Page 37 of The Alpha's Arranged Bride

She tried not to be angry or go into cardiac arrest. Slamming plates was only going to wreck her brother’s dishes. His apartment was small, but redone to make it more modern. It only had two bedrooms, and while the boys would bunk on the bottom bunk in Waverly’s room and she’d take the top, Rome had given up his bed in favor of the couch so that she and Agnar could sleep comfortably as his guests. He didn’t have to do it. The brother she knew from before he’d left the pack wouldn’t have even thought of it. Rome marched to a beat only he could hear, and it was so… off. Everyone knew it.

“He won’t want it if all he has in Wyoming is a mate with a heart hardened against him and a pack who refuses to accept him. He won’t ever feel like he could be part of something if he’s always made to feel like an outsider.”

“He’s not an outsider, our pack has accepted him and his people,” Prairie Rose said as she wrung out the washcloth.

“People like us, we’re always going to be the outsiders, even when we’re perfectly ensconced right in the middle of things,” Her brother responded.

She rinsed the plates and threw cutlery and a few pots into the soapy water. Rome didn’t move to dry anything. “He wants to be part of it. He just doesn’t know it yet. He wants to have hope. Everyone does. He’s a father who would like his children to live in a better world than the one he knew. He didn’t have the childhood we did. He didn’t have a home like we did. He’s had to fight for every single thing he’s ever had. That’s made him hard. He’s seen far too much death and—”

“Caused far too much death.”

“I don’t care about that!”

Rome raised a brow. “Are you sure? The Prairie Rose I know would run the other direction when faced with bloodstained hands.”

“His pack had to fight for their survival like ours used to do so long ago. But what they had to endure makes the skirmishes between us and our neighbors look like children quarreling. We can’t even remember it. We aren’t old enough.”

“You can’t call it love when you see the potential in someone. You can’t love that gap or that fantasy of what they could be because no one ever turns into it or reaches that benchmark.”

“That’s not true either,” she growled. “And I don’t, in any case. I don’t want Agnar because of who he could be. I’ve tried very hard to give him a home where he can heal and be exactly who he is.”

“The fact that you don’t even care that he’s broken in every way and maimed physically says a lot about you. You’re a good woman, Prairie Rose. Better than me by far, had I been a woman.”

“If you would have been a woman, you would have been terrifying,” she said, deadpan. She didn’t want to talk about Agnar when he wasn’t there. She knew he would be humiliated in her defense of him. “You’re terrifying right now.”

Rome shrugged. He finally picked up a plate and started to dry it. He rubbed it too hard, like he was angry with it, but then, Rome had always been angry with the world and everything in it. Even as a child, he’d had so much rage in him. He and Kieran used to beat the shit out of each other. For Rome, it was fun. For Kieran, it was trying to stay alive. As adults, he’d hurt Kieran more than once, but Kieran forgave him every time—even the attack that had almost killed him. None of them were willing to give up on Rome. He was their brother, and underneath the anger and the darkness, he hid a sensitive soul that most people couldn’t see even if they tried.

“I noticed Agnar doesn’t have many tattoos,” he said changing the subject.

Prairie Rose took in her brother’s inked arms.

She wasn’t sure where else he had them, but that was the only skin she could see. He had two sleeves, the black and gray ink swirling in hyper realistic angels and demons on one arm and Greek gods on the other. It didn’t seem like he’d been away from the pack for long enough to have that much ink, “When did you get all those done? I don’t remember you having any tattoos before.”

“It seemed like a way to mark a new phase of my life. The shop we go to is run by a wolf and everyone there is some kind of shifter or supe.”

“Eww. Don’t call supernatural people supes.”

“Alright, vampires and witches.”

“Jesus, a vampire works there?’

“Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “She’s alright. The shop is open twenty-four seven. Who better to work the night shift?” Rome didn’t have a sense of humor, but his lips twitched.

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. Technically, though, I’ve learned vampires are quite alive, contrary to popular belief. They’re a species, just like shifters. Born like that, not made, and she doesn’t hate garlic, let alone fear it.”

Prairie Rose finished scrubbing the pots. She was going to ask Rome more about the auto repair shop, but Levi and Blake’s voices picked up from the living room. They clearly weren’t playing chess any longer.

“I’ll be the murdering jerk face who kidnaps Princess Poo Turd and holds her prisoner.”

“And I’ll be the one who saves her before she gets her head cut off.”

“Don’t cut my dolly’s head off!” Waverly cried indignantly.

“No, I’m going to save her.”

“Unless I rip her head off first!” Levi yelled and laughed like a maniac.

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