24. Teddy
CHAPTER 24
Teddy
I s she starting to thaw? I asked myself as I pulled weeds out of Otis and Mary’s herb garden
We’re making some headway, I then lied to myself, to cover the absolute pants-shitting terror that nothing is working and Piper is not one bit closer to forgiving us.
Apparently if there’s one thing the Spirits want, it’s a lot of backbreaking manual labor. But that’s not the worst thing. The worst thing is that Piper seems to think she’s doing me a favor by always having Zoey and Chloe around.
After we work in the yard, we’re usually able to see Piper for a few minutes. Just a few minutes. But half the time recently she’s had Zoey and Chloe around.
It drives me fucking crazy.
And today she didn’t seem to give a fuck either, lounging on the front porch in a bikini with a glass of lemonade in her hand, and sunglasses on, her long hair cascading down her back.
Oh my god, my wolf wanted her so badly. I wanted her so badly.
I could feel myself practically start to shift already, the hairs on my arms standing up.
I drove the urge down ruthlessly. There were a lot of campaign events coming up and I couldn’t be shifting in the middle of them. That was the equivalent to going around in my boxer shorts or with my dick out.
We were pretty much a shoo-in to win. What other Pack had the kind of clout we did? Not to mention, my celebrity status was a huge boon.
Not that it helped me one inch with Piper.
“Soon this fever will break and Teddy will be able to spend more time with you,” Piper assured Zoey and Chloe, putting an arm around both of them.
“I’d love that!” gushed Zoey.
“It’s not happening,” I practically snarled, feeling the prickly hot anxiety break out all over my neck.
“Stop coming around,” I told the two women. “There is zero chance of me ever wanting to have sex with you again.”
“Are you saying I cannot have what friends I choose?” Piper demanded, putting an arm around both of them and pulling Zoey and Chloe firmly inside and shutting the door on me.
I was left outside to wallow in my misery and jealousy and drool.
But when I saw my Pack again I at least had another idea.
“We need to move out of the Palace,” I said firmly.
“What do you mean?” Rook frowned.
“I mean Piper obviously doesn’t want to live in the Palace.”
“How can we figure out where she wants to live when she’ll barely talk to us?” Erain asked.
“Well, let’s pool together what we know about her.”
“I think she would prefer a. . .wilder location,” Rook said thoughtfully. “Something less urban. Maybe even in the forest.”
“Where could we find a house near here in the forest?” Erain demanded.
Rook smiled.
“It’ll take a bit of money, but with some. . .persuasion I think we can find the perfect location.”
Days passed as we sketched out and meticulously planned our new home and the nest we hoped to bring Piper into.
I learned things about her scrap by scrap, in a brutal daily grind where I had to face the rejection of my mate over and over again.
Each new thing I learned about Piper made me bitterly regret my decision to cheat more than ever.
Listening to her on the phone once gave me the information that she loved going to the gym and had gone 7 days a week at her old hometown.
My stomach sunk with the realization that if I’d been faithful we might have been going to the gym together every day, laughing and joking together like she did when she took a walk with Mary.
It wasn’t just her cats Poppy, Iris, and Bluebell she loved, but all animals, and I thought painfully of how perfectly suited we were.
I had to hope we were making progress or I would have gone completely mad.
But Piper said all she wanted was for us to let her leave and she wouldn’t admit anything else.
We were now in the habit of taking Piper her coffee in the mornings, which had expanded to bringing Piper, Otis, Mary, and the entire grounds crew of our secret new home coffee, doughnuts and the fanciest pastries we could find.
Today we walked over, our arms loaded with the usual coffee, then some lemon and thyme scones, as well as a few things we were desperate for our Omega to accept as presents to line her nest.
As we headed over Piper opened the door.
“Did you bring enough for my new Alphas?”
She was wearing nothing but a long T-shirt with some kind of athletic stripes on it.
It looked like a man’s shirt
I let out a long, low howl.
“Piper, we are your Alphas,” Rook said, walking quickly up the steps to Otis and Mary’s home.
“Not anymore,” Piper said cheerfully. “Now put some respect on Pack Darkfire.”
“Pack nothing,” Erain growled, charging through the door.
I leaped forward to grab for the back of his shirt and we fell through the door.
Everyone in the sitting room froze.
I recognized Mario with two other obvious Betas who looked just as chud-like as he was.
“Meet Rook, Erain, and Teddy,” Piper said. “My former Pack.”
With a snarl, Erain leaped at them, the telltale silvery sheen of an incipient change on his arms.
Then he shifted mid-air, all lean, feline silvery fur.
Rook grabbed at him, managing to get ahold of his leg as Erain gripped Mario’s neck with big paws.
Then I tripped over Erain and went face-first into the coffee table and when I had gotten out from under it, Rook was barking orders in his Alpha voice and restraining a chomping at the bit Erain. And Piper was standing between us and the Betas.
“Restrain your attack dog,” she said. “Or I swear to God I will never talk to you ever again in this life or the next.”
Erain shifted back and he was bent over on the ground in front of Piper.
“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry.”
“They’re coming to visit,” Piper said off-handedly. “Until I figure out how to get out of this fated mate bond. I’ve put them up at the most expensive hotel in town, of course. I find myself with a lot of money I don’t know what to do with and what better than to spend it on my dear Mario, Ceseare, and Raffi?”
I felt Rook squeeze my arm significantly. Piper was testing us and we had to suppress our natural urges to murder these men.
And oh my god, was she testing us. Wherever we took Piper, they were there, too. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner, full of stories about going to hometown bars with Piper and climbing water towers with Piper and making beer that exploded at the last minute, until we were all writhing with jealousy.
When would she believe we were sincere?