AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Twenty-Three
Niko had kept a closeeye on Zee throughout the night—at least as much as he could. He had little worry that anybody else would try more bullshit after he’d dealt with Melanie—not that he was done dealing with her.
He smiled, the beasts inside savagely pleased with how Zee had handled the matter. He’d considered leaving it alone, letting Melanie deal with her humiliation at Zee’s hands but that wouldn’t be acceptable. Not here. Not at the wake held for Zee’s father.
As Prime, every person here tonight was under his protection, but most especially the families of a lost packmate. Even those he’d wrongly cast out.
It seemed that everybody had gotten that point, save a few.
He’d deal with them, personally. Melanie, he would handle last.
The two of them would be talking—soon.
He’d slept with her once, years earlier. If he hadn’t outright told her that he had no intention of fucking her again, she’d still be trying to work her way back into his bed—or rather, get him into her bed.
Her persistence wasn’t out of any passionate feelings she had for him, although they’d a good enough time together in bed.
No, Melanie was power-hungry.
She was a strong Therian, a mid-level dominant with a quick, agile mind. She could have been a real asset to Appalachia, or one of the small subpacks, but Melanie was greedy, too greedy to accept a position of leadership among the midlevel soldiers or anywhere else that wasn’t in the upper echelons.
Unhappy with her status on the tech team, unhappy with her status as a mid-level soldier with weekly rotations on sentry duty, she had first set her eyes on Niko, thinking to improve her standing by becoming his lover—and hopefully more.
When that didn’t work, she shifted her focus to his higher ranked lieutenants and advisers. If she hooked up with somebody higher in the pack’s hierarchy, she thought things might change.
They would, but not in the way she’d like.
Niko demanded that the men and women in his inner circle practice sound judgment. He wouldn’t fault anybody for taking her as a lover, but as she was now, she was dangerous. Power-hungry people were always dangerous.
Unfortunately for Melanie—and fortunately for Niko, the people closest to him were loyal.
After failing to lure him in, she’d started running her mouth about how the next-in-line-to-be-Prime had lost his balls after Zennia Day lied and used him.
His father had once told him that nobody gossiped as much as much as a pack of Therian wolves. Unless it was crucial for the pack’s safety, nothing stayed secret for long.
While Niko wasn’t as beloved as his father had been, his people were loyal, those he’d selected as his lieutenants and advisers fiercely so.
She hadn’t just burned bridges when she started bitching about Niko—she obliterated them, then burned up any boat or ferry that might have offered passage. Eight years after their brief encounter, Melanie couldn’t even catch the interest of other Pretern males in the area. There were a few males who’d hop into bed, but once they were done fucking, they jumped right back out.
Nobody was willing to give their trust to a partner who badmouthed a bedmate simply because said bedmate wasn’t interested in a long-term arrangement.
And when it came to Niko? Everybody knew his view on relationships.
“... Saint and Etan?”
Meeting the gaze of the man in front of him, Niko forced a smile. “I’m sorry, Marcus. My mind is... elsewhere.”
Marcus, a retired lieutenant who had served under both Jameson and Niko’s grandfather Thomas, gave him a narrow look out of faded blue eyes.
“I bet I can imagine just where your mind is.” He slanted his gaze toward Zee, a smile on his time-worn face. “She’s made herself stronger.”
“She had to,” Niko said grimly. Guilt tore at him again.
“Make amends for the wrongs you did her, boy,” Marcus said, a fatherly sort of love in his voice. He’d been one of the men who’d helped his father raise him, standing in Jameson’s stead when the Prime’s duties called him away.
Niko was Prime and Marcus showed him the respect due him, but their relationship was far more than just that. “But don’t linger over those wrongs so long you cause new wounds. Guilt can destroy a relationship as swiftly as mistrust and doubt, you know. Take it from this old man.”
Marcus left him then and Niko tucked the words into his mind to consider later.
