Page 9 of Thrown into the Mob

My dragon had raged for hours as I sat here. I’d worked through a supply-chain audit because discipline was what I needed to survive, and I was not giving it up for a scent that had hit me through the walls of the east wing.

On the third day, today, I’d strolled past his door. That was all. My dragon had dragged me there, and I'd compromised by walking the corridor without stopping. He’d heard me because his breathing sped up, and I sensed him leaning toward the door. My stride had faltered for half a step before I forced myself to keep going.

And then my father had summoned us to the study and laid out his strategy to the wolf shifter, and I'd listened to him hand my mate to my brother.

My dragon flicked his tail, giving me heartburn. His rage was still simmering, but I was able to control him. He wasn’t done pestering me, and he reminded me of Evander carrying a breakfast tray as he came from the kitchen this morning. He brought up the sound of Durand's muffled voice through a wall in response to something my brother had said. Dragons were hoarders, and my beast was doing that with memories of the wolf shifter.

I pressed my thumbs into my eye sockets until I saw sparks. And that was my doing, not my fire-breathing beast.

My father didn't know. He couldn't scent it because I hadn't touched Durand. We hadn't been close enough for our scents to mingle. The smoke in the study was a problem, but my father would put that down to poor discipline rather than investigate my reaction. Looking into the inner lives of his sons had never been among his interests. He expected results and didn’t care about the process as long as the outcome was to his liking.

Evander didn't know either. We hadn't had a real conversation in years. He occupied the right side of my father's desk and I occupied the left. He was the heir and the face, and I was the operations and the machinery. That division had been made when we were seventeen and our father decided that four minutes of seniority was sufficient grounds for succession. Everything after that had been me proving I was useful because Father didn’t tolerate people or objects with no purpose.

I ran the security and I was the enforcer, making sure debts were paid on time and punishing betrayals. I’d honed my management skills over the years, and while my father never praised me, his occasional nod was the only acknowledgment.

But now the most useful thing I could do was sit in my cold room and say nothing while Evander courted a man whose scent had adjusted how I saw the world.

And I hated it.

I didn’t want to be mated to a wolf shifter, especially not one from La Luna Noir. I’d expected to find a dragon mate, not one with fur, for gods’ sake. Fire-breathing and soaring through the sky together made for compatible mates. Not an alpha with a four-legged beast who howled at the moon.

He was the enemy and I couldn’t imagine him touching me, and yet my dragon yearned for us to claim one another.

You could tell him.

Tell who?

Evander, who believed the wolf was warming to him? My father, who would view a fated bond as an inconvenience he had to handle? Or Durand himself, the man I'd been cold to and slammed a door on, who flinched when my scent hit him and gripped furniture when I walked past?

None of those conversations ended with a good outcome. Besides, how could I tell Durand I was his mate, but I loathed him and didn’t want him anywhere near me.

My dragon didn't answer. He burned, a low heat I couldn't extinguish because it wasn't anger anymore. It was something underneath it that the anger had been protecting.

I opened a desk drawer and pulled out the intelligence file I'd compiled on Durand before any of this started. It was standard research and included his cover identity, his connection to the Alpha, and his movements over the last six months. A photograph was clipped to the front page that had been taken from a distance and was slightly out of focus. He was standing outside a bar. He had one hand in his pocket and his head was turned toward someone out of frame.

Seeing him smiling in that pic had me seething, as if he had no right to be happy, and I slammed the drawer shut so fast I almost caught my fingers. Damn that wolf.

He wouldn’t have known I existed, which was Father’s doing. He made me wear the same clothes as Evander growing up so anyone checking out the flight and our family would think my twin and I were the same person. Even now as adults, we unconsciously wore similar clothes.

My father had given Durand forty-eight hours, and after that, the Alpha and his brothers would come regardless. I'd read the files on Flint Durand. He was not a man who waited. His Beta brothers were not patient either, and the intelligence suggested there was an elderly family member, Durand’s grandfather, the brother of the pack founder, who would accompany them. And they would not be interested in alliances.

But if Durand chose to mate Evander, I couldn’t stay here. Life had been bearable if I didn’t think about how lonely I was and starved of affection. But living under the same roof as my twin and his mate, my fated mate, would be worse than the bleak existence I’d been living.

My dragon burned hot. He demanded action, wanting to throw fire at obstacles, and though he wasn’t tearing my insides apart, he was waiting for me to make the next move before he raged some more.

Somewhere on the third floor, Madden Durand was sitting with my father's proposal, the forty-eight hour deadline, and a decision that had no good options. He was deciding whether to spend his life with my brother or risk a war that might spill over into other packs and flights.

I leaned my forehead against the window and braced myself against the cold surface.

SIX

MADD

Evander arrived, and I stiffened. I wanted nothing to do with him but could hardly toss him out of the room. It was his house and I was his father’s prisoner, which made me his captive by default.

He must have sensed my mood because he spoke more formally than he had on previous days, asking if I’d like a walk in the garden. I gave a one-word answer because both me and my wolf needed to be out of this stifling room. Not that it was too hot, but the atmosphere was suffocating. I was trapped in every way possible, even by my beast.

What nonsense are you talking about? he asked.