---- Parade: a series of people or things appearing or being displayed one after the other. ----

Following father's plan, we arrived to the Wildclaw pack around eight in the evening. The ride had been silent and Max hadn't let go off my hand since we left our pack's boundaries. By his attitude, it seemed as if he intended not to let go until we were back.

We were greeted by the Alpha and his sons. All five of them.

Five.

I resisted the impulse of rolling my eyes, sympathizing the poor Luna, who was very likely at home in the moment, preparing dinner for us and her basketball team.

When father finished the preliminary greetings, he turned to us.

"You already know my son, Maximilian, and this is Riley." As expected, he didn't bother to put a show before the auction.

Alpha Thane approached us and tilted his head as a salute to my brother. "Maximilian..." My brother nodded back, releasing my hand reluctantly as the Alpha offered me a handshake. I grabbed it and displayed my best smile. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Riley."

"It is all mine, Alpha Thane."

His grip was strong and his eyes were fixed on mine, assessing the quality of the goods. I could see why my father and he were some kind of close buddies.

I held his stare with a confident smile until he stopped the shake and released my hand with an ever so slight curling in his mouth.

"All right." His hand gesturing to his sons but his eyes still apprising my reactions. "These are my sons."

All of them had brown hair and similar frame, but had pretty much different attitudes, which was pretty amusing to see. If I was lucky enough, one of them would agree to show me around the pack so I could meet with Dr. Lopez, the pharmacist I had contacted.

"Mason, my heir. He is 26 years old and will be taking his position in a couple of years. I really expect of him to have a family by that moment." The formality of his speech did not tone down the ultimatum he was throwing at his son. 

The tallest of them all flinched a little when hearing his father's words and reached his hand out to me. I squeezed it, observing his smile did not reach his eyes and his stiff pose. Obviously, he was not comfortable with the idea of getting forced into a relationship.

He was already pretty old for not having found his mate, especially taking about an Alpha, but it stroke to me as if he was still holding onto a last piece of hope. At some level, we were in the same situation, so I pulled my lips into a bigger smile and looked at him in the eyes, in hopes for him to understand I did want this as much as him. Soon, his eyes relaxed as he understood my silent message. The harsh brown irises turned a little more clear and agreeable. Still, they were a pretty dull colour when compared to...

I shook those thoughts away and followed the Alphas hand, who was pointing now to his second son.

"Miles, the Beta to be. He is 24 and will become Beta the moment Mason takes the lead." He smiled proudly at him and the son winked at me, sending some unpleasant shivers throughout my body.

This time, the guy really gave me a full scan before shaking my hand with a nasty grin plastered on his face. His green eyes sending me a message that made me want to barf right there.

I let his hand go and moved towards the next son as fast as decorum allowed me to. When I stopped in front of the third son, our eyes met and his lips, slightly curved upwards, barely concealed his amusement. I arched my brow and grabbed his hand as his father continued with the presentations.

"Maverick, the third son. 23 years old." Short and concise. Kind of familiar. Something told me he was not the favorite son.

Maverick's eyes rolled to the back of his head for a second and I held back a chuckle. One out of five was a good ratio when thinking of liking new people you just meet. He was probably my best chance. 

After him, I met Milo and Mark, 20 and 18 years old. With the last two he was even more brief, if possible. I supposed they were not an option, as both of them were younger than me.

"That is all for the moment. Now, let us guide you to your bedrooms to refresh yourselves after the trip before dinner time." Alpha Thane stepped closer to father and they started the walk towards The cluster of houses that was not too far ahead.

I saw Mason quickly moved to greet my brother in a more informal way and realized they got along pretty well by the smile Max gave him. It was the first time I saw my brother interacting with people outside the pack since the incident. I knew nothing about his political relationships, but this parading thing would give me the opportunity to learn. The farce wasn't that bad after all.

My gaze wandered a little further to find a pair of smug green eyes that were set on me. I rolled my eyes and turned on my heels, following the party towards the houses, hoping for him not to approach me.

Instead, I heard some steps coming from the opposite side.

"I see you are not very fond of our beloved Miles, Miss Riley." His mocking tone brushed away the frown in my face.I turned to find a smiling Maverick with an eyebrow cocked upwards.

"Is it that obvious? And here I was really trying to hide it." He chuckled at my irony and I saw his green eyes assessing me.

"Your people instincts are not bad." He matched his pace to mine and looked to the front, folding his hands at his back. 

I huffed and raised my eyebrows, tilting my head to one side.

"Oh, and why is that?"

"Well, you seem to like me better than my brother. That is already a good choice." He glanced at me and his lips cracked a smile.

"Well," I repeated, facing to the front and pointing to the Alphas that had just reached the front of a house, "that obviously depends on the person you ask. I am sure Alpha Thane has a different story to tell..."

Maverick bit his lower lip and let a small laughter vibrate on his chest. I could not help but mirror him and smile lightly. I liked him. We could be friends.

"So..." We were about to reach the house and he slowed down the pace a little. "What is the deal with you, Miss Riley?"

"Oh, stop it with the Miss, please." I growled, ignoring his question.

"Then no Mr. for me either." He agreed promptly, but added later with an amused tone. "Though I cannot speak for my fellow siblings. They will probably stick to it."

I nodded and waited for him to give up, but he looked pretty decided on hearing what I had to say. I decided to give him some information. I needed him to agree on taking me to Dr. Lopez and that was as good of a moment as any other to give it a try. 

"Well," I stopped on the spot and sighed, feigning the struggle of spilling the beans, "I am pharmacy student in university and your pack's healer happens to be one of the top researchers on the field. So... I took my chances and decided to come and visit him."

He stopped next to me and arched his eyebrows. One corner of his mouth tugged upwards, hardly believing what I had just said. 

"You are telling me we have never seen you because you are a secluded bookworm who agreed to our father's pageant just so you can meet your idol?"

Close, but not exactly. Not like I could have ever refused coming. Nonetheless, he didn't have to know the whole truth and I had to thank him for filling in the holes by himself. I could work with that cover story.

I gave him a shy smile while shrugging slightly my exposed shoulders. He rolled his eyes and burst into a loud laughter, surprising his brothers, that were about to enter the house.

"Well, you know you cannot go anywhere inside the pack unless our fathers think it is with the purpose of deepening the relationship with any of us, the candidates." He said all of that while whipping a tear of his cheek.

I had the impression he found it way more amusing than what it really was, but I wasn't going to complain. It was the moment to take the leap of faith and hope he would agree. 

"True, I was working on that..." I grinned, biting my upper lip and gesturing between him and me. His brows once again reaching the top of his forehead. I panicked a little, so I continued talking to ease the load. "But! You got something wrong there. Based on the current situation, the candidate is me, you are the ones to pick. "

"Oh, if you put it like that," he mimicked my hand gesture accompanied by an exaggerated wink, "I might as well skip all of the flirting and ask you for myself!"

I furrowed my brows, regretting having jumped to conclusions so fast. This wasn't going the way I wanted. Probably I should have asked Mason instead. His laughter startled me out of my thoughts.

"If I weren't joking, I would seriously feel offended. But you're in luck, I happen to like you enough to show you around the pack without any kind of expectations besides your company and, might I dare, your friendship. I need more people that I like around me, this place is too sad."

"Oh, I found myself such a gentleman..." I breathed out, relaxing immediately. My fake enthusiasm was responded by a melodramatic curtsy from him and I chuckled. He offered his arm and I laced it, letting him lead me the last steps inside the house.

-----------------------------------------------------

The next morning, I woke up early and did some stretching. As I was not supposed to do any exercise while being there, I couldn't pack my sneakers to have my morning run. Nonetheless, my muscles craved for some movement, so I did a light workout in the room before heading to the shower.

Having a body that was practically like a human's, I could not slack off if I wanted to keep in the best shape possible.

After a quick grooming session -father would kill me if I wasn't more than presentable-, I went downstairs for breakfast, hoping Maverick kept his word and came to show me around.

I had finally managed to make an appointment with one of the best and, it goes without saying, scarce werewolf pharmacists in the world and I could not let this opportunity slip away. If everything went well in this first meeting, I would be able to ask him to mentor me through my personal research.

Which led me to another difficulty I would have to tackle when the time came: how to research about the Dawn flower without revealing details to a person outside the pack. After all, it was our family's secret ingredient to many ointments and medicines we had been selling for generations.

I would have to do like up until that moment: study the separate components sampling from other plants under his guidance and then deal myself with the combination. But this time, I would be able to use other magical plants as reference too. Big improvement.

I opened the door to find a very rubbed down Maverick chatting with Max. They both turned to look at me and I had to hold back a small laughter when our host's son gave me a ludicrous wink.I had learned during the past evening he was much of a jester.

"Good morning sis." My brother started to prepare a plate with some fruits and way more pancakes than what I was used to eat.  

Having no werewolf abilities, again, meant also human metabolism, much to my dismay. I usually maintained a balanced diet but, being in another pack and in front of a stranger, we had to keep the guise not to raise any suspicions.

"Good morning." I greeted them both and took the plate Max was offering me with a small thanks and a smile, sitting next to him. "Did I interrupt anything?"

"Morning Riley." Maverick observed me while I served myself some orange juice and I started gulping down my breakfast as fast as I could. If I gave my stomach time to think about the amount of food I was ingesting, there was no way I would have been able to finish everything. "No interruption at all. We were just taking the chance to get to know each other better. Usually Maximilian is kept busy with my older brothers, so we never really got time to chat."

I nodded, my mouth too full to talk. I bit the first portion of the third pancake and foresaw how my stomach was going to hurt during the whole morning. Just the dinner from the night before had been enough to feed me for a whole day.

I let them go on with their conversation while I concentrated on finishing my plate trying to look as if I was enjoying every bite.

When I had only an apple left, I grabbed it and threw it into the air, catching it once I was standing. I checked the clock on the wall and glanced at Maverick, not being able to suppress my expanding grin.

"Can I get the tour now?" I knew my face was beaming with enthusiasm and I saw Max pulled his lips slightly upwards. Of course, I had told him where we were really going.

"How can I deny anything to such a gorgeous smile?" Maverick overdid it too much for us to remotely believe his words, but I did a tiny curtsy in return any way, grabbing lightly the skirt of my dress. This one more casual and less exposing than the one I wore the day before. I had allowed myself to wear a cardigan too. The weather was not the nicest one could hope for.

He walked to the door and opened it for me to exit the kitchen first.

"Do not worry Rie," Max's voice sounded behind me, soaked with sarcasm, "I will take care of your dishes too..."

"Thanks bro!" I turned around and threw him a kiss just before Maverick closed the door with a smirk on his face. "He won't like you much if you keep shutting doors in his face, Maverick..." I shook my head, in a mocking tone.

"Well, right now," he approached me and offered his arm for me to take, which I did, arching my eyebrows and waiting for what he had to say, "I only care about what you like."

I rolled my eyes and let my head hang while we crossed the front door. He was seriously going to carry through the whole act of "date" day. Well, two could play the same game.

I stood straight and flashed him my most charming, rehearsed smile. I saw his lips curve ever so slightly upwards, but he managed to keep the serious face.

"Is that so... Then, I find myself in the need of saying you look prim today, Maverick." It was true. The white long sleeved shirt combined with dark jeans went perfectly with his olive skin and green eyes. He had also tamed his brown locks backwards, leaving his face unprotected from scrutiny.

He was by far not the most handsome of his siblings. Much less muscular and just a few inches taller than me, he wasn't exactly what one would expect of the son of an Alpha. But he was charismatic and had a sparkle in his eyes that none of his siblings possessed. His mate was going to be a lucky girl with not a single day without a challenging conversation to follow.

"Thank you very much, Riley, you look gorgeous today too." He scanned my floral dress for a second and fixed his eyes again on mine. "However, I have to say yesterday's dress was more... enhancing." He wiggled his brows, something he had already done a couple of times when talking with me and made him look utterly ridiculous.

I could not suppress the laughter this time. He put his hand on mine and waited while I bent over, gasping for air, with an amused smile stretched across his face. After a few moments, I dried a tear off my cheek and turned to him, trying to breath evenly.

"I'll keep it in mind for next time..." I took a deep breath of air, very much relaxed after the outburst, and looked around. "Now, where are you taking me?"

A/N

Another chapter, and a lot of new characters! I hope you do not get lost, but I got so excited with the story that... Well, you will see, hehe! 

Any comments are always welcome! And if you liked it, please do not forget to vote!
Thanks for reading =)