Page 75 of Purchased

She speaks softly, but I can tell there is fear and rage inside her.

“Can you tell me more about the circumstances, or…”

“The girl didn’t like how he spoke at dinner, so she made an example of him on her first night here. Then, to impress her, Armand insisted on murdering him. He was cut down, and that was it. They acted as though they had done me a favor. Nobody has even asked me how I am.”

“How are you?”

She lifts her eyes to me, only to dip them almost immediately.

“I’m sad. I’m angry. I know he wasn’t the best of men, but he was a good man to me. He was my mate. My fated mate. And they took that bond from me, cut it away without any kind of thought for the pain I would endure.”

“That is a hard loss. I am sorry. And no support was offered at all?”

“I have his funds, and the house, of course, but I won’t be able to afford that indefinitely.”

“Have you brought that up with Armand?”

“And have him whip my head off too?”

“You think he would kill you?”

“I don’t know. The rules have changed around here since the girl arrived.”

I note that she does not refer to Beatrix as the alpha’s mate, or by her name, or any other title that might show respect. Indeed, her upper lip curls every time she refers to the girl.

“What would you most like to talk about today?”

“I want revenge,” she says. “I want to avenge my husband’s death, and I want the girl to know what it feels like to lose the only man she’s capable of truly loving.”

“You want revenge? You want to kill the alpha?”

“Yes,” she says. “I suppose I do.”

“And do you have a plan to do so?”

“Several,” she says. “I rarely think of anything else, if I am to be honest. I come to the pack dinners and I see them eating and carrying on as if nothing has happened. Nobody cares what they do. The pack seems to adore them. The worse they act, the more they seem to be worshipped. The girl killed someone in the village for amusement, and there are two fresh graves in the cemetery that don’t belong to any of the pack.”

I am bound to report genuine threats to the alpha, as he is the closest to an authority in a pack system. This is starting to sound very much like one. Of course, I would be reporting her to the man she is afraid of.

“Do you intend on carrying one of these plans out?”

She looks out the window for a moment, then back at me. “I hope to gather the strength.”

“We can work on processing your grief and moving forward.”

“Hmm,” she says. “Yes.”

“I’d like to see you again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? I thought therapy was once a week.”

“It’s as often as I deem necessary.”And you might kill someone, or get yourself killed trying.I don’t add that last bit, but it is my main concern. The body count around this pack is disturbingly high.

* * *

When she is gone, I go and find the alpha. He is in his office, discussing matters of business with his advisors. He seems very competent when it comes to handling the day to day of the pack. I hear positive murmurings around the financial wealth of the collective, which covers for a lot of personal sins.

I knock on the door. Armand looks up at me, and an expression of annoyance flits over his handsome face. He is not good at hiding annoyance. He doesn’t seem to think it is necessary.

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