Chapter 7 Wen #2
No. Nope. Absolutely not.
I lunged for the coffee table where the book sat, spine-up, cover hidden. But Malachar was faster. He saw me move and his hand shot out, grabbing the book before I could reach it.
He held it up, examining the cover with interest. “This one?”
The cover showed a shirtless man with his shirt half-open, a woman pressed against him, her head thrown back. The title was in bold, embossed letters: “Claimed by the Alpha.”
Kill me. Kill me now. Let the earth open up and swallow me whole.
My friends were silent. I could feel their eyes on me. Could feel the horror radiating off Bella. The barely suppressed laughter from Krystin. The delight from Daphne.
Malachar was studying the cover with a frown. “‘Claimed by the Alpha,’” he read aloud. His frown deepened. “This is about wolves?”
“Yes,” Daphne said, her voice bright with barely suppressed glee.
“No,” I said at the same time.
He looked at me, then back at the book. Flipped it over to read the back cover. His eyebrows rose higher and higher as he read.
“This is about a human woman who is claimed by an alpha wolf as his mate,” he said slowly.
“They bond. She bears his mark. There is... conflict with other pack members who do not accept her. But in the end, their love conquers all obstacles.” He looked up at me, eyes glinting with amusement. “This sounds familiar.”
“It’s fiction,” I said desperately. “Pure fiction. Made up. Not real.”
“But you are reading it.” The amusement in his voice was undeniable now. “You and your friends gather every week to discuss stories of wolves claiming their human mates.”
“We read all kinds of books! Last month we read a demon romance. The month before that was vampires. It’s not specific to wolves.”
“But this month,” he said, still smiling, “you chose wolves.”
Krystin was biting her lip so hard I was worried she’d draw blood. Bella had buried her face in her hands. Daphne looked ready to start taking notes.
“We picked it before you showed up,” I said. “It’s a coincidence.”
That was a lie. Krystin had pitched this book after the Halloween debacle. Said we needed to “research wolf dynamics.” Daphne and Bella had immediately agreed. I’d been outnumbered three to one. Democracy was a bitch.
“A fascinating coincidence.” He flipped through the pages, and I wanted to die when I saw the sticky notes.
The highlighted passages. The annotations we’d all made.
“You have marked many sections. Made notes. ‘This is hot.’ ‘I wish my boyfriend would do this.’ ‘Alpha energy.’ ‘The growling is everything.’”
“Oh my god, stop reading those out loud.”
“‘The way he scents her makes me feral,’” he continued, clearly enjoying himself. “‘I need a man who looks at me the way he looks at her.’” He looked up, eyes meeting mine. “These are your notes, little mate?”
“Those could be anyone’s notes!”
“This is your handwriting.” He pointed to a section. “I have seen you write. You bite your pen and tilt your head to the left. These notes have that same quality. Slightly smudged. Definitely yours.”
My face was on fire. Because he was right.
Daphne liked to underline the passages she liked, Bella liked to highlight with different colors, and Krystin drew on them, usually explicit and terrible drawings.
But those notes…Those were mine. Notes I’d made while reading late at night, half-drunk on wine, thinking about things I absolutely should not have been thinking about.
Notes that had gotten progressively more desperate as the book went on.
Notes that may or may not have involved imagining a certain werewolf doing certain things.
I was either going to die of mortification or kill him slowly and painfully.
“Can I have my book back please?”
“I would like to read it.” He held it against his chest, possessive. “To better understand human perceptions of wolf bonds. For research purposes.”
“Research purposes,” I repeated flatly. “Absolutely not.” I lunged for the book again. He held it out of reach, the bastard. “You can’t read that. It’s - it’s book club material. Private.”
“You just explained that book clubs are for discussing books. How can I participate in discussion without reading the material?”
“You’re not participating! This is friend time!”
“But I wish to learn about your world. Your customs. Your... literature.” The way he said literature made it sound like he knew exactly what kind of book this was.
Which he would, very soon. And I’d left approximately seventeen thousand sticky notes in it. Including one that said “if a man ever did this to me I would combust” next to a particularly explicit scene.
“Malachar.” I tried to sound firm. Authoritative. “Give me the book.”
“No.”
“That’s not a request, that’s an order. From your boss.”
“You said I should learn about human culture. This appears to be an excellent educational resource.”
He studied me for a long moment. Then his smile turned wicked. “You are embarrassed.”
“I’m not embarrassed, I’m-”
“You are. Your face is red. Your heartbeat has quickened. You do not wish me to read this, which only makes me want to read it more.”
Krystin lost the battle with her laughter. It burst out of her, loud and uncontrolled.
“I’m going to murder you.”
“I will not oppose it. You can do whatever you want with me, little mate.” He winked at me.
“Fucking hell.” I mumbled, face burning like a damn tomato.
“I will read this book,” he declared, tucking it more firmly under his arm. “I will learn what human females find appealing in wolf mates. And then perhaps...” His eyes met mine, intense and predatory. “Perhaps I will know better how to court and pleasure you.”
My brain short-circuited. “Court me?”
I was not going to repeat the p word.
“Yes. Clearly I have been too subtle. This book will serve as an excellent instruction manual.”
“It’s not - that’s not - you can’t-”
“Why not? You seem quite enthusiastic about the male’s behavior in this story. Perhaps if I emulate him, you will be equally enthusiastic about mine.”
Bella made a strangled noise. Daphne looked ready to write a novel about this conversation. Krystin was crying with laughter.
“What if you think of me while reading it?” The question came out before I could stop it. “Would you... would you imagine...”
I couldn’t finish. Couldn’t say it out loud. Didn’t know why the hell I even asked it. Why, brain, why?!
His expression softened. His eyes darkened. “Little mate, I think of you constantly. Every moment. Waking and sleeping. I think of how you would feel in my arms. How you would taste. How you would sound when I-”
“OKAY!” I nearly shouted. “Okay. Fine. Read the book. See if I care. But you’re staying up in the apartment while we have book club. This is friend time. And for the record, I wasn’t thinking of you.”
He scowled and growled slightly at the insinuation of me thinking of someone else, which was totally bullshit.
“As you wish, boss.” He started to leave. Paused. Turned back with that wicked smile still on his face. “Though I should mention, there is a scene in chapter seven that is anatomically inaccurate. Wolves do not work that way.”
“GET OUT!”
He left, still smiling, my romance novel tucked under his arm. The sound of his footsteps on the stairs faded. The apartment door closed.
Silence.
Then Krystin absolutely lost it. Well, more than she already had.
She was laughing so hard she fell sideways on the sofa, tears streaming down her face.
“Oh my god. Oh my god, Wen. He’s going to read your porn and then tell you which parts are anatomically incorrect!
” She was gasping now, trying to breathe through the laughter.
“And then he’s going to use it as a manual to court you.
This is the best thing that’s ever happened. ”
“I hate everything.”
“He made you orange juice,” Bella said, giggling. “From stolen oranges. And now he’s reading your werewolf romance novel. Wen, this is...”
“A nightmare?”
“Adorable,” Daphne finished. “It’s adorable. He’s courting you.”
“And he said he thinks about you constantly,” Bella added, her face red but smiling. “About how you’d feel and taste and-”
“I heard what he said, thanks.”
I grabbed my glass of orange juice and took a long drink. It was good. Really good. Fresh and sweet and tart. He’d made it perfectly.
Damn him.
“Can we please just talk about literally anything else?” I begged.
“Oh, we’re definitely talking about the book,” Krystin said, grinning. “And by the book, I mean your actual life. Because Wen? Your life has become a paranormal romance novel. Complete with a hot alpha who steals oranges and reads your smut.”
I dropped my head into my hands. “I need vacations.”
“You need to admit you like him.”
“I barely know him!”
“You know enough to imagine him in chapter seventeen.”
Upstairs, I heard movement. He probably was reading it. And my notes, my highlights. My embarrassingly desperate annotations about alpha males and claiming bites and-
Oh god.
“This is the worst day of my life,” I muttered.
“This is the best day of ours,” Krystin countered.
This was my life now. I was so screwed. Kill me now.