by Eva Harper
“I just,” I sighed, letting my words hand in the air.
“I know.” Theo placed his hands around mine and kissed them. “She doesn’t get along with other girls very well, but she told me she likes you. Can you at least try to get along?”
“Of course,” I said optimistically, planting a fake smile on my face. Theo didn’t buy it, but he let it go, and we made small talk until Bodhi strode back into the living room with her head chin tilted upwards.
“You may thank me.” She grinned, placing her hands behind her back gracefully.
“For what?” Theo asked.
“I have a group of Alphas willing to fight alongside their great Enforcer.” She smirked and leaned over the couch between us. “I’m waiting for my thank you.” She chuckled huskily. “I will take it in the form of compliments or gifts.”
“You’re amazing!” Theo exclaimed loudly, jumping from the couch to pull her in an embrace. He looked down at me, pointedly, still smiling.
“Thanks, Bodhi,” I mumbled, giving her my best impression of a smile. She paid no attention to my discomfort and pulled me off the couch by my wilted hands. I wobbled on my solitary leg and grabbed her for balance.
“We have to hold a gathering.” Her eyes lit up with a mischievous glint of excitement, though they were off in a different place, lost in a memory or the future.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Theo mused.
“What’s a gathering?” I wondered aloud.
“What’s a gathering? What’s a gathering?” She laughed low, looking at Theo is disbelief. “A gathering of wolves, Margo.”
“It’s an event where a pack hosts the Alphas, Betas, Head Warriors, and Lunas from each pack invited to take part. It’s very diplomatic, strategic; it’d be a good thing to do so that we’re all unified.”
“It’s not just about diplomacy,” Bodhi said, her voice sharp. “It’s about networking, communicating. Showing off your strengths so that other packs know how strong you are. It’s about showing your allegiances.”
Theo grabbed a pen and a short stack of envelopes on the coffee table. “Okay, so I need to meet with Gabriel, send an invitation to the packs, and we need to make the packhouse habitable for guests-though I suppose that’s more of Gabriel’s job.” Theo scribbled some notes on the back of the mail. Bodhi told him a few other things he needed to do, and he wrote them down as well.
“Does this mean Caddy will be here?” I asked excitedly. Theo nodded, pausing from his writing to watch my face bounce from dread to delight. A soft smile graced his lips before he ducked his head down and resumed writing.
I hopped off the couch and wobbled over to Theo’s office. I dialed the familiar number and sunk down into the plush chair.
“Hello?” a quiet voice answered.
“Mrs. Delphine?” I said.
“Yes, who is this?”
“It’s Margo,” I paused and was met with silence. “Is Caddy there?”
“Oh, dear. He’s not here right now,” she breathed slowly. Someone grabbed the phone, and there was a short quarrel.
“Margo?” Caddy’s voice asked after the brief jilt.
“Caddy!” I greeted happily.
“I’m so glad you called, I was just thinking about you,” he admitted. A real smile appeared on my face for the first time since we met Bodhi.
“Good, because I was thinking about you, too. Guess what? Theo’s holding a gathering for all the allied wolves, something about mingling and diplomacy, but that means you’ll be here, right?”
“Of course, I’ll be there.” I could almost see the smirk on his face. We talked for a while more before Theo’s silhouette shadowed the doorway. I continued talking as Theo sat down on the edge of his desk, looking at me, waiting for me to stop talking. I never did. This was Caddy, Theo could wait a few moments. He waited a couple more minutes, as long as he could, before he slipped the phone out of my hand.
“Hey, Caddy. It’s Theo. I need to talk to Margo, but I’ll send over the information soon. Yeah, you too, man. See you soon.” He hung up.
“What was that for?”
“I need to talk to you about something.” His face grew serious, and I knew that whatever he was going to tell me, I wasn’t going to like it. I waited, looking at him through narrowed eyes. He fidgeted and ran a hand over his face. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“I’m not looking at you like anything. Spit it out, Theo.”
“Well, with the gathering taking place at the end of the week, I think it’d be silly to send Bodhi and her packmates back to their lands just to turn around and come back within a day.”
“I agree,” I said to his surprise. “So, we’ll find them room in the packhouse. I’m sure Gabriel won’t mind. He knows Bodhi, too, right?”
“That’s the thing,” he paused. “Bodhi doesn’t feel comfortable staying in another Alpha’s home.”
“Where is she going to sleep?” I breathed a laugh, obliviously. “I know the air is mild this time of year, but it gets cold at night, even if she was in her wolf form.”
“She’s going to stay with us,” he blurted abruptly.
“Why?” I shook my head. “If she’s that uncomfortable with other Alpha’s, what is she going to do next week? Plus, aren’t you like the Alpha of Alphas? That doesn’t make sense to me, why would she be comfortable here and not there?”
“Margo, it’s a couple of days. She will hardly be in the way, and I think it’d be nice for you to have someone around. I know I’m quite busy these days, and you might grow to like having her here.”
“I don’t think I will.”
“Why are you so adamant about not liking her? She hasn’t done anything to you, and she’ll be very helpful come gathering time.”
“I just…don’t like her,” I whispered, looking down.
“Well, I’m sorry, but she’s staying. You can either mope and stay in your room the whole time, or you can be friendly and maybe learn something from Bodhi. She’s a great leader, and she would make a good friend to you.”
“So, that’s it?” I asked bitterly, a slow fire simmering in the pit of my stomach. “You get to make all the decisions, and I don’t even get a say?”
“If you had a legitimate reason for Bodhi not staying here, I would take it into consideration,” he paused, allowing me time to provide him with a reason. When I didn’t, he stood up. “That’s what I thought.”
Theo left his office, leaving me to simmer in my displeasure. It wasn’t that Bodhi had done anything significant to warrant my attitude. It wasn’t that she had been rude or aggravating on purpose, or that she meant to stir my jealousy as she touched my mate. It wasn’t even that she vaguely resembled me in a more confident, distinguished way.
Something didn’t sit right about Bodhi, and I wasn’t going to let that go to please Theo. I was allowed to feel what I was feeling, even if it wasn’t deserved yet.
Fester
The three days between Monday and Friday passed painfully slow. Theo was completely enamored by our house guest while I sat in the shadows, waiting until they finally grew tired of each other’s perpetual presence. They never did.
She and Theo sparred outside with Bodhi’s packmates while I watched from the porch sipping hot cocoa. Theo laughed as Bodhi hopped on his back and pulled on his hair. Her pack ran around them, pushing and tripping over each other.
A guard was standing close to me, and I reached my hand towards him for help. He looked shocked and flustered before he rushed to my side, helping me stand and giving me my crutches. Theo stopped playing long enough to see me go inside, and his face was no longer happy.
Bodhi continued to climb on his back, telling him to move forward like a racehorse. His eyes searched through the windows of the house to find me. We met eyes as I sat in my sanctuary.
It’s not that I wanted to take him away from Bodhi. I knew he was mine, but the thought of Bodhi’s hands on him made me itch. His skin should only know my touch. My fingers
were supposed to be the only ones wrapped in his short hair. Only my breath should touch his neck.
I shook off his gaze and settled on my desk. I wanted to call Caddy, wanted to tell him all about Bodhi and Theo, and how he should do his best to ignore her, but he was already on his way to us. I tried to read my books and found that my eyes trailed over the words, but I wasn’t actually reading. My mind was elsewhere.
I tried to remember a time my mind wasn’t consumed with thoughts about Theo, where he was, what he was doing, if he was thinking about me, and if he wanted my touch as much as I wanted his. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment I had begun to love him, but the fire in my lungs when his image danced across my mind confirmed it.
Theo shouted my name loudly from downstairs. I looked out the window and saw him with his hands cupped around his mouth, hollering my name. He motioned for me to come down, and I hobbled to the window in confusion. A car was pulling up, one from my old pack, and my heart leapt into my lungs.
Caddy was here.
I climbed down the stairs as fast as I could with crutches in my hands and flung the door open.
“Caddy!” I screamed happily as I walked quickly to the edge of the porch. I began down the steps, excitement filling me, but Caddy wasn’t looking at me.
He was staring at Bodhi with the same twinkling look in his eyes that once filled Theo’s.
I froze. Theo was looking back and forth between the two of them with realization and comfortable support.
“Are you kidding me?” I mumbled, forgetting I was in the presence of wolves with magnified hearing. Theo’s eyes shot to me, and his lips pursed in disapproval. Everyone looked my way apart from Bodhi, who was staring at Caddy, trying to decide if she should smile or not. I hobbled forward, my crutches sinking into the soil. “Caddy!”
“Margo,” Theo said in warning, ordering me back with his gaze.
“No,” I breathed out sadly. This time Bodhi looked at me. “This isn’t fair.”
“Get in the house, Margo,” Theo ordered, a mean look of disappointment glaring from his eyes.
Something broke within me; the last strand of willpower I had to stand on the sidelines while Bodhi took every comfort from me. She had taken the only home left for me. She had taken Theo’s attention and admiration. She had even managed to take my clothes and the apples in the fridge. And now she had taken my best friend-my only friend.
“You can’t take everything from me,” I told her softly, though I knew she could hear me. I had meant it to sound harsh, but a sob from my throat coated it with anguish. “It’s not fair.”
Theo was immediately in front of me, holding me around the waist like a toddler. “That’s enough,” he hissed in my ear, walking us towards the house. Caddy reached a hand out to touch Bodhi’s cheek, and she shivered at their first touch.
“Just go home,” I wailed. My words echoed through the wolves’ ears, and they watched me with disgust. I had insulted their Alpha; they were controlling their urge to attack me.
Caddy didn’t even pay attention to me; Bodhi’s eyes held him hostage.
A guard opened the door for us and closed it firmly behind as Theo stomped through the hallway. He threw me on the couch like a sack of flour and glared. He looked at me angrily, more angrily than I had ever seen.
“What were you thinking, Margo?”
I stared forward blankly. I wanted to soak in all the self-pity that had perfumed around me. I wanted to feel the hurt.
“That was a beautiful moment, Caddy just met his mate, and you’re acting like a jealous, bratty, crazy-”
“Yeah, I get it,” I nodded, cutting him short.
“I just don’t understand.” Theo shook his head. His eyes were clouded as he tried to piece together my actions.
“You’re right, you don’t understand.”
“Stop shutting me out, just tell me what’s going on.”
“What’s going on is that even since Bodhi arrived, you’ve been ignoring me and spending every moment with her. Don’t give me that look, it’s true. You didn’t even come to bed ‘til three in the morning because you were talking battle strategies with her, and then you were gone before I woke up.”
Theo groaned and shook his head in disbelief, a small, sarcastic smile came onto his face.
“We’ve been talking about battle strategies to keep you safe, Margo. I have no interest in Bodhi other than her contacts and her expertise.”
“You don’t get it, Theo.” I sat on the edge of the couch, reaching out to him with a dejected look. “You are the only one I have here. There is no one else for me. You and Caddy are it for me, and she shows up and takes you both away within minutes.”
Theo slumped into the cushion next to me, rubbing his face with his right hand.
“I’m not leaving you, little one.”
“But you did,” I tried to clarify. “You left me all week. Hugging her and playing around with her, she’s like this perfect, fun, Alpha she-wolf, and you eat it up.”
Theo stiffened and dropped his head, looking at me through the corners of his eyes.
“It’s not like that.”
“Then why did you ignore me all week for her?” There was more hurt in my voice than I anticipated. I was trying to keep my stone exterior, but I was quickly breaking down those walls.
“I didn’t mean to ignore you,” he admitted, boyishly. “It’s just...I haven’t seen Bodhi in years. She was young when she became Alpha, maybe twenty? She was there for me when my dad died, nothing romantic, but she picked me off the ground.” My heart reached for him, although my hands remained at my sides. “But you’re right, that was no reason for me to ignore you.”
“I just don’t think you realize it sometimes,” I breathed, brushing below my eyes.
“Then tell me.” He rubbed the side of my leg.
“You want me to be a wolf so badly that I think sometimes you forget I’m still human.”
“What does that mean?” He leaned back.
“Bodhi is everything I can’t be,” I said aloud for the first time. “She’s loud and energetic, she’s smart, she’s strong, she’s a leader, and she’s a wolf, Theo.”
“That’s not true,” Theo tried to fight back. It was a feeble attempt, even he didn’t believe it.
“It is,” I said sadly, though truthfully. “She is everything you want in a mate, and she comes wrapped in this beautiful package like she’s this wild, gorgeous version of me, and I can’t help it but feel insecure.”
“I never meant to make you feel this way,” he said, slumping to the ground in front of my feet. “I’m your mate, I should be making you feel beautiful and strong and loved, and instead I make you feel like this.” His head was low, and he was searching for something within his own mind; maybe the moment he started treating me differently. I don’t think he found it.
“I just want to be okay here,” I told him, fiddling with my fingers in my lap.
“You are safe here,” he said fiercely, looking up at me.
“Physically, yes.” I stared back.
We stayed like that for a long time. Theo’s fingers brushed against my thigh. It wasn’t romantic, I think he just needed to be near me in some way.
“Do you think Caddy hates me?” I asked softly.
“No,” he breathed with determination. “No, I don’t think he hates you.”
I nodded, brushing my fingers across his.
“Do you hate me?”
Theo’s fingers stopped moving on my thigh, and his eyes settled to a soft close. He opened them, and he looked at me with a quiet reverence. His hand brushed my cheek.
“For you to even ask that question.” He shook his head, his voice low and soft. “I feel like I’ve failed you.”
I shook my head, tears pricking my eyes. That wasn’t my intention. The question was innocently burning my tongue like cinnamon.
“I’ll be nicer to her,” I promised, biting my lip. “I’ll try harder. It isn’t her fault.”
>
Theo rose to his knees and pulled the back of my head to meet his lips. As he kissed my forehead, I felt a surge in our bond for the first time in days. My hand found the valley of his chest, and I rested it there, feeling the heat from his skin sink into me.
“It isn’t yours, either.”
Gather Me
Caddy and Bodhi stayed outside for a while, introducing themselves and getting to know one another. The sun was setting by the time they wandered back in the house. Theo was cooking dinner as I sat on a stool near the counter.
I made eye contact with Caddy first, waiting for him to show any kind of emotion before I unveiled mine. His face was blank, emotionless, cold, as he led Bodhi inside with his hand on the small of her back. Bodhi was looking down, a slight blush coating her neck and cheeks.
Theo stepped away from the stove to look at the pair entering. He smirked at Bodhi, who shot him a look that could make anyone want to crawl six feet underground.
“Look at you two lovebirds,” Theo sang, stirring the pot on the stove wistfully. He cocked his head back to glance at me, nervously sitting at the counter. “Don’t you think so, Margo?”
Caddy and Bodhi looked at me expectantly.
“Yes,” I said, clearing my throat after speaking. “Yes, you’re very sweet together.”
“Really?” Caddy teased, raising his eyebrows. “You don’t think we’re terrible together and that we should leave right now before we ruin anything else?”
“No,” I moaned in humiliation. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said; I was just emotional and not thinking.” I stared at Caddy, trying to show him how sorry I was. “I’m really sorry.”
“Don’t start crying,” Caddy mumbled, nearly rolling his eyes as he walked toward me. He threw his arms around my shoulders and hugged me, softly whispering, “It’s alright.”
Over his shoulder, I could see Bodhi clenching her fists slowly, glaring at his back. Theo smirked and hit her on the arm. “Already feeling the bond, huh?” Theo smiled. Bodhi turned towards him and smacked his shoulder, hard. He winced.