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I fell into his somber eyes and sighed. “Yeah. He just—rubs me up the wrong way. Being all alpha.”
“Takes one to know one, baby.” His eyes burned with appreciation. “It’s natural to have some teething issues when two dominants are circling each other’s territory. Don’t mistake his alpha cool for not giving a fuck. He cares more than he can afford to let on.”
“I’ll try to remember that when he next pisses me off.”
“You do that,” Mongrel chuckled as he drew my fingers up to bite gently on my thumb. I shivered.
“Get to it everyone,” Viola hollered cheerfully, causing me to jerk back to reality.
Yeah, this pub was still a shithole. Still, with a little elbow grease me and my people would set it to rights. After all, we had a business to run and dues to pay.
Viola brandished her toilet brush and cleaning supplies like they were a sword and shield from the corridor that led to the bathrooms. “I want the muck cleared out of this place by lunchtime so we can start on giving this old girl a facelift.”
She turned, waving her toilet brush in the air, and charged at the first swinging door.
“For our freedom!”
A cheer went up around me and everyone put their backs into their assigned tasks. A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. Viola was a hoot—a little too enthusiastic about doing war on a woefully neglected bathroom, if you asked me—but a hoot all the same.
I swiped a notepad and a pen from under the counter then turned to eyeball the liquor on the display shelves. My dull rage returned. Mongrel stepped in behind me, sneaking his hands around my waist and tugging me close to his chest as a disgusted growl left my throat.
“What now, little alpha?” he murmured against the shell of my ear, causing a shiver to run down my spine.
“That fucker drank all my best liquor.”
“I promise to break his other hand if I get the chance.”
“Good plan. And chop off his nuts while you’re at it. Nobody wants little Victors running round Chaos Valley, trust me.”
“Now I know why Grimm gets you all worked up,” he rumbled, lustily. “Do the stocktake, my mate, then we’ll put in an order for the essentials. Make sure it arrives in time for your grand reopening.”
“Found it!” Silver cried, holding his nose with one hand and carrying something furry out from the stockroom by the tail. “I think it was a ‘coon.”
“Let’s hope not,” muttered Zero, one of the brothers who was helping the prospects move furniture out onto the street. He ducked into Viola’s bathroom and came back out with a mop and bucket, shooting a shy smile at Robbie as they both started cleaning the floors. Robbie scrubbed, the MC member mopped. “Those things are feral. And run in large families.”
“Just like wolves, then,” Silver quipped as he returned from disposing of the racoon.
This time, his arms were loaded for bear. He had his own bucket, some high-powered disinfectant spray, window-cleaner, and an assortment of washcloths, brushes and sponges. I stepped to the side as he barreled toward the counter of the bar, looking determined.
I chuckled. That was a man on a mission to clean. Probably so he could dish out some well-deserved drinks to our work party.
I let my gaze run over the industrious group as they put their heart and soul into their simple tasks. There was a new gleam in their eyes. A happy chatter as they worked. The odd laugh, the odd teasing whine. An eye roll here and there. Just a bunch of people making the best of what they got while looking to build a brighter future.
34
JUST A FEW MORE MINUTES
Grimm
Um, I was doing it again. Stalking my woman.
Since Sasha and her crew had left that morning, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. The look on her face as she’d snatched those keys off the table was everything. My wolf had puffed up in pride to have played a small part in putting that smile there.
It was the look of a woman who hadn’t even dared to dream that such a boon could fall in her lap. But the ferocious gleam in her eye told the whole world that she planned to take this opportunity and make it her own. Then, the shy smile which followed—the one she bestowed upon her two mates as they congratulated her—had me tearing up.
How? How could one woman be such a fierce leader one moment and then flip into a tender-hearted lover the next? Gods, how I wished she would share such a look with me.
I hadn’t been able to concentrate. My work was piling up in my office and my animal didn’t give a flying fuck. He’d been swinging wildly between mooning over that sweet smile and scraping up my insides all morning. The big snarly beast inside had practically begged me to nip down into town to check on them. Just to make sure everything was going smoothly on our mate’s first day back at her family’s pub.
