Page 92 of In Control

“Him again? I was convinced you would win him over.”

There was an alpha in Rosie’s pack who was against her joining the pack. Turns out he was secretly in love with her. This is different, though. Like I said, my story.

“He was actually being nice for once – I should’ve known it was just a front.”

“Being nice how?”

“Concerned about my welfare.”

“Awww Soph.”

“It didn’t last,” I swallow, “he wanted … he wanted me to tell him who’s been sending me those letters.”

There’s a pause down the end of the line. “I thought those letters stopped, Soph.”

“They started again.” Rosie is the only person who knows. Well, was the only person who knew. “I told him I didn’t trust him to tell him who they were from.”

“I don’t blame you, Soph. He hasn’t given you much reason to trust him. So, don’t tell me? The arsehole got all stinky about it.”

I manage a laugh. “No, not exactly. He jumped back to his usual conclusions, that I’m somehow out to destroy his pack. All because he rejected me.”

“You told him that’s not true?”

“I started to,” I sigh. “But what’s the point, Rosie? If he thinks that about me …”

“King of Arseholes. Want Seb to go beat him up?”

I laugh. “I don’t want Seb getting hurt.”

Rosie snorts like that would never happen in a million years. It’s actually pretty cute how gaga she is about her boys. “Do you want to come round, print out a picture of his face and throw darts at it?”

“As tempting as that sounds, I think I just want to go home to bed.”

“Then we’ll meet for lunch tomorrow, OK? I’ll come meet you at the department. My treat.”

“I’d like that.”

“Of course you would! Soph?”

“Yes?”

“Forget about that piece of shit. He isn’t worth it.”

He isn’t. The rest of the pack were.

I try not to think about that. They come as a package.

I hang up and walk the last stretch of road, students on bicycles whizzing past me and the smell of freshly mown grass in the air.

My apartment isn’t far from the Physics department – the main reason I chose it. At the corner store, I pick up another bar of chocolate and the posh kind of cat food Newton goes cross-eyed over.

The apartment foyer is empty when I arrive and I key in the code and lean my shoulder into the door. I should have asked the building owners to change the code. I should never have let him see me key it in. Then he’d never have been able to leave those letters on my mat.

But there’s nothing I can do about that now. A job for the morning.

As I wait for the lift, the red arrow announcing its descension, I ponder over the alpha’s reaction to the poison-pen letters. Have I become too blasé about them? At first, they pissed me off. At first, I responded to them with a flurry of emails telling him where to go. It only encouraged him, so then I went radio silent. That didn’t stop him either, but I got used to finding those sinister letters waiting for me on the mat. In the end, I stopped opening them altogether, using them to line Newton’s litter tray instead.

And then they stopped. And I hadn’t thought about them, or him, in months.

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