Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
The dining room had been rearranged to incorporate more tables and it was already filled with pack members when Adrian descended, the buzz of conversation faltering momentarily as they registered his presence.
He nodded acknowledgements to several of them, but he was already scanning for another scent amongst the chaos of dozens of bodies.
There.
She came rushing down the hallway, then came to an abrupt halt at the sight of his pack, looking approximately as comfortable as a cat at a dog show.
Her pink hair had come loose from its ponytail, floating around her face like a downy cloud, and her grey eyes were wide and uncertain behind those oversized glasses.
She looked ridiculous. She looked delicious.
She looked like she was seriously considering bolting back to her room.
“Ms. Bailey.”
Her head whipped towards him, and he watched the play of emotions across her face, wariness and that ever-present defiance, with more attention than was strictly necessary. Her scent intensified as he approached, sweetening with nervousness? Or attraction?
Probably fear, he told himself firmly. Humans find wolves intimidating. This is normal.
Most of the wolves had already claimed their places, but they were all watching him now, their attention shifting from him to the human female frozen in the doorway.
Their gazes were a mixed bag. Some were openly curious.
Some were indifferent. Elder Howard, seated at the head table near the fireplace, looked like he’d just bitten into a lemon.
“Alpha Moonstone.” Her voice was admirably steady, given the way her heart was racing. He could hear it, that rapid flutter, and his wolf preened at the sound. “I was just—”
“You’re late.”
“Just a little.” She glanced at the gathered pack, at the curious faces turned in their direction. “Barely late. Fashionably late, even—”
“Come.”
He didn’t wait for her response, simply turned and walked towards the head table, trusting her to follow. After a moment’s hesitation—he heard her frustrated exhale, a muttered complaint that might have included the words “arrogant” and “caveman”—footsteps hurried to catch up with him.
The pack watched their progress with undisguised interest. He could feel the weight of their attention, the speculation, the curiosity about the small human trailing in their Alpha’s wake. Several of the younger males tracked Harper with a predatory focus that made his hackles rise.
Mine, his wolf snarled. Challenge them. Make them submit. Show them who she belongs to.
He kept walking.
Elder Howard watched Harper approach with eyes that held neither welcome nor warmth.
“Alpha.” Howard’s voice carried the weight of deliberate formality. “I see our… guest has found her way to dinner.”
Ignoring him, Adrian gestured to the empty seat beside his place at the head of the table. “Ms. Bailey, you’ll sit here.”
She looked at the indicated chair and her eyebrows rose. “At the head table? Isn’t that… I don’t know, a protocol thing?”
“You’re a representative of TalkToMe. A guest under my protection.” He met Howard’s gaze steadily, daring the elder to object. “Protocol dictates you sit with the leadership.”
“I’m a cybersecurity consultant. I’m here to install your Wi-Fi.”
“Nevertheless.”
Howard’s lips thinned but he said nothing. Adrian pulled out her chair, waiting until she settled into it with obvious reluctance.
“This feels very… conspicuous,” she murmured as he took his own seat.
“Would you prefer to eat alone in the kitchen?”
“Honestly? Yes.”
“Denied.”
Her small huff of frustration made his lips twitch, but he focused instead on the meal being served—venison stew, fresh bread, roasted vegetables from the pack’s gardens—and very determinedly did not think about how close she was sitting.
How her scent wrapped around him in the enclosed space.
How he could hear every breath she took, every shift of her body in the chair.
“You should know our ways before presuming to join us at table.” Howard’s voice cut through his concentration. The elder was addressing her directly, his pale eyes sharp with challenge as his gaze traveled pointedly over her t-shirt, her pink hair. “It is not a casual affair.”
Before he could intervene, she turned to face the older male, her chin raised defiantly.
“Are you always this welcoming to guests?” Her tone was mild, but her grey eyes had a sudden glint of steel. “Or am I just special?”
The entire table went quiet. He could feel the collective intake of breath, the ripple of shock that ran through the watching wolves. No one challenged Elder Howard. Not directly. Not with that kind of dry, detached sarcasm.
Howard’s face reddened, the veins in his neck standing out. “You are not a guest. You are a human intrusion, a necessary evil foisted upon us by your boss and our Alpha’s misguided loyalty.”
“Is that what we’re calling a multi-million dollar investment and a guaranteed income stream for the next twenty years? A necessary evil?” She took a deliberate bite of her stew, chewed, and swallowed. “Sounds more like basic economics to me.”
His wolf surged with approval. His female was defending his decision, defending his pack’s future, with a wit as sharp as any claw.
“You are an outsider who doesn’t understand our traditions,” Howard snarled, leaning towards her. “You come here with your machines and your human ideas, and you poison the well from which we have drunk for generations.”
“That will do.” His voice rolled through the room, infused with enough alpha command that every member of his pack bowed their heads. “Ms. Bailey is here at my invitation. She is a guest, and she will be treated as such.”
“Alpha, I meant no—”
“You meant exactly what you said.” He held the elder’s gaze until Howard looked away, reluctant submission written in the line of his shoulders. “I expect better from a wolf of your experience.”
The tables had gone quiet around them. He could feel the pack’s attention, the carefully averted eyes of wolves who knew better than to witness an alpha’s rebuke directly. Beside him, Harper sat frozen, but she hadn’t flinched away from him.
“Eat,” he said quietly. “The stew is better warm.”
She ate.
The rest of the meal passed in relative silence at their end of the table.
Howard nursed his grievance in sullen quiet, occasionally exchanging looks with the other elders that Adrian catalogued and filed away for later consideration.
The younger wolves had returned to their own conversations, though he caught several glances cast in Harper’s direction—most curious, some appreciative, a few hostile.
He watched them all. Noted who looked too long, who whispered to their neighbor, who seemed inclined towards welcome versus suspicion. Just tactical awareness, he told himself, ignoring his wolf’s skepticism. Nothing to do with making sure she’s safe.
When the meal finally concluded, pack members began dispersing to their evening activities. He rose, and she scrambled to follow suit, nearly knocking over her water glass in the process. He gestured towards the stairs. “I’ll show you to your room now.”
“Now? I was going to go back to the office.”
“It’s late. You’ve had a long drive, a busy afternoon, and more… social interaction than normal. You need to rest.” He didn’t phrase it as a suggestion.
“But my systems—”
“Will be there in the morning.” He started for the stairs, and this time she didn’t argue, her soft footsteps trailing behind him. He led her to the second floor, down a long hallway to the private family quarters. “This is you.”
He opened the door, and she stepped inside, her gasp audible in the quiet room.
A large four-poster bed formed from twisted polished branches dominated the space, covered in a cream silk comforter.
A small sitting area with a plush sofa and armchair was arranged near a stone fireplace, and French doors opened onto a small balcony with a view out over the forest. It was also directly next to his room so her scent would drift through the walls, a constant, tormenting presence.
“This isn’t what I was expecting,” she whispered, walking to the balcony doors and looking out at the dark forest. The moon was rising, silvering the tips of the pine trees, and he couldn’t resist joining her. “May I?” she asked, gesturing at the doors.
“Of course.”
He followed her out onto the balcony, breathing in the cool pine scent of the surrounding forest, but pulling in more of her scent at the same time.
She was looking out at the forest, but he was looking at her, at the moonlight glinting off the silver frames of her glasses, at the way the breeze lifted the pink strands of her hair.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “It’s so… quiet.”
“This is our territory,” he said. “You’re safe here.”
She turned to look at him, her expression unreadable. “Am I?”
The question hung in the air between them, fragile and dangerous.
He wanted to reassure her, to promise her protection with every fiber of his being, but the words caught in his throat.
He was the Alpha. He was the protector. But he was also the one who had brought her here, into this den of wolves and politics and old resentments.
“You are,” he managed, the words rough. “As long as you’re here, you’re under my protection. No one will harm you.”
She searched his face, those intelligent eyes seeming to look past his defenses, to see the conflict that churned beneath the surface. He held still under her scrutiny, refusing to back down, refusing to show her the crackling tension that her proximity caused in him.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “For the office. For this room. For telling me to rest.”
And then she stepped even closer, went up on her tiptoes, and kissed him.