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Regina stood next to me. “I have to agree with Eric, sir. I’m a visitor on your pack’s land. I don’t participate in your customs.”
Blake grinned knowingly. “Yet you officiated one of our rituals just ten months ago.”
Poor Regina stammered over her response. To see her shaken like that made me nervous—and sent shivers down my spine as I tried to resist the urge to wrap my arm around her. It would be platonic, of course, but to everyone else in the room, it would be a physical affirmation of their assumptions, whether it was true or not.
Whatever I did with Regina publicly had to be appropriate from now on.
Especially with the way my daughter was gaping at us.
Troy stepped toward the microphone. “Given recent events, it’s important you understand that you will always have a place in our pack, Regina.”
She sniffled.
Fuck it, I had to wrap my arm around her shoulders. That extension of kindness from an alpha was enough to make my chest rattle with an unreleased cry.
I didn’t want Regina to break. I wanted her to feel safe. No matter how often—or how little—she decided to visit.
“It’s not a death sentence,” Blake stated, “but a strong suggestion. You two are mates from now until the end of your existence, perhaps even into the next life.”
I traded a glance with my daughter. She was shaking her head. My eyebrows firmly stiffened with disapproval for what was happening. Weren’t we already dealing with enough since Steven passed away? Goddess, I just found out about his death. Now, I was being hurled into a matehood with his daughter.
Had I fallen into another dimension?
Troy nodded. “Give it a try. A week. A month. See what happens.”
“Or a weekend,” I blurted in a low voice.
Regina gasped and clutched my hand. “We should talk about that.”
“Yeah, we should talk—” I glared at the crowd around us. “Privately.”
Each shifter turned their attention to their alphas on the stage.
Alright, maybe it wasn’t so bad to be intimidating.
Chapter 6 - Regina
“But you’re not interested in him, right?”
Kiara followed me to the truck with one of my suitcases from the porch.
It was honestly too early to think about everything that happened yesterday. The meeting, the staring, the announcement that made my heart jump into my throat, and then the way that Eric wrapped his arm around me like I belonged to him—or, at least, that was the impression I got from the way his fingers dug into my upper arm.
The firmness of his hand made me feel invincible for a moment.
But only for a moment.
I dropped my duffel bag into the covered hatchback of the truck and sighed while clapping my hands together. “Nope. Not one bit.”
Don’t tell any tall tales, girl.
Oof, I didn’t want my Papa’s voice circling my head like that. Yet, at the same time, it was hard to miss the intensity of that lesson. Don’t tell any tall tales. That was his way of warning me about lying and spinning webs with people.
Leave the webs to the spiders, he would warn me. ‘Cuz you might get more flies than you can chew on.
At the same time, I didn’t want my bestie to get the wrong impression of me. Her father was hot, I wanted to bang him, but I didn’t want to bang him forever.
She gave a strained huff as she put the suitcase into the truck. “I mean, you’re not even part of the pack.”
