“What do you mean?” I thumb a finger in Lindon’s direction. “He obviously doesn’t find me irresistible.”
“As I said before, Lindon is a special case.”
“Right.” I take another donut.
“My sons have extra control in resisting pheromones. One of their alpha powers that gives them more ability to choose logically rather than be overwhelmed.”
“Okay, so I smell super good. I’m not seeing the problem, or why that means that Lindon has to come to the mansion, given that he’s not at all interested in claiming me as a mate.”
“Well, that’s the thing. Your ability would have been an asset a long time ago, when there were more females and you’d have needed to stand out to get attention. But in a world already starved for females of our kind, let alone alpha females with pure blood, it’s not the best power to have. In fact, it could make you a target of some unpleasant things, if males got desperate enough.”
“Can’t we mask it then? Can I wear perfume or something?”
“We can try. One of my sons is mated to an alpha female who used something to disguise her scent for some time, but Lindon, with his powerful nose, wasn’t fooled, and her scent wasn’t even as strong as yours. Just a normal alpha female’s scent. You have to understand, when a male smells even a weaker version of your scent, he’d do anything to claim you.”
“Well, maybe more of them will be like Lindon,” I suggest hopefully. I set down the donut in my hand. This conversation is starting to give me a headache. First Rowan was saying that I would have men fight over me, like it’d be a good thing. Now he’s saying that they won’t be able to control themselves around me. And I have to laugh. It’s not that I don’t believe him, it’s just hard to even imagine as someone who men have never paid any attention to.
I’ve always stood on the sidelines, watching the prettier, skinnier girls get the attention. And I told myself it didn’t bother me. And up until a few weeks ago, I was pretty satisfied with my life.
And then he had to bait me with pictures of his attractive offspring and bring me to this world which sounds frankly dangerous for me.
“So that’s why we’ll have Lindon there. We’ll tell them he’s just there to participate, and as he’s a more than eligible alpha and a part owner of the mansion, they can’t refuse. Meanwhile, he can keep an eye on the candidates and make sure no one breaks any rules or tries to force you.”
“And how is he supposed to stop someone, huh?” I ask, nodding his direction. “He’s not exactly huge, or ripped.”
Rowan smiles in Lindon’s direction, and Lindon rolls his eyes. “I think you’ll find my son perfectly capable as a protector.”
Now it’s my turn to roll my eyes. Sounds like daddy has a favorite. Well, we’ll see if Lindon is all that he says he is. All I know so far is that he’s a snob.
“Fine. I get it. I mean, it’s still sinking in, but I get it. But why would you send him in with me anyway? Why would it matter to you if someone forced me? I’d be carrying on the race, right? That’s all that matters.”
“No, Misty,” Rowan says, face going serious. “What matters is keeping a promise to your father, to find you and make sure you were happy. I failed for many long years, but I’ll see you settled and happy now. And if you don’t find anyone you want, you can come back here and decide what to do next and my family will guard you with their lives.”
“Even if this Tribunal thing comes after us?”
“Even then.” Rowan smiles. “Even the Tribunal knows that my pack is not to be reckoned with.”
Lindon nods in my peripheral vision. “We’ll protect you, Misty. But first, we’ll see if we can find you a mate.”
Something in me stirs at that. Lindon, promising to protect me. But my pride is still scarred by his words the night I met him. I don’t know that I can forgive him for that. I was worried that people in this world would treat me as badly as people in my old world, and he proved me right in my fears.
“You’ll be happy once mated, Misty,” Rowan says. “I can guarantee that. It’s brought all of my sons happiness. Well, except…”
Lindon stands abruptly. “Are we done?”
“Yes,” Rowan says. “We are done.”
“Good, then I’m leaving.” Lindon gives me a short nod and a bow and takes leave of the room.
I shake my head after the door shuts behind him. “I’m never going to understand that man,” I say wearily.
Rowan sighs and meets my eyes with a sympathetic glance. “Join the club.”
---
Later that night, I’m staying up late in bed with what I have come to call “The Hottie Catalogue”. It still doesn’t feel real. Even though I’m here under the covers in a large canopy bed in a huge lodge furnished for vacationing royalty, I still feel like someone is going to pinch me and wake me up.
I lick a finger and turn the page, going back to the one with twins on it. Yum.
Both have deep auburn hair and identical handsome, masculine faces. I wonder if that’s a buy one, get one free situation? I chuckle to myself and flip back to another page. One with a male with deep green eyes and black hair, tall and wide and buff, nothing like Lindon’s golden, lean beauty…
I jump and sit up when the door opens. Speak of the devil…
“Having fun perving?” Lindon asks, folding his arms languidly and leaning against the open door frame. In the dim light of the hall he’s a sexy shadow, long and lean and tight and muscled. Then he turns to me and those gold eyes gleam. He steps forward into the low light of my room, perfect features illuminated as he does.
Damn, he’s perfect. Something drawn by someone in a contest to create the most beautiful possible creature that could still pass for a man.
His lips quirk at my perusal. Is he going to smile? I hope so, when he does, a delicious little dimple shows at one side of his mouth, and if he smiles fully, I can glimpse perfect, sharp white canines.
“Take a picture, it’ll last longer,” he says sardonically. When I reach for my new cell phone on the bedside table, he groans and waves a hand. “It was a joke.”
“I knew that,” I say. Yeah right. I drop the phone and sit back up. What page was I on again? Maybe I’ll go back to the twins…
“So, any frontrunner contenders yet?” he asks. “Anything you like particularly in a man?”
I look up at him, closing the papers so he can’t see where I was looking.
Yes, I think. Yes, I particularly would like someone who looks like a golden Adonis. Like a fallen angel with evil purposes and a cold heart. Like…
“Did you see the twins already? You seem like the type that would go for quantity over quality,” he says, smirking.
My face flames and I open my mouth in offended shock, but he closes the distance between us and puts a long fingertip to my lips.
“Shhh…” he says, face serious. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He sweeps his eyes over my body. “I like your curves. I told you men of our kind like that. I wouldn’t lie.”
I frown at him. Aroused and a little offended by him being this close, this dominant.
“Well,” he says with a small smile. “I wouldn’t lie about that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would be too obvious. You’ll see just how my kind, our kind, feels about your body in just a few days.”
“Or maybe,” I say bitterly, trying to ignore the fact that his tight thighs are touching me as he sits on the side of my bed. “Maybe they’ll be like you, and say I’m nothing to look at and below their standards.”
He puts a hand up to his forehead. “Look, Misty. My dad has tried some pretty stupid things in his fervor to set me up. My brothers…they’re settled and happy, and he’s got nothing else to do with his time. I didn’t even see you. I was just prepping to be an asshole so that I could get out of the whole thing. I’m sorry you got caught in the crossfire.”
I frown. “If he wants to set you up, why don’t you let him?�
��
He looks away, sitting a little straighter and staring out the window by my bed, out into the cold, dark night. “It’s a long story.”
“I’m not that busy.”
His eyes are cold when he glances back at me. He was playful with me for a minute. Well, open to me for a minute. But now he’s back to his old self. “It’s not a story for you.”
“Oh,” I say, not letting myself be hurt for it. He didn’t ask for me to enter his world, making myself his problem and leading his dad to put him into service as my unofficial bodyguard. “Do you resent me?”
He looks taken aback by that, and his eyes are softer as he turns to me. I can tell this cold angel could be kind at times, if he wanted to. “Why do you think that?”
“Well, it’s going to be a pain, going to that mansion.”
“That mansion is where I’ve been living for years,” he says with a smile. “I own it. Well, me and my brothers. It’s a great place for a wolf. Once you learn to shift, you’ll have a good time there.”
“Ah. At least until I find a mate…”
“Yes.”
“Or unless someone ravishes me,” I say.
He snorts and shakes his head. “No one is going to ravish you, Misty.”
“Yeah well…”
His golden eyes close for a moment, like he’s thinking, and then open. “You don’t believe me?”
“Well, you aren’t exactly the biggest…I mean, your dad is much wider and taller. And I don’t know, don’t you think maybe he’s overestimating you because you’re his son?”
Lindon laughs at that, a clear, deep sound that resonates through the room, waking it up as if he can make the whole house come alive. “He’s not overestimating me. But if you want me to look into someone else as your protector, I can talk to him.”
“I just, I mean, so far you’ve been kind of a bully.”
“Well,” he says, putting a hand in my hair and ruffling it until I swat his hand away. “I’m the only one allowed to bully you, I won’t let anyone else do it.”
“Hmph,” I say. “I still don’t see why anyone thinks they’ll be attracted. Just because they’re wolves, doesn’t mean they are blind.”
He had gone back to staring out the window, but he turns sharply at that, studying me with hard eyes. “Blind?”
“You know, to what I look like.” I look down at myself. “This.”
He blinks, then bites his lip, then tilts his head. The effect is sexy and makes me want to grab him by his collar and pull him forward to kiss that confusion straight off his beautiful face. “Misty, in the human world, were people cruel to you?”
I shrug. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I promise. You’re desirable. I screwed up with what I said when you got here. But that was on me, not on you. Please believe me.”
“Sure,” I say.
“What would I have to do to make you believe me?” he folds his arms and I gulp, mouth going dry at the sight of magnificently toned biceps.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re desirable,” he says. “Any of the males will be lucky to mate you.”
He goes back to staring out the window, like there’s someone or something out there.
“Then what about you?” I ask, hating myself for saying something that feels so vulnerable. “If I’m this valuable, rare commodity, and everyone will want to mate me, then why not you?”
He lets out a slow breath, brushes soft hair off his face and then turns to me. “I’m not going to take a mate,” he says softly. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”
I swallow. This gorgeous man is just going to stay single forever? “Why?” I ask, aware that he has no obligation to tell me.
He stands and walks to my door, opening it and becoming a silhouette as he blocks the light. “Because I already found one, and she died.”
Then he shuts the door and walks away, leaving me slack-jawed in shock.
Chapter 3
I’m kind of glad they brought another girl over to help me get settled into my new place. Well, the place I’m going to stay while a bunch of alphas fight over me. Nice.
I resolved not to think over what ever depressing story Lindon has in his past, but I find myself breaking the resolve frequently. Maybe it’s just the part of me that loves a good story, that has to fill in the details and see what happened between two people. Or maybe because a part of me wants Lindon to take part in the alpha challenges and thinks if I could find out exactly why he won’t, I could change his mind.
I shake my head, that’s a stupid idea.
I turn to Aspen, a beautiful girl with dark red hair and gray eyes and curves to kill. She flashes a smile at me as we take my bags out of Rowan’s lodge to load them in a car. A black Jaguar sedan is parked outside and one of the most stunning men I’ve ever seen in my life is standing by the car loading them in for us.
“It’s a great day for a move,” she says. “Beautiful, right?”
I look up around me. The air is crisp and bright and there’s a smell of clean mountain foliage. I kind of want to stay here forever. It’s quiet and peaceful. Maybe I can pick one of the men who has a place like this.
“You all set?” The gorgeous male asks. Aspen’s husband, Rafe. Almost as tall as Rowan and nearly his spitting image, but younger as he’s his son.
“I think so,” I respond, not meeting his eyes. He nods, business like, and goes inside to say one last thing to Rowan.
As he goes I watch him and then turn to Aspen with a sigh. “Man, can I just order one of those?”
Her smile quirks up at the side, then she laughs. “Rafe is…one of a kind, that’s for sure.” She opens the door so I can sit in the passenger seat, and I shake my head.
“You should sit up front with your husband. Is Lindon driving over with us?”
“No, I think he’s still working things out with Rowan. We’ll go get you settled in and then the guys will start arriving.”
“But Lindon first?” I blurt out, hating that I’ve been listening so much about how I’ll need him that I’m starting to believe it.
Aspen’s smile becomes knowing and those gray eyes flash as she looks me over. “Perfect.”
“Excuse me, what’s perfect?”
She shakes her head, sending shimmering red hair waving around her head before using one hand to swipe it away and over her shoulder. “Nothing, and yes, Lindon should be there before anyone else. But I’m coming. I’m planning to stay with you at least for part of it. And it won’t be so bad. You know, I had to choose between Rafe and his brothers while staying in the same mansion.”
A low growl sounds. “You’re not staying there,” Rafe says, storming down the front walk and looking even more intimidating than usual. “No way I’m letting you stay in a house with a bunch of unmated males without me.”
“Who said anything about staying without you?” she asks.
“I have pack business. Rowan is wanting me to take over soon. You know that.”
“You can give up a few days,” she says. “And if not, Lindon can protect us.”
Rafe purses his lips, and I can tell he’s gritting his teeth, but then he nods. “I guess if it had to come to that, yes, he could. I trust Lindon.”
“Everyone does,” I mutter, getting into the backseat as they both get in the luxurious car on either side.
The interior is smooth, buttery leather and I relax back into it, glad to have the whole back seat to myself. Aspen and Rafe talk to themselves, and I’m glad they aren’t talking to me because my brain is just in a constant state of fatigue lately. I thought I was an orphan, I thought the only people who valued me were dead. I thought I was okay with that.
Then Rowan had to turn that all upside down and tell me I was valued, and I guess I should just appreciate that at this point in my rather empty life. But at the same time, I was comfortable before. I had settled in for the long haul, given up on anything more.
I don’t know if I can reall
y allow myself to hope for more, even though the beautiful people all around me keep telling me that it’s all coming to me soon, on a plate.
I guess what’s happening to me is just like what happens in my books, but I always knew that those situations weren’t real. So part of me is waiting for someone to jump out from behind a camera and say that I’ve been pranked and everyone’s watching it on TV even though I never signed a consent form.
I rest my head against the seat and tune everything out for most of the drive. When we get off the freeway, Rafe turns back to us and says we’re almost there.
“Hey guys,” I ask, knowing that asking this might get me a bad reaction, but too curious to pass it up. “What’s up with Lindon?”
Rafe laughs, a deep, low sound. His voice is much growlier than Lindon’s, which is low but smooth and elegant. Seductive. “What isn’t up with Lindon?”
“I don’t get it,” I say impatiently.
“Just, he’s a complex person,” Rafe says. “I guess if anyone can help you understand Lindon, it might be Aspen. They were close. Still are, in a different way.”
Aspen fidgets, tosses a look at me over her shoulders and then starts nervously putting a braid in one side of her hair. “I’m not sure. I think there’s a lot more below the surface than I think anyone knows with him. He doesn’t let anyone in.”
“He had a mate that died, though?”
Rafe and Aspen go dead silent and the car jerks slightly like Rafe accidentally tapped the break. Then an audible exhale and things go back to normal.
“No,” Aspen says. “I don’t know what you could mean by that. Lindon has never had a mate.”
“That we know of, and it’d be hard to miss. Our scents change when we have a mate,” Rafe says.
“Unless…” Aspen trails off, staring out the window like she’s not sure she should say anything about what has just occurred to her. I lean forward, eager to hear more.
“Unless what?” Rafe says. “There hasn’t been a single candidate. I have no idea how he could have had one.”
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