Page 41 of Feral

ROB

I camein from the stables a week later to find Marina whipping up a storm in the kitchen. Colton and Boyd were both at her mercy, her calm orders getting them to do her bidding.Get the eggs from the fridge. Fill the big pot with water to boil. Not that platter. The big one.

Audrey sat at the table peeling potatoes. She didn’t look too thrilled, and as she was the first to admit she couldn’t cook, it was probably safest for her with a table between her and the sharp knives. While she could wield a scalpel in the operating room, she couldn’t chop onions without disaster.

“Where’s your phone, asshole?” Boyd demanded. He glanced up from the sink where he was filling a pot. “You haven’t returned any of my texts.”

I checked my back pocket, found it empty, then groaned. “I don’t know. I must’ve left it at Natalie’s last night.” The thing was probably dead by now.

For the past week, I’d spent all my spare hours over at the Shefield place. My wolf was happy. I was happy. My dick was happy. Natalie’s pussy wasveryhappy. I made sure of it. While I was with her, I almost forgot that I was alpha. I thought of myself as her man. Her mate.

She wasn’t a wolf, so she didn’t understand the dynamics of me being alpha. Didn’t understand the importance of it, of what her role would be if she were the alpha’s mate. Some female shifters had wanted to be my mate for status alone, not for me. I’d learned that early on, still a teenager. A hard lesson, but I’d been careful ever since. I wasn’t keeping my position from her, but it didn’t really come up. Pretty much the only thing thatdidcome up for the time we were together was my dick.

She wasn’t big on sleepovers, and I didn’t push, just spending evenings over there. She was fiercely independent—I had to respect that and take things slow although the closer it got to the full moon, the stronger my need was to mate her.

Alphas didn’t stop being alphas because of being sidetracked. It all came down to pussy. Sure, it was a crude term, but I loved Natalie’s. But I still had some pack princess from Canada coming down to meet me, and everyone wanted me to fall in love with her pussy. To be so obsessed with it that I’d sink my dick in it and bite her and end my moon madness once and for all. Or so they believed.

I didn’t want the pack princess. Hell, I didn’t even know her name. I wanted Natalie, and I had no fucking idea how to make it work. I had shit to figure out if I was going to actually claim her when she was ready.

After it got dark each night, I shifted and ran in the hills to ease my mounting aggression before heading to my shower and bed. Alone. It was for the best because as the full moon drew closer, my urge to mark her grew stronger. But it wasn’t just that.

I wanted her here in this kitchen now. Part of the family. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull it off, but it was impossible to doubt how perfect it would be.

Why would my wolf choose a human if it wasn’t meant to be?

“What’s going on?” I asked, grabbing a glass from the cabinet and filling it with ice and water from the dispenser in the fridge door.

“Picnic. We thought we’d have a pack potluck, so everyone could meet Natalie,” Marina said, chopping celery on a wood cutting board. “Audrey stopped by on her way back from the store and invited her.”

I paused, mid-drink. “Why would the pack want to meet Natalie?”

Maybe it was the low tone of my voice or the fact that I spoke very slowly that had Colton stepping in front of Marina, shielding her from me.

“She’s your mate, you dumbass,” Colton said. Since he was now out of the military, and he was getting it on the regular from Marina, my brother was more relaxed than I’d ever seen him. Except now when his mate was threatened.

I wasn’t going to hurt Marina. Colton knew that, yet still, his mate instincts were strong.

She pushed him out of the way. “I’m not afraid of the alpha. I’m armed, remember?” She waved the knife, rolled her eyes and went back to the celery.

“I know Natalie’s my mate. You four know. Clint, too. But I don’t want the whole pack to know. Boyd, you were at the meeting last week. You saw what a fuck-up that turned out to be.”

“We’re not telling anyone she’s your mate,” Boyd said. “She’s the new neighbor. And she’s old man Shefield’s great-niece. Most of the pack remember Mr. Shefield, and it’s neighborly to have her over. I’m sure she’d like to hear all the good things everyone has to say about her kin.”

When he put it that way, I felt like an asshole. I took a big swig of my water, then put the glass in the top rack of the dishwasher. Leaving it for Marina to put away would only make me more of a dick.

“You’re right,” I sighed. “That is a good idea. It would be odd if we didn’t.”

“I was thinking of having the Barn Cats come and play,” Boyd added. “Our wedding reception was cut short because of the storm. When I talked with Natalie on the phone before she moved, she said she was a concert violinist. You remember Shefield was a fiddle player. I’m thinking that was what she had in common with him—why he left her the place.”

That’s right. I’d spent a full week with Natalie, and she hadn’t shared anything about that part of her life. Sure, I knew she had thirty-seven freckles on her shoulder, and her left nipple was more sensitive than the right. Music? It hadn’t come up. She’d been as sidetracked as me.

“Call her, Rob,” Audrey said, setting her peeled potato in a bowl and grabbing another. She glanced at Marina. “How much potato salad do we need?”

“Ten pounds.”

“I thought this was a potluck,” she grumbled.

“It is. Keep peeling. The exercise is good for the baby.”