“Let me go check out this unsanctioned ring,” Adri said, repeating his offer from earlier in the week.
“Do I need to rub your nose in the dead body downstairs so you understand how dangerous that would be?” Rafe growled.
“I wasn’t asking you, Doc.”
Marco’s cough breaking the silence sounded suspiciously like a laugh.
“Do you haveanyconcern for your own safety?” Rafe asked, turning to glare at him.
“Do you? You’re running a clinic in the poorest part of town, too far away from the pack lands for help to arrive in time if you need it, with no fucking video surveillance or guards. How long would it take someone to realise you were missing if they came foryou?” Adri snapped.
“Don’t change the subject. I can take care of myself, and no one else will help the people here if I don’t,” Rafe said.
“Yeah, Doc. I know. It’s the same for me with the kids at the gym.”
“It’s not your job to take care of every fighter at the cost of living a life of your own.”
“And yet we do it anyway, don’t we?” Adri said.
“Carter, I’ll get Luca to hook you up with discreet surveillance and have Angelo put some people on you for backup,” Marco said, interrupting their stand-off.
“We weren’t finished that conversation, Alpha!” Rafe snapped, his eyes turning gold with his wolf.
“Yes, you were. I understand your need to keep your mate safe. That’s why I’ll have people shadowing him. Do you trust me to look after my pack, Rafael?” There was a sharp edge of warningin Marco’s voice as he focussed on the doc that had Adri’s lips peeling back in a warning snarl.
“I’m not part of your pack,” Adri said, leaning forward so he’d be ready to pounce between the men if needed.
The full force of Marco’s gaze turned on him, and his jaguar hissed inside him at the wolf trying to dominate him. There was only one wolf in the world he would submit to, and it wasn’t Marco Fucking Lunetti.
Wait. What? NO wolves. There werenowolves he’d submit to.
“Even if you hadn’t worked for me for over a decade, you belong to Rafe; therefore, you’re pack. Whether you like it or not,” Marco said, turning back to the doc to continue their stare-off.
Rafe immediately tipped his head to the side, baring his throat, which only pissed Adri off more. His jaguar really didn’t like the threat to their doc, and Adri couldn’t resist the urge to lean over and rest his chin on Rafe’s shoulder, putting his head between Rafe’s vulnerable neck and the annoyed Alpha throwing his weight around.
The move broke the tension between them, but not in the way he’d meant to. The two older wolves shared a knowing smile that had Adri rolling his eyes and scooping up the empty coffee cups to take them to the sink before he said something that started everyone growling again. Fucking wolves.
“Apologies, Alpha. I know you, of all people, wouldn’t put a mate bond at risk,” Rafe said.
Adri wondered what the story behind that was. Why Marco, ‘of all people’? He’d have to ask Rafe later.
“If you claimed him, the risk would be less. A tracking device can be removed,” Marco told Rafe.
Adri scoffed, sarcasm dripping in his words. “So romantic. Forming a mating bond foreternity,just for the convenience of being able to find me if someone happens to grab me. Definitely the best reason to make a permanent, life-altering decision.”
“To be fair, I agree. That is quite far down my very long list of reasons you should let me bond you,” Rafe said.
Adri’s head whipped round to the doc. What the fuck? How long had he been sitting on this ‘list’? In thirteen years, Rafe had never even mentioned they were mates until the previous night. Now he had a fucking list?
“I’m more interested in what could possibly be on Carter’s list of reasons why not,” Marco said.
“How about because we haven’t even spent an entire week in each other’s company? Or because no one isevergoing to fucking own me again, and I don’t need a man to give my life meaning? Or because I’m not interested in some dominant wolf trying to tell me what to do forever?”
“Well, that last one’s just an outright lie, kitten,” Marco said.
“Alpha, with all due respect, I don’t need you to have this conversation for me, and Ireallydon’t need you to call him that,” Rafe said.
How had this conversation got so off track?
