Chapter 3
MICHAEL
My head spun and my thoughts made no sense. I wanted to stay and convince Monique she’d made a mistake with those shifters. But she hadn’t. My spell had revealed a truth I didn’t want to know about.
I hadn’t expected the rush of emotion when I’d entered her cottage and heard the sounds of lovemaking from her bedroom. I knew I was out of line bursting in like that, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself.
The image of Monique beneath that large shifter, the other one kneeling over her...
Magic fizzed along my veins as jealousy almost crippled my body. I’d wanted to stay there with her in the cottage, but I couldn’t. Not without blowing something up in my rage.
I staggered up the path to my father’s house.
I’d held it together in front of Monique and the wolf shifters. I especially didn’t want those two sensing any weakness in me. I’d met quite a few of their kind on my travels, and although I’d been suspicious in the beginning, and apprehensive about any friendship with them, I’d grown close to many in the past couple of years. The shifters I’d met in the outside world were strong, kind, and loyal to a fault.
Monique could not have found herself better protectors. And I could not be more jealous if I tried.
She had grown up since I’d last saw her. She’d been a girl back then, seven years my junior and vaguely annoying as she trailed around after me. I’d known I was going to marry her one day, but I hadn’t thought about her beyond being a future convenience.
Now, with that beautiful flame-red hair tumbling over the pillows, pale skin, and the most delicious curves...
My cock had stirred the moment I’d laid eyes on her and I’d wanted to rip those two shifters apart for daring to seduce my woman.
My woman. She was hardly that. She had made it clear she didn’t think of me with the adulation she’d shown in the past. Somehow, I needed to change that fact.
But how?
I groaned aloud as a stress headache formed and I could feel the beating of my heart, far too easily, inside my skull.
When I reached my childhood home, I stepped through the protective barrier my father had erected around his house—the barrier that told him exactly who was going to be standing on his front doorstep even before he opened the door. I wouldn’t need to announce myself; he’d already know I was here.
I didn’t bother to knock. I just waited. Sure enough, the door opened wide and there was my father, standing tall and proud, exactly as I remembered him.
“Son!” He smiled widely and drew me inside. “You’ve returned to us at last.”
I smiled back at him.