chapter 24

Tali's POV

The only thing that gets me through dinner is the thought of Dayne retreating into his office with Luka, leaving me free to disappear upstairs and spend a couple of hours having a good cry in the shower, an act I'd thought I'd left behind in the Merrick pack.

But soon after I rise from the dining table after clearing my plate, having barely tasted any of the meal, long before any of the other packs are done eating, Dayne's hand snaps out and locks tight around my wrist. Stopping me in my tracks.

"Pack meeting tonight," he says. "Don't go far."

I stare at the hand on my arm and swallow, frozen, waiting for him to move it.

Since he never touches me hasn't since the night he chased me down in the forest and…

I jerk my mind back from what happened in the woods. I can't think about that here, or ever.

When he releases me and turns back to his meal, trying not to reveal how tense I am, I cross the kitchen to dump my plate in the sink and release the breath I'm holding in.

It's in the basement. The meeting, that is.

Other than Dayne's office, this is the only part of the house I've yet to see. The basement level is another door I've passed in the hallway I assumed was just another reception room at first.

Until Regan shoved it open to reveal a steep, exposed wooden staircase leading down into a dark space when she and Jenna were showing me around. She told me it was much like the den, but no one liked to hang out there all that much since the wi-fi was so spotty and there weren't as many places to sit.

Like the rest of the farmhouse, it's a spacious area and mirrors the den with colorful wool rugs, and the walls painted a soft pale cream.

But instead of the fabric armchairs, couches, and beanbags, things which make the den comfortable; more a place to relax, here the chairs are the foldable wooden ones you'd use at a party if more people turned up than you were expecting.

Either someone's already come down to set out the chairs so they all face one at the front, or it's always like this, I don't know. But as I hover near the door, my arms folded across my chest, the rest of the pack drift past me and make their way to the chairs and sit down.

Since this is my first pack meeting here, and I'm more used to sitting at the back or missing the meetings altogether back in my old pack, I have no idea where I'm supposed to sit. Like, does the pack have assigned seating or what?

It doesn't help that I don't have anyone to clue me in on where I should be sitting. As soon as Luka and Dayne finished eating, they disappeared back into the office again, heads bowed as Luka muttered something about an account Dayne needed to check.

Not for the first time I'm conscious of how little I know about this pack.

While not exactly wealthy, my old pack wasn't poor. Everyone except me, that is had everything they needed or wanted.

Uncle probably could've afforded to buy me better quality clothes than he did, but why would he ever spend more on me if he didn't have to?

I never expected it, and I didn't scrounge around for more than I got. Not only because of what he would do to me if I ever tried, but I'm not someone who's ever longed for designer clothes or the latest phones, since being free to roam the forests is all that's ever mattered to me.

Here, I have no idea what the pack finances are like.

Uncle didn't work since as alpha, he didn't have to. From the regular contributions the pack made from their jobs in the city, as far as I knew, or guessed, he invested the money to increase the pack's wealth. Since no one ever told me anything, mostly I'm relying on guesswork and assumptions.

I'm not sure if that's what Dayne and Luka do here since neither leave in the morning to go to jobs the way I've seen some of the other pack members do.

Is that the reason Dayne refused to stop at Walmart to buy me new clothes, and instead had a pack member lend me some? Because pack finances wouldn't allow for it? Could Uncle Glynn have sold me to Dayne for cold, hard cash?

It's easy for me to imagine him doing something like that since he hates me about as much as he loves money. All of which is making me feel even more isolated than ever, wondering if the pack knows all this and that's the reason they're keeping their distance from me, other than Regan and Jenna, of course.

We were going to sit together, Regan and I, but just as we started toward the basement, she had a call about an emergency at the veterinary hospital she works at as an assistant and told me to go ahead without her.

I can't even look at Jenna since she and Marshall have had their heads bent together since the beginning of dinner and are barely paying any attention to anyone else in the room.

It surprised me at first to see them together since Jenna is a petite submissive, and Marshall is a tall, leanly-muscled shifter with intense green eyes and shaggy blond hair, who I'd have thought would end up with someone higher up the pack hierarchy since he's the third in command.

But he has a tender look in his eyes when he gazes down at her, and all her focus is on him when he's beside her. There's no way I can interrupt them, not when they're whispering into each other's ears as if they don't want anyone else to overhear.

I'm almost relieved when Dayne and Luka finally make their appearance. They split off, Luka heading to what must be his seat near the front row, and Dayne dropping into the folded wooden seat facing the others.

"Talis, come sit next to me," Jenna calls out with a welcoming smile on her face as she pulls an empty seat close beside hers, her talk with Marshall at an end.

Sighing in relief, I move toward her.

"No. I need you here." Dayne stops me before I've taken a couple of steps.

I scan the space around him in confusion. The first row is full since Luka took the only available seat closest to Dayne, and now the only empty chairs are the ones at the back of the room.

"I don't understand, where am I "

"Here," he interrupts, nodding at the spot beside his chair. I stare at him.

"You mean you want me "

"To sit at my feet. Yes. That's exactly what I want," he says calmly as if he doesn't know can't understand why I'm reacting the way I am.

I'm so stunned I can't even begin to process what he's telling me, let alone think about going through with it.

Is he seriously ordering me to sit at his feet like some kind of pet?

Which is when Regan slips into the room behind me.

My gaze shifts to her, and I know my eyes are begging for her to say something, anything, to convince Dayne to let me sit with her.