Aunt B pulled up a chair and sat by my bed. In her late forties or early fifties, she looked like a typical young grand-mother: a bit plump, with an easy smile and kind eyes that would convince a child in trouble to pick her out of a crowd of strangers. She wore a bulky gray sweater. Her brown hair sat in a bun atop her head. If she added a platter of cookies, she’d be all set.
She greeted me with a warm smile. You’d never know that behind that smile waited a seven-foot-tall monster with claws the size of cake forks.
“You seem on edge, dear,” she said. “How badly were you injured?”
Hi, Grandma, what big teeth you have . . . “Nothing major.”
“Ah. Good then.” She nodded at the platter. Beef, pita bread, and Tzatziki sauce. “Help yourself. Lunch is on me.”
Not to take a bite would be an insult. To take a bite might obligate me to something and I’d rather be in debt to the devil than to Aunt B. I settled for sipping my tea. “You aren’t propositioning me, are you?”
“Funny you should say that.”
I paused with a glass in my hand. Just what I need.
“It won’t be that kind of proposition.” Aunt B gave me a bright smile.
I squished a shudder.
“I’ll come straight to the point to make things easier on both of us.” Aunt B pushed the plate to me. “Curran didn’t return to the Keep last night. I’m neither blind nor stupid and I’ve spent more years sorting out shapeshifter lies than you’ve been alive. Please keep that in mind before you answer. Did he spend the night?”
Putting claws to my throat was never a good idea. I smiled. “None of your business.”
“So he did. Did he use the word ‘mate’?”
“What happened between me and Curran is our own affair.”
Aunt B raised her eyebrows. “Congratulations. Then you are, indeed, the mate.”
Why me? “That would be news to me.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you were the last to know. I’ve known he’d fall for you since he fed you that soup. It was tons of fun watching the two of you take so long to figure it out.”
“I live to provide entertainment.”
“There is no need to be so hostile.” Aunt B pinched off a small chunk of her pita. “I’ve called to the Keep. There are no rooms ready for you. Has the Bear approached you?”
“Mahon? No.”
“He’s getting slow in his old age.” She chuckled, baring her teeth. A predatory light flared in her eyes. The effect was chilling.
“What do rooms have to do with anything?” I asked.
“Curran intends for you to share his quarters.”
“Do I get turn-down service and a mint on my pillow?”
“You get to be the female alpha of the Pack,” Aunt B said.
I choked on empty air.
“Here, drink your tea, dear. Honestly, what did you think that meant?” she asked.
I drank my water. Somehow when Curran said “mate,” my mind didn’t translate it as “the Pack’s Beast Lady.”
“I’m not equipped to be an alpha.”
Aunt B smiled. “So you don’t want the power?”
“I don’t.” I didn’t want the responsibility either.
“What is it you do want?” she asked me.
“I want to kill the crazy bitch who is running around Atlanta murdering shapeshifters.”
“Besides that?”
“I want him.”
“Without the Pack?”
“Yes.” I had no idea why I kept answering her questions. There was something in her eyes that made me want to tell her everything I knew so she would pat me on the head and tell me, “Good girl,” at the end. Adolescence in the bouda clan would be hell with Aunt B around.
“You can’t have just him.” Aunt B’s eyes were merciless. “Curran belongs to the Pack and we won’t let you take him away from us. You need him to be happy, but we require him to survive. If he were to leave the Pack, the alphas would fight for power. No one among the alphas now could take his place and hold it. It would be chaos and blood. Eventually the strongest would win, but the strongest isn’t always the best person for the job.”
She leaned back. “We lucked out with Curran, and we all know that our chances of getting another Beast Lord like him are slim. I like you, but if you tried to lure him away, I’d be the first in line to kill you.”
Today was the wrong day to threaten me. “Think you can?”
“You have a lot of power, but we have the numbers, so yes, we can. I’m not telling you this to get your hackles up. You need to understand the situation clearly. Curran belongs to the Pack. Stand between him and his people and the Pack will tear you to pieces. Your meat is getting cold. Eat.”
She was right. I knew she was right. They wouldn’t let Curran go. And even if they did, he’d never leave them. He was a shapeshifter and they were his people. I had to find a way around it. “Why can’t I be with him, but not be the alpha?”
“You want to have your cake and eat it, too. It simply doesn’t work that way. You can’t marry the king and not become the queen. You’ll be the one he’ll growl sweet nothings to in bed, and you’ll be the one he’ll ask for advice. You’ll have unprecedented influence over his decisions, but you want none of the responsibility that comes with it. That’s cowardly and that’s not you. It’s all or nothing, Kate. That’s the deal and it’s not negotiable.”
“So I have no say in this?”
Aunt B frowned. “Of course you do. You don’t have to mate with him. You can always reject him. But if you do mate with him, the burden of the alpha comes with it. Ask yourself, would you really settle for a fling? Or do you want him to yourself for always?”
I made a valiant effort not to ask myself that question. I was pretty sure I knew the answer. That way lay total surrender of all common sense. “I’m not a shapeshifter.”
“True. Can you become one?”
I shook my head. “It’s not physically possible. I’m immune to Lyc-V.”
“Excellent.”
She lost me.
“Were you to become a shapeshifter, you’d have to pick the species of your beast. You’d have to choose a clan and someone to donate Lyc-V, which means six clans would feel slighted and that one clan would expect preferential treatment. It’s a can of worms nobody wants to open. This is one of those rare cases when being impartial is actually advantageous.”
“You’ve given this a great deal of thought,” I murmured. The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question was why.
“Look at it from our point of view. We want him to mate. As his mate, you have the right to question his decisions, something we can’t do. If Pack members have an issue with him, they could come to you and plead for assistance. If you issue an order, technically he can overrule you, but he would be reluctant to do so. The Pack has been denied this avenue of appeal for too long.”
She waved her pita around. “Curran is a fair alpha, one of the best. But he has his bad moments and right now nobody dares to contradict him during those. Sure, some people won’t accept you, but that’s normal. Anytime there is a power shift, people rumble. After you kill the first couple of challengers, you’ll be fine.”
She was definitely after something . . .
“Nobody questions your power, dear. The alphas have seen you fight and you’re a good asset. Anyone able to snap the legs off two hundred demons with one word isn’t to be taken lightly.”
She bit into her bread. “Besides, if Curran didn’t think you’re fit, he wouldn’t have made the offer. Yes, he’s obsessed with you, but he’s shrewd enough to take your ability into consideration. Alphas are typically attracted to other alphas. I wouldn’t mate with a weakling, and neither would he.”
“It’s not that simple,” I growled.
She laughed softly. “We know you have a history, dear. That much power doesn’t come without baggage and Curran isn’t an idiot. If he proposed to you, he must view your past as an acceptable risk.”
Had an answer for everything, did she? “Why do you care so much whether I become his mate? You didn’t come here out of the goodness of your heart.”
She paused. Her face turned mournful. “Raphael is my third child. The first two went loup at puberty. After him, I said I wouldn’t have any more. I couldn’t keep killing my babies. My boy is everything to me. I’d rip the world apart for him. You and I both know the name of his happiness.”
“Andrea.”
She nodded. The pain in her eyes melted into pride. “My Raphael could have any woman he wanted. If he wanted you, you wouldn’t be able to resist.”
“I don’t know about that . . .”
“Trust me. I’ve been courted by his father. Raphael had his pick, but he chose the girl who is beastkin. Because my life wasn’t complicated enough.”
“Andrea loves him. She’s smart, trained, and—”