Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
“And I’m twenty-one now,” I pointed out.
“Semantics,” she said, waving me off. My lips twitched in a halfhearted laugh. “My point is, I was jealous, and I treated you poorly because of that, and I’m sorry.”
I blew out a breath. “Ballet is hard enough as it is. We should be lifting each other up, not tearing each other down.”
“I’ve never really been good at making friends,” she said with a shrug as she crossed one arm in front of her chest to stretch her shoulder.
“Me neither,” I replied with a one-shouldered shrug of my own.
She smirked as she swung her arms and then reached up and behind her back to stretch more. “Seems we have more in common than I thought,” she told me.
She stood up then and plugged her phone into the system. I stayed in my spot on the floor against the mirror as she ran through her piece, giving her feedback and laughing with her when she missed a count or messed up a step, my own stresses and worries forgotten for the moment.
“What do you mean you didn’t do anything for your birthday?” Imogen asked as she picked her stuff up, and we walked towards the door after she finished rehearsing.
“I mean, I had dinner with my old foster family, but other than that, I didn’t do anything.”
“But it’s your twenty-first! You have to do something big!” I shrugged, and Imogen sighed and rolled her eyes. “Hold, please,” she said, pulling her phone out and tapping away rapidly on it.
I paused in the doorway, adjusting my bag on my arm as I waited for her.
“Aaand done!” she exclaimed.
“With what?” I asked, just as my own phone vibrated in my hand.
I looked down at it and internally cringed as I read the text flashing across the screen, the text that Imogen had sent out to every company employee.
COME TO MOONLIGHTERS ON FRIDAY NIGHT AT 8PM TO CELEBRATE OUR VERY OWN SOLOIST HAVEN KENWAY’S 21ST BIRTHDAY!
“Imogen!”
“Haven!”
“Why?”
“Because, one, you turned twenty-one and need to shout it from the rooftops, and two, you need to stop moping about that boy. If he can’t realize what he’s missing out on by ignoring you, then you need to move on.”
I gaped at her and gave an incredulous laugh. “I’m not… I haven’t—” I shook my head and sighed. “Fine. Fine. You know what? You’re right. I deserve to have fun for my birthday. I’m not going to let him ruin it,” I said with more confidence than I felt.
“That’s the spirit!” Imogen declared. “Now, let’s go shopping for club outfits!”
WESLEY
“What the hell is taking her so long? Where the hell is she?” Alpha Pierce growled as he paced back and forth in the conference room, his hair disheveled from running his hands through it over and over.
I stood off to the side, leaning against the wall with my arms and legs crossed, my gray suit jacket thrown over one of the few chairs in the room.
My mom and Fiona had cleared out the conference table and most of the chairs and rearranged what was left for this charade of a mating ceremony. The only people in attendance were my parents, Alpha Timothy, and Reid.
Seb and Nolan were in the city, at the club. Maya had approached me on Thursday, telling me of the mass text sent to every member and employee of the Redwood Forest Ballet Company inviting them to the club for Haven’s birthday. I immediately enlisted Seb and Nolan to go stand watch for the evening, even though my dad said not to.
But I knew it would be the end of our charade, since King Malachi had called my dad to let him know they would send someone to apprehend Alpha Pierce at the ceremony. And I wasn’t willing to spend an entire night knowing Haven was out at some club. Alone. Wearing Selene knew what and being ogled by men and werewolves and potentially other supernaturals as well.
My lycan had snarled and raged in my head at that thought, and his tantrum was only sort of calmed because he knew Nolan and Sebastian would protect her.
They had used scent blockers. Just in case someone from Pierce’s pack was there. Then, they’d gone to the club in town early to set up camp in one of the more private VIP booths that still offered a view of the club floor.
I’d had high hopes that we would wrap everything up nice and tidy in the early evening, and I’d be able to sneak away. Maybe even catch Haven before she made it to the club so I could talk to her and explain and beg for her forgiveness. But as had been the case, more often than not, luck was not on my side.
Not only was King Malachi’s representative from the palace late, but Nicole was late as well. Timothy was close to blowing a fuse, a vein pulsing in his forehead, and under the calm I presented on the surface, I was a raging storm.
My lycan paced back and forth in my head, unable to settle, more on edge than I’d felt him in weeks. My skin prickled, and I felt as though I might shift at any moment.
I gripped my arms with my hands to keep from reaching for my cell phone that I’d dug out of my dresser that morning so I’d have a way to stay in touch with Nolan and Seb. Under any other circumstance, I’d be texting them every five minutes to make sure everything was fine. Then again, under any other circumstance, I’d be with them instead of at the packhouse. I’d be with her instead of pretending to be engaged to another woman.
“How much longer do we have to wait?”
I asked my dad through the mindlink.
“Can’t we lock him in one of our cells?”
“No, and you know that. We have no authority to do so. The king would question every piece of evidence we gave him. We have to do this the right way.”
I clenched my jaw but didn’t argue further. The right way. The right way had only gotten us so far. Not just with the situation with Pierce but with so much more.
It shouldn’t matter if we locked him up. He was a piece of shit. The evidence Ben gave us proved that.
Not only had he been funneling money from their businesses into the pack funds and his personal funds, but he’d also received money from numerous sources for letting them use his pack as a “holding area” for “merchandise.”
We hadn’t been able to ascertain whether that merchandise was drugs or people or both, but it didn’t matter. It was illegal, shady, and would be what brought him down.
I didn’t want him on our lands any longer than necessary, though, which was why I was so frustrated that both Nicole and the council representative were late.
New Book: Veiled Desires of the Alpha King Novel
Dayson was the alpha of the largest pack in North America. Powerful figures from other packs sought to offer gorgeous girls as potential mates for Dayson. He steadfastly rejected these advances, he was not a pawn to be manipulated. But eventually there came a mysterious girl he could hardly say No. Who was she?