his ear and squinting into the cellar as if he could see who called. “Yeah?”
“It’s O’Shea,” a rough voice said.
Dodge’s eyes narrowed and he sat up slowly. Why the fuck was Rafe O’Shea calling him? Had something happened to Persephone? “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine,” O’Shea said. He’d called once or twice over the previous few weeks, mostly to give status updates to Evershaw, but him calling Dodge was new. The wolf alpha’s voice held a strange, unknown tension. “Stopped by to see her today. She’s doing okay, though she looks thin and might have some kind of cold. Have Mercy check on her tomorrow.”
Dodge tensed. Something else was going on. “You were there? You saw her? Why were you at her apartment?”
He hated the idea of another male – even one happily mated to his own soul-mate – being near Persephone, particularly if she wasn’t feeling well.
O’Shea grumbled but answered, as if he sensed why it drove Dodge crazy. “Meadow wanted to invite her to dinner. So we did. Percy said she would think about it and might come over later this week. She said...”
The wolf alpha hesitated and Dodge’s hackles rose. The bastard wasn’t telling him something. He ground his teeth until agony ignited in his temples and Silas sat up in alarm. “What did she say?”
The silence stretched until Dodge had to swallow a howl of rage. Finally, O’Shea said, “She said she might want to join our pack. To join BloodMoon.”
Growling drowned out whatever else O’Shea might have tried to say, and Dodge felt the wolf clawing at his control. No. Persephone would not join a different pack. If she joined a pack, it would be his pack. At his side. With him.
“Shut up, asshole, and let me finish,” O’shea barked. “For fuck’s sake. She asked, I gave her my contact information and told her she was always welcome. I know – would you just stop fucking growling for a second – I know she’s your mate and I know you want her with you, but if she wants to join my pack, the door is fucking open. Doesn’t matter what you say or do, man. We’ll protect her. And if she doesn’t want to be around you, then it’s better she’s with BloodMoon than on her own.”
Dodge didn’t believe him. Persephone needed to be with him. The wolf kept snarling, even after O’Shea called him an asshole again and hung up. Not even the rest of the bottle of whiskey helped calm the beast. Dodge paced and growled as his thoughts whirled. Cricket weaseled his way down the stairs and hopped onto the futon next to Silas, trying to snuggle up to the wolf – who sneezed on the cat and nosed him away over and over. Cricket kept circling back around until Silas gave up and let himself be used as a pillow, though he kept his attention on Dodge.
Dodge still couldn’t process what O’Shea had said when the cellar door opened and Todd stuck his head in. His expression darkened when he saw Dodge, and the second’s voice reached him as a bark. “It smells like shit down here. Go get cleaned up. We’re having guests for dinner and Deirdre said you’re going to sit there and be nice. She doesn’t want you hiding in the basement like a troll.”
He growled in response. The words wouldn’t form in his throat when the wolf was so close to the surface.
Todd’s eyes narrowed and he advanced a few steps to peer more closely at Dodge. “Don’t tell me you’re starting this again. Do I need to get Evershaw down here to straighten you out?”
“No,” Dodge muttered. He reined in the wolf as much as he could, but he didn’t get up from his futon. He didn’t trust his legs or his balance enough to get up in front of Todd. “I’ll be upstairs in a minute. I’ll behave.”
“See that you do.” Todd gave him one last long look, then trudged upstairs and shouted at someone else about washing the dishes and using a tablecloth for once.
Dodge scowled into the half-light after the cellar door thudded shut. He glanced at the whiskey bottle, but put it back on the shelf. There was time to finish it later, after dinner, when he could be alone again. He traded a look with Silas, who rolled his eyes and did his best to ignore as the cat purred and kneaded his paws into Silas’s back, and finally started trying to