Page 30 of The Wolf Queen’s Curse

I roll my eyes. “I doubt I’d want to lead a cabal even if I could.” I reach up and hold his hand against my cheek. “Your ambition is sunlight through a magnifying glass, focused in a single incredibly powerful beam. Mine is a wild thing, a firecracker sparking in every direction. I don’t know what I want. I never have. I’m restless with knowing that I want something—maybe many things—but there is no grand plan. Not yet. For now, I’m happy to focus my own ambition on helping you achieve your goal. It’ll give me experience and a chance to settle my firecracker mind and focus.”

“And when I have what I need, I’ll do the same for you.”

I scrunch my nose. “This isn’t a bargain, Bishop. I’m not helping you so I can get your support in return.”

His lips press to mine. “I know, which is why I can offer it freely. Right now, I just need you to know that you haven’t been forgotten. That I’m not trying to subsume your needs into my own.”

“So you don’t envision me as a proper Victorian wife? Angel of the house?”

He laughs under his breath. “An angel is not what I need.”

“Good, because it isn’t what you’re going to get.”

I pull him down into a kiss, and sleep is forgotten, at least for a little while longer.

ELEVEN

We do sleep, eventually, and we wake to breakfast being delivered before we could request it. Bishop retrieves the trays and brings them to our bed with a sigh.

“Someone is trying to impress my new bride,” he says as he pours me a cup of coffee.

“Or someone is acknowledging that his cousin is in need of a little thoughtfulness himself right now.”

Another sigh as he hands me the cup and pours tea for himself. “If I grumble, it’s because I would rather maintain the facade that I am doing fine, and everything is under control.”

“That’s for the Pack,” I say. “Not for Julius and, I hope, not for me.”

He leans down to kiss my forehead. “I appreciate that, more than I thought possible. I couldn’t imagine needing to be that around you. Most times, I carry it off lightly, but it suddenly feels very heavy.”

I squeeze his hand. “I know. But you did what you set out to do—became Alpha and freed me from my father—and so you have nothing left to prove. Now, what time are we meeting Julius and Kenric?”

“At ten.”

“Excellent. Time to eat, and time—if I might be so bold—to ask more about this werewolf we’re about to meet.”

The werewolf’s name is Rufus Cain. Yes, Cain. He was Henry’s first cousin, which makes him Harry’s cousin once removed. Rufus is forty and a former member of the Albion Pack who left as a young man.

Rufus had left the Pack just before my father became Alpha. He hadn’t suffered any particular outrage at my family’s hands—he’d just had enough, and I think maybe that’s a harder obstacle to overcome. If you hate the leader, you can be convinced to help overthrow him, but if you hate the system he represents, it takes more than a promise of reform to lure you back. Rufus just doesn’t see enough in the Pack worth saving. Bishop’s father had invited Rufus to work for them, which he’d done for years, but Bishop and Julius had been unable to convince him to come along when they rejoined the Pack.

Julius meets us at the hotel, and I thank him sincerely for the gifts. Bishop does the same. He might have grumbled and balked in private, but he doesn’t hesitate to express his gratitude to Julius himself.

“Is Kenric not joining us?” I ask as we leave the hotel.

“He’s feeling under the weather,” Julius says.

I grin. “You treated him to quite the night, I presume?”

I expect a return grin, but Julius looks troubled.

“I did,” he says slowly. “And while he partook of the offerings, I didn’t get to know him any better for it. He isn’t too badly off this morning. Mostly, I decided Rufus might prefer we paid this visit alone.”

“Should I stay behind as well?” I ask. “I don’t wish to intrude.”

“No,” Bishop interjects, his tone brooking no argument.

“You’re different,” Julius says as we walk along the road. “It’s bringing another wolf that could be a problem. Rufus and Kenric grew up in the Pack together, and before we visited Rufus I hoped to get an idea how well they did—or did not—get along, but that is one more in a long list of things I didn’t get from Kenric last night.”

“Have we made a mistake bringing him?” Bishop asks.