Bride of the Alpha by Georgette St. Clair Page A

Camille’s happiness ahead of your own. I’m sorry, but that’s what I think.”
    I tried very hard not to get pissed off. I loved my friends, but this was starting to border on insulting.
    They were treating me like some weak, fragile, desperate moron with no self esteem.
    “Listen. You have made your feelings on this matter very clear,” I said. “I will tell you one last time that Max is not abusing me, and if he were, I would leave. Are you still staying in the area? You are, aren’t you?”
    “We’ve been camping out in the woods, yeah,” Bess shrugged. “We took some time off from work.”
    “You two need to go back to River Run. Go back to work. I will call you soon. Do not worry about me.
    Do not try to interfere. I’m an adult, I’m fine.”
    “Fine,” Corwin muttered, and stalked back to his car. Bess shot me an unhappy look, threw her arms
    around me, and hugged me.
    “I hope you’ll be all right,” she said. “Call us any time if you need extrication.”
    I nodded, and waited until they pulled out of the parking lot. Jeez. Thank God they were getting out of here before they started a full-scale war.
    I started to head in to the diner to grab some lunch, and my phone rang. It was my Aunt Prudence.
    “So, what’s new, dear?” she asked when I answered the phone.
    “Nothing. I haven’t heard from you in a while. How have you been?”
    “I should call you more often,” she said. “I’m sorry about that. Are you all right? Is everything all right with you?”
    “Why do you ask?”
    “Well, I got a call from your friends today, and…”
    I glared at Bess and Corwin’s retreating car. Great. Just great.
    “You always have a place here with us, you know,” she said.
    Thinking about it, I realized that it didn’t actually feel like that. What place would that even be? I’d stayed in a whole bunch of houses while my mother was off on her benders. If I went back to Fool’s Gold Gulch, I could crash at anyone’s house, but I’d feel like a guest, not family.
    That was why, after I graduated from college, I didn’t even think about returning to California. I found a job in Colorado, and an apartment near Bess and Corwin’s house, and slowly started letting my old ties die out.
    “Thank you,” I said, to be polite.
    “I’m worried about you, Josephine. Bess is telling me that you just up and ran off with an Alpha who’s
    an abuser. Is that true?”
    OK, now I was officially really, really pissed off. I realized I didn’t like anyone bad-mouthing Max. He didn’t deserve it. If anything, out of the two of us, I was the one who had behaved badly.
    I appreciated that Bess hadn’t told her the part about how I was protecting Camille, but this was still unacceptable.
    “No, that is inaccurate,” I said. “My friends tend to be overprotective of me. A little too much, in this case. I am married to Maxwell Battle of the Timber Valley Pack. He is not at all abusive.”
    “She told me that he left bruises on you,” Prudence said. “Our Alpha could challenge him, you know, if
    you wanted to leave the marriage and come back here.”
    I sucked my breath in sharply. Yes, there were bruises – because Maxwell and I had been engaging in
    very, very consensual kinky sex play.
    “Aunt Prudence, I grew up with you, so I don’t know if you want the details, but this has been my honeymoon weekend, and I have been having sex. Lots and lots of sex.”
    “Goodness.”
    “It is possible that I got a little banged up during sex,” I said. “That is more than I ever wanted you to know, but I am telling you so you understand, I am married to a good man and I am very happy. Maybe
    someday we’ll come out there and visit you. In the meantime, do not worry about me. If I needed help
    from my pack, I promise you, I would call you.”
    I rang off, and called up Bess, red hot with fury.
    “What the hell were you thinking?” I screamed at her. “You called up and told my pack that I was