“Okay,” Tu said, already retreating back into herself. She gave Alisha a small “Thanks.”
She hated that her sisters worried about her like they did. She knew they’d probably spent a considerable amount of time discussing her, kicking around ideas to bring her out of the shell in which she now lived, the one she didn’t leave unless she was with the children.
She walked away from them, back to the safety of the kid’s table, wishing she could be the she-wolf they wanted her to be, the audacious princess who went out of her way to do, say, and wear the things that would shock people most. Tu knew they still loved her and appreciated the job she’d done as their nanny, first for Janelle and then for Alisha. But in many ways, Tu had forced them to live with the ghost of the sister they’d grown up with. And that wasn’t fair.
The Tu they’d known was gone. Gone and ruined. And in her heart of hearts, she knew her sisters would be better off without her.
3
The next morning, Tu once again smelled Grady before she saw him as she was heading towards Rafe’s office. Her first instinct was to run the other way, but she knew his nose. It was as good as hers, which meant if she smelled him, he’d already smelled her. And for some reason, she hated the idea of him knowing she’d run away.
So she continued on and wasn’t surprised when she found Grady Wulfkonig standing outside Rafe’s door, like he’d been waiting to see if she’d come around the corner or chicken out. Judging from the pitying look in his eyes as he watched her approach, he’d expected the latter.
The pity shouldn’t have irritated her as much as it did. Better that than what used to linger behind those grey eyes of his: disappointment, worry, and a yearning she hadn’t known how to handle when she’d been twenty and more interested in having the best time ever before she was mated off to the highest bidder.
Lord knew, she had lived to turns heads back then. Always picking the brightest colors, stretching her Afro out to its biggest lengths, and soaking in the attention that came with being a princess, young, rich, and bold. But not now. Now she wore black and grey exclusively because she didn’t like to think too much when getting dressed in the morning, along with a sturdy pair of Doc Martins. She kept her long hair in two French braids. Now everything about her was no fuss, no muss, designed to attract the least amount of attention possible.
She didn’t want Grady’s attention. Even if the kidnappings hadn’t been his fault, she didn’t want to know him, or walk in the same circles as him. Not like that, not anymore.
Yet, that pitying look… it set her on edge, made it harder for her not to turn tail and run, even though he hadn’t said anything.
“You hear about wolves kidnap you?” he signed.
“Yes,” she signed back.
“Don’t think case closed. Last year Alisha say wolves maybe hired. Have boss who tell them kidnap you. Want to ask you more questions.”
“Ask Alisha. I was high.”
“Want ask you, because you awake whole time. Maybe—”
“No,” she signed, before he could finish signing the rest of that sentence. “Don’t want talk about. Want forget.”
“But—”
She couldn’t do this any more, she turned away from him and knocked on the door, effectively cutting off the conversation.
Rafe must have smelled her, because he didn’t call for her to come in, but came to the door himself, the key to his family’s summer cabin in his hand.
“Hey, Tu. Alisha told me you’d be stopping by,” he said looking between Grady and Tu nervously, as if he were a ringmaster and two of his circus lions who didn’t get along had escaped their respective cages.
“Here you go.” His voice was overly pleasant, the way it always was when spoke to her. Like she was a child. No, worse than that. Like she was a wolf without any teeth. Frail and completely feeble. Someone deserving of the pitying look in Grady’s eyes.
Rafe gave her the key, lifting her hand and pressing it into her palm like she was incapable of even the small task of taking it from him herself.
“You know to call us if you need anything, right?”
“Right,” she answered softly. “Thank you, Rafe.”
Having gotten what she came here for, she quickly backed away—right into Grady.
She turned to apologize for bumping into him, but the sorry got stuck in her throat. He was no longer looking down at her with pity, but with a frown on his face.
Grady inclined his head toward the window on the other side of the hallway where snow was swirling around outside.
“Storm coming,” he signed.
“Know,” she signed back.
They stood there for a moment, Tu feeling dwarfed, not only by his hulk-like size, but by his authority which he still emanated even though he no longer wore the Wolf Springs sheriff’s uniform.
He signed, “If know, why you go cabin?”
“Want alone time,” Tu signed back before she even realized what she was doing. She’d always found him easy to talk to, despite their size difference and the fact that she was signing in a language she only ever got to really practice with him. She guessed some things remained the same even after the terrible things that had gone down five Thanksgivings ago.
“You sad,” he signed, seeming to read her mind.
She nodded, not knowing how else to answer this shockingly intimate observation. She signed again. “Want alone time.”
And his frown deepened. “No. Storm coming. Maybe bad.”
“Me go okay,” she signed because she wasn’t sure about the ASL equivalent of “I’ll be all right.”
Then she walked off before he could try to sign-talk her out of going again. She didn’t look back—even though she could feel his gaze following her as she walked away.
Her small bag was already packed and waiting for her in the seven-seater Audi Rafe had gifted her with last Christmas, when she officially moved in to serve as his triplets’ nanny. And both sets of grandparents were here for any babysitting the children might need. Tu jogged down the steps toward the first floor, leaving behind Grady… and the people she’d tried to use to fill the growing hole in her soul for the last five years.
They’d be fine, she assured herself. They loved her, but they didn’t need her. They had each other. And she’d tried. She’d tried so hard. But she couldn’t live this way anymore.
4
“I’ve gone over your pack’s finances several times. You’ve got zero official saleable assets, no legal businesses, no access to your state’s resources, and your pack account’s only five digits. The situation’s pretty clear here.” Rafe picked up a financial report and set it down on his desk in front of Grady. “You need a princess wife.”
Rafe’s assessment of his kingdom’s financial situation wasn’t a surprise. Grady had come to the same conclusion himself a month ago when he’d finally gotten all the pack’s paperwork in order, even before he’d asked Rafe to take a look at them just in case he was missing something. His situation was the opposite of their friend, Mag’s.
Mag had won a state crown in a set of challenge fights that he’d spent three years training for with Grady. With that crown he’d gotten a mansion, a multi-million dollar pack account, and enough clout to strike a pledge deal for the hand of Alisha’s older sister, Janelle. He’d fought for his crown and reaped the rewards.
However, Oklahoma was a mange state. One so poor, no one had bothered to fight over the crown when his father had died of a heart attack, shortly after finding out what happened to Luke in Alaska. There was a chance his father had struck tithing deals with the many meth outfits running out of Oklahoma pack towns now, but if that was the case, there weren’t any official records. On paper, the state crown only had a few cash reserves from the rent it collected and a ton of land. But the land was technically worthless, since all of it housed pack towns designated to keep werewolves away from the prying eyes of humans. And the weres who lived in most of the Oklahoma pack towns c
ould barely afford to pay their piddly rents, much less buy and sell real estate or pay taxes on it.
So unlike Mag, Grady had inadvertently inherited a crown his father hadn’t wanted him to have, one he would have been more than happy to let go, no challenge fight necessary, if someone else had come along to claim it. He’d made more as Rafe’s beta than the Oklahoma state crown made in a year. So no, he hadn’t needed Rafe to tell him his state crown was virtually worthless.
However, he had no idea why Rafe was bringing up marriage now.
“Why princess wife?” he signed.
Rafe signed and spoke at the same time as he always did. The signing was a courtesy really, back up, just in case Grady couldn’t fully read his lips, though that was almost never the case. They’d been friends for a long time, and it was now second nature for Rafe to talk slightly slower, enunciating his words clearly, so Grady had little chance of not understanding him.
“Because princesses come with dowries.” He stopped and asked, “Do you know that word? D-O-W-R-Y?”
Grady nodded, remembering a dinner table conversation between Luke and his dad, the day before Tu’s expected arrival in their kingdom town. He could still see Luke’s lips as he told his father about Tu with a smirk, like him dating a girl outside his race was a business decision he was making for the pack.
“I know she’s black, but she’s real cute. And her state’s rich, so she comes with a dowry. Cain’t beat that.”
Grady had never known for sure whether this had just been an excuse Luke had used to get around their father’s racism or if he really had only been pursuing Tu for her dowry. In either case, all Luke had gotten out of his relationship with the youngest Alaska princess was an early death.
“Alisha’s dowry was $200,000 and Mag told me Tikaani gave him a $100,000 check at the wedding. It didn’t matter so much for Mag and me, because our state treasuries were already turning nice profits when we took them over. But in your case, you need a big cash infusion, the kind that comes with a dowry.”
Sound logic, but there was one big hold up in Rafe’s plan. He signed, “No princess want mate me. Deaf. Can’t talk.”
Rafe shook his head. “You don’t know that. You’re a king with strong allies in Colorado and Wyoming. That might be enough to attract a princess or someone rich enough to come with a dowry. Plus, you not being able to hear or talk might not be a problem once you’re mated.”
Grady frowned. Rafe was putting a lot of faith in the telepathic connection that developed between wolves once they mated. Especially considering… “I half-breed. Don’t know if can mind talk after mating.”
“True,” Rafe signed and said. “But your human mother isn’t common knowledge. We wouldn’t have to tell her family that.”
Grady shook his head. The idea of lying about just how damaged he was in order to get into a princess’s bank account… that didn’t sit right with him. And then there was the matter of the beast inside of him, the one even his best friend didn’t know about…
“Not good idea,” he signed to Rafe.
“C’mon, man…” Rafe said without signing, like he sometimes did when he got exasperated with Grady. But then he said-signed, “Just think about it, okay?”
The answer was no, but Rafe was still the king of this state and owed respect accordingly.
“Thank you for looking at pack finances,” he signed.
“Thank me by finding a wife to get you out of this mess,” Rafe answered.
Grady just signed back. “Want talk about wolf kidnappers. Why I accept crown, remember?”
Now seemed as good a time as any to remind Rafe he’d only agreed to officially step up as the Oklahoma king so he could bring the wolves that kidnapped Tu and Alisha to justice.
“You solved that case,” Rafe signed back.
“Don’t think so. Never find boss.”
Rafe shook his head. “I know Alisha said the wolves mentioned someone telling those guys to kidnap them, but she had just woken up from a tranq. She could have easily heard wrong—no Grady, let me finish,” he said when Grady began shaking his head and raised his hands to reply. “Believe me, I’m disappointed those guys OD’d before we could kill them ourselves, but it’s over. It’s time for you to let this go and concentrate on getting your kingdom in order. If you marry well, you don’t have to stay a mange state.”
But Grady kept shaking his head. It wasn’t just what Alisha had told him. It was also that things had been wrapped up too neatly. When he’d gone into the trailer after receiving the tip from the Wolf Hole’s pack leader, Grady hadn’t been surprised when he found out who was behind the kidnappings, three wolves who used to run with Luke before unofficially moving to Wolf Hole to arrange half-moon parties on Luke’s behalf. Half-moon parties had been Luke’s bright idea—though the half-moon part was just marketing. In truth, they were pop-up raves he deejayed, usually held in barns, ostensibly as a way for the alpha prince to bring a bit of fun to Oklahoma’s otherwise sleepy pack towns—but really as a way to sell drugs en masse. Luke got to act the part of rave deejay while his crew—mostly friends he’d grown up with—sold X, weed, oxycontin, meth, and other controlled substances to party goers.
And if that hadn’t been enough to seal the case, Brant, the guy who’d been one of Luke’s closest friends growing up, had left a text message to his father on his phone, ranting about what that “black bitch” had done to Luke and what a fuck in the behind it had been staying one step ahead of Grady all year, and could his dad wire him some more money.
Brant, like most of Luke’s friends, had always had more pack pride than brains, like football players who beat up a stranger wearing a rival team’s t-shirt but couldn’t do simple division. It made complete and total sense that Brant would kill himself on a bad batch of meth while hiding out from Grady because he’d tried to avenge Luke’s death with a botched kidnapping. But Grady couldn’t let it go. He’d been a sheriff for five years before accepting the Oklahoma crown, and this case did not feel closed to him.
“Want talk to Alisha again,” he signed to Rafe.
Rafe’s face closed.
“No,” he signed back. “You’ve already gone over the case with her enough. She doesn’t need to relive it. Plus, she already has a lot on her plate with the research she’s doing into what happened in Old Norway after she and the boys left.”
Grady could understand why Rafe didn’t want to bring Alisha back into this. His family was finally in a good place after years of turmoil and Grady didn’t blame Rafe for not wanting to mess with it. But…
“Maybe YOU should talk Tu.”
Rafe actually laughed at him.
“Why laugh?”
“Tu doesn’t really talk to anybody these days except the boys. And never about the kidnapping. She won’t even talk about that with Alisha, and they were in it together.”
“Tu won’t answer my questions. Maybe if you ask.”
Rafe shook his head.
“Tu is an excellent nanny. The boys love her. If you think I’m going to try to do anything that makes her uncomfortable, you clearly don’t know how hard it is to find a good nanny.”
“If so good nanny. Why at cabin?”
Rafe shrugged. “It’s Thanksgiving weekend. If she wants to go to the cabin, that’s fine.”
Grady frowned. “Storm coming.”
“Storm’s coming tonight, not right now. The cabin’s only a couple hours away. She’ll make it. And if she doesn’t come back by Sunday night, we’ll go dig her out.”
Rafe’s nonchalance chafed against Grady’s instincts. The problem with his friend was he’d had a relatively calm year after an epic five. He’d become one of those wolves who didn’t worry too much about his loved ones because life had worked out so well for him.
And maybe he was right. Tu would probably be fine, and even if she wasn’t, she wasn’t Grady’s family. Rafe and his people would take care of her.
“You should worry less about Tu and more
about your pack,” Rafe instructed, pointing at the financial report. “I’ve got a lot of matchmaking aunties on my New Mexico side and my mom likes you, so she’ll be willing to help find you someone.”
Grady shook his head. He didn’t like one thing about Rafe’s plan, especially not the part where his friend’s pretty Latina mom, who’d started out as a princess herself in the New Mexico royal family, acted as his yenta.
“No, no, no, don’t bother your mom.”
“Trust me, she wants to be bothered. She loves stuff like this,” Rafe answered, steamrolling over Grady’s protest like he was still Grady’s sovereign. Grady guessed old habits died hard for the king. But still…
The smell wafted through the door just as Grady raised his hands to protest again. It was a rich and tangy smell, so potent, it felt like a living thing entering in through his nose and shooting straight up Grady’s shaft. Like an olfactory version of Viagra.
Grady immediately knew what it was. The queen, Rafe’s mate, was in second heat. And even though Grady was no longer sheriff of Wolf Springs, he sprung into action immediately.
First he got out of the way, just in time to miss a collision with Rafe who jumped over his desk and ran out the door. The tall and stately king was nowhere to be seen as his wolf rushed towards its mate. However, Grady remained calm. Save for one time five years ago, she-wolves going into heat had been the one thing that didn’t exacerbate his beast—he got a hard on, yeah, but nothing like what could happen when he let himself get too angry. Lucky for both him and Rafe, or else he might be trying to beat Rafe to get to the Queen of Colorado. A she-wolf’s heat was a primal smell, meant to attract male wolves, any male wolf still fertile enough to mate her without discrimination.
It was a good thing it had been Grady meeting with Rafe and not some other wolf. That meant the only other people in the house were Rafe’s and Alisha’s parents and Mag and Janelle. The older parents wouldn’t be a problem since they were out of age range for mating—same went for the children. But Mag and Janelle…
Wolf and Soul (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 3) Page 4