Page 14 of Wolf's Claimed Mate
I gave him a full smile. “Only when I win them.”
“Want to bet?”
“Fuck. Yes.”
“Then you can buy the next milkshakes,” he said. “I’ll have the cherry one, please.”
Chapter 6 - Conall
I was going to play her like a fucking instrument, strum every string she had, tune every note, and torment Sasha just as much as she had tortured me these past weeks. This fake datingwasa genuine reason to be seen without suspicion, but it would give me a chance to get closer to her without risking proper feelings being in the way.
We’d parted ways at the diner. I’d told her I’d keep her posted on what happened next. I already knew. I wanted to check out their old warehouse and then follow up on the name she’d given me. Darren Garth. The name wasn’t familiar, but Kato’s pack had never been a threat up until halfway through Fenrys’s Mating Games. As he’d wooed the women and ran with them the way he would with his Luna, the rest of the pack had…
Well, we’d worked our normal day jobs, but we’d been waiting for him to return, ready for anything at any time. I’d kept them all in line and in our usual training scheme, but without Fenrys around, there had been very few threats.
Aidan, of course, had proven that all wrong after taking Dakota under our noses. It still made me want to kill him that he’d originally been after Thalia. She was my pack’s Luna, and I’d die to protect her, too, as we all would.
I only hoped it never came to that again.
“Con,” Fenrys called as soon as I went through the door of the pack’s house. “Get your ass in here for a second.”
I jogged up to his office, next to his and Thalia’s bedroom. The door was open, and Fenrys sat behind a desk of rich mahogany. His mother intended to step down as mayor in the new year and was already preparing him to take over. He had clippings of Kato’s pack pinned to a corkboard. Kato himself,the old warehouse, another rumored space in Silverlake Valley they’d found the pack had been in by tracking scents. He’d pinned a map full of every town that stories had placed them in, including Oak Hill and the woods between here and there.
“What did Sasha tell you?” he asked, scooting his leather chair back and heading over to the pinboard, a marker pen at the ready to start writing on the pieces of whiteboard he had to pin.
“Nothing much—”
“Con.”
“Can you just give me a sec—”
“If she didn’t tell you much, why aren’t you demanding answers from her back there?” Before I could even speak, he was talking over me again, and the irritation burned hot in my gut. “Con, I don’t know what’s gotten into you recently, but I need you to stop being so immature and pussyfooting around this situation with Sasha. She’s not even a wolf, one of your own kind, so either fuck her and get it out of your system or—”
Seeing red immediately, I shoved Fenrys. As he staggered back, I raised my voice. “I have it covered! Stop fucking underestimating me, Fen.”
Before he could come back at me, I grabbed one of his whiteboard pieces and snatched the marker from his hands, scrawling Darren’s name on it. “There, you asshole. If you’d given me a minute to tell you while acknowledging she didn’t give upa lot,then you’d have known I got the name of Kato’s beta.”
Fenrys stared at me, half in shock, half in anger at being defied.
My fists trembled at my sides. “Stop trying to micromanage my life!” I yelled. “Sasha isn’t just afuck her andmove onsort of person. Stop forcing me into something with her that isn’t even happening.”
“If it isn’t happening, then justdo what I damn well tell you!” Fenrys roared, snapping back at me, every inch of his alpha dominance pouring out, forcing me to submit to him as his beta. I snarled, fighting against the commanding tone.Weak, I told myself.He’s your best friend and can do this. Have this power over you. Fight back. Fight back.
The Conall, Fenrys’s best friend, wanted to fight back; the beta wanted to submit to his alpha and leader.
I threw the first punch, forcing Fenrys back against the floor-to-ceiling window of his office.
I saw a flash of white blonde hair outside in my periphery, but Fenrys was already coming back at me, his hand reaching out to grab my collar and keep me back. I knocked his arm aside and growled at him, lunging for him. He tried to buck me off, but I fought with anger where he didn’t really want to fight at all.
“Stand the fuckdown, Conall,” he shouted, elbows jabbing me back, keeping me at a distance but all I saw was red, over and over.
Either fuck her and get it out of your system…
She’s not even a wolf…
I punched Fenrys again. We’d had many tousles over the years, but we’d neverfought. Yet now my wolf ached to be let free and snap, let the beta and alpha fight it out. I heard Sasha’s venom in my head, telling me I was just a beta, heard Aidan’s taunts of keeping up with the alphas.
I was sodamntired of everyone belittling me, underestimating me, not letting me speak.
