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They’d built this city. Made it their home.
That wasn’t something she could erase away. Her pack had a history here, a purpose.
There had to be a solution. She...just hadn’t found it yet.
Either way, exiting her agreement with Amarok wouldn’t be easy. She didn’t intend to make an enemy of the Toronto white wolf pack, which meant she was stuck. Trapped, really. And she couldn’t ask Jace to continue to be her lover, something akin to a male mistress. That wouldn’t be fair to him. Or herself. And now that she was here, returned to the sanctuary of her office and among the safety of her pack, she wasn’t certain she could continue this.
Keep putting her deal with Amarok at risk, all because she wanted Jace.
She’d been selfish, foolish over the past several days. Alejandro hadn’t needed to say it. She’d already known that the reality of what and who she was would come back to haunt her.
She hadn’t anticipated it’d be her, rather than Jace to slam on the breaks between them.
She slumped into her executive chair, feeling her spirit deflate, but nevertheless, she got to work, as all powerful women did, as every packmaster had before, tending and caring for everything that’d gathered on her desk while she’d been away.
Amarok could wait.
She tackled anything remotely urgent first, Jeanine filling her in on the details from while she’d been away. Then she set about tasking the secretary with finding a cleaning crew that could discretely restore her apartment, answered a few necessary emails, ordered a new phone, and then finally, made her way downstairs.
It wasn’t an awful night, but the work was tiring, tedious, and considering Amarok’s unexpected arrival and the topic she planned to discuss with him, she couldn’t see how the evening could get any worse. Until she arrived at her private booth, Amarok lounged back against the plush cushions, a fresh drink in his hand, and Jace sitting across from him in wait.
For a moment, all she could do was blink. She wasn’t certain, which of the men to address first, but from the subtle, murderous glint in his eye, she decided on Jace.
“The wait staff was supposed to bring you straight to my office,” she said.
He cast a cursory glance toward her. “That’d require them to know I’m here.”
She lifted a brow. “How did you get in?”
“The usual way.” He leaned back in his seat, propping his arms over the back of the booth. He said it as if he’d been here a dozen times before.
She’d have to have a talk with Aidan about that.
“And David?” she asked.
Jace chuckled. “Pretty sure he’s chasing down that bartender of yours. The blonde. Allyson.” Jace nodded toward the bar.
“Allyson?” she repeated. How did Jace know...
In an instant, Frankie put two-and-two together.
K9’s head bartender, Allyson O’Hare, a Fae woman who Frankie also considered her friend, had disclosed in her initial interview for the position over a year ago that she’d been previously engaged to an Execution Underground hunter, once upon a time. Frankie hadn’t thought much of it then, other than concern for what it could mean for the pack’s safety should the two get back together. But Allyson had assured her it’d been a long time ago, a high school sweetheart gone wrong situation, and that there was no chance of the two reconciling.
“You mean David is...” Frankie’s voice trailed off as Jace nodded. “Well, that’s a development I wasn’t expecting.” Rochester’s underground was a small city, she supposed.
“And neither was this,” Amarok said, his presence suddenly coming between them.
Frankie glanced between the two men, more aware than ever that she’d need to use... subtlety if she expected to navigate whatever this situation with the three of them was.
“Rock,” she said sternly, “allow me to introduce you to—”
“We’ve met,” Jace said, cutting her off.
The wolf hunter was full of more surprises than she knew. Another way she’d underestimated him.
She glanced between them then. “Please tell me you’re not—”
“Enemies?” Rock finished for her with a lift of a brow. He set his drink down on the table. “No. I don’t share drinks with any man I have the intention of cutting down.”
