Page 71 of Hunted Mate
Orion laughs. “I am so much more than a real dick,” he says. “Enjoy the pack. They get rowdy on too much sugar.”
“Why don’t you just chill the fuck out and have some fucking toaster strudel?” Callie snatches one from the ground and thrusts it at my father. I don’t know if it is supposed to be an olive branch or a gauntlet. Could be both, or either, depending on his response.
He looks at her, and down at the toasted treat that is probably starting to get quite cold now.
“You’re not equipped to handle this level of responsibility,” he tells her. “You’re going to fail. You’re going to get the wolves discovered and you’re going to usher in a new age of persecution against our kind.”
“If any of that happens, it won’t be because I did something wrong,” she says. “It will be because you are a dick, as I mentioned before. You’re probably going to run off and tell everyone about wolves as some kind of revenge for not getting to be alpha anymore. Some twelve-year-old girl shit.”
I can see from the look on Orion’s face that he was indeed thinking about betraying the packs’ secrets in some form of revenge. He’s losing everything, and he’s losing it fast, and as a result of his own actions. If he’d left Callie alone, she’d never have undergone this transformation, and he’d have remained in control. Instead, he’s changed the shape of wolves forever.
“Oh, yeah, see, I know. I’m not stupid,” Callie continues. “You think I got this far in life by being dumb? You think I haven’t sat in on hundreds of C-level meetings and listened to the pettybullshit that passes for adult men scheming on one another? I know you, old man. I’ve seen you with a dozen different faces on. I know what you’ll do before you think about doing it. That’s why we have so much fucking strudel.”
Callie’s brand of offensive olive branch handling is impressive. I don’t think Orion knows what to do with himself. He wants to beat her, but he can’t, and he wants to hate her, but he can’t do that either because she’s smarter than he thought she was and she’s funnier than he can really deal with.
“Where’s your strudel, old man?” she says. “What did you bring to the party, besides your greed and your anger and your mean son who is also a dick?”
“Alright,” I say, drawing her back to me. The mention of her parents really threw her off and she’s lost some of her composure. That’s not a good thing for a couple of reasons. One, I don’t like seeing her upset. Two, if she gets upset enough, it could trigger something nasty in the pack. I can already see a few of the boys pricking their ears up from the verandah. If my father is not careful, he could end up torn to pieces by his own wolf army.
“I am still going to take retirement, but it won’t be hostile.” My father softens slightly. “I am not going to see any of you hurt. I did not put in decades as alpha of Louisiana just to see every wolf here hunted to extinction.”
“Oh, good. Real nice of you to not have us all wiped out. Swell guy.”
“Alright, Callie,” I say, kissing her head. “That’s enough.”
“Is it?”
“It is,” I say. But I’m not really speaking to her. I’m not looking at her. I’m looking at my father, and at Karl. The scientist has already gotten back in the vehicle, a much smarter man than either of them.
“I think it’s time you left,” I say. “Book your flights and fuck off out of my sight.”
“Let’s go,” Orion says to Karl. “Let them clean up their own mess for once.”
The irony of him saying that after making the whole fuck show is intense, but that’s old men for you. Destroying everything, then leaving it to their kids to clean up.
I don’t care about what he says. I just care that he fucks off about now, and leaves me and Callie in whatever passes for peace.
CHAPTER 15
Callie
I am shaking slightly as Gray ushers me into the house and into the bedroom where we have some privacy. I hate what that nasty old man said. I hate that he felt like he could say it. He wasn’t afraid to disrespect the memory of my parents to my face. After everything he saw, everything I did, everything I am, there wasn’t an ounce of real feeling or true respect in him for me. And I know it’s not about me. I know it’s because he’s an asshole, but that doesn’t stop it from fucking hurting.
“I think I hate your dad.”
“Welcome to the family,” Gray says. “It’s pretty much a rite of passage.”
“Yeah,” I say.
I don’t feel good. I feel scared and I feel small. I feel like I have all this power, but I’ve always had power, and I’ve never really wanted it. I don’t know why it always comes to me. I don’t knowwhy these things always seem to fall on my shoulders. Why can’t someone else just be the scary full bore werewolf for once?
I can hear the men outside, enjoying themselves, and I can remember the way their energy felt when they came crawling toward me. I felt powerful in the moment, but now? Now I just feel like I have a whole lot of burdens. I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to make enough pastry, and there’ll never be enough pastry, and people are mean, and, and… and I wish my parents were not dead.
Gray
Callie has had more than enough for one day.
Her lower lip quivers, then her face crumples, and then the tears she wants so badly not to cry come anyway. I draw her into my arms and hold her close, and let her be small again.
