CHAPTER 22

An overwhelming need to pee woke Angelina. The rays of moonlight peeking through the curtains had been replaced by sunlight, telling her it was early morning. Her intention to stretch was inhibited by the tanned, muscly arm and leg belonging to the wolf behind her, both of which were draped over her as if to trap her there. She smiled at that. Then her smile widened as she recalled being woken a few times in the night. Yeah it could be said that they had engaged in a sexual marathon. Jasson was insatiable and had impressive stamina, even for a shifter.

Having wriggled out from under his hold, she went to answer the call of nature. She found herself staring longingly at the luxurious tub – a hot bath sounded fabulous…but her rumbling stomach had other ideas.

A few minutes later she was dressed and heading through the damn network of tunnels. The familiar black door that led to the kitchen wouldn't be too hard to find; she could just follow the scents of meat and eggs and hot toasted bread. The chattering stopped as she entered and five strange faces looked at her curiously, though they didn't seem surprised to see her. Obviously word had gotten out about Jasson having finally brought her here.

As simple as this moment was, it was also pivotal. Her stay here wasn't going to be a pleasant one. Her being Leon Wilgoz's daughter would be enough to make some wolves give her a hard time. It wouldn't matter that her mating with Jasson might ultimately aid their cause. She was still a Wilgoz and there was no way any of them would want to answer to her. Also, the fact that she was latent meant that some people would regard her in the same way that Brodie did – a freak of nature, an easy target, someone who didn't even count as a shifter. They would test her patience and strength, and make her stay here difficult.

As such, there were a few ways she could handle her first few moments in their pack. One, she could present them with a dazzling smile and introduce herself needlessly, hoping to win them over with a friendly attitude. Two, she could act aloof, distant, and ignore any attempts to goad her. Or three, she could just be her usual ray of sarcastic fucking sunshine and tell anyone who pushed her to go eat shit.

A bigger person would have gone with option two, but, well, she was a bitch. So she decided to go with number three. "Look, I'm not much of a morning person because I tend to sleep through it so if you're hoping to piss me off then proceed with extreme caution. We'll get along just fine though if you don't treat me any differently than you would a princess." With that, she nodded at the stunned faces and hopped up onto the countertop.

The plump brunette who had been pouring coffee for the others then approached her. "You must be Angelina," she said, smiling. "I'm Grace. I cook, clean and say 'shit' a lot."

"Ah, someone who speaks my language."

She gestured at the dining table where croissants, toasted bread, bacon, scrambled eggs, baked beans, sausages, platters of cold meat, various fruits, and cereals were all laid out. "The wolf over there with the glasses and the goatee who's the epitome of geeky, that's my mate Rhett. The Bill Clinton lookalike is Brock, a cousin of Jasson's dad. The guy next to him with the spiky blonde hair and the baby face is Cam. And the unfairly gorgeous female opposite him with the unfairly great legs is Cam's mate, Lydia."

"Stop mooning over my mate's legs, Grace," groused Cam playfully before shovelling half a croissant in his mouth.

"You're like a little doll," said Lydia, smiling at Angelina. She was the only one other than Grace who had a smile for her. "No one would ever think you had such a smart, awesome mouth."

"Coffee, tea, or orange juice?" asked Grace while Angelina took one of the empty plates and piled bacon, scrambled eggs and toasted bread on it.

"Coffee." Plate in hand, she parked her ass back on the counter. At Grace's amused but questioning look, she shrugged. "I always sit on the counter. A little quirk of mine."

Grace's gaze skimmed over her, taking in the various marks of possession that decorated her flesh. "Well, short of having 'Property of Jasson Alex' tattooed on your forehead, he couldn't have made it any clearer that he considered you his, could he?"

Very true. In addition to those marks that Jasson had left while they consummated the claiming, there were those that he had made during the second, third and fourth rounds that followed through the night. There was a bite at the hollow of her throat, another on her inner wrist, a third one on the swell of her breast, and also claw marks on both upper arms – and they were only the ones that weren't hidden beneath her black t-shirt, navy jeans, and black leather knee boots.

And what had Jasson's response been when she told him that he may have overdone it a little with the marking? A shrug followed by a very smug grin.

Maybe it would be fair to say that if she hadn't fought him so hard on the issue of belonging to him then she wouldn't be in this state. Yeah, but that only applied to the first time. After that, she had conceded belonging to him as his mate, although she had snarled at him with every concession. He hadn't had any need to keep it up.

She wondered if maybe the drive behind it had been that he had sensed that her admission was only half-hearted. Once she had belonged to someone and when he had been taken from her it nearly killed her, even though they had never mated. As it was, Jolie had taken a chunk of her with him when he died. And that was okay, because that was his chunk to take. But she wouldn't give that much of herself to another person again. Her soul wouldn't survive the loss a second time as there wouldn't be enough of her left to allow her to live. She would simply exist, breathing in and out and in and out, but nothing more. And this was a male who she would lose – that was a sure thing. So, yeah she would belong to Jasson on a physical level, but no more than that.