Page 39 of Death and Divination
“Why didn’t you accept one?” It was surprising that Clinton was single at his age. Mating didn’t mean sexual fidelity for male werewolves, and it did lend an air of stability for a male wolf to have a mate.
He shrugged. “Not like you’ll believe it, but I’m holding out for my fated mate.”
I blinked at him, unsure whether he was lying or not.
“I don’t want to be in a loveless mating like my father and mother were,” he continued. “It was all business for them. Mom didn’t care that Dallas slept around. Actually, she preferred it because then he wasn’t sniffing her way. There’s a reason I was an only pup. They got along okay, but they were happy being pretty much strangers living under the same roof. I don’t want that. I want to have a woman by my side that I love. Someone who wants the same things I do. Someone who I can’t wait to see every night, who I love waking up next to every morning. I know every female werewolf on the mountain. I’ve broken bread with them, I’ve hunted on four legs beside them, hell, I’ve slept with a good number of them. Not one of them is my fated mate. If it means I stay single my whole life, then I will. I ain’t settling for less.”
Wow, that speech was just as surprising as Clinton’s rather attractive beardless face, and the matching rugs and throw pillows that I was beginning to suspect he had picked out himself.
“But back to Tink…” I sat on the couch, realizing this might be more than a quick visit. “Is there someone she was in love with? Someone she wanted to mate with that her mother or Dallas wouldn’t approve of? Maybe her mother put her foot down and told her she needed to accept this other suitor or else?”
Clinton sat across from me on the giant papasan. “I doubt Tink’s in love with anyone. If she was, she would have gone off and drug him down the aisle by his beard. And where I can see Ruby getting fed up with it all and insisting she accept a mate of her choice, Tink’s not the sort of wolf to bow down to pressure from her mother. Besides, all she’d have to do is go to Dallas and he’d tell Ruby to back off. My father’s got his faults, but he don’t pressure anyone to mate. I think that’s the one thing he learned from being with my mother—an emotionless or one-sided mating is sorta like hell.”
“There’s no one in the pack she wanted?” I was having trouble jiving Clinton’s description of the werewolf with Shelby’s tale of a nervous woman thinking exile was preferable to her mother’s choice of a mate.
“Me? Dallas?” He laughed. “I didn’t really hang around Tink much, even when I was still at the compound, but she was ambitious.”
I sat for a moment, trying to sort this all out. There was a suitor Tink didn’t want, one that her mother was pushing on her. And if she was considering going lone wolf, that meant Dallas wouldn’t support her refusal, even though everyone insisted he was against unwilling matings.
She was gone, her mother worried enough to go to the pack alpha, yet Dallas wasn’t sending out the alarm that Tink was missing.
Something tingled through me, a strange and somewhat icky vision.
“What if Dallas is the suitor?” I mused. “What if your father offered for Tink? Her mother would be over the moon for the match. Tink would feel she couldn’t say ‘no’ and insult her own pack alpha. She would have no choice but to accept him or go lone wolf. And if she’d vanished, Dallas would be too humiliated to send out a search party. How embarrassing to be an alpha with a reluctant runaway bride.”
Clinton’s eyes widened. Then he began to laugh. “Thatwould be funny. I can see my father doing it, too. Mating, that is. After my mother died, I’d figured he was thrilled to be single and that he’d stay that way until he died, but with me breaking off into my own pack…”
I knew where Clinton was going with this. Things were simmering just below the surface on Heartbreak Mountain. If the two packs couldn’t work things out, and they went to war, Dallas would most likely have to kill his only son. And while pack alpha wasn’t an inherited position, there was some expectation that the son of the alpha would eventually take over.
“So, you’re thinking your father would want to mate and have a pup to inherit if you end up dead or exiled?” I asked.
Clinton nodded, his mirth evaporating. “Guess that means he isn’t thinking we’ll be able to work things out peacefully, then. Tink’s young, at the age of peak fertility. She’s smart and organized. She’s strong and dominant. She’d be good at being the alpha’s mate. And she’s a looker with a hell of a figure. Dad wouldn’t shy away from screwing Tink on the regular. He could mate with her, father ten or twelve pups, and still have as many side pieces as he wanted.”
I winced, realizing this scenario made the most sense. Would Dallas kill Tink to cover up his embarrassment at being refused? Claim it was a hunting accident? Blame a fictional rival werewolf for being jealous and make some random pack member pay the price?
“Only one problem with that,” Clinton commented. “If Dallas offered for Tink, she wouldn’t say no. That’s every female werewolf’s dream, and I know Tink isn’t any different. If Dallas came a-calling, she would have hustled his ass down the aisle at lightspeed.”
“Unless she’d fallen in love,” I mused. “Maybe she used to dream of being the alpha’s mate, but someone else caught her eye. And let’s face it, her mother isn’t going to let her say ‘no’ to Dallas so she can mate with some other wolf. And I doubt your father would take rejection well.”
“No, he wouldn’t.” Clinton thought for a moment, stroking the stubble where his beard used to be. “I don’t think Tink was lifting her tail for anyone, but I’ve been gone a bit and didn’t pay much attention to pack romance while I was there. Could be. Although if it was known she was sweet on someone, Dallas would never have offered for her.”
“So maybe it was a fledgling romance and wasn’t widely known?” I conjectured. “Or maybe it was with someone outside the pack? One of the other shifter breeds?”
“Or a troll?” Clinton laughed. “I doubt it. If Tink’s in love, it’s probably with a werewolf. That’s just how she rolls.”
I stood, then waited for the werewolf to struggle out of the papasan to walk me to the door. “Can you send me a message if you hear anything? I’m really worried about her.”
Clinton nodded. “I will, although there’s a good chance I won’t hear anything. Stanley was my spy with the pack, and now that he’s gone lone wolf, I ain’t got nobody feeding me information.”
I doubted that, but I thanked him anyway. He opened the door for me, walked me to my car, then even had the gallantry to open my car door. Was Clinton Dickskin finally growing up? I hoped this was a sign of things to come for him. I hoped it meant maybe, just maybe, we could have peace on the mountain and more socialization between the werewolves and the other residents of Accident.
Clinton paused before shutting my car door. “So… you think I look better without the beard?” He ran a hand over his bristly cheek. “Really?”
I looked over at the werewolf and felt something stir in my middle, that feeling of butterflies I got when I had a very particular sort of vision. I couldn’t quite see who, but I got the feeling that Clinton might just find that fated mate he’d been holding out for.
“Yep. You’re looking mighty handsome,” I told the werewolf. “I recommend you keep shaving.”
He blushed bright red and looked down for a moment. When he glanced up again, there was a vulnerability in his eyes that I’d never seen before.
“Thanks, Ophelia. Safe travels.”
He shut the door and as I pulled out of the compound, I looked back to see him rubbing his chin with a sheepish grin on his face.
