8. Strut to the Front Door

"I"m not going in there!"

"Ok, Ginger. But you are the one that is going to look like a creep standing out here alone all night." Lexi starts walking toward the door and I grab her arm, pulling her back.

"Wait, just... let me absorb this whole situation for a minute." I was so fucking confident. The whole way here my moves were nothing but swagger. Then we stepped in front of the swankiest mansion I have ever seen in my life and suddenly, I felt small. Small and poor and dirty. Fuck, I do not belong anywhere near this place. They make more in a day than I"ve had come through my bank account since the day I opened it, eight years ago.

"Ginger, it"s just a house. Besides, you have been pining to go to one of these events for years. Don"t tell me that now you have the chance and you are just going to hang out in the driveway." Lexi quirks an eyebrow and places a fist on her hip.

I know. I"m being a huge baby.

Lexi's body language changes and she starts pulling me toward the house. "Yeah, maybe we should just go in." Her voice is pitched low and I try looking around, but she jerks me forward.

"What's going on?" Another yank on my arm has me stumbling into Lexi, but before I can open my mouth, her hand is covering it. "Shh… Don't even turn around. This isn't the place we want to draw anyone's attention. It's just Alexander. Maybe we will get lucky and he won't—"

"Ginger? Ginger, I don't want to spoil your night, but can we talk before you go inside?" Lexi groans, but I suddenly feel like a deer in headlights. I was one hundred percent ready to be done with him forever. Ready to crawl on top of some random dick and ride it into oblivion for the night without another minuscule thought of my cheating ex.

And like a fucking weed, he's just going to be randomly popping up now. Maybe if I don't turn around, if I don't even make eye contact, he will just go away?

"Ginger, I know you don't want to talk to me, and that's fine." Nope, I guess he is just going to talk to my back. Fine. However, he must take a step closer because Lexi growls for a moment. "Right, space. That's fine. Just as long as you will hear me out."

When neither Lexi nor I move, he must take that as a sign to keep going. I wish he would have taken it as a sign to fuck all the way off. Somewhere else.

"It was an arranged mating. June had no say in the situation either. The mating required our consummation and well... we didn't really expect to get pregnant on the first try." The more words he spews, the more my anger bubbles to the surface. He was forsaking his mate to kiss me, to cuddle with me, to put this pretense of a relationship up. For what? Certainly not for sex. He was getting that elsewhere. I must have tuned him out a little because his voice suddenly filters in through the buzzing in my ears. "But I cared about you, Ginger, and I couldn't just walk away from you. From us. But then, I guess as the baby started to grow, so did my affection for June Bug. I was going to tell you this morning. Then she surprised me and had this whole day planned for us together and I just sort of... forgot."

"You cared about me... but you forgot?" His silence stretches a moment and my calm frays.

With grace I normally don't possess in heels I strut right up to him, stopping when our bodies are flush against each other. He breathes deeply and I watch in fascination as the fear filters across his vision. So he can smell my anger. Good.

"Teddy," I trail my finger down the front of his shirt slowly. Letting the nail elongate a bit and slice open the fabric. He doesn't back away, but his breathing betrays his dread. He knows he fucked up. "I don't think you understood me earlier. I want you to fuck off Teddy. Not just a tiny bit. Not half-way. No... I want you to fuck all the way off Alexander." I punctuate the statement by stabbing one of my now three-inch long nails into his side. He grunts a little but still doesn't budge. I pull the nail out, bringing it up to my lips and licking the blood that trickles down to my knuckle.

Movement passes near the bushes. So quickly I almost miss it. Except for his piercing red eyes.

How curious?

Turning my attention back to Alexander, I use the front of his shirt to clean the rest of the blood off my finger. "Well, I would say it was nice to see you, but it truly wasn't." I turn to walk away but stop. Bringing a touch of electricity into my fingertips and letting it dance a little, I lock eyes with him. "This is the last warning. The next time you choose to pop up and say hi, I will rip off your pathetic little cock and make you choke to death on it." He gives me a single nod before shuffling away from the house and the growing crowd that is making its way to the front door.

When Lexi returns to my side as we make our way to the door, her face is lit with a maniacal smile. "That was beautiful, Ginger. Way to make that shifter bitch shake in his fur, with a classy as fuck smile on the whole damn time. I'm so proud."

I turned my gaze to hers and we both burst into a fit of cackles.

We are such evil bitches. But damn he deserved it. He deserved so much more than that, but I will let karma catch up to him. In the meantime, I am more excited about attending this party now, than I was when we first showed up. Now, I have the swagger from flaunting my power backing me up instead of the chunky wallet.

Power that feels like it's growing by the minute.

I'm not sure what that is about, but I kinda like it...