Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71067 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 355(@200wpm)___ 284(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
“Fescue, find a few friendly faces to meet these whelps. We have some younger females who don’t want to mate in our pack. They may see something in them.”
I want to integrate her people. I want them to feel like they are part of my pack, because that is the outcome I desire. This is a takeover, has always been a takeover, and she has played into my hands.
Better she does not realize that yet. Better she assumes her people are here for her.
Fescue immediately brings some more pack members over. The atmosphere is welcoming. Everybody here is essentially on vacation, and the mood relaxed. With the natural temperaments of the wolves she brought with her, I think things will work well.
The only real problem is Nicky herself. She is sitting next to me, snuggling, effectively. I don’t want to move and lose the feeling of the trusting heat I’m not sure she’s even aware she’s giving me.
“Where’s the kitchen?” Laura asks.
I gesture in its direction, and she heads off in that direction. I think very little of it until a few minutes later when Fescue more or less marches her back. I can hear their conversation at a distance.
“I was going to make some lemon sugar pancakes,” Laura says.
“Young lady, in this pack, we have assigned roles,” Fescue says. I am imagining Laura wanted to cook, and Fescue decided she shouldn’t. I don’t think the chefs would mind all that much, but she has assaulted his sense of order.
“Assigned roles and no lemon pancakes,” Laura says.
Fescue and Laura could not be more different if they tried. He is tall and she is short. He is traditional, and she looks entirely esoteric. One place they do share a similarity is the relatively dour energy they are capable of bringing to the table.
I catch his eye and shake my head at him. He knows what that means. Fescue is an incredible help, but from time to time he does overstep the bounds of his control.
“Very well,” he says, demurring. “Make your pancakes.”
Laura smiles. “You can help,” she says. “Would you like to bring me some lemons?”
And just like that, I watch Fescue, arguably the least flexible person in my entire household, defer to a she-wolf half his size and age. He goes to fetch lemons, which are available in abundance in the food stores.
I catch his eye again on the way out. He meets my gaze briefly, then he keeps walking.
The energies in this place are shifting with the addition of the Runaways. There can be no doubt about it. Not all of the changes will be controllable. In some ways, they will change us the way we hope to change them.
The young men Nicky brought with her are already mingling with the younger she-wolves. They are mutually excited, I believe.
“I know what you’re doing.”
Nicky is looking at me balefully, though some of the edge of her annoyance is taken off by the fact she has her hand in a sling to keep her from banging it on the world at large. Hard to look fearsome when you’re a broken little creature.
“What am I doing, whelp?”
“You’re trying to make everybody get on together so I lose influence over my pack, and then I have to give into you. You’re going to make it so I don’t have anybody just for me anymore.”
“Your friends are enjoying themselves,” I say, not denying the charge. “You could enjoy yourself too, if you liked.”
“Really? What can I do?”
“I can show you the bedroom.”
She gives me a look and then rolls her eyes. “I see how it is.”
“You need rest,” I say. “I’m not going to mate you again right now. Not until we’ve talked about why you don’t want to shift.”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“I understand that,” I reply. “And you do not have to. Not yet.”
“Because you have me where you want me now, and so you don’t care what I do. Because you think you have me under control. But you’re wrong. You don’t have me under control. You don’t have me under anything.”
Her rebellion is so intense. She will not, even for a moment, relax enough to enjoy anything. Even if I were to send her off to play with her little friends, she wouldn’t enjoy it. It’s better she is taken off to nap.
“Do you want to be reckoned with?”
“No,” she mutters.
But the answer is yes. Her pack need to be welcomed. She needs something else from me. Something I shied away from giving her entirely before now. I’ve spanked her ass, I’ve mated her. I’ve given her my seed and there’s no doubt I’ve claimed her.
But she doesn’t feel held. She doesn’t feel seen. She doesn’t feel like she’s mine, and I can see that written all over her face.