Wolf and Punishment (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 1)

by Theodora Taylor

  “Mag, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I need to talk to you…”

  She stopped in the doorway. Mag wasn’t there. He also wasn’t in his bedroom or downstairs, which was more than a little weird because from what she’d thought, he’d put himself under the same restrictions about leaving the house that she had. But she couldn’t find him anywhere. Finally, she sought out Mrs. Coates who was sweeping in the kitchen, thinking the housekeeper might have a clue as to Mag’s whereabouts.

  “Mrs. Coates, do you know where Mag might be? I have something very important to discuss with him, and I can’t find him anywhere, even though his car’s still parked in the garage.”

  Mrs. Coates paused but only for a mini-second, like a digital TV channel skipping for a bit, right before it took its viewers back to their regularly schedule programming.

  “No, I haven’t seen him,” Mrs. Coates said, head down, as she continued to sweep.

  Here was the thing about being someone who almost always wore a façade. It went both ways. Janelle kept her own plaster darn near perfect, which made it easier to tell when people who didn’t work nearly as hard as she did to keep up appearances weren’t telling the truth.

  “Mrs. Coates, with all due respect, I didn’t ask you if you’d seen him, I asked if you knew where he might be,” she said, her voice as careful as a bomb detonator disarming a minefield. “Because right now, I’m guessing he’s on the premises and maybe you’re reluctant to tell me where.”

  Mrs. Coates kept sweeping. “It’s none of my business. I like this job.”

  “It’s okay,” Janelle assured her. “You’re a wonderful housekeeper and I’d never let you lose your job because you helped me find Mag in an emergency.”

  Mrs. Coates stopped sweeping and gave Janelle a piercing look. “I like you. You don’t look right through me or act like you own me like the last family did. I appreciate that. You’re a nice girl. Pretty, too.”

  “Thank you,” Janelle said. Then she waited, sensing Mrs. Coates had more to say.

  Her instincts proved correct. After a few more furtive sweeps of her broom, Mrs. Coates mumbled, “Did you check the guest house?”

  “No,” Janelle answered, thinking of the guest house and its accompanying garage, which sat at the back of the property. The structures locked up by Mag.

  “But why would he be in the guest house? I thought he wanted it permanently locked.”

  Mrs. Coates shifted from one foot to another. “There’s a guest there. A human. I’ve been bringing her food. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The king didn’t say how long she’d be staying, but she’s never been here more than a couple of days before, so…”

  The blood rushed out of Janelle’s face. “You’re telling me she’s been here before? How many times?”

  “A couple days the week after you two came back from getting married. Then a couple of days in October. And a couple of days in November, too.”

  Three times. This unknown woman. This human had come out three times before, stayed in the guest house, and Janelle hadn’t had a clue.

  She schooled her face, gentling her eyes and setting her lips, so she looked nothing short of completely serene. “Thank you, Mrs. Coates,” she said. “I’ll go look for him there.”

  She headed to the guest house, not knowing exactly what she’d find, but knowing for sure that Mrs. Coates was correct about her husband’s whereabouts. He was currently in the guest house with a human woman. And that human woman’s name was Sofia. It wasn’t something Janelle had to be shown to know the inevitable truth.

  She heard their laughter before she saw them. Hers light, his a deep rumble. As it turned out, she didn’t need to go inside the clapboard guest house to catch them together. There he was, clear as day, in the dinette’s window, chatting over what looked like a mug of tea or hot chocolate with an extremely good-looking and petite brunette dressed in jeans and a Suns t-shirt. She looked comfortable sitting across from Mag, like she’d known him a long time. Comfortable, like someone who talked on the phone with him nearly every day and had come out to visit him right under his wife’s nose.

  Janelle had never been so hurt in her entire life. But the pain only lasted for a few excruciating seconds before her furious wolf took over. She wanted to kill this woman. Go in there and rip her throat out for even daring to… What? her human asked her, a despondent knife of depression suddenly cutting through her anger. Daring to steal the guy who only married you because he was stuck in the same room when you went into heat?

  She thought back to her high school health class, to the teacher who had explained to her mostly aghast students how the heat scent would affect them, reducing them to their base animal instincts, causing them to do things they might not otherwise do, which for males might include mating with a she-wolf throwing off heat pheromones in a frenzy. Mag’s wolf had claimed her, not his human. His human had only wanted to punish her before breaking off their pledge agreement.

  So now she felt torn between her unprincesslike desire to beat this human woman down and her equally unprincesslike compulsion to run back to the house, hands over her face, crying like a child. These conflicting desires tugged her so hard in either direction, Janelle was rendered incapable of following through on either. Instead she stood there, rooted to the spot.

  Of course Mag chose that moment to look up. On the other side of the window, his face went from smiling to stricken. Caught. Wolfs mated forever, sure. But that didn’t mean they never strayed. And when they did, Janelle imagined they looked just like Mag, staring at her through that pane of glass.

  Her princess took over then. Don’t cause a scene, especially in front of a human. Her upbringing turned her around and started walking her body back to the house, like a marionette. As fast as she could without drawing any more attention than she already had.

  “Janelle?” she heard Mag say behind her, and there came the sound of his shoes crunching over the snow-covered path. “What the hell are you doing here? Janelle, stop walking. I’m talking to you.”

  Honor and obey. Honor and obey. The perfectly pleasant princess must honor and obey. Her mask was cracked, yes, but it wasn’t broken…

  She took a deep breath and turned around. “I just received some disturbing news from Alaska. Apparently Alisha went into heat a few days ago and Rafe mated her.”

  “Wait…” Mag looked back over his shoulder at Sofia, who was now standing at the dinette’s window watching both of them. Her face was expressionless. If she was feeling any kind of way about sleeping with another woman’s husband, you never would have known it. And Janelle once again found herself working hard not to let her wolf take over. She might look like a delicate china doll on the outside, but she was still a were. She had superman strength and she could tear that human woman from limb to limb if she wanted to. She could—

  Mag turned back to Janelle, his brow knitted with anger and confusion. “You came out here to talk about Rafe claiming Alisha?”

  Janelle tore her eyes away from the human woman and forced herself to answer. “Yes, I was very surprised to hear their mating had come to pass, especially considering Alisha’s feelings on the subject.”

  “Yeah, she could have had all the feelings she wanted about that, but Rafe wasn’t going to let any other wolf claim her,” Mag said with a shake of his head, like he totally expected what had come to pass.

  His nonchalant tone made Janelle turn her full focus back to the subject at hand. “So you knew he was still planning to mate her, despite her turning down his pledge offer?”

  Mag shrugged. “I know Rafe. If he wants something, even if it’s a she-wolf with a bad attitude, there’s not much that’s going to stop him from getting it.”

  Janelle actually felt her gag reflex go off then, just thinking of her sister being set up to mate with Rafe against her explicitly stated wishes.

  “She’s not an ‘it,’” she whispered to Mag. “She’s my sister. And now she’s out there, running from Rafe. Probabl
y really scared and no one can find her.”

  But all Mag seemed to hear was, “She ran? Even after Rafe mated her? She ran?” He cursed and took his phone out. “Okay, thanks for telling me. I’m calling Rafe right now.”

  “That’s not why I—”

  But he was already walking back toward the guest house. “Rafe, it’s Mag. No, she’s not here. Janelle just told me what went down. I can’t believe it, man…”

  Janelle watched him go, her heart broken open like an egg. The truth was, she no longer knew whether she should be scared for her sister or jealous that she'd gotten away from the wolf making her life hell.

  23

  EVERYTHING was going straight to hell. First Janelle caught him with Sofia, which was the last thing he needed after the hella-awkward three months of marriage he and Janelle had just enjoyed in no way whatsoever. And now his best friend’s mate had been missing for three days. The first day Rafe had called him every couple of hours or so, wanting to know if Alisha had shown up there. But by the third day, Mag had felt compelled to give it to Rafe straight.

  “Rafe, man, you know I’ve got your back, but truth is, this is probably the last place she’d show up. She knows her sister walks the party line, and she knows I’m going to call you as soon as I set eyes on her. If she’s anywhere near as smart as I think she is, she ain’t coming here, dude.”

  “I know, I know… I just…” Rafe sounded broken, his words so slurred, Mag could almost smell all the Scotch he’d been guzzling since Alisha ran out on him.

  Mag couldn’t fault him for drinking. That protection instinct was a son of a bitch for real. Mag could barely stand to leave the property since mating Janelle. He’d be going out of his mind if she ran away with his cub. He’d fucking lose it.

  “I want to go after her. I keep thinking I should be out there, tracking her myself,” Rafe said over the phone. “But I don’t even know where to look. She’s covered her tracks every step of the way. I have no clue where she is. My wolf is off the chain, man. If I could turn, I’d be running down I-70 right now.”

  “Naw, just keep drinking, man. You notified all the state packs, yeah? Most of us have people looking for her and it ain’t going to go easier if you get missing, too. She’ll turn up. Just do what you got to do to keep that wolf on its chain.”

  His call-waiting beeped, interrupting his inspirational speech. “Shit, it’s my brother,” Mag said after glancing at the caller ID.

  “Take it,” Rafe said.

  “Naw, we’re talking man.”

  “Take it,” Rafe insisted. “I have to go down to the resort bar anyway. Ran out of Scotch.”

  Mag reluctantly switched the call. “Hey, Kang,” he said.

  “You know, I’ve been sitting up in Alaska all this time, nearly a year, wondering when the hell my little brother’s going to invite me down to Wyoming. I mean he’s been the king for a minute longer than the last guy who held the position anyway. And he’s married to the Alaska princess. You’d think the brother who used to fly me out for most of his games would want me down there with him. But instead, he left me to rot in Freedom Town, even after I agreed to bring us under Lupine law, and do you know how hard it is to tell a pack of Freedom fucking wolves they can’t have sex with unheated she-wolves anymore? Or put a silver bullet in any dude who tries to hook up with their mate—even if he succeeds?”

  “I know it’s hard, man,” Mag said, feeling like a little brother again, even though he was now the king of a much bigger pack than Freedom Town now. “That’s one of the reasons why I didn’t want to bother you. I know you had your work cut out for you getting the Freedom Town pack under control.”

  “I should have put that a different way,” Kang said. “Should have said, do you know how hard it would’ve been for any other wolf but me? But I’m Kang, and you know I don’t mind putting a few more lines on my face to get shit done. The pack’s all leashed up. Would’ve given you a progress report if I could ever get you on the phone.”

  “I’m sorry, man. I know I should have been better about calling. But I’m going to send you a plane ticket real soon. I promise.”

  “No need, little bro. Took out some money from the checks you’ve been sending since you went pro, and I bought my own plane ticket to Wyoming. Got sick of waiting on you.”

  This news sent a straight chill down Mag’s spine, but he did his best to keep his voice even when he answered, “All right. Tell me what day you’re getting here. Maybe I can rearrange my schedule.”

  “Fuck that. I’m here now. Just landed. So you need to come to this airport and finally deal with me, bitch.” Then Kang hung up.

  “JANELLE, I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.”

  Janelle looked up from her monitor. She’d just been typing an email with some last minute requests to one of the Alaska party vendors when Mag appeared at her bedroom door.

  She turned in her seat, surprised to see him in her room during daylight hours. He was dressed in a zip-up cardigan and jeans, which would have looked boring on any other man, but in contrast to his face tattoos and heavily muscled body, somehow the ensemble came off as more sexy than practical. Like an Eskimo warrior playing the part of a suburban dad.

  Her wolf flipped inside her stomach at the sight of him. Pathetically begging Janelle to go to Mag, press her body against him, touch her nose to his. Anything to get him to be with her as a male should be with his mate.

  But for all Janelle knew, Sofia was still installed in the guest house. No, she scolded her wolf with a thought. There was no way she would lower herself to begging Mag for any crumb of affection he could spare her, just because her wolf had no human sense of pride.

  “Yes, Mag?” she asked him, trying to keep her voice all business.

  “I…” he rubbed a hand over the back of his head. “Where are you with your Christmas plans? You still planning on going up to Alaska?”

  “I was waiting for you to make the decision either way. You told me to stick close to home until further notice.”

  “Yeah, I did say that. But now I’m saying buy a ticket. You don’t have to spend Christmas here with me. In fact, it’s probably better if you go back to your family til after the holidays, yeah?”

  Was he seriously dismissing her? Sending her back to Alaska so he could spend Christmas with Sofia without his wife interrupting?

  She was dying. And for many moments all she could do was stare at him.

  “Meanwhile, I’m gonna need you to sleep in my room until you leave. My brother’s in town. He sprung it on me, so I have to let him stay here until I can find him an apartment or something, and us in separate rooms—well, he won’t understand.”

  Like he was stabbing her in the heart again and again.

  “I understand,” she choked out, pretending that every word he’d just uttered hadn’t wounded her. His brother was in town. The brother she’d never met. But he was more interested in keeping up appearances than introducing her to his family. “I’ll set up a pallet in your room as soon as I’m done with this email.”

  “You don’t have to sleep on the floor. You can have the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “How chivalrous of you,” she barely managed to whisper. She could actually feel her heart becoming a black lump inside her chest. A lump of coal that had once burned bright, but now sat mottled and used up, all of its fire gone.

  “Okay,” he said with a nod. Then he left, leaving the perfect Stepford princess behind like an expensive toy he’d decided he didn’t’ want after all.

  A few moments later, she heard the door open and close downstairs. Mag going to get his brother. Or maybe he was going to see Sofia again. Who knew?

  The doorbell sounded a couple of minutes after Mag left and Janelle sat there, her fingers poised over her keyboard, her email still unsent as she waited to hear the sound of Mrs. Coates sending the visitor away. “The king isn’t here,” she might say, even if he were still on the premises. Or maybe a more vague but appropriate, “The
king isn’t currently receiving visitors.”

  But instead, Janelle heard a familiar voice say, “Hi, I’m here to see the queen. Could you go get her for me?”

  “Who may I tell her is calling?” Mrs. Coates asked, her voice sounding rather suspicious.

  But the bedraggled she-wolf standing on the other side of the door didn’t have to answer, because Janelle was already running down the stairs, calling. “Alisha! Alisha! Oh my God, you’re here!”

  24

  “YOU ain’t getting none are you?” Kang said halfway through the drive back to the Wyoming kingdom town.

  Mag kept his eyes on the road. “I’m not talking with you about that, man.”

  “You don’t have to talk to me about it. I can’t hardly smell her on you. Either you’re having problems getting it up or she’s freezing you out. Which one is it?”

  Mag gritted his teeth, refusing to let his brother goad him into a conversation he didn’t want to have.

  Kang let a few beats of silence go by before he nodded and said, “Yeah, she’s freezing you out, and she probably wasn’t that good in bed anyway. See that’s why I don’t mess with those rich girls. If I wanted to fuck a starfish, I’d go to the aquarium.”

  “Kang, you’re my brother. But if you say another word about Janelle, I’m going to pull this car over and beat the shit of you.”

  Of course, Kang’s answer to this threat was to burst into laughter. “So she do got your nose open. Nice to hear. Still don’t explain why you ain’t been fucking her, though. Dad didn’t let two days go by without laying his scent back down on Ma.”

  Mag’s hands tightened and untightened around the wheel. “Well, I’m not Dad. And I’m not talking about that with you, man.”

  Kang repositioned himself, turning sideways in the Bugatti’s small passenger seat. He draped his large arm across the back of Mag’s headrest.

  “Then what do you want to talk about? How about why you ain’t sent for me? You ashamed of your brother, now you moved on up? Living in Wyoming with the other richies make you forget where you come from?”