Chapter 3 #2
I took another sip of my coffee to keep myself calm. "He wants to use me. He doesn't love me. On top of that, we’re going to have to attend the Beta challenges like a trophy on his arm to give him an explanation for the murder."
"Why did he kill Simon at all?" my wolf mused.
"I don't know. That asshole should’ve died a long time ago, though."
She made a sound of agreement. "You’ll have to interact with Gwen."
I grimaced. "Don't remind me."
"Maybe if you fuck the king again, you can talk him out of this."
"Have you met that guy? I don’t think anyone talks him in or out of anything."
"What's your plan, then?"
"I don't know. Maybe after he gets here, we can have a conversation about it and figure something out."
"Talking is pointless."
"Sex isn't the answer," I said. "I don’t know why you’re so invested in him. I haven’t even had actual sex with him."
"He smells right. Are you sure it’s not the answer?"
No.
I wasn't sure.
I wasn't sure of anything other than the fact that there was eye-wateringly expensive coffee machinery on the countertop, my favorite beans in the cabinet, and a vase full of red roses on the island.
The house was decorated to my taste, and the king had given me around a dozen sets of lingerie enchanted to smell like him, too. It didn’t seem like a coincidence that he’d killed Simon.
It almost seemed like he was just looking for an excuse to force me to mate with him, but that would be ridiculous.
Right?
I finished my coffee, cleaned up my mess, and began snooping.
Didn't find a single interesting thing, either.
The cabinets were full of normal kitchen gear.
The bedroom had normal bedroom stuff in it. No condoms, no sex toys, nothing.
All of the king’s clothes in the closet were similar to what he’d been wearing every time I saw him.
Sports coats, button-up shirts, and slacks.
A few pairs of dress shoes. A couple pairs of sweats, which I assumed he slept in.
Simple black boxer-briefs that were all identical. Not a single t-shirt.
I didn't find any family photos, small mementos, large mementos, or anything else even vaguely interesting, other than a new pair of lingerie that already smelled like Callum, waiting in a box that was identical to the last few he’d given me.
It was on a shelf in the closet like he had been holding on to it so he was ready for my next heat.
My suspicion about the murder wasn’t confirmed, but it wasn’t eased, either.
Without my phone and laptop, I couldn’t work, so I curled up on the couch and turned on reruns of the cooking show I liked. It was about a couple of shifter chefs challenging other kinds of immortals. My favorite was the grizzly, but there was something to be said about the tiger, too.
TV was something I hadn't had time for in years. It felt ridiculously nice to have a break for once. I was in so far over my head with the café stuff, I barely had time to breathe. Sable didn’t get to take over nearly as often as she wanted to.
She reminded me of that about two episodes in, so I stripped, and shifted. The change was never painful, and my wolf shook her fur out as she took over.
As soon as she was in control, she began trotting around the room to sniff everything.
She already knew how it all smelled, but I wasn't surprised in the slightest that she wanted to check it out again.
Or that she started rubbing herself all over everything, marking it with her scent. Territory was a big thing for wolves.
Personally, I was still in denial about the situation, but she seemed perfectly content with the massive change.
The show played while my wolf ran around the house, making sure her scent was on every single wall, piece of furniture, and article of clothing Callum had.
Surprisingly, there wasn’t a whole lot of furniture. The only bed in the house was Callum’s, which seemed odd.
I tried to pay attention to who was getting eliminated on my show from afar, but it was pretty much useless.
My wolf was panting happily, her tail thumping against the cushion when she went back to the living room and plopped down on the couch just in time to spoil the season's final episode for me.
I sighed. "You're a gigantic puppy."
"It's glorious," she agreed.
Not for the first time, I wished I had that kind of energy. I'd been energetic like that, once upon a time. Back before everything happened with Gwen, and my cafe exploded. Now, I barely managed to get through every day with all of the management, inventory, and paperwork.
I'd just wanted to make coffee and spend all of my time in a café.
That had always been the plan. Gwen was supposed to be in charge of the business stuff. She was a lot quieter than I was, and had never intended to work the shop or deal with the employees. I was supposed to be the one who handled the coffee and food.
Part of me wondered if I should've turned Callum down when he offered guaranteed success. Maybe if my shop hadn't exploded the way it did, business would've been slower. Life would've been slower.
But I knew that was just my exhaustion talking.
I didn't regret my success. That would be ridiculous. I just... didn't expect it to turn out the way it did.
Was that allowed?
I didn't fucking know.
When the garage door opened, my wolf's ears shot upward.
Her tail thumped louder and harder.
"Shift back," I urged.
"No way."
"Please don't do anything stupid."
"I'm incapable of doing anything stupid."
"Licking any part of him would be considered stupid, Sable."
She snorted. "No it wouldn't."
Fuck.
The door leading from the garage into the mansion opened and closed smoothly.
My wolf stayed where she was on the couch, waiting for him to come to her, her tail still wagging.
Callum's footsteps were slow in the hallway. Sable listened to him unloading something. Probably my stuff.
I was holding out hope that he'd decided not to actually pack up everything I owned, but the expensive coffee machines in the kitchen said that was unlikely. He wouldn't go to the trouble of purchasing them if he was going to let me leave.
From the sound of him walking back and forth, I assumed he was either putting my stuff in his bedroom or the one down the hall from it.
I was fairly confident the former option was the one he was going with, but holding out hope for the latter.
Even though the one down the hall was lacking a bed or any other furniture.
"He's putting your things in his room," my wolf gloated.
"You shouldn't be happy about that."
"Yes I should. I want to keep him."
I sighed. "He’s not ours, and he might not even like you. Mixed-species mate bonds are rare among werewolves for a reason. If he does like you, he might not realize that you're separate from me."
"We both know you'll tell him for me. Everyone loves me."
"Fine, I would tell him. I'm way too nice. It’ll probably be obvious when you’re all over him, anyway."
She snorted. "Everyone in Rumor is aware that you’re too nice."
She wasn't wrong.
I paid my employees so well that I took home less than my managers did, and I worked a hell of a lot more than any of them.
There had been multiple articles about it.
Jonah kept sending them to me and telling me to pay myself more.
I basically breathed work, which had gotten old approximately four years ago.
Every time he texted me about it, I asked the lady who ran my company’s payroll to send him money.
I didn’t really need it. My house was paid off, my car worked fine, and I had delicious coffee whenever I wanted.
Other than cinnamon rolls, which I also had a plethora of, what else could a woman need?
He was a famous shifter MMA fighter, so he didn’t need the money either. He always sent it back to me on an app I didn’t know how to use, and the app somehow sent it to my bank account. I was currently too busy to figure out how to stop him.
Callum's footsteps sounded in the kitchen. He didn't call out for me, not that I expected him to. We hadn’t talked in five years, other than a few filthy comments along the lines of you taste so fucking good.
Hot? Yes.
Relationship building? No.
All I knew about the guy was what I’d read in the news, and most of it was about who he’d tortured or what the Cabinet was planning.
Callum stopped in the kitchen, looking out at the living room.
My wolf's tail was still thumping up against the couch cushion. It was fairly loud, but my hearing was a little better than most people's. It was one of the few perks of werewolfism. The main perk being the creature who drove me crazy with her constant snark and took over my body from time to time.
Even without the tail wagging, he would definitely be able to see my wolf.
He stared out at her for a solid thirty seconds before he made his way over to the couch, still moving stiffly.
The stiffness was weird. He’d never been like that when I was going through heat. Maybe it was supposed to make people uncomfortable or something, but it wasn’t really doing its job if that was the case.
"Do you think he'll scratch my belly?" she asked, sounding positively gleeful.
"For my sake, I hope not. For yours, I'll cross my fingers."
She purred when he sat down beside her, his gaze moving over her form. Her fur was as blonde and curly as my hair, which made her look more like a gigantic poodle than a wolf.
Her tail wagged even faster.
"Can you cut that out?" I asked.
"No. It's my smile. He’ll love it."
"Hello." Callum's lips curved upward. The smile almost reached his cold, blue eyes.
Almost.
She rubbed her face on his arm.
His severe expression softened, and the smile actually met his eyes.
He reached up to scratch her ears lightly. She purred again, and his amusement was evident in his voice. "You may as well be a kitten too."
"He knows we're separate!" Sable exclaimed.
"I'm happy for you." The words were genuine, even though I was not thrilled with this development.
He’d researched werewolves. Another clue that he had planned this for longer than the eighteen hours since he’d killed Simon.
Why had he been planning to use me for so long?
Why would a fae want to mate with a werewolf they didn’t even know?
Sable snapped her teeth at him playfully. I half expected him to hit her with a pulse of his supposedly torturous magic, but he didn't. He just chuckled and continued rubbing her fur while the cooking show played.
She sprawled out on her back over his lap, nudging his hand with her head until he was rubbing her belly. Her tongue flopped out as she basked in his touch, and eventually, she fell asleep.