The next morning, they ate breakfast in the dining room. Meals were always a family-and-friends affair; the pack was very social. Serafina and her brothers were there, begging her to do the quarter trick again. She obliged. She’d been reading them stories at least once a day. When she finished reading, she noticed, Austin usually stepped in, teaching them to spar, and how to fight in wolf form as well. He was gruff and sarcastic, but he clearly adored them.
James and Anita, Anita’s sister Denise, Austin, Truman, Grant and Mandy were there as well, along with half a dozen other pack members, the servants in the background silently appearing every time her coffee cup or water glass was empty.
The tension between Cliff and Taylor was obvious. She’d barely spoken to him that morning. Her phone was shattered; she’d asked Cliff for another one the night before, and he’d mumbled something and made excuses, so she was struggling not to feel suffocated and controlled.
“Hey!” Denise said brightly. “Let’s take her shopping in town. Cliff, you can get stuff done and we can have a little girls’ morning out.”
“That sounds like fun,” Taylor said.
“I need you where I can keep an eye on you,” Cliff growled. Then he saw Taylor tense up.
“Fine,” he sighed. “I need Truman to go with you and keep an eye on you, though. Jerrold’s bound to try something. The trials start tomorrow. Come back here in an hour.”
Taylor raised an eyebrow. “So I’ll just have time to get there and then turn around and leave?”
It strained every cell in his body, crying out to keep her by his side. “Stay as long as you want. Well…be back in a few hours. I’d like to do some more work with you this afternoon, while I still have the time. Starting tomorrow, James and Anita will have to take over your training.”
He was rewarded by seeing Taylor smile, and he felt the coils of tension in his body loosen just a little.
“I’ll be careful,” she assured him. “Believe me, I really, really don’t want to give Jerrold any edge whatsoever.”
* * * * *
Downtown was crowded with families, shopping, eating at restaurants, strolling down the sidewalk, looking and acting totally human. Except there were two wolf cubs wrestling on the front steps of a pharmacy while a human woman yelled at them to knock it off. And there was a wolf climbing a low tree in one of the many mini-parks that were wedged between buildings. And the man walking by Taylor had tufts of fur on his ears.
“Something is troubling you,” Anita said to Taylor.
Taylor forced a smile. They’d been nice enough to invite her out, and she didn’t want to be a Debbie Downer. “Don’t worry about me.” Then she peered at Anita. “You look pale. Are you sick?”
Anita shook her head. “No. It’s very kind of you to ask. It’s the presence of Jerrold’s pack. The hostility and negative energy is making me ill. But truly, if you tell me what’s bothering you, it will make me feel better if I can help you.”
“A lot of things are troubling me. The fact that I’m not allowed to leave the property. The fact that Jerrold is allowed to beat his wife senseless and nobody stops him.”
Anita nodded. “Yes. Pack traditions can be stifling sometimes, but many of them are what has kept us alive and hidden throughout the centuries.”
“There’s got to be a way to get her away from him before the trials,” Taylor said, feeling frustrated. “Damn it, somebody here has to start thinking outside the box.”
“Who better than you?” Denise said. “You’re the outsider. Maybe there’s a solution and we’re all too close to see it.”
Across the street, Grant and Mandy were strolling together, looking in shop windows. Mandy was wearing painted-on blue jeans, heels, and a blue lace-edged tank top that displayed her assets admirably. She was staring at something in the window of a dress shop. Grant was checking out the ass of a sexy redhead who was sauntering past them.
Taylor frowned in thought. Maybe…
She waved at them. “Hey! Grant! I need to talk to you for a minute!” she yelled.
Grant and Mandy walked across the street. Grant almost tripped because he was still checking out the redhead’s butt.
“Grant,” she said. “I understand you’re the legal eagle here. An expert in the covenant and the pack rules.”
“True.” Grant nodded with a grin. “I’m amazing like that. Much better than Cliff. In fact, there’s alotof areas where I—”
“I thought I was clear about the fact that we’re not doing this again,” Taylor cut him off, and Mandy stifled a laugh. “Anyway. As I was saying. We need to figure out a way to get Leota away from Jerrold until the Alpha Trials are over. If anyone can find a loophole, it’s you.”
“Hmm. If I do this, will you convince Cliff to drop out of the trials?”
“No.”
“Will you at least have sex with me?”
