Page 1 of Change the Plan
CHAPTER ONE
ELLIE
It took marrying a man with a knot for me to realise just how much of a cock warming kink I actually have.
I’m almost asleep, in that wonderful, drowsy, postcoital, little-spoon space that comes from being tossed around in the bedroom by a six-foot-eight werewolf/wolf shifter hybrid with god-tier sex skills, when my husband’s knot pulls free with just a little too much resistance. The immediate offence I feel at the fact that I’m clearlynotgetting my promised night’s worth of sleep with his dick still buried deep inside me is laughable. I can’t even contain the indignant“What?”that flies out of my mouth.
“Sorry, baby,” Van murmurs in my ear, his big hand squeezing my hip gently. “I thought you were already out cold. Seth just alerted me to something. I don’t think it can wait.”
In the first few months of our post-Unravelling relationship, I didn’t understand the full extent of what it means for a wolf shifter like Van to bethealpha of a pack. To be fair, Van didn’t exactly explain it to me either, though I now know that with everything else going on at the time — there was a lot to unpackabout both his wolf nature and my fae heritage — his intention was to prevent me from feeling completely overwhelmed.
Finding out that when he said that he’dfought his father for the leadership of his old pack and won,Van had actually meant that he’d momentarily lost control of his shifter wolf and had almost committed patricide, and that it was his only his younger brother’s intervention that saved their father’s life, and thatthatwas the reason why the Livingston pack remained loyal to the older Livingston alpha, was certainly a revelation.
When Seth — who, like any annoying little brother, always seems to get a kick out of telling me the most unhinged facts about wolves — told me that the current rate at which leading alphas die at the hands —or teeth— of a younger alpha seeking leadership is fifty percent, I was understandably mortified because of what that means for my own husband’s future. I try not to dwell on the fact that one day his pack will have a second alpha and that that person may very well attempt to murder the love of my life.
There’s a lot of weight on an alpha’s shoulders, and sometimes the role interrupts things at the worst possible time.
“It’s past midnight. Do you really need to go now?” I ask, rolling over as Van slides out of bed. Unlike him, I don’t have near-perfect night vision, so he’s nothing more than a giant blob in the dark to me as he walks across the room.
“Yeah, I do.”
I squint as he switches on the ensuite light, disappearing from view. “Do I need to be worried?”
“No, I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure it’s to do with the wolves I told you about — you know the guy I met at that function the other week? I think he and his partner have come to join the pack. Their current alpha is an asshole, and I’m not just being biased when I say that. Part of me is tempted to challenge the guy and absorb all of those members into ours.”
“Van!Don’t?—”
“Don’t worry!” he laughs over the sound of the flushing toilet. “You know I’m not that reckless. I’m not going to start a pack war. I like our little life here on the island; I’m not looking to lead a superpack. I wantlessresponsibility, not more, despite what my wolf might say.”
“You worry me when you say shit like that,” I tell him as he pads back out of the bathroom naked, his perfectly muscled body a sight to behold, and into the walk-in wardrobe — a recent addition to this room. After two years, we’re finally done with renovating this place, and I can’t be more relieved that I no longer have to listen to the sound of power tools in the middle of the day.
“Aroha mai,” Van says, his voice slightly muffled by the t-shirt he’s dragging over his head. He may be American, but his reo Maori is spot on these days. “I’m good at ignoring my wolves, so don’t worry. I ignore them every day when it comes to you anyway.”
“That makes it sound as if they don’t like me,” I joke referring to both his werewolf and his wolf shifter — the other two forms of him, thatarehim, and yet seem to exist as separate entities inside his body.
“You know it’s the opposite. Every fucking day all I ever get isbreed her. The day that IUD comes out you’re in trouble, because you know all I’m going to want to do is come inside of you constantly.”
“Is that any different from now?Iwon’t be complaining.”
In the dim light from the bathroom, the pupils of Van’s golden eyes shine, and the look he gives me can only be described as predatory. “Don’t tempt me,” he rumbles in that deep voice of his.
But it is tempting.
Kids aren’t on the table yet. Back when we got married two years ago, we agreed to a five year plan that didn’t involve children. At the time I’d been really happy to say yes, let’s go at least half a decade without adding to our family. We’d only just found each other again after nine years of separation, and all I wanted was my man to myself.
It turns out that I have to share his attention with over twenty other wolves anyway — that’s just part of the deal of being in love with an alpha who is biologically wired to create and maintain a wolf pack and to care for every individual with it.
I haven’t told Van that recently I’ve had babies on the brain. I feel like every time I step out of the house now I see a woman with a stroller, or a guy with a toddler on his shoulders, and there’s a big part of me that wants that, and wants itnow. Van will be an amazing dad.
“You’re not putting yourself in danger by letting these two join the pack, are you? When you say that other alpha is an asshole… what if he comes for you?”
Van shakes his head. “One of the tenets of shifter culture is the autonomy of individual wolves to leave packs when they please. It’s vital because people meet partners and have to move, or they may disagree with how an alpha is operating… Besides, if he came for me, I’d win.”
He says it with such confidence. It’s a really weird thing to reconcile the loving, attentive, thoughtful man that my husband is with the idea that he’s capable of incredible violence when necessary, especially because whenever he shifts around me, his wolf is sogood. When he’s shifted I get all the tail wags, the canine grins, and the cuddles, but I’ve also seen him snap at lone wolves passing through, his grin suddenly turning into a menacing growl, lips curled back, teeth bared, head low and hackles raised, tail suddenly as straight as an arrow, and everymuscle in his body poised for attack. As an alpha he’s bigger than other wolves, and I don’t doubt how dangerous he can be.
“Do you want me to come with you?” I ask. Van switches off the bathroom light, the room falling into darkness once more.
“No, you should sleep. I don’t want you to feel excluded — if you want to come along, you can — but it’s not necessary. I’ll see you in the morning.”
