His Runaway Mate

Chapter 1

Rex

I haven’t been at work in weeks, and my suit feels too tight. I have stuffed myself into it and now I am bulging at the seams because my muscles have gotten too accustomed to being in my wolf form in the wild.

“We could have it tailored, sir.” Fescue frowns at me with an expression of deep concern. “I believe there are still emergency tailors.”

Fescue comes from the south of England. He is a tall man, with a very smooth face and an even smoother demeanor.

He is younger than me by a good decade, and yet somehow manages to throw his weight around.

When I became alpha of the Regent pack, he was my servant.

Over time, he has become my effective second in command.

That does not stop him from having all manner of opinions when it comes to fashion.

I tolerate it because he keeps me civilized, and doing that is a practically impossible task. Before Fescue got here I was far more animal than man, and the pack was suffering for it.

He’s one of several checks and balances I have instituted over the years in an effort to improve things. When my father died, we were nothing. Less than a dozen mangy wolves working the docks and hoping not to be noticed on a full moon.

It is different now.

I am standing on the thirty-third floor of the Regent building, and every floor of this place is occupied with pack business.

We run one of the largest shipping channels on the globe, moving almost everything almost everywhere.

We are strategically placed to have alliances at every level of industry and government.

I find myself moving in circles I could never have dreamed of when I was whelped on a cold warehouse floor thirty-eight years ago.

So I let Fescue be pedantic, and I ask him a question I very much already know the answer to.

“It’s not that bad, is it?”

“You look as though you are about to rip it off and attend a WWE match as one of the wrestlers, sir,” he says.

He doesn’t mean it as a compliment.

He might be right, though. My hair has grown too, it’s thick and down to my shoulders and I know he wants it to be back in the corporate cut that helps me blend in better with the rest of the world, but I think I like it this way. Less fuss.

I turn back and forth in front of the mirror, already knowing he is right, but also loathing the idea of putting work off for an emergency tailor’s appointment.

“Don’t I have anything less fitting?”

“By all means, sir, you could wear sweatpants, or…” His lip curls derisively. “Jeans. Or, if you prefer, you could run about naked as the day you were born. Why not. If nothing matters, then nothing matters.”

The way Fescue pronounces the word jeans somehow puts a ‘u’ in there between the J and the E in a way that does not feel good.

“Very well,” I sigh. “Call the tailor. I will tend to business via phone until I am decent enough to leave the house.”

“I could also call a barber? Sir?” He puts two questions in one sentence in the hopes I will not notice he is telling me what to do. Unfortunately for him, my radar for dominance challenges is pretty well calibrated.

“No, thank you, Fescue,” I say. “I think you’ve pushed matters enough for one morning.”

“Very good, sir,” he says, his tone suggesting it is only halfway good, and he’s going to be suffering until he sees my hair cut. I let him suffer. A little of that is good for him.

“If you keep mentioning the barber, I’ll tie my hair up in a man bun, Fescue,” I threaten.

He gives me a horrified look and departs.

I chuckle to myself. I do miss the wilds. The open spaces. The way I, and everyone with me, can be as free and as feral as we care to be.

It’s important to spend time in the city too. We have to maintain our position. You cannot ever truly rest when you are in business. Someone else is always trying to move in on your territory.

And that is why I’m back early.

I had planned to take six months off to run wild. Half a year, spring through summer. The pack keeps nudging me to take a mate and breed her and I was hoping I’d find a suitable female out in the reserves we purchased and put aside for our use, and the use of other friendly packs.

There are a hundred thousand acres of forest, mountain, and stream for us to explore.

I’ve opened it up to other packs, and it has become a fundamental part of the breeding ecosystem for our kind.

Inbreeding because packs are too small is a real issue, and having a place where wolf shifters can be who they are without fear of a bullet or worse, a scientific investigation, is crucial to our survival.

I was out there all of four weeks before I was called back.

Four weeks is plenty of time for me to go feral, though.

It’s long enough for my muscles to grow, my hair to get thicker, my voice to deepen, socks and shoes to feel fucking wrong, every electric light to assault my senses, and for the rank and ripe scents of the city to make me either want to retch or roll in them depending on the source.

Can’t do any of that today, because today I have to address a problem of territory.

A pack is nothing without its borders. Ours encompass the city.

There are other packs who exist around us, but anybody who dwells in the city itself owes us fealty.

There can be no other alphas in my primary territory.

I don’t like leadership challenges. Well, that’s not true.

I do. But the ones who challenge me tend to not like what I do to them. It’s best to make an example.

Chase Ratcliff is my accountant. He’s the one who rang the alarm bells about the problem that requires me to be here. He’s also the one who has been trying to handle it without me. I appreciate the effort, though it hasn’t seen much fruit as yet.

While I wait for the emergency tailor, I put a call through to him.

“Hello,” he says, sounding slightly dubious.

“How are your negotiations with the Runaways coming?”

We have been dealing with a small group of what seems to be previously lone wolves who have set up in the city. At first, they flew entirely below the radar. A few young rogues wandering the streets was never going to rise to the level that we would pay attention.

Then they began to organize around a single alpha. Nick Love. I have the name written on a manila file in front of me. The file itself is incredibly thin, because very little is known about this particular upstart.

I have let this go on for the better part of a year by now, but others in the pack are telling me that these Runaways are starting to become an economic and social force, and that means a challenge is inevitable.

Best to try to bring them into the fold as soon as possible, in my view.

A few scrappy youngsters can easily be absorbed into the Regent pack.

We are many hundreds strong, and very well established in many senses.

Some consider us new, but it is the money that is new.

The pack itself is as old as this country.

“Excellent, sir. We’re about to sign the final takeover documents. We might be able to have you out on the reserve before lunch time.”

Fescue is going to be so disappointed. We’re going to be back on the reserve by dinnertime.

Usually I’d handle things like this myself, but I can tell he wants to prove himself to me, and I am happy to let him do so. Having competent people working for me is the way to regain the chance for some freedom.

I hang up, and Fescue brings the emergency tailor in. I spend the next thirty minutes being tailored to within an inch of my life. When he, Bradbury, and Fescue are satisfied, I am able to take another call from Chase.

He sounds less excited this time.

“Sorry, Rex. They’re refusing to sign.”

“Why? I thought the deal was done?”

“I thought the deal was done too. They said it was, but Nick Love says he doesn’t feel like signing today.”

“What kind of name is Nick Love?”

“A fake one, probably, but with legal status, so I’m not going to interrogate it.”

“Uh huh.” I scratch my chin. I shaved, but the beard is already coming back through. “So, why isn’t he signing?”

“He won’t talk to me directly, so I can’t be sure, but the secretary told me it was because he doesn’t feel like it.”

I thought I heard that wrong the first time. I repeat it, so he can correct me.

“Doesn’t feel like it?”

“That’s what the secretary said. Quite the piece of work. Not a people person.”

“We are offering to pay them money, right?”

“Oh, yes. Five hundred thousand, as agreed.”

“Do you think they’re holding out for more?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I didn’t get the sense they cared about the money, but you never really know how people like these are running tactics. They’re young. They don’t follow the rules. Not of business, and certainly not of polite society.”

I am more befuddled than angry at this point, though anger could be coming soon. I do not enjoy being fucked with, and the fact that my hopes were raised to return to the reserve is causing dangerous disappointment.

“They do understand this is a hostile pack takeover. That there will be jaws on throats if this isn’t handled by end of business today?”

“Possibly not. This is a younger breakaway pack. They don’t follow the old rules. Most of them grew up never being told the word no, I reckon. I don’t understand half the things they say.”

“Did you call Nick Love directly?”

“Just got the secretary. She says Nick doesn’t talk on the phone.”

Every sentence leads me to a fresh circle of hell.

“What do you mean he doesn’t talk on the phone?”

“Apparently he doesn’t like it. She said he prefers texting. Or memes.”

Now I know they are trying to provoke us. “They want us to perform a several million dollar takeover via memes?”

“Well, not memes.” Chase Ratcliff clears his throat. “Via short form videos about unrelated subjects that somehow still tangentially relate, ideally.”

“This is deeply unserious behavior.”

“Yes, that is rather the marker of the generation, sir.”

“Someone should have dealt with these pups months ago,” I sigh.