Wolf and Punishment (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 1) (18 page)

On the other end of the line, Alisha sounded even sadder for Janelle than Janelle was for herself. “Yes, I know…” But then her voice perked up. “…and that’s why I’m going to have insist on calling him
Mr. Rochester
behind his back from now on.”

Janelle snickered. “Well, I suppose it’s better than Joffrey.”

They talked for a few more minutes, mostly about Alisha’s Canada research—she’d been hoping to find an Inuit she-wolf worthy of a historical biography while there, but so far no luck. She’d be returning to her post at the University of Juneau in a couple of weeks, and she still didn’t have a good subject on which to focus her post-doc work. But as usual with Alisha, her complaints about the lack of historical materials on she-wolves were just snarky and intelligent enough to keep Janelle laughing until they finally got off the phone.

Janelle felt better after talking with her sister. And worse. On the one hand, she hadn’t laughed that much in months, on the other, the anxiety that had been plaguing her since Mag’s return from L.A. felt even sharper now. Indeed, it had metastasized from a steadfastly ignored twinge of pain into a full-blown ache, one she didn’t think she could continue living with—

Her ruminations on the sorry state of her relationship with Mag were interrupted by a pinging sound. Janelle frowned and looked down at the touch screen of her phone to find a text message from her mom.

18

“H
EY, wanna tell me what’s going on between you and Janelle?” Rafe asked before Mag could even say hello.

“Hey to you, too,” Mag said, leaning back in the ridiculous white-and-gold Baroque-inspired office chair, the one he’d been forced to park his ass in since returning to the Wyoming kingdom house. He decided to ignore Rafe’s question.

“Thanks for calling. I’m going through all these email complaints, and I’ve got to say, you couldn’t have interrupted at a better time.”

Rafe chuckled. “The bureaucracy of being a king. File that under stuff they don’t tell regular guys to keep them from challenging for alpha status.”

“Seriously, if I had known…” Mag joked.

“You probably still would have challenged that prick. You were about done with football, and I couldn’t see you settling for being a coach or an onscreen personality.”

“Hey, I also had a few endorsement deals in the works…”

“Whatever, man. Even if you were born a little brother, you know you were built for alpha status. If you hadn’t been, you wouldn’t have put in all that work with Grady and you definitely wouldn’t have won both your challenge fights.”

“True that,” Mag said. “I guess I should stop complaining. Beats being my brother’s beta in Freedom Town.”

“Speaking of betas, you know Grady handles all that petty email complaint stuff for me, right? Part of the job description. I know you’re probably not going to get any challenges any time soon after how thoroughly you ended King Jeffrey and your old friend, Kenny, but can I ask why you haven’t engaged a beta yet?”

Mag rubbed a hand over his eyes, and immediately regretted it. The entire left side of his body was still aching… from what? He didn’t know, but it felt like he had either been hit by a car on one side of his body or had spent most of the night before throwing himself against a barred wall, either trying to get out of his turning cell… or get in to a she-wolf on the other side of the barred wall. In either case, it wasn’t a soreness he wanted to think too hard about.

“It’s complicated, man,” he said, shaking off the pain and bringing himself back to the conversation at hand. “Kang agreed to let go of his pack leader status in Freedom Town and bring it under Lupine law—but only if he can come down here and be my beta.”

“That’s great. Your brother’s tough and nasty, just like you, and that’s what you want in a beta. Sounds like the perfect deal.”

“Yeah, but…” Mag struggled to find words. Rafe knew his whole back-story, but he wasn’t Sofia. How could Mag explain why the thought of his brother coming down to Wyoming to serve as his beta made his blood run cold?

Suddenly going back to Rafe’s opening question didn’t seem quite so bad. “All right, why you wanna know what’s going on between me and Janelle?”

“Because I just got a phone call from her father. He got the capital together for his resort project and he wants me to come back up to Alaska to see it through to breaking ground… plus, the school year’s about to start, so…”

Mag shook his head. He’d thought he was obsessed with Janelle, but Rafe had already spent three months in Alaska, supposedly to consult on the Alaska king’s hot spring resort project, but really because he wanted to court Alisha.

“So you’re running back up there like a well-trained dog, even though you didn’t get to see her once the last time you were up there.”

“Tikaani says they’re going to throw a dinner party and her mother is guaranteeing Alisha will be in attendance. But, um… he added Janelle would be there, too.”

Now Mag sat up in his seat. “What?”

“He said Janelle’s coming back home, and he said he didn’t know if things were going to work out between you two. Don’t get angry at me, Mag, because you know I wouldn’t be telling you this if we weren’t brothers from another mother, but… it was like he was dangling a fish to see if I’d bite.”

“And what did you say?”

“I told him my pledge offer was for Alisha, and only for Alisha. I told him I was happy to consult on his project, but I’ve got my endgame on lock. So he knows I’m not going to settle for anyone but Alisha—not that Janelle would be settling. I’m just saying, he knows who I want.”

Mag turned over this new information in his mind. “I think you should go to the party.”

“Seriously? I mean, I was already planning to go. This phone call was just a courtesy, but I thought you’d be like, ‘don’t do it, don’t go up there, they’re playing head games with you’—because you know that’s what you’ve been saying ever since I decided to pledge Alisha.”

“Yeah, well… now they’re playing head games with me, too. I’m thinking I want somebody on the inside. Somebody I can trust.”

His eye caught a glimpse of Janelle coming into the viewfinder of the security camera he’d put up outside of his door, just so she wouldn’t be able to sneak up on him again while he was talking to Sofia. She raised her hand to the door and seemed to hesitate before finally knocking.

“Hey man, I’ve got to go. But keep me posted, okay?”

“Yep,” Rafe said. “Later.”

“What do you want, Janelle?” he asked after he hung up with Rafe.

“I’d really like to talk to you,” she answered on the other side of the door.

“About what?”

He watched her look down then up, like she was trying to figure out what to do next, then to his surprise, the perfect princess actually put her hand on the knob to his study and turned it.

The door opened and she stepped in, her face wearing an expression of unholy fear, like her whole control board was about to spark off because she had dared to step into his office without his permission.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But Mrs. Coates is downstairs, and I didn’t think this was an appropriate conversation to have through your study door.”

She closed the door behind her and came to sit in one of the guest chairs, crossing her feet at the ankles and smoothing a hand over the sleek ponytail draped over her shoulder.

An image of her between his legs, his hands fisted in her ponytail while her mouth worked his shaft, hit him then. And he had to readjust himself in his seat before asking, “What can I do for you, Janelle?”

“Actually, I was wondering if there was anything
you
needed me to do.”

The look on her face was so serene, so weirdly sunny, Mag could immediately tell her question wasn’t what it seemed.

“Anything I need you to do,” he repeated carefully.

“Yes,” she answered. “I’ve redecorated the house, and now I’m at a loss as to what else I can do here.”

“You haven’t redecorated the whole house,” he said. He took the sketchpad out of the front desk drawer, which was where he’d been keeping it ever since he found it on top of the ornate desk when he came back from Los Angeles.

Janelle’s eyes widened when he handed it to her. “I’ve been looking everywhere for this,” she said. “I must have left it here. I’m sorry.”

“Why didn’t you do my office before I returned?” he asked, his eyes going to the pile of yellow cedar wood paneling, which he assumed had been ordered for this room.

“I didn’t want to overstep my boundaries. Traditionally a new king gets to decide how he’d like to redecorate his office.”

“So you sketched out how you wanted the room to look and ordered a bunch of wood paneling from your family’s lumber company because you wanted to leave the decision-making up to me?”

Janelle was too much of a stateswoman to be rattled by this blunt question. “I was merely offering you some options. I thought you might enjoy using a wood native to Alaska to panel your office. If I overstepped, I apologize. I’ll have Mrs. Coates arrange to get it removed.”

The truth was, Mag had no desire whatsoever to do any redecorating himself. He more than liked what she’d done with the rest of the house and if things hadn’t been so awkward between them, he would have invited her to do his office, too.

But right now, he found himself wanting to ruffle the fur of the perfectly poised she-wolf sitting across from him. Like he had last night when he’d made her take off her robe to reveal nipples as hard as diamonds. Nipples so hard, he’d let himself go wolf extra early for fear of what his human might do.

He leaned back in his seat. “I’m new to all of this, so why don’t you tell me? What’s so great about you princesses? I mean, Rafe says I need one, and he’s still trying to pledge your sister. But can you tell me what exactly it is that makes you so valuable? I mean other than looks, because from what I’ve been told, beauty fades. ”

The only sign that this question bothered Janelle was the way she folded her hands tightly on top of her closed knees. “Alisha is smart, one of the smartest people I've ever met, but really easy to talk to.”

“Smart, check. But I don’t see how that would make her a good queen.”

“Well, she believes all women deserve to have their voices heard. A society that appreciates its women folk is one that has a good chance of surviving and thriving into the future. She could have studied anything but she decided to go into history because wanted to help tell the hidden stories of our she-wolf ancestors. Half of any given kingdom is going to be made up of women, and any king would be lucky to have a queen who cared so much about the often ignored “other half” of his domain.”

Mag nodded, impressed by Janelle’s answer. She and Alisha were so different that he wouldn’t have guessed she actually admired her sister.

“You've made a good argument for why Alisha would make a good wife. Now, how about you? Why should I be happy that I’m pledged to you?”

JANELLE FELT LIKE AN ENTIRE SEASON OF STAR TREK, she was fighting so hard to keep her deflector shields up as Mag threw loaded question after loaded question at her. And she had no doubt her princess mask was beginning to wobble a bit as she struggled to answer.

“Well, I’m told I throw great parties. And I’m good at organizing big events. For example, I’ve been in charge of our annual Christmas party and the Arctic Wolf Games for the last four years. If you like, I could throw a party here to celebrate your challenge win. It would be a wonderful way to—”

“So you’re good at throwing parties. Anything else?”

No, actually there wasn’t anything else. She’d also gotten pretty good at understanding pledge agreements, but other than that...

Janelle had never felt so terrible about herself in her life. She wasn’t smart and motivated like Alisha or a social dynamo like Tu. The truth was, she’d been raised to be a trophy wife who threw great parties and kept her looks as long as possible, and… well not much else.

She lowered her eyes, too ashamed to continue holding the gaze of the man who’d managed to see right through her in the space of a single conversation.

“I’m gathering you don’t actually need anything from me at this time, so hopefully you won’t mind that I’ll be returning to Alaska tomorrow. My mother is having trouble planning the annual Christmas party on her own and she’s asked that I come home for a bit.”

She chanced a peek up at him after she said this and found he’d gone completely still. “How long will you gone?”

“I’m not sure,” she answered. “But if you’d like me to plan a Christmas party for the Wyoming House, too, I could…”

She trailed off. His eyes were so cold now, it felt like she was staring at two actual moons—lifeless rocks floating in the unreadable sky of his face.

“Mag? Are you okay?” she asked.

He blinked once, twice, then said, “You don’t have to plan a Christmas party for me. Go back to Alaska, Janelle. I’ll get along just fine without you here.”

It felt like a dismissal and she opened her mouth to offer to plan a special celebration in his honor, a Halloween bash maybe, some kind of salve so they wouldn’t leave things on an awkward note. But the vibration of a phone going off interrupted her.

She looked down and saw his smart phone had lit up with the word “Sofia” and a number that included a California area code. So it
was
Sofia with an f!

He glanced down at it. “I need to take this,” he said.

She sat there, frozen in place. Was he really going to take a call from another woman while she was in the room?

He picked up the phone. “Hey Sofia,” he said, an easy smile spread over his face. “Hold on…”

His expression wasn’t nearly as easy going when he said to her. “You can go.”

She stood, her movements as stiff as a wooden puppet. Then she walked out of the room as commanded, leaving her fiancé to talk to another woman in private.

19

J
ANELLE woke up on a gasp in her dimly lit Alaska bedroom. The temperature had started descending, but the last dregs of summer were still holding on outside the window with a sun that rose early in the morning and late at night. Normally she loved waking up to the sun, but today was different.