Chapter Three

She’d feared the worst.

When she saw the familiar faces in the doorway, her first thought had been of Oscar. Had she angered him with this date? Had it been a betrayal? She couldn’t figure out why Jorge and Red were there. Then, Nikolai had left, and she’d felt bereft. An emptiness echoed inside her, refusing to leave even when she pressed the heel of her hand to her chest.

Turns out someone needed help, a shifter was having a bad night and the Pack was collecting to help them through it. Monica jumped up from her seat and followed her packmates out. The memory of the date sang in the back of her mind, a beacon of light. The night had turned out better than she’d thought. Nikolai was…different.

He was laughter and a vicious playfulness. There was strength in his every movement, in his very being, from his body to his bank account. She had to admit that both were sexy. If the night hadn’t been interrupted, she might have let him invite her inside. Her skin tingled with the thought of his hands on her.

Outside, the night air washed over her and took with it the warm moment they had inside. She let out a sigh and returned to the real world, where she belonged to Oscar—heart and soul.

She approached her car, elbow deep in her purse in search of her keys. They were nowhere to be found. Moments away from shoving her head into the bag to find them, she heard the laughter of one of her packmates. Her head shot up. A fellow shifter pointed at her dashboard.

The black silicone dildo wobbled on her dashboard, standing erect for the world to see. On her window was a note. She stomped forward, heels clicking angrily against the pavement, and snatched it.

I thought you might want this back.

Have fun getting home tonight.

Love,

Nik

She sucked her teeth. It should have been annoying, a boundary overstepped, but Monica laughed. The panther inside her rose and slithered across her skin. It found this kind of funny, too.

“Got room in your truck for me?”

“Only if you’re willing to sit in the truck bed.” Her packmate shook his head, still laughing at the giant dildo suction-cupped to her dashboard. “This is what you get for screwing around with other packs. I swear we’re the only civilized ones around here.”

Monica didn’t say anything. How could she admit that this date was the most fun she’d had in…years? They wouldn’t understand, so there was no point in even trying. She jumped into the back of Jorge’s truck, annoyed that her faux-leather pants might end up with oil stains by the end of the night.

The trek to Pilar’s house was quick, the pedal to the metal for a fellow shifter. Nearly half the Pack congregated in Pilar’s living room. Monica could see the trouble in Pilar’s eyes, the urge to do bad things. The Pack had answered her call, staging an all-nighter.

Oscar was nowhere to be found, perhaps still holed up in the house that needed repairs because of Lia’s rage. The selkie had destroyed all of his living room windows, after all. Monica tried not to feel the disappointment, choosing instead to retreat. Unable to stand the voices and the expectation to participate in the sleep-over conversation, she snuck away to shift.

She returned on four black paws. Her mind was filled with a replay of the night. It consumed her more than she would have liked to admit. Quietly, in her own world while her head lay in Pilar’s lap, she planned her revenge on Nikolai.

Of course, it involved the black silicone dildo.

***

The night was as long as the date had been short. Nikolai arrived home to his Pack rioting. For a long moment, he sat in the cabin of his truck and practiced breathing exercises. Nothing worked. Not while he watched fires burning in his yard and shifters tossing each other around like a pack of barbarians.

Why had his father wanted to give them anything? He couldn’t understand it. They seemed to be a bunch of selfish assholes at best. If anything, Nikolai suspected his father wanted more territory so that he could keep the shifters away from one another.

Once he finally accepted there was no way to calm the fury inside him, he jumped out of his truck. He filled his voice with the power of an Alpha and commanded the fires be put out. Bodies jerked into motion, dumping water or sand onto the bonfires. He hated having to use the power of compulsion, but they needed it.

They asked for it.

Guilt weighed heavy in his throat, a lump he couldn’t swallow. Several shifters approached him, all male and all swaggering. He sighed. They were barbarians, all the way down to their rotten souls. It was no wonder that Nikolai preferred being alone in the middle of nowhere.

“Is this a witch hunt? Is that what the fires were for?” Nikolai raised a brow, trying to be the picture of cool indifference while his bear begged to tear their faces off.

“This is a coup, old man.” One of the shifters stepped forward, swinging his arms as if he could scare Nikolai off with them alone.

“Is that how this is going to be?”

He liked this suit. It was a shame, but he let his bear rip forward. The suit tore and burst, the sound of growls and ripping fabric filling his ears. He struck down the first shifter with his massive paws. It knocked the man out cold and he dropped to the ground.

The others weren’t that bright. Perhaps that was why they did what they did. Nikolai fought his way through them until his bear was heaving for breath. His paws curled, claws flexing. Blood covered his fur, smeared the faces of his shifters.

None of them were dead, but he hoped they would have the worst fight hangover in the morning. He hoped their heads ached and their limbs trembled when they thought of challenging him again. It was the least they deserved for looking like a bunch of witch-hunters on his front lawn.

“When are you going to do anything more than knock us to the ground?”

Nikolai’s bear looked up. A female shifter looked at him with her eyes glowing against the night, moons brought down to earth. Her hands were fisted at her sides, massive like the rest of her. She was strong and capable, one of the shifters Nikolai normally admired.

“When are you going to bring us the glory we deserve?”

His bear sighed, a huff of hot breath. Not her, too.

She shook her head. “We are sick of your weak ways, Nik. You promised us the coast and you failed to deliver. All we got was our asses handed to us. Don’t expect the rest of us to be able to let that go. You lost to a sea-dog and her LA mate.”

Nikolai growled at the mention of his lost battle. He’d fought man to bear and lost. It was no great failure, but a limitation of a human body. The bear would always win. He’d been desperate to hold onto the sealskin, fearing it would fall away when he shifted, and so he’d fought with human hands.

Yes, it had been a mistake, but one he thought for the best. He didn’t deserve the coast if he could barely keep these fools in line.

“Watch yourself, Alpha. You can’t hold on to the title forever.” Her words spoken, she turned away and left him standing there.

The bear wanted to trample her for her threat, but Nikolai held it back. Instead, they settled on a roar. The sound filled the tall redwoods around them. It shook the rafters of his house and rattled the bones of those who remained. He gave a glance around, as if to ask if anyone else had any words they wanted to share.

In the end, he left the downed shifters on the lawn, growling at the rest of his Pack as he stomped past them. The bear lay down on the floor of his living room and watched the Pack through the window. Many of them dispersed, heading back to where they’d come from.

He knew what many of them wanted was a sense of victory. They wanted to feel better than the coastal packs, as if they deserved it. How did he show them what they had was great? Sometimes he wondered if the world had gifted him with idiots and that was how his family had risen to the top. They were only a fraction smarter than the rest, granting them the ability to lead even if it meant leading a Pack of morons.

Inside, he locked the door and shut the curtains. He grabbed a beer from the fridge, popped the cap, and collapsed onto the couch. For a long moment, he lingered in the darkness. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend that nothing was going on beyond his front door. His Pack was being peaceful and taking care of themselves somewhere else.

He let the moment stretch, filled with blissful silence. Eventually, his thoughts strayed to Monica. She’d been a vision in form fitting leather and that flimsy top. The sight of her bare, brown skin had been enough to send his blood south. The force of her gaze had been enough to send him reeling.

With a sigh, he lifted himself from the couch. He threw back the beer and went back for another before staggering to bed. The house was empty, and it would stay that way. Perhaps he would let the bear hunt her, but it was for the best that they give up altogether. He had some messes that needed cleaning, and he wasn’t about to pull her into that.