Page 15 of The Forbidden Wolf

Father said nothing.

“Unbelievable,” I muttered, and then I spun away from him and ran down the stairs without another word.

It wasn’t until I reached the bottom and the clanging had subsided that I noticed Damian had turned the sixty-inch television on. My father was the only wolf in the building allowed to own a TV of any size because he needed to stay abreast of human current events. But Damian had tuned into Good Morning America where the hosts were interviewing a woman the banner at the bottom of the screen identified as the creator of Alma Mater Animalis.

“Bottom line,” she was saying, “is that I’m not going to change anything because of some rumors floating around that some people who are only rumored to exist are upset about it. If a real shifter wants to come down to the studio, turn into a wolf, and air their grievances with me, you bet I’ll listen, but until then…” The woman shrugged.

“I’ll go,” I said. Accidentally out loud.

Damian snickered without turning from the screen. “Oh, you would do anything to get out of your duties, wouldn’t you, Elyse?”

Rip his head off.

“Don’t take that tone with me,” I said in my most Kiana-like voice. “And why are you sitting on my father’s throne?”

Not only had the Beta helped himself to the television, he had helped himself to my father’s overstuffed armchair. It wasn’t really his throne. That was downstairs in the Ceremony Hall. But Kiana and I had always called this chair his throne because of how we weren’t supposed to bother him when he was sitting there either.

Damian twisted his long neck around with a placating grin. “It’s just a chair, Elyse, that happens to be facing the TV.”

“You sit there,” I growled, pointing at the couch running perpendicular to the television. “You can see just as well.”

Damian’s eyes hardened, but he followed my command, lifting the melodramatic robe he wore over his tunic and trousers and relocating to the couch. “Happy now?”

I said nothing, only stared him down. If I had shown any sign of possessing Beta powers, I would have been forced to study under his tutelage so that I could serve my sister as he had served my father all these years. Not that they were brothers. It didn’t always work like that. He came from a long line of unrelated Betas, and I supposed I should just count myself lucky that he loved his work too much to have time for mating.

“Look,” the woman on GMA continued, “at the end of the day, I’m not writing shifter stories, I’m writing people stories. I use the paranormal the way Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber uses song and dance, to heighten the emotions of the human experience. No one’s telling him he needs to take Phantom off Broadway because it might offend some mythical people who actually sing—”

Damian switched the television off with a flick of the remote.

“The match with Blaze is an excellent one,” Damian oozed. “He’s lonely, Elyse. And lonely wolves have a tendency to wander off in search of that which will ultimately be unsatisfying.” He tilted his head with a small smile. “We can’t have that, can we?”

Chapter Seven

I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

Oh, now you quote movies?

Whatever it takes to stop you.

You can’t. And you don’t want to. So just… be cool.

My wolf whined pitifully as I walked between two racks of dresses, letting my fingertips graze their muted sleeves as if I were actually searching for something to wear to Kiana’s mateship ceremony. The door to the boutique—our third of the morning—stood wide open at the end of the aisle, letting in a soft April breeze that filled the shop with the gentle rustling of fabrics and the mouth-watering aromas of the soul food shop down the block.

I paused on a pale pink dress that seemed like something I might actually wear. No beads, no bows, no lace. I had nothing against those frills on other females, but other females didn’t seem quite so prone to fidgeting. Kiana, for instance, had been standing still for a thousand years now, having one gown after another pinned into place on her athletic frame only to dismiss each one with a sneer as soon as the woman with the pins stepped back with an approving smile.

My sister hadn’t always been such a bitch, but it was getting harder and harder to remember what she’d been like before our thirteenth birthday. That’s when Father decided we were old enough to know what really happened to our mother. Up until then, we had simply been told she died during a great struggle, and together, we had conjured a Hollywood-worthy story about her heroic last battle to protect the Bronx Throne from the dastardly villains from the other four boroughs.

Father couldn’t bear to tell us the story himself, so the burden had fallen on Damian. Mates were not allowed in the Whelping Den, and so Damian had been sitting vigil in the waiting room with Father to keep him calm. Betas were forbidden from using their coercive mental gifts on their own pack members unless it would enable someone to maintain mental clarity under duress. And being separated from your fated mate, even if only by a single locked door, always qualified as duress.

Kiana made her entrance like a true alpha—swiftly and with great determination. She wanted to be born, and so she was. Damian said he would never forget the sound of her first cry, like a bugle demanding attention. In keeping with what felt like a very insulting tradition to the person who had done all the work, the midwolf presented Kiana to Father first. Only after he formally acknowledged her as his heir would she have been placed on Mother’s breast to bond.

But she never made it there. Mother screamed; the nurse yelped for help; the midwolf rushed back into the Den with Father hot on her heels; and Damian found himself holding a squalling newborn Alpha. No one had known I was coming until I tried to arrive feet first.

Maybe I’ve always been meant to run.

Please. I don’t want to be alone.

And I don’t want to mate with Blaze.

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