Filed to story: The Alpha’s Pen Pal Book
“But I didn’t actually do anything wrong,” I replied.
“You still have to grovel.” She shrugged.
“I should have known you were going to say something like that,” I muttered as I shoved off from the door frame, heading into my house to plan how to get Haven to like me.
Nolan stood from his spot and followed me.
“Wait!” Maddie shouted and ran to her school stuff. “Here!” she said as she handed me a piece of paper.
“What’s this?”
“My snack list.”
I glanced over it. “Maddie, there are at least thirty things on this list!”
“Selections, Wes! You have to have selections! Plus, I’m a growing she-lycan. You wouldn’t want to deprive me, would you?” she added, giving me her signature wolf pup eyes, and I caved.
“Fine, I’ll have them by next weekend.”
Damn it. I was turning into a puddle like my dad. I hoped I never had girl pups, because if I did, they would own me.
An image of a tiny female pup with long red hair and big blue eyes running along the shore of the lake popped into my head, and I swear my lycan let out a small whimper.
“What was that?” Nolan asked.
“Nothing,” I grunted. “It was nothing.” I cleared my throat and headed towards my home office. “Let’s go figure out how I’m going to grovel.”
HAVEN
I stood in front of the mirror in the costume shop, staring at my reflection. Bolt after bolt after bolt of colored fabrics and rack after rack of costumes surrounded me, but I fixated my eyes on the costume on my body.
The bodice of the purple costume had a sweetheart neckline, with off-the-shoulder flutter sleeves adorned with flower petals. The petals also decorated the bodice, with rhinestones and flowers that started at the top of the neckline and met in the middle, all the way down to the skirt.
The skirt itself was a brilliant design—the fabric made to look like individual petals of a flower, starting in a deep purple near the top and fading out to white at the edge, with more rhinestones scattered throughout.
And glitter. There was glitter everywhere.
“Ouch!” I cried out, breaking my concentration on myself.
“You were doing it again,” Maya scolded.
“Doing what again?”
“Your port de bras. I told you to hold still; otherwise, you’ll get jabbed.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, clasping my hands in front of my stomach so I wouldn’t be tempted to move them anymore.
She put the last pin in place and then stood up from the floor. “So? What do you think?” she asked.
This was the first time I’d gotten to see the actual costume. My last fitting had been with the mockup, and the tutu design had changed since then. This design was much more intricate, and I couldn’t even fathom how many hours it had taken to piece it together.
“It’s beautiful,” I told her. “But it’s so glittery. This will take at least a week to disappear from my skin, and by then, the ballet will be live, and then I’ll just be glittery for life.”
Maya laughed. “Peter insisted.”
“Why?”
“He said… um…”
“What? What did he say?” I giggled.
Peter always made the strangest comments. It was a running joke in the company.
“He said fairies like glitter.”
I laughed, and Maya giggled a bit with me.
“Come on, let’s get you out of this, then we can head home,” Maya said, shaking her head. “I am so ready to clock out of here.”
I was right there with her. It was getting close to dinnertime, and I was famished. The image of Maya’s homemade ravioli flickered through my mind, and my stomach rumbled, making Maya laugh harder. “Me too, Havie. Me. Too.”
I changed as quickly as I could, taking care to not poke myself with the pins Maya had placed or cause them to pop out of the costume. Then I waited for her at the door to the shop, playing with the end of my long French braid as she hung the tutu up with care.
“Bye, Vivienne!” she called out, and the costume mistress waved at us as we left through the side door.
Maya looped her arm through mine as we walked home. I was glad I was wearing street clothes. Not that it embarrassed me to be a ballet dancer, but sometimes walking home in my leotard, tights, and skirt made me self-conscious. Like everyone was staring at me, watching me, looking at me in my dance attire. But when I wore street clothes, it felt as though no one paid me any mind.
When we reached our building, I immediately noticed a tall man with tousled sandy brown hair and a scruffy beard leaning against an old red pickup truck. I recognized him right away. Even if I hadn’t seen him at the lake, I would have recognized his smirk from the pictures I had seen of him when we were kids.
“Sebastian,” I said coolly, and Maya winced a little beside me. “Did Wesley send you? Is he not man enough to beg forgiveness on his own?”
I wasn’t sure why I said that. I had been thinking a lot since talking with Maya and I was having doubts about everything that had transpired all those years ago, and was already contemplating what to say to Wesley. But seeing Sebastian there instead of Wesley irritated the shit out of me.
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?