Page 3 of Pack Baby for the Bratva
The words came out impressively confident.
The tallest one inhaled, very slowly, and said nothing.
"My body. It's just my body playing tricks on—"
Another wave of heat tore through me so efficiently that the rest of the sentence simply ceased to exist.
The three men looked at me.
I looked at them.
The silk robe clung to my sweaty body.
"Tell us what you need," the dark-haired one said, quiet and entirely focused.
I’d been alone for a very long time, and I’d been running for longer than that. I’d learned to need nothing I couldn't provide myself, to ask for nothing I couldn't afford, to want nothing that required someone else to give it.
"I need," I said, and my voice broke on the second word, which was frankly embarrassing, "for the ache to go away."
The tallest one's eyes went completely dark.
He stepped forward, one hand reaching toward me, catching me before the door frame couldn’t hold me any longer. He whispered something in Russian against my hair as took me to the bed.
I wanted to tell them I didn’t need alphas in my life. The truth was, there was only one I wanted gone.
1
Maeve
I tapped the creditcard against the table as I stared at the pretty cot on my laptop, hoping a magical discount would appear on the screen, and drop the price by a few hundred quid out of sympathy.
"Don’t judge me," I said to Fergus, who watched me from the foot of the bed. "I gave you a home."
Fergus blinked slowly, which felt pointed.
I’d found him on the doorstep of the bookshop-cafe I worked at, the Highland Bean, three months ago. He was shaking like a tiny, furious dishcloth, and desperate for food and a friend.
I’d needed the latter badly enough to overlook having a dog and the long-term implications.
Fergus was a tiny Yorkshire Terrier who weighed approximately three pounds, most of which was hair and attitude.
Luckily, he wasn’t any bigger, because there was barely enough room for the two of us to exist in this flat without filing a formal complaint against each other.
The flat in question had only one bedroom and was above the coffee shop. I used the term "bedroom" loosely, but that was how the landlord described it. It had one room, and there was a bed in it. But the bed touched two of the four walls; the third wall led to the tiny bathroom, and an alcove which had a kitchenette.
The fourth wall was where I’d built an IKEA unit with gritted teeth, a lot of hope, and a sprinkle of violence. Above the unit was a shelf that tilted to the left. I made sure not to put anything round on that, but it was strong enough to hold my library books.
Below me, the coffee machines of the Highland Bean hummed their morning warm-up. That sound was now mine. I’d used the last of my bank balance to buy the lease, and now I had a lease I could barely afford, but I did because I had a stubbornness that even Presley had called "medically concerning."
I didn’t care. I had a business. I had a home. And I now had Fergus who, it turned out, didn’t have a home. I did check before I kept him. He was a terror, and based on his current posture, was planning to eat the toe of my slipper.
I tapped the card on the counter again.
Fergus’s gaze dropped to the slipper at his paws, then back to me and the card.
“No,” I said, pointing at him. “This is not food. It is poor judgment, but that’s different.”
He tilted his head as if he disagreed before he dipped his head again, sinking his teeth into my slipper.
