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Shifters found the place relaxing because it accommodated their enhanced senses. The products weren’t too strongly scented, the music was never too loud, and the lighting wasn’t too bright. Also, no one had to keep up the pretense of being human since there were none around. They were free to be themselves.
“That is good news,” said Adaline. “I figured he would.”
Raya nudged Quinley. “What about Isaiah, though? You don’t think he’ll want you to give up your job, do you? I mean, he might not like the idea of you working for another pride.”
Quinley frowned. “I stupidly didn’t consider that.” She inwardly cursed. “I’ll make it clear in advance that it’s important to me that I keep working at the salon with you two. If he won’t accept that, I don’t want him. I’m not interested in being with someone who won’t care what’s important to me.”
Raya gave a pleased nod. “So, when’s the meet?”
“Tomorrow morning, providing Isaiah’s good with it.” With that in mind, Quinley fished her cell out of her pocket and used the FindYourMatch.com phone app to message Isaiah: Hi. My Alpha says we could do the meet tomorrow morning at ten. Would that work for you?
It wasn’t long before his reply popped up: 10am tomorrow is fine.
Nosing over Quinley’s shoulder, Raya mocked, “Very verbose, isn’t he?”
“He’s to the point, which I like.” And he was not at all hard to look at. Very masculine with his rugged appearance.
His eyes were an unusual smoky grey that pulled you right in. Intriguing tattoos skated up his neck, ending below a strong jawline that was shadowed with dark scruff. The strands at the top of his black close-cropped hair stuck up slightly in a just-rolled-out-of-bed look.
His profile had only showed his face, throat, and shoulders. But she’d been able to tell he was broad, and she’d seen from his profile details that he was also tall.
Having him in her bed would certainly be no chore.
“I wouldn’t have thought he’d contact me,” said Quinley, pocketing her phone.
“Because you’re unranked?” Adaline waved a hand. “That doesn’t mean much to most shifter breeds.”
True. It was easy to forget that, what with how obsessed black-foots were about it.
“If all goes well and you both decide to move forward,” began Adaline, “do you think there’s any chance this will all be done and dusted before Zaire and Nazra are appointed as Alphas?”
Quinley worried her bottom lip. “Isaiah made it clear he wants to move fast, so maybe. At the very least, there’s a chance the papers will be signed, which is what’s most important. There’d be no way Nazra could try to cancel the contract without offending the Olympus cats. Who’ll want to do that?”
“Hopefully not her,” replied Adaline. “She’ll want rid of you eventually, but not for a while. She didn’t get to torment you all these years because Harlan kept her in line. Once she’s Alpha, she won’t answer to him anymore. And she would just love you to have to owe her your submission and loyalty. That would be hell for you, and she knows it.”
Nazra wasn’t evil or anything. It was just that she would naturally have felt the urge to punish, challenge, or at the very least threaten Quinley for trying to “steal” Zaire from her. An urge that she had bottled up for nine years—that would only have made it worse. She would be highly unlikely to not finally act on it once Alpha.
Quinley sighed. “It’s funny how so many people never believed Zaire’s my true mate… yet she was not among them. It would surely have suited her to feel I was full of shit, but she didn’t close her mind to my claim. She called me a liar. She never meant it, though.”
“No, it was always a taunt to provoke you, not a claim she truly believed,” Raya agreed. “I wonder how Zaire will react to you leaving the pride and mating someone else.”
Quinley blinked. “Well, I mean… I’m sure he’ll feel some relief at knowing I’d be out of his orbit.”
Raya hummed. “Maybe.”
“How he’ll feel or behave isn’t what’s important,” Quinley upheld.
Adaline eyed her carefully. “You really have fully let go of him, haven’t you?”
“It was that or break,” Quinley told her, hearing her voice harden. “No person will ever break me, least of all him.”
CHAPTER THREE
Stood in a crowded hallway of his old apartment complex, Isaiah couldn’t help but smile at the sight of three Russian male wolverines blustering and shouting in their usual melodramatic way. He couldn’t hear much of what was being said, thanks to the music blasting, but he suspected they were again complaining that their great-niece Aurora hadn’t been given a Russian name.
Balancing a paper plate on one hand, Isaiah bit into his chicken wing. Pride events, especially parties, usually took place at the Tavern—their main hangout. But Bree and Alex had decided to throw an apartment-block party in order to celebrate the birth of their daughter. Isaiah suspected it was because the very anti-people Alex could then close himself in his apartment once his social battery ran out.
People were everywhere—the hallways, the open apartments, the stairwells, even the elevator. In fact, one of his fellow enforcers was manning a makeshift bar in the latter.
