Werewolf fairytales

He is annoyed

*Margaret*

I fall into my bedchamber and lean back against the closed door, my heart galloping. In a wilderness of Sundays, I never would have imagined something like this.

Fenrir has changed so much. Not even a shadow of the shy boy I’d married remains. This man has an air of danger about him that makes me feel like a rabbit in sight of a wolf: frozen, enticed.

When my father first suggested the match with the future alpha Moncrieff, I hadn’t complained. I had always known that my father would find husbands from the high packs for myself and my sisters. He had the money, and he wanted the bloodlines.

My primary feeling had been gratitude that he had chosen someone who wasn’t sixty, even though I would have preferred someone a bit older than myself, or at least my age. By the time the young beta was finally old enough to marry, I had just celebrated my twentieth birthday, and felt sophisticated and worldly in comparison. I had been taller than my fiancé, and certainly weighed more.

But now, fourteen years later, our positions are reversed. He has become a man of the world, a man whose shoulders are twice the size of mine. And I am a country she-wolf who lives at home with my three children.

This is a disaster.

There has to be some way out of the marriage.

There just has to be. He thinks I am a loose she-wolf. The idea sickens me. But what if I let him continue in that misapprehension? Surely he would not allow a love child to become the future Alpha.

A sob rises in my chest. My life, my sweet life with my darling children… That man does not fit in here. Whatever would my friends think? My neighbors? Even if they don’t discover that he had been a privateer, he is marked under the eye like a savage.

Common sense tells me that someone will inform him that I have adopted the children, so infidelity will never work as a reason to dissolve the marriage.

Tears caused by pure frustration fall onto my hands and slip between my fingers.

In a way, it is worse that he is so handsome, with such a male appeal. Even his tattoo isn’t entirely uninviting. And there is something sensual and possessive in the way he looks at me. An unwilling flicker of heat lights in my stomach, followed by a churn of nausea.

The door bursts open. “Shark says he will take us to the sea,” Colin cries, running into the room. “The sea, the sea, the sea!”

I surge to my feet, my maternal instinct sweeping all my other feelings to the side. How dare Mr. Sharkton say something of that nature to my child? Lure him into a dangerous, bloody career… indeed, if it could even be dignified with that title?

“Colin,” I say in a voice that he has rarely heard, “return to the nursery.”

Colin gapes up at me.

“Now!”

He turns around and trots away as fast as his legs will carry him.

I had instructed Mrs. Hastie, my housekeeper, to put Fenrir in the largest bedchamber. Luckily, I have never occupied it myself, but have taken the airy bedchamber closest to the nursery.

Now I march straight toward Fenrir’s room, my tears dried by pure rage.

I will fall dead before I allow my son to be lured by a couple of felons to death at sea. I throw open the door without knocking. “I must speak with you.”

My husband is at the window, staring down at the lake and the fields beyond. He turns around slowly, leaning on his cane.

For a second I just stare, as if seeing him for the first time. Fenrir is so much bigger, so much more manly than I could have imagined.

Paradoxically, the fact that he is wounded doesn’t diminish his ferocity; instead I have the feeling that I am looking at a wounded lion nursing his paw, but ready to spring at any moment.

As dangerous as he ever is.

Even his dark blond hair lends itself to that vision. Although it is cut short, it springs from his scalp like a shorn mane. I am stricken by an edgy awareness that sends a flush of heat to my face, but I straighten my backbone.

I have to protect my children.

“Hello, Margaret,” Fenrir says, as if I barge into his bedchamber every day. “May I offer you a seat?” He takes two steps toward the fireplace, leaning with his stick, and pulls forward one of the armchairs.

I sit, since it would be impolite not to. “I came to inform you that my son will never go to sea, and it is reprehensible and irresponsible of Mr. Sharkton to discuss the possibility with him.”

Fenrir leans against the back of the chair opposite me and raises an eyebrow. “Mothers make rules, but children don’t always agree.”

“Colin may be entranced by the idea of piracy now… and I regret to say that your arrival will only exacerbate that… but in time he will outgrow it.”

“What would you like him to do with his life?”

“Something safe,” I flash. “Something in England, perhaps in Bath.”

“So you see him as a merchant?”

Of course I see Colin as a member of my own class, rather than one of the High packs, whom I privately consider to be ne’er-do-wells. “Yes,” I say, keeping my gaze steady. “I would much prefer that Colin earn an honest wage, whether he owns a business or works in one.”

To my surprise, Fenrir nods. He must have seen a flicker of disbelief on my face, because he adds, quite reasonably, “You may not like the way I have earned a living, Margaret, but I assure you that I worked very hard for it. I know the value of money.”

I don’t want to think of him in a positive light. “We must discuss how we will dissolve this marriage,” I say, setting aside the topic of childrearing for the larger one. “I think it will be a relatively simple matter, since it was never consummated. I know there are provisions for that sort of thing.”

His eyes darken, and I instinctively straighten. Fenrir’s blue eyes are like a summer sky; they tell me a storm is coming. “You truly want to dissolve our marriage?” Not a trace of anger colors his voice, and his expression hasn’t changed. But…

“You needn’t be angry about it,” I say, meeting his eyes squarely.

“I am not angry.”

“You are lying to me, and I most dislike falsehoods. I would judge you furious, and without merit, I might add. I am not the one who absented myself from the country for years.”

“I apologize. You are correct. I do not wish to dissolve our marriage, and I find the idea… annoying.”

If that look in his eye is annoyance, I’d hate to be in the vicinity if he loses his temper.