Page 24 of The Awakened Wolf

“Why didn’t you tell Max?” he asked me.

“You saw the mood he was in. I was afraid of what he’d do if I told him and he didn’t believe me.”

Kenzo bit his lips and nodded. “I’ll handle it from here, Elyse.”

“Look, as much as I’d like to sort out the soap opera that has consumed both our packs,” Kiana said, “I think it’s time you told me why you called in the first place.”

“Fair enough,” Kenzo said, a smile flashing across his face before disappearing again. “You will want to watch the nine o’clock news. Every single station is hyping a state of emergency address from Governor Mantel, featuring the world’s leading expert on shifters.”

“What?” Evan said, straightening from his former lean against the glass table. “Who’s that?”

Kenzo shook his head. “No one knows.”

“It’s gotta be some crackpot Bigfoot hunter or something,” Kiana muttered. “So undignified.”

“I wonder if it could be the creator of Animalis,” I mused. With most of the world believing we were fictional, I found the idea of an expert hard to imagine.

“Mmm, maybe she’s looking for—?” Evan definitely started to say Cody, but I elbowed him before he could let that cat out of the bag.

“Well, whoever they are,” Kenzo said, “we’ll want to tune in because Mantel is giving them a huge platform.”

“Mantel,” Evan scoffed. “He’d give a platform to Satan if it gained him three points in the polls.

“We’re not,” Kiana said, shooting a glare at Evan, “here to discuss politics. Have you heard anything from the other three thrones?” She looked up at Kenzo. He shook his head. “Then thank you for the heads up, Acting Alpha Heir Kenzo,” she said dismissively. She reached for the keypad of the red phone, where one button glowed pink.

“No, wait,” Kenzo said, and she stopped, frowning.

Then into the silence Kenzo blurted, “You know my offer to be claimed by you still stands, Alpha Kiana.”

“Wha—?” she sputtered, her mouth working for a second. Then she smashed the button, it’s ruddy glow seeming to bleed its way up her arm and into her cheeks as the screen went black.

I bit the inside of my cheek to suppress my laughter as Kiana started to shake. Unfortunately, I neglected to suggest to Evan that he do the same. I’d like to say that I stepped between Evan and my sister like the Mama Wolf my shifter creations seemed to see. But I didn’t. Because some lessons pups can only learn the hard way.

Kiana’s eyes met his with a dangerous flash. I saw the tiny depressions in her bottom lip where the tips of her fangs sat debating whether to grow longer. When Evan finally showed the good sense to duck his head and mutter an apology, which I do believe had an ‘Alpha Kiana’ thrown in for good measure, her teeth returned to human form. She shook her head, cold gaze returning to me.

“What is it the humans say?” she asked. “When they damage something in the store and have to take it home?”

I frowned, confused, but before I could respond Evan said, “You mean, ‘you break it, you buy it.’”

“Exactly.” Kiana settled a hand on her popped hip, all former discombobulation vanished. “So, the way I see it, Elyse, this one is yours.”

“This one?” Evan repeated, frowning.

I didn’t have time to bring him up to speed while my own wheels were turning, so I left him to figure it out while I spun through the options. Yes, I had thought of this when Kiana had talked about mating me off if Sebastian didn’t return. Having been in proximity with a small sample of the available males just ten minutes ago, I knew exactly how little I wanted one of them to be the solution to my current problem.

“You said you’d give me a week, Kiana. Or you’d give Sebastian a week, I mean.”

“That was before we got on the phone with Acting Alpha Heir Kenzo.” The derision that dripped from her voice seemed laced with a little something extra, post-meeting. “You know as well as I do that Max is not going to let an unrelated male call himself Acting Alpha Heir if he believes Sebastian is coming home.”

“You don’t know anything, Kiana,” I said, heated. “Kenzo is as close a thing to family as Max has left. And anyway, Sebastian is coming back!”

This last part burst from me with a vehemence that sounded bonkers, but well, I was getting used to this stupid fate bond. It took everything in me not to pace in circles, tugging at my hair until it fell out in clumps, not knowing where Sebastian was, so I felt like I was doing pretty good, all things considered.

It was kind of Evan to chime in rather than poke fun, which he did by proclaiming, “Of course Sebastian is coming back. He’s off somewhere licking his toxic masculinity for a bit and then he’ll come back and like, climb Elyse’s fire escape with a bunch of roses in his teeth.”

Oooooohhh, that would be…

Please go swoon somewhere else. I’m trying to concentrate on not tugging my hair out.

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