Page 12 of The Forbidden Wolf

“Oh, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?” Kiana sneered. “Making a fool of me in front of a whole new pack, just like you’ve always done here? Hiding story books under your pillows and wearing clothes discarded by humans…”

“We all wear human clothes sometimes,” I growled. “There’s no difference between—”

“Dignity! That’s the difference!” Kiana slashed her claws over my shirt, shredding the Millennium Falcon and leaving ugly red slices across my chest.

I cried out in pain, but then bit down hard on my lip. Tears blurred my vision, turning her furious eyes into stormy pools. I ground my molars together, suppressing my own wolf because she would only get us both even more hurt.

My bed rose up beneath me as Kiana returned to human form. I heard her breath hitch and felt her human fingertips graze my wounded skin. “Elyse…”

“Did that make you feel dignified?” I asked through gritted teeth.

Kiana growled human-style. “If I find out you’ve been reading again—”

“I don’t do that anymore,” I said, which was true. “I don’t do anything you’ve told me not to do,” I added, which was also true.

While it was strictly forbidden for wolves to consume any type of human art that might make us question our own traditions, Kiana herself had never specifically told me not to watch movies. Or make friends with humans. She just assumed that even I wasn’t that self-destructively stupid. Flattering really.

“Good.” She smiled her most hateful smile, the one that inched her left nostril halfway up to her eye. “Now get used to doing everything I tell you to do also. Starting with Blaze.”

“Blaze?” My eyes widened in horror. “Kiana, no. He’s almost the same age as Father! He’s… he’s like our uncle…”

Kiana rolled her eyes as she plopped herself down on the edge of the bed and studied her fingernails. “There’s no such thing as like an uncle. He’s either Father’s brother or he’s not. And he’s not. So, there’s no problem.”

“No problem?!” I shot upright. “He has five pups!”

She reached over and patted my flat stomach. “For now.”

I grasped her arm, digging my nails in. “You can’t be serious. Jesmyn is almost mating age herself. He doesn’t need any more genes in the pool.”

Kiana sighed dramatically. “He is very handsome, Elyse. The world always needs more genes like those. And you already have such a good rapport with the younger pups.”

“Yes,” I hissed. “I love them like little cousins. Nothing more. And they’re not going to be so fond when they find out I’m replacing their mother. It’s only been a year!”

My sister’s jaw twitched. “Any maternal figure is better than none, wouldn’t you say? Consider it a way to pay your debt forward.”

I rocked back, driving the heels of my hands into my burning eyes, pushing back the unwanted image of burly old Blaze sauntering toward me after our mateship ceremony.

“Please, Kiana,” I whimpered. “You can’t ask me to do this.”

“I’m not.” My twin stood and dusted off her ass as if my bed were full of fleas. “I am telling you that you will do this. And soon.”

“No,” I choked out. “I can’t—”

“Oh, Elyse.” Kiana sighed and turned to me with her twisted version of a gentle smile. She caressed my tear-stained cheek. “Don’t you see? You’re my twin. How could I ever enjoy the magic of mateship without knowing you were experiencing it too?”

Chapter Six

Break it down.

I pounded my fist on my father’s apartment door as hard and as fast as the pulse hammering inside my skull. I’d tried his formal office downstairs first, assuming he would be hard at work on finalizing the mating ceremony arrangement, but his secretary had informed me that he had returned to the penthouse after breaking the news to Kiana. And so, back to the elevator I went, all the way to the top floor of the high-rise our entire pack called home.

Father’s double wooden doors stood directly across from the elevator, winged by two dead-end stretches of hallway. A stoic guard stood in front of the window at either end, staring straight into each other’s eyes as if I weren’t even there. But gods knew the second they went off duty they would be telling everyone that Alpha Phelan’s useless younger daughter was having emotional episodes again.

Screw them.

I paused my knocking just long enough to swipe fresh tears from my eyes. I hadn’t expected my wolf to take my side on this matter, but I should’ve known she would believe we had more to offer the pack than puppies. I honestly had no idea what that might be, but her faith in our future gave me the strength to stand up to my father. Or it would if he ever opened his damn door.

“Father!” I shouted through the crack between the doors. “Open up! I need to—”

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