AllFreeNovel
Share Us
4
By the time I’d rested, napping on Maria’s couch for a few hours, and changed my clothes, the day had grown hot. The cool mist blowing in from the marina had burned away, and all the male pups moving around outside the Alpha house were shirtless. The smell of sweat and body odor got stronger with every step we took up the tree lined driveway.
The house itself sat back from the road, hidden by a wide ring of trees. Its crooked red brick chimney stretched up to the sky at an odd angle, and two stone wolves stood flanking the grand staircase beneath a green awning. I’d named them Bits and Bob when I was six. My father had laughed for hours when I told him.
“You ready for this?” Maria asked, slowing to keep pace with me.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I shrugged. “It’s not like I’m not active on my own.”
“We’ll see about that,” Adrian said, appearing on the front stairs, just far enough away to overhear us with his preternatural ears.
“Good morning,” Maria said, plastering a fake smile across her face.
We stepped within natural earshot, and he nodded to her, a little too dramatic and serious for so hot a day. “Good morning, Maria. Please go around back and start your rounds with Gregor. I’d like to have a word with my daughter.”
My jaw clenched. “You are not my father.”
“Forgive me.” He held up a hand. “I’d like to have a word with mystepdaughter.”
The hairs along my neck stayed upright, but the tension in my jaw relaxed. “What do you want, Adrian? I came back for Annie’s howling. I don’t need training.”
He gave Maria a pointed look and waited for her to walk away before he turned back to me. “Come inside.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he ignored me and turned away, disappearing back into the shadows of the house. I growled under my breath and hesitated at the edge of the stairs. Adrian of all people knew exactly how hard it would be for me to walk back inside the big house. I hadn’t been back in it since my father died and I’d chosen to move in with Annie down by the marina.
I closed my eyes, repeating a single phrase inside my head.The wolf is strong, and cunning, but above all the wolf survives. The wolf survives.Annie’s greatest lesson.
I lifted my foot and climbed up the first step, and then the next. By the time I opened my eyes, I was striding into the main hall of the house. Adrian stood at the doors to the sitting room on my left, looking unimpressed with his arms crossed and his features pinched in a scowl.
I pivoted to face him and glared. “What do you want, Adrian?”
“Sit.” He gestured to the chairs behind him. “We need to talk about your return.”
“My return?” I arched an eyebrow, inching only half a step closer. There was no way I’d be showing Adrian my back. Ever.
He rolled his eyes and walked deeper into the room. I followed and watched him pour himself a drink from a selection of crystal bottles lining the table that divided the seating area from his desk on the far wall.
“I know you don’t trust me, Evie, but I am your Alpha. The least you could do is afford me that respect,” he said, without turning his head.
“Forgive me for having trouble with the idea you’ve taken my father’s place. In the pack, in my home, with my mother,” I said, through my teeth.
His back tensed. “I am not replacing your father, merely picking up where he left off.”
“If you say so,” I scoffed, perching on the arm of the leather chair furthest away from him.
He turned to face me and sized up my position sniffing the air. To anyone else he’d have looked completely at ease, but I knew without a doubt he was gaging my temperament, trying to scent my intentions. Adrian Lefevre had every reason to view me as a threat. We both knew I’d tried to kill him more than once, and we’d parted on less than pleasant terms.
“Why have you returned,” he asked, tilting his head slightly to one side.
I looked back over my shoulder and back to his face in disbelief. “Did I not just tell you exactly that outside?”
“That covers why you were here last night. It does not explain, however, why you’ve remained in town. Maria’s instructions to bring you here were conditional on whether or not you intended on staying past the ceremony.”
“I’m leaving the day after tomorrow,” I said.
He nodded. “So, you are here for the reading of the will.”
“Gregor called me himself and told me that I was named in the paperwork,” I said. “He guilted me into at least staying long enough to hear whatever it was that Annie wanted me to hear. I wouldn’t have stayed otherwise, so blamehim.”
