Chapter 9
Kieran
My wolf is doing the smug happy dance this morning, and for once, I have to agree with the unruly animal. Life is good. My mate will be back again tonight. The fact that she’s denied it is hilarious.
“Sir, the smile on your face is genuinely alarming.” Teresa gives me a worried look. “Also, you haven’t refused anyone’s requests this morning. Are you feeling all right?”
I smile and recline in my comfortable leather office chair. Teresa is sitting in a chair angled to face mine, taking notes and squinting at me suspiciously. “You’re doing a wonderful job, Teresa. Have I ever told you that?”
Her eyes widen. “You’ve been hexed.”
I chuckle. “Your concern is touching. It’s so good of you to care. You care about everyone, don’t you? When was the last time I gave you a raise?”
“That’s it!” She leaps to her feet. “I’m calling your sister.
” She frowns. “Oh, wait, she’s busy with Stephen right now.
I can call in the other healers or wait til she’s done.
” She actually walks behind the desk and puts her wrist on my forehead.
“No temperature. Have you eaten anything different recently? Accepted foods from strangers?”
I bark out a laugh at her, then give her a puzzled look. “Why is my sister with Stephen right now? She already evaluated him.”
Teresa shrugs. “She needed to do some additional tests.”
Fine, I’ll circle back to that later.
There’s a knock on the door, and Peyton walks in. “Good morning, Alpha. I just need to run some numbers by you for the cost of the new booth decorations for our market stall.”
“Whatever you think is best.” I shrug.
Peyton shakes her head in amusement. “My goodness, consummating with your fated mate certainly agrees with you.”
“Oh! That’s it!” Teresa throws her hands up in exasperation. “That explains the personality transplant! I thought he’d been bewitched.”
“Right?” Peyton shakes her head, an amused smile curling her lips. “That smile on his face is genuinely frightening.”
“Excuse me,” I say in annoyance. “I’m sitting right here. I am the Alpha. I can end people. Also, how did you know?” I demand of Peyton.
She lets out a giggle. “Oh, the look on her face when she stopped by the library. I could just tell. And she hadn’t completely managed to wash off the scent of her mating.”
“Did she say anything?” I ask, a little too quickly. I mean, it’s unlikely that my mate said “I just had the best night ever and I can’t wait for tonight,” but a wolf can hope.
“No, she was distracted by the books. I guess she used to be a bookbinder but she sold all of her tools before she came here. She was really interested in our old books.”
“Why did she sell her tools?” She hadn’t mentioned that to me. I scowl. She’s my mate. She should have told me something like that.
"Didn't say.”
“When’s the mating ceremony?” Teresa interrupts. “And why didn’t you tell me why you were acting so weird? I was in full panic mode.”
“I bet,” Peyton murmurs. “His face keeps trying to do that grin-thing even when he’s angry. It’s unsettling.”
I glare at them. “Teresa, Peyton, get out of my office. Go do something useful for once in your lives. Also, do not discuss the mating ceremony. Don’t say anything at all to her about my relationship with her. You’ll scare her off, she’ll run for the hills, and I’ll have you both skinned.”
Teresa nods in satisfaction as she and Peyton hastily head for the exit. “That’s more like it,” she says to Peyton just before the door closes. “Whew. I thought we’d lost him there.”
Seriously. The disrespect.
Also, I’m not normally that unbearably rude and crabby, am I?
With a sigh, I pick up my phone and call my sister. She shows up about ten minutes later.
“Why are you meeting with Stephen?” I ask as soon as she walks in the door. I don’t bother with ‘hi’. No more Mister Nice Wolf today.
She takes a deep breath, which means she’s about to say something that will infuriate me. “About that…”
“No.”
Amaryllis’s face takes on a determined set, and she meets my gaze with more defiance than I’ve ever seen. "I have an idea about how to help him which would ensure very little risk," Amaryllis says, "and you're going to listen to the whole thing before you—"
"No." If I let her help him, I open the floodgates. I end up letting her help everybody. And that will not end well. I’m not going through that – not again.
Her breath comes out in a slow hiss of exasperation. "You don't know what it is yet."
“No treatment, no exceptions.”
“Even for your mate’s brother?”
I glare at her. “That’s playing dirty pool, Amaryllis, and it won’t work.”
“I am a healer. Stop telling me how to do my job.” She bites out the words, eyes blazing.
“I am the Alpha. That means my job is telling you what to do. And I am telling you that you are going to stick to our original agreement, which is that you evaluate him; you don’t treat him. Do you need anything else today?” My wolf, who was so happy before, is now letting out a low, mournful howl.
She doesn’t answer me. She just rises to her feet. “In fact, I do. There is a tri-pack dance Rose wants to attend next month and-”
“No,” I bark out.
“Then you’re going to drive her away. And me too, sooner or later.” She storms out of the room and slams the door behind her.
My mood has turned storm-cloud black.
So I should probably not go anywhere near my mate, but the sudden, intense craving to be near her swells up inside me and threatens to choke me.
I leave my office and my legs basically walk me towards her cabin without any input from my brain.
As I approach, I see that she’s standing outside, talking on the phone, back turned towards me. Her body is rigid with tension.
I focus, partially shifting, ears only, so I can pick up the other half of the call too — a man's voice, tinny and angry.
"—I told you, you'll get it. You'll get all of it. I just need— no. No. You don't need to know where I— Gary. Gary, listen to me—"
The tinny voice says a number, and then it says what happens to people who make him drive to collect. Olivia's free hand comes up and wraps around her own ribs.
I fly down the path and snatch the phone from her hand.
Gary. Another man, talking to my mate. Threatening my mate.
A pile of neatly stacked wood next to her house rises in the air and clatters down. My hand closes, and the voice stops as the phone crunches in my hand.
Olivia looks at the glittering wreckage in my palm. Then she looks up at me, and the fear on her face burns off in a wash of fury so hot I can practically warm my hands on it.
"That was my phone. What the hell is wrong with you?”
"Who is Gary?" I’m trying to keep the fury out of my voice. I’m trying really hard.
Her voice climbs. "I cannot afford to replace that phone!”
"I heard what he said to you."
"Well, good for you. Of course you did. Eavesdropping and property destruction.
The full Alpha experience." She jabs a finger at my chest. "He's a loan shark.
His name is Gary, and I owe him money, and do you want to know what I borrowed it for?
To pay your mages. Six weeks ago. The only — the only — thing keeping Gary friendly was me answering that phone on the second ring, and you just turned it into gravel. "
I blink. “It’s just money? That’s an easy fix. How much do you owe him?”
"None of your beeswax. I know you think I’m your fated mate, but I’m not.
The feelings I feel – who knows what’s causing them.
There’s crazy ley line energy here, maybe that’s it.
You know who I’ve learned that I can trust, in life?
Myself. And my brother. Not my mother, not my father, not the rest of the family who refused to help us, or the rest of our pack who let my father dump my brother off in human territory…
me. I’ve been taking care of myself, and my brother, since I was a teenager, and I will continue to do so. ”
God, my mate is glorious. Fierce. Stubborn. Proud.
Too bad that right now, all of those personality traits are trying to prevent me from helping her.
“I can fix this,” I insist.
She steps over the phone's remains. "I will handle Gary. Good night, Alpha."
She stomps off across the grass toward her cabin, magnificent and furious.
Somewhere out there is a shifter named Gary who threatens women by phone for a living.
I pull out my own phone and call Bram.
"It's me," I say. "I need everything there is on a Mississippi loan shark named Gary. Tonight."
A pause. "Did something happen?"
"Yes," I say. "To a phone. So far."