Princess of the Pack
A Woolven Secret Novella
by
Saranna DeWylde
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
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Published in the United States of America by
Saranna DeWylde © 2015
Cover Art by Saranna DeWylde
Stock Photo: Dreamstime
Author’s Note
Welcome to the world of The Woolven Secret. Billionaires? Check. Playboys? Check. Werewolves? Surprise! Double check. The Woolven Secret was born one night when I was talking with a friend about interesting titles. (Much like Desperate Housewives of Olympus.) I came up with the Billionaire Werewolf’s Secret Litter, and while we laughed hysterically (there might have been snorting and honking like demented geese) this little sliver of an idea kept gnawing on me.
I never expected to tell Marchessa’s story. But she was just as loud as the Woolvens, demanding to be in the spotlight. I didn’t like her at first. I thought she was spoiled, vain, and tricksy indeed. But there was so much more to her. I hope you love her and the Woolvens just as much as I do.
Xo
Chapter One
Marchessa de la Luna, contrary to popular belief, actually had no interest in being mated.
The act of mating? Sure. Sign her up for an all day and all night inclusive package. But for what came after? Nope. She didn’t need it or want it. She didn’t want to be responsible for someone else, she didn’t want them to think they were responsible for her. Marchessa had enough of that growing up as the only natural born female to the de la Luna pack in a generation.
It meant basically, her whole pack treated her like she was their little sister.
Maybe that would’ve sounded nice to some she-wolves, but Marchessa wasn’t just any she-wolf. She was an Alpha female. Which meant she was biologically engineered to dominate those around her.
That was kind of a bitch when surrounded by Alpha males who felt the need to mushroom stamp anyone and anything with their big Alpha dicks. She had a dick too. Well, not literally. Although, sometimes she wished she’d been born male. Then she’d have Alpha’s right. She’d be able to marry as she wished and let her beta siblings marry and mate for the good of the pack.
But no, as little Princess of the Pack, she’d been auctioned off to some old grey-tail Alpha, Antony Rommulus. For a diamond mine. One, single diamond mine had bought her hand in marriage.
Granted, the diamond mine could support her pack for the next hundred years in a lifestyle to which they’d like to become re-acquainted. But that was their own damn fault for this never ending war with the Woolvens over territory and business.
It was stupid.
And now, if she wanted to remain a part of her pack, her family, she had to lie under an old man who should’ve long been put out to pasture.
She wanted to fling herself back on her bed and wail at the unfairness of it all. But she knew that was the behavior of a spoiled child. She was no child and if she was spoiled, it was only because she spoiled herself. Marchessa had to snarl, claw and bite for everything that she had.
“Marchessa, are you packed?” Her father, de la Luna Alpha Vittorio asked as he stepped through the door to her suite.
She wanted to tell him no, she wasn’t packed. She wasn’t going to pack. And he could take his directives and fuck off because it was bullshit. But she didn’t. That would be akin to challenging him for Alpha status.
The thing was, she was sure she could beat him.
But leading the de la Luna pack wasn’t what she wanted.
So it was go to her future mate or run away.
The idea of going rogue didn’t appeal to her. Always running from territory to territory? Living off the grid? No.
She’d go to her mate, but she wouldn’t like it.
Marchessa held out hope that he’d find out she’d been fucking the Woolven Alpha and find her to be sullied and of no more interest to him. Wolves of that age seemed to prize virginity and “purity” over any character trait of value.
“Yes, Father. I’m ready to go,” she managed, indicating to her stack of luggage in the corner of the room.
“I’m very proud of you, Marchessa. You’re saving the pack.”
If he hadn’t wasted their fortune on the war with the Woolvens, they wouldn’t need saving.
“I trust you’ll make a truce with the Woolvens?” Why had she said that? They were just going to fight again.
“That’s not for you to concern yourself with, daughter.”
She scowled. He’d traded her not for the pack’s survival, but for a war that had begun for reasons they couldn’t remember and his own ego. She vowed that if this marriage to Rommulus happened, she wasn’t going to give them another dime. She’d use Rommulus influence to force a truce.
The Woolvens wouldn’t be easily subdued, but ending the war would be in everyone’s favor and add to the prosperity of wolves across the six great nations.
She definitely should’ve been born male.
“I love you, Marchessa.” He father pulled her into a tight hug.
She froze, unused to such a display of physical affection from him. Slowly, she settled into the embrace and allowed herself to be the little girl who was going to miss her daddy. But only for a second.
“Be a good girl. Do me proud. Do the pack proud. And if you do, someday, you’ll come home a hero.”
“I don’t understand.” His words were cryptic and confusing, but they scared her in a way that made her quake. It sounded like he was going to do something terrible.
“You will. When it’s time.” He nodded to her.
“Vittorio, her escort is here,” a voice said from the doorway. Her father’s second in command, Stefan.
Also Pack Asshole, not that it was an official title anywhere but in Marchessa’s mind.
“Antony sent his private jet for you. You’ll be meeting him at his villa on Roluscany in the Ligurian Sea. Your life is going to change, Marchessa.”
She didn’t see how. She was property being transferred from one owner to another. Maybe the scenery would change, but not her circumstances. Marchessa promised herself she wasn’t going to go into this thinking so negatively.
There was nothing she could do to change it. Well, nothing that she wanted to badly enough to deal with the consequences. So being upset, being angry, it was a useless waste of her energy.
“I love you too, Daddy.” She whispered when she hugged him again. She didn’t know when she’d see him again. Roluscany was a long way away from Kansas City, Missouri.
And a long way from the war he had brewing with the Woolven pack.
Stefan gripped her by her upper arm and she jerked away.
“I can walk by myself. I’m not a beta or one
of your soldiers.”
He waited until she descended the stairs before hissing in her ear, “Don’t fuck this up.”
Irritation and humiliation burned her. Being in the same space with him was like getting a sunburn.
“You mean don’t tell him I had sex with you?” she responded in a conversational tone. Let him be embarrassed now. He’d been her fiancé, but her father had voiced the match for Rommulus. She couldn’t help but feel a bit of glee over that. She couldn’t imagine being mated and married to him after she’d seen his true colors.
“Marchessa!”
“What? Are you telling me that I shouldn’t be honest with my future mate? I plan to tell him everything. About you. Especially about Blake Woolven.” He’d been her most recent paramour.
At first it had been the thrill of the chase, considering they were at war with the Woolven pack. But then it had been because it was just damn good sex.
“If you screw this up, there will be a reckoning.” He threatened.
“From who? Certainly not you. I’d tear your head off and wear it like the hottest couture.” She would, too. She had no doubt that she could best him.
Marchessa had been a virgin when Stefan took her to bed the first time. As a woman, she’d submitted. But when they’d shifted, as a wolf, she’d dominated him.
And he’d liked it.
Since then, he’d seemed to think he had something to prove and the heir to the pack, the knight in shining armor, he’d turned into an asshole.
She supposed it could be worse. She could be stuck marrying him. That had been her father’s original plan. Then he’d realized just how empty their coffers were.
A big, black Bentley waited outside and two impossibly large men waited, dressed to the nines. Both were wearing Italian suits that had been custom made for them.
“I am Armand,” the blond one said. “Son of Antony.” He held the door open for her.
“Marchessa.” She held out her hand to shake his, but instead, he bent low over her knuckles and brushed his lips lightly against her skin.
He definitely had some pretty manners.
“I am Cassius, son of no one. But I’m pleased to escort you to Roluscany.” He didn’t kiss her hand. He shook it.
He had a firm, solid grip and Marchessa found she liked that much better than the courtly manners.
“Marchessa,” she said her name again, as if he hadn’t already heard it.
Stefan nudged her and she stumbled forward, tripping over the impossibly high heels of the shoes her father demanded she wear for the occasion. Humiliation burned like the tail of a rocket, but Cassius caught her easily.
When his hands made contact with the bare skin of her arm, electric awareness sparked through her. She looked up at him and there was a connection, something primal, something—no.
Something that wasn’t possible.
Armand put himself between her and Stefan. “In the future, do not touch the princess without permission.”
“Princess?” Stefan snorted.
Both males turned to flash him a hard, menacing stare. Even though Stefan would someday be the Alpha of the de la Luna pack, he was no match for the power in the Rommulus blood.
He looked away, head down.
Marchessa would admit it pleased her more than it probably should have. She wanted to see him cower, wanted to see him present his belly like a beta—humiliated. Exactly how he made her feel.
“Antony Rommulus and Grigori Remus are the princes of our kind. You know this. That makes their mates princesses.” Cassius informed him, as if speaking to a pup. “And they will be afforded all of the respect and benefits thereof.”
“That is your only warning,” Armand said, his voice a low menace.
Marchessa was having a damn hard time keeping her glee to herself. She supposed that made her a terrible person, but she couldn’t help it. Nor did she care. He’d been a bastard to her for years. Let him lie in the bed he’d made for himself.
“Looks like I outrank you now, prima heir.” Marchessa flashed a wicked grin.
Rage seethed under his skin and she was suddenly grateful again that he wasn’t her mate. She turned her back on him and allowed Armand to open the door to the limo and she slid inside. Cassius eased in on the seat across from her and Armand sat up front with the driver, which she found to be terribly odd.
When they were underway, Cassius said, “If Stefan has trespassed against you, hurt you, Antony will tear out his entrails.” His tone was casual, as if he were speaking about the weather.
“Will he?” She cocked her head to the side. “Or would he tell you to do it?”
Cassius bared a mouth full of white, sharp teeth at her in a razor of a smile. “He would do it himself. He is a grey tail, but to hold dominance over the biggest of the six nations from any distance—” Cassius shrugged. “—his power is wondrously terribly to behold.”
She shivered. “Then why didn’t he come to fetch me himself?”
“He will meet you. He has a gift for you.”
Marchessa looked at him expectantly and kept waiting for Cassius to produce the referenced gift, but when nothing was forthcoming, she pursed her lips and arched a brow. “Well?”
Cassius laughed. “We’re not going to Roluscany.”
“Where are we going?”
“Choose.” He shrugged as if her answer didn’t matter.
“What?” She heard the words, understood what they meant, but couldn’t quite believe them.
“Choose our destination. Where would you like to go? Antony will meet you there to spend some time together before the marriage and mating ceremony on Roluscany.”
Marchessa found herself touched by the gesture. He didn’t have to do this. She was bought and paid for. But he was giving her some time, maybe not as much as she’d have liked, but some to get to know him so she wouldn’t be married and mated to a complete stranger.
It was a simple thing. An easy thing. With all of his money and power, this probably wasn’t even a blink on his radar. But it was kind, and maybe even a little bit chivalrous. A throwback to his youth, perhaps. She knew he was grey, but not how grey. Perhaps he’d been a knight… could he be so old?
Maybe marriage to Antony Rommulus wouldn’t be awful.
“I don’t know. I’ve never been out of the Midwest.” She considered it for a long while. Marchessa had seen pictures of a beautiful island resort, with clear water, and rooms right out in the middle of that beautiful water. She’d taped it to her mirror when she’d been a teen and swore when she was of age, she’d go. She hadn’t thought about that place in years.
“The place that’s on your mind now.” He cocked his head to the side, canine in the way he studied her. “Yes, that’s the one. What is it?”
“Bora Bora.”
“Then that’s where the plane shall take us.” He knocked on the black glass between them and the driver. It drifted down slowly. “Have our people get the cottage and staff ready on Bora Bora.”
“He has a cottage on…” This was surreal.
“The Rommulus own much real estate. In the 80’s, he was rather well-known as a real estate developer, but ended up keeping as many properties as he sold. Luckily, the coffers he’d amassed were able to withstand the market when the bottom dropped out.”
“And just who are you, Cassius?”
“Me?” He grinned easily. “I’m just your escort.”
“Why is Armand riding up front while you’re back here with me?”
“Would you prefer Armand’s company?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I just don’t understand the logistics.”
“I’m… like a brother to Antony. Armand is still very young. Very alpha. And you’re a beautiful bitch in your prime.”
She preened inside just a bit at his compliment. Even though she tried to stab it down. Marchessa didn’t need to be having thoughts like that about Cassius. Although, he was such a delicious cut of male, who wouldn’t? “Yo
u don’t seem any older than Armand.”
“I’m much older. Ancient, even.”
She looked into his eyes and found herself tumbling down a long dark well… maybe into his eternity. Yes, there was something old and terrible in his eyes. Marchessa found herself strangely drawn to it. “There it is. Why do you hide it?”
“Because most people find it unsettling.”
“Is that why you say you’re son of no one? Too old to remember?”
“I suppose, technically, I’m the son of Mars, as are we all.”
“And Rhea Silvia?” She referred to the founding myth of Rome and the twins, Romulus and Remus that were suckled by a wolf.
“Yes,” he said sincerely.
She laughed. “You interest me, Cassius, Son of No One.”
“You interest me as well, Marchessa, Princess of the Pack.”
His words slid over her like a forbidden caress and that was when Marchessa knew she was in deep shit.
Chapter Two
So far, Marchessa had to say that being sold for a diamond mine didn’t suck. It wasn’t what she’d expected.
But after a ridiculously long flight on a private jet and an equally ridiculous long nap, she was currently sitting in a cottage, owned by her mate to be, that was actually on the clearest, brightest water she’d ever seen. She could walk out the front door and slide down into the warm water. She’d dreamed of coming here and Antony had made it happen.
This could be her life now.
No, that didn’t suck at all.
Her cottage wasn’t too far away from the other cottages and bungalows, the Four Seasons, and it was just as posh, if not more. She could choose to engage with the tourists, or not.
Cassius had ordered champagne, fruit and cheese, massages, and he was even trying to procure her a steak.
Island living diet was mostly plant based with some fish, but Marchessa grew up eating meat. Lots and lots of red, delicious meat. She was a predator, after all.
When Cassius finally returned, steak in tow, the sun was setting low on the horizon. She watched in awe, appreciating the beauty of the sight before her as the colors swirled on the canvas—orange and pink giving way to the purple dusk. “I don’t know how you could ever tire of this view.” She exhaled, realizing she’d been holding her breath.
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