Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
“All the guest housing is full since the remodels on Silver Ridge keep getting delayed, and the new buildings here for the pack members who decided to transfer packs are also unfinished due to the same delays,” Wesley explains, sitting down in his chair again. “She can’t stay with Sebastian since he’s staying with our parents while a family is using his apartment. You’re the only other ranked member who is single and has a spare room.” I clench my jaw and hold in the groan threatening to leave my mouth. “It’s just until space opens up in the guest housing,” he adds, his tone leaving no room for argument.
Everything building within me from the moment Rachel said this was really the end; everything I held back while talking with her erupts from me in a singular, violent explosion. I throw my arms in the air, and my nostrils flare as a growl rumbles in my chest beneath my words. “I don’t want her to stay with me!”
Haven’s eyes widen, and her hand instinctively covers her growing belly. I almost feel guilty for my knee-jerk reaction, almost backtrack and apologize to Cassandra. I don’t, however. I’m too riled up and frustrated from today’s earlier events and the memories and all too familiar emotions they awakened.
But my deviation from my usual rigidity and stoicism doesn’t faze Wes. He sits there, fingers tapping the top of the desk as he watches me, studies me. Sebastian is usually the intuitive one of the two brothers, but Wesley knows me too well since he was the one constant in my life in the months and years following Kimberly’s rejection. He knows my reaction has almost nothing to do with Cassandra staying with me and everything to do with something completely unrelated, something he’ll confront me about later on when we’re alone.
“Why not?” he asks.
I can’t hold back my groan this time. My volatile emotions influence my reactions, surging through me and out of me like a shaken can of soda someone tried to open unawares. “I have a routine. She’ll just be a nuisance. She’ll be in my way.”
Cassandra clears her throat and raises her hand, and I glare at her. “‘She’ is literally right here. Listening to your every word.”
Even with my outburst and my incredibly rude reaction, she still wears the same fucking happy-go-lucky smile on her face, and it’s not even fake. It’s genuine. That pisses me off even more. How can anyone be that happy?
My teeth grind together, and my hands curl into fists at my side as I study her. She stands with her hands clasped behind her back, her green eyes flitting about the room, her curled, golden brown hair swaying with the subtle rocking of her body. The long, dark blue skirt of her dress floats around her calves, mimicking the movement of her hair. And that smile. That Goddess damned smile. I just know that smile is going to drive me up the wall. It will be my undoing. I cross my fingers that she’ll only have to stay in my house for a few days, so her smiles don’t bleed into the corners of my home and uproot my routine.
“The spare room in my house isn’t ready for someone to stay in,” I say to Wesley through my teeth, still staring at the ray of sunshine who will be my house guest for the foreseeable future.
“I’ve already sent the hospitality team to work on it,” Haven says, her voice and eyes soft.
I give her a curt nod and turn on my heel, ripping my eyes away from Cassandra and her incessant happiness that threatens to poison my perpetually pitch-black soul. “I have to go to the airport.”
It’s a lie, but none of them need to know that. All I know is I need to get out of there before I explode again.
Before I do or say something worse than I already have.
CASSANDRA
“How are you settling in, Cassandra?”
I pinch the phone between my ear and my shoulder as I wash the mixing bowl in the stainless steel sink, staring out the window. It looks out over a small yard that leads into the forest of redwood trees, and I can’t wait for a chance to explore the lands here. They’re beautiful, and expansive, and they call to me, begging me to delve into their hidden mysteries. “I don’t know, Mama. It’s only been a day. I haven’t even unpacked my bags.”
“Well, you need to do that soon. You’ll be there for a while, and you don’t want to be living out of a suitcase the entire time. Plus, your clothes will wrinkle, and I know how much you hate ironing.”
“Yes, but I’m still hoping a guest room in the packhouse will open up sooner rather than later.”
I shut the sink off, then grab the dish rag, drying the bowl off as my mother hums out her response. “Mmm.”
I sigh. “What?”
“I didn’t say anything,” she says.
“You said ‘Mmm.'”
“Did I?”
“You did!” I exclaim, setting the bowl down and leaning against the counter, my head tilting backwards as I gaze up at the exposed wooden beams in the ceiling.
She clicks her tongue at me. “Just don’t get your hopes up, sweetheart.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Silence. Then, “They have a lot on their plates. They are still dealing with the aftermath of the rogue attack on Silver Ridge. You will likely stay with the gamma for longer than you think you will.”
I swallow and look down at my feet, shuffling them on the cold, off-white tile floor. “I don’t know, Mama. He seems pretty upset at having me as an unexpected guest. And he has—” I cut myself off, pinching my lips together. My eyes flick to Nolan’s small round dining table on the other side of the counter and then away just as quickly. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already pawned me off on somebody else.”
She scoffs, and I picture her waving her hand in front of her face with her nose wrinkled, like she always does when she’s telling me I’m incorrect. “Alpha Wesley won’t let him. It makes sense for you to stay with him. It will make it easier for you to do your job.”
“Why does it have to be me, though?” I mutter under my breath.
“You know why.”
I refrain from rolling my eyes at her response to my rhetorical question. Even though she’s not here with me, she will know, and she will reprimand me for it. “I know, I know. I’m the only oracle with my skill who doesn’t have a mate.”
“And because you have other business you need to attend to in California as well.”
I cross my arms and don’t respond, staring at the pencil sketch of the lake shore hanging in a frame opposite me. It’s a perfect line drawn rendering of the view of the lake from the back steps of their packhouse, the same view I saw yesterday afternoon when Wesley’s sister, Madeleine, gave me a tour of the grounds.
The front door opens and slams shut, and footsteps echo through the house, heading in the direction of the kitchen. At the same time, the oven beeps. The unfamiliar sound is harsh to my ears, and I jump in surprise. “I’ve got to go, Mama. I love you! And Mpampa, too!”
I hang up and grab two potholders, taking the pie out of the oven and turning to set it on the counter right as he enters the kitchen.
Him. Nolan Shepard. The gamma of Crescent Lake. He may not remember me, but I sure remember him. I remember him exactly as he was that evening at Selene’s temple: six feet tall, hazel eyes, bronze skin stretching over hard-earned muscles and dusted with a handful of tattoos, all of it exposed beautifully by a pair of white linen pants slung very low across his hips…
I’ve thought little about him since they left the island, even with how he looked that night. But seeing him yesterday brought it all back, brought that image of him in those pants rushing to the forefront of my mind, and I’m struggling to push it into the recesses of my memories where it needs to stay.
And now I have to stay with him for Goddess only knows how long. A fact he has made abundantly clear he is less than thrilled about, based on his near tantrum in Alpha Wesley’s office yesterday.
I refrain from slamming the glass dish onto the white and tan granite counter. My teeth clench together as he gives me a wide berth to grab a glass from the dark brown wood cabinets. His gym shorts sit just as low on his hips as those white linen pants did on the island almost five years ago, and I tuck my hair behind my ears, then press my palms flat against the cool surface of the counter, blowing out my breath between pursed lips.
He may be handsome, but the tension and anger radiating from him now, coupled with his visceral reaction to having me as a guest yesterday, wash away the majority of my attraction to him. Good looks don’t make up for a rotten attitude and poor treatment of strangers. Not that I can’t still appreciate the artistry that is his body, but at least I won’t have to worry about fawning over him or being constantly tongue-tied while we work together to protect Luna Haven.
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?