This Dark Wolf (Soul Bitten Shifter #1) - Everly Frost Page 0,114

head high when they stop in the middle of their conversations, casting sharp glances at us.

Cody narrows his eyes at them.

“Carry on,” he says, an edge of command in his voice. He’s acting more like an alpha than an alpha-in-training and it makes me wary. Baxter Griffin might still be calling the shots, but every pack transitions at some point. Cody might be preparing to take the reins.

The guests’ conversations restart, although the stares continue, growing more intense when I sense Tristan enter the room behind us. He doesn’t come after me, heading directly to the bar instead.

“Where’s your brother?” I ask Cody as he leads me across the room, winding between tables. “I should wish him a happy birthday.” It sounds like I’m trying to be polite, but I need to know where all members of Baxter’s family are located.

Cody tips his head in the other direction. “Where the real fun is.”

I guess he means the side of the house with the thumping music.

“And what of my half-brother?” I ask, not seeing Dawson in the crowd.

“He returned to his father in the Highlands.” Cody gives me a sudden, cold smile. “He needed to lick his wounds.”

Damn. As much as I’m glad I had an impact on Dawson, I wanted to deal with him tonight, too. I even hoped my old alpha, Peter Nash, might be here.

Cody leads me through the throng to a table on the far side of the room. “You should meet my mother.”

The woman I glimpsed earlier rises from her seat. She’s wearing an elegant mermaid dress with a silver overlay that trails behind her when she moves out from behind the table. She was conversing with another woman about the same age—maybe late thirties, although it’s hard to tell since shifters age slowly once they hit their thirties—but it looks like a fake conversation.

Her attention is all on me.

She sips her drink as we approach her, her tight grip around the stem giving away her increasing tension.

“Mom,” Cody says. “I’d like to introduce Tessa Dean.” He turns from her to me. “Tessa, this is my mother, Charlotte.”

She’s shorter than me, petite, her blonde hair perfectly straight and cut to her shoulders. She casts me an overly bright smile. “Tessa. It’s lovely to meet you. Finally.”

This is the part where she says, I’ve heard a lot about you.

Instead, she says, “I hear you’re a formidable opponent.”

Her lips press together, her shoulders are tense, and her chest rises and falls a little too rapidly. I could interpret her body language in different ways, but the haunted look in her eyes gives her away.

She’s fucking afraid of me—despite being surrounded by her pack and with her son standing at my side.

If her husband has lost perspective, Charlotte seems to have a crystal clear view of my strength.

Baxter appears at her side just then, angling between us, a defensive move, his lips pulled back as he snarls at me. I guess he disagrees with his son’s decision to introduce me to Charlotte.

I expect Baxter to grab his mate and haul her out of there, but she’s the one gripping his arm, raising her eyes to his as a silent communication passes between them, after which she turns to me.

“I look forward to speaking with you more later, Tessa,” she says, her gaze flicking past me to Tristan. “Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

Baxter takes her arm, waiting for her to choose their path before he accompanies her through the room, turning himself into a visual barrier between her and Tristan.

I stare after them, my lips parted. “Are they…?”

“True mates,” Cody says, watching me carefully.

I guess I don’t hide my surprise fast enough because he says, “You’re shocked that my father has a protective bone in his body. You should be. He’s an aggressive brute. He doesn’t love anybody anymore. But he would die for my mother.”

My heart sinks a little. The death of a true mate usually results in the death of the other. I’ll be killing two shifters if I carry through with my mission tonight.

For the next hour, Cody and I make conversation. He gets me a drink—something strongly alcoholic—which I barely touch, before he whisks it away and gets me a water. He leads me to a small table in an alcove at the back of the room where we can sit without being disturbed. Like the rest of the room, the alcove is beautifully decorated with silver filigree across the walls and silver lights trailing across