I finally gave up my pursuit of sleep not long after sunrise. I had cried enough and allowed myself a pity-party for several hours. After the Alpha’s unwanted bite, it had dredged up years of painful memories I had tried to bury so deeply inside myself, that those nightmares would never see the light of day again. I succumbed to that darkness inside me until the sun rose. I was glad for the reprieve of the sunlight, because my demons tended to come out mostly when the darkness fell. Stone FangMan was one demon I seemed destined to never escape, even though his body still rotted beneath the soil as it had been for the last three years. I would never truly be free of him. He had shown me the darkness of the wolves. He had brought out the darkness in me, even before he turned me into a literal monster. One year after he and my mom had met, they married here on our land, with our mountain and the golds and reds of autumn as the perfect backdrop. It was a small intimate ceremony, the wea
Needless to say, I was not in the best mood following my trip down dark memory lane. And the Alpha’s bite was still fresh on my skin, making me burn with anger every time I felt it with my fingertips, or turned my neck, or lifted my shoulders, and felt the sting of it. Thanks to the wolfsbane I always consumed, it would take days for the damn bite to fade into my newest scar. In the meantime, I would have to cover it somehow. It was too angry and tender this morning to be masked by makeup. The finger shaped bruises adorning my skin were mostly in places my clothes covered and I didn’t mind so much. I didn’t even regret the rough sex, but rather the asshole Alpha I had engaged in it with. Fuck, I really hated wolves. I was forced to cut the sleeves off one of my turtlenecks to make it look like an unfortunate fashion statement, rather than a complete weirdo wearing a sweater in the middle of summer. I was sweating like a whore on nickel night within minutes, regardless of being slee
It turned out with a full belly, and now that she felt more comfortable here at Mountaintop, Lily was quite the chatterbox. Usually, it had been her mate that’d conversed with me and the other wolves who had invaded my land overnight. But the seemingly timid Lily was blooming before my very eyes. She volunteered information as the three of us rolled up our, symbolic sleeves in my case, and set about getting my diner back in tiptop shape. As I had assumed, Lily was born on Timberland packlands and spent most of her life within its boundaries. What had surprised me, was the happy childhood she spoke about, days of making daisy chains, chasing butterflies and rabbits, looking for animals among the clouds, and making wishes on shooting stars. Lily had been allowed to attend the pack school until the age of thirteen. After which, females aged out and were expected to train to be obedient mates to learn how to rear their future cubs, and how to keep their wolf dens. Male wolf’s education
Over the next couple of days, we not only got Mountaintop up and running again, but I also did the same to my plan to make Alpha Grey mine. Not that I actually intended to leave my home and move to the Timberlands, but I definitely planned to make sure Alpha Roam knew I had chosen his enemy, by making sure I was marked with Grey’s scent and seed so deeply, there’d be no mistaken who I belonged to. Sort of, on my own terms belonged to. This would be the choice the dark wolf had taken from me, the choice I made in taking a mate and taking a stand against being claimed against my will. Phase one of my plan to make Alpha Grey take me in a fun way, was to collect the shreds of fabric that had once hugged his toned body and placed them in a plastic bag. When I had called it a night, and sent Lily and Rand back to their cabin, I took the clothing and rubbed it on several surfaces around my diner. I did the same to the rooms in my cabin, paying close attention to my leather couch, and my bed
Ten minutes later, I followed a red-faced Beth who practically stomped her feet out of my office. To say the blonde haired, fake boobed, over makeup twenty-one-year-old was angry with me, was an understatement. Beth was not the usual type of girl I usually employed here, but I had hired last fall in an attempt to be more inclusive. I had figured she would be trouble, but usually that trouble was managed and reciprocated by the type of crowd the diner mostly pulled in during her evening shifts. There was a decent local community college in the town limits that drew my business a fair share of hungry college kids around dinnertime. And well, my all-day pancakes were legendary of course. Yes, it was true major issues with Beth hadn’t arisen until now, and that was likely because Rand was the first male employee I had brought on. I wasn’t ashamed to admit that I had serious issues with males, and I knew that not everyone with a dick was an abusive sadist out to suppress women and enslav
Phase two of my seduction plan started off without a hitch. I stood back and allowed Lily to meet with her brother out at the hunting cabin. I could smell his scent in the breeze to let me know he had arrived on my land, but I had instructed her to do their visit first. I wanted him to see that Lily was being taken care of and had adequate accommodations. Thank The Moon the dark Alpha’s bite had faded enough to be concealed under foundation and not a turtleneck. It would be harder to seduce a wolf in a freaking turtleneck. Especially since they had neck fetishes. It was a weird wolf thing. They liked sucking, biting, licking necks. Probably because it was a sign of dominance to have their female by the throat, the most vulnerable area. It made them feel powerful and like a God. I couldn’t disagree that tonguing pulse points and feeling their reaction to your touch by the racing of their heart, wasn’t kind of sexy. I was letting my wolf take over my thought processes too much. She
It turned out I did not have to resort to flipping off the power and plunging the place in darkness to get pissed off college dude to leave. He emerged from the bathroom, packed up his shit, demanded the name of my manager so he could call and get me fired, before he took off. I did not tell him I also was the manager and the owner, just gave him my nickname, and told him to have a good night. I was sure he had had other plans of harassment in mind for me, but when he locked eyes with the Alpha who stood near me watching him hawklike, Meth Seth hightailed it out of here real quick. Finally, alone at last. And I wasn’t taking any chances for further interruptions for a while, as I locked the door and flipped the neon open sign off. I planned to be a good, responsible business owner and open back up in time for the six a.m. rush. But that gave me ninety minutes to have the Alpha all to myself. And I planned to do a whole lot more than just talking and make the most of our time. I gave
Well tonight certainly had not gone the way I planned. I wished I could say I had only offered myself up in Lily’s place because it was the right thing to do, and I was a good person. But my decision was not only from a selfless place, but it was also emotional manipulation to get what I wanted from Alpha Grey. A surefire way to get him to choose me for his mate, because there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for his sister. I really was going to burn in hell or spend my afterlife chained in iron and silver. He breathed in deep, and his brows furrowed, “You don’t have to do that Onie. Though I appreciate the offer. This isn’t your problem to fix. And I know how much you value your independence.” But I valued my freedom and revenge against the dark Alpha more. I planned to be Alpha Grey’s mate in name only, and well in the naughty fun parts, as I had no intentions of leaving my home or actually bearing his cub. I would keep him at bay until I no longer needed to keep up the ruse of bei