Page 39 of Collared Mate

I slide into bed next to her and find that she barely stirs as I take her in my arms.

It feels so good to finally have her with me, even though the move was forced by Rick’s stupidity. Trying to get rid of her before I could claim her is classic shutting the door after the horse has bolted bullshit.

I will never let Fiona go, though keeping her quiet and contained until her brother can be sorted is another issue. She’s right about the pregnancy thing, though. Once she’s far enough along, she’ll have to be able to shift, and that means I’ll have to trust her in her murderous animal form.

Maybe she won’t be quite so dangerous once she has pups… I smile to myself at that idea. Of course she’ll be ferocious. She’ll likely be worse with babies to defend.

I need to teach her that I’m going to be the one who will look after us all. She’s never had a real alpha looking after her. Even her father, powerful as he was, never really took care of her. He was focused on making money and taking himself seriously and in the end losing his life because he fundamentally misunderstood the people he was working with.

Not all wolf shifters are good. A lot of them are craven, power hungry, rank-climbing beasts who will stop at nothing to claim pack roles that don’t suit them. It’s the human in us. We think that if you try very hard, you can become whatever you want. It’s not that way for wolves. Alphas are born.

All of this is to say Fiona’s grandfather, Richard Swale, was a true alpha. He failed to produce the same in his heirs. Her father was no alpha, and Rick isn’t fit to be anywhere in the upper chain of command. The ones in his pack who do have some talent are aware of that, and bitter, and strong. They will kill him if they cannot usefully displace him.

And that is why I have Fiona in my arms, and why her life is now in more danger than ever. A true Swale, about to be bred, unlike her previous husband who mated her once to make the world think she was being bred, but instead abandoned her and got himself killed for another reason entirely.

Fiona’s offspring are the real danger to those who hide in shadows. They will have the blood of their grandfather in terms of alpha potential, and entitlement to the Swale fortune in terms of human concerns.

I am surprised one of the old boys didn’t try to claim her as his mate himself. Or rather, I used to be. Before I realized what she was really like, how hard she would have been to control. Impossible, really. There was no way they would have been able to keep up appearances.

Christian managed it because he took her when she was barely a woman and made her feel less than she was. But she knows her power now. She understands what she can do, and what it means.

She snuggles around into my arms and buries her face in my neck. I fall asleep holding the most precious thing on this earth.

* * *

When I wake in the morning, she is gone.

I sit up and call her name, feeling an immediate pang of fear. She is mine and she belongs with me, and separation like this might mean anything. Has she run away? Have they let her? I pull my pants on, but don’t bother with a shirt. I have to get her back. I have to…

I can hear voices coming from the kitchen as I take the stairs down two and three at a time.

“Do you want the box toy?”

“I’m good.”

“You sure? It’s an eraser. British people call them rubbers, did you know that? But those are condoms here.”

That’s Tinker chatting away with her series of interesting facts that a lot of people don’t find as interesting as she does. She’s talking to Fiona, who is sitting at the kitchen table, eating some kind of pink cereal out of a cracked bowl with apparent enjoyment.

She looks up at my stricken face and lifts a curious eyebrow.

“What?”

“Nothing,” I say.

“You wanted me to stay in the bedroom or something? I was hungry.”

“You’re allowed to eat,” I say.

She seems to behave better now, but I am sure that will change after breakfast. This house is too small to contain her, and I know it’s going to take some doing to keep her here.

“We’re having cereal,” Tinker says. “Off brand knock-offs from Japan. I had them sent here specially when I knew we were going to get to hide out for a while. There’s another one that’s matcha flavored.”

I get myself some coffee and plan to send Jacob out for pastries so we can eat something other than pure sugar. Hades comes strolling in a few moments later, and also seems slightly surprised to see Fiona and Tinker sitting next to each other, Fiona seeming quite happy with herself.

He looks at me, and I shrug a little. He answers it with his own shrug. Whatever the girls were talking about before we got here, they’ve obviously worked out their differences. I hope Fiona apologized, though I don’t know that Tink would have required it. She’s a genuinely sweet girl who doesn’t bear grudges.

“Alright. I have to go and deal with some business. Hades, you’re with me. Tinker, Jacob, Fiona, you stay put here.”