Page 5 of Destined Bear
“Alessa—”
“I’m waiting.”
It’s pointless to argue with someone as stubborn as Alessa. It would be easier to battle with a brick wall. It’s one of Alessa’s most endearing qualities.
“Fine.” I pick up my bags again and head for the house, calling out to Millie as I reenter. The nurse pops her head out of the kitchen, her hands covered in rubber cleaning gloves.
“I’m going to the ranch.”
Millie’s eyes widen so large, they seem like they might fall out of their sockets.
“With Alessa,” I add hastily. “She just showed up. I’ll be back soon.”
Millie eyes me warily. “Oh. What should I tell your mother when she wakes up?”
A dozen different responses filter through my head, but I discard all of them. “I’ll be back before she wakes up.”
I have no way of knowing if that’s true, but at least it will give me the motivation to make it a quick visit.
As an afterthought, I add, “If she does wake up before I get back, tell Mom I took her advice and went to see His Royal Highness.”
Causticness drips from every fiber of my body.
Millie visibly swallows, and for a second, I think she’s going to say something other than what she does. “Good luck.” The words are barely a squeak.
I’m going to need it. I have no interest in seeing the shifter who had humiliated me so publicly all those years ago. But I am nothing if not pragmatic, and I can’t hide forever. Mom’s illness has seen to that. I have to put my big girl panties on and face the Alpha like the woman I am.
CHAPTER 2
EMERIC
My Beta, Heath, avoids my eyes as the enforcers grumble amongst themselves. They’re getting louder about it, as if I’m not standing right there, witnessing their incessant complaining.
More and more, that’s all they seem to do. During peacetime, there sure is a lot of squabbling going on.
“What?” I bark, standing behind my desk. “What the fuck are you whining about now?”
Silence falls over my office in the packhouse, tension blanketing the room like a rolling fog. Their eyes shoot down, as if they suddenly realize I’m watching all of them with scorn.
“Oh, come on.” My words drip with sarcasm. “You had a lot to say a minute ago. Say to my face what you’re all muttering amongst yourselves.”
The silence deepens, and I fix my eyes on them each individually, allowing my stare to linger on them one by one, as if I can read their thoughts.
Finally, a wolf shifter speaks up. “Ember Hollow is making themselves too comfortable.” Raynor complains, and Heath shoots him a scathing look.
My Beta gives me an apologetic glance as my nostrils flare. The urge to shift into my bear form is overwhelming, but I barely maintain my decorum.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” My head swivels toward Heath.
Raynor pales under the cutting query, as if he suddenly wished he’d kept his mouth closed.
“Well?” I urge.
Heath steps forward to take over. “They’re worried that the Ember Hollow pack is taking over Willow Grove.”
I scoff at the ridiculousness of the statement. “Didn’t we just have the surveyors redraw the lines of the territory and agree to live within those boundaries?”
After twenty years of land disputes, the surveyors had come in, ending the tensions between the packs. Or at least that was the way it was supposed to be. I don’t know what the enforcers are going on about.
