“What the hell do you—”
Kensey stood in the glow of our dirty porch light. It made her hair look more coppery than red. She swatted away a moth, and a mosquito instantly took its place.
“It’s after hours.” I moved to close the door. “I’m off the clock.”
She wedged her leg in to stop me then cringed as it squashed her foot. She wasn’t wearing shoes. “I needed to talk to you but realized I don’t have your cell number.”
“Send a telegram.”
“This is important, Slade.”
The usual spark of annoyance was missing from her eyes, and she held herself slightly stooped. I concentrated on her heartbeat, which was tripping like crazy. Something was wrong. Instinct demanded that I slam the door in her face and retreat back to my room. I didn’t need whatever drama she’d brought to my door. I had more than enough of my own. Instead, I sighed and dragged open the door. “Guess I’d be a dick-boyfriend if I made my girl stand out on the steps.”
She flashed a halfhearted smile and crossed the threshold. “Are we alone?”
“Never alone in this house—I imagine like yours. Bunch of pack members milling around.” I nodded to the hallway and motioned for her to follow. “Let’s go out back.”
I led her through the living room and around the hall to the back door.
“My father thinks our relationship is my attempt to get out of being forced into an arranged marriage,” she said in a hushed voice as soon as we made it into the backyard.
I rolled my eyes and pulled out my Camels. Flicking the lighter, I took a deep breath, watching as the embers flared to life at the tip of the cigarette. “It is.”
“And he intends to prove it,” she continued as though I should get what the hell she was referring to.
“Meaning we have to be convincing.” She’d dragged me away from my guitar for this?
Kensey shuffled from foot to foot for a moment before dropping her gaze. “He’s insisting we do a Courting.”
“No fucking way.” I stepped away from her, waving the cigarette between us. A clump of ash fell to the grass, and I stomped down hard. “Not what I signed up for, Princess. This was supposed to be a simple arrangement. I pretend to be into you long enough for your dad to give up and marry off your sister, instead. You get my pack dissolved, and I get to leave town. End of deal. Not once did I agree to take center stage in that ancient shit-show.”
“I know.” There was a hint of panic in her voice. My wolf wanted to chase it, to see where it led. Weakness made for easy prey. “I know, and I’m sorry. But you can’t back out.”
I sidestepped her and stalked back toward the house. “Wanna bet?” A Courting complicated things. The female’s dad could institute any rule he wanted to ensure his daughter wasn’t married off to the wrong kind of wolf. Knowing Sam Deaton… “No way. Not doing it.”
“Carter Pennington.” She latched onto my arm as I reached for the door.
I froze.
My expression must have given me away, because she nodded, justified. Pulling her arm away, she straightened. “Yeah. That Carter Pennington. If you back out, then that’s who I’m stuck with. He’ll own me, Slade.”
“That’s low, even for your dad.”
“He thinks he’s doing what’s best. For me and the pack. He doesn’t know…”
I wanted to puke. How the hell could she defend that bastard?
“We were friends once. Please don’t let him do this to me.”
She was right. We’d been friends once. And Carter? He’d been pushy with her, even at a young age, thinking himself entitled. Over the years, it’d been more of the same. The guy had a hard on for her that had only gotten worse. She’d grown up, was more than able to take care of herself now, but if Sam married her off to the asshole?
Guys like Carter didn’t take no for an answer. They felt their heritage gave them the permission to act like animals. To take what they thought was theirs. He was a lot like my dad, so maybe that was why I hated the guy so much.
I couldn’t let her get shackled to someone like that no matter what I thought of her. A girl like her, stubborn and independent, wouldn’t last a week.
She narrowed her eyes. There was pride there but shame as well. I knew that look. I saw it every morning when I looked in the mirror. “I’ve never begged anyone for anything in my life, Slade. Please don’t make me start now…”
“Fine,” I said. “I won’t back out—yet. But we’ll see. If your dad attempts to screw me over by putting any fucked-up rules in play, then I walk.”
I wanted my freedom, sure, but I wasn’t going to risk my own ass for hers. I was out to save myself—not someone else.
…
I hadn’t stood on the Deaton doorstep in years. Some of the porch furniture was new, and the house had a fresh coating of paint, but other than that, it was the same place it always had been.
A place I’d never been welcomed.
I lifted my hand to knock, but the door swung open before I got the chance.
“I think you’re in the wrong place.” Aden crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. He was several heads shorter than me but bulkier. “Trash is supposed to be out by the street.”
I gritted my jaw and took a deep breath. Knocking a tooth or three loose probably wouldn’t go very far in convincing anyone about my intentions. “Here for Kensey. She ready?”
“So you’re really going through with this?” A man’s voice floated in from the other room. A moment later, Sam Deaton appeared behind his son. He wore a dark suit and had his peppered beard closely trimmed to a point at his chin. Every inch the alpha, he stood tall with the kind of commanding presence you were either born with—or you weren’t. “Do you really wish to bring more disgrace to your pack by allowing my willful daughter to drag you into her rebellious antics?”
“Sorry to burst your bubble, Sir, but Kensey’s rebellious antics are one of the things about her that I find attractive.”
Sam shook his head and stepped back as Kensey came to the door. “Whatever they said, ignore it.” She pushed past them and slipped her hand into mine and, with a dramatic wave in her dad’s general direction, pulled me down the steps and along the path toward my truck.
“Sorry if they were dicks,” she said as she slid into the van and buckled her seatbelt. The scent of honey and apples filled the cab.
I turned the key, focusing on whether or not the damn thing would start instead of how amazing she smelled. “I never let it bother me before. Why would I care now?”
She opened her mouth to say something but didn’t follow through. By the time we pulled into the school parking lot, she was fidgeting like she’d just downed an entire bag of uppers. “We have to sell this.” She dug into her pocket and held out a small piece of folded paper. “My schedule.”
I stuffed it into my pocket without looking at it. “What’s the plan? Just how far do you want to go with this? How do you want to sell it?”
She frowned. “Just telling people we’re together isn’t going to cut it.”
“Agreed.”
“I mean, all eyes are going to be on us now. My father will have spies everywhere trying to prove this is a fake.”
He would, too, the bastard. He hated my family. I wouldn’t put it past him to resort to any measure necessary to ensure his little girl—his property—didn’t end up with someone like me. I should have called it quits and run for the hills. This was getting stickier by the minute, but I wanted out of here. Could almost taste it…
“You tell me where you want to draw the line.” I leaned in closer, bringing my lips to her ear. Her nearness excited my wolf, turning my mind to things that would make good girls blush. “I have a certain reputation, after all.”
She tensed, breath hitching. “I—you—” She pulled it together and pushed me away. “I suppose some kind of PDA will be necessary.”
I snickered and straightened. She was actually much more than pretty—especial
ly when she flushed like that. Wild, flame red hair and deep hazel eyes, her nose came to a slight point, but it was her lips that you noticed first. Generous and inviting.
Not that I’d noticed.
“We’ll have to hold hands, obviously.”
I slipped my hand into hers. It was warm and soft and molded to mine like it’d been made to be there. “Obviously.”
The muscles in her arm twitched. “And we’ll have to—”
It was amusing how uncomfortable she was. Maybe this wouldn’t be all boring. “Kiss?”
Her mouth fell open, and she shoved me away, this time much harder. Her cheeks were flushed, and her eyes narrowed to thin slits.
I threw up my hands and settled on my side of the truck. “I promise, Princess. I’m a good kisser.” I wiggled my fingers and winked. “Good with my hands, too. Just, yanno, an FYI…”
Her expression darkened. “You’re an ass—”
“Like I said. I have a reputation. If you want this to work, you’re going to have to get right with that. And getting right with it means understanding that to sell this, you can’t go around acting offended by the things I say and do. You’re supposed to like me, remember?”
I got out of the truck and made my way to the passenger’s side just as she closed the door. “And just so we’re clear right up front, I have no desire to kiss you.”
She grabbed my hand and squeezed a little too hard. With a fake smile, she said, “The feeling is monumentally mutual.”
And it was. I had no desire to kiss Kensey Deaton. Any interest was purely for the sake of our arrangement. I mean, what guy wouldn’t kiss his girl?
Especially a girl with subtle lips and long, wild hair…
Chapter Seven
Kensey
The first task in Operation Big Bad Wolf was to start blending as a couple. Slade’s idea was to hit his friends first. While I didn’t love it, he didn’t leave me much of a choice.
“’Sup.” Slade lifted his hand in greeting as we approached the far corner of the parking lot. A group of five people, three guys and two girls, stood gathered around a beaten-up Ford. He jabbed a finger, starting with the guy on the far right. “That’s Merrick, Devo, and Andrew.” Turning to the girls, he said, “Risa and Steph.”
I mumbled something that might have been construed as a greeting—or possibly a choking cat—and waved.
The guy on the end, Merrick, snorted. He scrunched up his nose and flicked the ash of his smoldering cigarette at me. “What the hell is she doing here?”
“This is Kensey,” Slade said. “We’re—”
“We all know who she is,” the blond girl, Steph I think it was, snapped. “She’s a Deaton. Why’s she on our side of the lot?”
The shortest of the guys, Devo, tapped the hood of the car. He wore a lopsided grin and winked. “Technically, the entire lot belongs to her daddy. He allows us to matriculate here, remember?”
Hampton High School was in our pack’s territory, but like the nature preserve behind the house, the coalition members and their packs were allowed access to the school, to anything in town, really, so long as they behaved. My father had gone through a lot to bring the packs together. Denying them all access to one of the best schools in the state would be counterproductive.
“She doesn’t belong here.” Merrick tossed the cigarette, and it landed a few inches from my shoe.
Slade immediately stomped it out, violently crushing the thing into the concrete. “She’s with me.”
“With you,” Risa repeated. She shook her head slowly, wide-eyed gaze bouncing back and forth between Slade and me. “I thought it was a joke. You’re saying she’s really…”
“My girl,” came Slade’s response. “So watch your mouths and check the attitude.”
“Whatever.” Merrick hitched a thumb over his shoulder. His gaze lingered on me for a moment. The hate in his eyes told me there was no way I’d ever win him over. “Need to talk for a sec.”
Slade sighed and let go of my hand. He didn’t seem enthusiastic about the impending conversation, and it made me curious. “Be back in a sec. Get to know the girls.”
And just like that, he swam off and left me with the sharks!
“So…” Steph circled twice, stopping to face me on the third pass. “You and Slade? Really?”
Obviously, she hadn’t gotten the memo on me. I didn’t intimidate easily, unlike most pack daughters—which was exactly what she was trying to do. I pulled myself up straight and squared my shoulders. “Yep. Me and Slade.”
The other girl, Risa, clucked her tongue. She shoved Steph out of the way and took her place. “Ignore her. She’s always a bitch. ”
I forced a smile. “I’ve known Slade since I was little. We’re—”
“Neighbors,” she finished with a smile. “Yep. We know that, too. You’re lucky. Handful of girls have been trying to pin that boy down for years.”
A rush of heat washed over me, followed by the smallest spike of guilt. I’d feel bad if my fake relationship put a wedge between someone who might actually be good for Slade. God knew he needed someone to set his ass straight. “Oh. You mean you—”
“God no!” She laughed, and it sounded almost like a snort. “Slade is my half-brother. We share the same dad. You must be special, though. He never brings girls around. Or even comes around himself. I’m sure you know, he usually keeps to himself.”
Steph snorted. “Lupe won’t be happy.”
That was the whack job I’d met yesterday. I played dumb. “Lupe?”
“They have a thing,” Steph said with a grin. She folded her arms and leaned back against the truck.
Risa elbowed her in the arm. “They have an on-again-off-again thing. Totally open. Hardly a thing, really. If you ask me, Lupe is so bad for him. Besides, she has a thing with a lot of guys.”
When she pulled away, she was smiling, and despite being uncomfortable, I smiled back. Risa seemed genuinely nice. Not at all what I’d expected from a McAlister wolf. “Well, technically I did have him first,” I joked.
“Everyone behaving over here?” Slade came up behind me and draped an arm lazily around my shoulder. He made it look as natural as breathing, like he’d done it a million times before.
“She’s sweet, Slade.” Risa took a step back and leaned into Devo. “Don’t screw it up.”
Merrick made a loud gagging sound while Steph mumbled something I couldn’t quite hear. I was pretty sure I heard the word itch—or, more likely, something that sounded a lot like it.
“Ready to head in?”
I nodded and let him lead me away from the group. We got to the main steps before he spoke again.
“I see you survived.”
“They’re nice,” I said, trying not to cringe.
He gave me a knowing stare.
“Okay,” I amended. “Risa is nice.”
“Devo, too. He has my back. Solid guy.”
“You’ve never mentioned him. Or that you had a sister!” The moment the words spilled out, I regretted them.
His blue eyes darkened, and the muscle in his neck twitched. “Yeah. Well, you and I haven’t spoken much in several years. There’s a lot you don’t know about my life.”
I wanted to tell him that was his fault. That he was the reason we weren’t friends anymore. He’d screwed it all up. But why bother? This was temporary. As soon as we both got what we wanted, we could go back to ignoring each other.
I swallowed and plastered on a smile. “So are you ready for tonight? ‘Cause I was thinking—”
He stopped walking. “Tonight?”
“I forgot to tell you, didn’t I?” Oops. I’d have to get better at that. Couldn’t be keeping my boyfriend in the dark, now could I? “Opening ceremony of the Courting. My house.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess. What time?”
“Seven sharp.” I adjusted my backpack and snuck a peek at the door, eager to put some distance between us. I’d been in control of my wolf since the very first
shift. She and I were two halves of a perfectly symmetrical whole. But she got antsy around Slade.
Students were beginning to cluster, and even though the whole point of this was to be seen as a couple, a group of pack daughters were already staring—and the weight of it was making us both twitchy. “See you at lunch?”
“Yep,” he said absently then turned in the other direction and trudged back to where Merrick and Devo were waiting.
Suck it up…
I took a deep breath. I could do this. It was my damn idea, after all. I whirled toward the building and forced my feet into motion, ambling up the stairs. I got four steps past the girls—Marcia, the daughter of the Fluza alpha, and her friends—when they fell into step beside me. Their obnoxious designer heels clicked and clacked against the pavement as they followed.
“So,” Marcia drawled as I pushed through the main doors. “The rumor is true? You and that junkyard dog, McAlister?”
“Slade and I are dating. Yes.” Even when we hadn’t been speaking, while he was busy creating as murky a reputation as his father, it’d pissed me off to hear the others talking about him like he was lower than them. None of them knew him at all. But that was one of the big problems in our society. It was all about clout—and packs like Slade’s just didn’t have it. At least not in the way that counted. He would never get a fair shot.
“Why?” one of the other girls asked. I didn’t know her name, but I’d seen her around a lot lately. She belonged to the Berkshire pack. “I mean, he’s got the whole hot-as-hell bad boy thing going, but—”
“Celia!” Marcia snapped.
Duh!
That’s why Celia was familiar. She’d been hanging around Aden lately. He didn’t know she existed, but the girl was determined. If her hemline got any higher, we’d all be getting a bird’s eye view of London and France.
“All good, Celia,” I said with a grin. “Slade’s danger-meter is off the charts, but it’s more than that. He’s a really great guy. You should get to know him.” I leveled my gaze at Marcia. I’d never used my pack’s position to strong arm others before, but a thrill shot through me at the thought. “All of you.”