it. True, it wasn’t exactly appropriate for a formal dinner honoring a new alpha king. But Chloe ran a popular DIY website called “Black Mountain Woman,” so the dress, like all Chloe’s clothes, was handmade by Chloe herself. Not only was her frock reflective of the gorgeous future queen’s inner values, it looked great with the over-the-shoulder braid she always wore. In Alisha’s opinion, Chloe’s prairie dress had a hell of a lot more character than the low-cut, blue evening gown her own mother had forced her to wear.
Alisha tugged up the sweetheart neckline of her gown. It was a similar design to the one her sister, Janelle, was wearing. Except Janelle’s was red and its neckline was even more dangerously low. Overall, the style definitely suited Janelle.
The dress’s mermaid bottom accentuated her sister’s long and slender body, and looked great with the waterfall of glossy black hair she’d inherited from their father’s Inuit ancestors. However, Alisha’s hair was neither kinky and cute like their African-American mother’s, or long and straight like their father’s. Her curls were wild and messy. As a result, she’d had her hair cut in an easy to maintain style—short on the sides and back, longer on the top—years ago rather than deal with the hassle of a back-length’s worth of unruly curls. And though she and her sister were roughly the same height, Alisha carried an extra forty pounds on her frame. So while Janelle looked like a beautiful, bi-racial mermaid in her gown, Alisha felt like a plump sea witch stuffed into fancy evening attire.
Not that she minded not being the brightest diamond in the room tonight. Alisha dreaded the day when the King and Queen of Alaska mated Janelle off and turned their unwelcome matchmaking attention to her. Back when Janelle had been engaged to the original Wyoming prince, the only thing that kept them from going full-throttle on Alisha was that she’d been attending grad school in Juneau, a multi-hour journey from their remote kingdom town, Wolf Lake. But she doubted even the distance would keep her parents from trying to manipulate her into an arranged marriage for much longer.
“I’m just saying my parents could be a little less obvious.” Alisha watched her mother, who was at that moment actually making Janelle spin in a circle in front of the Wyoming king. Alisha would have cussed both her parents out in front of witnesses if they’d pulled that mess on her, but of course Janelle, being perennially good-natured, merely turned with a self-conscious smile nailed to her face.
“Poor Janelle,” Alisha said, shaking her head.
“Whatever. The new king is so hot, I don’t feel sorry for Janelle at all.” Alisha’s younger sister, Tu, appeared at their side.
At five-foot-six, the twenty-year-old hadn’t inherited their mother’s height like her two older sisters, but Tu had been lucky enough to get her mother’s kinky hair and was wearing her dramatically large afro pulled back into a stately puff. It looked terrific on her, and highlighted her strong shoulders and athletic body. She wore an equally dramatic turquoise necklace and a yellow version of the “family” mermaid dress. In a word, Tu looked stunning. But her sophisticated veneer was ruined when she snatched the half-empty flute of champagne from Alisha’s hand and downed it before Alisha could stop her.
Tu clunked the empty glass down on a passing tray as she said, “We just better hope Mag wants to hit that enough to mate with Janelle. Or we’re going to be regular wolves as soon as someone gets bold enough to challenge Daddy next year.”
Tu was right, King Tikaani would be turning forty-five next year. That meant his kingship would be up for challenge unless he named a male heir to his throne or found a second--a younger, stronger state king who was willing to fight in his place should another male wolf challenge Tikaani for the Alaska throne. As of now, the King of Alaska had exactly zero male heirs in his direct line, and though he was well-liked by the state pack, it was only a matter of time before someone like the ambitious Alpha King of Wyoming came along and challenged him. As much as Alisha resented her father sometimes, she still loved him. A shiver of dread went down her spine at the thought of a younger, stronger wolf fighting him to the death for his title.
Alisha grabbed another full glass of champagne from a passing waiter and held it well out of her younger sister’s reach.
“Maybe it would be wiser if Daddy ceded the throne and let the would-be kings fight it out amongst themselves. Historically, that’s been the most peaceful way to crown a new king.”
Tu gave her sister a skeptical look. “You know Daddy doesn’t care about history, only about grandcubs to carry on his line. At least the Wyoming king is a hottie with a body. Who knows who he’ll try to throw Janelle at next if she doesn’t open his nose?”
Tu shot Chloe an envious look. “You’re
so
lucky. You’ve already got yourself a future king and you don’t even need one! Daddy would have thrown Janelle at Rafe so hard if you hadn’t come along.” Then after dropping that bomb, she said, “Ooh, there goes that cute wolf Rafe got to deejay the party! Time to talk to somebody not boring. Later.”
She shot across the ballroom to catch up with the young Brad Pitt lookalike, leaving her apparently boring conversation partners behind, including a rather distressed Chloe.
“Don’t listen to Tu,” Alisha told her friend, passing her the full flute of champagne. “Here, drink this. It’s the only thing that makes these parties remotely bearable.”
Chloe took the flute, but a shadow crossed over her face as she sipped from it. “I know your dad’s upset about my engagement to Rafe. So is the King of Colorado, especially now that it’s gone on so long.”
Most female wolves went into heat within a year of getting engaged, shortly after which they could formally get married. Rafe and Chloe had been engaged for nearly six years with no sign of it ending any time soon.
But Alisha refused to let her friend feel bad about this. “The truth is, my father and the King of Colorado would love nothing more than to use us all as pawns in their Game of Wolves. But you and Rafe managed to subvert them by agreeing to marry for love, so good job!”
She grabbed a flute of champagne for herself and clinked her glass against Chloe’s to make her point, but the shadow still hung over Chloe’s face.
“I do love Rafe,” she said. “I know I haven’t gone into heat yet, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him, because I really, really do.”
“I know you do,” Alisha assured her, even though it sounded a little bit like Chloe was also trying to convince herself more than Alisha. “But look at Janelle! She’s the same age as you and she still hasn’t gone into heat, even though she was engaged to the last King of Wyoming for three years. Plenty of female wolves get to your age without going into heat.”
“Even female wolves engaged to a prince as cute as Rafe?”
Now Alisha had to laugh. It was true, Rafe was definitely one of the most handsome princes in the lower Forty-Eight, thanks in part to his mixed Chicano and Native American heritage, which made for one pretty and chiseled face.
“Contrary to what my sister says, it’s not all about looks and status.” Alisha leaned in and whispered, “Don’t tell my mom, but if I ever go into heat, I plan to mate with someone way below my quote-unquote station, probably a fellow academic. I’m much more concerned with being able to talk to my possible future mate than how he looks or whether he’s titled.”
A wolf princess claiming she would mate for companionship as opposed to status was a scandalous statement indeed, one Alisha wouldn’t dare utter within earshot of her parents or even her sisters, but all Chloe seemed to hear was, “You don’t think you’ll go into heat? Ever?”