“This is your warning. Do not do it again.” Sadie nodded once. She was a quick learner. He was not her friend. He was her Alpha. She wouldn’t forget it. He released her in a rush and stepped out of her space a few paces.
“I know you are mad right now.”
“Gosh, really?”
He shot her an unamused look. “You have every right to be but I need you to trust me. There is a reason for this.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you.” He actually looked like it pained him to say that.
She was not in the mood for games though. “Look, I’m going home. Just leave me alone.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?” This man was going to cause her to use the F word and not her G rated version either.
“You are not going home. You are going to Lee’s.”
Sadie growled. Actually growled. “For how much longer?”
“Just the week. We need to make sure you can handle the wolf.”
“So what you’re saying is I’ll never go home again because at the end of the week I’m going to be mated to one of those men in there,” she pointed past him to the bar and noticed they had an audience. “Is that right?”
A small smile tugged at his lips. “No, not necessarily.”
“Let her go, Owen,” Lee said from behind him as she came out of the bar. “You and I need to have a word.”
Sadie felt a twinge of pity for the man. But that evaporated the instant he opened his mouth next. “Of course. Sadie, one last thing before you go. You do not have permission to leave.”
Her eyes went wide. How did he?
“I know what it looks like when a wolf is about to bolt. Don’t. You will stay and see this through. Either you pick a mate or I will pick one for you. Do you understand?” His words were heavy as they settled on her. Now, even if she had the opportunity (like now) and the means (also like now) to run, she couldn’t. He had just prevented her from escaping.
“Bastard,” she spat out.
“You think that now. Go on home Sadie.” Pity was laced in his sad smile and she wanted to smack it off his face. Instead, she turned and stomped down Main Street toward Lee’s house.
It was a two mile walk but by the time she reached her home for the next week, her anger had died. A familiar set of yellow eyes met hers when she stepped onto the porch. Fred sat below the wooden swing and had thumped his tail once against the floorboards to get her attention. Sadie was so happy to see him she didn’t pause to think better of it and fell to her knees and hugged him.
“Where have you been?” she cried as he licked her chin. “Never mind that. I have so much to tell you, Fred.” And so she did. She told him about waking up and finding out what Jack was and what he had done to her. She told him how it felt to change the night before and see the world in a different light. She even admitted to killing a rabbit and eating half of it before realizing how disgusting that was and vomiting all the raw meat up in the bushes.
He listened, like he always did and let her speak her mind without any judgment or interruption. She had missed him and his silent companionship. “I can turn into a wolf now, you know? Maybe sometime you could show me the ropes?” He groaned but she wasn’t sure if that was because he didn’t want to be seen with a newbie wolf or because she had scratched that spot by his ear he loved so much.
“The alpha is making me mate someone. I get to pick but still…” Sadie looked down at Fred and sighed. “How am I supposed to find someone I want to marry…sorry, I mean mate, in a week? That’s ridiculous, right?” He had stiffened under her hand. Sometimes she felt like he understood her perfectly, while at others he was oblivious. Then again, most pet owners feel that way at some point.
“I don’t want to. I can’t. I mean, first there was Peter and then the weird thing with Jack. How am I supposed to give myself to someone when I don’t even know who I am at the moment? My whole physiological make up was changed this week and I have a tendency to attract psychopaths, those are not the qualities someone wants in a wife.”
Fred licked her hand.
“Yeah well you don’t count. You are just a wolf, remember?”
The faint glow of lights began to illuminate a few trees off the side of the driveway. Fred saw them as soon as she had and stood. “Don’t wait so long next time. Lee won’t mind if you stop by to visit.” He was eye level with her so she cupped his head and gave the longer fur around his neck and jaw a scratch. Fred licked her face with two quick swipes and darted off the porch before the car was fully visible.
When Lee found her a few minutes later she hadn’t moved from her spot on the floor of the porch. They didn’t say anything to each other but sat side by side. It was full dark and the night had come alive. The air had a small nip to it. The last bits of spring hanging on for dear life before the summer heat moved in. The coolness helped keep her mind free and clear of the anger that Fred helped alleviate.
Whatever Owen had said to Lee had calmed her considerably. The goofy grin on her face was only mildly annoying. After learning of their history, it wouldn’t surprise her if he had just kissed her senseless and left it at that.
“I take it your talk went well?”
The smile faltered slightly. “Actually it did.”
One look at her and Sadie knew she had gone to the dark side. “You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”
“I’m sorry, Sadie. He has that super deep voice that he only uses in an official capacity but makes my legs turn to pudding and he told me I was sworn to secrecy. Even if I wanted to tell you what he said, I can’t.”
“No, it’s ok. I know you can’t.” She had been surprised at the power his commands held.
“Just…” Lee paused searching for the right words. “Just try not to worry. Things are bigger than they seem right now. There is a reason for this and…just try not to worry.”
Sadie grunted in acknowledgment. Without any more details into the whys of this plan Owen had, she would worry, and bitch and fight until she found out more.
Chapter Twenty-four
“I can’t do it anymore. Please,” she begged, “just tell him I’m having explosive diarrhea or I’m having a horrible flare up of herpes. I don’t care anymore. Just get them away from me.” Sadie was hiding in the bathroom. It wasn’t her most proud moment but after three days of an endless rotation of men wanting to meet her, she had realized that her sanity was more important than her pride.
“I’ll think of something. You go get some air. I’ll keep the wolves at bay. I am the pack pariah after all. They think my ‘condition’ is contagious or something.” Lee was already walking away and still mumbling to herself. “Oh dear,” Sadie heard her say in the other room with a sweet voice. “I think I may be having a horrid cause of barren-itis. You better stay back; I don’t want you to catch it.”
That was her cue. In two quick motions she had the latches flipped and the window up. She hadn’t crawled out a window since she was seventeen and found it was just as awkward now as it had been then. But after a little maneuvering and a shaky dismount she had landed and was running toward the forest.
She laughed when she broke the tree line. “Free at last!” This was the first time she had been alone in days and it was glorious. With no one to talk to and nothing really to do but not turn around and go back, Sadie wandered the area with a smile on her face.
The men back at the house had been not really a surprise, per se. More of a detail she had not thought of. For the first day she had entertained whoever had come by. Not all were men and most were just coming by to introduce themselves. It was nice and very neighborly. It was the days following that she began to get annoyed. When she was at work, her tables were full where all of the other waitresses had no one. When she stopped by the market, she had three offers to carry her bags to her car. If it hadn’t been for Sam loading up his truck and seeing this spectacle she never would have survived without beating one or all three of them upside
the head with the pork loin she had bought. Sam had swooped in, grabbed her bags, put them in her car then pulled her away for a cup of coffee.
Sam took her suitors in stride. He joked a little and she could tell he wanted to ask more but told her, “I’ve lived here all my life. I know there are some fishy things that go on around here but I also know when to keep my mouth shut. You can tell me anything you need to but I won’t ask.”
She might have fallen in love with him right then and there if he wasn’t gay.
Sam was a short lived distraction from the wolves. The worst part of all of it was that she really couldn’t be mad at them. It was Owen who told them to have at it. “It” being her. For the second time since moving to Andora, she felt like a big juicy steak being dangled above a pack of ravenous wolves.
But here in the forest of the Adirondack Park, the trees were quiet. They didn’t ask her questions. They didn’t want to court her. Sadie had lost sight of the house and where that would have frightened her a few weeks ago; it wasn’t even a blimp on the scary radar anymore. She knew she could get back without problem and probably with her eyes closed if she wanted. This was the wolf’s domain and she wouldn’t let them get lost.
Like every other time she had gotten near the forest, Sadie took great account into what she was smelling. There was one particular scent she hunted for. She had every wolf in the area attracted to her save for the one she wanted to see. Sadie had caught glimpses of Fred from time to time. He kept his distance. Lee found it entertaining. She said he was trying to keep his scent away from the pack. Then she would smile, or laugh, or hum a tune, or doing something else that was annoyingly cheerful. Sadie didn’t bother asking since she knew whatever it was Lee couldn’t tell her.
“Damn you Owen,” she said while kicking a stick.
“What, you don’t like your new Alpha?” a voice chuckled from beside her.
Sadie spun around. “Holy crap on a cracker you scared me.” Vince was leaning back against a tree with a foot up on the trunk and his hands in the pockets of his jeans that were frayed and holey because he worked in them, not bought them that way. This was a man who the bearded hipsters tried to imitate. He wore a knitted beanie with the short ends of his ink black hair curling around the edges. His beard was a healthy length; not so long that got in the way of things but not so short that it was scruff. The long sleeve Henley shirt he wore had the sleeves haphazardly pushed up his forearms. Being that it was mid spring and the weather was still temperamental, he had a surprisingly dark tan already. She had met him a few times before but had not gotten into subjects such as occupation yet. So she didn’t know if that tan came from working outside or if he was just naturally graced with such skin. Vince didn’t strike her as the tanning bed kind of guy.
“I didn’t mean to frighten ya. Just saw you walking and thought I’d say hello.”
More likely he saw her run off into the woods after her bathroom window escape and followed her. “Do you always hang out in the woods outside people’s houses?”
“Nah,” his green eyes crinkled with a smile. “But I do hang outside my own house.”
She did not see any houses.
“I’m that way.” He nodded his head to the direction she had been heading. “So how are the vultures?”
“Circling and waiting for me to die so they can pick my bones clean,” she muttered.
Vince threw back his head and laughed. Sadie smiled herself. She usually wasn’t so outspoken with strangers.
“I like that,” he said. “May I offer you my home as a safe haven? If nothing more I can get you a glass of ice tea and a sandwich and send you back to Lee’s.”
As skeptical as she was, the drink and food did sound good. “Yeah, sure.”
“Don’t sound so enthused,” he said with a smirk.
“Sorry,” she muttered.
“Don’t worry about it.”
They walked for about ten minutes. Neither of them said much but Vince did try to fill in the blanks with some non-intrusive questions. Sadie answered reluctantly. It wasn’t that she was trying to be rude; she just didn’t want to actually like any of the men in the pack on principal. This wasn’t her way of saying she had fallen for him on the spot. The man was comfortable to be around. He just had such an easy going attitude that she already could feel the twinges of “liking” sprouting.
Her wolf liked him well enough. Sadie could tell the wolf didn’t hold any thoughts especially for him but there were definitely no bad thoughts either. That was probably the best she was going to get from someone in the pack at short notice.
“Look,” he said as his house came into view. “I can’t say I know how you are feeling right now but this is not the end of the world. In fact, it could be a very good thing.” He put a light hand on her arm to stop her. Sadie didn’t want to look at him. She didn’t want this friendly moment that she had already partially ruined by being a grump be ruined even further with Vince confessing he wanted to mate her. As nice as he may be, she didn’t know this man.
“I’m not native to this pack but I’ve been here a few years. These are good people and you have your pick of the men. Take it for what it is and find someone who you like instead of letting it up to the wolf who put you up to this in the first place.”
She waited for the rest to come but he was apparently done. That made her look up at him. “Aren’t you going to say that wolf should be you and then proceed to list all the desirable qualities you possess including how many deer and pheasants you shot last year?”
“I could but that wouldn’t help at all,” he said with complete honesty.
“Oh. Well, thanks for the advice then.”
“By the way it was three deer. One by gun, two by wolf.” He grinned. “I’m kidding…but not really.” Sadie rolled her eyes. She did kind of walk into that one.
He began walking again and masterfully changed the subject before anything got awkward. “Grilled cheese ok? I’m not much of a cook but I have mastered the basics.”
“Sure.”
He smiled at her and all she could do was stare at him. Was she missing something? Was he really not going to try anything? Did he have a girlfriend already? Was there something wrong with her that he didn’t want to mate her?
Crap, she was losing it. The first guy to not bow at her feet and she automatically thinks there is something wrong with her. She blinked and looked at him again, this time not as a possible suitor but as someone else in her pack who could possibly become a friend or…
The realization was a hard one. Without her haze of automatic hatred clouding her eyes she saw him for what could possibly be called the first time.
He was hot.
She was so screwed.
***
“You look like someone else I know,” she told him after they had finished eating. Grilled cheese with Sriracha, her life would never be the same.
“Yeah? And who would that be?” He was utterly comfortable in his home. Which Sadie had to point out was nothing like the bachelor pad she expected. She had learned that his sister was an interior designer and had swept in a few years back to “save him from the mundane.” And mundane it was not. The place still said a guy lived here but the colors coordinated and the patterns didn’t clash.
“My friend Sam. He’s an electrician in town.” They had eerily similar eyes. It was the first thing she had noticed about Vince when she met him after the run.
Vince laughed. “Well that’s a coincidence because I have a cousin Sam who is an electrician in town.”
“Really?” Now she had someone to squeeze for details. “Well you just went up tenfold in my book.”
“I’ll have to thank Sam the next time I see him just for being my cousin.”
She was just going to ignore the way his left cheek dimpled twice when he was happy. It was like a mood gauge: one dimple was a polite smile, two meant a sincere one. Not that she was noticing that kind of thing.
“So why isn’t he a w
olf?”
“Ah, you wouldn’t know, would you?” He hung an arm over the back of his chair. They were still at the dining room table, crumb filled plates in front of them. After the awkwardness of the walk ended, they had gotten along famously. So much so that they kept talking well after she had planned to leave.
“My mother and father were both dominate wolves, my aunt however, did not get those genes. She is a submissive wolf. They are important to the pack but some choose to play human.”
“Does Sam know?” She knew the answer to that. Or at least she thought she did.
“Nah. My aunt never told my uncle or her kids what her family was. None of them were born with a wolf so she never had the need to fill them in. It’s her choice and we respect that.”
Sadie had learned more about being a wolf in the few hours she had been talking with Vince than in all her time with Lee and Owen. He was an open, no nonsense book. It was…refreshing.
“So what are you going to do?” he asked with a slight hesitation.
“About?” she played dumb. She knew what he was asking about. And by that look, he knew that she knew. No nonsense seemed to be his life motto. “Ok fine. I don’t know yet. I have four days to pick someone or have them picked for me. None of the men seem to think this is anything but a treat for them. I just don’t get it. Is this forced marriage…I mean, mating thing, common?”
He scratched the side of his chin making his beard wobble. “Not that I know of. It used to be, but what culture over the history of time didn’t have arranged marriages? As far as I can see, Owen has something up his sleeve. Not sure what exactly. I’m not especially close to the man but after a few years of getting naked to run in the woods with people, you pick up some things.”
Beyond The Veil: A Paranormal & Magical Romance Boxed Set Page 115