“FUCK!” I kicked the wall on the way into HQ. Possibly broke a couple toes, but that’s an inconsequential detail, it’d heal within a matter of minutes.“Ma’am, are you okay?” Luke asked, hanging behind me, ever the diligent shadow.“I swore to take care of those people, Luke. A long time ago, before many of them were actually born. I protected their parents and some of their grandparents, and I’m going to continue to do so. Right now, I’m just not sure how.”I sighed. “Let’s just debrief, try to work out what we’re dealing with, and go home for the night.”The leaders had already debriefed their individual teams and sent them home for the night. Just Luke, Julienne, and Grayson remained. “Right,” I said, leaning on the table in the middle of the room, my head tilted down. “What do we know?”“We know Edward was with the rogues and likely Maximillian at the beach, and that there are a minimum of 30 wolves, plus Maximillian.”I nodded to Luke. “Julienne, did Charlie find anything?”“The
“What the fuck?”Luke looked sheepish.“You marked me? I’m not your mate! What the fuck were you thinking?”“Effie, I… let me explain.”“This had better be good, Luke.”“I panicked, Effie. I don’t want to lose you.”My head was in my hands. How the fuck did this go so wrong.“You wouldn’t have lost me. But now, you’ve bound me to you without even mentioning it first, so now you’re going to lose me.”“Effie, I…”“Get out of my house, Lucas.”“Effie, please…”“Lucas. Leave.” The power behind those two little words gave him no choice.Once the door shut behind him, I sat on the floor in the hallway and cried. I couldn’t believe he’d marked me. My wolf couldn’t believe he’d done it. She was absolutely furious.Really, my kicking Luke out was probably the least-worst outcome.If my wolf had been left to deal with it, his mark wouldn’t have mattered anymore. He might not be my mate, but he is my oldest friend and confidant. I don’t want to hurt him, of course I don’t.But with this new span
I promised Caroline I’d stop in and see her on the way to work, which usually wouldn’t have been until about 5pm. By the time 4pm rolled around, I just wanted to get this done. I don’t know what I was going to do, but I needed to try to do something.I sat in the car for a while just staring at the steering wheel, my fingertips tracing the matt black Maserati badge. I had absolutely no idea what I was going to say to her.My wolf was surprisingly quiet too. She was usually so opinionated, but now, she had no idea either. We both felt bad that Caroline had ended up in this position, but that doesn’t help either of us at all.I couldn’t keep doing this. We needed to talk to Caroline.She was waiting for us, apparently she’d seen that we were sitting outside trying to work out what to do. “Come in, Effie. Make yourself comfortable. Did you want a coffee?”“Please, Caroline. That’d be lovely, I’ve not exactly had much sleep.”She gave a small smile. “You do look rather tired, Effie. Get
Nathaniel answered almost immediately. “I was waiting for your call, Ophelia.” What?“Why?”“I knew you’d need me. Are you at the club?”“Yes.”“I’ll be there in a couple minutes.”He hung up before I even had a chance to respond. Whatever was going on, everyone else seemed to know more than I did.Before I even had a chance to breathe, there was a knock on my door. “Come in!”“Ma’am, Nathaniel is here, claiming he has a meeting with you?”“He does, Lucas. Send him up.”“Ma’am, I… I wanted to…”“I don’t want to hear it right now, Lucas. Please send Nathaniel up.”He nodded, his expression defeated, turning to head out the door.By the time Nathaniel appeared in front of me, my head was in my hands.“Alpha, good to see you again,” he said, voice strong.“I’m not your alpha, Nathaniel.”“Oh but you are, Ophelia.”“I can’t be? Your father is alpha?”“It’s not that simple anymore. When you protected us all from Maximillian, you weakened my father’s connection to the pack. Who did you inte
“Excuse me?”He nodded. “Someone murdered our luna, my mother.”“Fuck. I’m sorry, Nathaniel.”“Me too. I’m trying to work out who I would stand to gain from this, and I’m not liking the answer so far.”Oh no. I could see where this was going.“I have reason to believe it was my father.”Well that was justification for me to take over right there. No one can murder the luna and expect to get away with it in times of peace. Even in the case of a challenge against the alpha, their mate, whether male or female, can not be touched until the challenge had been settled.“I wouldn’t have hurt her, Nathaniel, I hope you know that. I would have had to take her title, but I would never have hurt her.”“I know,” he replied, his voice low.“What evidence have you got that this could have been your father?”“Maximillian has been talking about knowing someone who could help consolidate my father’s power. He mentioned a few times that in a lot of cases where the alpha is struggling to maintain power,
I was going to need all hands on deck to keep this tidy and limit the amount of civilian casualties. As much as I trusted my own team, I don’t trust Maximillian and Edward, or anyone they might be controlling.Using the radios we’d all started carrying full time, I reached out to the rest of the team. “Beta One, Charlie One, Delta One. Meet us at HQ as soon as possible. Teams need to be on alert, but they don’t need to join us yet. One problem at a time.”The three of them were already there when Nathaniel and I arrived.Luke’s face still was covered in betrayal and anguish. This was really too soon for him to be this close to me, but we didn’t have a choice. We needed to move, and quickly.I sighed. “I don’t know how fast news travels, but things have headed south very suddenly with the pack, to the point that I need to intervene, with the intention to take over the pack to serve as alpha. Nathaniel will become my beta. Before we continue, does anyone here have a problem with this?”
“Effie, please. I just need to know if you’re going to choose me or him.”“You could have both, they’d agree,” my wolf whispered. Erm, what?“What do you mean I could have both?” I asked my wolf.“They both want you, they both want us.”“Effie, please don’t ignore me,” Luke’s voice cut through my conversation.“I told you Luke, this is not something we are discussing right now.”“But…”“Luke, do not push me on this, you will not like how it goes.”He bowed his head. “I’m sorry, alpha.” His hand ran through his hair, stress evident on his face. “I always imagined that if you ever took over the pack, I’d be your beta. Why did you choose him?”“Because he was supposed to be alpha. I need to strengthen my platform, not fill it with cracks before I’ve even taken over. However, I would be honoured if you would take the position of my enforcer.”He looked up, eyes bright. “I’d be honoured, alpha.”“Good, we can worry about swearing you in later. Can you please call and check in with Nathanie
I was pacing. Constantly. I felt like all I did was pace. Of course the moon goddess would pick this moment to start making me very aware of the mate bond between Nathaniel and I, which is simply spiffing. The last thing I needed whilst trying to organise a hostile takeover was my body and my wolf to be distracted.I had hardly come to terms with the fact Nathaniel and I were fated mates, let alone worked out what I was going to do, especially with Luke. My wolf was absolutely adamant that I could have both of them, but I was just not convinced by that.It was less than an hour between my speaking to Lyla and when everyone got here. I felt my body relax, my blood pressure and heart rate settle when I saw Nathaniel come back through the door. The tense look on his face when he met my eyes said he felt the same way. His wolf was close, he was trying to work out what was going on too. The look in his eyes though, the swirling dark that was nearly black told me that his wolf wanted us, r