Page 111 of The Packaged Deal

“What are they celebrating?” I ask.

“They have one of these festivals here every three months where people can get together and sell their wares, catch up, get out. It’s like a market but bigger and with games for kids and adults. It became our Season’s Festival.”

Oh. I stare with more interest. We could get Sven doing a self-defense class here for the kids. That would be so cool.

Adrian makes a sound and plunks a wide-brimmed straw hat on my head. “I don’t want you getting burned. You’re far too lovely for peeling skin.”

My heart flutters. He’s so sweet.

Sven steps into the path of a huge man who is barrelling towards us. The guy sees Sven, and though he’s much bigger than my alpha, he veers off, going around us. Intimidated by my alpha because he is just so amazing.

My happiness is complete. My heat went so much better than I had dreamed. Everything I’d been afraid of, waking up and finding them hate me or not want me, has not come true. They are all here, smiling and happy. More infatuated than ever.

It’s like we’re a pack.

It’s like this is the start of our forever-

“Jade Greenway!” The voice rips through my thoughts, pouring water on any fire of happiness in me. “Jade! Oh, lord, you foolish child! What do you think you are doing?”

I flinch, and then remember I don’t care what this person thinks. I really, really don’t care. Still, my hand tightens around Kandi’s, and I break out in a sweat.

“Who are you?” Sven growls.

It doesn’t even fathom on my mother’s scale. She just elbows him out of the way. Sven is about to go apoplectic when she snaps a glare in his direction and gives him three words that stall him in his tracks.

“I’m her mother.”

Sven and Adrian exchange a look, but I’m too busy watching my mother come towards me. Velma Greenway is a large woman. She’s a full head taller than me, with wide shoulders, massive boulders for breasts, and tree trunk thighs. My mother uses her size as a weapon and her womanhood and status as a beta as part of her arsenal. She terrorized my childhood and made me this living statue too afraid to move.

Growing up under her thumb was hell. Breaking free of her rules and hate-filled speeches was the bravest and most right thing I’ve ever done. She is evil.

Her hair is steel grey, and she has muddy brown eyes and thin lips. She’s dressed in a tight and very conservative suit skirt the colour of rotting apples. She looks exactly the same, down to the sneer across her face. My mother, who hates the world and everyone in it.

“Jade Greenway, you will get away from that…that woman right now.”

“I won’t.” I tilt my chin up and narrow my eyes. It doesn’t get easier to defy her. I have to watch for the consequences. If she thinks she’s losing, she will attack me from another angle.

“You’ll come home and call your alpha-”

“I will not!” I growl out, my heart beating fast. She would, too. She’d hand me back to him in a minute. I’d rather die!

“Are you aware that the alpha you supplied for her almost put her in an early grave? He beat her so badly it took weeks to recover,” Kandi asks in a tight tone I recognise as one of deep warning.

My mother sniffs. “Jade has always been willful. Disrespectful. Undisciplined. Embarrassingly abrupt in public and, in general, lacking manners,” my mother snaps at Kandi, “he just disciplined her.”

I stare at her. She doesn’t feel any remorse whatsoever. I mean, I didn’t expect much, but he did try to kill me. Disciplined me? If I could make her vanish forever, I would do so in a heartbeat.

“Now!” my mother growls, “get away from that woman. You’ll come with me. We can still fix this. Trevor may still take you back. He has a good family behind him.”

Does he? We never met them.

“No, I won’t,” I say through my teeth, glaring at my mother. “Kandi is a member of my pack.”

“Your pack? You don’t have a pack.” My mother scoffs. “You smell as unbonded as you always did.”

“I clearly do,” I argue, and wonder why I’m defensively arguing with her.

“If that was true, you’d have bonds, daughter, and you don’t. So, quit wasting time living in a fantasy land with this pack. Can’t you see they aren’t the right people for you?”

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