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)
Those words make the silence a lot heavier.
“You might be right. But I will not give up on her.”
“Then you will not…” he draws in a breath, “do this alone. Our kind is dwindling as it is. Especially when it comes to those with significant percentages of the blood. We cannot afford to fight.”
“I thought you were going to take my mate from my bleeding hands,” I frown. “Explain yourself, Volkov.”
“I thought the threat might absolve you of any guilt associated with giving her into our care. If I threatened you, then you could tell yourself you did what you did for your pack.”
“Enough games. Enough brinksmanship. What do you want, Volkov?”
“I have called my pack here, but they are not an invasion force. Not if you do not want them to be.”
“They’ve killed two people in the village.”
“Four, actually. The two in the village, and the two detectives. I am sorry for both those incidents. They were the products of misunderstandings.”
I stare at him, remembering how Beatrix told me she didn’t kill the detectives. She only said it once, and I did not believe her. She has not tried to defend herself since. She just took the burden of the blame. I need to talk to her.
“The wolves nearby, the ones I have called to us? They are her kin. Distantly related, because the massacres killed all her direct relatives, but they will give her context.”
“So we’ve gone from you stealing my mate to infiltrating my pack with yours.” I lean back again. I don’t think this is what it first seemed to be at all. I don’t think this is an aggressive move. I think this is a cry for help. He does have Beatrix’s bloodlines. He doesn’t know how to just ask for what he needs. He has to fuck around in the edges of things, posturing, threatening, sneaking, anything other than just being clear.
“What is it you need, Volkov? Besides a new tailor?”
I shouldn’t have added the snark.
He sighs and he sits down, staring out the window as all pretense of power fades. In this moment, he is another supplicant in front of my desk, another dependent who needs something.
“Volkov, you’ve helped us. I think. We’ve talked enough shit. If there’s something I can do for you, then tell me. If it’s something that can avoid bloodshed, even better.”
“I will be honest. My pack only contains nine shifters. Our numbers have dwindled over the years. Beatrix is the first of our kind in a long time to be pregnant. There are only three females left, and all of them are in their forties and fifties. None of them bred. There are three younger males, their sons, but no daughters. We are facing extinction if we cannot find mates, and we cannot find mates in the Siberian tundra. The Russian packs will not blend their blood with ours. So, we have come here.”
The problem he is facing is a problem many shifters have faced. It was the very problem I suffered. Being unable to find a suitable mate, being unable to locate anybody who makes the mate bond sing. The news that he’s brought three young Siberian shifters with Beatrix’s bloodline is enough to make any alpha pale with concern, but I have enough dungeon space for them all if necessary.
I decide to welcome them. I wanted them in my control regardless, having them as guests suits me, saves on the shackles and the fighting.
“Why don’t the nine of you invade the east wing,” I suggest. “On the following stipulations: No killing on site. No killing off site. And no encouraging my mate to kill.”
“We are better behaved than your mate.”
“A body count of four suggests that’s not entirely true. If you are not, there will be consequences. Now, please, Volkov, go and get your pack before it tears up my favorite town.”
“Thank you, Maître,” he says, rising to his feet and leaving the room.
I know what it cost him to call me maître. I know what it means. And I cannot say that there is not a significant sense of satisfaction in it. All that posturing, all those threats, and in the end he submitted because he has to acknowledge that, murder brat or not, I have my pack in check and my world is in order.
This is the most therapeutic thing he could have possibly done for me.
“Some people really don’t know how to ask for a favor,” Daniel says, slinging himself into the chair Volkov just vacated.
“Did he call this an invasion, or did you?”
“I might have taken poetic license,” Daniel grins. “But he did want to take Beatrix. I heard it all when I was waiting for my session. He was on the phone. I speak Russian of course, so I understood it all. He’s been planning this for a while, I think. Sounded desperate.”