14. Flint

“I’m not your friend,” Tony hissed. He must have recovered from catching a glimpse of my wolf.

It was low enough that most humans wouldn’t have it picked up. But everyone here except him was a shifter with supercharged hearing.

There was a collective gasp from the room. No one spoke to me that way except maybe my dad, who chose that moment to stride into the room and gave me a thumbs-up. I admired his confidence. Or maybe he, like me, was putting on a brave face.

Emilio walked in and stayed near the back, arms folded as he scrutinized the crowd, while my security guys manned the exit. My brothers, Ranger and Hunter, also stood close to the front, their wolves’ eyes swapped with their own.

“The Alpha Omega is correct.” I squeezed Tony’s hand, hoping my tight grasp would send a message but worried that Tony wouldn’t translate, Be quiet andlet me take over. “He is my fate, the one the universe placed before me, until I meet the goddess and beyond, for all eternity.”

“Your fate? Does that mean something different in the mafia than it does in the outside world?” Tony tugged, but I couldn’t release him. “Bringing me here was a big mistake.” He faced the pack members, puffing out his chest, and I couldn’t help being proud of his spunk.

“Flint kidnapped me.” He waved his free hand toward the La Luna Noir shifters and then pointed at me. His self-satisfied smile deserved to be kissed away. His gaze swerved from me to the pack as silence settled over the group. “Even now he won’t let me go.” He raised our joined hands.

A chuckle broke free from a young shifter near the front, and another from one of the council members. Dad guffawed, a little too loudly, and more laughter tumbled into the space. Faces lit up with broad smiles, some of the pack clapped, while others slapped their thighs and nudged their fellow shifters. Like me, Emilio and my brothers didn’t join in but were gauging people’s reactions by scanning the crowd.

Tony fumed, and my beast wondered if he had a dragon ancestor as he checked for a plume of smoke.

No one snarls like our mate unless he can breathe real fire.

I let go of Tony’s hand, and he put both on his hips. “Why are they laughing?” He narrowed his eyes at me as if I could control the pack’s reaction.

I hid a smile, the laughter was infectious, and my mate was spirited as usual. But I wished he was as passionate about caring for me as he was with his loathing.

“You’ll have to ask them.”

But a shouted, “Alpha is old-school when it comes to choosing a mate,” had Tony’s mouth opening and closing. Someone had finally silenced him.

“Did he throw you over his shoulder?” another shifter asked.

“No! He put me in handcuffs.”

Peals of laughter filled the room, and Tony grunted.

“I doubt you would have agreed otherwise,” an elder in the front row responded while I twisted my signet ring.

“But I didn’t give him permission,” Tony protested.

“You will.” There was stifled laughter as pack members whispered to one another. I squirmed, thankful Tony couldn’t hear them talking about us having sex.

“He is the Alpha. He does not need permission,” Saul, an elder, said.

“Isn’t anyone going to call the police?” Tony pleaded. “I’m here against my will.”

The entire room broke out into hearty laughter.

“Alpha, your mate is feisty and enjoys a good joke,” one of the council members shouted.

Tony rolled his eyes, and the creases in his brow reminded me of furrows in dry earth waiting for rain.

But Foley, a noted troublemaker and leader of the discontents pressing for change, stood. Everyone quietened, and the tension ramped up. It reminded me of a rubber band stretched to breaking point. I shoved one hand in my pocket and fingered my grandfather’s dented watch.

“Alpha, perhaps you can explain how you mated this man when it is against our law?”

Foley’s family had been rogues, and when they asked Papa if they could join La Luna Noir, he agreed. While his parents blended in with our pack, Foley always pushed the boundaries of what was allowed. And Emilio let on that Foley had been seen recently in the company of Sewell, the Nightfall pack’s Alpha.

The Nightfall pack rose out of the ashes of the Silverback pack after years of mafia and pack turf war that resulted in the deaths of my grandpa and father. When I took over as Alpha, we battled the Silverbacks for three years, and when the war was over, that pack’s survivors signed their names in blood that they would never encroach on our business again.

Tony side-eyed me. “What’s with the mate reference and what law?” But I didn’t fail to notice he edged closer to me.

He likes us. My wolf wanted to reveal himself.

Not yet.

I put an arm over my mate’s shoulder but needed to quell the uneasiness before it spilled over and rippled into the crowd. The scent in the room heightened, and even Tony must have sensed it as he brushed a hand over mine. Some of the pack member’s eyes darkened and fur rippled over a couple of shifters toward the back of the room. I hissed at them, my wolf at the forefront of my gaze.

“That is true, but this man…” I wanted to say human but was doing my best not to freak Tony out more than he already was, “is one of us.”

“No, I’m not a part of the mafia,” Tony insisted.

“Once again, my mate has reminded me I must be more precise when I speak.” I sent him a smile of thanks, but he glared at me. “My mate’s father, Anthony Oakley, was from our pack.”

The room buzzed. Pack members put their heads together, checking their phones, some looked at Emilio for clarification. But I stood still, not a muscle moving, my wolf close to the surface, and everyone stopped talking.

“Anthony was a valued member of La Luna Noir, and he met an untimely death when my mate was still in diapers. So by returning Tony to the pack, the circle is complete.”

The tension in the room evaporated, and Foley fumed, probably because he didn’t get the reaction he was hoping for.

From the corner of my eye, Tony swayed, and I gripped his hand. If he keeled over, there might be an uproar, with people thinking this human who was part shifter did not have the strength and courage to be part of the pack.

Foley stood, and I readied myself for another attempt to blacken my character.

“Word on the street is that before he met you, he was intent on hurting all of us.” He glanced around the crowd who had gone quiet. “You put your personal feelings before that of the pack.”

I took a deep breath and took strength from my mate who had faced death and hadn’t given up.

“Those of you who have scented your mate, what would you do?” There was a low rumble of agreement, though not from Foley, as he hadn’t mated. “Tony scented me and was ready to do anything to find me.”

“I would have killed if someone got in my way,” Horace, a council member, announced.

Most of the pack nodded and some yelled at Foley to stop stirring up trouble.

“I understand some of you have questions about our kind mating with outsiders, but at the next council meeting, we will listen to submissions about whether our law should be changed.”

“That’s not for months,” Foley sneered.

“Correct. And for the rest of today, I intend to be with my mate. Undisturbed.”

Grumbles mingled with gasps and knowing smiles. Chairs scraped back as we walked toward the door. Tony said nothing, his expression blank as he repeated the words mate and pack.

Many pack members congratulated us, and some older folks remembered Anthony and spoke of him warmly. My mate mumbled thank you. But I was also concerned about the small group, huddled around Foley in the middle of the room, gesturing toward us, their faces contorted into grimaces.

The elevator may have been traveling at its normal speed, but I was tempted to wrench open the doors and shimmy down the cables to get us out of the building.

Once in the car, we traveled home as we had come, with my security detail fronting and tailing us. But I let out a deep breath when I parked and the garage door closed, the darkness pooling around us.

Tony collapsed on the sofa and hugged a cushion after we entered the house. His head must’ve been exploding, and I longed for the snarky questions he would hurl at me.

“I don’t understand.” He stared at the ceiling. “None of it. Mates, mafia law, and what happened in the car?” He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands. “Did you inject me with something? Is this a form of brainwashing?” He sat up, the cushion forgotten. “You’re breaking me down before you build me back up as one of you.”

“No. We don’t do that. We are born into this life.”

He flopped back on the couch. “And why did they laugh when I said you’d kidnapped me?” He slapped a hand on his brow and leaped up again. I was getting dizzy with the frantic up-and-down movements.

I wished to take him in my arms and massage the confusion away. My wolf urged me to, but I ignored him.

“I have a question. Why didn’t you walk out and take your freedom?”

Tony scrambled off the sofa.. “Are you kidding me? You were there. Some of them wanted me strung up.” He shoved past me toward the basement entrance. “I want to be alone. Open the door.”

“Answer me first.”

“I hate you.” His nostrils flared, and I thought he was going to pummel my chest again. I would have welcomed it. “I was scared. I was expecting gun-toting men in expensive suits and wearing gold jewelry.”

He’d kinda described me. Maybe I was a cliché, but I didn’t give a fuck.

“But they were all kind of ordinary.” He jiggled the handle.

“You’re free to go.”

What? No, he can’t leave. What are you saying?My wolf clambered to get out.

Until I said it, I hadn’t considered setting him free. I couldn’t expect him to return my feelings. But he would never truly be my mate if I kept him here. It might break me, and I’d never be the Flint or the Alpha I was before.

“This is a trick, right? I’m going to get halfway down the drive and boom.” He mimed shooting a gun.

“No, you’ll be driven home. Anthony was a man of his word, as am I.”

His head shot up when I mentioned his father. If he left and never returned, I would mourn him every day, but I couldn’t keep him locked up waiting for him to return my affection.

“My dad never really knew him, did he?” He yanked at the front door and glowered at me when it wouldn’t open. “What made you change your mind?”

“You. Your strength and determination even in the face of fear. I admire that.”

“But aren’t you the same? Always looking over your shoulder for someone who might put a bullet in your head. Like that ass today?”

“Maybe.” While my loved ones were downed by a bullet, my death would more likely come from a wolf. “I had to learn those skills, and some of it is pretense.” I’d never told anyone that. Only my mate.

“One more thing. I don’t suppose I still have a job.”