Her Cursed Mate

Chapter 3

Thaddeus led me to his study. I rarely went in there because truth be told, he never went in there as well. From what I gathered, it was where his father held meetings and from their estranged relationship, I would imagine this room didn't serve the best memories. He motioned for me to sit down, as he moved around opening up drawers full of files.

"These are the basics," he said, stacking piles of folders on the desk. "Territory size, population, land outlines and others. You should familiarise yourself with these."

"And then?" I asked, skimming through some of them.

"This will take some time to memorise," he crossed his arms over his chest. I narrowed my eyes at him. "After you're done with that, we will move on to other things."

"Like what?" I urged. I couldn't help but feel as if he was withholding information.

"Annabel there isn't a list of rules set in stone that will tells you what makes a great leader. It's just trial and error and sacrifices. It comes down to what you are willing to do for your family." I glanced up at him. "That is what a pack is at the end of the day."

I couldn't respond to that. All I could do was stare, almost surprised-like, at the revelation. I took in the seriousness on my mates face, feeling the corner of my lips tilt up. A warmth arose in my chest as I nodded at my mate who seemed suddenly uncomfortable.

I can't wait to give this man pups, my wolf interrupted. Never mind the warmth in my chest, it was now rising to my cheeks. I sheepishly turned my head away, pretending to look through the papers in an attempt to ease my blushed tomato face. Thaddeus shuffled about as I continued viewing the files when something caught my eye.

It was a list of pack member names. But that wasn't what had caught my attention. It was two names that stood out to me most: Mason and Rose.

I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. Memories from before flooded through me as a wave of emotions hit me like a ton of bricks. Some were great memories and others were not such great ones. I exhaled shakily and opened my eyes to see Thaddeus watching me closely.

"For past members, we put one line through their name if they are deceased. For others that have been exiled or left willingly, we put two lines through their names." He paused for a moment before he took the pen himself and crossed their names out. "I should have done this some time ago."

I nodded, taking the pen back from him and searching for two other names. When I find them, I crossed their names out without much hesitation. "How many of us are there?" I asked, looking down the pages of names.

"Three hundred twenty five," he reached around me for a different file. "As you know, the Dark Moon pack is the largest pack in North America. This is all the information on the other packs that we know of as today."

I pried open the folder, mouth dropping open at the wide load of information. "I don't expect you to learn all of this overnight. Most of these I came to learn over the years leading up to my ascension as Alpha."

He sighed and took my hand in his. I must have looked overwhelmed because he leaned down and kissed the top of my head. Over the next two hours leading up to the pack meeting, I read through what I thought were most of the files, until my mate pulled up another stack of piles from thin air. He answered and explained what most of these files were about and my wolf and I enjoyed it. She finally felt like she was involved somehow. It wasn't much but small steps I supposed.

Thaddeus and I walked hand in hand to the clearing where the meeting was to take place. Chatter slowly came to a halt and I browsed through the crowd, catching my parents with Savannah and Beth near the sidelines. I released Thaddeus' hand and made my way towards them as my mate made his way to the front of the mass crowd.