Bad Girl
Conrí
She didn’t so much eat her food as devour it.
Her appetite pleased us in a way I hadn’t anticipated—something settling in my chest watching her eat without apology or performance. It made me understand, for the first time, why my father never seemed to take his eyes off my mother at a dinner table.
When dessert came she couldn’t look me in the eye.
The chocolate fondant sat between us and I watched her work through it in silence, and I began to suspect that the cake had been her retribution all along. The three years of performance reviews told their own story.
Nika was possibly more rational than her wolf side—there was a softness in the way she spoke about the things she cared for, a quality that surfaced briefly and without warning, like light through a gap she hadn’t meant to leave open.
We would need to soften her inner wolf.
Kael hummed. Then sighed. She is flawless. Even if her wolf is a little spirited—there is nothing wrong with that.
What a sap.
Screw you.
I took a sip of water and glanced to my side. I’d purposely sat beside her rather than at the head of the table. It had been the right choice. Difficult—every instinct I had defaulted to the head, to the position of authority—but the correct one.
We needed to show them we were worthy. It had never once occurred to me that I would need to work for my mate. That the instinct would run in both directions.
The white napkin landed on the table.
“Thank you. That dinner was delicious.” She sighed, leaning back slightly. “I might need to take a walk on your terrace.”
Simple fare. Steak tartare, roasted vegetables, chicken. And of course her dessert.
“You need to find out which variety of potatoes those were,” she said. “They seemed to melt in my mouth.”
“I’ll find out from the kitchen and let you know.” I paused. “Perhaps if you gave me your number?”
She smiled, toying with the napkin.
“Smooth.”
“Why thank you.”
“I didn’t say it was a compliment, Mr Gallagher,” she said, turning to face me.
My eyes dropped to her lips. Most of the gloss was gone.
The pink stain on those bow-shaped lips still remained and I tightened my hand around my glass before it could make any decisions of its own.
This was not something I could rush. Not with the bond question still unanswered.
Not with the risk of her rejecting it and leaving all four of us fractured beyond repair.
The doorbell chimed.
I cleared my throat and looked away from temptation.
My heart dropped when I heard Cuán’s voice in the hallway.
“Sorry, old boy. I just needed a cup of sugar.”
He didn’t take sugar. He had never taken sugar in his entire adult life.
“Excuse me for one moment,” I said, standing.
But Nika wasn’t looking at me. She had gone very still, nostrils flared, her body doing what it did before her mind caught up—reading the air, reading the scent, reading the thing that was wrong about it.
“It’s just my—”
“Well, hello,” Cuán said, poking his head past the door.
He pushed it open and stepped inside with the complete absence of self-preservation that had characterised him for thirty-six years.
Nika stood. Her head moved between us. I watched the moment the panic hit—the rapid back and forth, the second inhale, the dawning realisation written across her face.
“What the hell,” she whispered. “There are two of you.”
“I’m Cuán Gallagher,” my dim-witted brother began.
He stepped toward her before I could stop him. I raised my arm but it was already too late.
The sound of fabric straining and tearing cut through the room.
And there she was.
Larger than life and entirely herself—the grey curling around her snout as she snarled, lips pulled back over teeth that had already done damage once and knew it.
The rest of her coat was sleek and healthy, sable and thick, shifting through brown and grey and black depending on how the light caught it.
Silver eyes bled to pale blue. Her ears were flat. Her weight was forward.
She was extraordinary.
“He’s my twin brother,” I said.
Her head snapped toward me. She showed me her teeth.
I felt the shift rise in my chest and forced it back down. I shrugged my jacket off and let it fall.
“I see you two need some time alone—to work things out.” Cuán was already backing toward the door with his hands slightly raised, the first sensible thing he’d done since arriving. “I’ll see myself out. Nice meeting you, Nika.”
She watched us both—head moving between us, weight shifting—and then settled back onto her haunches as the door clicked shut behind him.
Kael pushed forward before she could leap.
Now I could feel her fury. Hot and total and entirely justified.
She backed away, began to pace—tight, controlled semi-circles, never taking her eyes from us. Her gaze moved once to the door as we heard Cuán leave the building. Then back.
Kael was trying to reach her. It didn’t always work with rogues or lone wolves—they ran on different frequencies, their bonds to pack thought worn thin or severed entirely.
We didn’t move closer. We didn’t speak.
Then Kael did something I hadn’t seen him do in years.
He dropped.
Fully, deliberately, without ceremony—onto his side, belly exposed, one black paw flopping against the floor. An offering. The oldest signal we had.
We could smell how fine she was. Her wolf was larger than I’d expected—still small against an Alpha’s frame, but there was a density to her, a presence that filled the room in a way her size alone didn’t account for. Those ears. Even flat they were—
She took one step closer.
Paused.
Sniffed.
Kael dragged a paw slowly across his face.
The ears moved. Fractionally. The aggression in them shifting into something less certain.
She growled again—low this time, the sharp edge gone out of it.
Another step. Another sniff.
Kael rolled onto his back for good measure, hind legs bumping the leg of the dining chair before he flopped back onto his side and stayed there, patient as stone.
We waited.
And then she lay down.
Not submission—her head stayed high, ears up and alert, pale paws stretched out in front of her. A de-escalation. An acknowledgement. The difference between I yield and I’m listening and she knew it as well as we did.
I’m Kael.
Silence.
I’m Bad Girl.
The sound of her voice inside our head stopped everything. She was probably the only wolf who could carry that name like a signature of who she was.
Our heart rate spiked before either of us could manage it. After everything—the conference room, the hospital, the footage, the weeks of circling—to hear her there, clear and present and real—
I thought of every rule I’d followed. Every decision made with the pack first. Every year of patience and protocol and doing what an Alpha was supposed to do.
And here was our potential mate. A rebel from the ground up.
We would never harm you.
A beat.
I bite.
We know.
The pause that followed was brief.
Then we heard her laugh.
Our life would never be the same again.
Kael knew it. I knew it.
Neither of us minded at all.