Single Wolf Female (Midnight Liaisons) by Jessica Sims Page B

gurgling, into-everything baby who still couldn’t quite transform into wolf form in her hands. Any eight-month-old was a handful. A werewolf baby? Double the handful.
    But Trina had looked at me with such big, pleading eyes and the others had been so quick to agree that I’d caved.
    And now I was going to dinner…with the Alliance. Ugh. And I wasn’t nervous. I wasn’t.
    I’d even worn jeans and a t-shirt just to prove how not-seriously I was taking this. But seeing cute, adorably soft human Bathsheba again? Kind of made me a little anxious, especially since my face looked like a punching bag.
    It had been almost a day since I’d last seen Roscoe and true to my wolf nature, my face was healing faster than a normal human’s would. My eye wasn’t swollen anymore; now it was just ringed with a dark blue bruise, ringed with green. There were healing cuts on my cheeks, and another equally vivid bruise on my throat.
    Went well with my dark hair, I figured.
    We headed into the restaurant, and Jackson’s hand automatically went around my waist, drawing me close to him. Like we were a couple. It startled me at first, and when he flashed a smile my way, I relaxed. Something about Jackson being a little possessive of me felt good, even when I looked like hell.
    The small mom and pop diner wasn’t crowded. I figured it had something to do with the fact that it was the middle of the week, later at night, and the Little Paradise Cafe wasn’t exactly a hotspot to begin with. But it was close, and local, and ran by a family of were-badgers. They weren’t great with service, being a rather surly breed, but Jackson wanted to support local shifter businesses, and apparently so did Beau and Bathsheba.
    I smelled Bathsheba’s scent as soon as we walked in - human female, covered by the thick scent of a feline. I wrinkled my nose, the wolf in me not a fan of cat smells. Jackson pinched my side, reminding me to be diplomatic, and I pretended to rub my nose, as if warding off a sneeze.
    They were seated at a back table, Bathsheba with her long, smooth pale ponytail and demure cardigan set, seated next to a larger man with big shoulders, short, immaculately groomed hair and a pressed shirt with an open collar. They looked like any nice, white collar couple, and it was obvious from the way his hand rested on the back of her chair that they were together. The mate mark on her neck was stark, and she leaned in close to him absently while he whispered something in her ear.
    I felt an envious pang at the sight of their coziness. It seemed unfair for a human to have it so very easy when it came to mating. Just show up somewhere and be attracted to someone and boom, magic would happen. Nothing like the schemes and pack machinations of werewolves.
    Still, pack machinations had brought me Jackson, so I couldn’t be entirely ungrateful. I stole a look at the sexy man at my side and felt a bit of possessive pride of my own.
    Bathsheba looked up as we approached the table…and paled. Her gaze went to my face. “Alice?”
    Oh no. I didn’t want to get the tenth degree from her. I smiled tightly and thumped into my seat. “Hiya. How’s it going?”
    “Great,” she said in a slow voice, putting her menu down. Her wide-eyed gaze flicked from my face and then to Jackson’s as he sat across from her husband. “I want you both to meet my husband, Beau Russell. He’s the head of the Alliance.”
    Beau offered his hand across the table to Jackson, and then to me, and we shook. His manner seemed brusque and cool. Not exactly the reception I’d been expecting from someone that wanted to court wolf packs into their little club. “Nice to meet you both,” Beau said, tone clipped. “How are things going?”
    “As well as can be expected,” I said lightly. “A few kinks here and there to be worked out.”
    “Kinks,” Bathsheba repeated, blinking her eyes rapidly. She looked over at Beau. “I see.”
    “Typical wolf pack dominance issues,”