Chapter Five

Work called. The morning’s prank had been a good warm-up, and Monica threw herself into finishing commissions with a smile on her face. Her shirt smelled of Nikolai. It was like citrus and sandalwood, lingering on her clothing like smoke. The memory of his lips so close to hers sent a thrill through her.

Electric pulses shot through her body and landed in her core each time she thought about the close encounter. She bit her lip and let the scene unfold over and over in her mind, sometimes altering it so that their lips actually touched, sometimes letting it go further. It was a forbidden fruit kind of idea, one she knew she shouldn’t let fester the way it did, but it made her happier than she’d been in months.

There was a knock behind her and her paintbrush slipped. She cursed, spinning to glare at whoever stood behind her. She fought the urge to roll her eyes when she saw Jorge and Red standing in the garage entrance. If she’d been able to withstand the paint fumes, she would have closed the rolling door against intrusions like them.

“Where the hell did you disappear to this morning?” Red asked, swaggering into her studio. He let his grubby finger graze along her paintings. They were dry, thankfully, but it still made her stomach burn with indignation.

“I had something I needed to pick up before I started work. It’s none of your business.” Annoyed, she lifted the canvas she was working on and put it just out of arm’s reach to keep Red from touching wet paint.

She’d take the nearest wrench to his head if he touched this commission—and beg for Oscar’s forgiveness later.

“Everyone helped Oscar put in new windows today,” Jorge said, almost conversationally.

Thankfully, she wasn’t that much of an idiot. She heard the unspoken context. Everyone but her, he meant. Her absence was noted, marked as if it were some sort of betrayal. To keep her hands steady, she set about washing her brushes. The scent of the turpentine and cleanser burned her oversensitive nose, but she loved it. It reminded her of who she was.

“We know what you did,” Red announced. His voice was heavy with implied context, sending a chill up her spine.

She spun on him, trying to keep her chin high and face flat. They didn’t know it, but she would be their Alpha’s mate someday. She needed to stand strong if she ever hoped to claim the position.

“You don’t know squat.”

Red laughed. It was a bitter sound, aggressive as it jabbed at her. Her jaw clenched, the grinding sound returning. She glanced between the two shifters, wondering what they planned on doing. Loyalty to the Pack was everyone’s top priority. If they thought she’d betrayed the Pack, no matter how right Monica thought she’d been at the time, they would make her pay.

And brag about it to Oscar. Her stomach clenched. She wouldn’t let them hurt her. What would Oscar think of her if these two idiots bested her? If he thought she’d betrayed him and his Pack had punished her?

“What made you think it was your place? To help the selkie?” Red touched the corner of a painting. It wobbled while he held Monica’s gaze. “She’s a wild nobody, just an animal. Our Alpha would have tamed her, if anything. We all know she needs it.”

Her heart lurched into her throat, the urge to jump forward and grab the precarious painting nearly overwhelming. They were going to destroy her studio and all her work. What could she tell them that they would accept? That she’d done it to keep Lia out of the position that belonged to her? It was obvious that they thought nothing of her. Loyalty was worth more than her personal desires.

She wanted to howl, to lash out and push them away. It was clear she was no longer safe in her own Pack. They’d found her out and her decision, no matter the reasons, would haunt her each time she walked past one of her own packmates.

“Not all women are animals, asshole.” The words tumbled out of her. She wanted to clamp her hand over her mouth in fear, but she couldn’t afford to show weakness. Part of her wished Nikolai would arrive, bent on enacting another prank, so that she wouldn’t be alone.

Yet, she was alone.

“Lia didn’t want any of the packs. She didn’t want any Alpha dick. It’s not up to you to capture someone and tame them when they don’t want you. Get over yourselves.”

“You do realize you’re talking about Oscar, not us. Right?” Jorge added.

Her stomach dropped.

She tried to keep her chin high in defiance, but her confidence was slowly deflating. The words had tumbled out with thought of what they might mean. She wasn’t trying to undermine Oscar. Instead, she wanted him to be the best Alpha he could be for them—as long as it was her by his side. She knew that was selfish. Perhaps it was wrong, but she wouldn’t admit that. Monica would keep working until she claimed the title of his mate.

Then, these shifters would have to bow to her. They wouldn’t barge into her workspace as if they owned it, threaten her as if they were some sort of secret police, and try to convince her of her own betrayal. She loved Oscar, adored him. She would never betray him.

“Get out,” Monica commanded. She pointed a paint smeared finger toward the open garage door.

Both of the men smiled, curling grins that spoke of darker things. Her heart flipped. For a moment, fear crushed her. Then they turned to leave. They’d dredged up everything she’d done wrong in the past weeks and left her to deal with it. Everything was in her hands, all she had to do was make something good of it.

Screw it, she thought. She was done beating around the bush and denying what she wanted. She would go to him, to Oscar, and see if she couldn’t get things started. If she wanted Oscar’s attention, all she had to do was try.

Monica set aside her tools and rescheduled her work. She knew of one person who might listen to her, who might forgive her if she could tell her side of the story. It scared the hell out of her, but at this point, it might be her only choice. Monica could hit two birds with one stone, if she was lucky.

All she had to do was hope that Oscar could see the truth behind her intentions. In a perfect world, he would yank her into his arms and tell her she was right, she’d been the shifter he needed all along. Not Lia and her sealskin.

Just Monica.

Her car smelled faintly of Nikolai, sandalwood clinging to the things he’d touched when he put the dildo on her dashboard. It brought a smile to her lips until she shook her head. She had to remember herself, what she really wanted. An infatuation wasn’t it.

Her time with Nikolai had been fun, but it wasn’t the mate bond she needed. It was a moment of fun and laughter in her life. Even as she repeated these words over and over in her mind, images of Nikolai’s toothy grin made her stomach flutter. It was the panther, feeding her images. She knew it, but she couldn’t stop it.

By the time she arrived at her destination, her mind was a mess of indecision. Her mind knew one thing, but her body rebelled for another. The damn panther wasn’t much help, either. It was wild and convinced of its own desires. Why couldn’t she see what Monica was trying to do for them. She was a majestic and powerful creature, she deserved another powerful creature as a mate.

Yes, a big bear of a man. Sharp-toothed, blonde bear.

Monica groaned.

Oscar’s house was a small ranch. The windows on the front were gleaming with white trim, new from bottom to top. It had to have cost him a pretty penny. Monica had been appalled when she learned of what Lia did. Of course, she heard the other side of the story from Lia and almost wanted to agree with her. Honestly, she was grateful Lia still had her head.

She’d been too valuable to the packs, all of them fighting for the coastal territory that she could grant them, for anyone to hurt her. The fact that no one had sought revenge after the fact was surprising. Perhaps more of them had seen Miles fight than she thought. That, or stories of Lia’s new mate had gotten around, and everyone decided not to screw with him.

Either way, Lia was safe and Monica was wading waist deep into trouble. Everything she’d done to help the selkie was catching up to her. She now had to watch every step she made, including the times she saw Nikolai. Sitting in her car outside her Alpha’s house, Monica realized she couldn’t see Nikolai again.

The daydreams of their truck-shaking sex would never come to fruition. She needed to keep her head straight and remind Oscar that she was loyal. Visiting the Alphas of other packs didn’t quite give off the right vibe.

She was so caught in her own thoughts that when there was a knock on her window, she shrieked and jumped. It was only Oscar, peering into the car with his night-dark eyes. Tattoos ran down his neck, curling smoke and jaw bones. He was frightening to behold, and yet he looked at her with warmth. Her Alpha made a motion of rolling the window down.

Instead, she opened the door. He stepped back, giving her room to get out. Before she spoke, she glanced around to make sure no one else would hear. This was her story and if she was going to pay the price for it, she’d rather it be in private.

Her hands shook as she carefully shut the door behind her. This was her moment. Confess how she stopped him from gaining Lia’s skin and hope he could see the truth behind it, the truth she wasn’t sure she could say.

“To what do I owe this visit? It’s not often that I see you here.” Oscar’s voice was gentle. He might have been the strongest Alpha she knew, but the tenderness she saw in him always cut her to the core.

Thoughts of Nikolai were shoved aside as she turned a small smile upon her Alpha. “I thought I should come and issue my own apology.”

“Is that so?” His hand tightened around a pair of gardening shears she was just now noticing.

Her stomach clenched. This was her future mate, she reminded herself. He would forgive her, and they would all move on from what happened. She had to believe that. It was the only way everything she planned would work.

When their eyes met again, her heart gave a small thump. It was nothing like the racing feeling when she was near Nikolai, but it was gentle and welcome after the morning she’d had.

“Look, I helped Ophelia get her sealskin back from Nikolai. I also… I also tried to get her to go back to the sea before that.” The words tumbled from her shaking core. If Oscar decided that she’d betrayed him… she shuddered to think of what would come from her. All she had was the hope that love would save her. “I did it… I did it for us, for the Pack. The war was tearing everyone apart. It was causing fights everywhere. It had to end.”

“Correction,” Oscar said as he held up the shears like an exclamation point. “The war was causing fights between the other two packs. Our pack was doing fine.”

Monica licked her lips. How long would it have been until their Pack joined the fray? Until everyone had been worn down to nothing but stubs while they fought over sand?

“I’d been willing to sit it out and let the other two packs destroy one another. This space is far too small for so many packs anyway. Patience would have allowed us not only the coast, but the rest of the Monterey area, too, for the Alphas might have killed each other and then I could have claimed their packs.”

His words were raw and brutal. Oscar was a quiet strategist, his plan for the long run always in place. It always seemed at odds with the brash and violent way he kept his Pack under control. Though, Monica thought, she’d never seen him hit anyone. The threat of violence, the stories of what he’d done to the gangs in the area, were enough to keep everyone trembling in fear.

“Truth be told,” Oscar said, looking back at his house, “the selkie might have been more trouble than she was worth anyway. I don’t blame you for helping her, but you should think twice before doing something like that again. Putting your gender before your Pack will lead to the fall of all of us. Do you understand?”

Monica bristled. Fear was pressed aside, and anger reared its ugly head. “So, I should think less of how the packs were treating someone and more about the overall state of my Pack?”

She could barely believe what she’d just said, but it all came out and there was no putting it back in. Oscar’s gaze sharpened, eyes narrowing at her. The smoke tattoos seemed to spin and dance along his neck, as if her world was already burning.

Perhaps that was the best way of explaining what she was doing: burning every bridge around her. This was her Pack, her family. They were the people who stayed up all night to help another through a rough time. Oscar was the man who’d plucked a panther out of the gutter and taught it to be something between animal and human.

He’d been the first one to buy her a can of spray-paint.

She blew a breath out her nose and apologized, lowering her eyes to the ground. She couldn’t see Oscar, couldn’t tell what he was preparing to do. The conviction of her words still stuck in her heart, but fear of losing everything that meant something to her still wrapped her.

***

“Why, might I ask, did you buy four shifter sized boxes of ball-pit balls?” Regina asked from the front door, squeezing past the boxes in question.

Today, she wore a simple, polka-dot sheath dress. It floated around her body, barely skimming her hips and floating over her pointed nipples. There’d been a time when they’d lost themselves in each other’s bodies, but that time was over. They quickly learned there was no space for romantic love between them, and the sex had fallen flat.

He knew that despite being a quiet librarian, Regina still had enough sex appeal to stop traffic. There was a vixen inside her, quite literally.

“Can’t I just hide for a few days? Why does everyone need to be at my house?” Nikolai rushed to hide the beer bottles that had been gathering between ordering the balls and the overnight shipment.

“I thought you wouldn’t mind knowing some of your shifters still like you.” Regina glared at the last box in the hallway before backtracking and slipping through the kitchen and into the living room through another door. She let out a sigh of relief before turning up her nose. “Why does it smell like a brewery exploded in here?”

Her eyes narrowed in on him, slipping to the bottles he’d failed at hiding. “You can be pathetic sometimes.”

He didn’t argue. He felt pathetic, unable to be anything when all he’d ever known was being his father’s son. There was a fork in the road before him, paths that split between becoming the conqueror his father wanted and the kind of man Nikolai himself would be proud of. There was an odd sense of fealty to his father that trapped him.

“Go take a shower,” Regina commanded. Her voice was solid, leaving no room for argument even though she spoke to her own Alpha.

Nikolai sighed and did as she said, if only because he knew he stank. The buzz he’d had while ordering four boxes of colored balls had been gone for a while, but he hadn’t had the will to clean, himself or the house. When he dried off and dressed, he came out to find that Regina had done it all for him.

He owed her a lot more than she got, even if he suspected she’d been the one to let slip that he had Lia’s sealskin. It had been useless anyway. Lia proved that the magic of it only worked when she gave her sealskin willingly. Stealing it in the night while she and her mate were fornicating in the sand wasn’t the same—not in the least.

Not in the least.