by Celia Kyle
The ceremony was blissfully short, yet full of love and pure joy. Her vow would require her to put the welfare of the pack before all else, including her own life, to which she agreed readily. Two pack members had already risked their lives for her before she’d even become a wolf, and she knew the rest of them would too. It only seemed right for them to hear from her own lips that she would do the same.
At the end of the ceremony, while everyone cheered and howled their approval, Persia flew down the steps and into her mate’s arms. They held on tightly, breathing each other in and savoring the moment as they tuned out the well-wishers. Finally, Warren pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“I hope this doesn’t sound condescending,” he murmured into her hair, “but I’m so proud of you. So proud you’re mine.”
She pulled back so she could grin up to him, ignoring the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Me too… my love.”
He threw his head back and choked out a laugh thick with emotion. Then he brought his lips to hers and all she wanted was to be alone with him. Maybe no one would notice if they disappeared in the chaos. Just for a little while. An hour, two tops.
As she reached for Warren’s hand to drag him through the crowd, her phone buzzed silently in her pocket. Nah, sex with her hot mate took precedence over a text. Then it buzzed again.
Odd.
“Sorry, one sec,” she pulled her phone from the back pocket of her jeans.
The smile that had seemed permanently affixed to her face slid away as she read a series of emails from her connection at the courthouse. Anger replaced her joy and then fury took over. Of course this would happen today, of all days, she thought bitterly.
“Shit,” she spat, tears of rage burning her eyes and her stomach threatening to unload all over the party.
“What’s wrong?”
“The judge who was supposed to take several weeks to research our request for a permanent injunction against my dad just denied it out of hand.”
Warren’s face paled and his jaw literally dropped open. “Are you kidding me? What’s that mean?”
Persia met his gaze, not even trying to sugarcoat the situation. “It means my father is free to start tearing down trees first thing tomorrow morning.”
Warren scrubbed a hand over his jaw and through his hair as he glanced around the happy gathering. “I don’t get it. I thought your case was iron clad. What happened?”
“You know, I thought the judge’s name rang a bell when I heard the case had been assigned to him, but I didn’t make the connection till now.” Acid roiled low in her throat over her naïveté. “He’s one of my dad’s old golfing buddies.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Amber liquid swirled at the bottom of Dick McNish’s glass as he stared into the depths of his fourth Scotch of the night. Throwing back the last of it in one smooth motion, he rested the crystal glass on his polished mahogany desk and trained his hazy gaze across his large study to where the bottle sat. Maybe four was enough.
His first drink of the night had been to celebrate his victory over Persia’s attempt to block progress. He’d even smiled as the smooth, smoky liquor slid down his throat and warmed his body from the inside out. The second drink had been to reinforce his belief he was actually celebrating. The third drink had turned his thoughts inward, never a good thing. And as the remnants of the fourth drink still tingled on his tongue, Dick couldn’t help feeling as if he was subconsciously drowning his sorrows.
Ridiculous! He had nothing to be sad about. He’d won!
But at what cost?
He hated that little voice in his head. He’d spent most of his adult life ignoring it, to his great gain, and he had no intention of listening to it now. Not when he’d just managed to get everything he wanted.
Dick let his gaze slide around the room to remind himself of how far he’d come. The genuine Tiffany lamp sitting on his massive desk cast just enough light to create creeping shadows all around. He’d paid far too much for the damn thing at auction, just to piss off a competitor. Its delicate glasswork and feminine colors seemed out of place in his masculine, wood-paneled office, but he refused to sell it. It said something about him, something he’d longed for all of his life. It told anyone who laid eyes on it he was important.
Aside from the lamp, the room was exactly what he’d imagined for himself as a young man who’d put himself through business school. Heavy antique furniture lent a gravitas to the room, bolstered by a Persian rug worth a small fortune, a burgundy leather loveseat poised in front of a darkened fireplace, built-ins full of old books, and a mini-bar stocked with even older Scotch.
Even the house was old. Naturally, after closing on it, his wife Patricia had immediately called in an army of contractors and interior designers to update the place, but they couldn’t erase all evidence of its age—as Patricia had managed to do with her face. Just like his aging bones, the house still creaked and groaned at odd moments. Patricia loved to gripe about it, but Dick had long ago learned how to tune out her and the creaks.
As he stood from his leather Eames chair, one such groan came from the depths of the house. A smile tickled the corner of his mouth, wishing Patricia wasn’t lounging on some beach in St. Barts just so she’d be irritated that money hadn’t solved that particular problem.
Empty highball glass in hand, Dick wandered over to the window overlooking his perfectly manicured and beautifully landscaped lawn. Another Patricia project, one he’d grown rather fond of over the years. The blackness outside only allowed him to see his own reflection, though, and that was something he couldn’t stomach. Not tonight.
Turning away, a framed photograph perched on a bookshelf caught his eye. The Dick McNish in the photo looked far more familiar to him, though very little of the man he used to be still remained. A young and beautiful Patricia appeared annoyed as a small bundle of energy with a shock of vibrant red curls reached for someone just out of frame. Dick remembered that day, and he also remembered immediately firing the nanny Persia had been crying for.
He set down the frame and moved to the center of the room, bewildered over how his dream study had turned into a tomb that trapped him with his own demons. Only in the dim light of his private sanctuary could he admit he’d been a shitty father. Of course, he’d been a shitty husband too, but he and Patricia had known what they were getting into when they’d wed. It had been a business arrangement, but that had been their choice. Persia never had a choice. She’d been dealt a shitty hand, and a soul as sweet as hers deserved better.
Somehow, she’d wandered through the darkness of her childhood and into the light. She’d found a path that fulfilled her, and Dick couldn’t help admiring her dedication. Her bull-dog tenacity came from him, that much he could claim, but where the hell did her rock-solid ethics come from? Certainly not from her morality challenged parents. Maybe Disney movies, or the many nannies who’d basically raised her.
Whatever the reason, he was proud of her. She rarely won against him, but he considered their little skirmishes to be a chess match. One day the student would become the master. She almost had, with that ridiculous beetle ploy. A pang of guilt wriggled deep in his gut, but he sniffed it away. He’d been holding onto a big, fat favor from an old friend for nearly two decades, just waiting for the right moment to call it in. He’d cornered her king and called checkmate.
Persia needed to toughen up and play dirty, at least a little. If she had, she might just have won. But she hadn’t seen the playing board for the pieces. Just as with chess, Persia needed to learn the unspoken rules of the game before she could ever truly succeed. Those rules had been invented to separate the sheep from the wolves.
He snorted softly at the irony and looked forlornly into his empty glass. Fixing his relationship with his daughter might be a fantasy, but filling an empty glass was easy. Shuffling over to the bar, he filled the glass. Hey, it was a celebration, right?
The long sip of warm Scotch should have chased away the co
ld, which had settled on his heart. It should have made him feel better, more relaxed, but he was more tense than ever. Maybe once he got to the bottom of the glass again…or he’d simply pass out.
Either or.
If it was to be the latter, his Eames would be far more comfortable than collapsing to the hardwood floor. When he turned to retreat to the plush chair, he froze. Adrenaline spurted into his blood stream before his brain could even make sense of what his wide eyes were staring at.
Seven huge wolves stood around the room, their eyes gleaming with bloodlust and their fangs bared. Uncontrollable tremors wracked his body and the full-to-the-brim glass slipped from his fingers at the same moment his bladder let loose. His sluggish brain was briefly grateful that the scent of the Scotch would overpower the smell of the urine spreading across the front of his bespoke slacks. Then he realized he would probably be dead in a matter of seconds, so it didn’t matter.
He shot a glance over to his desk, where his gun lay in the top drawer, but a big, light brown wolf he recognized stood between him and the desk. The hackles running along the spine of the wolf stood on end, and his snarl turned into a guttural growl. It looked as if the son of the mutant he’d killed months ago would finally get his revenge.
And all he could do was stand there and piss himself.
Another wolf, this one shorter and stockier than the others, and with ginger-colored fur, stepped toward Dick, sending him into a full-blown panic. His knees buckled out from under him, sending him sprawling to the floor.
“P-please!” he screamed, waving his hands over his head in surrender.
Scrambling backward, he curled himself into a tight ball in the corner before daring to peek up at the ginger wolf. It had something in its mouth, but his fear and the darkness made it impossible to identify. Besides, unless it was some kind of firearm, nothing could help him now.
“Please, don’t kill me,” he babbled, tears and snot and spit spraying everywhere. “I’ll do anything! Just don’t kill me!”
Deep down, he was surprised by how quickly he’d conceded, but money and power meant nothing when you were staring Death in the face. Or in his case, seven versions of Death.
When the ginger wolf took another menacing step forward, he ducked his head between his arms and started sobbing. Any second now, sharp teeth would pierce his flesh and tear him apart. Probably slowly. And for the first time in his life, he admitted to himself he deserved it.
Hot breath feathered against the bare skin of his arms, but instead of pain, he felt something light fall onto his balled-up body and slide to the floor. He waited. And waited. Nothing more happened, not even any sounds. Daring to take a peek, he found the ginger wolf looming over him, its face in shadow, but there was enough light to see its lip pulled back far enough that drool dripped out and onto…
Was that a file folder?
Clearly the beast wanted him to look at it, so he very slowly reached for it and opened it. For a few seconds, his eyes couldn’t focus on the document inside because they continually flicked back up to make sure the wolves weren’t advancing on him. Then a specific word caught his attention, then another. Soon the words turned into sentences and paragraphs that made sense, yet…didn’t.
He scanned the pages as he flipped through them and then glanced up at the ginger wolf before going back to the beginning and reading the legal document more thoroughly. The attorney of record was listed as Persia Edgecomb. By the time he finished, the ginger wolf had taken two steps back. The light reflecting off the bar’s mirror shone on the animal’s face, and with a start, Dick realized it had one brown eye and one blue. Just like…
“Princess? Is that you?”
Another huge wolf—not the biggest in the room, but still bigger than the average dog—advanced and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the ginger wolf. Dick recognized it as the same one who’d jumped in to protect Persia, the same one he’d tried to shoot. It had to be the freak she’d talked about loving. Anger overpowered Dick’s fear.
“You motherf—”
Before he could finish, or so much as move, the wolf version of Persia lunged forward. Snap! Dick recoiled in terror as her jaws snapped so close to his face he felt her whiskers. Cringing back, he tried to focus on her.
“What do you want from me?”
The wolf near the desk, the one who obviously wanted to kill him, stood on his hind legs and grabbed Dick’s fountain pen between his teeth. Slowly, as if to torture him, the animal stalked toward him and then dropped the pen in Dick’s wet lap. He picked it up and looked at it as if he’d never seen a pen before. Then he looked at the folder. Then at Persia-wolf.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Persia. You want me to sign a purchase agreement for that goddamn chicken ranch?”
Maybe it was the realization that his soft-hearted daughter was leading this little foray, or maybe it was the influence of the first gulp of his fifth Scotch, but Dick finally found his balls.
“No fucking way,” he started, sitting up a little straighter and covering the mess in his pants with the folder. “I already told you, I’m not—”
The other five wolves advanced as one, joining Persia-wolf and her…whatever he was called. They snarled in unison, sending fear as hot as molten silver into Dick’s veins. Then they took a step toward him as one symbiotic unit.
“Stop!” he screeched, not recognizing his own high-pitched voice.
They all paused mid-step, each wolf’s right paw held inches over the floor, as if they’d practiced the move. Dick froze too, unsure if he was pissed or proud. Both? Didn’t matter. He was a dead man if he didn’t agree to move his development to the abandoned chicken ranch on the other side of Tremble, that much was clear by the hate burning in six sets of lupine eyes. The seventh…well, she’d always had a loving heart he’d both cursed and admired.
Unscrewing the cap on his Montblanc fountain pen, Dick scribbled his name or initials on all the pages Persia had marked with stickies and then tossed the folder at her feet. Er… paws.
“There! Happy now?”
Persia-wolf’s bi-colored eyes narrowed to slits as she closed the gap between them. Dick ducked and covered his head, waiting for his inevitable death. He prayed to a god he’d never believed in for it to be quick. He’d already experienced a taste of what a wolf could do when the one next to Persia had bit him in the woods, so he knew it wouldn’t be painless. After all he’d done, he had little doubt she would rip out his jugular and let the rest feast on his carcass.
Clamping his eyes shut, Dick waited for his just desserts. Whatever dignity he’d had in the seconds before the wolves surrounded him had soaked the front of his pants. He was ready for the end.
But instead of tearing flesh and spurting blood, one very big, very warm, very wet tongue traveled the length of his face, from the base of his jaw, all the way up his stubbly cheek, to the top of his head. Slimy wetness dripped down his face as he opened one eye to find Persia-wolf panting happily in front of him.
Gingerly picking up the file folder with her teeth, she wagged a fluffy, ginger tail as her gaze softened. One by one, five of the wolves sauntered out of Dick’s study, leaving only Persia-wolf and the sandy one whose name she’d taken. He stood in the doorway, keen eyes watching Dick as Persia-wolf stood before him, her intelligent gaze searching his face. Sadness flickered there when she couldn’t find what she wanted. Then she turned to follow the rest.
Dick watched her, still in shock that his own daughter had become one of them. They were freaks, aberrations, monsters! Yet, the way she’d talked about the guy she’d fallen for… He’d never felt such affection for anyone in his entire life, with the possible exception of Persia. He envied it. He envied her.
Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe there was hope for them. Maybe there was hope for him.
“Wait,” he whispered so quietly he barely heard himself, but Persia-wolf’s ears twitched and she stopped.
Looking over her furry shoulder, she
watched and waited.
Swallowing the lump stuck in his throat, Dick mustered his courage. “I’m glad you’re happy, princess. I…” If ever there was a time to let his emotions show, this was it. Not bothering to choke back his tears, he continued. “I really do love you.”
Persia-wolf whined softly and then followed her pack into the night.
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Did you miss a book in the Real Men Shift series?
Book #1 - Real Men Howl at Amazon
Book #2 - Real Men Snarl at Amazon
Book #3 - Real Men Growl at Amazon
Book #4 - Real Men Heal at Amazon
Book #5 - Real Men Bite at Amazon
Book #6 - Real Men Claim at Amazon
Want more from the bodacious duo of Celia & Marina? Check out Having Her Enemy’s Secret Shifter Baby…
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“Shots, Jane. Shots!” Elizabeth slurred and wrapped her thin arm around Jane’s shoulders.
Jane Coleman smiled at her friend and unwound herself from Elizabeth’s grasp. Elizabeth’s breath could knock a fire-breathing dragon out of the night sky. “Don’t you think you’ve had plenty? Come on. I want to dance.”
“It’s not me I’m worried about,” Elizabeth complained, slouching to one side as she spoke, almost like a marionette without a puppeteer. “You’ve barely had anything to drink all night.”
That, strictly speaking, was true. She’d had two beers on the beach earlier in the day and one Cosmo since they’d arrived at the bar, but she knew better than to get tipsy around her human friends. Tipsy werewolves were dangerous werewolves. Lowered inhibitions tempted her to shift into her wolf form. And as much as she loved the idea of sprinting down the beach, the sea breeze fluttering through her strawberry-blonde fur… the sight of a wolf running around a Ft. Lauderdale beach at the height of spring break might cause a panic. A tiny one.
