Page 13 of Arranged Wolf's Nanny
Rick was pacing in front of the fire, occasionally pausing to bare his teeth, his rage bubbling dangerously close to the surface, before he shook his head and carried on stalking.
It helped to keep his wolf at bay.
Just.
Truth be told, in the three days since he had returned from the Eastern Alliance meetings, he’d barely spent any time at all in his human skin. He ran the forests, checked the perimeter line, hunted through the Grove, didanythinghe could think of to regain a modicum of control over his own damn life.
He had driven Dane close to distraction, he knew, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. If Dane wanted to get testy and territorial about patrol duties, more power to him. Rick would run the line anyway. The others soon stopped interfering, likely at Felix’s behest.
For all of Dane's posturing, Nicolas’s panther-like viciousness, and Felix’s raw strength, Rick had always been the wildest of them.
Perhaps it had been the way he was raised. His family kept the European way of things; it was a way of life more attuned to their wolves, more in sync with nature. Civility, at least in the human sense, had no place in shifter life.
It did, however, have the downside that in the rare moments that Rick found his temper tested, he always found it difficult to maintain his grip over his consciousness. The wolf was always ready to take over. It had happened with Eva’s mother; it had happened when those bounty hunters had captured him and put him in a cage.
And if it had fucking happened when John Heath had demanded his acquiescence to a marriage he had not wanted. When he had made clear his intent to try andcontrolhim.
A vicious snarl ripped free from his throat.
He was not some damn pup to be commanded. And yet this man, this sniveling, slimy, social-climbingnobodyof a male, sought to bind him.
John Heath was damn lucky Felix had been there. He had been ready to tear out the throat of every smug bastard alpha in the room.Startingwith John Heath.
He doubted Rosalia would have minded. She likely would have thanked him for doing so if her terror at her father’s announcement was any indication of her involvement in the whole sordid affair.
The girl was due to arrive any minute now. They were to be wed that very same day. John Heath had, apparently, insisted on it for the sake of his daughter’svirtue.
Rick bared his teeth. Talking about hervirtuelike she was some quaking medieval princess and not awolf.
It would be a miracle if he got through the damn ceremony without gutting his bride’s father.
Damn Felix.Damnhim. They could have defeated Red Teeth without the help of the Green Mountain pack fighters. They may have lost more wolves to the murderous bastard, but at least now they wouldn’t be in the thrall of some grasping climber desperate to rise above his pathetic station.
Rick struck the wall, pain radiating through his hand. He hardly registered it.
Better the stone than John’s face.
Nobody respected shifter law more than Rick. Nobody. And now, it was coming back to bite him in the ass. He would not refuse a boon granted under oath. He would not jeopardize his pack. He would go through with it.
And one day, one glorious day, he would find a way to make John pay.
Only one other person had ever been brave or foolish enough to try and trap him. And the only reason she was still breathing was because of their daughter.
There was a cautious knock at the door, a rap of tiny knuckles, and Rick halted. “Enter.”
Eva’s little face appeared in the gap as she pushed the door to his study open, glancing around with awe at the expanse of her father’s forbidden domain. Normally, she wasn’t allowed in here. There were far too many family heirlooms with sharp edges she could hurt herself on.
“Evangeline,” he greeted, nodding solemnly at his daughter, forcing his wolf away.
That was another reason he had taken to the woods. For all his rage, he hadn’t wanted to scare her.
“Papa,” she greeted, shuffling forwards, her chestnut curls bouncing. “When is Rosalia getting here?”
Rick sucked in a sharp breath. Predictably, his daughter had been overjoyed at the prospect of a stepmother. Daisy, bless her kind heart, had helped him sit her down and explain that he was getting married. They hadn’t gotten further than the word ‘wedding’ before her little face lit up and a thousand questions spilled out of her, each one more outlandish than the last.
When is she coming? When are you getting married? Can I be a flower girl? Can I meet her? Is she going to live here? Is she going to be my mama?
Rick had frozen at the last question, and Daisy had given him a worried look. No doubt Nicolas had gossiped all about the saga of Rick and Zara to her.
