Chapter Twenty-Two
Dean
We fell into a routine, work all day and make love almost all night. We joked that we needed to make some rules about getting sleep so we didn’t keel over during the day, but really neither of us was willing to give up a moment of what we had together. Not even for rest.
I was cutting wood, Jillian doing my gathering, most days, unless someone in the pack needed her in the compound to help with something. It was one of those days, where she was helping to prepare the kitchen garden for spring and I had just hauled in a load of wood when Jerad approached me.
“The alpha wants to see you.” He eyed the utility vehicle I’d been assigned and the trailer behind it. “That all the wood you got today?”
“It’s my third trip,” I said drily. “Let me get this to the woodlot, and then I’ll be right there.”
He waved me out of the cab. “When the alpha calls, you get your butt there now, new wolf.”
How long before I wasn’t the new wolf? Until someone else wandered in maybe?
“All right. Do you want me to leave the Mule here?” Since I was blocking the main drive.
“No. I’ll park it near the woodlot and after your meeting, you can unload it.” He replaced me in the seat. “You’re welcome.” Sometimes I wondered why he had to be such a jerk, but I didn’t want to leave the alpha waiting while I asked him.
I’d taken three steps toward the alpha’s home and office structure when Jerad called after me, “Don’t forget to take Jillian with you.”
Forget? Try...he didn’t tell me, but since I felt like I rode a delicate balance with the beta who oversaw my work, I couldn’t see anything to gain in arguing with him. “All right.” I swerved toward the back of the house where the garden lay. This fenced area didn’t provide everything we needed, but it did at least cover the needs of the alpha house and extras were passed out to those in need. Nearly every family had their own small garden outside their cabins or homes for fruits and veggies.
The trees were too thick by our place for a lot of sunshine to get through, and Jillian didn’t want me to cut living trees down, so we just had a few berry bushes, but I’d scoped out a sunny patch not far away that I thought might be a good spot to fence and grow things. It wasn’t great getting the extras of whatever someone else didn’t want.
The alpha’s garden was worked by many of the women in their spare time, and there were five or six bent over, planting seeds and covering them with soil when I arrived. Shifters, I’d noticed, were more in shape than the average human type, but Jillian’s bottom view...well, she was extraordinary.
I waited a moment for her to stand up before I called her over. “Hey, can you take a break?” As if she could answer me… But she was headed toward me anyway, a smile brightening her face, and, when she arrived at my side, she went up on tiptoe to offer her lips for my kiss.
We’d never kissed in front of other pack members before, and I was glad to accommodate her, going so far as to lift her over the fence and into my arms.
When we came up for air, the silence was thick around us, the women who’d been chatting as they planted seeds, no longer speaking. They weren’t staring at us, though, rather looking in any other direction. Weird.
“Jillian, the alpha would like to see us. Now.”
She nodded and stepped away from me but linked our fingers and started toward the kitchen door of the alpha house.
“What do you suppose he wants?”
She shrugged, but her shoulders rode high as they always did when she was tense.
The alpha’s office was upstairs, on the second floor of the house, so we made our way through the kitchen, back hallway, and into the living room before mounting the broad stairs with the carpeting held down by those weird gold bars. In comparison with all of the other homes around the compound, this one was not only much bigger but so much fancier. Pausing on the landing, I took in the expansive living room below with its sunken seating area and eighty-inch wide screen.
The pack wasn’t poor so far as I could tell, but it seemed a little unfair that the alpha’s living arrangements were so much nicer than everyone else’s. Much less ours. The couches in the conversation pit alone had to have cost five thousand dollars.
Stuffing the resentment, I led Jillian along the upstairs hallway, wanting nothing more than to sneak into one of the guest rooms and...was there such a thing as too much sex between mates? The office was at the end of the hallway, and we paused outside to knock.
“Come in,” barked the alpha. Graciousness was not his middle name. When we obeyed and stepped inside, he was speaking into a phone in a low, tight voice. We approached his desk tentatively, but he waved us into the guest chairs in front of it, and we sat down and waited.
For a while. Whoever he was speaking with seemed disinclined to end the conversation, and he wasn’t much better. They rambled on about an upcoming meeting and the possibilities of changing dates, for a good twenty minutes before the alpha hung up and looked at us, blinking, as if wondering how we’d gotten there.
“Hello, alpha.” I cleared my throat. “You asked us to stop in?”
“Ah, yes.” And just like that he went from vague to laser focused. “It took you long enough to get here.”
I tensed, and Jillian squeezed my thigh, giving a tiny headshake.
“I’m sorry about that, alpha,” I said through gritted teeth. “We’ll try to do better next time.” I’d heard he hated excuses, and since I hated making them, that worked fine for me. “But since we’re here now, what can we do for you?”