Which means that they have an ace up their sleeve, and whatever it is, we need to find it before it’s too late.
“Thanks, but I think I’m going to stay a few more hours,” she decides. “Until I’m so exhausted that my eyes are bleeding, I’m not going to be able to sleep. Even if I were to head home, I’ll just be thinking of everything that I still have to accomplish and lie in bed wasting time staring at the ceiling. If I’m going to be miserable, may as well be productive,” she teases, not looking miserable in the slightest. If anything, she seems enthusiastically determined now that the challenge has been laid out.
She and Cin are going to be incorrigible together. Slade will be grey within a year, putting out their fires.
Smiling at the thought, I wait until the door closes behind Jonathan before speaking. “Well, if you’re pulling an all-nighter, I insist on you at least taking a break to eat something. Can’t have HR smacking us for worker exploitation, you know.”
Jotting down her place in the spiral notebook beside her, she gives me a teasing smirk. “Like I’d ever consider starving myself for the sake of a company’s profits. I’m many things, but a martyr isn’t one of them. Are you sticking around for a while, or heading out, too?”
Pulling out my phone, I start browsing to see what’s open this late. “I’m project lead; how would it look if I were working less than the other members of my team?”
She snorts. “Like any other manager ever?”
––––––––
Imeet her stare, raisingan eyebrow. “Do I look like the sort of person that would mistreat you like that?”
Biting her lip, she shakes her head slightly, heart rate picking up. “No.”
Breaking our stare off, my eyes flick back down to my phone. “Then what sounds better, chinese or pizza?”
“Chinese, if that’s cool with you.” She goes back to her computer, and I try to ignore the sound of her pulse fluttering, her scent growing more prominent the later it gets.
A shiver travels down my spine as my prisoner awakens more than usual, every one of my senses attuned to the woman across from me. I’ve never been able to think of him as a wolf as easily as the others have. He feels too... dark. Natural wolves keep to their own unless threatened or desperate, not attacking without reason. They’re a part of nature, and this feels like something broken. Something stolen and shoved in a dark cage to fester with resentment for years without knowing if his jailor will ever find the key to set him free. And if I did, then what? Set the twisted being loose on an unsuspecting world that it no longer belongs in?
I feel like Jekyll and Hyde, constantly at war with myself. And honestly? I’m thrilled that no female wants to attach herself to a dying pack, to draw him out. With as much as I’ve kept him subdued over the years, if he were to be freed, he wouldn’t go back into his cage willingly when the sun came up. He’d tear me apart to ensure his freedom, even if it was only in death.
An hour later, we have our work pushed to the side and a mess of takeout containers on the table between us. I can feel the shift in mood as if it were a flavor on the air, the fall of night always bringing out the worst of my moods as I focus on shutting everything down to hold onto my sanity. Yet with Sabrina? It's a thousand times worse, her vulnerability taunting me in a way that's positively maddening. Other humans register as little more than rabbits on my internal radar; there if hungry enough to warrant the chase, inconsequential otherwise.
This woman? It's not even her sweet scent that keeps me up at night now, it's the presence she gives off. She's not helpless, as we've clearly witnessed. She doesn't even know that she needs us, and that's exactly why I'm confident that she does.
A lady should know how to change a tire, but she shouldn't have to. Sabrina Laroque knows how to survive, but I want more than that for her. I want her to thrive, to give her the support she never had growing up. I want to show her that it doesn't make her any less of a person to lean on family and friends. There's a difference between being at someone's mercy in your dependence, and the benefits that come with healthy relationships.
I want to love her. And I want to protect her from a world that's been so cruel, it’s convinced her that she can't rely on anyone.
"Can I ask you something?” she hesitantly asks, reaching for a bottle of water.
“Sure, shoot.”
My hand stills with my chopsticks halfway to my mouth when she bluntly asks, “Is this party going to be Emmy’s last as a free woman?”
Setting my food back down, I rest my elbows on the table, clasping my hands in front of me. “Only if she makes her decision. If not, I think we can buy her a few more months, but I can’t promise more than that.”
Pursing her lips, she nods. “And if she still doesn’t choose someone?” She stares straight into my eyes, demanding the truth, not that I’d ever deny her anything she asked of me.
“Slade will be forced to make the choice for her. She could run, but Emmy,” I trail off.
She sighs, pulling out her ponytail and fixing it for something to do with her hands. “It would be a crime against nature to make someone that burns as brightly as she does dim herself to live in fear, always looking over her shoulder. She wouldn’t do well being reduced to living a life in the shadows alone; she needs people to thrive.”
I cant my head to the side. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more accurate sentiment. Most people look at my sister and only see a doll that likes pretty things.”
A shadow skates across her bright blue eyes, dimming their intensity. “I think that’s why she’s pushing me towards Boden so hard. She knows she’ll be leaving soon and is worried about leaving you guys alone.”
My mouth parts, air stilling in my chest until the pressure becomes suffocating. When I remember to breathe, the pain doesn’t leave, it grows worse. Emmeline’s being forced to marry men that she doesn’t love, and she knows that if we were to continue refusing, the wolves would descend to put us down with the rest of our family and take her anyway. She’s accepted it, will do what she can to protect us the only way she’s able to, and save Slade the impossible burden of making the decision of her fate. It’s been tearing him apart, vetting everyone to the extreme in a desperate attempt to make sure that she ends up with people that will treat her well, that she very well might grow to love.
And she’s worried about making sure thatwe’llbe okay.
“I-”
