Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

K ira

I am eased out of bed by Cain in the morning. I come to consciousness in his arms while being actively removed from the sheets. Stretching a little, I turn and snuggle into his chest, burying my face against him and inhaling his scent deeply. There is something so comforting about the way things feel first thing in the morning. My brain isn't online enough to worry about things the way I usually do.

I let out a little whine as I feel him lowering me to the ground. He's trying to get me to stand up. I resist by keeping my knees up to my chest as much as I can, like a cat that doesn't want to be put into a crate. I refuse to start this day. I am going to stay in this happy, sleepy little place for as long as I can.

"Come on, Kira. There's a pack breakfast this morning," he says. "A new day, new opportunities."

Those words make me want to avoid starting the day even more. I wrap my arms around his neck and hold onto him to avoid having to put my feet on the ground.

He wins the battle of wills with some awkwardness, by basically putting me down on the ground on my butt rather than on my feet. I am now out of bed and out of Cain's warmth and protection.

"What am I supposed to wear?"

He answers by picking out a stylish jumpsuit in a deep cream hue. He lays it on the bed with a pair of matching kitten heels. It's the sort of clothing that rich women wear to brunch. There's a silk scarf to presumably match, and a blouse as well. It all looks very nice, and very formal and somewhat stiff. So this is what I'm expected to be. A first lady of wolves.

He gives me a chance to get ready, and not wanting to be churlish, I do as he wants. I get dressed reluctantly and put on more makeup than I usually would. I'll take anything I can hide behind, including several layers of foundation and a whole lot of contouring.

"You look incredible," Cain says when he sees me step out of the ensuite. "The picture-perfect mate."

I know I look good. I look smooth and pore-less. I look like I was airbrushed. If you look very, very close, you can tell that I look absolutely fucking terrified.

He takes me by the hand and leads me out of the bedroom and down the stairs. I wish I could avoid this encounter somehow, but I am here to meet his pack. They're here, indirectly, to see me.

Memories of the previous evening's fuckery keep rushing back to me. I embarrassed myself, and I embarrassed Cain. I can't do that again. I have to act normal enough to be acceptable. I can do that. I've worked hard to be able to do that.

The first comforting smell I encounter is that of fried bacon and powdered sugar. Maybe this won't be as bad as I feared.

He leads me into a banquet hall where I find a long table laden with breakfast foods of every kind. Bacon. Croissants. Pastries. Cereals—though they seem absolutely pointless given the rest of the food. There are mangoes too, and grapes, and I think cheese. Hell, yeah. There's cheese. But there's also pancakes. And French toast.

There are smaller satellite tables around the edges where people are already eating and drinking juice, though drinking juice seems like a waste of stomach capacity with this spread in front of me.

I forget about the shame of what happened last night, and the horrible things people were saying about me, and I get French toast with a whole lot of maple syrup and bacon. I am happy, happy in a way I rarely am. I don't care what people say about it being bad to eat feelings. Right now, eating these feelings is fucking great.

People are saying hello to us. Cain makes introductions. I wish he wouldn't. I say hello as politely as I can, and do my level best not to show any annoyance at the way every social interaction prevents me from eating my bacon while it is still hot. This isn't easy.

Cain seems to be happy, more or less. He carries plenty of conversations on while I eat.

All is well, until a very particular woman approaches. I feel her before I see her. Her energy is a lot like Cain's. Dominant. Impressive. A little scary.

"Not now, Isabella," he says.

That piques my interest. Cain has been nice to everybody. But he's practically rude to this woman.

"Oh, but I have to have the honor of meeting your mate. The woman off the streets who became the most important female in the entirety of the pack."

I swallow my mouthful and look at her, not sure what to do. She's very pretty and very mad at me, and I guess I know why. She's jealous that I have Cain and she doesn't. But that's not my fault.

"You have beautiful skin," she says to me.

"Thank you," I reply, nervous.

"Must be the effects of your mud pack," she smirks at me, her tone indicating that it's an unkind dig and not a joke designed to diminish the tension in the room. "Where you come from, is it common to skulk around in filth? Ow! "

I stare, shocked as Abel smacks her quite literally sideways.

"Keep a civil tongue in your head, Isabella."

If anybody finds that to be a strange interaction, they don't seem to react. I'd say a good seventy-five percent of the pack here are as focused on breakfast as I am. Maybe they are my people after all.

This interaction is drawing eyes, though. I can feel people looking at us, judging the entire situation. This woman is challenging us all. I kind of admire her, in a reluctant sort of way. I've always wondered what it would be like to not worry about making a scene.

Just as I have that thought, she sets about truly making one hell of a scene.

"I'm just saying what other people won't, because they're scared of Cain. This pack has needed a breeding alpha pair for years. He's refused to take any of us as his mates, because we're not good enough, and now he's fucking some completely random double dilute who might not even produce actual pack members. She has a fifty-fifty chance of spawning something basically human. What's the point?"

Isabella doesn't seem to be afraid of pain. Abel's blow would have flattened me physically and emotionally, but she has already shaken it off. She is a very striking young woman, a little older than me, but with so much more presence. Her eyes flash with intensity, and her thick raven locks fly with defiance as I feed another stick of crispy bacon into my mouth.

Now people are really paying attention.

"She's a puppy," Isabella continues. "She's domesticated. She's cute, and she'd be a fine mate for one of the deltas, but she's not alpha mate material, and everybody here knows it."

Now I sip my hot chocolate, hoping that it makes me appear unbothered, even though I am actually extremely bothered.

Abel doesn't just smack her again. This time he picks her up over his shoulder in a fireman's hold and spanks her curvy rump hard enough to make her squeal.

Every eye in the room is on me now, and the silence is so intense that the sound of my chewing seems like the loudest noise that has ever been made by anybody ever.

"I am sorry," Cain says to me. "That was absolutely unacceptable…"

"I think I'd like to go," I say as politely as I can,

"You may go up to our room," Cain says. "I have a few things to address here. Are you okay to get there yourself?"

"Yes. Of course."

Cain

I wait until Kira is out of earshot before unleashing my fury on this ungrateful pack of mongrels.

"It has been some time since our last conclave, so perhaps it has been forgotten," I say, addressing the rest of the pack, sans Abel, Isabella, and of course, Kira. I am not pleased with how she has been treated. Abel defended her honor, but with past alphas' mates, that sort of talk would have resulted in a reaction from all present.

The fact that they stood and stared instead of setting on Isabella and making it clear her behavior was inappropriate tells me that they have not accepted Kira, and that is not acceptable to me.

"Who an alpha selects as his mate is not a subject for debate, nor is it subject to the approval of the pack. I don't answer to you. You answer to me."

My voice is relatively calm, but underneath the controlled tone is a rage that is beginning to simmer ever closer to the surface. My protective instincts toward Kira are fully developed. I sound like a tyrant, but I do not care. I would enact all manner of tyranny if it meant keeping my mate safe and happy.

"Am I understood?"

There is a murmur of assent, but it is not nearly enthusiastic enough.

"Am I understood!?"

I raise my voice, not in a shout, but in a dominant projection of power.

The response is more vociferous this time, but it is still not what I want to hear. Kira has to hold her own among the pack. That is the long and the short of it. A she-wolf like Isabella is the prototype. Beautiful, bold, dominant. They'll respect that energy. Kira's nervous nibbling of sweet treats did not make much of an impression on them.

I needed more time with her. I should never have allowed Abel to rush the conclave. Mistakes are being made. I am being hurried. Hell, I am being manipulated. I have the very bad feeling that this will not go well, and the even worse feeling that I may not have the power to stop it.