“It is a big deal,” he said. “We’re talking about werewolves here. Next full moon, if there’s unrest… well, it could be bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how when a wolf changes in the cities, it goes on a rampage and kills randomly?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, that’s because of the stress. When wolves are emotionally calm and happy, they don’t tend to be violent. They shift and go run around in the woods and maybe kill a deer or something. And if a wolf is part of a pack and that pack is calm, it radiates out to everyone. But if the whole pack is on edge, it can be disastrous. We have a large human component in this pack, you know? There are helpless people, helpless children—”
“And if you and I can convince the pack we’re lovey-dovey, then we minimize risk to those people.”
“Exactly.”
I drew in a breath. “Okay. Fine. We’ll do something. Just… not the public sex thing?”
“So, then what?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Let me think about it. You think about it too. Maybe something brilliant will come to us.”
* * *
“I miss you, Sinead,” I said. I was in my bedroom, leaning up against the head of the bed and clutching my phone to my ear.
“I miss you, too,” she said. “But go back to the part where you’re having sex in front of the whole pack.”
“No, I said we’re not doing that,” I said. “He mentioned it was an ancient ritual, and I insisted we find a different way.”
“Because you have to convince the pack you’re happy, or else there will be unrest, and the werewolves will be violent.”
“Exactly,” I said.
“So… how did the dinner go?” she said.
“Oh, I didn’t tell you about that? It ended up being meatloaf,” I said.
“Meatloaf? How is that romantic?”
“Well, his ex-girlfriend got them to close the grocery store so that I couldn’t get any food,” I said.
“Wait, what?”
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “It’s a good thing, because I’m not ready to be romantic with him. I’m just not. I don’t feel it.”
“But you have to, right? Because the spell’s tied to your bond, that’s what you said. So, you have to strengthen that bond.”
“It just… it can’t happen overnight. A dinner isn’t going to do it. I like Judah, I do, but he lied to me. He’s in love with another woman and he mated with me anyway. And for the sake of the pack, I can forgive him for that. But I can’t forget. Not yet.”
Sinead sighed. “Oh, when you put it that way, it sounds so rational and mature.”
I laughed. “What? Don’t I usually sound rational and mature?”
“I guess you do,” she said. “I still want a runaway love story, something that sweeps me off my feet and makes me believe in miracles. Don’t you find Judah attractive? Can’t you lean into that?”
“I could try, I guess,” I said. I wanted to fall in love with him. I was mated to him, after all.
“Good. Then do that. Lean into it. I think the best way to convince the pack that you’re in love is to actually be in love.”
“Well, I just… I think I need time. Judah understands. Why don’t you? You’re supposed to be my best friend. You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“I am on your side. I really am.”
“You’re on the side of storybook romance,” I said. “And this isn’t a story. Or if it is, it’s not that kind of story.”
“What kind of story is it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe they don’t tell stories like this because they’re too depressing. This is a story about how two people who weren’t in love learned how to fake it for the sake of the people they cared about.”
“That is depressing.” Sinead sighed again. “No, fall in love with him for real. At least try.”
I laughed softly. “I’m not not trying, if that makes any sense.”
“Well, I think you should try a candlelit dinner again,” she said. “But maybe you should go out, like on a date. Somewhere in public, so that everyone can see that you’re doing something romantic together. That should help the pack see that you’re in love, right?”
“Maybe,” I said, thinking about it. “But you know what? I saw a flyer for a barn dance. It said all were welcome, so maybe most of the pack will be there. If we went there together, that might work.”
“Yes, yes! And dance every slow dance together, and gaze longingly into each other’s eyes. And then, by the end of the night, even though you’ve been faking it, it will start to be real.”
“That sounds like something that would happen in a story,” I said.
“It’ll happen for real,” she said. “You’ll see. Just try it.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“So, this barn dance?” I said to Judah. “Do you know about it?”
“Sure,” he said. “I was going to say something to you about it. One of us should probably be there. I wouldn’t say that it had to be you, just because you’re a woman, but typically, between alphas, they divide up community activities. You don’t have to stay the whole time. You can just make an appearance. Or I can go if you want. It’s really whatever you think.”
“Actually, I thought we could both go,” I said. “I thought it might be a good way for the pack to see that we’re bonded. Will a lot of the pack attend the dance, you think?”
“A fair amount,” he said. “But I don’t think just going to a dance is going to convince anyone of anything.”
“Well, no,” I said. “We’d have to dance together and hold hands and look romantic. It would probably help if we kissed a couple of times.”
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Okay, I’m game. That might work.”
“Okay,” I said.
He smiled.
I smiled.
Neither of us spoke.
“We should, um, probably practice if we’re going to do this,” he said.
“Practice dancing? Are there are a lot of complicated steps?”
“No, it’s not… there’s nothing like that. I meant, practice kissing. We haven’t done it very much and I don’t know if we can be… convincing.”
“Oh,” I said. “Right.” I remembered our awkward closed-mouth kisses before we mated. There had been nothing wrong with them, but there had been no passion in them. He was right. If we kissed like that, we wouldn’t persuade anyone. “Okay, then. You want to practice now?”
He squared his shoulders. “Okay.”
And then we simply stared at each other.
“You know,” he said, “I really thought this would simply come after we were mated. I thought that we would feel something intense and we would be passionately in love.”
“Well, that’s not what happened,” I said.
“I know.” His shoulders slumped.
“Let’s just try this.” I stepped closer to him and I put my hands on his shoulders. His shoulders were broad and firm, and I ran my fingers over them appreciatively.
He swallowed. “We should, uh, we should try with tongue.” His voice had gotten very deep all of the sudden.
“Yeah, okay,” I said.
He took a deep breath. His face tilted down to mine.
I slammed my eyes shut.
He kissed me. His tongue swept into my mouth, and it was too much and too forceful, and I wanted to push him away, but instead, I dug my fingers into his shoulders and tensed up.
And then he pulled back.
I made a face. “Maybe a little… gentler?”
“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, sure. Sorry. I’m just a little nervous, I think. Would you believe you’re only the second woman I’ve ever kissed?”
“Really?” I said in a tiny voice. “So, only Tempest, huh?”
“Well, amongst wolves, you know, pairing up tends to be pretty serious.”
“Because of the matin
g thing, right.” I nodded.
“It’s not actually that strange for people to get together in high school and stay together through their old age.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Of course.” I had barely kissed anyone. Three people. But it felt like I had a huge amount of experience compared to Judah. Ugh. It wasn’t even fair, because Judah had been in love with someone, and I never had. I didn’t even know what that was like.
“Anyway, let’s try again,” he said.
I nodded. I shut my eyes.
Another kiss. This time, he was gentler, but he wasn’t really gentle enough. He was just taking over my mouth with his tongue, and it was really off-putting.
This time, I did push him away. “I just… I think maybe we try to work up to the tongue thing.”
“Okay?”
“Like, just a little tongue,” I said.
“Well, but we want people to think—”
“We want people to think I’m enjoying it.”
“Ouch,” he said, making a face.
I blushed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean… I’m sure that Tempest loves the way you kiss. I mean, she’s never complained, right?”
Judah’s jaw tensed. “It doesn’t matter what she thinks. I don’t kiss her anymore. It matters what you think.”
“Right,” I said. “Of course you don’t kiss her. I’m sorry I brought her up. I’m sorry.” I dragged my hands over my face. “Why is this so hard?”
“I’ll try gentler,” he said. “Less. Let’s go again, okay?” He shook himself out, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
This wasn’t the right atmosphere for this. Not at all. But, okay, we had to get it right. I took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s go again.”
“Okay.”
I looked into his eyes, trying to get myself in the right frame of mind. Pretend he’s someone you really want to kiss, I thought. Pretend he’s…
And he was coming for me.
I shut my eyes, still struggling to summon an image of someone that I wanted to kiss. But all that swam to my mind were ice blue eyes and fur and sharp fangs and a smirk…
Judah’s lips met mine, with just a light amount of pressure. His tongue tentatively touched the tip of my tongue.
I responded, a small tingling feeling beginning to kindle in my core.
Our tongues moved against each other and I thought of that smirk, those clawed hands, those eyes. Fang it. Why was I thinking about Landon while I was kissing Judah?
Judah’s and my tongues danced together for several more seconds, and then we disengaged.
I hummed a little. “That was nice,” I whispered.
“Yeah,” he said.
I opened my eyes.
He was gazing at me, smiling. There was something in his expression now, when he looked at me, something that hadn’t been there before.
Maybe Sinead was right. Maybe there was something to this idea of faking it until we made it.
If only I hadn’t been thinking about someone else when I kissed him.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Time passed. The moon was full again, and the entire pack shifted to run in the woods. Those wolves who didn’t want to shift came to Judah and me, and we controlled their shift for them. It felt good to be able to do that for the wolves.
I felt more and more at home here in the village, even though Judah and I weren’t getting any closer.
I hoped that the barn dance would be a chance for us to grow closer. It was nearly time for the dance, and I would need a dress.
I hit the shops in town—the clothes shops. They were in a different part of town than the wine and grocery stores had been, and I didn’t have any trouble getting in or buying anything. At first, all I did was try things on. I wanted a perfect dress for this event. I wanted to look like a besotted young girl, but I also wanted to appear regal and in charge. I was the alpha, after all. I needed to have an air of importance. But I didn’t want to appear untouchable either. It all had to be perfect.
I tried on dresses and skirts and blouses, and some of them were very wrong, and others were nice but not for me, and some were so great that I couldn’t decide.
So, after about three days of trying on clothes, I returned home with three different outfits. I couldn’t choose between them.
Instead, I put them on, took pictures in the mirror, and then texted them to Sinead, and asked which one she thought was the best.
The first option was a red dress. It had bell sleeves and a long flowing skirt, and it was made of a crinkly sort of fabric. The neck scooped down dangerously low.
The next option was a white flowing blouse over a patchwork skirt, something almost exactly like what I’d seen Tiffany wearing that first day that I’d arrived. I loved the simplicity of it.
The final option was a blue dress with purple accents. The bodice was blue, but the sleeves and the skirt were made of strips of purple fabric that flowed as I moved. There was blue fabric beneath the flowing strips so that the dress wasn’t indecent.
Sinead texted back that it was between the red dress and the blue dress. She liked them both.
I agreed with her. I was happy to have the blouse and skirt, but they weren’t dressy enough for the dance. It was too close to everyday wear for the people of the pack.
I spread the red dress and blue dress out on my bed and looked at them.
By nightfall, I was no closer to making a decision.
Judah took me into the woods again to work on shifting. This time, since I had gotten down my own shifting, I worked on trying to stop Judah from shifting, or trying to trigger his shift. Since he was an alpha, he could block me from doing these things to him, but he allowed me to do it so that I could practice.
Stopping his shift was much easier than trying to trigger the shift, and I was successful at stopping the shift several times that night, but I never triggered a shift once.
I felt his gaze on my naked skin after we had shifted back, and I felt self-conscious, even though I hadn’t before. It felt as if he’d suddenly changed the atmosphere. We’d been friends, comrades, working on a skill, and now he was suddenly the man who I was supposed to have feelings for.
He tried to touch me, but I shied away.
I told him I wasn’t ready, and he apologized.
When I got back to the bedroom, the dresses were still staring at me. I hung them up on hangers outside the closet, and climbed into bed. I fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning, the dresses were the first thing I saw.
And I knew.
The blue one.
The red was more mature, a little sexier, a little more commanding. The blue was softer. I wanted to be softer for the dance. I wanted to appear softer. It was the right choice. Plus, it was a great dress.
That day, after breakfast, Judah and I tried kissing again, but we got into a fit of giggles and couldn’t stop. One of us would start laughing and would trigger the other, and it went on for nearly a half hour before we gave up.
I texted Sinead and told her I’d picked the blue dress.
She texted back that she thought it was the right choice.
That night, Judah and I went out in the woods, and he explained that to trigger the wolf, I needed to find his wolf within him. He said that my wolf would be able to find his wolf. And that was when I understood. I let a little of my own wolf out, not enough to shift, but enough to feel, and my wolf sniffed out Judah’s wolf and dragged it from him. He shifted right in front of me, exploding into fur and sinews and paws.
It was an awe-inspiring feeling, being able to make that happen within someone. And now I could do that to members of the pack if it was necessary. If a threat came to the village, I could force the wolves to shift and fight. I could make sure that we could protect ourselves.
It made me feel safe and strong.
* * *
Judah left after dinner the next night. He said he was going out with some friends from high school. It was a guys’ night.
I was alone in
the house, and I decided to try on the blue dress and look at myself in the mirror some more. I hadn’t let Judah see the dress. I wanted it to be a surprise. Maybe when he saw me in the dress, he’d forget Tempest and he’d fall for me instead.
I mean…
I don’t know. I couldn’t muster anything like actual jealousy for Tempest. I didn’t want Judah enough for that. But I wanted to feel desire for him, and I wanted him to desire me too. If there was a way to make that happen, I would do it. Maybe the dress would help. It was a pretty great dress.
With it on, I twirled and preened. I pulled my hair up into a messy bun and then I let my hair hang around my shoulders, and I debated whether I should wear my hair up or down. I thought that up seemed more elegant but that down seemed more sexy. Since it was desire I was going for, I would leave it down.
And I didn’t want to take the dress off, so I wandered around the house in it, pretending to dance around the furniture.
I curtsied low and inclined my head and twirled.
And someone was clapping.
Startled, heart in my throat, I turned, and there was Landon.
He was leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, slowly clapping, a kind of ironic slow clap. He was smirking.
“You aren’t supposed to be here!” I said, picking up my skirts and hurrying over to him. I was relieved that it was only him in the house, but I was furious. “You said you understood. You said you’d stay away.”
“No, I didn’t.” He looked me over, as if I was crazy to think that.
Hadn’t he said that? I could have sworn he’d… Fang it all. Maybe it had been wishful thinking. “Your being here makes the pack nervous. You have to leave.”
“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to,” he said. “That’s what being free means. You wouldn’t know. You’re all intertwined with the pack now. You’re the opposite of free.”
“Oh, whatever,” I said. “Please don’t make me fight you. I’m not going to shift in this dress. I don’t want to ruin it.”
“I like the dress,” he said, grinning, looking me up and down. “You look like a princess.”
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