Three men sat at the bar, none of them the one I’d come to meet—or at least I sincerely hoped so. Two had to be my father’s age or older, while the third sported some unholy fusion of a mullet and a man-bun.
No position as a CEO would be worth having to look at that every day.
Let alone worth fucking the individual who’d thought that was a good idea, even the once that forming a mating bond would require. Desperation had its limits.
I shuddered and scanned the rest of the dimly-lit space, poking my glasses farther up my nose. A few men had grouped around the pool table in the back past the bar, but they appeared to be there together, and not waiting for anyone.
Several booths, one occupied by a pair of middle-aged women, the next empty, and—there. A lone man with a pint of beer in front of him, slouched back too far into the seat to put his face in the dim glow of the shaded lamp dangling over the table.
Unless I’d been stood up, and I certainly wouldn’t discount the possibility, that had to be him.
And anyway, I’d rather be stood up than have to wait on the guy. Punctuality showed character. I didn’t expect much from some seedy alpha douchebag with more cockiness than common sense, someone who’d managed to end up on the run from not one, not two, but three packs holding grudges, not to mention a variety of loan sharks, but lateness I simply could not abide.
Again, nothing wrong with a few standards. No man-buns, no mullets, no lack of basic time management skills.
And if it kind of sounded, even to me, as if I were trying to think of reasons to call this whole miserable plan off, well…that wasn’t entirely wrong.
The bartender glanced up as I moved away from the door, raising her eyebrows at me in a way that suggested she wondered if I’d come to the wrong place. I’d ditched the tie in the car, but my tailored Italian suit probably cost more than six months’ rent on this dingy, smoky hole. She knew I didn’t belong here.
That made two of us.
I nodded at her and gestured vaguely toward the guy in the booth, and she shrugged and went back to reorganizing the glassware.
He didn’t move as I approached, not even leaning forward to get a better look at me—not that he’d need to, what with the perfect vision all shifters had.
All of them besides me, at least.
Yet another way in which I’d been born shockingly imperfect, along with my barely above-average height and my lack of the stronger werewolf magic that would’ve made me an alpha. Not that my father had known about all of these faults on the day of my birth, of course. He’d still had hopes, at that point, that I’d become something worthwhile—hopes I’d slowly dashed in the intervening twenty-eight years. He never ceased reminding me of it, particularly on days when I’d accomplished more for the family business interests and the pack than my older alpha brother ever would, even in his arrogant, delusional dreams.
Whatever.
Fuck my father, and fuck Blake, and fuck anyone who thought I couldn’t conduct business in a seedy dive as well as in the shiniest board room in downtown Boise.
I lifted my chin and strode the rest of the way to the booth with the same confidence I displayed when doing my job.
Hopefully it’d fool enhanced alpha senses.
“Dimitri?” I said as I stopped at the end of the table.
“Who’s asking?” The slight Russian accent suggested I’d found the right man. But his low, raspy tone didn’t sound all that welcoming.
Jesus, fuck him too. I hadn’t forced him to meet me. Our mutual acquaintance, a seedy fixer I sometimes employed as an investigator, had told me Dimitri Pechorin would be just as pathetically eager to find a way out of his difficulties—well, as I was.
“Brook,” I said. Johnny had probably shared my last name too, but damned if I’d announce it in a place like this for anyone to hear. Showing my face was bad enough. “And if you’re not here to meet me, then say so and stop wasting my time.”
“Wasting your time?” He shifted his weight, the booth creaking. I had the impression of someone a whole hell of a lot bigger than me, but my weak eyes wouldn’t allow me to focus past the pool of light on the table. “You’re the one who set this meeting, Castelli.” I flinched, glancing around guiltily before I could catch myself. “So sit down and tell me what the fuck you want.”
His voice held a hint of an alpha’s command. I gritted my teeth, stiffening my knees as they tried to obey his order, and wished I could tell him to go to hell. The last thing I wanted to do was sit down, now that he’d told me to. But I’d probably attract even more attention standing in front of the table like an idiot.
And I’d spent years obsessing over my situation, and now months stressing over my father’s new plans for me, without ever coming up with a better plan than this.
Maybe my father was right, and I didn’t have what it took to run our companies, the pack, or so much as a lemonade stand.
I sat down with poor grace, sliding a little ways into the booth but making sure to keep a respectable distance from Pechorin.
Once I’d blinked a couple of times, he came into focus at last.
I blinked again, because I couldn’t help it.
Okay, no. He might not have a mullet or a man-bun, and he’d been early for our meeting—and he was obviously an alpha—but there the list of qualifications as a mate ended as suddenly as if it’d run into a brick wall.
Which he kind of resembled himself, actually. His shoulders, anyway.
Rumpled, overly long black hair, the harsh-featured face of a hard man who’d lived a hard life, at least a few days’ worth of unshaven beard, piercing gray eyes, and those absurd shoulders straining the threadbare seams of an olive-green Henley with a hole in one sleeve.
He had all the polish of a battered piece of scrap metal I might find in a junk yard—at least, if I’d ever set foot in a junk yard.
And he looked to be well over six feet, probably a good half-foot taller than me, though I’d only know for sure once he stood up.
Alphas did tend to the large, and I needed an alpha for my plan to work, but…no. He’d dwarf me if we stood next to each other, which we’d need to do all the time: at the formal mating reception, in photos, at our public appearances…and any authority I had would be eroded by the comparison between his overt alpha-ness and my lack of it.
Of course, any authority I had with members of my family or with the pack would derive from having an alpha mate in the first place. The less traditional werewolf and human employees of Castelli Industries might view me with respect—because I’d earned it. But their opinions wouldn’t matter a damn without my father’s willingness to hand over the reins.
A cold, heavy clench caught at my chest. Yeah. And if I showed up with this alpha as a mate, my father would laugh in my face.
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