Bewitching the Wolf

Leo Tyler could think of a lot of things he would rather do than represent his pack of werewolves at this government meeting as his Alpha had ordered him to do. Walking on nails. Being kicked in the nuts. Swallowing wolfsbane. He disagreed with his Alpha, James, about a lot of things, and had been relatively vocal about that since becoming Beta after the death of his father some three years previously. But the Local Government Area was apparently insisting that their pack, as the largest group of werewolves in the city, send a representative to their meeting about council activities—something to do with afterschool programs, interspecies integration and helping children stay the course in educational pathways—and James had been insistent that as Beta, Leo go to represent the pack, as he himself was busy. As far as Leo was concerned, it was more than likely that the Alpha just didn't want to go himself and was fabricating some prior commitment to avoid sitting through several hours of government finagling. It sure wouldn't be the first time that James had taken advantage of Leo's obligation to follow his Alpha's instructions to avoid doing something he didn't want to do himself.

James had been Alpha for roughly fifteen years—more than half of Leo's life—and the older wolf, in Leo's opinion, had stopped proving himself worthy of the role some five to ten years prior—around the time Leo, a freshly minted eighteen-year-old, had taken off to see some of the world before the requirement upon him as heir to the role of Beta trapped him in Mystic City. He'd returned when his father became seriously ill, but Daniel Tyler had held on far longer than anyone had expected, leaving Leo in limbo as the almost-Beta of the pack for more than nine months.

Some of their pack mates had had doubts about obeying the instructions of a Beta who had spent so many years away, which was ironic, considering they seemed to have no issue following the leadership of James, who in the time Leo had been out of Mystic City, had seemed to completely abandon any effort to deserve the mantle of Alpha. He no longer trained to keep up with the strongest wolves in the pack, no longer joined them in their fight practice or the teaching sessions for the younger wolves about controlling their transformations or avoiding substances like silver and wolfsbane. Leo would hesitate to say out loud that James had gone soft, but it was hard not to think it in the privacy of his own mind. A Beta was supposed to be the second-best in the pack, not the enforcer for a wolf who had allowed his body and resolve both to sink into disuse. James commanded respect by virtue of leading the largest pack in the city, if not the state, but as Leo had settled into the role of Beta, as time went on and James began asking more of him, Leo was coming to believe the older wolf deeply unworthy of his own position. For starters, he should have had the balls to come to this stupid meeting himself, instead of making Leo do it.

Leo took a deep breath to steady his temper and climbed out of his car. The sun was just starting to go down, the intense heat of the day finally beginning to fade. Warmth radiated up from the asphalt of the parking garage, and the city-center smells along with that of hot tar were ripe in his nose. Underscored by… something. Something else.

He paused for a minute on his walk to the building where the meeting was being held, breathing deeply. Most werewolves had an excellent sense of smell, but Leo's was even better than most. He tried to separate out the scents of the city… cooking meat from the kebab store down the block, sweat from the gym on the upper level of the building where the meeting was being held, the overriding odor of hot tarmac. And that mysterious something, just on the edge of what he could detect. It smelled like… Christmas. Like cinnamon and nutmeg and warmth, and at the same time, like heat and seduction and a kind of frantic physical need he'd never felt before. He felt his wolf stirring beneath his skin, his body readying itself to fight, or maybe to fuck as though even his physical response to the something couldn't make up its mind what it was supposed to be.

Part of him was desperate to track down the source of this scent, but a glance at his watch told him he had three minutes to get into the LGA meeting or he'd be neglecting his duties as Beta.

Afterwards, he promised the wolf stirring beneath his skin. Afterwards, we'll track it down. Just sit through a few hours of political posturing, and we can work out what the hell this is.

The wolf was unsatisfied with this response, but Leo ignored it and made his way into the multistory building where the local council representatives were gathering, forcing himself to stop paying attention to the information his nose was feeding him, which was specifically telling him that the scent was growing stronger. Stronger.

He wasn't the only supernatural representative at the meeting, he realized when he entered the room. It was set up with rows of chairs facing a lectern with an aisle down the centre, the windows open to the dense city air. Even though they were facing away from him, he could recognize the scent of the two vampires sitting in the third row, the representatives of several covens of witches in the fifth, and the one other werewolf present, who was sitting on the other side of the aisle in the row front of the almost-empty back row where Leo slid into a seat. The other wolf seemed to sense his arrival at the same time and turned around to greet him with a friendly smile. Petra, if he was remembering her name correctly from the one or two times they'd met before, wasn't someone he knew well, but he made a note to say hello properly once the meeting was over. It couldn't hurt to foster some other werewolf connections, especially when their territories abutted that of his own pack, as Petra's pack's did.

The full room quieted suddenly, and Leo realized someone had stepped up to the lectern. And with the incredible scent dragging his attention forwards, he focused closely on the something, fixing on its source, on the path it took to reach him. And somehow, somehow, he had no doubt in his mind that it was coming from… her.

It would fit. She was… something. She was a witch; even in his altered state he could appreciate that. Magic hummed over her skin like static electricity. It wound through the gentle curls at the ends of her thick black hair, sparked in her eyes. To his frustration, at this distance, he couldn't tell if they were blue or green, and that lack of knowledge ground at his nerves. He wanted to know everything about her. Wanted to know what those perfect bow lips looked like when they curved into a real smile, not the practiced one she was maintaining as she spoke to the crowd. Wanted to know how they looked opened in a gasp of pleasure. In a scream. Wanted to know how her face changed when he made her call out his name.

"Good evening, everyone, and thank you for coming." She took a deep breath and looked down at her hands. "As most of you know, my name is Delphinia Greenbranch, and it really means a lot to us that you've all made the effort to attend. You may be aware that our coven, in partnership with the Department of Youth and Community, has been putting a lot of effort into the programs we're here tonight to discuss, and it is very satisfying for us to see that some of you are interested in what we've put together. I'd like to say a special thank you to the representatives of the supernatural communities who have made the effort to attend tonight. Valerie and Beau," she sent a smile to the vampires, "Lisa, Rupert, Alex, and Simone," another to the witches. "And in particular, our werewolf guests. It means a lot to us that you would consider being involved in something so far from your packs' usual methods." She made eye contact with the wolf in the row in front of Leo, sent her a grateful look, and then suddenly her eyes were on his, and the foundations of his world fucking crumbled.

He saw her eyes widen, was vaguely aware of the way her lips parted on an intake of breath, but he couldn't look away, couldn't take his eyes off the witch at the front of the room. Need swelled in his body, sudden as a lightning strike and potent as if he'd been starving for weeks and had just had a buffet of all his favorite dishes displayed in front of him. In his jeans, his flesh swelled irresistibly. Need her. Need her. He felt his canines elongating into fangs in his mouth as the wolf in him made its presence known. It was as focused on the witch behind the lectern as if he'd waved a blood-dripping steak in front of it. The look that Delphinia Greenbranch gave him—initially a kind of practiced appreciation that quickly morphed into what looked like dazed confusion—drew him in like a magnet. He wanted to fix anything that made her look uncertain—especially if it were related to him—wanted to change anything that made her even the least bit unsure of anything. Wanted to fix her entire life so it not only included nothing that ever made her worry even the tiniest bit, but also so that a large fucking chunk of it included him.

He suddenly wanted—needed—access to her. He wanted to touch every inch of her body, to take in the unbelievably perfect scent that was growing stronger the longer they spent in the same room, to weave his fingers into her thick black hair, to trace his hands over the curves that were all too visible under the dress she wore. Surely, she couldn't have thought that was appropriate attire for a meeting covering local government issues. Sure, it had a high neckline, but his position at the side of the room meant he could see past the lectern to register that it only reached partway down legs that her sensible high heels made look positively endless. Would those heels put her at eye height to him? She was clearly already tall, which was fantastic because it provided more skin for him to memorize with his touch, with his tongue. Werewolves were usually tall, but Leo had always been at the upper end of the spectrum, which had been frustrating with many of the women he'd been with before, who had been too small, too fragile, to match him in any way, even those who were werewolves themselves. He shoved the thought of them out of his mind; for some reason, he suddenly didn't want to think about anyone he'd been with before. He didn't want to think about the very idea of letting any woman close to his body other than the one whose gaze had finally broken away from his own.

"As you may be aware," Delphinia was saying, continuing as though she hadn't just paused for several silent seconds, "there are a number of local government districts within Mystic City. However, ours, consisting of the territories of two werewolf packs, the vampire coven and those of three witch covens, and the human territories, have the lowest level of continuing education of young people, both human and supernatural, of the entire city. So, one of the things that our program aims to address is the issue of keeping our youths in school. Obviously, there are various issues specific to individual races, such as the sunshine issue for vampires, but what we aim to do is to support young people to complete high school and potentially encourage them to consider further education."

She continued talking about the ways the programs were planning on keeping young people in school, but Leo barely heard her. His eyes kept fixing on tiny parts of her, like the prominence of her collarbone against her skin, or the curve where her ribs became her waist. The way she spoke with her hands made him imagine her touch on his skin. She was animated, clearly intensely passionate about the afterschool projects she was outlining, talking about ways to incorporate young vampires, who obviously couldn't be out in daylight, as well as witches, the supernatural race most historically integrated with the humans, and the werewolves, who were the least. Typically, the werewolves kept to themselves, keeping separate from many of the "normal" human ways of life. His own pack, Blue Crescent, existed as an entity in and of itself, taking care of its members as they worked to maintain it and provide for one another. Just the fact that James had sent him to this meeting was strange, given the way that the pack normally functioned as a purposely separate entity, uninvolved in the way the rest of the city ran. Was there something James was considering that he hadn't shared with Leo? Was he working towards integrating the pack into the wider society of Mystic City without even thinking to run the concept past Leo?

"The other part of this project that's important to discuss," Delphinia was saying from the front of the room, "is the fact that we're not talking about having separate programs for each of our different races. We're working to include not only humans but also all the supernatural races in all our plans. Obviously, everyone has their own specific challenges when it comes to being included in these programs," she gestured specifically to the vampires with a sweet smile that sent heat shooting through Leo's body, concentrating in his groin. "But we think it's important to try to raise our young people more inclusively than we were brought up. The separations between our various races are important to our identities, we don't deny that, but we think it would be a positive move if we started bringing young humans, witches, vampires, and werewolves together to learn and grow together. We all live together here in Mystic City. We might as well start learning to exist collectively in a way that brings us all closer together."

There was a muffled hum in the room as people began speaking to one another, and he wanted to introduce his fist to the face of anyone who dared to interrupt Delphinia. She seemed prepared for it, though, smiling indulgently from behind the lectern.

"I know this is a fairly contentious suggestion," she said, and thankfully the room fell silent once more to listen to her, or else Leo might have had to do something drastic. "And for that reason, later tonight, we're going to open the floor to anyone who has any particular issues they want the opportunity for us to address as a group. In the meantime, we have a couple more people we're planning to have speak this evening, but after that, if anyone else wants to get up and have their say, we look forward to hearing your opinions. For now, I'd like to welcome Marcus Heath to the stage."

She stepped back from the lectern and someone else stepped forwards, some human with too much gel in his hair. Leo hardly even registered that he was present; his eyes were fixed on Delphinia, taking her seat at the back of the room behind the lectern. The man sitting next to her put a hand on hers and, when she looked his way, gave her an encouraging smile, and Leo almost blew up. Another man, touching the exposed skin of this woman? He'd never been a jealous man before, had always been content to fill a minor role in the lives of the women with whom he had… well, maybe you could call them relationships, at a stretch. When they found men who could give them more than he was able, he had never minded stepping back from that role. But suddenly, there was nothing minor about the role Leo wanted to fill in Delphinia's life. He wanted to leave his mark all over her skin until any other man in her life thought twice about laying a fucking hand on her.

Maybe the problem was partly the absolute tease of a dress she was wearing. It was almost as black as her hair, high-necked, but tight enough that it clung to her perfectly curvaceous body, ending at her knees in a way that meant when she sat down, it rode up enough that he could see the skin of her legs almost to mid-thigh.

Leo wanted to be the only person who touched her bare skin. He wanted to see and touch and cherish every single facet of her body and memorize them with his lips and tongue. He wanted to learn her so intimately that nothing about her was unfamiliar to him. He wanted to leave his scent all over her so no one else ever got close to Delphinia Greenbranch without knowing that Leo had been there first.

It was this thought that took Leo aback. He was thinking about having her around other wolves, wolves who judged people partly on scent before they'd even met them. She was a witch, for heaven's sake. Why would she be around enough wolves that it mattered that he'd put his scent all over her?

Unless…

Unless some part of him was considering introducing her to the pack.

Unless he was planning on bringing her into it.

At the very thought of bringing the witch now sitting at the back of the stage into the pack as his partner, something in Leo that he had never known was tense immediately relaxed. Something in him… eased. As though it had always been waiting for Delphinia Greenbranch, been waiting for the concept of bringing her into his life as the kind of a partner the pack's pseudo-marital system recognized as absolute, been waiting for the option of making her his in the most unquestionable of ways.

Her scent filled his consciousness, even though she was no longer at the lectern, Christmas spices and sex and heat and woman. How had he lived this long without taking in this utterly addictive scent? How had he lived so long without having her?

Before he knew what was happening, the meeting was drawing to a close, having cycled through everyone from humans to vampires discussing the options that would make Delphinia's afterschool program plan feasible, and the room was emptying. Leo found himself rising to his feet, ignoring the friendly smile of the wolf in the row in front of him as he strode forwards to make the acquaintance of the woman who, in his head, he had already claimed as his own.

***

He was… big. That was the first thing Della thought when the werewolf representative stood in front of her. He was so tall. Broad. His shoulders seemed to be bunching and un bunching as he stood before her, hands making fists and relaxing over and over. She cast her eyes over him slowly, taking in every inch of the man who had looked so disapproving during her meeting. His scowls from the back row, the constant drawing down of his eyebrows, had had her biting her lips with unexpected nerves every time she paused in speaking.

He was bigger than any human—or inhuman—had the right to be. His shoulders were so broad, she had to stop herself from imagining running her hands over the breadth of them. His hair was the color of melting chocolate, and his eyes were a strange silvery green that, once she looked into them, seemed to almost trap her own gaze, like falling into a mountainside lake. Deep and warm and all-encompassing and somehow both safe and… exciting?

"Who are you?"

The words were out of her mouth before her brain had a chance to catch up. Her voice came out deeper than usual, husky, like she had just finished an extended session of screaming. I'd let him make me scream, a voice in her head said, tone as salacious as the content of the thought.

"Leo," he growled, then cleared his throat and tried again. "Leo Tyler." He still sounded angry, the frustration in his voice and face at odds with the anxious tension in his stance.

The name rang a bell, and Della took an involuntary step backwards. "The Beta from the Blue Crescent pack?"

"I… yes." She seemed to have taken him off guard by knowing who he was.

"We'd kind of hoped your Alpha might join us tonight," she managed, trying not to get lost again in the silver-green of his eyes. Had they become more silver? Her tone still sounded strangled. What was it about this man that had her so off-balance?

Her statement seemed to startle a laugh out of the man. He ran a hand over his short beard and her fingers tingled at the imagined sensation of hair scratching over her skin. His laugh was like glass mixing with gravel, but somehow… pleasant? Something in her got the sense that he didn't laugh often and immediately wanted to make him make that deep gravel-glass laugh whenever she could.

"You'd be lucky to get our Alpha off pack territory on a full moon night in midsummer, let alone for an evening of governmental discussion." He bit his lip, as though he'd said more than he intended. "It's Delphinia, isn't it?"

"Just Della is fine," she managed, trying not to let her perusal of his brick-shithouse body be too obvious. For once in her life, she felt… small. Petite. Her, who had been the tallest woman in her coven since she was fourteen. She let her hair slide out from behind her ear, appreciating the sense of distance, of protection, that the slight barrier gave her.

His hand rose as though he had no control over it, pausing before the sheet of her hair partly covering her eyes. Was that… a growl that came from him? In a move almost swifter than she could follow, he tucked her hair back behind her ear, then dropped his hand back to cross his arms across his impossibly broad chest. Della had to fight to regain her voice. For some reason, she was suddenly breathless, her eyes feeling as wide as silver dollars.

"Leo." His name slipped from her lips, then she bit her tongue, searching for something they could talk about. Some way to break this silence between them, when it grew more heated with every second that passed. "Um. What did you think of our proposals tonight? The idea of integrating the humans and the supernaturals? I know the humans in Blue Crescent territory tend to keep to themselves."

He blinked at her as though this was the first he'd heard of the idea, as if she and two other program advisors, as well as one of the other witches, and both the vampires, hadn't all weighed in on the topic for a good hour and a half.

"The way you were scowling the whole meeting, I presumed you didn't approve of the suggestion." She bit her lip suddenly when she realized the statement made it clear just how much attention she'd been paying to him when she should have been completely focused on the meeting she was supposed to be running. His quirked eyebrow seemed to say the same thing.

"Much as I appreciate that you noticed," he said, and was it just her imagination, or was his voice suddenly a degree more flirtatious? "It wasn't about your proposal. I was… thinking of something else."

"What's so important you couldn't pay attention to the meeting?" Della demanded and immediately regretted the question, because his deep-set eyes were suddenly fixed on hers with a kind of intensity she'd never seen before, and it was… hot. Surface-of-the-sun kind of hot. A soft throb in the pit of her stomach that was quickly migrating to the juncture of her thighs kind of hot.

What the hell was this? Della had never, as in never, responded this way, to anyone. Even the few men, both warlock and human, she'd allowed to take her on dates, even those with whom the date had gone further than the original drinks or dinner or whatever, had failed to elicit even a fraction of this kind of immediate response in her.

"I'm not sure you really want to know," Leo muttered, dragging her focus away from her suddenly tightening nipples.

If he'd known her, he would have known that that was exactly the wrong thing to say. Della had been known for her never-ending curiosity within her coven for years, and it had gotten her in trouble more than once.

Why did something in her tell her this was going to be another one of those times?

Why did the throb that had taken up residence between her thighs insist that it would be worth it?

"I think I do," she heard herself say, her voice again taking on that just-been-screaming husky timbre. She tilted her head sideways and her hair again slid free from behind her ear, but before she could tuck it away again, Leo had stepped close to where she stood behind the lectern—impossibly close, indecently close—and done it for her. Only this time, his hand didn't disappear after that briefest of touches. This time, his hand sunk into the thickness of her hair and his grip tightened until he'd tugged her head upright again, leaving his mouth so close to her exposed ear that she felt the rush of his hot breath on her skin when he spoke.

"All right, little witch, you want to know what I was thinking about? What was distracting me so I couldn't pay attention to your meeting?"

With the microscopic amount of movement permitted by his grip in her hair, Della managed a semblance of a nod. Her own breath was loud in her ears.

"I wasn't thinking about afterschool programs, that's for goddamn sure," Leo growled, "because you smell like pure sex, and I can't get my damn mind off what you taste like underneath this tease of a dress. How long it's been since you were properly satisfied. How long it'll be before you let me get my mouth between your thighs and redefine whatever you used to think 'satisfied' meant."

"Delphinia?"

In a flash, Leo's grip had left her hair and Della was left reeling in something of an aroused fugue state as he stepped back from her, to stand to one side of the lectern as though he'd been leaning on it all along, moving so quickly it was like he was trying to hide that they'd been doing something wrong.

Had they? Was it wrong, the filth he'd just growled in her ear? Was it wrong that the words were humming through her body and, gods above all help her, she wasn't sure if she'd ever in her life been so aroused?

She didn't have time to consider it. Valerie, one of the two vampires they'd managed, with some effort, to convince to attend, rounded the corner into the meeting room, a smile stretching over her pale face when she spotted Della.

"There you are! Oh, and Leo, is it? You're from the Blue Crescent pack, aren't you? I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"Not at all," Della said, hoping she didn't sound as off-balance as she felt. She smoothed her dress down her legs, suddenly hyper aware of where the hem sat just above her knees. It had felt perfectly suitable when she'd been wearing it in the office, but now she was aware of every inch of exposed skin. I can't get my damn mind off what you taste like underneath this tease of a dress. "We were just talking about how to go about integrating afterschool programs in Blue Crescent territory," she invented on the fly.

"Oh, you're keen to join with the programs, are you, Leo?" Valerie asked, the hyper-friendly vampire not seeming to find it odd that the werewolf had yet to move out from his position behind the lectern. Was he trying to hide that he was as aroused as she was?

"Very much looking forward to joining," Leo said, his voice as rough as sandpaper and deeper than the ocean. His eyes flitted over her just once more, but Della felt it down to her bones.

"Isn't that interesting?" Valerie said conversationally, leaning on the other side of the lectern. "I was under the impression most of the werewolf packs preferred to keep things very insular, very isolated from the rest of the supernaturals."

"Blue Crescent prides itself on becoming more open to new ideas," Leo replied, not missing a beat. "I'd love to hear more about Della's… ideas."

"Well, if you don't mind doing that another time, might I steal her for a moment? Beau and I need to be back at the nest shortly, and I wanted to have a quick chat about the logistics of including young vampires in programs during times when the sunlight hours are long."

"Sure," Della said, her breathing finally steadying. She darted back behind the lectern long enough to collect her notes, carefully not making eye contact with the massive werewolf still standing there and tried not to gulp audibly as she moved past him. When she heard his own harsh intake of breath when the skirt of her dress brushed his legs, she risked a glance up at his face and almost swallowed her tongue. His eyes were fixed on her like she was the finest work of art he'd ever seen, his irises flashing to a far deeper silver that told her the wolf in him was fighting not to make itself known.

"We're having another meeting," she managed, just barely. "In two weeks. Same place, same time. Maybe I'll see you there?"

"Count on it," Leo said, that sandpaper tone back in his voice, the intensity in his eyes enough to set her absurdly aroused body aflame all over again.

"That's… good," she managed weakly, before Valerie was slipping a stone-cold arm through hers and leading her from the room.

There was no way Leo was waiting two weeks to see Delphinia Greenbranch again. He couldn't. He just… couldn't. Now that he had her scent in his nose, knew what that thick black hair felt like wrapped around his fingers… she'd awoken something in him. The sight of her, the scent of her. The way she talked so passionately, so confidently about her plans for the programs she was developing, but let her hair fall in front of her face when she was talking to him, like it was providing some kind of shield… Two weeks? There was no way in hell he was waiting that long. He was going to track her down and find out if his uncontrolled filthy mouth—something which had never happened to him before with a female he didn't even know—had managed to alienate the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

But first, he needed to explain to his Alpha why he'd all but signed up their notoriously insular pack to be involved a human-supernatural program designed to introduce young kids of different species to each other's ways while keeping them from dropping out of school at the earliest available moment. Though some members of the pack admittedly did follow the path of further education and training and were even involved in Mystic City's government or one of its universities, most finished as much high school as they felt necessary—which often wasn't all of it—then functioned within the pack, contributing to, and being supported by their communal way of life. Putting time and energy into keeping the young wolves in school—let alone the issue of doing it in programs that purposely integrated them with humans and other supernaturals—was going to be a hard sell to James and the rest of the pack.

Leo had been anticipating having at least a day or so to prepare for the inevitable argument, but when Emmett and Raj showed up at his door the next morning before he'd even finished his coffee, he couldn't say he was particularly surprised. News traveled fast in the pack.

Leo, Em, and Raj had been best friends since their school days, gravitating towards each other as the kids who made trouble tended to. Since then, they'd fallen into their own roles within their trio—Raj, who was over six and a half feet tall and never short of a ludicrous suggestion for something that would inevitably be a good time but have repercussions he chose to ignore until they were upon him; Emmett, the peacekeeper of the three of them who was usually the one who talked Raj out of whatever strange idea he'd decided was the best way to drag some fun into their usually work-focused lives; and Leo, who did his best not to abuse his power as Beta when dragging the three of them out of the trouble that following through with Raj's ideas got them into. He was aware that he was probably the worst friend of the three of them, since his commitments as Beta often interfered with plans that they'd made or even took him off-grid for a day or two at a time, but he still did his best to keep up with their nights out at the pub or staying in watching football. He lent an ear or a shoulder of support when one of the others needed it—more often than not Emmett, who had a habit of falling in love with every beautiful woman he came across and out of it just as quickly—or even just training together or assisting when each of them led the training sessions for the rest of the pack, as they'd been doing for a couple of years now.

The three of them were each formidable enough fighters that they no longer often found themselves in scraps with others, but when one of the older wolves had seen them holding off a larger group of wolves from the Apex River Pack with whom Blue Crescent shared a border—if Leo remembered correctly, because they'd crossed the border to try out a pub in Apex River territory and Emmett had tried to put the moves on one of the locals' girlfriends—they'd been conscripted into regularly contributing to training sessions for the other fighters within the pack and eventually, leading them. Though territory lines within Mystic City had been drawn when the city was founded and remained unchanged, border skirmishes between wolves, who were notoriously volatile, were not unheard-of, so as many of the pack as wanted to train to fight attended the sessions that were run several mornings a week. More than a few of the older wolves were surprised to see the group of young troublemakers assisting in running the sessions, but by doing so the three of them—even Leo, who had thought he was viewed as more responsible since he'd taken up the role of Beta—had garnered significantly more respect from the rest of the pack.

The whole Apex River debacle had earned Leo an extreme dressing-down from James, and he'd taken it on the chin and made Emmett buy drinks for all three of them the next time they went out as recompense.

Today was a different situation completely. The hammering on the door when Leo was only halfway through his morning coffee could only have been one of his two best friends, and when he opened it, he found both leaning on the doorframe.

"Morning, Beta," Emmett said, using the title he knew frustrated Leo to no end. "What's the story?"

"Story?" Leo blinked.

"Give the man a chance to wake up before you start the interrogation, Em," Raj said, as he pushed past Leo to enter the house. "He's hardly conscious."

As usual, once inside, Raj sprawled on Leo's sofa, the massive wolf taking up almost the entire couch. Emmett and Leo shared an unsurprised but amused glance before they each took the easy chairs that also faced Leo's TV, leaving the three of them in a semi-circle that Em broke by dragging his chair into position to face Raj and Leo more easily.

"So, what the hell, man?" he asked. "You're putting us in with the humans now?"

"Ah," Leo said, thinking longingly of the half-full cup of coffee currently sitting on his kitchen bench before turning his attention to his packmates. "You heard about the meeting last night."

"We heard about you committing Blue Crescent to being involved in some kind of integration program," Raj said lightly, as though it were nothing.

"There were some good points made," Leo said, not sure whether he should put some effort into sounding apologetic as practice for what was sure to be almost the exact same conversation he would have with the Alpha. Would that play better with James? Mostly, he admitted to himself, he was considering what would make it easier to spend as much time as possible in Delphinia Greenbranch's company without negatively impacting the pack.

"They've been making points about integration for years now," Raj pointed out from his position on the couch, "And you've never been particularly interested in it before."

"We have humans living in our territory," Leo said without much conviction. "They contribute to the running of the pack."

"All right, then we have all the involvement with humans that we need," Emmett said. "Why the sudden interest in signing us up for more?"

"It's not just humans," Leo replied. "There were vampires there… another werewolf. From Apex River, I think. Witches. The meeting was run by a witch."

There was a moment of silence before Raj said, "Shit, man. You're involving the whole pack in this program because you want to tap the witch who's running it?"

"What? I didn't say… it's not just…" Leo heard himself sputtering. "It's not about the witch," he added finally, hearing the helplessness in his own tone. "They made some really valid points. As a pack, we've been so isolated for so many years. We live and work among the humans, some of us even with the vamps and the witches as well. Doesn't it make sense that we'd actually put some work into allowing our pups to understand what they're getting themselves into when they sign up to be involved with other species?"

"Don't try to bullshit a bullshitter," Raj said with a significant degree of amusement, stretching out so his bulk covered even more of the couch. "The minute you mentioned her, your eyes shifted."

"What?" That hadn't happened to Leo since he was a pup still learning to control his changes. Sure, every now and then he'd feel his irises going slightly silver, but he'd always been able to tamp down on it. Control it. It hadn't happened completely like that, without his active control of the shift, in years. "You're kidding."

"Why would I joke about that?" Raj asked.

"He's telling the truth, Leo," Emmett put in. "What is she, your mate or something? Or are you just that hard-up that you'll go gaga over the first pretty woman to look your way?"

"Wh…" Leo had to work hard to control the surge of anger that rose at the idea of anyone, even one of his best friends, thinking something like that about Delphinia. He focused on the first half of what Emmett had said instead. "You know I don't believe in that crap."

The myth of each werewolf having a single ideal mate somewhere out in the world was nothing but a fairy tale they told pups to lull them to sleep, as far as Leo was concerned. To the best of his knowledge, no one in the pack had come across this fabled perfect mate, or even knew of any wolf who had. "She just," he finished lamely, "she just smells incredible. I've never… I've never known anything like it. It's like sex and Christmas all wrapped up in one. I just talked to her, that's all. But once I had her scent… I couldn't stay away."

Emmett laughed. "Kind of sounds like the mate myth, man."

"Hell, I'd wrap the pack up in this afterschool program crap too if I knew I'd get my mate out of it," Raj laughed. As a librarian, though, he spent significantly more time around books and fairy tales than either Leo or Emmett, though, so his believing that the story of finding one's mate might be more than a myth was somewhat unsurprising. "James isn't going to be thrilled, though," Raj added with a dark chuckle.

"When is James ever thrilled?" Leo asked, choosing to ignore Emmett's comment. The truth was the most popular version of the mate myth did make mention of a wolf being inescapably drawn to their mate's scent. He shook the thought from his head. It was nothing but a story. He'd track Delphinia down, potentially repair any damage he'd done by speaking to her the way he had last night and find a way to get her and her incredible scent out of his system so he could think properly around this need to be near her that had been hounding him since she walked away last night. That was the extent of his plan, and at this point it should be—it was, he insisted to himself—all that he needed.

But before he did any of that, he was going to need to justify his decision to involve the pack in the program to James.

***

The Blue Crescent Alpha didn't often leave the Italian restaurant-and-bar he'd made the seat of his power. He didn't seem to notice the parallels to the classic practices of the patriarch of a mafia family, or if he did, he didn't seem to care. Most of Leo's meetings with James happened in the back room of Horatio's, regardless of the time of day, and James had long since clearly disregarded the societal convention that would disapprove of him having his ever-present glass of whiskey at hand before noon.

It was probably—probably—not just the influence of the whiskey that had him so furious with Leo, though. To be fair, Leo thought, he might have been equally surprised—if not, perhaps, as openly outraged—if he were in the Alpha's position. Leo was aware that he had never given the impression of having an issue with the pack's insular nature in the past. Why would he go to the effort that it would require to change it now?

James, however, was on the far edge of furious, and had been since Leo had entered Horatio's, answering the Alpha's obviously unimpressed summons.

"What the fuck, Tyler?" James asked, the moment Leo had entered what he thought of as James' room in the establishment. It featured the table behind which the Alpha sat as well as a few others, like a smaller version of a restaurant, and always held a few of James' closest followers lurking around the Alpha.

"Do you know what you've done?" James continued.

"I figured that's why you sent me to the meeting," Leo said. For once, the vaguely deferential role that he'd made a habit of taking around James felt uncomfortable, like a too-small pair of shoes. "Why would I have been there if you weren't interested in being involved?"

"To make it clear to them that we damn well weren't interested," James spat. "Instead, you've all but committed the entire pack to involvement in this bullshit. I mean, integrating our pups not just with humans, but vamps and witches? Why the fuck would you think that was a good idea?"

"More than a hundred humans live in pack territory," Leo reminded him. "Some of our pack go out and work with them, and the witches and the vampires, every day. I kind of figured we were halfway to integrated already."

"They live independently in our territory," James emphasized. "The deal is that they keep themselves to themselves, and we don't make an issue out of their presence."

"We have to live in this city," Leo pointed out. "We have to deal with the humans and the other supernaturals every day. What harm does it do to let the young ones make some connections outside the pack?"

"It's not how we do things around here," James said flatly, taking a gulp of his drink. He sat forwards in his chair. "And just because you inherited the role of Beta, doesn't make you untouchable, Tyler. You'd do well not to forget that."

"I didn't even commit to anything," Leo protested. Was James really threatening him? With what? To demote him from the role of Beta? To evict him from the pack altogether? Those would be massive repercussions to ensue from something as minor as telling a single witch, in the presence of a single vampire, that Blue Crescent might be interested in being involved in their programs. "All I did was say we were potentially interested in being involved in the program. I didn't promise her anything." Except that I want to introduce her body to my mouth in the most uncivilized of ways, some part of his brain reminded him, and he pushed the thought away as fast as he could.

Apparently, not fast enough.

"Her?" If James had been in his wolf form, Leo had no doubt his ears would have pricked up. "Is this about a fucking female, Leo? Is that's what's stolen your common sense, some goddamn woman?"

"No, of course not," Leo snapped, but it felt like a lie to even say it. It felt wrong. Like he was somehow betraying the draw he felt to her—betraying her—with the denial.

How could he be feeling this way over someone he didn't even know yet? Hell, since when did he feel like this, feel anything like this, over a woman at all?

"I should fucking hope not," James said with another sip from his glass. He gave the appearance of having relaxed somewhat, sitting back in his chair, but his eyes were still coldly calculating as they surveyed Leo. "If there's some female involved, get her under you and out of your system, and then bring me back my Beta with his fucking brain intact, all right?"

Even though his own half-formed plan had been somewhat similarly worded, the same thing in Leo that had balked at denying Delphinia's sudden importance to him wanted to snarl at the suggestion of getting her under him and out of his system. Wanted to growl at the very thought of any other male picturing Delphinia in an intimate moment, even if the man involved with her in that moment was him. Those moments should belong to him and him alone, dammit. Not to even start with the idea that having her under him would get her out of his system at all.

Unless…

He'd had those kinds of interactions with women before, when falling into bed together once had been enough to sate the attraction and they'd parted ways afterwards without needing more from one another. Was it possible that this insane draw to Delphinia Greenbranch could be satisfied in the same way? That if he could just find a way to be with her, sate the incredible urge in him to bring her so much pleasure she lost her breath from screaming his name, maybe he'd be able to excise her from the massive portion of his brain that she had suddenly occupied without warning? Maybe he could stop worrying that other men were noticing her perfect curves and get rid of his constant concern that she wasn't being properly cared for, that no one was taking responsibility for making sure she was eating properly or getting places safely when she went out.

The confusing, uncomfortable thing in his belly that had relaxed when he thought about introducing her to the pack as his partner almost went into meltdown at the very idea. Clenching his teeth, Leo ignored it. If he wanted to prove to Raj and Emmett that this insane attraction wasn't proving right their belief in the mate myth, having a one-and-done interaction with Delphinia would definitely be one way to do it.

Tyler, you are a colossal asshole.

It wasn't like he would go in with any pretenses, he argued to the part of himself that was disgusted by the very thought. If they were both on the same page from the beginning, what was wrong with it?

"Just find a way to tell them we're not interested in being part of their integration programs," James said derisively, bringing Leo back to the conversation he was still meant to be having with his Alpha. "I don't care how you do it, but Blue Crescent is not interested in 'integrating' with anyone, let alone a mix of vamps, witches and humans."

"I—" Leo started, then cut himself off. This was how it worked. The Alpha made a decision, gave instructions, and the Beta carried them out. If part of him wished for an Alpha who took the wishes of those he led into account a little more, well, that was his own problem. "Yes, Alpha," he finished, forcing himself back into the uncomfortable deferential role, and stood to leave.

Now he had two reasons to need to find a way to get in touch with Delphinia Greenbranch.