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Before Grill could slap Kaden like he had intended to, his office door was pushed open, and two bulky men wearing expensive black suits walked in with cold expressions on their faces. Without asking them who they were, he knew from where they were coming and what kind of message they had come to share with them. They were Alpha Cameroon messengers, and despite it being the twenty-first century, Alpha Cameroon still relied on messengers to avoid excuses like my phone was on mute, which is why I didn't pick up the phone," or my phone was stuffed in my pocket or purse, which is why I didn't read the message.

He rarely used them, though, and he did so only when it was something important he wanted taken care of or discussed with him. Stairing at them for a while, he cleared his throat, scrunching his eyebrows at them.

"Can I help with anything, gents?" He asked, stared at the hand he had raised to slap Kaden, and dropped it on his side while putting on his reading glasses. Kaden took that chance to scram out of the room, but he was roughed up by the two mean-looking bodyguards and was dropped on the rough, cold ground. "Has your father taught you any manners?" He was rudely asked, with a slap resounding on his face. His father, who knew how far that conversation about his son's behavior could stretch, intervened to stop all that because he already had enough to take care of on his plate.

"My son knows that no one is supposed to talk back, fidget, or walk out of the room when the alpha's messengers are still present. He is just having a running stomach, so I'll ask you to let him go before he dirties this place." He lied, bowing his head slightly.

That was when they let go of Kaden, even though they had roughed him up a bit. Grill glared harshly at Kaden, the message clearly in his eyes. "We shall talk." That's all they said. After Kaden left the room, the messages closed the room behind them and proceeded to sit, even though Grill hadn't asked them to. Grill has never understood why Alpha Cameroon would give those two messengers so much respect that he never cared if they didn't respect him as the beta of the pack.

"Alpha Cameroon sent us, Beta Grill," one of them with a cut mark across his face said, his deep voice echoing through the room and sending chilies to whoever could be hearing it for the first time. "It has reached us that your son here has agreed to the alliance, and Alpha Cameroon wants to know if you have any objections," he said, taking a deep pause and proceeding. "If not, the wedding preparations are supposed to start as soon as possible." He munched on the apple he had taken from the bowl sitting in the middle of the desk. They were Grill's best apples, and he liked eating them while working so as to avoid any kind of distraction.

"They haven't told me about it yet." Grill lied, glaring at Ash, who was frozen with the words wedding preparation. Ash had thought that after agreeing, it would only be a matter of the two families, but it seemed like Alpha Cameroon wanted to involve the entire pack. The reason he wanted no one to know about it but only them was because he had sworn to himself that he would make Larissa despise him and that she would ask for a divorce all by herself. Ash, who had understood his father's message, nodded.

"They haven't? How?" The other messenger asked, a tinge of curiosity closing his ice-blue eyes.

"Larissa thought it would be much better if we kept this between ourselves first. She wanted it to be a surprise to my parents." Ash cleared his throat, and his lips curled in disapproval. The reason his dad wanted him to lie and say he had no idea about his agreeing to the alliance was because he was still weighing the fact that his son was getting married to Larissa. They were still discussing it when the messengers walked in. Before the messengers could say anything, the office door was opened again, and both messengers stood on their feet, bowing to the coming Larissa. She had waited in Ash's room for quite a while, and when she got bored, she started walking around the house, admiring how simple it was decorated.

It was nothing compared to their mansion, but she liked it. It's quite an ambiance, with cool nature and sweet scents coming from every corner of the house. While walking around, she stumbled on the office, and when she made to walk past it, she heard Ash's voice behind it. Before walking in, Larissa took out her phone from her pocket and texted her friends that her mate had come. There was no way she would tell them that Ash was not her true mate because they would end up looking down on her. As the Alpha's daughter, everyone expected her to have her mate at eighteen, just like her twin sister, but her mate never came.

She couldn't understand why, although she was sure of one thing, to which she always shook her head, her mate must have come, but considering her behavior, he must have broken their mate bond and rejected her even before she could know or feel it, or after realizing that he was paired with her, he ran away. Larissa was aware of the fact that no one liked her in their pack. She knew that everyone knew all her behaviors, but she didn't care about them. She knew that she could get any man she wanted by using her father's position. Two years ago, when she realized that Ash had found his mate, she quickly paid a visit to Alpha Kepha's daughter and asked her to reject him, or else she would ask her father to end her and her father's packs.

The poor girl was pained, but she couldn't do anything about it because she was aware of the fact that Alpha Cameroon was influential. Larissa made it clear to her that she had had a crush on Ash since they were young, and there was no way she would let him get married to someone else. She had sworn that if she couldn't have him, then no one else could. After the girl rejected Ash, she waited each passing day for him to come and ask her out, but he never did, nor was he interested in her. When he was jailed for helping Camila out, she asked her dad to release him after she made sure that Camila would never come back to their pack.

The day Ash was released, she woke up early, applied make-up to her face, and wore the best clothes she could find in her wardrobe. Her mission was to make Ash unable to take his eyes off her. When her plans failed, she decided to give him some time. Two days later, she sent him a message, asking if they could meet. She went ahead and rented an entire gallery because she knew his love of the arts, bought roses and laid the whole gallery with them, and asked for a fancy dinner to be prepared, thinking that maybe the romantic atmosphere would make Ash agree to her confession, but no, the moment he walked in, he already had a disapproval expression on his face.

He didn't even sit down to have a conversation with her; he only wanted to know the reason why she called him there, and after she confessed, he rejected her and stomped out of the gallery, warning her never to do such a thing in the future. She had never taken no as an answer since she was a kid. She couldn't believe that the same man had broken her heart once again because he had broken her repeatedly, and that was when she decided to involve his father.

She knew that he was a considerate person. He would choose between saying no to her and losing everything his father owned in the pack or accepting her father's proposal to save his father's position in their pack, and like she had expected, he said yes to her. She had never been so joyful about such a simple response. She had waited for two days and had sleepless nights wondering what she would do in case Ash was ready to lose everything but never spend his life with her. When she had given up and was about to tell her father to banish him and his family from the pack, Kaden came from nowhere and told her that Ash wanted to see her.

Since she was young, she had always worried that she would marry someone else. After all, he was the most handsome guy in their pack; his long hair, baby blue eyes, sharp, pointed nose, and his wooden and coconut scent always drove every single person in their pack crazy. In fact, that was the reason she had grown to despise Camila. She had caught her many times spending the night with Ash, hugging each other, holding hands, and even playing dates. Even though she knew nothing romantic was going on between them, she couldn't understand why he liked someone ugly like Camila, yet she was the prettiest girl in the pack.

"Let's get out of here." Ash jarred her from her thoughts. Shyly, she waved at Grill and his wife, who waved back even though, halfheartedly and intertwining her hands with Ash's, she let him pull him out of the room. "Your father is planning for our wedding. Ask him to wait a little longer since I am not ready yet," he said, pulling his hands off hers when they were far from the study.

"Why? Are you changing your mind?" She wanted to watch him closely to detect any lies, but it has always been hard to read Ash, so she ended up pressing her lips into thin lines.

"I am not. I am just not ready yet. I thought we would date for a while to get to know each other before getting married." He sighed, leaning on the walls with one leg crossed over the other. His appearance resting on the wall was handsome enough to make Larissa clench her thighs together. She had always watched his muscles flex whenever he would help Camila wash the clothes, and she had always fantasized about them flexing while he was on top of her, thrusting roughly inside her cunt with no mercy. She had always masturbated, screaming his name, and she had always wondered how it would feel to have his long, rough fingers in her hand rather than her soft ones.

Biting her lower lip seductively, she brushed her fingers across Ash's cheek and flipped her hair backward to reveal her long, slender neck. She even unbuttoned the first two buttons of her blouse to show a little of her cleavage. All she wanted was to make Ash sexually active, something she was terribly failing at but was still trying to do. Larissa knew that getting Ash to love her was like asking for a blood transfusion from a corpse, so with the help of her mother, they hatched a plan. She was to get pregnant with him and use the baby to wrap him around her.

"You should get going. Alpha Cameroon must be worried." Ash said this after some time, ignoring her efforts to seduce him. All he wanted was for her to get her fingers off him because he was feeling disgusted rather than turned on.

"I thought you wanted us to know each other better. My father has no problem at all because he is aware of the fact that I am at my future husband's house." She giggled, causing Ash to turn around and roll his eyes. "Future husband, my foot!" He spat, pushing both hands into his trouser pockets. "Then let's go out for coffee." He asked her, and he could see the happiness flocking in her eyes. It must have been a dream for her to get Ash to ask her out. "Live your dream for now, because I'll get rid of you as soon as possible." He thought inwardly, leading the way out of there.