Wolf or Love

“Speaking of dirty chat up lines,” drawled Ray as he turned to Danica, wearing that all too familiar wicked grin. When she shook her head, warning him to keep it to himself, he sighed. “I can’t help it. I love your hair, your eyes, and your smile. Hell, I love every bone in your body. Want to add one more?” As usual, Gio hit him.

“Don’t worry about James, Danica.” Donny patted her stomach gently.

“I’ll teach the little guy in there the art of flirting so that he never has to use those lines.”

“I’ll teach him how to throw a ball,” declared Duda. “And how to drive.”

“That’s nice and all,” said Hudson, “but you know I’m going to be his favorite uncle, right?”

“Um, hello,” said Danica. “The baby could be a ‘her’, you know.” They all gave her sympathetic looks as if they pitied her for even thinking something they perceived to be dumb. She might have scowled at them if, to Danica’s astonishment, the old crone hadn’t suddenly approached wearing a genuine smile. Just like that, Gio, Duda, and the enforcers formed a wall in

front of her. Oh dear God, was she going to have to put up with this overprotectiveness for the entire five months of the pregnancy? It certainly looked like it.

“I’m not going to hurt her.”

Nobody moved to let her pass.

“She and I might not always see eye to eye, but that’s my greatgrandchild in there.”

Their expressions said that wasn’t relevant.

Sighing, Danica hopped up onto the counter behind her. Immediately Gio spun to face her. “Be careful jumping around like that.”

Danica double blinked. “Oh my God, you’ve got to be kidding me.

Chill, Wright . Michey, I need one of your magical coffees.”

“No, no coffee,” said Michey. “Caffeine’s not good for you during pregnancy.” As Michey then rambled on about all the other things Danica

wouldn’t be able to drink or eat, she felt her mood plummet.

“You look tired, baby. Want me to take you back to bed?”

She looked at him in sheer disbelief. “No, I don’t. None of you get to treat me like an invalid – let’s just clear that up right now.”

“It’s great to have some good news for a change,” said Gary with a smile. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been around any pups.” He turned to Max. “Well, son, aren’t you going to congratulate our Alphas?”

Max said nothing. Just sat next to an equally mute Cindy looking kind of…defeated.

“She’s pregnant?” hissed Theresa. “Oh. Great. Not only are we stuck with her, but we’ve got Hart blood polluting our pack!”

“Theresa,” growled Gio, more protective of Danica than ever before.

“Twelve weeks you said she’d be here! Twelve weeks! Then you try telling us she’s your true mate! I’ve waited for you to see the truth, waited for you to see that you’re wrong and she’s just fooling you so she can be Alpha fe -”

“You know, Theresa,” began Danica, interrupting her mid rant, “you’re behaving like a drug crazed bitch. Seriously, pursuing you’re mated Alpha is insane and suicidal. It really is time to get off the ‘Theresa Gets Whatever She Wants’ plane and accept the facts. I am Gio’s mate, I am Alpha female here, and you don’t have a prayer of changing that. We’ve got enough things to worry about so stop with your tantrum or I’ll have to do what I like to call making my point in a way that no

one can misinterpret. Others might refer to it as breaking your fucking nose.”

“That wouldn’t be so bad,” said Michey, sounding hopeful. Theresa refused to drop the matter. “Gio, how can you not see her for what she really is? Everything was fine here until she came along.”

Reminding himself that hitting females wasn’t a good thing, Gio released his frustration with a long exhale. “Well if you’re so unhappy, feel free to leave. In fact, you’re more than welcome to leave with Kevin tomorrow after the challenge. If there’s anything left of him. I can’t guarantee there will be.”

“M-maybe I will l-leave,” she replied, seeming to be truly shocked that Gio would choose Danica over her. Why? “Maybe Cindy and I w-will startConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

our own p-pack.”

“I never said anything about Cindy. If she wants to leave, she can…but it won’t be because you bullied her into it.”

Predictably, Theresa stormed out of the room wearing the scowl from hell. For once, Cindy didn’t follow her, making her loyalties clear. Max, too,

remained where he was. Danica spent the next few hours being fussed over by almost the entire

pack. She was nicely placed on the reclining end of the humungous sofa with a mug of hot milk and a pack of cookies while Donny massaged her shoulders and Ray massaged her feet, then she was thinking it was good to be a pregnant Alpha.

Then Gio had to go and mess it up. “I want you to stay here while I go to meet Carrick about the challenge.” They had notified her father yesterday

via the pack web about the challenge and arranged a meeting for this morning.

She sat up straight in the recliner. “Oh hell no!”

“Baby, don’t fight me on this. You know it’s a good idea for you to remain home where you’ll be protected.”

“Alpha pairs deal with issues together, they go to meetings together.”

“It’s different now. You need to be careful, you’re having our baby.”God, it was weird saying that, but not in a bad way, which made it even weirder.

“Oh please, you’d have said the same damn thing if I hadn’t been pregnant. You don’t get to use our baby as an excuse to keep me cooped up here. We both know that’s exactly what you’re doing.”

He tilted his head, conceding that. “Okay. So I would have said the same thing no matter what. It’s only because I want you safe. I don’t like you

being near your father, even if he does seem to have a new found respect for you.” She just stared at him, completely unmoved. “Danica, you’ve got no idea just how protective and possessive my wolf is feeling right now. He’s not going to cope well with you being around strangers, and he’s really not going to like you being around a wolf who has repeatedly hurt you.”

“So now your wolf is getting the blame?”

“Danica,” he groaned. “Your father isn’t going to be the only Alpha male there. He’s also bringing along ten very powerful Alphas from his collection of alliances. Ten wolves I don’t know or trust. Then there’ll also be whatever enforcers or bodyguards they each decide to bring along. That’s a lot of strange wolves. Is it really so unreasonable to ask you to stay here where you’ll be away from them? Is it really so unreasonable to want you to stay away from any possible danger?” She didn’t answer, just continued to stare at him blankly. “Danica, are you even listening to me?”

“I pretended to, so let that be enough.”

“He has a point though, Danica,” said Chris.

She raised an eyebrow at the traitor. “If I want your opinion, I’ll kick it out of you, okay?”

When Chris went to speak again, Duda put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. “You should know by now that when she’s smiling like that

it’s not a good sign and best to leave her alone.”

Suddenly Michey appeared and placed a glass in her hand. “Here, drink this. You need plenty of nutrients and lots of folic acid in your diet so -”

Danica grimaced. “What the hell is that?” “Fruit juice.”

“Really? Strange. Because it looks like vomit.”

“Michey, will you tell her it’s best to stay behind,” said Gio. “It’s not a good idea for her to be going to stressful meetings while she’s pregnant.”

Danica poked him in the chest. “Oh no, Wright , you don’t get to drag Michey into this. I am going to this meeting.”

“Don’t make me have to lock you in our room.” He was expecting an outburst. What he got was a smile. Duda was right, it only meant bad things

when she smiled like that.

“Try it if you feel you must. But just remember this: I know where you sleep, I know where the grater is, and I know it’ll cause you a hell of alot of pain if it makes contact with your cock. Don’t think I won’t do it. I know I can heal you afterwards so my conscience won’t interfere.” Her smile widened when he emitted a low growl. He was still growling twenty minutes later when they left for the meeting. Danica probably shouldn’t have found it so amusing, but she did – much like a smiling Duda who seemed to find humor in every dispute his Alpha’s had. As Gio was in overprotective mode, he had wanted to bring all six enforcers so they had taken his gold, nine seater, GMC Yukon XL. When fifteen minutes later his mood hadn’t improved, she finally snapped. “Will you stop with the growling! If you really must brood then do it quietly.”

“This isn’t brooding, baby, this is me so unbelievably pissed I’m considering just taking my chances with the grater and having Duda drive you back home.”

“Duda knows better than that.”

The Beta winced. “Yeah, I’d kind of like to keep my foreskin.”

Gio sighed at her. “Pain in my ass.”

“Pain in your cock if you try sending me home.”

And so the growling continued.