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Sara’s look alone tells me I could tell her I want us to be mates. I could explain it to her, and I don’t think she’d be the least bit scared. We could go through the entire ritual and make it official. Permanent. A genuine family, like she’s said. No more questions. No more doubts.
Until that point, Xavier wasn’t sure Sara wanted the same thing. Yes, in words, she had said as much. Seeing her expression just then. It sealed their future for Xavier. Her heart was completely on board. No questions remained. All lingering doubts flew off with the wind.
Veronica followed Xavier down to the main floor. When they got to the landing, Xavier saw she was on edge by how she fiddled with the cuffs on her blouse. She had done that all her young life. If nervous or apprehensive, cuff fiddling. It was a tell only he recognized and one which he wasn’t about to make her aware of. It was too useful. It could be a future hint of what may be going on with his less-than-transparent sister.
“Can we do this in the kitchen? I need a coffee. Bad,” Veronica requested.
“Sure, yeah. Wherever you want.”
The pair headed for the kitchen, which Xavier still remembered was their go-to for having spats. The battleground had always been in that room, to the dismay and frustration of their mother.
The walk down the hall took longer in Xavier’s mind. In those several yards, he flashed back to when he and Veronica were kids. Their childhood was a revolving door of debates and disputes. No sooner had one battle been quelled when another fired up. For his parents, he figured it must have been like living with two presidential candidates on a permanent debate stage where the throwing of mud pies and arm punches overrode spat-out words.
Xavier didn’t want to cause more trouble. But Veronica did show up unannounced. And as the pack leader, he needed to know way more about this so-called pack rift she had either started or was a player in.
Despite their estrangement, word got around the shifter realm. Xavier knew Veronica continued to be a firecracker, saying or doing things to rile up whatever leadership she felt had their thumb over her. He never thought to intervene. She had her life. He had his. And that was a mutually beneficial pact until she showed up at his door.
The hall finally met with the kitchen, and the pair walked in. Veronica strode straight to the coffeemaker. Xavier went to the fridge for a Red Bull. He figured he needed wings for this talk. If only to manage a psychological escape route.
If there had been a musical backdrop to the scene, it would have been a sixties Western movie score. Something that signified high noon and two cowboys with holsters unclipped and guns loaded.
Xavier turned around to see Veronica leaning against the counter on the opposite side of the room. She was staring straight into her brother’s eyes while slowly … ever so slowly … sipping her coffee.
Yep. I was right. This is a showdown. Veronica and I are literally adults now, but I guess habits die hard. Where are the mud pies when you need them?
Xavier leaned against the counter and offered his sister an angelic smile. With eagle eyes, he stared straight back, slowly … ever so slowly … sipping his energy drink.
The moment could go well, or it could go bad.
Would this be a human battle?
Or one with razor-sharp teeth, honed claws, and bites, literal and figurative, which could leave everlasting marks?
THIRTEEN
XAVIER
“Ronnie, we have to face the nine-hundred-pound elephant in the room with us. I mean, it’s great to finally see you, but why did you leave your pack?”
Veronica sighed, lowered her shoulders, and plunked into one of the kitchen table chairs.
“Xavier, what a mess. The alpha wanted me as his mate. But I turned him down. I didn’t tell him in so many words, but he and I simply weren’t fated. He’s not a nice person, Xavier. Not like you want in a mate. And knowing that, there’s no way I can bond with this shifter for the rest of my life.”
“Holy shit, Ronnie. Are you nuts?”
“Hey, I didn’t ask for this, you know. The guy came on to me. I was minding my own business in the pack, keeping my head down, trying to stay on the straight and narrow.”
“What did the alpha say after you kicked him to the curb?”
Veronica found a pen on the table and twirled it round and round. “It’s not so much what he said. It’s what he had his beta do. I was banished from the pack just like that. I was given half an hour to pack up my belongings and get out of there. After all the time I spent there and served him. Poof. Gone. Like I never existed.”
The two of them sat at the table with only silence between them. It was a lot for Xavier to take in.
Xavier knew his sister’s words could come back to haunt them both. It was rare for alphas to be rejected. It’s understood. If you belong to the pack and you are chosen as a mate for the leader, it’s considered an honor. Maybe love comes later, but the request is never denied.
Xavier wasn’t a fool. There would be repercussions to the D’Point pack. He just didn’t know what they would be.
But Xavier also knew to take it easy on Ronnie.I can’t make this sound as bad as it is. She might fly off the handle and make things worse. Keep calm, man, and treat her with kid gloves.
