Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75578 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Fuck–I’m running out of time. My mom and Logan will be home any minute, and I’m supposed to have dinner ready.
That’s me–Cinderella.
It’s not Logan who ordered the chore, it’s my mom. She’s trying very hard to make this work. To show what a helpful, grateful teenager I am. I feel like an unwelcome guest in this house, to say the least.
I yank a pair of shorts over my lace panties and button up the flannel then put the Manolos back in their shoebox and hide them in the closet.
Out in the kitchen, I throw open the refrigerator and pull out yesterday’s roast chicken, along with onion, celery, grapes, pecans and mayo. I chop the chicken, onion, and celery and slice the grapes in half.
I hear Logan's Tahoe pull up as I'm dumping it all in a bowl. Crap. I rush through spooning mayonnaise and dumping curry powder in and stir quickly.
He and my mom both work at the brewery. My mom has a low-paying job on the production floor. He is one of the upper echelons, not an executive, but upper management. He's not pack royalty, but he thinks he is. Or at least his son certainly thinks he is.
I hear him shouting before they even come to the door. Not at my mom, I don't think. It sounds like he's on the phone with someone.
Oh.
“I do not understand how a son of mine could possibly have fucked up this badly. This better be a fucking joke. A bad fucking joke.”
Uh-oh. I’m only a tiny bit gleeful that it sounds like Wilde's in trouble.
Logan throws open the door and stomps inside the house. He walks to my side and peers in the bowl of curry chicken salad then recoils like I’m cooking caterpillars or something.
“If you think I'm going to post bail to get you out of there, you are dead wrong. You've embarrassed yourself, me, and this pack. What do you think Coach Jamison would say? After all he did for you to get you on that team? This is the way you repay him? This is the way you repay all of us for the investment we made in you?”
I may not be able to shift into wolf form, but I do have shifter hearing, so I hear Wilde's muttered response, which is just “I know, Dad. Sorry.”
Maybe I'm hearing it with my own bias, but he doesn't sound all that sorry to me. It sounds a little more rehearsed than I would expect from someone who is obviously in jail, off the Duke football team, and getting shamed hard by his dad.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Alpha Green booted you out of the pack. You know what happened with Trey and Garrett, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Wilde answers.
Logan’s referring to the alpha’s son and his best friend, who were both thrown out of the pack for marijuana use just out of high school.
I steal a furtive glance at my mom who stands in the doorway of the kitchen, one hand on her swollen belly, her worried gaze on her new husband.
And yes, it’s husband, not mate. They married at a courthouse three weeks ago after Logan discovered he’d knocked her up during a full moon run a few months back. Just another reason for the pack to hate us. Everyone thinks she trapped him in an effort to raise her status.
As if Logan Woodward farts rainbows, and he’s that much of a catch.
“Well, you can sit your ass in jail and think about how you just threw your entire life away. You won’t be getting help from me.” Logan ends the call. “What is that?” He points at the chicken salad as if nothing just happened.
“Curried chicken salad.”
“I need more meat than that,” he grumbles.
“It’s literally a meat salad.”
“Rayne.” My mom opens her eyes wide in a warning.
“Sorry, but am I wrong?”
“Heat up some hot dogs, too, honey.” My mom tries to fix it.
I whirl to the fridge and pull out the hotdogs, biting my lips to avoid saying anything snarky. In fairness, he probably does need a ton more meat than I do. Fate knows my mom’s been eating twice what she used to now that she’s pregnant.
“What happened, Logan?” my mom asks softly.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear. He was arrested in a hotel in Greenville for possession of cocaine with the intent to sell.”
I literally hear his teeth grind.
I turn to face the cabinets as I rip open the package of hotdogs and dump them in a frying pan with a little water. I wouldn’t want my mom or stepfather to see how satisfying I find the scandal.
King Wilde, former WRH Football Team Captain and all-star alpha-hole, was knocked down from this throne.
I’m not sad for him.
At all.
Especially not if it means he will never return to Wolf Ridge.