Wolf Pawn (Wolves of New York #2)
Page 7
“Good,” I say, the name putting me even more at ease. Dara is loyal to the bone, maybe even more so than Hermione.
Hermione wants what’s best for our pack; Dara wants what’s best for me. I saved her husband’s life and she’s been my devoted ally ever since. She’ll be hyper alert to any actions on Willow’s part that might damage my ability to lead my people.
Damage my ability to lead…
Huh…I wonder…
A troubling thought flits through my head, but I dismiss it almost immediately. Willow is out to secure a place in this pack and has decided appealing to other women is the way to do that. She isn’t deliberately trying to undermine my authority. I don’t know her well, but from the moment we met she’s sought security and safety, not power or position. She’s just…not that kind of shifter, even if she is an Alpha.
Perhaps later I’ll look back on this moment and curse myself for underestimating my little wolf, but I don’t think so.
I think I’m a solid judge of character.
Right?
Chapter Nine
Willow
I return to Diana’s apartment just minutes before the ten o’clock curfew to find her wrapped in a giant blanket on the couch, staring out at the city with tears streaks on her cheeks.
“Oh, no, what’s wrong?” Kicking off my heels, I hurry across the room to settle beside her, resting a gentle hand on her back.
“He broke up with me,” she says numbly. “He said he couldn’t see a future for us and…ended it.”
Brow furrowing, I sigh. “I’m so sorry, honey. He didn’t give you any more explanation than that?”
“He said we’re going to end up on opposite sides of history,” she says with a sniff. “Whatever that means. He said the only way it could work was if I went with him tonight and never came back home or talked to my brother again.” She shakes her head. “But I couldn’t do that. This is my home. Maxim is my family, I…couldn’t do what Jacob wanted. I just couldn’t.”
“He shouldn’t have asked you to, babe.” I rub my palm in a slow circle between her shoulders. “You shouldn’t have to choose between family and the person you love. You should get to have both. Especially in your case. I know you and Maxim clash sometimes, but it’s clear he really cares about you.”
She exhales and draws her blanket closer around her. “And it wasn’t just Maxim. He said I should stay away from you, too. He acted like you and Maxim are both bad news.” She snorts in bleak amusement. “Like you’re going to hurt me or something. You’re like…the nicest person I’ve met in forever. You would never hurt me.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I say, but her words make me frown.
I sit back against the pillows, nibbling on my lip.
“You don’t sound as sure about that as I would like, Miss Sparkly Pink Aura,” Diana says.
“No, no,” I rush to assure her. “I absolutely would never hurt you, of course not. I’m just trying to figure out why he would think something like that. And I wonder…” I’m about to suggest we head to the bathroom for her to “fix my hair” so we can talk without being overhead when I realize we’ve already probably been saying stuff we shouldn’t. I widen my eyes and hiss, “Should we be having this conversation in here?”
Diana sniffs again. “Yeah, it’s fine. For now, anyway. When I came home, I was so pissed at Maxim that I went a little crazy and destroyed all the bugs.” She shrugs. “He’ll just have them replaced with better, harder to find ones, but it’s worth it to be able to cry in peace tonight without him listening in.” She turns shining puppy dog eyes my way. “Do you think maybe Jacob will change his mind, Willow? And beg me to take him back because he loves me more than he hates you and my brother?”
“I don’t think he hates us, sweetheart,” I say. “I think he’s just…confused. Or being manipulated. Maybe both. It sounds like he’s been swept up into the prophecy madness, too.”
Recognition sparks in her eyes. “Shit. You’re right. And he thinks you and Maxim are going to be the evil king and queen, I guess?”
I lift my shoulders. “I guess? Maybe? That would explain why he’d want to take you away from us and this pack. If he thinks we’re dangerous, in his mind he was just trying to protect you. It’s still misguided, but…”
“But understandable, at least a little bit,” she says, but the hope animating her features only lasts a second before it falls away. “But that means he probably knew about the attack. Maybe was even a part of it. And I can’t forgive that. I mean, it looks like everyone’s going to pull through, but no one could have known that. The people who set off that bomb put innocent people’s lives at risk. I can’t be with someone who is okay with violence like that, no matter how much I love him.” Her expression crumples. “But I really do love him. It hurts so much, Willow, it feels like my ribs are imploding and stabbing into my heart.”
I wrap her up in my arms. “I’m so sorry, honey. Broken hearts are the worst.”
But I don’t really know that for sure. I’ve seen my friends suffer the effects of lost love, but my heart has never been broken. I’ve been too careful with it, too afraid I’d put my family at risk if I let myself fall for someone before the mate claiming ceremony.
This is the first time in my life that I’ve been free to take my heart into consideration, but…I’m not really free at all.
Maxim is going to be my mate. Whether we end up finding a way to work together or I’m forced into a takeover attempt—all roads lead to, and end with, Maxim. Either we end up remaining married—miserably or not—or I end up ruling alone to ensure I never have to worry about another Alpha taking control of my life again.
Or I end up dead when my takeover fails, and Maxim has me flayed alive.
Any way you look at it, love doesn’t seem like it’s in the cards for me.
Holding Diana while she sobs in my lap, that shouldn’t seem like such a sacrifice, but it does.
And when I go to bed, I dream of Maxim holding me in his arms, kissing my forehead, and swearing he loves me more than every star in the sky.
More than power. More than control.
More than saving face in front of his people or proving no one can rule the North Star pack better than he can.
But it isn’t a prophetic dream; it’s a fantasy, a fairy tale that’s never going to come true for me, a fact that’s proven when I awake to Maxim standing at the foot of my bed, looking like he’s debating the fastest way to separate me from my skin.
Chapter Ten
Maxim
My fiancée is a thorn in my fucking paw.
I should loathe her and her beautiful, peaceful sleeping face.
Instead, I want to crawl under the covers and wake her with my mouth between her legs. I want to make her come on my tongue, then I want her curvy thighs wrapped tight around my waist while I shove my aching cock into her slick heat and ride her, possess her. I want to fuck her until she orgasms, screaming my name, and I come like a freight train, emptying every bit of my seed inside her.
Just thinking about trying to put my baby in this woman is enough to make me even harder, thicker.
My cock has its own miserable heartbeat for fuck’s sake.
So far, this fated mate shit is…shit.
My right mind has no interest in this woman or babies. The fact that some primal instinct is attempting to trump my sense of reason and shoplift my free will, is maddening. If the fated mate bond were a person, I would lock it away in my dungeon, where it couldn’t cause any more trouble.
I’m imagining all the ways I’d torture the personification of Destiny when Willow stirs and makes an adorable sleepy sound.
It’s fucking cute as fucking hell and I fucking hate it.
I hate it so much I almost tell her how much I hate it, but then her lashes sweep open and she’s looking at me like she wants to cover me in honey and lick me clean with her tongue and it’s all I can do not to rip the covers off her body and get her under me.
“What do you want?” she asks grumpily, tugging the covers higher on her chest. “Why are you in my room?”
“It’s my sister’s guest room and this apartment is one of the Alpha’s family properties,” I growl in response. “And even if it weren’t, this entire tower is mine to rule and protect. I go where I want, when I want.”
I sound like a petulant pre-teen, but it’s too late to take the words back. The best I can hope for is to change the subject before Willow calls me on my adolescent behavior.
“I heard about your focus group,” I continue in a calmer voice. “I’ve given Hermione the go-ahead to help you. But from now on, you come to me with any plans for the pack at large. If you don’t, I’ll have you publicly whipped for insubordination at the next full moon gathering. Understood?”
She lifts a haughty brow. “I don’t see that forming a focus group is—”
“Understood?” I cut in. “It is my right and responsibility as Alpha to protect my wolves and keep order in this pack. Once you’ve proven you deserve it, I’m happy to let you take a leadership role, but you come through me, first. You don’t know this pack, I do, and you haven’t earned the trust needed to make decisions for my people without me.”
“Our people,” she corrects, then hurries on after a look at the no-doubt murderous expression my face. “But yes, I understand. And I agree. I’ll come to you with any future plans.” She hesitates before adding quickly, “As long as you promise to be reasonable and give my ideas a chance.”
“I promise no such thing,” I snap. “You piss me off, and I can see myself staying pissed at you for a very, very long time.”
“Then we’re both going to be miserable for a very, very long time,” she says, mocking my inflection. “Which is stupid. What kind of person would choose to be miserable when he has the entire world at his feet? When his people love him and he’s in control of one of the most powerful, wealthy, vibrant, and happy packs, not just in New York or Human Side, but the entire world? So, one teensy tiny thing in your life didn’t go exactly as planned, so what? Believe me, most shifters have it far worse.”
Ignoring her last statement, I ask, “If my people are so happy, why do we need a focus group for female pack members?”
“Just because something’s already good, doesn’t mean it can’t be better.”
My lips curve in a hard smile. “And you prove my point. Yes, it’s ‘good,’ I suppose, to marry a woman who’s acceptably attractive, reasonably intelligent, and whose company I enjoyed before she proved to be a conniving, scheming little brat, but…” I shrug. “I’d prefer something better.”
By the time I’m finished her eyes have narrowed to furious little slits.
I’m expecting her to throw a pillow at me or launch herself across the mattress, claws bared, in an attempt to rip out my throat with her bare hands.
Instead, she…laughs.
It’s soft at first, just a faint chuckle accompanied by the shake of her shoulders. But within a minute she’s laughing so hard she’s rolled onto her side on the bed and is clutching her stomach with both hands.
“What, may I ask, is so funny?” I ask, fighting the urge to smile.
But dammit, her laughter is infectious.
“We are,” she says, still thick in her giggle fit. “Before I met you, I thought I was a nice person. But I’m not. I am a brat, and you’re an asshole. We’re awful.” She breaks off with a gasp before laughing some more. “Totally obnoxious. I can’t stand us.”
My lips twitch. “Finally, something we agree on. We’re a terrible match.”
“Awful,” she agrees, swiping tears from her cheeks as she sits up. She’s clearly trying to regain control, but starts giggling again as she adds, “Someone should give us a time out.”
Propping my hands on my hips, I shake my head, losing the battle against my grin. “I hate you,” I say, in a regrettably affectionate voice, “I really do.”
“I hate you, too,” she chortles. “More than Brussels sprouts and cooked cabbage and both of those things smell like farts.”
I huff. “Fart jokes? What are you? Twelve?”
She sucks in a breath. “It wasn’t a fart joke, it was a fart insult. Get with the program, Thorn. If you can’t tell the difference between a joke and an insult, this is going to be a very long and tedious marriage.”
“I’m not going to marry you,” I find myself confessing. “I’m going to find a way out.”
“Okay.” Her laughter fades, but her smile remains. “And if you don’t? Not to be a Negative Nancy but your dad is really into us getting married, and I’m not going to do anything to fuck it up. I need to marry you, Maxim, for my own safety.” She sighs and her smile vanishes, too. “That’s not my ideal, either, you know. I’d rather marry someone I love, who loves me back. But…that’s not the hand I was dealt.”
She sits up straighter, drawing her knees into her chest and wrapping her arms around them. “But that doesn’t mean I have to resign myself to being miserable. We don’t always hate each other. Sometimes we get along really well. There’s at least some reason to hold out hope that this might end up…okay.” Her shoulders inch closer to her ears. “Or even better than okay.”
I study her face. With her features still puffy with sleep and no make-up, she doesn’t look much older than Diana. She looks young, beautiful, and harmless.
But she’s not harmless. Even if she means every word of that little speech, she’s still dangerous.
For some reason, I again find myself confessing the truth, “There would be hope. Maybe. If you weren’t part of this prophecy.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in the prophecy.”
“I don’t,” I say, then amend, “I’m mostly sure I don’t. But enough people do that you’re always going to be a target in a way I’m not even sure I’m prepared to handle. You’ll bring that danger to my pack and…to any children that might be born.”
Her brow furrows. “I see your point, but weren’t your children always going to be a target? You’re a very powerful man. And powerful men tend to have powerful enemies. Isn’t that why you won’t let Diana out of the tower without a full guard detail? And why your father was poisoned?”
I shake my head. “That’s different.”
“How?” she presses. “And from what I understand of the prophecy, once I’m married to my fated mate, the window of opportunity for using me to rule the world or whatever will close. Right?”
“There are different ways to interpret the text,” I say, wishing I hadn’t started this argument. At least not until after I’ve met with Maggie to go over the additional materials she’s gathered. “I’m actually meeting with an expert in the field this morning.”
“An expert in the field of prophecies?” Her brows lift. “You have one of those on hand?”
“She’s an expert in ancient texts and shifter history. But she knows her prophecies, too, yes.”
Her eyes light up. “That’s great. I always wanted to study more shifter history, but Victor didn’t let anyone into our pack library except a few top Alphas and his horoscope advisors.”
“I don’t allow pack members into the antiquities library, either,” I admit. “The manuscripts are too delicate, but they’ve all been scanned into the online database. Any wolf who wants to read them, can. Though a good number haven’t been translated from Old English and are hard to decipher.”
She bites her lip. “Wow. I bet they’re pretty, though. I love really old books. The smell, the antique paper, the hours invested in copying every page by hand…they’re works of art. Works of art made to honor knowledge.” She sighs, a swoony sound like she’s talking about a beloved former boyfriend. “And how cool is that? I would say I wish I’d lived back then, but I probably would have died of strep thr
oat when I was a baby without antibiotics. I was a sickly kid. Especially for a shifter.”
I cross my arms over my chest and shake my head.
Why does she have to be so damned…charming?
When she’s not inspiring murderous impulses, of course.
“What?” she asks after a moment, her clever green eyes searching my face. “You didn’t have to come in here, you know. If I annoy you that much, you could have called to tell me not to do things without your permission. Or written an email. I do have an email address, and if you give me access to a computer, I can check it. Or start a new email just for messages from my cranky future husband so you have your own dedicated in-box. I can check if BratBallAndChain at free mail dot com is available. Or—”
“Just shut up, get up, and get dressed,” I say with a roll of my eyes.
She blinks. “Why?”
“You want to come with me to see the old books and talk with Maggie, I’m assuming? Or would you prefer to plot your next act of subterfuge in bed in your pajamas?”
“No, I want to go!” She bounces to the edge of the bed only to stop and glance back at me over her shoulder. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“I’m not being nice to you. I’m allowing you to hear Maggie explain things in person, so I don’t have to repeat them to you later.”
She wrinkles her nose as she grins, an expression that’s weird and also adorable. “And you’re being nice.”
“I told you to shut up,” I remind her.
“But you didn’t really mean it, and you don’t have angry eyeballs anymore,” she says, hopping out of bed and sashaying toward the bathroom in her bare feet, reminding me how short she is.
Such a little wolf…such a giant pain in the ass.
But my thoughts are tinged with affection and my tone is mild as I say, “You have ten minutes, short stack. If you’re not dressed and in the kitchen by the time I finish a cup of coffee with my sister, I’m leaving without you.”