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A whole team of stylists waited for Cindy and Bibi when we arrived at The Mating Game headquarters. I felt like I was back on set. There were racks of clothes and samples of furniture. Cindy looked like she’d just woken up on Christmas morning. I could’ve watched her all day, running her hands over the fabric, remembering what they’d felt like on my body just hours before. The stylists were doting over her, and she was made for this life. My mate wouldn’t be treated like anything less than a queen.
Which meant we had some big decisions to make about our future. My biggest challenge would be to get her to actually stop caring about what her pack thought. The last thing I wanted her to do was leave them behind, but I didn’t want their opinions to stop her from being living the life she deserved.
“Can I talk to you?” Hugo asked. The wolf looked so out of place here. He was rough around the edges, truly more comfortable in the forest than around all these people who cared about material things.
“Of course. What’s up?”
He jerked his head, motioning for me to follow him. We walked past several green rooms packed with more rolling racks full of clothes. At the end of the hall, we found one with two tall director’s chairs.
Hugo didn’t settle into one of them. He paced the room, his demeanor close to what it had been last night.
“Did we bring the ladies here for a distraction?” His security team might have been in shambles, but it didn’t mean he didn’t have his finger on the pulse of what was happening in the forest.
“No, this was always the plan.” His voice rumbled. “I need your help.”
Hugo wasn’t the type of wolf who asked anyone for anything. And I was fucking flattered he was asking me. A broken wolf who’d proven the rumors were true—I couldn’t shift. Even when I could, my pack didn’t want anything from me. The humans in my life wanted things from me, but they didn’t think of me as a peer.
It would be good to have a pack again.
Don’t get ahead of yourself. My animal was cautious. But he’d been a lone wolf for too long.
“What do you need?” I asked. After last night, when he saved my mate’s life, I’d do whatever he asked.
“This isn’t the last we’ve seen of Pedro,” he said. “I need you to keep your eyes open. Don’t let Cindy out of your sight. She’s a smart wolf, but sometimes she gets hotheaded. Puts herself into dangerous situations. But she’s different with you. She’s happy.”
“I plan on keeping her that way, but I’m not sure what I’ll see that you don’t. I don’t know these guys yet, and they haven’t been too happy to see me around.”
Hugo shook his head. “I do know these guys, and once they’re done with this stupid pissing contest—”
“I thought you said last night you were done with them.”
He closed his eyes for a long blink. “Easier said than done. I’m not the pack alpha. I can fire them, but I can’t kick them out of the pack. To get back at me, they’ll be falling all over themselves to buddy up with you. We all love The Wolf’s Moon, and they’ve been gushing about seeing you around. Just when you can’t hear them.”
“I don’t want them to be my fans. I wanted to consider them family.” It had been too much to ask of my own kin.
“They’re acting like assholes because they don’t know better.” He huffed out a chuckle. “We’re working hard to make things better in our pack. Once things calm down a little, I’ll bring you to meet our alpha, Jackson. We need more allies, and if we lead by example, they’ll come around. I want them to come around. They’re good wolves. They need role models. And you’ll be perfect because you can’t do the same stupid shit because you don’t know the mistakes we’ve made in the past.”
“What should I be on the lookout for?”
“Like I said, this won’t be the last of Pedro. I considered that wolf my best friend—my brother—for most of my life. I can guarantee that he didn’t send those wolves last night. Even if he’s an ass, he’d never have dragged Cindy away from the kids like that. Leaving them with a stranger.”
“Good point.”
“But he’ll be pissed that this was done in his name, and I know him, he’ll try to redeem it.” He made air quotes for the last two words.
“He’ll do something else to get the last word.”
“Yeah. So keep an eye on Cindy. Listen to the kids when they tell you things that feel a little good to be true. He’s been going to see them. You see anything, you hear anything, you text me. I might be down, but I’m not out. Once we get these new guys vetted and on board, no one will ever mess with our pack again.”
