But the woman?
The jury was still out on that, and I was yet to meet with the judge.
47
“She still isn’t shifting into human form,” Lucien said, eyeing me from where I lay curled up on the couch.
“She will when she’s ready,” Max said, sitting down beside me and ruffling my ears. Him, he was my favourite right now. All him.
“Maybe we should bring Riley back in.” Beau looked pale and worried, but he had a lot over the last few days. I lay beside him on my bed sometimes, but it didn’t seem to relax him like it did me. “She said—”
“We will if nothing changes today.” My ears pricked at the sound of Tobias’ voice. He might have been wearing jeans and a T-shirt right now, but he still seemed every inch the CEO, the alpha. “I need the lot of you to go down and make your statements to the police today. They’ll be holding Miranda until bail can be set, but there’s some fuzziness about whether the same can be said for John.”
“That prick—” Lucien snarled.
“Might get off. What he proposed was questionable, but it was Miranda that took it to somewhere criminal. It’ll surely be enough to remove him from the board though.”
“Fuck, I want to see the moment you tell him that.” Lucien’s grin was vicious over the rim of his coffee mug.
“We will tell him. We set up Dacian as a partnership with each one of us an executive officer,” Tobias corrected. “We need to start acting like it. Going forward, we lead the company as a pack.”
“Whether we want to or not?” Beau sniffed at that, then smiled. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m gonna hate sitting in on all of those fucking boring boardroom meetings—”
“And I’m going to love having company,” Tobias shot back. “You know the power of appearances, of what that tells others about us. If I’m the only one walking into the boardroom, it looks like I’m the only one that cares.”
“You are, but I get it.” Lucien shook his head slowly. “We have to assert ourselves as leaders of this company, as alphas.” His focus shifted, settling on the two of us. “You up for that, Max?”
“I’m the one you’re worried about?” My tail wagged as I heard his sharp reply. “I’ve been waiting for you fucks to finally start listening to me for years. Joey is already compiling a list of demands.”
“Oh shit…”
“But we need to set some parameters for this. None of this three-against-one bullshit. We’re not at school anymore. We’re not with Chloe.” I felt the moment when Max looked down at me. “That’s what being with Sage means, if she decides to accept us. We operate as a pack and have each other’s back, especially hers, if she’ll let us.”
Each one of the men made clear they agreed with that, but then Tobias shouldered forward. Those keen brown eyes seemed to stare into mine, beyond the wolf and into the woman’s beyond.
“Today, I need the lot of you to make yourself scarce. I need to talk to the woman, not the wolf.”
“Tobias—” Max started to say, but his brother’s head jerked upwards.
“I can’t tell her my story. I have to show her, and the things I need to show her, the places I need to take her, I can’t do so when she’s a wolf. I’ll wait, if she’s not ready yet. I’ll wait and keep on waiting until such time as she can grant me this boon.”
Tobias seemed to study me, his eyes sliding all over my wolf body, a palpable warmth there.
“Just give us some space for that, just for today.”
“Shit’s getting real at Dacian,” Lucien replied. “Us three going in and putting out the spot fires? It’d send a message.”
One Tobias wasn’t entirely comfortable with, I could see that in the way his shoulders tightened, but he nodded.
“A good one—that we are united in our leadership of the company, that we trust each other’s judgements and are willing to back each other’s plays.”
Tobias’ voice vibrated with surety, but Lucien just grinned, moving in and slapping his brother on the shoulder.
“This is gonna fucking kill you, isn’t it? Not knowing what we’re doing. Getting yourself ready to clean up our fuck-ups before we even make them.”
“No.” Tobias stared into his brother’s eyes, then mine. “I’m going to be too busy trying to make up for my own.”
My muscles ratcheted tighter as each man left the apartment, leaving just me and the alpha. I braced my paws, ready to fight any attempt he might make to force me back into skin, but instead, he walked down the hallway. I waited, waited, then jumped off the couch, my wolfish curiosity getting the better of me. I padded down on silent feet, then pushed open the door of the room that smelled like him.