Page 95 of Rogue Games

LYNN: That’s a you problem. Jamie’s hurting, and you’re making it worse by acting all possessive. And if you’re too stupid to change your mind, then you need to let her go.

She might be right, but I’m not in the mood to hear it. Just the thought of watching her move on with another male makes me want to gouge my eyes out. My wolf won’t even countenance the idea of rejecting her. I suspect he’d force the shift and refuse to give me back my human form if I even attempted doing it. If it was up to him, even talking to my mate would count as an automatic disqualification.

DEAN: Since when does the alpha get told what to do?

LYNN: When he needs to hear it. And his friends are worried about him doing something he’ll regret.

Lynn breaks the link before I can argue with her. Jamie was polite but kept her distance, and her composure. Unlike me.

If this is how I behave every time another male even looks at her, I’m going to deserve the angriest alpha title by the time this competition is over. My pulse quickens, my temper rising again just thinking about the lust in the eyes of every shifter waiting in line to enter.

“You know she didn’t technically do anything.”

Groaning loudly, I look down at Ava’s grandmother, Iris, who’s blocking my way into the clearing.

“Who didn’t?” I ask, not wanting to get dragged into a question-and-answer session about my love life, even if it is my own fault for broadcasting that Jamie’s my fated mate after the pack run.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Dean Reynolds,” Iris warns, raising her wooden walking stick and jabbing it in my direction. “We all do crazy things when we meet our mates. There isn’t a wolf I know who doesn’t have a story. I’m certain of it.”

Fuck me. So, everyone knows everything? Great.

“She searched my private home, my office, and went through confidential pack files. That’s nothing?” I whisper to the old woman.

Iris quirks her lips and lifts both shoulders quickly in a sharp shrug. “If she’s to become our luna, she’d see it all soon enough anyway.” Stepping closer, she tilts her head and watches me intently. “You wouldn’t have tried keeping anything from her, now would you, Dean?”

Her stooped posture and perfectly styled grey hair does nothing to soften her will of steel. You don’t fuck with Iris. The oldest wolf in the pack, she’s earned her respect. And she’s dangerous with that cane.

“No ma’am. No secrets.”

“Then really, all she did was get a little preview.” She throws her hands out. “Her intent may have been questionable, but you know, deep down, that she wouldn’t have done anything unjust.”

She’s right. Jamie was looking for evidence. She wasn’t looking to deceive anyone. All she wanted was to know what happened to her mother, and her anguish made her act out.

But nothing she did really harmed anyone, except maybe, my ego. Because where I had fallen for her even before knowing what she was to me, Jamie was still clinging on to me being the bad guy in her story.

Ava comes over, and I breathe out a sigh of relief. Hopefully she’ll call her grandmother off.

“I don’t care what anyone else says, I think her being a rogue is awesome. She’s tough. She doesn’t care about money or fancy things, obviously, if she wants to move here.” The girls giggle and I frown, not understanding where she’s going with this. “She’d make a great Luna. Everyone in my class thinks so. We’ve started a petition.”

My head spins. A petition? So, they want Jamie here?

“What’s wrong with our pack?”

Ava shrugs. “We need a pool. Somewhere for the girls to hang out. You’re great, and we love you, but a Luna would get that.”

A fucking pool? I blink at the women in front of me. What the fuck is going on?

“She’s saying you’ve done a great job bringing this pack back from the brink, but it’s okay to want help and happiness, and it’s okay to forgive her.” Iris squeezes my arm to soften her words. “These idiots are going to hurt themselves before the next round even starts.”

Iris stands to the side now that her point has been made. She allows me to pass by and go to sort out the mess brewing in the clearing, where the so-called sparring is getting louder and more vicious with each punch thrown.

Multiple fights are going on at the same time and the crowd is baying for blood.

I need to get the carnage unravelling in my backyard under control before I can find a dark room and think. Already in a bad mood, I’m fit to explode as I watch on in disbelief as one wolf shifts and launches himself at another. I can handle some old grudges and amped up tensions leading to a fist fight, getting their animals involved is totally unacceptable.

“Enough!” I roar, the blood in my veins like red hot lava as every bit of my anger over the last few days bleeds into that one word.

The crowd falls silent, but the now two fully shifted wolves are still tussling on the ground, lost to their own fury, as they scratch and bite at each other.

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