Having wriggled out from under his hold, she went to answer the call of nature. She found herself staring longingly at the luxurious tub – a hot bath sounded fabulous…but her rumbling stomach had other ideas.
A few minutes later she was dressed and heading through the damn network of tunnels. The familiar black door that led to the kitchen wouldn’t be too hard to find; she could just follow the scents of meat and eggs and hot toasted bread. The chattering stopped as she entered and five strange faces looked at her curiously, though they didn’t seem surprised to see her. Obviously word had gotten out about Trey having finally brought her here.
As simple as this moment was, it was also pivotal. Her stay here wasn’t going to be a pleasant one. Her being Lance Warner’s daughter would be enough to make some wolves give her a hard time. It wouldn’t matter that her mating with Trey might ultimately aid their cause. She was still a Warner and there was no way any of them would want to answer to her. Also, the fact that she was latent meant that some people would regard her in the same way that Brodie did – a freak of nature, an easy target, someone who didn’t even count as a shifter. They would test her patience and strength, and make her stay here difficult.
As such, there were a few ways she could handle her first few moments in their pack. One, she could present them with a dazzling smile and introduce herself needlessly, hoping to win them over with a friendly attitude. Two, she could act aloof, distant, and ignore any attempts to goad her. Or three, she could just be her usual ray of sarcastic fucking sunshine and tell anyone who pushed her to go eat shit.
A bigger person would have gone with option two, but, well, she was a bitch. So she decided to go with number three. “Look, I’m not much of a morning person because I tend to sleep through it so if you’re hoping to piss me off then proceed with extreme caution. We’ll get along just fine though if you don’t treat me any differently than you would a princess.” With that, she nodded at the stunned faces and hopped up onto the countertop.
The plump brunette who had been pouring coffee for the others then approached her. “You must be Taryn,” she said, smiling. “I’m Grace. I cook, clean and say ‘shit’ a lot.”
“Ah, someone who speaks my language.”
She gestured at the dining table where croissants, toasted bread, bacon, scrambled eggs, baked beans, sausages, platters of cold meat, various fruits, and cereals were all laid out. “The wolf over there with the glasses and the goatee who’s the epitome of geeky, that’s my mate Rhett. The Bill Clinton lookalike is Brock, a cousin of Trey’s dad. The guy next to him with the spiky blonde hair and the baby face is Cam. And the unfairly gorgeous female opposite him with the unfairly great legs is Cam’s mate, Lydia.”
“Stop mooning over my mate’s legs, Grace,” groused Cam playfully before shovelling half a croissant in his mouth.
“You’re like a little doll,” said Lydia, smiling at Taryn. She was the only one other than Grace who had a smile for her. “No one would ever think you had such a smart, awesome mouth.”
“Coffee, tea, or orange juice?” asked Grace while Taryn took one of the empty plates and piled bacon, scrambled eggs and toasted bread on it.
“Coffee.” Plate in hand, she parked her ass back on the counter. At Grace’s amused but questioning look, she shrugged. “I always sit on the counter. A little quirk of mine.”
Grace’s gaze skimmed over her, taking in the various marks of possession that decorated her flesh. “Well, short of having ‘Property of Trey Coleman’ tattooed on your forehead, he couldn’t have made it any clearer that he considered you his, could he?”
Very true. In addition to those marks that Trey had left while they consummated the claiming, there were those that he had made during the second, third and fourth rounds that followed through the night. There was a bite at the hollow of her throat, another on her inner wrist, a third one on the swell of her breast, and also claw marks on both upper arms – and they were only the ones that weren’t hidden beneath her black t-shirt, navy jeans, and black leather knee boots.
And what had Trey’s response been when she told him that he may have overdone it a little with the marking? A shrug followed by a very smug grin.
Maybe it would be fair to say that if she hadn’t fought him so hard on the issue of belonging to him then she wouldn’t be in this state. Yeah, but that only applied to the first time. After that, she had conceded belonging to him as his mate, although she had snarled at him with every concession. He hadn’t had any need to keep it up.
She wondered if maybe the drive behind it had been that he had sensed that her admission was only half-hearted. Once she had belonged to someone and when he had been taken from her it nearly killed her, even though they had never mated. As it was, Joey had taken a chunk of her with him when he died. And that was okay, because that was his chunk to take. But she wouldn’t give that much of herself to another person again. Her soul wouldn’t survive the loss a second time as there wouldn’t be enough of her left to allow her to live. She would simply exist, breathing in and out and in and out, but nothing more. And this was a male who she would lose – that was a sure thing. So, yeah she would belong to Trey on a physical level, but no more than that.
It was actually best that way as it meant there was no chance whatsoever of the process of imprinting being sparked. Despite Trey’s mark-happy behavior, he didn’t want that any more than she did. It was simply in the nature of the male to want to completely possess his mate inside and out. This male would just have to make do.
“And I thought I looked badly marked up on my claiming night,” said Lydia.
“Can I, um, ask,” began Rhett, “is it true that you’re, um, latent?” At her nod he added, “Do you still feel your wolf or is she buried deep?”
Grace quickly interrupted. “You should know that Rhett is one of the most curious people to have ever walked the face of the Earth. Whereas he’s great with computers and anything technical, he’s not an expert with human emotion. It wouldn’t occur to him that he might offend you by bringing it up.” She shot him a reprimanding glare.
Taryn shrugged. “It’s fine. No, my wolf’s not buried, she’s very much aware and very much a pain in the ass.” Rhett seemed about to ask her something else, but a sharp look from Grace had him returning his attention to his meal.
“It’s going to be nice having some more female company,” said Lydia. “We’re way too outnumbered by the males.”
Taryn arched a brow. “There aren’t many women?”
“Well, there are three others but they don’t really count. Selma and Hope are your typical walking tributes to Barbie, and are both vain and bitchy. And Greta’s….well, she’s horrid.”
“Lydia,” censured Brock. “Have a little respect.” The look he gave Taryn was withering.
Lydia ignored him. “She thinks she rules the place because she’s the Alpha’s grandmother, likes to boss us females around. The males can’t do any wrong in her eyes. She mothers Trey, Dante and the enforcers something awful, calls them her boys. And, well, she doesn’t like females sniffing around her boys.”
“She’s even worse when it comes to Trey.” Grace’s smile was sympathetic. “Scares off every female who goes near him.”
“Surely she’s not going to want to scare me off when Trey needs to claim I’m his mate for his super plan.” Their winces said that wouldn’t be the case.