Page 28 of Witchwolf

“Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Sure.” Her voice was muffled like she’d pinched her phone between her ear and shoulder. I heard the rustle of paper. “You okay?”

“I’m—”

With a heaving sigh, I got up from my desk and paced along the wall of windows that looked out over the hills around our building. The streets tilted in sharp angles, buildings jutting toward the sky like they were vying for sunlight.

“I’m in trouble.”

“You’re not in trouble,” Jillian said. “We’re fine. Everything’s fine. Tell me what’s going on.”

Right then, I realized I was hearing an echo of her voice.

“Jill, are you still in the office?”

“Hold on.”

I heard the rustle of papers, the snap of a door shutting, the pad of her heels across the carpet. A second later, she appeared in the open door of my office.

Jillian hung up her phone and slipped it in her pocket. “Why are you still here?”

I could ask her the same damn thing, but we knew each other well enough we didn’t have to bother. We were on edge, and for me, the Igarashi meeting wasn’t even the worst of it.

I sighed, dropping onto my couch. “Because here, I’m in charge.”

Jillian’s brow rose. “You’re not in charge everywhere,Alpha?”

My next exhale flared my nostrils. “If I go home, I’m going to devolve into a—a...”

“A lost pup?” Her expression softened. Better than anyone else, she knew what it was like to feel powerless and afraid. We’d been there together, but our last alpha had given me freedom and opportunities he’d tried to deny her. It was why we fought—I wasn’t going to live in a world where half my heart couldn’t have everything she deserved based on something as nonsensical as gender.

I sighed, raking a hand through my hair, unable to admit how small I felt, even now.

“Tell me what happened,” she said gently.

My breath hissed through my teeth as I dropped my head forward. “I fucked up.”

I could almost hear the eye roll in her voice as she came in and sat on the chair opposite me. “If you’re talking about messing around in Dakota’s office, no, I don’t think that was agreatcall. But most of us are werewolves and used to worse. Nobody even noticed.”

I stared at the light reflecting off my black oxfords. “You did.”

“And I’m... letting you off the hook for it. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’s trying to trap you in a civil suit or anything, so as long as he’s consenting and you’re not being a fuckhead?—”

I flinched, and she broke off at once.

“You’re not pressuring him, are you?”

I hissed. “No! No. I wouldn’t—every time I’ve touched him, he’s... he’s been there of his own volition. I’m not stupid enough to?—”

“Force yourself on a mage?”

“On anyone. Fuck, Jillian, you can’t think?—”

I raised my head only to see her smirking at me. “I don’t,” she said. “But you haven’t told me what the issue is yet.”

“He... has been with me of his own volition, but he didn’t—he didn’t know what he was doing.”

Jillian grimaced, holding out a hand. “Okay, no. You stop right there, Ajax Fyse. He’s a grown man, and we’re not fucking doing that. You’re not so awful that it’s incomprehensible to him that he might be attracted to you. He...” Her nose wrinkled. “He thinks you’re hot.”

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