Chapter 8 #3
My security team are the biggest, strongest guys in our pack. Cal is the only one of them who comes close in height and breadth, but he is wearing a loose singlet top with strawberries on it. None of us match the Regent pack. We are obviously underdressed, and everybody knows it.
“Mr. Anderson-looking fucks,” Sam mutters.
“You mean Agent Smith,” Cal murmurs back.
“I mean the one who is always saying Mister Anderson,” Sam replies.
“Yeah. That’s Agent Smith,” Simon says.
The banter amongst them is being picked up by the Regent security teams, who barely respond aside from a few dry smirks.
They think they’re better than us. I feel a surge of protectiveness over my people.
No, we don’t come from endless amounts of money.
No, I don’t force my guys to dress like penguins.
Yeah, they say stupid shit and sometimes they do stupid shit, but they also do their job. I might even owe my life to them.
“You guys look great,” I say. “Your mullets and flipflops are in right now. Those suits are dated.”
I catch a look of horror from Fescue.
“They are,” I say. “The fit is too fitted in the pants, and too baggy around the waist.”
“That’s to allow easy access to weapons,” the man in tweed says from his perch up on the stairs.
“Sure. Easy access is important,” I grin.
Rex picks me up again, tossing me over his shoulder. “Alright, you,” he says. “It’s time we got your hand looked at. Did you ensure the doctor was here, Fescue?”
“Yes, sir,” Fescue says. “He is waiting in the medical bay.”
“You’ve got a special medical bay?” I ask the question from my undignified position.
“We have everything we need here.”
“Yeah. Like this wall of suits to greet us. What were you worried we were gonna do?”
“This is what a disciplined, united front looks like, whelp,” he growls. “When I have your hand fixed up, you’re going to answer for all this attitude.”
* * *
Rex
She is such a little shit. I really wanted the first time I brought my mate here to be nice, but it’s obviously going to be a struggle.
Every word out of her mouth is incendiary, and her actions are, well.
If she didn’t have a broken hand, her first introduction to the pack would have been having her bare ass spanked on the front steps of the den.
I carry my mate to the medical bay. This has all been messier than I thought it would be, but I did not know it was actually possible for a female to resist her first shift for this long.
I think we all assumed that at some point the animal would simply take over.
Nicky is doing what should be technically impossible.
“Here she is, Doc,” I say as I carry her into the room, very much against her feral little will.
The doctor is an older man who has been with the pack since before I was born.
He’s seen everything, but I have the feeling she’s going to surprise him too.
Dr. Swan has salt and pepper hair, mostly salt at this point.
He’s tall, with hooded eyes and a dark demeanor that usually ensures respect from patients in his practice, and the wolves he encounters in his general day to day.
I set Nicky down on the medical bed and keep her in place by boxing her in, one hand on either side of her thighs as she sits there looking fairly smug about all of this. She is such a little brat.
“Is this the patient?” The doctor washes his hands, dries them, and turns to look at Nicky and me.
“It is,” I say. “She’s a little antsy. Resisting her first shift.”
“Resisting her first shift, why?”
“Something complex and psychological, I imagine. For the moment, her hand needs to be attended to.”
He looks at her hand without touching it, or her. Smart move.
“If she shifted, she wouldn’t need to have this patched up.
The shift would fix it. I can give her something to assist the shift.
Sometimes the hormones haven’t built up enough from only one or two matings.
Ideally, they should be so powerful they cannot be resisted…
” He breaks off as he has to dodge back. My mate has made a lazy swat at him.
“Feisty,” he notes. “Discipline also helps.”
“I’m aware,” I say grimly. “I think we have to patch her up the old way, Doc.”
“She needs an x-ray on the hand and then some kind of splint. It’s going to severely limit her movement. A shift would really be preferable for all sorts of reasons. Have you not claimed her, sir?”
“I have.”
“Did you do it properly?”
Nicky starts to giggle at my expense with this line of questioning.
“I intend to try again,” I say with what I hope is a threatening tone. Nicky’s refusal to be controlled in any way is starting to get in the way of every interaction we have.
The doctor gives me what I think to be a pitying look.
To her credit, she sits still long enough to have her hand x-rayed and she allows the doctor to give her some pain relief and splint it. She ends up with it bandaged up in a way that can’t be gotten wet. She’ll have to have a bath with a bag on it.
While he does that, he asks her questions about what happened, and she tells him.
The contortions his brows perform as she tells him about punching the car are quite impressive. He cuts a look over to me, as if to ask me if I am certain this will be the future genetic content of our pack’s leading lineage.
It will be. For better or worse.
Once she is settled, and hopefully less uncomfortable, she does seem to be in a little bit better of a mood.
“I’ve given her something to quieten the beast,” the doctor says. “If she’s fighting the shift, she probably needs some time to adjust. That hand is broken in several places. Six weeks for full recovery. No more fighting cars, young lady,” he says to her sternly.
“I’ll try,” she replies.
“Best we can hope for, I suppose,” he says in resigned tones. He pats my shoulder on his way out of the room. “Good luck, my boy.”
I let the ‘my boy’ part slide, because Dr. Swan gave me my vaccinations when I was a baby. To him, and a few others in the pack, I pretty much am a boy.
Still the alpha, though. Still the alpha with his new mate, who is now slightly calmer and behaving a little more appropriately.
By the time we leave the doctor, her little pack retinue has been properly welcomed.
Fescue has taken the young men and lady into the dining room and they are feasting on venison and roasted vegetables.
There is a pleasant ambiance to the gathering.
I note that the secretary and Fescue seem to be chatting a little, and the young men have many questions to ask their Regent counterparts.
My mate joins her pack, and seems to be much happier now.
She was hungry, judging by the way she starts putting food away.
I keep her by my side, my arm around her.
It looks like affection, and it is. But it also gives me the chance to grip her by the neck or collar of her shirt if she decides to, as the English say, kick off.
She doesn’t, to her credit, though I do not know why I am giving so much credit to anyone just for acting with a faint semblance of human propriety. In very short time, my mate has shifted the bar of what I expect from her. Impressive, really.
We get through a meal without anything terribly unhinged happening, and I realize that she has truly begun to train me rather than the other way around. That’s going to have to be addressed. I have gotten so used to my alpha position that it seems unthinkable to me to have someone not submit.
I need to get her somewhere private, and I need to deal with this before it becomes too ingrained.
I beckon to Fescue, who attends immediately.
“Fescue, find a few friendly faces to meet these whelps. We have some younger females who don’t want to mate in our pack. They may see something in them.”
I want to integrate her people. I want them to feel like they are part of my pack, because that is the outcome I desire. This is a takeover, has always been a takeover, and she has played into my hands.
Better she does not realize that yet. Better she assumes her people are here for her.
Fescue immediately brings some more pack members over. The atmosphere is welcoming. Everybody here is essentially on vacation, and the mood relaxed. With the natural temperaments of the wolves she brought with her, I think things will work well.
The only real problem is Nicky herself. She is sitting next to me, snuggling, effectively. I don’t want to move and lose the feeling of the trusting heat I’m not sure she’s even aware she’s giving me.
“Where’s the kitchen?” Laura asks.
I gesture in its direction, and she heads off in that direction. I think very little of it until a few minutes later when Fescue more or less marches her back. I can hear their conversation at a distance.
“I was going to make some lemon sugar pancakes,” Laura says.
“Young lady, in this pack, we have assigned roles,” Fescue says. I am imagining Laura wanted to cook, and Fescue decided she shouldn’t. I don’t think the chefs would mind all that much, but she has assaulted his sense of order.
“Assigned roles and no lemon pancakes,” Laura says.
Fescue and Laura could not be more different if they tried. He is tall and she is short. He is traditional, and she looks entirely esoteric. One place they do share a similarity is the relatively dour energy they are capable of bringing to the table.
I catch his eye and shake my head at him. He knows what that means. Fescue is an incredible help, but from time to time he does overstep the bounds of his control.
“Very well,” he says, demurring. “Make your pancakes.”
Laura smiles. “You can help,” she says. “Would you like to bring me some lemons?”
And just like that, I watch Fescue, arguably the least flexible person in my entire household, defer to a she-wolf half his size and age. He goes to fetch lemons, which are available in abundance in the food stores.
I catch his eye again on the way out. He meets my gaze briefly, then he keeps walking.