Page 22 of The Forbidden Wolf

The light changed, and our limo glided smoothly through the intersection. I didn’t look back at the theater. I only wanted to remember the way it looked at midnight. So, I kept my eyes trained on the back of Damian’s paper. He sat with his left ankle crossed over his right knee, the polished black toe of his dress shoe flashing with each fidgety tap.

“Would you stop that?” Kiana hissed. “You act as if you’re the one who’ll be baring it all for a complete stranger tonight.”

Father’s eyes widened with another loud cough. Damian lowered the paper to rest atop his foot, which added an awful rustling sound effect to his jittering.

“There’s nothing to be nervous about.” Damian offered her a patronizing smile. “Mating is life’s greatest joy. It will come to you as naturally as breathing air, and in no time at all, we’ll be welcoming the very first Alpha Heir destined to rule two Thrones.”

“Assuming it doesn’t kill me first,” Kiana muttered.

My eyes widened in surprise. Father’s face went perfectly blank. And Damian? Well, he chuckled. Then he lifted the paper to hide his creepy weasel face once more. I reached for Kiana’s limp hand lying in the folds of her travel dress, but she jerked it away and turned toward the opposite window. Apparently, she hadn’t gotten Charlie’s memo about Mother’s death not being my fault.

The limo rounded a corner onto one of the cross streets, and a few blocks later turned south on Fifth Avenue. A heavy silence filled the car, broken only by the swishing of Damian’s pages. I stared listlessly out my window at the passing shades of gray—steel gray, concrete gray, asphalt gray, brick gray, forest green, emerald green—

My hands slapped against the glass, eyes doubling or perhaps even tripling in size as Central Park filled the window frame. We had plenty of nature spaces in the Bronx, of course, but none of them were Central Park. She was… a movie star. Here, Miss Piggy had chased a purse thief down on roller skates. Here, Kevin McCallister made his last stand. Here, George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer had danced with their pups in a puddle at the big angel water fountain, which I could not see Blaze ever doing with me, but I could kinda maybe sorta see the male in the motorcycle jacket doing…

“To answer your question, Elyse,” Damian said suddenly. “There is a correlation between the rise of female overseers in the so-called entertainment industry and human culture’s descent into total madness.” He whacked his newspaper across my father’s lap with a disturbing lack of deference. “Exhibit A.”

Father glanced downward and immediately rolled his eyes. “Not this again, Damian.”

Damian mashed his finger down on the paper. “Yes, this again! We should have made a statement when we—”

Father growled low in his throat. “Not. This. Again.”

“Not what again?” I asked, settling back in my seat.

“Nothing for you to concern yourself about,” Father said, whacking the paper hard across his Beta’s crossed ankle. “Do not presume to tell me I made a wrong decision again, Damian. This has never been worth the cost of revealing ourselves.”

Emboldened by Father’s rare scolding of his second, I leaned forward and snatched the paper off Damian’s lap before he could pick it up again. The headline Damian had indicated to Father read COYOTE UGLY: Alma Mater Animalis finally bears it all in Season 2. My eyes raced down the column of tiny text before anyone could rip the paper out of my hands, forehead creasing deeper with every row.

“Wait.” I looked up at Father. “No one’s ever actually been naked on this show?”

Father grunted, shrugged, and looked away.

“It says right here.” I shook the paper and then read, “‘After teasing viewers from the very first episode with its artfully suggestive cinematography, the Season 2 finale finally delivers a shocking moment of full-frontal nudity. When asked to comment, the series’ showrunner, who also directed the episode, said, ‘I believe it is absolutely crucial for all of my viewers to be able to say they see something of themselves reflected in the show, and so I shot that particular scene to reflect the fate I envision for all the men who’ve only been watching in hopes of seeing our nineteen-year-old heroine naked.’ When pressed for further comment on whether or not that would finally happen in Season 3, the showrunner replied, ‘Go—’”

I stopped. There were some things one simply didn’t say in front of their father. But maybe I should have so he couldn’t just sit there and pretend like he hadn’t heard a word I’d said. Damian, of course, immediately clutched the invisible strand of pearls perpetually draped beneath his prominent Adam’s apple.

“Elyse!” he gasped.

I ignored him, my eyes fixed on Father. “Did the Five Thrones really meet just to discuss artfully suggestive cinematography?”

Father tucked his chin and mumbled a non-response.

“That article is very misleading.” Damian snatched the paper back. “The show has featured a great many exposed hindquarters before this latest insult.”

I snickered. “So, you’re saying the Five Thrones met to discuss butts?”

“The specific body parts were not the issue,” Damian hissed. “We met to discuss whether or not we should address the lies being spread about us. And I fear we chose wrong. Now that awful woman is insinuating our males exhibit lascivious behavior toward our females, which is patently false, as you very well know.”

“Do I?” I muttered, turning my gaze back to the window so the blur of trees could brush aside the memory of what had almost happened Friday night.

“Oh, please!” Kiana threw her head dramatically against the seat. “There’s nothing lascivious about Blaze’s interest in you. If anything, you should be grateful that he isn’t put off by your many shortcomings.”

I bit my tongue. Sparring with Damian felt like making him jump rope faster and faster and faster until he fell, but sparring with Kiana felt like being tied to a tree with a jump rope and left in the forest near Orchard Beach alone for six hours because I was afraid shifting would strangle my wolf.

“Speaking of,” Damian said. “Your father and I believe it would be best if you stuck close to your intended during today’s ceremony. By the time it’s over, I’m sure you’ll be anxious to get on with your own.”

I offered him a demure smile. “When Father gives that order, I shall abide.”

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