Page 7 of Conri

As she laid there, plotting and planning, she thought of her sister again.Cass wasn’t going to be able to get away with this today.She’d told her yesterday that she was going to start behaving or she’d have to take her to task.Cynthia had gotten a whip from the barn that she was going to use on Cass again if she didn’t start doing what she’d been told.

When she woke up, she was slightly disorientated.Figuring out that she’d been on the floor to sleep didn’t help her mood, but her head was feeling better.Going into the hallway, she found the maid coming out of her mother’s office and told her she’d have to fix her room next.When she told her she’d get right on it, for some reason, she wanted to slap the shit right out of her.There was a tone there, and it bothered her that everyone was against her all the time.She was going to have to have a talk with Daddy about that as well.People were all against her, and she couldn’t figure out why.

After getting herself something to eat, she was ready to face her sister and father.Daddy would have to side with her as he wasn’t going to be around all that much longer, and she’d have to take over his duties as well.He’d better was all she could think about.

She was also going to have a word about his having this tumor, too.He was dragging her down all the time with his sad face and talking about how he was going to be dying soon.She wished he’d just get it over with and die already so that she could have the attention back on her again.His lingering around was just stupid.Perhaps she’d talk him into having the doctor speed things up for her, and that would be the end of him being so needy.

He’d not been.That was another thing she was going to have a talk to him about.He and Cass were always hanging out together.Playing that horse game.He’d never invited her to play the horse game, and she wasn’t going to allow them to play anymore if they weren’t going to invite her to play.There were plenty of pieces.They just have to make room for her.Writing that in her little notebook, she was going to have to have a talk with her daddy that lasted all night the way things were going right now.

~*~

Conri couldn’t believe his luck tonight.He’d taken Cass to the burger joint, and her dad was there getting him something to eat.He had explained that it was cook’s night off, and he treated himself to a burger out when that happened.Also, he’d have a shake, he told them, but no fries.He didn’t care all that much for them.Conri had been kidding when he told Cindy that he was enjoying them with his dinner.

“She has this notebook that she’s writing things down in.Things that she wants to talk to you about, Dad.”Before her dad had joined them, he had just asked Cass what was wrong with her.It took him ten minutes to find out that she’d been hit with a riding crop by her sister.And if that wasn’t bad enough, she told him that she’d hit her with one before, but never had she drawn blood before.He was about as pissed off as he’d been about meeting her.

Cass was nothing like he’d imagined her to be.She was beautiful in every sense of the word.Her smile made his heart beat a little faster.The fact that she didn’t need makeup or wear it led him to think that she was a natural beauty rather than a made-up one.Her voice, even when she was upset like she had been, wasn’t shrill or loud.She calmly told him that she was upset with her sister and then that she’d been hit by her.Conri wanted to slay her dragons, but she asked him to wait.Not that she didn’t want him to do anything about her sister, just to wait until she was in a better frame of mind to talk to him about her.

“I’ve seen her writing things in that little book of hers.She used to do it a lot when she was younger, keeping track of things that she wanted me to know about.It’s only until recently that she’s been writing things in it that have to do with things that she wants me to—I spoke to your brother on the way in here, and he said she’s not taking her medications anymore.I’ll have to speak to her about that, too.It’s dangerous when she’s not taking them.As you’ve witnessed first-hand.”Conri asked what was wrong with her.“She’s bipolar, for one, and she has a serious chemical imbalance too that when she’s not taking her medication, she goes into this fight mode.Everything is against her, and she’s the only one that can fix that.I should have noticed that myself and might have been able to nip this in the bud before now.If she refuses to take the medications, then she’ll end up in an asylum again.This time for a lot longer than before.When she gets in that sort of mood, she’s a danger to all of us and herself as well.”

Conri didn’t want to be afraid for Cass and her father, but he found himself being just that.If Cindy, as he’d been calling her, which Cass said that she hated, did anything else to his mate, she was going to have to deal with him.And that wasn’t going to be pretty.

After dinner, he took Cass to his home.Mom wanted to meet her, and while Cass wasn’t keen on meeting his mom right now, she was polite and nice to her and his brothers.They seemed to be falling all over themselves, proving to her that they were there if she needed them.

That just pissed her off, and it was funny to see her tangle with the five of them when she’d had enough of them handling her.They were, too.Like a kitten or pup that they’d just gotten, and everyone wanted to hold her.

“Behave yourselves, or I’ll teach you some manners.”They each backed away after welcoming her to the family.“We’ll see about that.I have my own family crisis to deal with right now.With my sister off her meds and my dad sick, I’m barely hanging on here.So just behave yourselves, and I might get to like you all.”

Mom invited her to stay the night as they had plenty of room.She agreed that she didn’t want to face her sister and her list right now but would have to call her parents and tell them where she was going to be.As she left the room to make her call, he looked at his brothers.He needed them to understand something as well.

“Howard said she was dangerous.Not only has she hit Cass with a riding crop, but she said she was going to ruin my face as well.I’m taking this very seriously right now.Especially if her sister is saying that she was going to kill Cass if she dated me.”Yuri told them again about her insisting that she date him before Cass, and it really bothered him that she wouldn’t take no for an answer.“If yousee her out and about, though Howard said that she’s not much of a townie person, but if you see her in town, avoid her at all costs.And I’d like for you guys to keep an eye on Cass and Mom while they’re out without me.”

“You think that she really will hurt Cass?”He explained that she already had.“I know that, but I mean, do you think she’ll kill her given the chance?If that’s right, then you have to proclaim her as your mate soon.It’ll give her immortality and save you the heartache of losing her.”

That’s how they’d been able to get their father and Carol out of their lives.Conri hadn’t ever proclaimed her as his.They’d slept together and had had a lot of sex in those first few months, but he’d never claimed her as his own.So, she was never given immortality.Mom had claimed that she no longer wanted to be regarded as a mate to his father.That took away his immortality, too, when it was needed to seek pack judgment against him.It had been a bit more complicated about their father, but once it was finished, he was as well.

“I don’t want to rush her.”He had a feeling that she’d not be rushed into anything.After she came back into the room, he was happy when she sat down next to him.“Is everything all right with your family?”

“Yes.Dad convinced Mom to meet him in town, and they’re going to stay at the bed and breakfast for a few days.They’ve not told Cynthia and don’t plan on it.But my brother knows, so he won’t tell her.Mom said that she threatened to kill me and Conri if I was really dating him.Is that what we call this between us?Dating?”

“We can call it that for now.But as my mate, in our pack or any other pack, we’re considered to be married.Nothing will come between us so long as—we’ll live forever if you were to tell me that it’s all right to claim you.”She didn’t immediately tell him no, for which he was grateful.But she did ask him what that meant.“I just say to a group of wolves that I claim you as my mate for all time.It’ll make you safer being around your sister.Also, you won’t gain any weight—unless you’re breeding, nor will you get sick with any human diseases, either.Plus, while I don’t know how much or what it would be, you’ll get a bit of magic too—more so because you’ll be the female version of myself as alpha.”

“Can I think on that?At least for the night?”He told her that it would be totally up to her.But she shouldn’t just not take it because they don’t know one another just yet.“I understand that you’re trying to protect me from Cynthia, and I will admit that I’m afraid that she’ll hurt me.I just need to think about what that will mean to the rest of my family and their not being immortal.They can’t be, can they?”

“No, I’m sorry.I can’t give it to them unless the king of our kind says it’s all right.I can contact him and ask him about it.I know about your father.But that will be completely up to him.”She said that is why she wanted to think about it.“All right, you think about it, and I’ll do my very best not to piss you off any more than I already have.”

The rest of the evening was spent getting to know each other.His brothers, one by one, headed to their own homes, and since he was living in the pack house with his mom, he only had to show her the rooms of the place and let her pick out one for herself.He was glad when she took the old room that he had.Having her sleeping in his old bed was something akin to having her in his big bed in the master suite of the house.Conri felt like if anyone heard what he’d been thinking, they’d never let him live it down.

Going to bed that night, he had to sit down when he thought of her being his mate.He’d gone to see her pissed off, and the little bit of time that he’d spent with her had him changing his mind about everything.While eating with her, he’d probed her mind for anything that he’d found in Carol’s mind, and all he could find was that she wasn’t lying to him and she didn’t know what it meant to be his mate.Just honesty was all he found, too.

Getting up when all he was doing was tossing and turning, he pulled out his laptop and began a search on her family.And because he ran background checks on everyone who worked in the house, he did one on her and her sister.Howie, too, but he could only find that he’d been married once before and that six months after they were wed, there had been a horrific accident that had taken her life andthat of their unborn child.

Cynthia was a different story.There were so many articles in the newspaper that he was surprised to know that she’d been released from the hospital for the criminally insane.She’d killed four people one afternoon when she couldn’t get in touch with her father.She believed that the four people who had died by her hand were keeping him from her.He read the article about her trial.

She’d been deemed unfit to stand trial.Her thinking was that it had been all right for her to have killed those people because she’d not been able to find her father.The article went on to say that they’d had to lock her up and put her into restraints before they finally got her on the medication that she needed.Cynthia had only been out on her own for the last ten years.She was deemed fit so long as she took her meds on time and was monitored daily by a doctor.He’d bet anything that no one had been to see her in a few months and not have anyone notice that she’d been acting up again.

He made a mental note to ask Cass about it when he saw her in the morning.He also wondered if that was the reason she didn’t live at home, that Cass was somehow a trigger for the older woman.Another thing that he was going to talk to her about.Just as he was closing up his computer, there was a knock at the door.Going to get it, he was glad that he’d not undressed completely when he’d gotten in the room.It was his mom.

“I remembered that I had this cleaned for you a couple of months ago.”She handed him the small box from the jeweler.“I thought that if she allows you to claim her, you should give her a ring, too.It’s one that your father didn’t give me, but I purchased it for myself.”

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