A Wolf's Pride

by Jennifer T. Alli

  “Yes he can cook but there are some things he can’t get to taste exactly how he wants it to, exactly how I make them. Now come, watch and learn so you’ll know the secret.” Stuart’s hands were already moving, grabbing ingredients, already prepared items and beginning the intricate dance that cooking involved. “Step one to learning about a wolf’s diet,” he began. “We’re all meat eaters, every one of us. The degree to which meat forms the basis of our diet does differ from person to person though. In Ryan’s case he’s a meat eater through and through. The more meat on his plate, the happier he is. But the secret to preparing a meal for him is in the herbs,” he whispered conspiratorially, throwing a wink in her direction. “Two herbs specifically…sage and rosemary. If you add these two herbs to anything you make for him, I personally guarantee that he’ll love it.”

  I’m beginning to think I’ll love it too, her mind groaned as the aromatic smell of what Stuart was cooking drifted to her nose and her stomach began to grumble in response.

  “Come, come,” Stuart urged, pulling her gently to stand in front of him and directing her hands to move as he wanted. She quickly picked up on exactly what he expected and he beamed with pride. “You learn quickly, another point in your favour. The instinct couldn’t have been more right in choosing you as Ryan’s mate.”

  She blushed. “Thank you.”

  Under Stuart’s guidance, Ryan’s meal was quickly prepared. The huge steak was apparently not sufficient for Ryan’s needs and Stuart rushed around the kitchen gathering people and plates of food as though he were intending to feed ten people not one. Three different members of the kitchen staff were recruited into helping her carry the food to Ryan’s side, each burdened with a heavy tray of food.

  “Stuart? Are you sure all of this is necessary? I’m not sure he’ll manage to eat all of this.”

  “It’s fine Chloe,” he reassured. “Some of this is for you, if Ryan hasn’t eaten then I doubt you have either and Ryan will be able to finish all of this or I’ll find him and skin him. Tell him that’s a personal pledge from me. Now, off with you. Go on,” he shooed and the kitchen staff rushed to leave.

  The door opened with ease beneath their hands and Chloe rushed to leave, not wanting to try her luck with the door for the second time that day. As soon as she reached the door she realised that there had been no need to rush, one of the men sent to help her was holding the door open for her.

  “Thank you,” she smiled.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied gruffly.

  “Do you know where we’re headed?” she asked cheerfully, determined not to give these people legitimate reason to dislike her.

  “Yes,” another replied.

  “Well then let’s head off.” They didn’t move. “Is something wrong?”

  “Aren’t you going to yell at us for what we did when you came into the kitchen?”

  “No,” she answered simply. “I’m not going to tell Ryan either. He comes up with the most colourful punishments for people he thinks have done me wrong. There was the hanging via your own intestines one I heard when I first got here and then there was yesterday’s ‘I’ll slit your throat, rip your heart out, feed it to you and then tear your head off.’” The three gulped simultaneously. “Come on,” Chloe laughed. “He’s only joking, he wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yes he would,” one of the trio replied. “He’d kill us and smile whilst doing it. Lord Ryan has always been the volatile one, the one to be wary of and now he’s mated.” They groaned in unison. “Lord Sebastian turns from one of the calmest, most gentle people you’ve ever met to a monster in a heartbeat when Lady Erica is threatened I dread to think of what Lord Ryan is like.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Like I said, I’m not going to say a word but next time when I come into the kitchen help me out. Now, we really should be going otherwise his food will get cold.” She strode off, clearly expecting them to follow and after a moment they did.

  “You’re a lot different to what we thought you would be,” one of them commented.

  This is really beginning to annoy me, who do they think I am? Some sort of monster who gets her kicks off hurting people? “Just what were you expecting?” she snapped, annoyance evident in her tone.

  “I don’t know, but for someone raised by hunters you’re very nice.”

  “I’m going to take that as a compliment but a word of caution, don’t say anything about my family when Ryan is nearby, he goes a little crazy. The merest hint of my family from someone’s lips and he thinks they’re out to get me.” They gulped again and didn’t utter another word. They were approaching the door that led into Chloe and Ryan’s rooms and they were well aware of just how sharp his hearing was. The door opened from within and Sebastian walked out, a grim smile on his face.

  “Hey Chloe.”

  The look on his face was worrying and her mind instantly presumed the worst. “Is Ryan ok?”

  “He’s as good as is to be expected considering what I just told him.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief before realising what he had just said. Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What did you tell him?”

  “That I caught Lucinda while she was trying to escape.”

  “Why did you tell him that? He wanted to go after her, he’ll probably end up hurting himself trying to do that.”

  “I think he’s already started,” he mumbled.

  Racing into the room, Chloe dropped her tray on the nearest flat surface and motioned for her helpers to do the same before rushing off to the bedroom. As she had predicted, Ryan was no longer in bed. He was standing in the bathroom doorway, leaning heavily against the frame, dark red blood soaking the bandages around his waist. The slight colour that had returned to his face before she left had faded into a distant memory. He was breathing hard; sweat beading on his forehead as he forced his body to do things that it was in no condition to even be considering.

  “Ryan!”

  He turned to face her, the pain that had been etched on his face moments before instantly fading. “Angel,” he beamed happily.

  “What are you doing?” she scolded.

  His expression instantly became one of confusion in the face of her question. It should have been obvious what he was doing. “I’m going to deal with Lucinda.”

  “No, you’re going to get back into bed and you’re going to do it now.”

  “I can’t do that angel. I have to deal with her after what she did to you. She tried to kill you, if I’d been further away she may very well have succeeded.” The thought sent a shiver of fear down his spine.

  She moved towards him and placed a hand on the bare skin of his chest. I have to remember that I have power in this relationship too. “Ryan please, I don’t want you to do this.”

  A low, angry growl escaped his lips, echoing through the large space. “You can’t expect me to free her?”

  “No, what she did was wrong but you’re making your injuries worse. Please Ryan, just come back to bed. Do this for me.”

  He stared at her intensely for a few long moments before sighing in defeat, his eyes sliding shut. “For you angel, only for you.”

  “Thank you Ryan. This means a lot to me. I just want you to get better.”

  I want to get better too. I want to get better so I can wrap my hands around that bitch’s throat and choke the life out of her.

  Ryan, his wolf began. Lately you’ve been ignoring my advice, are you going to ignore me on this as well? Are you going to let that bitch live?

  As far as I’m concerned she’s already dead. It’s just a matter of time before I carry out her sentence.

  Chapter Thirty Three

  Ryan lay in bed, staring angrily at the ceiling while his fingers tapped out a steady beat against the mattress trying to rid his body of pent up energy. Energy that even in his injured state, he should have been using to deal with Lucinda. His thoughts were centred on her to the exclusion of almost everything else. He and his wolf were once again in agreement;
Lucinda had been spared punishment too long. It was judgement day for that bitch and she was going to be found guilty he had no doubt of that; he would allow no other outcome. The scenarios for her punishment were running amok in his mind, taunting him in his bedridden state. When Sebastian had told him earlier that Lucinda had been caught he had sprung from the bed, uncaring and barely aware of the strain he was putting on his injuries. The woman who had tried to kill his mate was nearby and in serious need of punishment. Now, instead of meting out that punishment he was confined within the walls of his suite and trapped within his bed.

  “I shouldn’t be here,” he grumbled.

  From her seat on the edge of the bed, Chloe let loose a wry chuckle. “That’s funny. I thought that the universal location of a sick person was bed. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be. Now are you going to eat or not?” she prodded gently. He had refused to eat the food she had brought back from the kitchen despite the effort she had put into procuring it for him. I’m sure if I told him just how much trouble I went through to get it, he’d eat it but by the same token it would just add another set of people to his ‘I need to hurt them’ list. No, it isn’t worth saying anything. I promised those guys I’d be quiet.

  “I’m not hungry,” he replied, his eyes never leaving the ceiling. His growling stomach instantly made a liar of him.

  Reaching for his hand, Chloe gently linked their hands together. The feeling of her soft skin touching him immediately gained Ryan’s full attention and he turned his deep brown eyes on her. Chloe’s heart fluttered in response to the searing look he was giving her, even hurt, her reaction to him was powerful. Shaking herself, she pushed her body’s reaction to him towards the back of her mind, focusing instead on the task at hand.

  “Liar,” she chastised. “Please Ryan, eat something.”

  “How can I eat at a time like this? Lucinda tried to kill you angel. I can picture it in my head, her arms around your body, squeezing you much too tightly, the careless way she probably threw you aside…It’s driving me mad.” His brown eyes were suddenly flooded with amber as his breaths came in increasingly short bursts. “I can still see you falling through the air, hear you calling out to me in desperation.”

  She squeezed his hand lightly in reassurance. “Sebastian caught her, she’s not going to be able to cause any more trouble.”

  “She shouldn’t have been able to cause trouble in the first place,” he growled angrily, his thoughts merging more and more with that of his wolf. “She was in the dungeons, she shouldn’t have been able to get out.”

  “I hate to break it to you Ryan but if your dungeons are anything like human jails then its possible for people to escape, you did.”

  “Our dungeons are nothing like your jails. They’re built to hold wolves in. The walls, floor and ceiling are covered in thick, heavy marble. If you were to somehow manage to tunnel beneath the marble, there’s another layer to prevent escape, this time made of silver, which is deadly to our kind. The marble layer is thick but the silver is thicker. If a wolf were to tunnel through that they would burn, blister and eventually weaken to such a degree that they wouldn’t be able to lift their arms above their heads let alone escape. The door that leads in is again made of marble and silver, silver on the prisoner side and marble on the outside. The only way to get out is with external assistance. Lucinda was sentenced to remain within the dungeon until her mate came to retrieve her, she still has no mate so someone had to have let her out.”

  “You’re really worried about this aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am. If someone let her out the first time they may try to do it again. I need to deal with her before she can try to make a break for freedom. She’s a Lady of the North East clan, she holds power and her father dotes on her. There’s nothing he would deny her. Even now they could be thinking up another plan for her to escape.”

  “Ryan is there nothing I can do to take your mind off of this? Worrying isn’t going to help and there’s nothing you can do in your condition. If you want to deal with her then eat, grow strong again.”

  “I can’t think about food right now.”

  “I made your favourites though.”

  “I’m sorry angel.” He turned away from her though his grip on her hand didn’t loosen as he unconsciously stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.

  “Why is it that I have to be saddled with men who are the very definition of stubborn? Am I cursed or something?” she groaned.

  Ryan turned back towards her, the wheels in his mind turning rapidly. “I think there’s one thing you can talk to me about to get my mind off Lucinda.”

  Her strained expression immediately became one of hope. “What is it? Tell me,” she demanded excitedly.

  “Who’s Gary? What did he do to you?” She froze, the smile on her face dying a quick, instantaneous death. “Chloe? Angel? What’s wrong?”

  “How do you know about Gary?”

  “You’ve mentioned him a few times,” he answered hesitantly, forcing his body to sit upright. Her face had paled and her heartbeat was beginning to slow. Something was wrong. “Chloe, we don’t have to talk about this. I don’t need to know.”

  “You changed your mind quickly.”

  He reached across the short distance separating them to cup her cheek gently in his large palm, forcing her to look at him. “You don’t want to talk about this. Your body is telling me that loud and clear. Just the sound of his name is distressing you, I don’t want to be the cause of any more of your pain.”

  His words and his touch warmed her and her mind shed the quagmire of past pain and injustice, reaching for the promising future Ryan offered. “Gary is responsible for this pain not you Ryan. It’s okay, I’m fine now. If you want to hear about Gary then I’ll tell you about Gary.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve kept this to myself for long enough. There are no secrets between mates remember?”

  He beamed at her despite the sad atmosphere that had crept into the room at the mention of Gary’s name. “Right. There are no lies, no secrets, only complete honesty.”

  She sighed heavily, her breath leaving her body on a long shuddering exhale. “Gary was my ex. We were together for a year and I really loved him. I could see us having a future together.” Ryan growled angrily at her words, the very idea of his mate spending her life with someone that wasn’t him causing him to see red. “Don’t worry Ryan, I can’t see us having a future together now, hence the ‘ex’ part of that sentence.”

  “What happened to make things change?” he pressed.

  “He cheated,” she answered simply. “Although looking back on things now I should have seen that one coming months before it actually did. I loved him but I don’t think he ever really loved me back in return. I think he was in love with an idea of what I could be, what to him, I should be. He was so wonderful in the beginning but then after about five months things changed. He was constantly harping on about my weight, telling me how I could afford to go on a diet. I’ve never considered myself skinny so I agreed with him but diets and me don’t get along. They either don’t work or they are so restrictive that I break from them within a week. When they didn’t work, Gary told me I wasn’t trying hard enough that I wanted to be,” she gulped, “fat.”

  Ryan could feel his claws itching to break the skin, itching to be free so that damage could be wrought on this Gary, it was only the feel of Chloe’s soft hand within his own that kept them in check. If he were to sprout claws, Chloe would be hurt. Chloe’s presence didn’t however stop fangs exploding in his mouth.

  Kill him Ryan, his wolf advised.

  He’ll have to take a number after Lucinda but I’ll find him and teach him a lesson. How dare he call my angel that?

  “The less intense diets didn’t work so he suggested that we move up the scale. I wasn’t so sure but I wanted us to go back to the days when we were really happy and he wouldn’t be happy until I’d shifted a few pounds so I agreed. I h
ated those days with a passion. It was like I couldn’t eat anything. Gary watched every little thing that went into my mouth. I was starving! I ended up fainting at work from hunger but still didn’t lose enough weight to make him happy.

  “Things just went down hill from that point onwards. My family were furious. They couldn’t believe I’d let myself get into such a state. I didn’t tell them that I was doing it at Gary’s behest but I think they knew. From that point onwards we argued all the time. There were the occasional good moments but most of the time we were yelling and screaming at each other. Him shouting at me to try a different diet and me screaming that I wasn’t going to put my health at risk again. When we went out he was always looking at other, skinnier, more attractive women. He never spoke to them when we were together but he would look at them then look at me and the food I was eating…The look he gave me was like a slap in the face. It was as though he were telling me that if I kept eating he would leave with one of them and that’s exactly what he did.

  “We’d been together for almost ten months when I noticed he was acting strangely. I’d lost some weight and thought that maybe he was planning a surprise for me. He was. He asked me to marry him. I was shocked but I loved him, I said yes. Things got better for a while but then I noticed he was acting suspicious again. I’d asked to meet his family, we’d been dating for almost a year, we were engaged for crying out loud and yet I’d never met them. He said no. When we broke up he confessed that he was too embarrassed of me to take me to meet them,” she sobbed, wiping away the tears that had fallen with her free hand. “I came home early one day to find him and my, much thinner friend, tangled up in our sheets doing the horizontal tango. I was heartbroken. The rest as they say is history. Gary and I broke up on less than friendly terms and I refused to date for the next few months, that is until you forced yourself into the picture.”