Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 293(@300wpm)
What the hell is happening to me? I’m supposed to be the alpha, the one who knows everything. The one everybody comes to for answers. Here I am, on my roof, getting the most basic advice from my cousin.
“You’ve been wound tight since she got here,” Daniel says. “I think you need to relax.”
“Really.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Just chill. What’s the big deal?”
“It’s just the future of the pack and the love of my life.”
“Right. Not worth worrying about it.”
I throw a stuffed toy at him.
CHAPTER 17
Volkov
My tenure as therapist to this pack of French wolves is coming ever closer to a close, but there are some members of the pack who have asked to see me besides the alpha and his mate. My services are actually becoming more popular as time goes on. Almost as if the pack is lacking safe confidantes. Almost as if it is being run by a violent little boy who should know better.
I am getting a view of this pack that few others will ever have. I am coming to know their secrets, the things they keep hidden even from one another. It is a fascinating dynamic, and I know it will only grow deeper and richer over time. The books I will be able to write on this will inform shifter psychotherapy for decades to come. Putting up with the alpha is absolutely worth it.
This is the first session I’ve had with this particular member of the pack. She enters the room with her body contorted like an apology, avoiding eye contact with me in an overt display of respect.
I note instantly that she is afraid. Fear clings to her in an acrid, bitter scent that hits me in waves. The ability to smell feelings is not always a blessing.
“Come and sit down,” I tell her, gesturing to the chair most clients sit in.
She does as she’s told, giving me a little glance as she sits. I check my notes. All I have is a little note request for an appointment, written in a neat and careful hand.
“Jenny?”
“Yes.”
“What brings you to see me?”
“They killed my husband.”
The woman in front of me is delicate and feminine. She speaks in a voice barely audible above a whisper, and yet there is a strength to it. Her hair is a fine kind of blonde, done up in a careful up-do that indicates she is taking care of herself in the midst of her grief. Her clothing is likewise formal, a china blue floral blouse and skirt. There is a quiet elegance to her that is quite at odds with my appearance, but I appreciate it. I’d put her age at around thirty or so, still young, but older than the other two I’ve been handling so far.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say. “Who killed your husband?”
“The alpha, and his mate. She did not touch him, but she put the order on him just as surely as if she’d done it herself. And then he, the alpha, Armand, executed the love of my life as if he were nothing more than a rat.”
She speaks softly, but I can tell there is fear and rage inside her.
“Can you tell me more about the circumstances, or…”
“The girl didn’t like how he spoke at dinner, so she made an example of him on her first night here. Then, to impress her, Armand insisted on murdering him. He was cut down, and that was it. They acted as though they had done me a favor. Nobody has even asked me how I am.”
“How are you?”
She lifts her eyes to me, only to dip them almost immediately.
“I’m sad. I’m angry. I know he wasn’t the best of men, but he was a good man to me. He was my mate. My fated mate. And they took that bond from me, cut it away without any kind of thought for the pain I would endure.”
“That is a hard loss. I am sorry. And no support was offered at all?”
“I have his funds, and the house, of course, but I won’t be able to afford that indefinitely.”
“Have you brought that up with Armand?”
“And have him whip my head off too?”
“You think he would kill you?”
“I don’t know. The rules have changed around here since the girl arrived.”
I note that she does not refer to Beatrix as the alpha’s mate, or by her name, or any other title that might show respect. Indeed, her upper lip curls every time she refers to the girl.
“What would you most like to talk about today?”
“I want revenge,” she says. “I want to avenge my husband’s death, and I want the girl to know what it feels like to lose the only man she’s capable of truly loving.”
“You want revenge? You want to kill the alpha?”
“Yes,” she says. “I suppose I do.”