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CHAPTER 17

V olkov

My tenure as therapist to this pack of French wolves is coming ever closer to a close, but there are some members of the pack who have asked to see me besides the alpha and his mate. My services are actually becoming more popular as time goes on. Almost as if the pack is lacking safe confidantes. Almost as if it is being run by a violent little boy who should know better.

I am getting a view of this pack that few others will ever have. I am coming to know their secrets, the things they keep hidden even from one another. It is a fascinating dynamic, and I know it will only grow deeper and richer over time. The books I will be able to write on this will inform shifter psychotherapy for decades to come. Putting up with the alpha is absolutely worth it.

This is the first session I’ve had with this particular member of the pack. She enters the room with her body contorted like an apology, avoiding eye contact with me in an overt display of respect.

I note instantly that she is afraid. Fear clings to her in an acrid, bitter scent that hits me in waves. The ability to smell feelings is not always a blessing.

“Come and sit down,” I tell her, gesturing to the chair most clients sit in.

She does as she’s told, giving me a little glance as she sits. I check my notes. All I have is a little note request for an appointment, written in a neat and careful hand.

“Jenny?”

“Yes.”

“What brings you to see me?”

“They killed my husband.”

The woman in front of me is delicate and feminine. She speaks in a voice barely audible above a whisper, and yet there is a strength to it. Her hair is a fine kind of blonde, done up in a careful up-do that indicates she is taking care of herself in the midst of her grief. Her clothing is likewise formal, a china blue floral blouse and skirt. There is a quiet elegance to her that is quite at odds with my appearance, but I appreciate it. I’d put her age at around thirty or so, still young, but older than the other two I’ve been handling so far.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say. “Who killed your husband?”

“The alpha, and his mate. She did not touch him, but she put the order on him just as surely as if she’d done it herself. And then he, the alpha, Armand, executed the love of my life as if he were nothing more than a rat.”

She speaks softly, but I can tell there is fear and rage inside her.

“Can you tell me more about the circumstances, or…”

“The girl didn’t like how he spoke at dinner, so she made an example of him on her first night here. Then, to impress her, Armand insisted on murdering him. He was cut down, and that was it. They acted as though they had done me a favor. Nobody has even asked me how I am.”

“How are you?”

She lifts her eyes to me, only to dip them almost immediately.

“I’m sad. I’m angry. I know he wasn’t the best of men, but he was a good man to me. He was my mate. My fated mate. And they took that bond from me, cut it away without any kind of thought for the pain I would endure.”

“That is a hard loss. I am sorry. And no support was offered at all?”

“I have his funds, and the house, of course, but I won’t be able to afford that indefinitely.”

“Have you brought that up with Armand?”

“And have him whip my head off too?”

“You think he would kill you?”

“I don’t know. The rules have changed around here since the girl arrived.”

I note that she does not refer to Beatrix as the alpha’s mate, or by her name, or any other title that might show respect. Indeed, her upper lip curls every time she refers to the girl.

“What would you most like to talk about today?”

“I want revenge,” she says. “I want to avenge my husband’s death, and I want the girl to know what it feels like to lose the only man she’s capable of truly loving.”

“You want revenge? You want to kill the alpha?”

“Yes,” she says. “I suppose I do.”

“And do you have a plan to do so?”

“Several,” she says. “I rarely think of anything else, if I am to be honest. I come to the pack dinners and I see them eating and carrying on as if nothing has happened. Nobody cares what they do. The pack seems to adore them. The worse they act, the more they seem to be worshipped. The girl killed someone in the village for amusement, and there are two fresh graves in the cemetery that don’t belong to any of the pack.”

I am bound to report genuine threats to the alpha, as he is the closest to an authority in a pack system. This is starting to sound very much like one. Of course, I would be reporting her to the man she is afraid of.

“Do you intend on carrying one of these plans out?”

She looks out the window for a moment, then back at me. “I hope to gather the strength.”

“We can work on processing your grief and moving forward.”

“Hmm,” she says. “Yes.”

“I’d like to see you again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? I thought therapy was once a week.”

“It’s as often as I deem necessary.” And you might kill someone, or get yourself killed trying. I don’t add that last bit, but it is my main concern. The body count around this pack is disturbingly high.

* * *

When she is gone, I go and find the alpha. He is in his office, discussing matters of business with his advisors. He seems very competent when it comes to handling the day to day of the pack. I hear positive murmurings around the financial wealth of the collective, which covers for a lot of personal sins.

I knock on the door. Armand looks up at me, and an expression of annoyance flits over his handsome face. He is not good at hiding annoyance. He doesn’t seem to think it is necessary.

“I need to speak with you, alpha. It is a matter of some urgency.”

“Give us a few minutes,” Armand says to his friends and advisors. He sends them off with a wave to a side study. I note they are all male. The pack’s female influences seem limited, which is not a sign of health.

“I thought I was done talking to you,” he says when they are gone.

“This isn’t about you. Well, it is, but not in the usual way. I’m not talking to you as a client. I’m talking to you as an alpha, because a matter of pack security has come to my attention. A woman named Jenny Duplante came to see me.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. She believes you murdered her husband.”

He nods and shrugs slightly. “She’s right about that.”

“She also says you’ve made no attempt to make amends. She is afraid for her financial security, and deeply mourning her mate.”

He frowns, as if those feelings make no sense to him.

“The man was bad news. She’s better off without him.”

“She doesn’t feel that way, and I’m afraid she might do something regrettable.”

“Like what?”

“She wants to kill you.”

It takes several minutes for Armand to stop laughing. “You’ve seen the woman. She’s not a threat.”

“As you are well aware, women are often more dangerous than they appear, and they are always a threat,” I say. “But do with the information as you will. I’ve held up my end of the bargain. You’ve been warned.”

“Thank you,” he says. “I do need to give her some assurance she’ll be taken care of. I thought she would have known that. No member of our pack will be destitute.”

I could walk out the door. I don’t owe him anything else. I’ve done what I need to do. But I find myself staying behind.

“I’m worried about you, Armand.”

“I know. But you don’t need to worry about me. I’m the alpha of this pack. I’m in control.”

He’s a handsome young alpha, and yes, he’s in control, but he has a lot on his plate. He seems to lack any guidance from older pack members since his father retired. Having been born relatively late in his father’s life, the old man was never of much use to him. He is a prince with the intelligence to manage the pack, but his emotional intelligence is not keeping up.

“Don’t,” he says.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look at me like that, like you’re understanding me.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“I’ve got this. I’ll deal with Jane.”

“Her name is Jenny.”

“Right. Sorry. Of course. Yes.”

“You should know the name of the woman who wants you dead, Armand.”

He smirks, handsome and reckless. He is a decade older than his mate, but what they say about men maturing slower than women is so clearly true in this moment. He seems almost as wild as she is right now.

“Women have wanted me dead before. It’s not as interesting as it seems. Most females don’t actually try. Beatrix might, but Jane… Jenny, she was happy to be pushed around by old Duplante. She’s not going to suddenly get a backbone now.”

“She may not come after you with violence. Don’t forget the string of murders nobody has paid for. You are vulnerable on a range of fronts.”

He dismisses that almost immediately, as if it’s absolutely nothing.

“Pack justice is always rough. Her husband challenged me and lost, fair and square. He was a hapless, bloated old sop who thought he could talk to me as he pleased. He was wrong.”

Armand is so close to being a good person sometimes, but is also a thousand years away from it right now.

I tell myself again that I have warned him, and that my duty does not exceed that.

“Anything else?”

There’s a note of hope in his question. He wants to know about Beatrix.

“Nothing else.”

I leave.