“Okay,” I say, nodding. “I get it. You’re worried about your company that I’ve built up into the powerhouse it is-”
“You are spiralling-”
“I did the right thing and you’re talking about the stock,” I say, spiteful and not a little bit astonished.
“I don’t begrudge your motive,” he says. “Only the way you did it. Hot-headed and reckless and stubborn as always.”
“I’ve run this pack and this company and frankly this family since I was practically a teenager,” I say, clenching my fists as I step into his space. “I’ve always done what was best for the pack and for you and mom and my brothers and the clan and goddammit I work so hard I can’t see straight! I can’t… I’m the oldest of my brothers and I don’t have a mate? Why do you think that is? Because all I do all day is for everyone else!”
“That’s your duty!”
“And I’ve never complained!” I shout, and suddenly my glass is hitting the wall and shattering everything exploding out of me. “I didn’t complain ever when I had to go learn how to be an alpha while my brothers got to have fun and I didn’t complain when I had to take over Tremblay Company instead of studying what I felt like studying. I’ve done everything…” I feel a lump in my throat and I choke it down, swallowing painfully but my eyes are welling up. “And now I’m telling you that I’m willing to sacrifice this...this...love of a human… And why? I don’t know! I don’t know why!” I find myself laughing a little hysterically now as my dad only stares at me like I’m crazy. “I don’t understand why I can’t be with her. Because of some rule written so long ago that nobody remembers who even thought of it.” I shake my head and wipe my eyes, rebellious tears having spilled to my mortification.
“I believe this relationship with this Hathaway woman is affecting your decision making as an alpha.” My dad speaks so calmly that it pisses me off further. I want him to be upset like I am. Suddenly resentments that I didn’t know I possessed are all rising to the surface, catalysed by my father’s apparent disappointment in me. “Pull yourself together and start making some real changes. Fix the company and get rid of this Olivia Hathaway or I don’t know, Xander… We may have to think about one of your brother’s taking over. And if one of them doesn’t, I will.”
“You can’t be serious,” I whisper. I feel sick. The thought of being deposed as alpha would be...beyond humiliating. It only happens in pretty extreme circumstances. And that’s not to mention that I truly love being the alpha. I love it more than running the company which I sometimes love and often despise but I’m generally just used to it. It’s just my duty. It’s just my life. It always has been. “You wouldn’t vote me out, you’d have to… That would be a clan decision. Dad, I’d be a laughing stock. It would… You can’t.”
“If you continue to run things like this,” my dad says slowly, “we’re going to start losing allies. You’re making too many mistakes, Xander I have to stop you before you start causing some real harm. Things have been so turbulent lately after Didion and Hardwidge… And now Alice wants all these new rules.”
My mouth twists at that. I didn’t realize my dad had a problem with it. “Dad, she’s doing that to stop another Hardwidge-”
“I know why,” he says. “But it’s making a lot of the old men like me pretty unhappy. Dictating how packs are run. This is a fragile time. And you’re acting like a goddamn wild card.”
“Dad-”
“We’re done,” he snaps. And suddenly I’m a teenager again. I feel like I was just grounded.
Except that I’m not a teenager.
“Hey,” I snap, my alpha hackles rising. I may be upset but I still run this fucking pack. “You’re old and you’re broken down and you’re feckless, dad. Try to take me down and see what happens.”
We exchange a hard look and he sees I’m not kidding.
Nothing else is said and for the second time that day, my dad walks away from me. This time he slams the door on his way out.
It’s when Aaron calls me that I really start to lose my shit.
Dad has talked to him about Olivia and he calls to read me the riot act. How could I be in love with a human after how I acted about him and Michelle? How am I such a hypocrite?
I’m so angry at this point, I can hardly speak and I hang up on my brother mid-sentence. That earns me a text from Mason just a few minutes later. He wants to know what in the name of God is going on. I can only imagine what he’s heard.
Then something happens that hasn’t happened to me since my first year as CEO of Tremblay Company. It used to happen to me all the time. Though I never told a single soul about it.
I have a fucking anxiety attack. As old fashioned as shifters can be about things like mating with humans, they’re even more old fashioned about certain afflictions like anxiety or depression that they believe only affect humans. But I well know that’s not true because...I have anxiety. I suppose I could blame my mother and her humanity despite her shifter gene for it but it hardly matters. Either way, I could never let anyone see what I thought of as weakness. I thought it had gone away though; a symptom of my youth. But now here I am, my heart pounding much to fast and a feeling like I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m going to die. It’s all piled on me suddenly and it’s like a goddamn freight train, this feeling.
It takes me an hour to talk myself down, it using all the old coping mechanisms I used to use. I tell myself this feeling is temporary and try to breathe. I listen to music and drink ice water, holding the cold glass in my hands because it grounds me. I go on a jog around the block a few times, just enough to release some endorphins. When I come back I do feel a little better. When I was younger, I tried to shift my way out of it, sure that the wolf was the answer to any problem. But that never helped. My problem was a human one. But I was too ashamed to tell anybody.
When I feel better, there’s only one place I want to be. It’s a bad idea but I’m out of good ones and I’m not much feeling like the alpha who knows all right now.
It’s pouring rain in Lynwood when I get there. The buzzer at Olivia’s building’s front door has two vertical rows of buttons, one for each residence. The top two buttons stare at me like eyes. I feel as if they’re accusing me of something. I don’t have an umbrella and I’m going to get soaked quick yet I just stand there for a minute. The rain is cold and I didn’t even think to bring a coat. I’m wearing a white t-shirt and exorbitantly expensive trousers as I stand there in the pouring rain. But I can smell her. Even down here I can pick her out among all the humans in the building and I shiver as I feel that connection to her thrumming as if there’s an electric thread between us. I know that the way I’m feeling, after this shitty day, if I public that thought...the idea of being “just friends” is going right out the window.
I’m the alpha, I’m the CEO and I’m the Tremblay who’s supposed to have it all under control and right at this moment...I don’t care about any of it.
I push the button next to the name Hathaway to buzz and a moment later a squelchy voice says, “Hello?”
“Olivia, it’s me,” I say, pressing the button again.
“Oh!” There’s a pause and some white noise and Olivia says, “Xander, what’re you doing here?”
“I’m sorry, it’s late,” I say, my cheeks burning even in frigid downpour. “I just...I… I need to see you? I need…” I swallow. There’s no point in pretending anymore.
Tell her.
Tell her.
“Olivia, I need you.”
There’s a long pause then but I’m not going anywhere. Not now.
“But you…” Olivia sounds as scared as I am. “You said...What do you mean?”
“I mean I need you.”
She knows what I mean. I can feel that she knows somehow, now that I’m not trying to push these feelings away, it’s all coming rushing into me; the absolute assurance that Olivia Hathaway is both a human and my mate.
I don’t hear anything else and I don’t say anythin
g else. I wonder if she’s not going to let me in and step down to the street, staring up at her window where I can see the lights are on. I’m not going to hold up a boombox or anything but I don’t plan on going anywhere for a bit. Because somehow just standing here in the rain, in the dark, on the street in a sketchy area of Lynwood, right here under Olivia’s window is making me feel better than I have all day even given the absolute reality that I could start a war by calling this woman mine. I see her window open on the third floor and Olivia’s little head under that mass of red hair pops out. She looks down at me, astonished. She looks like she wants to say something but she doesn’t. She goes back in and shuts the window and I wait some more. I stand on the sidewalk and let the rain soak me and close my eyes, just breathing.
When I hear the front door open, I don’t even assume it’s her. But I open my eyes and there she is. She’s wearing a tank top and pink pyjama pants and she’s quickly getting soaked.
“What are you doing here?” She says, sounding breathless. She must have just run down the stairs.
“I…” I shake my head. Alpha CEO Xander who’s always in control stutters and feels helpless. “I don’t know what to do. I love you. I’m in love with you.”
“Xander…”
“I know.”
“You can’t. I know you can’t-”
“Your father was a shifter-”
“I’m still human by any measure that matters. You can’t.”
“I know I can’t,” I say, stepping towards her. The streetlights are making her dampening red curls glitter like red gold. I love it when her hair looks like that. I love how the raindrops fall on her lips. I love that she’s wearing a rainbow bracelet and I love that she wears overalls and I love that she makes potions for people in trade for useless things and I love that she works so hard to try to make this world a better place and I love how she smiles and I love her.
“I don’t care,” I say, before cupping her cheeks between my palms and kissing her.
It’s not like in Chile. Although there’s nothing like kissing the woman you love for the first time. This is something else. It’s deeper and slower and even though I seem to be acting recklessly, I’m sure and I kiss her with all my assurance. I kiss her like I never want to stop. I’m cold and soaking wet but Olivia’s mouth is hot as it slides against mine. Her lips part and I stroke her pale cheeks with my thumbs as I lick inside her and she gasps a little and grabs fistfuls of my drenched t-shirt, pulling me closer.
“I don’t know what to do,” I say, resting my forehead against hers. “Everything feels like it’s falling apart but all I know is I love you. You’re my mate. I feel it in my bones. Tell me you don’t feel it too and I’ll go and I’ll never mention this again-”
“I feel it,” she whispers. “Of course, I do.”
I taste her top lip and her bottom lip and I wrap my arms around her as our tongues curl together. I feel her shudder in my arms and I lean back, both of us breathless.
“I’m sorry,” I mumble, rubbing her arms. “You’re cold. You don’t have to-”
“I love you too,” she says. I make a funny little yelp of a noise and I kiss her once more. “Come upstairs,” she says, pulling on my arms. “Come upstairs with me.”
Olivia tugs on my hand and I stumble after her, up the front stoop and inside and up three flights of stairs to her door where I can’t wait to take her in my arms again. We make out sloppily, leaning against her door until we hear someone else’s door open and Olivia gasps a little, breaking away to let us into her place.
Olivia’s place is messy. Well, it’s cluttered anyway with faded old wallpaper and crookedly hung pictures and weird knicknacks taking up space on seemingly every empty surface. But it’s warm and it’s a home. My own place is beautiful and impeccably designed but this place is Olivia all over and I love that about it. Now she tugs me forward, our lips still locked as if we might suffocate should we break apart.
But then she does. We’re standing in her living room, so close to the bedroom. I need to be with her. I need her in my arms. It feels like an absolute physical necessity. I want to feel that connection to her. I want to feel like we’re the same person. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. My wolf is howling within me. I want her to be mine and I want to show her that I’m hers.
“Are you okay, Xander?” She wraps her arms around my neck and gazes at me with worried eyes. I tangle my fingers in her hair; all that gorgeous hair in tight little coils.
“Not really,” I say, and it feels alright admitting it. “But I’m not here for you to make me feel better. I’m here because I know that fighting this is a losing battle. Because I love you. Nothing can stop that. Nothing.”
Olivia holds me tighter and she stands on her tiptoes, her gaze roving over my face as I wrap my arms around her again. “Take me to bed,” she whispers.
I lift her right off her feet and she wraps her legs around me and I haul her into her bedroom. Olivia’s bedroom is even more cluttered than the rest of her place but that’s hardly what I’m thinking about as I all but toss her onto the hastily made bed and climb onto top of her. Her hand seems a little smaller when I see those pale fingers wrap around my biceps. Olivia isn’t small, but I’m about 6’3 and packed with not very small muscles. They’re muscles that Olivia seems to be taking some pleasure in just now as I hover over her. She bites her lip as she looks up at me, squeezing my biceps and then sliding her hands down the planes of my chest to press at my quivering abs through my soaked shirt. My hair is a mess, dark dripping locks flopping over into my eyes and I watch one raindrop fall onto Olivia’s pale throat and slide down to the V of her chest, slipping down into the shadow between her breasts. She wraps her legs around me and the slide of her warms legs against my soaking trousers that cling to my skin is driving me mad. For a while we only kiss and writhe together but I can feel it; the two of us becoming one. This is what having a mate must be. And now I understand what all my brothers have fought for. Just this. All this.
I sit back on my heels and take Olivia’s hands to sit up with me so I can help her take off her damn shirt and she scrambles to peel mine off my body, haphazardly throwing it into a corner where it lands with a wet splat. She unbuckles my belt and unzips my fly but I get impatient to feel her body under mine again and I push her down onto the bed, climbing on top of her. My cock feels painfully hard as Olivia shoves my trousers down and her hot hands slide inside my briefs as I feel her fingers wrap around me. I gasp against her neck, sucking a mark there. I’d love to truly mark her. But now is not the time for that. She gives me a few slow, warm strokes and then helps to shove my pants down off my legs and I kick them off to the floor.
Our lovemaking this time is slow and sweet. For a while we just move together, feeling each other, inspecting every inch of each other’s damp skin. I find scars on her upper arm and by the sadness in her eyes, I know they must be Didion’s doing so I kiss them as she squeezes me tight. She explores every inch of the planes of my chest with her mouth once she’s rolled us over, straddling me, forcing me to wait for her. I tangle my fingers in her hair, luxuriating in that pleasing, silky springiness. When she nibbles on one of my nipples I laugh even as I moan and she smiles up at me through that curtain of hair. Then she’s stroking me while she licks and bites at my chest and all I can do is take her ass in both hands, squeezing the pleasing and creamy flesh I find there.
“Kiss me, sweetheart,” I mutter and Olivia indulges me, moving up so that my cock is pressing against her and it throbs, my desire craving her. Olivia moves, positioning herself, taking control and then all at once I’m inside her as her mouth covers mine again.
Olivia rides me, bracing her hands on my chest and I’m so taken with the beauty of her and helpless with pleasure that I can’t speak. I slide my hand from her belly to her breasts and she captures it, kissing my palm, hugging my arms as she rocks into me, panting as she sucks on my fingers. I buck up into her and our eyes loc
k as our connections makes us one person, one soul joined and then I’m coming, coming, joined in love with my mate...
Chapter Nine: Jack
This is what I get for trying to save our kind.
I pace in my cell. The room is long and it has a few high benches built into the walls. The Mulligan cells were intentionally built to allow shifter prisoners room to shift and pace and climb around to some extent. It is still extremely unpleasant for the average wolf who is used to being able to run in the woods and feel the wind at his back. There are no trees to smell in the cells of Mulligan. There are no creeks to stomp through and no rabbits to hunt. That’s the point though after all. I am supposed to be contained and restricted. I’m supposed to be paying penance for what I have done. I am supposed to be feeling remorse.
Yet, I feel none.
Everything I have done, I have done in the name of preserving not just the way of life of shifters but our existence itself. If I have failed, it was not for lack of trying. But I cannot regret following the code that has been our dictate for so many generations. Loyalty to the pack and to the clan above all. What could be more loyal than attempting, by any means necessary, to find a way to bring more shifters into the world? Our population has been decreasing for generations. If the answer to that problem can be found by using a few humans or humans with the so-called “shifter gene” for my purposes, then so be it. I can’t apologize for wanting so desperately to save my people.
These are thoughts that run through my mind over and over as I pace back and forth in my cell. I spend a lot of time shifted. On some level it’s more infuriating to feel so contained as the wolf, but it can be easier to be comfortable too. Human bodies are so fragile. On either side of me are more cells. Most of them are peopled by prisoners taken during the raid on the Hardwidge encampment. Yet another Tremblay bitch was involved in that boondoggle. How many good wolves will end up locked away in this torturous enclosure, unjustly imprisoned for the crime of wanting only the best for shifter kind, all because one of the Tremblays fell in love? And worse, now there’s word that one of them wants new laws dictating how packs are run. Mason Tremblay’s mate, an “innocent” escapee from Hardwidge, wants to help Xander decide how packs should run themselves. Supposedly, it would be in the name of protecting mates and pups, to prevent another Hardwidge. But the truth is too obvious. Wolves like the Tremblays are more human than shifter. They only want to protect themselves and they would control how every other shifter lives, mandating them to be more like humans. I can only imagine that mating with humans is next, as far as they’ve gone with it. They already mate with those humans with the “shifter gene.” Shifter gene, my ass. Michelle Tremblay is as human as any bitch off the street without that gene. She can’t shift, than she’s not a wolf. That much is obvious.
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