It started with a lie.

Ridge POV "Yes, father. I understand." I don't, but I would say anything he wants to here, to get him off my back. My name is Ridge, and I am more than ready to be the alpha of our pack. I have been placed as the CEO of Dyson Enterprises for nearly a full year now, and Dad was still treating me like a kid. I am the eldest son of Alpha Jaxon's four sons, of the Waterhole Plains pack. At twenty-two, most of my alpha friends have already been made the Alpha of their pack, but for some reason, Father will not hand it over till I find my fated mate. He said he would know if I tried to take a chosen mate, in which case he would have it over one of my brothers. How he would know was anyone's guess, but I am not going to test him on that; I had too much to lose. However, handing over the family business was something he did do. I am the CEO; my younger brother, Hudson, was the CFO. Caleb was in HR, and my last brother, who is still in school, will eventually take over marketing upon his graduation. He wanted it to be all in the family. We have no sisters, which was fine by Dad, but Mum keeps nagging us to hurry up and find some mates, as she wants a girl around the house. I think she wants pups to spoil, more than girl company. "The girl arrives tomorrow, she will be staying with us for six months, and she will be your personal assistant." Dad's voice drones on. But suddenly I pay attention, tomorrow, a girl? "I thought we were advertising for a new assistant." I hate it when Dad gets involved in the business like this; it feels like I'm being micro-managed, and it takes everything in me not to call him out on it. "We were, but her father, Alpha Karter, a good friend of mine, had asked if I would take his girl for some away-from-the-pack experience. She had finished school a year early, had other advanced courses completed online, and they needed to give her something different to get her teeth into." Dad was rattling off this girl's qualities, and I rolled my eyes. No one was that good. "I can give her one of the apartments in the city, and come home with us on the weekend. Will that do?" I gave up arguing with Dad, put her on the desk, and let her paint her nails all day. I can share the workload elsewhere. A win-win situation; it will appear as though she was offered a job, and I can utilize one of the other ladies as my personal assistant. I thought to myself. "Sounds good, I will be monitoring her work, make sure she is getting the coverage I promised." Great, there goes that idea. Shut down before it has even had a chance to manifest. "Fine, how old, and name?" I might as well get the paperwork started. "Robynne, seventeen, will be eighteen in three months. No paperwork is required; I will organise her wages for her time here. She will be your personal assistant, and you'd better treat her right, and give her all the jobs your old assistant did, or you will find I am not so charitable when you need me to be." I heard the threat loud and clear. I hate this girl already. It was Sunday, and I had to stay and be part of our regular family dinner, a ritual that my mother insists on, before my brothers and I returned to the city. It is only an hour away, but on days when I need to get out of here and have some fun, it might as well be ten hours away. During the week, I get to be myself; on the weekends, I have to be home or at some elite social do, to keep up appearances. The humans in our city love to be around us and try to compete with us, but I have yet to hear of a werewolf taking a human as a mate. It was virtually impossible, but the girls didn't stop trying to get into our bed. We can't get a girl with a pup. As Alpha, we must mate with the girl for her to conceive. One human girl tried to catch my brother by saying she was expecting, and soon learned that marriage would not happen until DNA testing was done, which stopped that sort of attempt from happening again. We tend to use human girls to satisfy our needs, rather than she-wolves, purely because if we bed a she-wolf, they tend to get the wrong idea, and soon you have this clingy woman chasing you around, telling everyone they are your mate. Nope, not happening to me. I have two she-wolves that keep stalking me and trying to pretend to be my girlfriend. I hope this girl is up to keeping them out of my office. "When was she arriving? Like, will it be tonight? Isn't it an eight-hour drive from her pack?" I couldn't imagine her driving all the way here and then starting work; that would be exhausting, even for me. Not impossible, but still. "Yep, she will be staying in a motel, just out of town, and arrive at the office on time. I will be at the office to greet her, introduce you to her, and help her get settled in, as your assistant has already left and your mother has other things to do tomorrow. Although we will stay for dinner and get to properly meet and talk with her, we will also help her settle into the apartment. Your mother was looking forward to it. She had not seen Robynne for a few years. By the way, if she doesn't find her mate, in all those alpha and beta visitors you have, her next stop will be the palace, under the queen, so do a good job, our reputation might be on the line." Dad sounded excited to meet her, just as Mum would, and the fact that she'd be working at the palace next added a little extra to my impression of her. If she was good enough to go to the palace, why not go there first? Dinner was loud, with everyone talking at once. My little brother made the top again, but then we expected nothing less, considering we were all alpha blood and had aced school. The humans at the schools never stood a chance. We took the same courses, and the lessons on werewolves, law, and history were conducted here at the pack, never at the school where humans learn, with human teachers. Humans have known of our existence since the big war, when we were needed to help fight the human-caused war. If we had not intervened, the world as we knew it would have been irreparably altered, including our own existence, as we were losing packs and witnessing fights encroach on our territory. But that does not mean we want them to know every intimate detail about us. We try not to shift them around, and in our building, they are not allowed on the top floor, where I have my office. No offense to the humans, but the smell is unpleasant. To me, that was. I can't explain it, but they give off an odor that does not appeal to me. It took a long time to find a human woman that I could bed, purely because of their body secretion, which was not appealing. But I have since found a spray, it numbs the senses long enough to bed a woman, and leave.