AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Good, I think as I shut the door and cross to the bar in the living room, pouring myself a much-needed bourbon.
If he’d tried to apologize again, I would have had to punch him. Apologies are a waste of time. The North Star pack doesn’t apologize. We pursue excellence and when we fall short, we pursue it with increased fervor. We don’t waste time with useless words.
“Sorry” doesn’t keep our people safe or bring lost wolves back from the dead.
I don’t think Diana is in danger tonight—she’s probably off with one of the human boys from her school she’s been forbidden to play with—but I don’t like not knowing where she is.
My little sister is a prime target.
Anyone closely connected to me is.
It’s one of the many reasons I’ve put off claiming my own mate.
I’m too busy to coddle a new wife, and I have no desire to start a family until we’ve reclaimed our pack territory in The Parallel. I don’t want my children growing up under lock and key, unable to leave the pack tower until they’ve learned to control their wolf.
Most of the kids living in the tower right now have never run wild in the woods, never smelled the magic of the forest on the night of a full moon. Many of them have never been beyond these walls or the small park on the roof.
Human Side New York is more civilized than Parallel NYC, but it’s still a big, unpredictable, rough-around-the-edges metropolis.
It’s not the kind of place to take a young wolf out for a walk around the neighborhood. All it would take is a backfiring car or a shouted word from the drunk hanging out on the corner, and you’d have a kid shifting into their fur form, exposing our secret and attracting the wrong kind of attention.
In The Parallel, a child can grow up wild and unafraid.
That used to be the case, anyway, and it will be again. When I take back our territory, I’ll take the Blood River lands as well. And as soon as I’m the most powerful Alpha in The Parallel, things are going to change. I’ll bring peace to the supernatural lands.
As much peace as I prefer, anyway.
A little trouble isn’t a bad thing, especially after a long day shipping new product and bribing the officers of the Lower East Side to ignore said shipments.
I reach for my cell, intending to text Trix, my fairy friend, to see if she’d be up for a little fun later tonight after my intelligence meeting, when the doorbell buzzes again.
Leaving my drink on the bar, I cross to the door, anticipating the delivery of the intelligence report or perhaps Troy returning with word that Diana’s been found more swiftly than usual.
Instead, I open the door to reveal Hermione and…a drowned rat.
I arch a brow at my second-in-command and then cast a pointed look at the shorter woman dripping all over the hall carpet. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Refugee from The Parallel,” Hermione says. “Our lookout just pulled her out of the river.”
I blink, making no move to invite either of them inside. “Couldn’t you have dried her off a little first? And since when are we accepting refugees, Hermione? I thought we had an understanding.”
And the understanding is that any wolf who isn’t our wolf should be considered a Blood River pack spy. My father made the mistake of accepting a refugee last year. Not three months later, he was fighting for his life after being poisoned and Shane, the wounded Beta wolf he’d allowed to start work in the kitchen a few days before, was gone.
Hermione thinks he ran because he was afraid of being blamed for the poisoning, not because he actually did it—Hermione is as tough as they come but has a soft spot for damaged wolves.
I don’t share her opinion.
And I’m not about to put my family or people at risk for an outsider again.
“I thought you’d want to hear what she had to say,” Hermione says, arching one pale blond brow. With her white-blond hair cut in a close crop, impeccably fitted suit, and natural grace, Hermione consistently looks more put-together than most people.
Compared to the dripping wreck of a woman beside her in an oversized navy tracksuit, she looks like fucking royalty.
What’s that in that wretch’s hair…a glob of fish guts?
“I’m sorry,” the walking disaster says, lifting big green eyes framed by dark lashes. Eyes that are more attractive than the rest of her, I admit, though that isn’t saying much. “I tried to dry off, but there was just so much...water.” She lets out a breathy laugh. “But that’s what happens when you jump off a bridge. Better than not enough water, I guess. If you didn’t have enough water, you’d be…” She drags a finger across her throat, gulps, then drops her hand to her side, heaving a breath in and out before adding, “You’re even scarier in person than in pictures.”
“And you’re wasting my time,” I say, shifting my gaze back to Hermione. “What could this person possibly have to say that would interest me?”
