Alpha Wife (Married to a Monster #2)

Chapter 11

eleven

. . .

The house wasn’t very tidy, if you mean six foot rectangular holes in the wall with iron bars sticking out of the glass cases of formerly pristine priceless antique armor untidy. Wrecked was another word for it. Jane was sitting in a chair reading a trashy novel when I came down the stairs of the mansion, wobbly and unbalanced. When I saw her, I flinched back, because the things she’d said, her snapping my spine, how could I face her and not try to kill her?

She closed the book and stood, not looking at me. “Are you going somewhere?” She still didn’t meet my eyes, but maybe that was a werewolf thing. I looked down and shook my head at the rubble of what had been expensive perfection. Part of me was distinctly satisfied with the carnage. Joe would hate his precious armor getting wrecked, like I hated my whole humanity getting wrecked.

“What happened?” I whispered, but I had a really bad feeling that I already knew.

“You shifted, but our fearless leader refused to put you in a cage, even though he knew that you’d be a monster.” She gestured carelessly at the ripped priceless paintings and crumbling plaster. “You clearly didn’t shift happily.”

“Who shifts happily? And why didn’t he put me in a physical cage when he was so eager to put me in a metaphysical one? What was he thinking?”

She finally met my eyes, and I was surprised by the warmth in them. “You are so strong, too strong to submit to your wolf. We all admire you for that, but you had to be broken so that you wouldn’t die.”

I swallowed hard, because the words she’d said still hurt. I’d been a coward, but right then, I didn’t care, because I’d been tricked and captured, totally played. I was right to be afraid of Joe, after all. My hands trembled with rage and fear and hunger.

“You’ll come to terms with it eventually, like I did. Did you eat your breakfast? You can’t leave until you’ve eaten.”

I snarled at her. “And you’re going to make me?”

Her eyes were still warm, kind, but her teeth seemed particularly sharp. “That’s right. I’m your appointed guardian, as I have been for the last fifteen years, ever since his dark wolf claimed you.”

I jerked. “I didn’t claim him.”

“You begged him to marry you. The reasonable human side of him wouldn’t have considered dating someone so young, wounded, and insecure, much less marry you, but his dark wolf always said yes to whatever you desired. He always will.”

“He said that I couldn’t leave.”

She smiled sharply and pulled a tray off the table next to her where the irresistible scent of edibles was coming from. She opened the lid, and there was a bowl of stew, some dark, thick bread, and a glass of green smoothie.

I was moving before I realized, slurping the stew, drinking, chewing bread, all at the same time, seeming incapable of eating one thing at a time. When the tray was a mess, and so was I, but most of the food was inside of me, I backed away from her, towards the door.

“It’s not that you can’t leave, but that you’ll always return. Your dark wolf has marked him yours, and will not let him go.”

“I don’t remember doing that!” I snapped, sudden rage making the world take on a reddish tinge.

“You will eventually when you come to terms with reality. You will become one, like Josiah is one with his wolves.”

“He still said his dark wolf claimed me.”

“Yes, but he is united with his wolf and his dark wolf, like you will be, or…” She smiled slowly. “It’s always amusing to watch people fight themselves.”

“So happy that I can amuse you!” I turned and sprinted for the front door, but it was closed, and while I was scrabbling around trying to open it, Jane had come up right behind me.

“You have to turn the handle. I am your guardian, so I will be accompanying you for your protection.”

“And to drag me back to your master.”

“Not unless you shift into your dark wolf, in which case I will drop you and drag you back to throw you into a cage myself. He should have caged you whether you were afraid or not. He’s spent a lifetime building up his collection, but you destroyed almost everything in one night.”

I finally got the door open, and then darted through, down the steps while she came after me at a jog. My car was parked around the block in front of the coffee place, so that’s where I headed.

“Did you see the clothing in the closets? He’s been having Celeste shop for you for years, and something in there is probably more conducive to site seeing than a sheet and bare feet.”

I looked down at my feet and then I shook my head and broke into a run. Once I got to Gloria’s house, I’d be able to get dressed in my clothes, not whatever Celeste had chosen for me. My car was locked, and I had no keys, but I didn’t let that stop me, just wrapped the sheet around my arm and slammed my elbow into the back side window, sending a shower of glass over the seat. I reached around and unlocked it then slid in, while Jane got in the passenger’s side and buckled her seat belt.

I ripped out the starter wires without thinking about it, relying on ancient muscle memory that was still going strong as I fired up the car.

“Where are we going? Do you have a destination in mind, or just a general direction?”

I hit the gas and pulled out, narrowly avoiding the car that had been parked in front of me. “Gloria’s. I need my clothes. I need help escaping.”

“Ah. The slayer’s bride. This will be fun.”

It wasn’t fun. Driving felt unnatural, and I kept getting distracted and almost driving off the road or into a car when I saw something that looked chaseable. Children looked very fun to chase, as well as women in heels. I could steal their heels and wear them with my sophisticated sheet ensemble. Or eat them. The people, not the shoes.

When I finally made it to Gloria’s house, after having to circle around several times, I turned off the car, hands trembling from stress and endorphins. Driving wasn’t easy, and seeing how different I was after one full moon was starting to make it feel real. It couldn’t be real.

I unbuckled and went to the gate, buzzing in.

“This is your Gloria. Speak and I’ll?—”

“It’s me, Honey. Can I come in? I’m wearing a sheet.”

“What kind of sheet?”

I rubbed it with my finger. “Pale blue?”

“Content, dahling, content. Never mind, I’ll see for myself.” The gate opened, and I pushed it open, walking through the depressing courtyard, noticing a squirrel darting through the underbrush. I almost chased the squirrel, but I had to escape before I let myself get distracted.

I opened the door to the hall of glass, which I walked through without hesitating, only stopping when Gloria gasped, staring at my feet, which is when I remembered that I wasn’t wearing any shoes.

“It’s fine,” I said, taking a minute to pick the glass shards out of my feet covered in my thick rich blood. “If I can heal from paralysis, glass shouldn’t do much.”

“What do you mean?” Gloria asked, still looking grossed out by the bloody shards.

“She’s a fresh turned werewolf,” Tom said from the shadows behind her.

Gloria grabbed me into a hug, pulling me into her bony grasp, the stretch of her vulnerable neck right there where I could grab it and rip it apart so easily. Saliva filled my mouth, and then teeth swelled from my gums, sharp and uncomfortable, along with the taste of my blood.

Tom pulled two knives and moved closer, ready to slay me if I hurt his precious love.

I shoved away from her and hurried to my room, sheet flapping behind me as I went.

“Egyptian cotton,” she called after me. “The good stuff.”

I slammed the door to my room and tripped on softies that I ripped apart until the room was filled with bits of fuzzy stuffing that kept trying to settle on my nose. I sneezed twice and then got my clothes to take to the shower. I didn’t cry or drink Jack, but I did scrub myself until my skin was pink, trying to get off blood and whatever else I’d rolled around in. If that had really happened. It was feeling real, because everything was off, all my senses, all my instincts, like how close I’d come to ripping out Gloria’s throat and devouring her intestines. Too close.

I got dressed, ripping my shirt as I tried to pull it over my head. It smelled so strongly of Danny, Sam, and washing detergent that burned my nose. The sheet didn’t smell like that. No, it smelled like Josiah, my traitorous mate, who had lied to me again! How could he not tell me that I was infected, that he had to break me so that I wouldn’t die? Did he think I’d freak out and run away? Granted, that wasn’t entirely impossible considering what he knew about me, but this: Surprise, you’re a werewolf! And my mate! was absolutely unconscionable. I yanked on the sheet, ripping it into stripes that I could throw around the room until it looked like someone had toilet papered and plucked a chicken.

“Work. I need to work, so I can do this my way. If he thinks that I’m going to…” What did he expect me to do? I had no idea, but I was myself, not some nameless mate to the alpha. Money equaled independence, and that meant work.

I sat down on the floor and turned on my computer, being very careful with the delicate keys so I didn’t lose control. I did accidentally rip off F, but it went back on almost perfectly. Everything was aggravating, from the speed of the internet to the blinking lights of the ads on the side screen. I’d never noticed them before, but now they were blaring, distracting, impossible to ignore.

I downloaded the files, and then was finally able to focus on the simple boxes of numbers that I’d worked so hard to become proficient at decoding, but it was so hard to keep my place when they were all so uniform. My eye kept bouncing around, like I was hunting for something else, and when I tried to add up anything, I mistyped in spite of working so hard to concentrate.

With a snarl, I threw the computer across the room.

Jane caught it and folded it carefully, her glowing golden eyes showing her amusement at the newly turned werewolf trying to do some proper accounting.

“You want to make money? That’s what this is, right?”

I growled, but nodded.

“In a few years, you might be stable enough to do this kind of clerical work, but I wouldn’t count on it. There are plenty of other ways to make money, though. You’re angry that we lied to you, even if it was for your own good, particularly if it was for your own good, so why not use that anger as a way to accumulate cash?”

I growled again, but I was listening.

“There’s a very disreputable place in the city where people outside the norms of humanity go to let off some steam, and the winners make a very tidy profit. If you lose, you’ll be humiliated, but you’ll also get paid a small amount of money, small being relative, because it’ll be more money than you’re making throwing your computer against the wall.” She picked up an eviscerated teddy bear. “Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to try to not be destructive for a few hours?”

I took a deep breath, and the scent of her was subtle, but warm, comforting, stable. She was here because she cared about me, or was really good at pretending that she cared about me. “Let’s go.”

Her smile was delightedly devious, and she kept that smile all the way to the industrial district down between two freeways and under the train tracks where we went, parking in an abandoned warehouse that had a surprising number of other cars parked there as well.

“There won’t be very many people here during daylight hours,” she said as we walked towards the metal stairs along one side that led up to a dull green door streaked with rust. It smelled like blood past that door, blood, alcohol, vomit, and something else, metallic, rancid, dangerous. My senses perked up and adrenaline kicked in as I prepared for danger.

“What are the rules?” I asked, remembering that she knew what to do, not look in eyes, not touch anyone. She smelled like she knew what she was doing.

She smiled, her hand on the knob. “There are no rules. Let’s go make some money.”

That door held back a rush of sounds and smells that assaulted me like a ten ton truck. For a few seconds I stood there, stunned, trying to process through the overwhelmingness.

“Come on,” Jane said, walking ahead onto a metal balcony that ran above the bar on one side, the tables beneath us, while a cage took up the center of the large space with two people inside trading blows that should have knocked both of them unconscious.

“It’s a fight club.”

“That’s right, an underground fight club. Have you ever been to anything like this before? I know that you’ve done competitions.”

“No. This will be interesting.” I leaned on the rail and focused on the pair in the cage, one pale-skinned and dark-haired, with a flash of red to her eyes that went with the fangs she buried into her opponent’s throat, ripping out the jugular. I hissed at the extremeness of the move, but her opponent didn’t hesitate, just threw her across the cage, where she hit the bars and slid down limp, unconscious while the should-be-dead-from-blood loss apparent victor raised his hands to a few low-key claps and taps of chips on tables.

“There’s gambling too?”

“Lots of gambling, which is why there are fights, so they can gamble on them.”

I grabbed her arm, still staring into the cage at the two fighters. “She’s a vampire?”

“Yes. Low-level. Don’t think that they’re usually that easy to take out.”

“What is he?”

“Grunk? Part orc maybe? I don’t know. He’s strong, heals fast, but is very slow and stupid. Neither of them are tough, but you aren’t exactly an old pro at this werewolf thing, are you?”

“Part orc?” I shook my head, because it was just too much. Then again, everything was too much. “And I should be hard to kill?”

“Sure. I’ll step in if things go that direction.”

“And I can heal from practically anything?”

“Anything other than death. Don’t let him get his hands on your head, or anything else. That was her mistake,” she said, nodding at the vampiress that was slowly climbing to her feet. “She stopped to get a snack and let him get his hands on her. He will crush you if you’re slow or stupid. So, are you still up for it?”

I blinked at her and then down at the cage. “How much money?”

“A few hundred bucks if you lose, ten thousand if you win.”

“Then there really isn’t any losing, particularly if I don’t have to pay hospital bills. Hospital bills are the worst.”

“Yeah, I haven’t had to worry about that for a long time.” She elbowed me. “There are perks to being a howling menace.”

“Let’s go,” I said, nodding my head and trying not to scratch myself.

“Let me do the talking, Honey.” She smirked and then her smile melted away as she showed absolutely no emotion while leading me across the balcony to a thick mahogany door. She knocked twice, and it opened into a lush office that had ‘mobster who will kill you for a Havannah cigar’ written all over it.

He had horns, and was big, solid, a block of mean and greedy in a red pinstripe tie.

“Jane of Benton’s pack. What did I do for such a respectable member of society to grace my humble halls?”

“Drigo. I have a friend who is interested in trading her fighting skills for money. She likes money more than self-respect.”

I frowned at her, but I let her do the talking, mostly because I was overwhelmed trying to process the scent of the monster. Was that cinnamon bears? I edged towards him, sniffing hopefully subtly.

“I can respect that. Where else have you fought, little lady?” His leer was slightly lascivious, but I didn’t believe it, because he didn’t smell like desire, more amusement because he wanted to provoke someone the respectable Jane would bring into his den. Not that it was possible to get that much out of a smell. I took another half step closer while I sniffed.

“She’s new to formal cage fighting,” Jane said with a shrug. Oh, right, he’d asked me a question.

“New, and you bring her here? Such arrogance will not go unpunished.” It was definitely cinnamon bears, and a little bit of licorice. Did he have a sweet tooth, or was that the usual demon scent?

Jane shrugged. “If it gets it out of her system, that’s all to the good.”

He chuckled evilly. “She’s been infighting among your solidly unbroken ranks? Ah, so this is punishment. I can’t insult anyone worthy by forcing them to compete against a beginner, but I have my own man who could use putting in his place. Straldi. Do you accept?”

“Straldi will do. Come on, newbie, let’s get you ready for the ring.” She pulled me away from him and hauled me out of the office, while I frowned, because there was something about the way he’d said that name, and something off about Jane, less certain than she’d been before.

“Who’s Straldi?” I asked as we walked across the balcony towards the stairs. “I’m getting a bad vibe from him.”

“Bad vibe is right when he’s sober, but he hasn’t been entirely sober for years. He won’t want to lose to a beginner, though, so he’ll probably put some effort into it, at least more than usual. He’s been unmotivated for a long time, which is why Drigo is forcing him to fight you. He likes his fighters to win and lose at his whim, but Straldi’s intentionally inconsistent, which makes it hard to stack the deck with him.”

“Ah, he randomly throws fights and messes with the house profits?” I grinned at the thought of the rebel fighter. “I kind of like him.”

She raised a brow. “Well, you haven’t smelled him yet.”

He had a beard of tentacles, without suction cups, but still. Other than that, he wasn’t terrible to look at, if you liked a slightly pearlescent sheen on skin and rainbow eyes. His eyes were absolutely stunning, but were hard to appreciate over the stench of alcohol sweat. I coughed and shook my head to get it out of my nostrils.

“You’ve never fought in a cage before, pretty wolf? You’ll have to get used to the smell, not get distracted, or you’ll go down too fast to be good entertainment. It’s all about entertainment,” he said, sounding as jaded as he smelled.

“A different opponent wouldn’t be so noxious,” I replied.

He laughed, and his tentacle beard wriggled in a way that was almost fascinating. His teeth weren’t bad, if you didn’t mind all fangs, they were clean looking at least. “Only part of the smell is me, sweetheart.” He stretched, rolling his neck and his shoulders while I stood there trying not to gag on the stench. He was right about only part of the awfulness coming from him. The mat was stained with all kinds of body fluids that I really didn’t want to roll around on.

Jane had wrapped my hands, but other than that, I was just wearing a sports bra and the pastel shorts of Sammy’s that made me look positively incompetent. Right. I should have worn something else, but the shorts were better than a sheet, even one of high quality Egyptian cotton.

Was I supposed to stretch? I didn’t want him to catch me off guard, so I stood there, gloves up, waiting.

A sharp scream had me jumping and looking to the side, but apparently that was the start sign, because he charged me, hitting me before I could brace myself. He had me pinned so quickly, I wasn’t sure how it had happened, and there he was on top of me, tentacles sliding over my skin, down my sports bra like he was trying to cop a feel.

I snarled as rage rushed over me, but a small piece of me stayed in control, because I knew this thing, the shock and disarm, until rage took over and I lost all technique. I was only a beginner at illegal cage fighting, not fighting in general, and this hold would be easy enough to get out of if I didn’t let my instincts take over. I’d worked so hard not to lose control, and some of that had stuck with me as a werewolf, because even though I thrashed, I could still think through the howling storm of rage that threatened to consume me. I worked through the moves, and then it was done, breaking out of his hold, striking his weak hip joint, slipping through his arms and around, slamming him down to the mat while I hyperextended his arm behind him.

He choked out a laugh. “Ah, little wolf, you’ve got some good tricks. Looks like I’m going to enjoy this after all.”

He twisted and would have taken me with him if I hadn’t sprung away, landing in a crouch with my fists up, defending, prepared. He stood up slowly, shaking back the tentacle dreadlocks that had fallen over his face. He gestured me to come on, but I shook my head and kept my defenses up.

“Such a shy little wolf. Come closer. I won’t bite.” He flashed his sharp teeth that looked like they would rip my flesh to shreds and then he leapt for me, low. I side-stepped, but he changed trajectory mid leap and hit my legs, wrapping around me like an octopus, taking me down, thud, like a big tree. His hair had joined the fun, wrapping around me, while his face was somewhere around my thighs, with his tentacles, which struck me as incredibly offensive. He was intentionally making this sexual instead of respecting me as a real opponent.

I grabbed a handful of his tentacles and yanked his head up and punched his throat, which was armored, so that broke some of my fingers while he laughed and his mouth opened smelling of noxious alcohol and something else, sweet, something that made me light-headed and dizzy. Ah, he had magical gas breath. Of course he did. What did I have? A handful of tentacles. I was so in over my head. Should I just call this fight? I growled and flashed my teeth at him. Like I’d ever stop while there was a fight to be won.

I yanked his tentacles down towards my thighs and bent over him to the back of his neck, where his dread tentacles had left the skin bare while they wrapped around my legs. This position was so awkward, so embarrassing, but that neck looked so bitable, and this time I embraced the impulse.

He bit me while I bit him, his sharp teeth slicing into my thighs while I buried my teeth into his skin, muscles, sinew, a rush of euphoria going through me at the taste of his blood on my tongue.

I growled happily and burrowed deeper into his skin until I reached bone, and then with a snap of my powerful jaws, I broke that neck and dug deeper into the flesh while he went limp. I kicked off his tentacles and reversed the hold while keeping my jaws digging into his neck. Mm.

A scream pierced my ears, but I only growled and kept digging into his skin.

“Enough,” Jane snapped, punching my head, knocking my jaws off my opponent’s neck.

I turned to her with a snarl, his greenish blood sticky on my face. “It wasn’t enough. He stuck his tentacles down my top.”

She rolled her eyes and grabbed my arm, dragging me away from the tentacled monster who was twitching, face-down on the mat. “If you kill him, then the next time you fight, it’s to the death. This was a spar, not a death match. You wouldn’t want to kill someone without getting paid for it, would you?”

I blinked at her, because her logic was too confusing to follow. “I snapped his neck. That didn’t kill him?”

My opponent took that moment to toss back his dreadlocks and give me a smile that was way more intense than I liked.

“Nah, I’m much harder to kill than that, pretty wolfie. If you’re hungry, I can find you something much more appetizing than my poor flesh, if you’d like to go out to breakfast with me some time, or lunch, or dinner.”

I stared at him while his legs twitched as he healed before my eyes. “That’s weird. It sounded like you were asking me out.” I scratched my head, because he must have been threatening to eat me for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you know, in a violent kind of way. That was probably it.

“Absolutely. We could gaze into each other’s eyes and talk about poetry.”

“I don’t really do poetry.”

He raised a brow bone that had absolutely no hair on it, just scales, while his leg jerked. “What do you do? I don’t even know your name.”

“I’m an accountant.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied me. “How long have you been a werewolf, sweetheart?”

“A few hours? I’m not sure, but probably not an entire day.”

He rolled to his feet and stalked over to us, but his focus was on Jane. “Are you mad?” he hissed at her. “A beginner at fighting, maybe, but a newly turned wolf? You don’t throw a fresh turned into a cage with renowned killers. You didn’t even tell Drigo, or he would have refused. Are you trying to get Benton to rip us apart for killing one of his newest pets? Everyone knows that he collects pretty females for his pack to lure in the strongest males, and she is pretty, beautiful really. Are you jealous of her? Is that it? What twisted reason could there be for you to throw her to the wolves?”

I snickered, because we were the wolves, not that I really identified as such, but Jane certainly did, and she’d thrown me to other monsters, not wolves, also, maybe I was a little bit delirious from the fresh blood that still stained my tongue green, or his gas breath.

They both looked at me while I laughed harder, my snickers turning into outright gales of laughter while they studied me.

He touched the back of his neck and then sniffed his hand. “Is she having a reaction to my blood? It is notoriously toxic, which she wouldn’t know, and with the changes, she doesn’t know how to deal with it.”

“She’s fine,” Jane snapped and dragged me with her out of the cage, but I shook her off.

“We’re done?” I asked, my hilarity quickly fading. “But that fight was so short, nothing like Celeste’s beatings that go on for hours and hours.”

Straldi inhaled sharply. “Celeste has been beating you? You poor puppy. Come home with me and I’ll take good care of you.”

I cocked my head as I stared at him. “You have a home? I have a house, but the mortgage isn’t paid off, and I probably won’t ever be able to go back to it, because I’m a werewolf.” I sniffed and then sat down on the mat while buzzing filled my ears.

He crouched down next to me while Jane put her hands on hips, looking irritated. “You didn’t want to be part of the pack? There are other packs you can apply to, or you can leave, although most wolfies don’t like to go solo. I could help you find your feet, if you’d like.”

I sniffed him, and he smelled honest, but I couldn’t understand why he’d decide that he wanted to help a complete stranger who had snapped his neck. “You’re mad,” I finally decided.

He smiled again with the sharp teeth. “I like to collect feral animals.”

“I’m not feral.”

“If you enjoyed my blood, believe me, you’re feral. Come home with me. Why not? You don’t want to be part of the pack, and Jane intentionally tried to get you killed. What’s there for you?”

“My daughter.” I hadn’t seen her since I’d shifted, mostly because I liked to be fine when I saw her, so I could smile, and I wasn’t sure I could do that, also because she’d infected me, and I didn’t want her to feel guilty about it. “She infected me.”

His eyes widened, and they really were gorgeous rainbows swirling around his dark green pupil. “Ah. And her dad? Is he mated to someone else, or does he want you?”

“He wants her,” Josiah said, his voice a growl that made Straldi visibly flinch.

Straldi stared at me while his eyes filled with something. Fear, yes, but also intense interest. “You’re Josiah Benton’s wife, mate, mother of his child? And you chose to go cage fighting on your first day as a werewolf? You are going to give him such a hard time. Good for you. Bad for me, because anyone who tastes my blood and likes it is a friend of mine, but we won’t be getting too friendly, you understand, since you’re previously spoken for.”

Because I belonged to Josiah, because he’d trapped me in my own body. I grabbed a handful of tentacles and yanked his face to mine, kissing the monster, at least that was my intention, but Jane was there to get her arm between our faces then chop my hand down off him before she dragged me out of the cage, with me snarling the whole way.

Josiah was leaning against a table, watching me come with those soft eyes that gave nothing away of his other side, the one that made Drigo look like a harmless bookie. “Honey. Your fighting technique lacks a little something.”

“Technique,” Jane snapped, like she wasn’t the one who had set this up.

I shrugged and looked around. “I didn’t lose it in the rage, and I won. Where’s my money?” I wasn’t about to forget about getting my payment like Josiah had when he first turned.

He laughed, loud and rumbling, which sent goosebumps over my arms and legs, and every other part of me, because he was so sweet and delicious, and mine.

I took a step away from him and tried not to smell him, because that’s what I wanted to do, bury my face in his skin and inhale his deliciousness to wipe away every other noxious scent in this world. I was actually vile since I’d been wrestling with Straldi, rubbing his alcohol sweat all over my skin. Joe probably didn’t like my current scent, and certainly wouldn’t like my taste, which was just fine, because he’d lied to me, betrayed me, put me in a cage that I couldn’t ever escape. I growled at him.

“Drigo, my mate wants her money,” he said in a voice that carried, even though it wasn’t loud.

“Sure, sure,” Drigo said, coming out of his office holding a wad of cash. He spread his dark demon wings and spiraled slowly down to land on the floor with barely a sound for all his massive weight. “Five thousand for such a short fight.”

“Jane said it would be ten.” I frowned at Drigo, because I needed to start a bank account so that I could establish my own residence and be independent of Joe, even if I couldn’t get rid of the wolf fur and ears. That would give me twenty thousand, which was a good start for freedom. I’d had far less than that the last two times I started fresh.

“Did Jane say that? Didn’t know she kept abreast of cage fight rates. Ten thousand to watch Benton’s fresh mate feast on Straldi’s blood? A once-in-a-lifetime show, worth twice that, but we’ll keep it at ten. Here ya go, sweet—ahem, Benton’s mate.”

“Her name’s Honey,” Jane said with a particular pointed look at Joe that made his brows furrow slightly.

“Honey?” Drigo’s brows rose, but he handed over the money, which I proceeded to count. It took me a long time to count, because I kept getting distracted from numbers by the scent of Joe, his warmth, his friendliness, his willingness to be close to me in spite of my scent. I shook my head, because there was no way I could get all of that just from smelling someone. And also, he was a traitor, who had justified my paranoia.

There was actually ten thousand one hundred, so I handed the extra bill over to Drigo.

“You miscounted.”

“Ah, so I did. An honest cage fighter. What a charming paradox. Will you be returning to my humble business in the future?”

I stuck the bills into the elastic band of my shorts. “Absolutely.”

“Unless your mate objects,” he said, shifting his eyes to Joe.

“My mate and I will discuss it privately,” he said, and then Jane was once again pulling me towards the stairs, leaving Joe and Drigo behind to look threatening, or whatever they were doing. We went up the stairs, but I pulled back at the last minute to look over the rail at Joe before we went through the green door.

I caught Joe’s low-voiced, ‘Have you heard anything new about Carmel?’ and then Jane yanked me through the door, and into the parking section of the place. I snarled, but followed her with the money sticking out of my waistband. I wasn’t as happy about earning cash as I expected to be. Why had Jane brought me here on my first day as a werewolf? She said that she was my guardian, but she’d let me into a cage with Straldi, who was legitimately dangerous, both his fighting and his wooing a threat to the alpha’s new mate. She’d smelled trustworthy, competent, but how could I trust someone’s scent?

“Well, did you enjoy yourself, making money by mingling with the lowlifes? You need a shower. I’ll have to detail my car after you get out of it. I should have wrapped you in a robe before I let you sit on the seat.”

“We could have taken my car. How did yours get to Gloria’s house? I didn’t even notice.” I shook my head, trying to focus, but there was a dog running along the sidewalk that would be so fun to chase. “There’s so much that I don’t know,” I said slowly, forcing myself to think, watching the old abandoned buildings pass by. “Who is Carmel?”

Her laugh was hard, short. “He’s a werewolf, part of the east coast territory, second in command.”

“Why did he hire the pix to embezzle from Joe?”

“You’d have to ask him. Don’t. Drigo is one thing, but Carmel is only controlled from becoming an all-out psychopathic murderer by his alpha.”

“It says something about an alpha who chooses a psychopath for his second. Who is Joe’s second, you or Celeste?”

She laughed, but it was a hard sound tinged with bitterness. “No. Joe doesn’t put females in position of authority in his pack. His second is a male.”

“Oh. Why haven’t I met him? Have I?”

“He gave you the carrot cake in the coffee shop.”

“Is he stronger than you and Celeste?”

“No, he isn’t a particularly strong wolf, but he has other talents which Joe finds more important in a second.”

“Managing a coffee shop?” I tried to remember the guy, but he hadn’t been very noticeable, definitely not dominating, more like a great employee rather than someone who walked around flaunting his place as a second. Honestly, it kind of fit Joe, who didn’t walk around throwing his position into people’s faces, either. No, he preferred to lie and deceive you while you thought he was too relaxed to bother. He wasn’t. He just pretended very, very well.

She sighed heavily. “He’s very good at tech development, has been cutting edge for a hundred years, and right now has a whole team of tech wolves who wouldn’t know a cage fight if it landed on their tails.”

“Ah, so not traditional werewolf roles.”

“No. Joe changes his seconds depending on the times. For an example, there was a period when he had a warlord strategist for his second, but he eventually got cut, and then left the pack and founded his own. This was a long time ago, when we were back in England.”

“So you can leave the pack, even if you’re in a high-ranking position.” That meant I could leave, eventually.

She sniffed. “You’re Joe’s mate. If you left the pack, he’d go with you, and the pack would follow him. Get over it. You’re desperate for him, or you wouldn’t have tried to kiss that tentacled lush to make him jealous. What were you thinking? You wouldn’t be able to get his taste off your tongue for days.”

I shuddered at the thought, but he wouldn’t mind if I drank Jack Daniels in the bottom of the shower, and I’d really wanted to show Joe that I could want someone else. Too bad he was so good at being relaxed and chill while seeing me with other guys. He’d never been jealous of Danny, either. “Jane, take me back to Gloria’s,” I said, putting a hand on her arm.

“No.”

I gripped her arm tighter. “I said?—”

“It’s your first day as a werewolf, and you’ve drunk the blood of some poisonous sea creature. You’re going to shift soon to help with the healing, and before that, you need a shower, or you’ll be rolling around in anything that will cover up the scent. Trust me, back to the compound, take a shower, eat something Joe made just for you, and then rest.”

I let go of her and gripped the armrest instead. “I’m not going to eat anything he makes for me. He’s not my alpha, and I don’t want to shift back.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

“How can I get used to it when I can’t remember?” Panic started rising, because the cage was real, and it was under my skin. There was nothing that I could do to escape it.

“You’ll remember perfectly well when you stop separating the different selves and accept who you are.”

“Accept it? I’m just supposed to accept that I have a monster under my skin?” I looked down at my arms, and they shivered, like Sam’s skin did before hair came out. It freaked me out, and the next thing I knew, I was opening the door and throwing myself out onto the moving pavement, rolling to my feet before I was hit by something, hard, metallic, engine roaring. I knew pain, and coppery blood in my mouth, then nothing but darkness.