Free Web NovelChapter 46: Laying The Law
She ignores me, doesn’t even look at me when she speaks again, her attention remains fixed on the five men spread around the lounge while I remain perched, ram rod.
Vaela folds her arms across her chest, black tattoos shifting over powerful muscles, and says, "I’m assuming, as you’ve all been beyond useless so far, that you didn’t think to explain The Council, or let her know they want to meet her, immediately, and won’t eat your shitty excuses much longer?"
Five different threats bark toward her, all different pitches and tones, but with the same warning at the end of them. The sound releases adrenaline as my body prepares for danger.
Vaela doesn’t so much as flinch. "Thought so."
The force of disappointment in that declaration sounds more dangerous than shouting.
She glances toward Raulf, who leans down so she can murmur into his ear too quietly for me to hear. Whatever it is wipes the amusement from his face. His eyes find mine across the room, and for a second sympathy flickers there.
"Don’t let them bully you too much, pup," he says. Then turns and strides from the room. Abandons me to this fresh hell.
Vaela waits until the doors fully shut before speaking again. "You’ve all demonstrated you can’t be trusted to do what’s necessary. And I’m not allowing my blood to continue that path where she remains untrained, unprotected and unprepared."
Across the cushions, Ezra rises smoothly to his feet. "She is not unprotected."
I almost feel sorry for him. Because Vaela stalks toward him like she’s been waiting for somebody to challenge her.
"Oh yeah?" she asks. "You pups have it all under control, a fool-proof plan, right?"
Corrian scoffs. "There are five of us–"
"Five morons who’ve already let rogue packs get to her." The answer’s immediate and brutal. "What happens when you’re not there?" ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
"We’ll always be there." Leo’s voice comes from beside me.
She rolls her eyes so hard I genuinely think she might injure herself. "Fucking Alpha males."
Jax snorts.
She points toward me without actually looking my way. "She needs to learn. Not just her body, abilities and how to protect herself. She knows absolutely nothing about pack dynamics, politics, Council law, bloodline history, territorial agreements, Alpha hierarchy, her family or how to actually be a wolf."
Shame flushes higher with every item she lists. I know how to make instant noodles, how to avoid eye contact in supermarkets, seventeen different ways to tell a man to fuck off. I don’t know a single useful thing about being, whatever the hell I am.
That realisation is deeply annoying.
River finally pushes himself up to full height. "That’s not entirely—"
"It is entirely." Vaela cuts him off before he can finish.
The room’s packed full of growls and tension and competing Alpha energy, yet inside me, beneath all of it, something else is taking hold, a bright little kernel of light deep in the dark part. Curiosity.
Sitting there between the men who’ve become my world and my aunt who pulled me from a burning massacre, I know every single person in this room is terrified for completely different reasons.
The problem is, nobody seems to have considered asking what I want.
I’m on my feet without consciously deciding to move. The blanket slides from my lap. Every head turns toward me.
"I’m right fucking here." I point at my own chest, which is heaving air in. "Seriously. I know this is shocking information for everyone involved, but I am actually present in this conversation."
Corrian’s expression softens. "Frankie—" freёwebnovel.com
"No." I point at him. "Absolutely not. You don’t get to Frankie me right now."
Jax makes a tiny choking sound, Leo elbows him hard enough to shut him up. My pulse is hammering. The room smells like tension and whatever terrifying alpha magic Vaela radiates every time she breathes.
"You’re all standing around arguing about what happens TO me while I am literally sitting right there." I point to my spot on the sofa. "I’m watching divorced parents argue over custody, except everyone’s hotter and growlier."
I swing toward Vaela. "And you."
One of her perfect dark eyebrows rises.
"You’re my aunt?"
She nods once.
"That’s, like, amazing." I sigh. "But you keep dropping life-changing information, ticking items off your weekly grocery list. Prophecy fulfiller. Some Council wants to meet me. Bond sickness. I can turn into a wolf," I’m pacing in a small square. "Training. Politics. You can’t just casually throw those things into conversation and then move on. I don’t know what any of that stuff fucking means"
"Fair," she says.
My pacing ceases, I turn on my heel to face her. "That was alarmingly reasonable."
"Don’t get used to it." She huffs.
The tension in the room loosens enough for everyone to breathe again.
"Here’s what’s going to happen," I say. "I’m going to learn whatever the hell I need to learn. All of it. Wolf stuff. Prophecies. Council nonsense. Whatever a pack is. Why my body keeps trying to die every time I’m more than ten feet away from these idiots."
Jax raises a hand. "Technically, it’s more like ten miles."
"Jax." I grit through my teeth.
"Sorry."
I point between Vaela and the guys. "And none of you are making decisions for me."
Several growls answer that.
"See? That’s exactly the problem."
The absurdity of it all hits me, how laughable this situation truly is. The fact that I need to learn to change into an animal. The beautiful, hidden mountain fortress. The absolutely badass alpha female glaring down five alpha males. Being blood related to most likely half the people I’ve met in the last few hours. A giggle bubbles up behind my lips.
"Jesus Christ. I thought discovering werewolves existed was hard."
For the first time since I met her, Vaela lets out a deep, genuine laugh.
"No, pup," she says, shaking her head. "That was the easy part."
Judging by the expressions around the room, everyone else agrees.
