Mediator on Saturday afternoon so the matter can’t wait. I take it you usually go to a shifter club on weekends?”
She nodded. “I go to The Pulse every Friday night as it’s the nearest club to my pack house. I have to stay local in case I’m needed to do some healing.”
“ It’s best not to do anything out of the norm for you. Friday night I want you to go to the club as usual. If you can, stay near the bar. At some point I’ll find you and we’ll ‘stumble upon’ each other. I think you’ll find that everything will move very fast from there. Then afterwards you’ll come home with me. In the meantime, go about your business the way you usually do. I’ll give you my number in case there’s some reason you need to get in touch. Try not to use it unless you have to.” He didn’t like that this gave her four days to change her mind, but this was the plan with the most potential.
Again she nodded.
“ You can’t tell anyone about this, Taryn. Not even your best friend. Especially when there’s a risk that someone will consider you safer with Roscoe.”
Unfortunately he was right. Her two best friends, Shaya and Caleb, were pretty protective of her and they seemed to find Roscoe completely charming. They didn’t see the coldness behind his smile. They would do everything they could to discourage her from mating with psycho boy here, and if that didn’t work they would most definitely go tattle. Even if she had been utterly convinced that they would be supportive, she wouldn’t have told them. It wouldn’t be fair to place them in the position of keeping secrets from their Alpha.
Not liking her silence, he said, “I mean it, Taryn, you have to keep your mouth shut about this. You don’t tell a soul.”
She bristled at the ring of command in his voice. “We should probably clear this up right now, psycho boy. I don’t have a submissive bone in my body so don’t bark at me unless you’re happy to be ignored.”
The word ‘submissive’ had his mind conjuring images of her tied up, bent over and begging him to take her. He couldn’t hold back a devilish smile, and he was sure by the way her charcoal-grey eyes narrowed that she knew just what was going through his head. “We’ll see. So, can we shake on it?”
Taryn clasped his offered hand. “Note this: If you try to hand me over to Roscoe when he comes, I’ll claw your balls off.”
CHAPTER TWO
No sooner had Taryn closed the front door behind her than a voice was booming, “Where the hell have you been?”
It was always a surprise when her dad sought her out. Usually Lance Warner was indifferent to Taryn and could even go a whole day without talking to her. What was more surprising was that he seemed to believe she should be hanging around just in case he wanted to see her or to bestow some attention on her. She was pretty sure it confused him that she didn’t respond to his indifference by constantly striving to gain his attention and approval. But Taryn wasn’t going to beg for the scraps from anyone’s table.
“ What is it?” She knew no one needed healing. She would have received a text message if that was the problem.
“ It’s almost time for the evening meal.”
Since when did he care if she missed a meal?
“ Roscoe’s going to be here soon. You have about two minutes to change.”
Ah. “Why would I change? And why wasn’t I told he was coming?”
Lance snickered. “Because you would have done a disappearing act just to be awkward. You know, I still don’t know why you’re so set against him. I never would have thought you’d have attracted an Alpha in a million years. Hell, a wolf shouldn’t want to be bound to a latent unless he had no choice. You should be grateful.”
“ Grateful to be mated to someone I don’t like, let alone care for?”
“ You’ll just have to grow to
John B. Garvey, Mary Lou Widmer