Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
“No.”
“I think I’ve been very clear with you from the beginning, Kira,” he says. “You are my mate. You are mine. Nobody else has any claim to you whatsoever. I don’t know what your aunt has meant to you in the past, but…”
“She raised me after my mother died giving birth to me. She’s as close as I have to a mother. I owe her my life.”
He frowns slightly. “I think I need to meet this aunt of yours.”
I would do anything to not have these two worlds collide. He will see where I come from, and he will see what trash I am.
Cain
“Kira. Take me to your aunt.”
She presses her lips together, and I can tell she is thinking of telling me no. Her refusal would be a mistake, but I give her the space to make that mistake if she wants to.
“I don’t want to,” she says. “She’s not very nice, and she wouldn’t be very nice to you.”
“I’m not asking.”
Her head goes down. Her shoulders roll forward. She looks so dejected. She is absolutely filthy, and I can tell that all she has endured here is abuse. Part of me wonders why she has come here at all. To flee from a situation where she was going to be one of the richest women in the world to go and suffer in filth makes no obvious sense. There has to be more to this.
“It’s this way,” she says.
We walk out of town, eventually finding a small farm holding with a very rundown house on it, and a pack of semi-feral strays defending the front yard. They rush up, barking their heads off and making a racket that stops immediately when I glance at them. Threatening flashing jaws close, and raucous yapping turns to the occasional whimper as they slink away.
“Wow,” I hear Kira mumble under her breath. If she is impressed with how I handle the dogs, she will be even more impressed with the way I handle the family who chose to let her languish in that filthy jail cell.
An older woman who shares some features with my mate emerges from the house, wiping her hands on a dishcloth that I can smell from here. She looks at Kira and then at me.
“Did you take a plea deal? Turn your own family in?”
Her voice rasps with bitterness. She assumes I am some form of law enforcement. That’s understandable. I am sure that my bearing suggests authority and displeasure.
“No, I didn’t…” Kira starts to stammer excuses.
I step in front of her, both cutting her off and removing the line of sight from the she-wolf in front of us to her. I know who this woman is. The officer at the front desk was more than pleased to enlighten me as to the goings on. Ruby Smith is a con woman and criminal of renown in these parts, known for using her family to do her dirty work so she can pretend her hands are clean.
“I am Cain Lupin. Alpha of the Denholm pack.”
Ruby’s expression shifts unpleasantly. She is not impressed. She is also not afraid. I thought she might grovel when she heard that revelation.
If anything, I see a certain amount of disgust and rage on her face, swiftly hidden behind a saccharine smile. It is an expression clearly foreign to her features.
“What have you been doing, you slut?” Ruby hisses the question at Kira, as if she can speak through me.
She hasn’t told her aunt about me, obviously. She’s kept her mouth shut and kept her secrets to herself. The officer told me how stoic she had been, how she’d refused to tell on anybody, or explain how she’d broken into the house she was found in.
I am not pleased at her actions, but I am very proud of the way she has carried herself. There’s a quiet dignity about Kira, even as she is now.
“I am your niece’s mate, and you will respect the both of us.”
“Colton! We’ve got intruders!”
“Aunt Ruby! No!” Kira steps out in front of me to try to head off the chaos that is unfolding, but of course, there’s nothing she can do. Having set the dogs on us, she now sets her single wolf on us.
A young male bolts out the door, glossy in the hot sun. He’s not dilute, I notice. Nor is there anything remotely domestic about him. He’s full feral wolf, tongue lolling out between sharp teeth, pure murder in his eyes. He’s actually a very impressive specimen. I can imagine this family were quite something in their heyday, before they succumbed to whatever misfortune has brought them into this disrepute.
I get to consider all of this before the wolf gets within shifting distance.
I don’t move. I watch him come. I wonder if he will lose his nerve right before he reaches us. But as he draws closer, it becomes apparent that this is a young whelp who has never known the correction of a real alpha. He doesn’t understand what he is supposed to fear. That could make him exceptionally dangerous.