If I don’t go to the dance I know what will happen. The image of Cordelia dancing with another faceless, idiot, alpha flashes through my mind and my wolf snarls. The first alpha that touches her is going to regret it.
Ronan mistakes my wolf’s outburst as anger. “I know this isn’t ideal, but do me this favor and I will owe you.”
A favor from the alpha isn’t to be taken lightly. Ronan isn’t in the game of owing favors which means whatever is going on with Mograna and this infernal dance, there’s more to it than he’s letting on.
“Any favor?” I ask.
Ronan winces but nods. “Any favor. You ask me and I will deliver. Think of it as a magic wish.”
“I don’t like magic.”
“Not many shifters do.”
We’re both silent, regarding each other for a long moment before I give him a nod. “All right. I’ll stay for the pack meeting and I’ll be at the dance but my attendance is the only guarantee. This isn’t going to be a debutante ball where Cassidy gets to force me into humoring her. I’m done with that shit.” The little scene between the two of them today plays in a loop for me and it’s enough for me to know I’m going to have to put my foot down. When I do take Cordelia as my mate, I’ll not have Cassidy challenging her. She’ll learn her place now.
“Your presence is all that is required. I will take care of the rest. This will be the last Morgana pushes for you to be…coupled with Cassidy. I promise you that.”
Where Cassidy’s fixation with me began, I’ll never know. She was always underfoot, the only daughter of Morgana and eight years younger than me. It makes sense that Morgana would coddle her daughter in a pack that experienced so much loss, and lost so many of its young to the war by way of kidnapping.But even still, I’m not the pawn to play with when it comes to giving the Beta’s little princess her heart’s desire.
“I’m going to hold you to that promise. I’ll go touch base with Lucian and get preparations for the scouting party underway.”
Ronan nods. “I expect you’ll leave tomorrow morning.”
“If not tonight.”
He shakes his head. “Tonight is too soon. Meeting might run long and I need you all rested and well prepared. The days ahead will be rough. Tomorrow morning,” he says and I know there’s no pushing the departure time. I’m not hard-headed enough to push the issue—not when there’s a favor with the alpha in the mix. My wolf howls, I know what he wants.
Who he wants. I want her too.
I grit my teeth and force myself to nod. I don’t give a damn what my wolf wants, he’s wrong this time. We both fucking are.
“Tomorrow morning,” I concede.
“Travel safe, Enforcer.”
“Always, Alpha.”
Chapter
Thirty-Nine
CORDELIA
Idream of my fated mate. It’s the first time since Keiran rejected me that my mate dream comes to me. At first, I don’t know what it is. Everything feels different. When I dreamed of my faceless mate before, things felt…oppressive. Cold. Bleary. It scared me when I was younger and it still did when I got older, no matter how much I tried to convince myself it wasn’t an omen about my mate or what we’d be to each other. I should have known, though. It was a perpetual winter in those dreams. Nothing grew there. The trees felt more like bones than anything else, each one an exposed fragment of a long forgotten body.
This dream is different.
It’s warm, almost hot and the air is summer sweet. A storm rolls in overhead, the distant sound of thunder rumbling makes me happy. I dig my toes into the soil and stretch my hands overhead as a breeze blows by. Everything around me is alive. Blooming and thriving like it’s the height of summer. The bright flash of pinks and reds, yellows, all of them flowers brightens the space around me and when I step towards one of the summer blooms to inspect it I see him.
He’s big. One of the biggest shifters I’ve ever seen. I know he’s a shifter even from this far off. I lift my nose to scent the air for him but the wind is at my back. I can’t catch his scent yet. I'll have to get closer. I push through the flowers and walk through the waist high grass towards him. It’s sweet grass that I’m walking on, every step I take lets its perfume loose into the air. It rises up and weaves itself in a bubble around me, until it’s the only thing I can smell.
“Hello!” I call out to him. His back is to me, it’s broad and toned and I can see his muscles bunch and move in the summer sun. He’s bent over, working on something but what? I can’t see his face.
“Hello?” I call out again. “Can you hear me?”
He doesn’t answer me. I raise a hand to shield my eyes from the sun. He’s standing now, black hair blowing in the wind and I can finally see what he’s working on. He’s holding a saw. I come forward another step and see he’s felled a tree. Nearby, there’s planks of wood, the beginnings of a house frame suddenly sprouts from the ground and I stumble back with a startled yelp. The sound catches his attention and he turns my way but just before I can see his face I wake up.
“Thorne!” I thrash so hard in my bed that I end up rolling out of it and hitting the floor with a thump. I lay there in shock. Not because I just catapulted myself out of my bed or because I just had another freaking mate dream, but because I called out Thorne’s name.
