Free Bride of the Alpha by Georgette St. Clair Page B

have to call her to find out what the hell happened. Seriously, Max, Peter had no idea that I was getting married.
    You know how last minute all of this was,” I said.
    I pulled my cell phone out of my pocketbook.
    He grabbed it from me. “No, you don’t.”
    “Excuse me?” I said, outraged.
    “I have had enough of being treated with disrespect by those two troublemakers. He showed up at my
    gate and made me look like a fool. I am within my rights to issue Peter a death challenge, do you realize that?”
    I swallowed hard. He was indeed within his rights.
    “I do realize that, and I’m really, really sorry this happened. If you challenge him, Max, you would be killing an innocent wolf. I don’t know how he ended up here, but I swear to you he had no idea I was
    married. I mean, nobody does. My family doesn’t even know.”
    I reached out to grab my cell phone back, and he tossed it to the floor and stomped it to pieces.
    “How dare you?” I yelled.
    “As long as you are a member of my pack, you will not speak to those two again,” he said, and turned
    and walked towards his truck.
    “You can sleep by yourself tonight, you Neanderthal!” I yelled at his retreating back.
    “With pleasure!” he yelled back. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go tell a wolf that he’s not
    going to be going on any dates with my wife!”
    Thank God I was missing out on that conversation, I thought, wincing. I imagined it would involve a
    lot of groveling and apologies on Peter’s part, and a lot of growled threats on Max’s part. I also imagined Peter was going to be one very, very angry wolf.
    That made two of us. I had to get ahold of Bess as soon as I could, to rip her a new one. She could have gotten Max killed. If Max had been the same kind of Alpha that Kray was, than Peter would already be
    dead.
    I watched Max climb into his pickup truck and drive off. Great. Married two days, and already we were
    sleeping in separate bedrooms, I thought ruefully.
    I went back in to the house, picked another bedroom, and locked myself in. Max didn’t try to come talk
    to me when he got back. Fine with me, I thought furiously.
    I waited until I heard him leave again that evening, went into the kitchen and grabbed some cold cuts
    and a glass of milk, and took it to my room. I spent the night alone, tossing and turning fitfully in my room.
    In the morning when I woke up, I heard his truck pulling away. I looked out the window. Sunrise. He
    couldn’t wait to get away from me.
    Well, that was a short honeymoon, I thought to myself. At least he’d dropped the façade that he liked
    me and wanted to spend time with me. It should make it easier to leave when the time came.
    Somehow, that thought offered me no comfort at all.
    I went into the kitchen to find that he’d left a pot of fresh coffee for me. I was kind of hoping for a note saying that he was incredibly sorry, and he’d been an ass, but there was nothing.
    Fine, I thought, as I sipped my coffee. So here I was sleeping in a house with a man who already
    couldn’t stand me, no cell phone, no car, and if I left the compound and went home, I would be risking my best friend’s life.
    Sad, angry, and disappointed, I decided to walk down the road into the main family compound. I wore
    the tie dye dress again, since the only clothing I had with me was the few outfits that had been dropped off for me by Lance.
    The main compound area was a collection of houses and buildings, all in rustic style, with a lot of log and flagstone construction. There was one huge house up on the hill, where Max’s mother, father, and
    siblings lived. They would most likely live there until they started families of their own.
    The other houses belonged to cousins, aunts, and uncles, or to other families who were members of the
    pack.
    Some of the buildings were set aside for things like canning and preserving, or preparing meat. There
    were chicken coops, and neatly laid out vegetable gardens and