Boundary

by Ebony Olson

  "The stag is the least of the problem, Dale." Cupping the wine glass in my hands, I stared into the red depths of it. "That's the second time one of your wolves attacked me. And who the hell keeps wolves as pets?"

  Considering the wine glass, Dale cleared his throat. "To be fair, the first time you were trespassing. Last night you were responsible for his packmate getting injured."

  "What's Howard's issue with me?"

  Tensing, Dale blinked. "Why do you…?"

  "He was mean to me this morning and looked at me like I was nothing. At least when Malcolm looked at me like that, I knew it was because I couldn't get pregnant. By failing to conceive, I made Malcolm look weak. But Howard, he doesn't know me, so he has no right to look at me like that."

  Dale's anger washed over me, stealing my breath from my lungs. Getting up, Dale walked away, putting space between us. "I didn't know he abused you. It won't happen again."

  Taking a mouthful of the wine, I stood. "I know it won't. The cottage is yours. I just need enough time to find somewhere else."

  "I don't want it anymore. I want you here. You'll be safe here."

  "I'm not safe here, that's the problem. I'll sell it to you for what I paid."

  Shaking his head, Dale slid his hands into his trouser pockets. "No. I'm not buying it off you."

  "Fine, I'll list it on the open market tomorrow. I was giving you first option." Collecting my stuff, I stormed inside. The door opened behind me. Spinning around, my heart hammered in my chest when Dale came inside. "What do you think you are doing? Get out!" Moving to the sink, I put my dish and glass down, placing the bench between us.

  "I won't let you sell it. You can't have saved enough money to buy another place, so you'll be stuck here."

  Aghast, I turned to face him fully. "Why? You wanted this place enough three months ago that you had your lawyer come to my hospital bed to bully me into getting it back. What has changed so drastically in the past three months?"

  "I met you!" Taking a deep breath, Dale calmed and met my eyes. "When I'm with you, something that I've never felt with any other fills me up inside. Like an emptiness, I didn't even know was there until we met. We need to explore that. I want to get to know you. And by the goddess, I want to bury myself so deep inside of you, no other man will ever reach that place within you again."

  "Sex?" I glared at him. "You won't let me sell because you want to have fuck me? Fine, let's have sex. You can screw me all night long, get it out of your system, and then buy the cottage tomorrow."

  Exhaling, Dale shook his head and shoved his hands in his suit pockets. "No." He lifted his eyes to mine. "You're not selling. You are safe here, and you'll stay here."

  My anger burst open. "You're not my alpha! I'm not part of your pack-house, and you can't tell me what to do!"

  Dale ground his teeth. "You are a female of our kind. Do you know how rare it is to get full-blooded females? There are two, in this entire country that anyone knows about, and I only know about you because I've met you. Your father hid you instead of celebrating you, and you suffered because of it.

  "You missed the introduction. At age sixteen, your alpha should have arranged for you to visit other packs. Introduced to every single one of us until you met your mate." The wave of Dale's anger reducing the oxygen levels made me retreat. "That's protocol. Even with your father ousted, had we known about you, we would have forced Malcolm to protocol. We would have protected you, just on the off chance one of us was your mate."

  Meeting my eyes, Dale tensed his jaw, a small cracking sound, and then he shook his head and took a deep breath. The indigo blue of his irises forced out as the chocolate brown striations engorged. As the brown took over, gold bloomed around his pupils and spread. Recognizing those eyes, I didn't understand how it was possible for them to be in a human face.

  "I am filthy at your father because I've lost twelve years with you. I can't follow tradition with you because you don't even know what it is. I'm mad as hell at Malcolm because I have to walk on eggshells just to be near you. You won't acknowledge me, and you won't listen to your instincts about me because of what he did to you."

  Staring, I couldn't even comprehend what he was on about anymore. My mind kept seeing a big black wolf with the same eyes as the ones Dale had right now.

  "So no, you can't sell. No, I won't let you just disappear from my life now that I've found you, and no, I won't fuck you to get you out of my system. That will never happen." Storming out the door, he backtracked and turned around to growl at me through the screen door. "If you list this house for sale, I will make it impossible for you to sell. I will tie you up in so much red tape that the lawyer's fees alone will drain whatever resources you have left." Swinging around, Dale marched down the steps.

  Left standing in my kitchen gobsmacked, it took me over two minutes after he went to react.

  "How can you be him?"

  Chapter 8

  Still in my pajamas, I barely had my eyes open when the knocking at the front door started. Grumbling, I made my way to the door and opened it enough to see who was out there. The sight of Dale's lawyer son on my doorstep almost made me hiss. Dressed in his Armani suit, Cameron Hearn looked way too spritely for six on a Monday morning.

  "Ms. Cana, good morning. I hope I didn't wake you?"

  "Would you care?"

  "I'm due in the office by nine, so I thought it best to get this out of the way early." Cameron Hearn handed me an envelope.

  "Should I even ask?"

  "We are filing an injunction preventing the sale of this property. As you'll remember from the conveyance report on your sale, you have no direct road access."

  "What? I do so have road access."

  "Actually, your driveway starts twenty meters up Mr. Hearn's driveway. That means every time you leave or enter your property, you are trespassing." Cameron handed me another piece of paper. "Formal notice that access via Mr. Hearn's driveway will cease until you can settle the matter." Cameron turned to walk to his car.

  "Wait? Your father is trapping me here? How am I meant to go to my doctor appointments? Go food shopping? Anything?"

  "Jeremy will continue to shop for you, as usual. The rest, I'm afraid, is your problem. You should have looked at your conveyance report better when you purchased, Ms. Cana."

  Climbing into his expensive car, Cameron Hearn drove away. Angry as hell and in need of coffee, I made my way back to the kitchen. Setting the coffee machine on, I opened the documents and read the injunction. "Son of a bitch."

  To fix the issue, I had to extend my driveway out to the road and have my own access. Since Dale owned the property surrounding mine, I had to buy the land from him to get to the street. To do that he was asking an exorbitant amount; almost what I paid for the cottage. Then I would need to pay for the fencing of his land and construction of a driveway to the road.

  Considering I didn't have enough in my 'fuck off fund' to buy the land, building a driveway wasn't an option either. Being self-employed, a loan wasn't an option. Especially if they did a half-decent records check and realized Vera Cana was an alias. Frustrated, I picked up my coffee mug and threw it as hard as I could. The smash that followed cooled my temper for a second. When my eyes found the broken kitchen window, I swore like a drunken sailor.

  Without driveway access, I couldn't even get a glazier to come and fix the window. Picking up a few more items, I threw them at the window, smashing the remaining shards still in the frame. The damage was done, I may as well work my anger out and make it easier to clean.

  Three hours later, I'd knocked the remaining shards free from the frame and swept up the glass. The missing glass exposed the house to the elements, so I was grateful it was summer. At least it kept me busy until I could call my lawyer.

  "I'm sorry, Vera, you don't have a legal footing here. They've allowed for you to still receive groceries and such. This is very well written."

  "Can I at least leave? They can't trap me here, right?"

&n
bsp; "If you cross his land without permission, he could have you arrested. For any other client, I would call the police and have them escort you from the premises. But, in your situation, you don't want the police involved and take the chance of them running your name. My suggestion? I would ring your neighbor and negotiate your way out of this dispute. He must want something to go to this effort. Maybe he doesn't want to pay full-price for the house. You may need to sell it to him at a loss."

  Goddess, if that were even the reason. Hanging up even more annoyed, I hung my head but refused to cry. Leaving everything there, I changed into my workout gear and ran to the top of the driveway. Scouting my chances of making it to the road before Dale could catch me. It wasn't like the driveway was near his house. Unfortunately, I discovered a large padlock on the closed gate. Considering I'd never seen the gate closed, I wondered if they'd had to oil the hinges to swing it. Still, I could take a bag and jump the fence to make the road.

  As I neared the gate, an animal prowled into view. It growled at me the moment it saw me. Studying the animal, I recognized straight away it wasn't Alpha and ground my teeth. It was the wolf that tried to take my throat out for interfering in their hunt.

  "Oh, shut up! You know, I haven't finished going through the cottage yet, but if I find a gun, I'm going to come back up here and shoot you. Unlike the rest of your pack, you deserve putting down like any other dog willing to attack a human."

  He started snarling and snapping at me through the gate. Giving it the finger, I ran back down the driveway. In my kitchen, I spied the broken window and groaned. There was now a huge gaping hole in my security. Deciding to be a woman of my word, I started searching the cottage for a gun or any other weapon. The best I found was a baseball bat.

  "Something's better than nothing." Shrugging, I took it into the kitchen with me. For a moment, I considered having some batting practice with the remaining window. The look on Dale's face when he came down to gloat and found the place smashed up was almost worth it. That was after he got over the pile of shattered glass I left at the forest path to the manor.

  After canceling my inspection appointments, I called my lawyer back to ask a few more things. With nothing much else I could do, I opened my laptop and did my work.

  The knock at the front door on Wednesday occurred like clockwork. Cracking it open, I noted Jeremy laden with shopping bags and opened the door wide for him. Without saying anything, I turned and walked back down the hall and took my seat at my laptop.

  "What the hell happened here?!" Jeremy moved from the kitchen bench to inspect the broken window.

  Ignoring him, I kept doing my work.

  "Vera?" When I still refused to answer, Jeremy stormed over to the table and slammed the laptop shut. "Answer me, damn it! What happened to the window?"

  Glaring at him, I stood up and started walking away.

  "Hey, I didn't do this."

  "You didn't stop him either. Trapping me here is no better than what Malcolm did to me."

  "That's bullshit! No one is beating you to a pulp."

  Tears swimming in my eyes, I turned to face him. "Yet! This is how it starts, Jeremy. It's just a matter of time before I'm cowering every time he walks in the room. Do you even know what it's like? To have to be mindful of everything I say and do. How would you feel if while doing calculations in your head, you looked at him the wrong way? What if every perceived slight ended with you spending the night on the floor coughing up blood?"

  "Dale would never hurt you like that."

  "I don't trust you! I don't know any of you. Why would I choose to believe a word out of your mouth?"

  "Get to know us!"

  "Get out of my house, and from now on leave the groceries on the doorstep. None of you are welcome here anymore."

  "Vera..."

  "And tell your alpha, he may win this, but he lost me." Seething, I slammed my bedroom door shut in Jeremy's face. Sitting on my bed, I waited for Jeremy to leave, then I broke down and cried.

  Several hours later, the sound of glass tinkling on metal disturbed my focus on my work. Rising from my table, I looked out the back to see Bob collecting the broken shards of glass into a wheelbarrow. Glancing to the house, he saw me and paused to wave. Turning away without acknowledgment, I went back to my work.

  After finishing the lawn, Bob came to the back door and knocked. "Do you want me to do something about that window?"

  "Can you ask your boss if he'll allow glaziers down to fix it?"

  "I'll call him now." Walking away from the door, Bob took out his phone. It took fifteen minutes for him to come back. "We've called some guys; they'll be here in an hour to fix it."

  Getting to my feet, I went to the kitchen and poured a large glass of water before taking it to the door. Unlocking it, I handed it to Bob. "Thank you."

  Giving me a kind smile, Bob took the glass of water. "This shouldn't be happening. He should just tell you what you should have always known and then explain the protocol."

  "You tell me." Crossing my arms, I leaned on the door. Looking like a rabbit in headlights, Bob fumbled for words. "Okay, let me ask a question. You guys are immortal, right?"

  Eyes tight, Bob pressed his lips together before answering. A pulse of his frustration hitting me like a slap. "No, just very long lives."

  Ignoring the sting of his mild temper, I focused on getting some answers. "And you can change into wolves, right?"

  Throat convulsing on his next swallow, Bob nodded.

  Trying not to react, I was hoping I'd imagined things the other night. "So, you're like werewolves?" Goddess, it sounded insane even to my own ears. If I were wrong, maybe Dale would think I was crazy and let me go.

  "Lycans. We are our own species, born this way. Getting bitten by us doesn't turn you into one."

  "But you breed with humans?"

  "Human females, yes. Though, getting women pregnant is difficult." Avoiding looking at me, Bob dropped his head as if he were delivering bad news. "Our women are usually sterile. The closer to full-blooded they are, the harder it is for them to get pregnant and stay pregnant."

  Pain bloomed in my chest from the impact of his words. "This is common knowledge in all the pack-houses?" My voice was weak, choked on my emotional pain.

  Bob's eyes filled with sympathy. "Yes."

  The only reason I didn't collapse in a heap on the deck was that Bob caught my shoulders. "So, every time they beat me telling me I was a failure, they knew that it was never going to happen?"

  Voice tight as if he felt my pain, Bob held me to his chest. "Yes. It was just an excuse."

  For a minute, I sobbed in his arms. Then trying to regain my composure, I squeezed my eyes to hold the tears and moved him away. Giving me space, Bob looked severe; caught between rage and overwhelming sadness.

  "So, Howard is the one at the gate?"

  "Yes."

  "And alpha is Dale?"

  "Yes."

  Cringing on that one, I closed my eyes. I'd opened up to Alpha thinking he was a dog. Voice weak, I struggled to ask the next question. "Who did the stag hurt?"

  Bob exhaled hard. "Jeremy. He and Howard are cousins, it's why Howard went for you."

  Shaking my head, I refused to accept anyone defending Howard's hatred towards me. "No, it was just an excuse. You see, I know Howard's type, I lived in a house full of them."

  "No one will harm you here, Vera. Dale won't allow it, and as his mate, he'd never harm you."

  My eyes swelled with fresh tears. "I don't even know what that means."

  "It means the goddess matched the two of you from your birth. Before your conception, fate designed you for each other. It means he will protect you and love you and never let anyone hurt you like Malcolm did again."

  There was too much passion in his voice. His utter belief that his words were valid broke my heart because I couldn't believe them. Looking up into Bob's eyes, I needed a way to make him doubt as much as I did, or he'd convince me he was right. Then if I dared to h
ope and Bob was wrong, Dale would break my soul. I couldn't go through that again. "Are you neutered like you claimed?"

  Bob's blue eyes lit up. "When it comes to you, yes. For every other woman, no.” Sweeping my hair away from my face, Bob smiled down at me. “I said that, so you'd let me take care of you."

  "I don't believe you." Going on tiptoe, I kissed him.

  Bob froze for a second, then he pulled away. "That's not a good idea, Vera." Bob's eyes wide with surprise. "I'll finish my job."

  Lunging forward, I kissed Bob again. Wrapping his hands around my waist, Bob groaned. Pressing against him, I rubbed my body all over his. Neutered my ass. Pushing me up against the door frame, Bob used his knee to spread my thighs and grind against me. His mouth hungry against mine, Bob growled and gripped me harder.

  Smiling when his mouth nibbled down my throat, I knew I had him. Dale would come tonight, either as himself or Alpha, and he'd be able to smell Bob all over me.

  Shoving away from me, Bob all but ran down the steps before he looked at me again. His face a mask of guilt and regret. "I'm sorry, Vera, you're not for me."

  "Who says? Shouldn't it be my say who I have sex with?"

  Mouth hanging open, Bob looked me over, his pupils dilating. "You want to have sex with me?"

  "Did I not make that obvious?"

  Jaw working as if he chewed gum, Bob's brows lifted. "But Dale is your mate, and he's the Alpha. With him interested in you, you shouldn't even notice another man."

  "Maybe we aren't mates then?"

  Bob was five seconds away from climbing back up those steps and screwing me here on the back patio. It was clearer than the sky on a cloudless day. When a mobile phone started ringing, we both kind of jumped. Tensing, Bob took his phone out of his pocket, staring at it as if Dale could reach through the screen and punch him. When he exhaled in relief and put it to his ear, I frowned.

  "Good, no I'm fine. Can you bring them down? I've got to run into town." Putting more distance between us, Bob hung up and avoided looking at me. "The glaziers are here. Jeremy will bring them down. I need to go." He walked away before I could protest.