20 Meg
Meg
Is this guy ever sober?
We watched as Justus came stumbling inside after the vehicle with the “Taxi” logo dropped him off at the front door.
There were so many people here now that my wolf was having trouble sorting through all the sounds to eavesdrop on conversations and figure out what was happening, but we had no trouble scenting Justus.
My intended husband stunk like a skunk and a loopy smile stretched across his face. “Hello, Mother. You called?”
“Science…” Helen muttered under her breath. “I need a drink.”
“Pour me one too.” He sank onto the chair and started rubbing the armrests.
Helen tossed a bottle of water on his lap.
“Ouch,” he cried. “What was that for?”
“Do you have any idea what is happening today?” Helen yelled at her son.
I wanted to leave before I had to deal with another one of their bickering matches, but an armed guard stood outside the door.
And I’d thought my own family was bad.
“Is it the wedding?” Justus peered at me through red-rimmed eyes.
“No, you idiot! We’re under lockdown. Our maid was attacked, and they uncovered plans to target this house.” Helen poured herself a large glass of amber liquid.
“He’s here.” Roman came to a stop outside the door. “Good. I’ll report back to base and—”
“No.” Helen pointed at him. “You stay.”
The stone mask slipped over Roman’s face again, but not before I saw his frustration with being trapped here.
Same, man. Same. My wolf sighed.
“What happened now?” Justus groaned, resuming his rubbing of the armrests.
“Katrina was hurt,” I said.
“Okay…” Justus drawled. “And?”
Roman tensed beside me as a growl slipped from my chest, but it was Helen who took over the conversation again.
“And, she was beaten up because she works for us.” Ice rattled in Helen’s drink. “These fucking ungrateful people.”
I’d never heard her cuss this angrily before, but Justus and Roman didn’t react.
“Am I assuming that your half-ditch effort of swaying public opinion on this arranged marriage isn’t exactly going to plan?” Justus smirked.
“No thanks to you,” she bit back.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Is this because of me?”
“Of course it is.” Justus smiled my way. “No offense, mutant. They just don’t like outsiders.”
That wasn’t true. I’d met plenty of humans outside the wall who’d come to visit and then stay with our packs. Alpha Kera came to the city to trade, and so did other traders. Alice said herself that Ethica was progressive. So who was lying here?
“It’s not everyone,” Roman said, seeming to read the questions on my face. “There are a select few troublemakers who can’t let go of their purist ideologies.”
That was something I could understand.
Maybe I could help.
What would Kera do?
Kill them all.
Maybe this is a task better suited to Aunt Coral.
She wouldn’t do anything nearly as fun.
I turned to Helen. “I should help. It might not be the best idea to keep hiding me away. Let me meet the public. I can answer questions, volunteer my time—”
“No,” Roman seemed to growl, lowering his voice when we all looked at him. “It’s not possible. The security behind events like that would be a logistical nightmare, especially with such short notice.”
I tried not to let his quick dismissal of my plan hurt as much as it did. This wasn’t a romance novel. I had to keep reminding myself of that.
“It doesn’t matter anyway.” Helen sank onto the chair across from her son. “It’s not just Megaera that the public hates.”
“You can’t mean me.” Justus slapped a hand over his heart. “The paparazzi adores me.”
Helen’s jaw clenched so hard that her teeth cracked.
“The voters are going to have a field day with this. It couldn’t have come at a worse time.
Election years always have everyone fired up.
Why couldn’t these gods of yours been more accommodating?
” Her gaze cut to me, like this was somehow my fault.
“I tried everything to sell the public this love story, but no one is buying it,” she said.
I was still trying to process everything I was hearing and how easily Helen admitted lying to the people she was supposed to lead.
Behind her makeup were life lines that mirrored Alpha Kera’s age, but she was nothing like my aunt.
Kera had taught me to lead with honesty.
To trust the shifters who put their trust in me.
In turn, the pack was loyal to their Alpha.
If purist humans hated my kind so much that they’d revolt because of us being married, what chance did I have of convincing my own mate we were supposed to be together after all this had blown over?
I stared at Roman, willing him to look at me.
Is that why he was fighting so hard against our mate bond? Did he not want to be with a mutant either?
I swallowed down my fears and the hurt that came from them, asking Helen, “Did you try telling your people the truth?”
She burst out laughing. “We’re a science-based society. I can’t even get my own son to take this seriously. How do you think I’ll convince an entire population that the gods we told them don’t exist are now coming back to ruin us all?”
There’s about to be undeniable evidence.
“So you have to get them to believe a story?” I asked, still not quite understanding.
“Now you get it.” Helen raised her glass. “If I could’ve just convinced them that this marriage is what they want to see, then we all could’ve lived in the little delusion instead of bringing in the big guns of the military to force them to behave.”
She took another long drink.
I had to believe that somewhere deep down she actually cared for her people, and that was what motivated her to think of manipulating them this way.
She probably doesn’t, my wolf growled. But help them anyway. For Roman.
I definitely didn’t want my mate out there somewhere fighting to protect me—not that it wouldn’t be hot, but it’d be for the wrong reasons.
“That’s because your story sucks,” I said.
My tone came out sharper than I intended, but another wave of frustrated heat passed over me when I thought of how stupid they all were.
“Come again?” Helen blinked.
“You’re trying to sell a love story to the public with a few staged photos, but you’re not giving it any meat,” I explained.
Oh, I’d kill for a steak.
Helen looked me over, seeming to see me in a new light. The joke was on her, because I knew exactly what I needed and how to get what I wanted, and I didn’t even have to lie to get there.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked.
I refused to look at Roman so that I wouldn’t see the cold indifference on his face. “If you really want it to seem like we’re in love, you need to up the stakes.”
*
I left Helen to explain to the media department the merits of star-crossed lovers with no other choice than to escape in the dead of night since society was threatening to destroy their union and ruin their happily-ever-after with protests and riots, and went to pack my things.
Not that I was an expert on manipulating the masses, but if I were reading what was supposed to be mine and Justus’s romance story, I’d have DNFed the sucker days ago.
“I still don’t see why I have to go out there with her,” Justus whined. “What if I catch something from the mutants?”
My eye started to twitch.
We can eat him.
What has gotten into you?
I’m so hungry. She growled again. My wolf was worked up and pacing. Maybe leaving was for the best. Was I using this situation to my advantage so I could go check on my family and get a break from the human city?
Mayybbeee.
But in my defense, this whole place was making both me and my wolf a little crazy.
I veered toward the kitchen instead of heading straight to my room, needing to check on Katrina. My stomach was still in knots at the thought of her being hurt because of me.
“Miss Meg.” Katrina moved to stand as I pressed open the kitchen door. “Is there anything you—”
“If you offer to help me again, I might scream.” I smiled so she knew I was only partly teasing. “Please just sit.”
Katrina grinned sheepishly through her bruising lips. “It must be different for you out there in the wild. I don’t imagine you have waitstaff.”
“No, we don’t. Not like it is here. Though I do run my own cleaning business, and I know how rude people can be,” I told her.
Katrina nodded, but I noticed she didn’t speak her agreement out loud.
“I’m leaving,” I said. “For a little while at least. But I want to make sure you’re going to be okay.”
“I’ll be fine.” Her response was instant and automatic.
I stared at her until she relaxed a bit.
“You’ll be back?” There was a hopefulness in the question that had me smiling again.
“My Aunt Coral has quite the personal library, and I noticed there were some popular romance authors who dabble in fantasy missing from the Troy collection. Would you want me to bring some here?” I asked.
Katrina looked around cautiously before whispering, “I’d love that.”
“Are you ready to go?”
Roman’s deep voice seemed to echo in the kitchen, and I felt my heart stutter because of it as my wolf let out a mourning howl.
This was the part that sucked.
At least the worst of the moonsickness would be over by now, though I still felt a bit off, like something different was happening inside of me.
There hadn’t been a formal rejection, but he’d made his stance clear.
My one consolation was that he wouldn’t hurt when I was gone, if he could bear the distance of the mate bond now.
Like I said, this wasn’t a romance novel.
But I couldn’t bring myself to leave without trying to tell him the truth one last time. It was the least I could do before saying goodbye.
“Roman.” I turned to look at him, steadying myself for the indifference that was sure to come. “Justus isn’t my mate.”
He frowned. I realized I was confusing him.
“Wolves mate for life. They don’t do human marriage. And this union might be for the gods, but my heart was never his.” My wolf nudged me to go on and I took a deep breath. “You’re my—”
“There you two are.” Justus slammed open the door to the kitchen. “Well, don’t just stand there. If we’re all doing this, let’s go.”
“We’re all…” I realized what Justus was saying, and my gaze went to Roman’s face.
“Let’s head out.” His jaw ticked. A slight break in his stoic mask. It hurt worse than anything else he’d thrown at me thus far.
My mate was coming with us to my home, it seemed, and he was pissed about it.