Chapter 14 Can’t Fight This
Chapter fourteen
Can’t Fight This
Cole
“Well, that was unexpected,” Andrew said as the front door shut.
Where was she going? She couldn’t go far. Couldn’t leave the estate without my knowing; the guards at the entrance would inform me if she tried to walk through the gates.
“Colette?” Andrew said, and I hated how he used my full name. I turned to him. “Were you ever going to tell me about this?” he asked.
“There isn’t much to tell,” I answered.
He looked at me sternly. Anyone else in any other situation treating me like a misbehaved child would have surely ended violently for one or both of us. Politics. I couldn’t stand politics, and my life had become nothing but.
“I picked her up about a week ago,” I answered.
“Like a lost dog on the side of the road?” he asked.
“We aren’t married yet. It was business,” I said. Reminding him that he wasn’t privy to all of Sandstorm’s dealings quite yet.
“Is it just business?” he asked.
I raised my eyebrow. He could come out and ask his questions like an alpha instead of beating around the bush.
“She smelled of you,” he accused.
“She’s living in my home,” I answered.
“She had clear bite marks on her throat,” he continued.
I groaned and sat down.
“Ask what you really want to ask, Andrew,” I instructed.
He set his coffee on the mantel above the fireplace and sat on the opposite couch.
“Are you fucking her?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
Andrew growled.
“Are you trying to embarrass me?” he asked.
I smiled. I liked his irritation, liked watching him worry over his reputation.
“She’s an omega living in my home,” I said flippantly. “I have needs. Are you telling me you’ve kept yourself chaste from me, Andrew? You haven’t wet your dick since our engagement?” I asked.
He frowned.
“That’s not the same—” he began.
I laughed, interrupting him.
“Why isn’t it the same?” I asked, amused. “Because you’re a man?”
“Yes!” he answered, his voice rising. “And I don’t have anyone walking around with my scent and my marking.”
“Please, it’s not like I actually marked the girl. Barely a nibble, a bruise gone in a day or two,” I defended.
It had been difficult not to mark her the previous night. Not to bite down into the soft flesh of her skin until I tasted blood. The way she offered her neck so freely, so easily. I couldn’t get the image out of my head.
“That’s beside the point,” he growled. “This is about optics. What does it say if you have some omega, of all things, running around like that? Our marriage isn’t merely convenient; it secures the future of both our futures. Sandstorm isn’t the only pack facing succession issues.”
“Andrew, calm down. She’s just an omega. I’m simply borrowing her for a while, taken to humiliate a lesser alpha. I’ll be returning her come the National Assembly,” I told him.
He huffed.
“Don’t allow this to interfere with us, Colette.
We’re to be married. I know you have your preferences, and I’m willing to allow you to indulge privately; perhaps we can even share in such indulgences, but I intend to have a real marriage.
We’re to embrace the role of Alpha of Sandstorm jointly; this marriage is not only on paper,” he said, and it took an effort to school my features.
“You do not allow me to do anything,” I reminded him.
“We are a partnership, whether you like it or not,” he told me.
“I’m quite sure neither of us like this, Andrew,” I said.
“That may be, but we both want something only the other can provide: to secure the future of our packs. I’ve been trying to make this as painless as possible for both of us. Control yourself.” He stood. “Or I’ll have to intervene. I’m sure neither of us wants that,” he said.
I stood too.
“Is that a threat, dear future husband?” I asked.
“Not at all, future wife.” He walked towards me and kissed my cheek. I growled. He laughed. “Don’t make this more difficult for either of us than it has to be,” he said and walked towards the door.
“Tell Sara I said good morning,” I said, knowing his next stop was to my sister.
I sat back down as I heard the front door close and ran my hands over my head.
This was a problem.
I hadn’t put much thought into taking her that night. She was small and scared, and that Blizzard boy wasn’t scared enough.
Did part of me know what she was?
I was attracted from the start. The first scent of her pheromones almost drove me to lose control within the Pack House kitchen. I could have taken her right there if I hadn’t heard the fear in her voice.
It was difficult to believe that she was truly unaware of what she was doing until I learned of her lack of shifting.
Stephan had explained that she had effectively stunted the natural progression of her wolf abilities, that she hadn’t learned to recognise or control her instincts as a result of not shifting at all since her first baptism under the moon.
What kind of alpha allowed their omega to avoid the full moon for so long?
The more I learned about the Blizzard boy, the more I disliked him.
A true mate.
What was I meant to do about that?
I growled in anger. My phone rang, and I retrieved it from my pocket. Chloe could wait. Everything could wait today. I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with any more problems.
Harriet was enough.
I got up and ready to leave to find my upset omega. She couldn’t have gone far.
***
Harriet was not on the estate.
Her scent had simply vanished from the street. Security had not recorded her leaving through the foot gate at the entrance.
I had spent almost two hours searching for her.
At first, I was annoyed, but worry had seeped in slowly, insidiously. Where was she?
I was about to leave and demand that Sara start a search party when I heard her walking along the driveway gravel. When had I committed to memory the distinct stride of her steps?
I was waiting for her on the porch when she looked up and climbed the few steps.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“Is your fiancé still here?” she asked instead of answering me.
I growled.
“You left the estate,” I told her.
“I didn’t realise I was a prisoner,” she answered.
I laughed.
“You didn’t think you had to have my permission to leave the estate?” I asked. Was she serious? “You’re mine, omega,” I reminded her.
“Is that all I am to you? Just an omega?” she asked.
Frustration flared within me.
“You’re not just any omega. You’re my omega,” I told her.
“What? Were you worried?” she mocked.
I stepped towards her and took hold of her upper arm.
“Yes,” I told her.
She looked shocked before she tried to shake out of my hold.
“Let me go,” she demanded.
“No,” I said and pulled her closer.
The scent of Darren hung loosely on her jacket.
“Darren,” I said.
“We went for breakfast at Heaven’s Bar,” she told me.
“He took you without asking,” I said.
“Does he need your permission?” she asked.
“Yes,” I hissed. He had already put her in enough danger. “You’re covered in my scent, wearing my mark; you belong to me,” I told her.
She stopped struggling in my hold, and I watched her resistance crumble before the addictive scent of her pheromones began.
“Stop it,” she said softly.
I growled frustratedly.
“This has to stop,” I told her. “You need to learn to control yourself.”
I pulled her inside and removed her jacket to hang it up.
“Shoes,” I demanded. “I don’t allow dirt to be tracked inside my home.”
I watched as she kicked her shoes off and tried to walk away.
I pulled her back by her wrist.
“Where do you think you’re going?” I asked.
“To my room away from you,” she said, trying and failing to pull her wrist free.
I laughed.
“You think you can disappear for hours and come back with no repercussions, no explanation?” I asked.
“You have a whole-ass fiancé!” she screamed.
I was taken aback by the outburst.
“Was I meant to play nice with him?” she asked derisively.
“Yes,” I said and pulled her closer to me, against me. “Do you have any idea the chaos you have brought into my life?” I asked her. “The least you could do is play nice.”
“Chaos? Me? You took me, remember? I didn’t have a choice,” she argued.
She was right.
I did take her.
At the time, I thought it was merely to humiliate a lesser, but now I wasn’t so sure that some part of me didn’t recognise her as mine in the truest of ways.
“Neither did I,” I told her. I didn’t have a choice in any of this. Duty was my burden. “We don’t all get to choose the roles we play.”
She smelled so sweet, floral, like spring, and I had dipped my forehead to hers without any conscious thought, breathing her in.
“I didn’t,” she said.
“You didn’t what?” I asked quietly, distracted by her scent filling my lungs.
“I didn’t get to choose any of this,” she whispered, like she was scared to break the quiet.
Her breath fanned over my lips.
I groaned.
“You have a choice now,” I told her softly.
“What’s that?” she asked, and her lips brushed mine.
I growled, wrapping my free arm around her delicate waist and pulling her tight.
“You can go upstairs and lock yourself in your room, and maybe a locked door will be enough to keep me away from you, or…” I trailed off.
Her scent drove me wild. It took all my self-control to hold back.
She kissed me.
Sheepishly, just a small press of her lips before they were gone, and her big doe eyes were searching mine, asking if what she had done was wanted.
I kissed her, walking her backwards towards the living room as I did until I was falling onto the sofa and pulling her down with me.
She straddled my lap.
Her hands tangled in my hair.
Her hips bucked against me.
I pushed under her top, my hands trailing against her ribs, fluttering near her chest. She wore no bra.
“More,” she begged against my lips.
I broke the kiss to remove her top.
Her perfect tits were revealed to me, and her lips were on mine again.
I palmed one, her nipple becoming hard immediately.
She broke the kiss to gasp.
I spanked her butt, and she squealed in surprise.
I swallowed the sound with my mouth against hers.