Chapter 5

Reyna

She learned a great deal about Zack on the trip from her hotel suite to The Sky Lounge, where their guests were waiting.

First, he was surprisingly impatient. Everything she’d seen up to this point had led her to believe he was a cold, calculating businessman that dealt with everything in life the way he dealt with his company.

She quickly realized he only had patience for things he believed were important. Everything else was a nuisance.

They didn’t wait on Samantha to finish getting ready. They didn’t wait for his security escorts.

When they’d been standing at the elevator, Zack had hit the up button at least fifteen times, each thrust of his finger harder than the last. He checked his watch constantly. Tapped his foot.

Something else she quickly learned: his cell phone was his most valued possession. It buzzed and rang and chirped in his pocket almost without pause. He pulled it out and answered every single time.

Most of it was about business — which ones, she couldn’t be sure. He could have been talking about her parent’s company for all she knew.

Zack never offered any explanation and she didn’t ask.

The most irritating thing about him so far, though, was the way he spoke to people. To everyone. All the time.

Zack didn’t answer his phone with a customary ‘hello’. It was always ‘what’, followed by a series of demands, awful threats, and a sharp, condescending tone. Listening to it made her cringe.

By the time the elevator dinged to inform them they’d arrived at the appropriate floor, Reyna couldn’t imagine why he was marrying her.

These past weeks preparing for the engagement party had been miserable. Any time they were together, he made sure to remind her that he was the one paying for everything — that he was the only reason her pack and family were above water.

He didn’t want her opinion. He didn’t want to know her. Shut down every attempt she’d made to better understand him.

Zack had absolutely no interest in her. Reyna wasn’t a vain person, but she’d imagined there had to be some kind of attraction there if he’d come up with this marriage idea.

Unless he was just very good at hiding it, she was beginning to doubt that.

If he enjoyed her appearance, looking at her would be a pleasure, not an apparent chore that seemed to annoy him to no end.

When the elevator doors opened, fresh air was a welcome relief. Zack led her by her arm into the waiting crowd of Alphas and their guests, speaking quickly and efficiently to each one.

This he enjoyed. Reyna could feel the satisfaction pouring off him in waves.

“Oh, Reyna, you look beautiful.” Julia Smith — Beaverhead’s Luna said, “I’m so happy for you.”

That sentiment was repeated again and again as they made their way through. Shaking hands and smiling. Stiff posture. Eyes tracking her. It felt stupidly formal. Who was she, anyway, to be received this way? Who was he?

Zack’s hand squeezed her arm intermittently as they moved, manipulating how fast she walked. The longer it took, the more claustrophobic she started to feel.

Reyna was used to dealing with people. She’d chosen nursing partly because she enjoyed being social.

This was a little too much.

Malcolm Attersley of Elk Bend met them as they finally reached the end of the crowd. “Zack, good to see you. And Reyna.”

He reached out as if to shake her hand, but brought it to his lips, instead, pressing a firm kiss to her knuckles. “You are truly a sight.”

Wolf behavior could be a little prickly. As a general rule, one wolf would avoid hovering around or touching another wolf’s mate unless they were close, likely in the same pack.

A kiss on the hand, for instance, when he could have simply given it a shake, was bad manners.

Alphas could be especially aggressive about it.

But she wasn’t Zack’s mate, was she? Malcolm’s sly grin and terse amusement made Reyna think that was the point he was trying to make.

“Where’s Nissa tonight?” Zack asked, fully aware of the tension.

There was an undertone to the question that morphed Malcolm’s grin into a straight line. “Safe in our territory. I avoid putting my mate into questionable situations when I can. Deer Lodge is a viper pit on its best days.”

The argument went on passive-aggressively, though Reyna had no idea what it was actually about. All she could glean was that Malcolm did not like Zack or Deer Lodge, and the sentiment was returned in full.

Knowing she’d be living in Zack’s pack and forced to deal with its affairs, she tried to focus. But they seemed to be talking in circles about things they wouldn’t say out loud and she grew bored of the whole thing rather quickly.

Besides, there was something tugging at her from somewhere to her left. Her family was mingling within eyeshot near the dining tables.

It wasn’t them.

It wasn’t familiar, either.

Something she could feel but not quite grasp in full.

Her eyes sought it out even as she told herself to be present with the man she was supposed to marry. She skimmed over faces known and unknown. Inhaled deeply, trying to pinpoint a scent.

The room was too congested. Everything ran together. And Zack was blocking her view of the bar.

“While this has been pleasant,” Zack seemed to conclude, “my fiancé and I are in need of champagne.”

If Reyna had been paying closer attention, she might have noticed the waitress before Zack moved to turn. Their collision was abrupt, and the crash of glass against the tile floor seemed especially loud.

The girl’s eyes were saucers. Zack froze and the rest of the room froze with him.

However poorly she’d thought of him up to this point, Reyna would never have expected his reaction.

The visage slipped away and he grabbed the girl by the arm, shaking her, shouting and raging about the mess on the floor, the mess on his clothes.

Reyna’s first instinct was to intervene. She stepped forward, reached a hand out, and then someone was gripping her shoulder.

“No,” her father said. He was watching the spectacle unfold but his expression was unreadable.

She hadn’t heard his approach.

Quietly, she hissed, “He shouldn’t —”

“It’s not your place to tell him how to deal with his people.” He glanced at her. “And I’ll not have you draw his ire for her to yourself.”

Reyna nearly laughed. Was this to be her life, then? Tiptoeing around a man that had no regard for anyone but himself? Is this what she’d agreed to?

The thought of it, seeing him shove the girl down as others dove forward to dab his jacket with handkerchiefs and napkins, was nearly enough to make her cry for the first time since this whole thing began.

Something drew Zack’s attention and then it drew hers, as well. That odd tug returned tenfold as she stepped away from her father’s hand and around to Zack’s side.

The room was still eerily silent, so the sound of glass shards being picked up and set on a metal tray carried. The waitress was crouching, holding the tray, while a man carefully sifted through the mess.

He helped her stand when it was finished. “There,” he told her, in a voice that was both deep and burred with an accent Reyna couldn’t quite place. “No harm done.”

The waitress practically ran from the room.

Zack was unimpressed. “That was sweet,” he drawled. “Unnecessary, but sweet.”

When the man finally turned, everything else just… stopped. He looked right at her. Through her. The connection was instantaneous. Like a cord pulled taught between them, chest to chest.

How many times had she wished for this? How many times had she wondered how it would feel to finally meet him? None of it could have prepared her for the reality.

He was gorgeous. Taller than Zack’s 6’, broad in the shoulders and chest, and more densely muscled.

Auburn hair curled around his ears and covered his cheeks and jaw in a neat beard. She could see a smattering of freckles over his nose and flecks of brown in brilliant blue eyes.

“Finlay, right?” Zack continued, oblivious. “I was surprised to see Bitterroot’s RSVP.”

It felt like she should be doing something. Or that he should. Maybe both. The noise in the room had picked back up with music and the hum of conversation. It made the silence here in their bubble awkward.

But what could she say? She was set to marry the man standing beside her. Her father, watching the exchange, was depending on this marriage to keep his business and his pack above ground.

How did the sudden appearance of her mate work into that?

What should have been a joyous thing felt like the world caving in around them.

And still, she felt the effect of his attention. She wanted to hear him talk again. Wanted to be closer. To breathe him in and memorize his face and learn every minuscule thing about him.

“We wanted to congratulate you, of course.” A man appeared at Finlay’s side. They could’ve been related, the resemblance was so great. He spoke with the same burred accent. “Though we did have our own announcement to make.”

“Oh?”

The man nudged Finlay’s arm and his eyes finally left hers. Finlay cleared his throat.

“We’ll be lifting the restriction on Bitterroot’s borders starting next month.”

“Now that is a surprise. Will that be strictly for fostering or will Selway be traversable now, too?”

Selway was Bitterroot’s county seat, Reyna knew. The only city in the territory.

Finlay stuffed his hands in the pockets of his slacks. He didn’t seem overly pleased to say, “Selway will be open, as well.”

“That’s fantastic. Not sure our fosters are looking for something so… rural. But exposure is important for young wolves.” Zack glanced at Reyna. “Have you met my fiance?”

“I’ve not had the pleasure,” Finlay said, and then his eyes were back on her. Piercing. Loaded. “Finlay Shaw, Alpha of Bitterroot.”

He slid his hands from his pockets and took a step closer, offering one in greeting. Reyna’s heart felt as if it would climb up her throat. She closed the gap and took his hand, calloused but warm.

“Reyna Navarro,” she announced, though much quieter than she’d intended. “Warm Springs.”

His grip was loose but he didn’t let go. Neither did she. Awkwardness settled around them again.

This time, it was her father that broke it. He stepped around her and the movement jarred her into releasing Finlay.

“Daniel Navarro. I believe we’ve met before.”

Finlay nodded. “I met with all the southwestern Alphas when I established the Bitterroot territory.”

“Of course. And you have the… lumber business, is that right?”

“That’s our main export, yes, but –”

The conversation turned, then, to something they were all more comfortable with. She didn’t know much about the Bitterroot territory. No one did.

Reyna’s interest was split between genuine curiosity about Finlay’s home and pack, and her interest in him.

He was explaining to her father about their recently successful distribution center – eighteen-wheelers, specifically – when she felt Zack’s fingers close around her elbow.

“Come,” he said. “We’ll grab a drink and do our rounds.”

She didn’t want to. All the logic and reason she’d used less than an hour before to convince Samantha that this was for the best evaporated. The diamond ring on her finger suddenly weighed a thousand pounds.

Her wolf was equally elated that they’d found him, and horrified that she was walking away – with another Alpha, no less.

Reyna felt split right down the middle.

Uncertain of what else to do, she kept in step with Zack and felt her mate’s heated stare following her across the room.