Leader of the Pack (41 page)

Cullen threw Sarah a glare and took Aislinn’s hand, dragging her along with him as he headed toward the Taigh-O
è
sda.

* * * *

The atmosphere in the Taigh-O
è
sda was more sober than usual. All the waiting staff were uncertain. They had heard about the body count and the rumors about Aislinn were disturbing. Everyone had only met her within the past month. Aislinn wasn’t forthcoming about herself, and Rissa had been the only one she seemed to get close to. When Cullen and Sarah came in with Aislinn the weres all stared suspiciously, looking for signs that Aislinn was doing something to the two pack alphas. The looks were far from subtle.

They sat down and a young woman, who Aislinn knew as Marta, came over with menus. She was nervous, as she bowed her head to the three of them. She didn’t know how to respond to Aislinn. No one did. She wasn’t officially part of the pack, as far as anyone knew. But her status with Cullen was uncontested, and those who had tried to question the situation had been dealt with. No one knew if that qualified her for beta status or not. She had beaten a beta, but there was no formal challenge for her position. Meredith was still doing her job as beta and hadn’t been replaced.

Marta settled on an overall head bow. She was just an omega, after all. It was the betas who were really grousing about the situation. Their ranks seemed to be getting infiltrated. Current rumor had it that Meredith hadn’t actually lost that fight. Aislinn had used some kind of mass hypnosis to beat her, and that was why none of the normal protocol had been followed.

Cullen ordered his usual without thinking about it. Aislinn ordered a smaller version of what Cullen asked for, and Sarah opted for the steak as well. Pretty standard fare at the Taigh-O
è
sda, it was a steak house, after all. Marta bowed again and left to bring back drinks and to place the order. The relief on her face to be leaving the table was obvious.

Aislinn shifted uncomfortably in the booth. “Rafe’s influence seems to have gotten to everyone,” she said sadly.

Cullen had been hoping that she wouldn’t catch everyone’s looks or at least not interpret it all so well.

Aislinn glared at him. “I’m not blind,” she said to his train of thought.

“Okay,” he said gently. “You need to start being a little less obvious about answering me when you catch things like that. We’re going to have a little talk about exactly how much you’re really picking up on.”

Sarah looked around to see how confidential a conversation was possible. There were only a few full tables this late in the evening on a week night. The restaurant had just closed. Not that it mattered when the alpha wanted a table and dinner. He didn’t usually take advantage, but he was hungry and left-overs up stairs weren’t going to hack it.

Sarah made sure to watch for the approach of Marta or anyone else for that matter. Then she shot Cullen the disapproving stare she had been hanging onto all night. “What were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t. It’s done. Let it go, and help me figure a way to deal with it now.” His tone said that in no uncertain terms would he allow Sarah to berate him. “Besides, mom, dad already gave me that lecture. You and Keith seem to have forgotten that I’m in charge.” He felt like he was reminding people of that an awful lot lately.

“Oh I am sorry, Lord Arnauk,” Sarah said dripping with sarcasm. “I will try and remember more clearly who’s in charge in the future.”

Sarah cut the conversation as Marta appeared with water and the drinks they had ordered, beer for Cullen and red wine for the ladies. She placed the drinks uncomfortably. Marta felt the conversation stop as she approached. That would go over well in the kitchen. Aislinn watched her retreat. Marta glanced over her shoulder at the table, saw Aislinn watching her, and seemed to flinch, hurrying her steps.

“They’re all afraid of me,” Aislinn said softly. Her head was throbbing, and she wasn’t sure if it was from trying to force the premonition to come back or from the fact that she was getting so upset about the way everyone was looking at her.

“They’ll get over it, if you both stop spending so much time alone.” Then Sarah’s sarcasm returned. “Oh, but you can’t do that because you went and mated without elder approval or ceremony, and now you’ll be wanting
more
time alone. I almost forgot. All we need now is for Aislinn to go into heat.”

Cullen growled at Sarah. “Enough. I’ve got plenty to worry about. You’re supposed to be support. If you can’t handle the job--“

“I’ll be replaced?” Sarah offered, cutting him off. She sat back in her seat and stared into Cullen’s eyes, trying to read him.

Realization overcame him. It had never even occurred to him that Aislinn might replace Sarah as alpha female. Not that Sarah had anything to worry about; Cullen could feel the lack of ambition in Aislinn. All the same, it wasn’t as if he could convey that to Sarah. She was already concerned about the situation and probably had reason. No one knew how strong Aislinn had been before the change was finished. From the looks of what Rafe mixed together, Cullen was guessing tiger and leopard of some kind, Aislinn was probably more formidable than she had been before. If he took into account that she had thrashed Meredith, a beta, and wasn’t concerned in the least about dealing with Celia, then it wasn’t a far guess that she might be comparable to Sarah. With all that in mind, Cullen made a mental note to take Aislinn down to the gym and find out exactly what she was capable of. For now he just needed to come up with something to say to Sarah.

Aislinn was the one who interrupted the glaring contest. “I don’t want your job Sarah. I’ve never been the type of person who could run things. I don’t even know what you do. I’d be happy to help out and make myself more visible if that would help things. But I don’t want to have to be in charge of anything. Besides, I think that would make things worse.”

Sarah looked at Aislinn as she spoke, listening to the sincerity in her voice. Sarah sighed. She still was wavering between moments of annoyance at being replaced after all this time and moments of acceptance and thinking she should have been replaced by Cullen’s mate long ago. It wasn’t his fault that he had taken so long finding one. Her voice softened. “Aislinn, you may not want it. The best leaders never do. Whether you give yourself credit for it or not, I can see you stepping up to handle my job fairly well. There’s not as much to it as you may think. By keeping Cul on a short leash, you’re already doing part of it.” Sarah took a sip of the wine in front of her. “It’s really only a matter of time, and Cullen knows it. He never would have mated with a woman who couldn’t match him. He’s too smart for that, or at least his wolf is.”

Cullen smiled and picked up his beer. He was glad that Sarah was handling this so well, even if her reassuring lecture wasn’t sitting well with Aislinn.

Aislinn could feel his agreement with Sarah. “No. I don’t want to,” she said looking concerned. “If they all hate me now, what do you think would happen then. They can’t stand the idea that I beat up Meredith. Hell they probably think that I did something to her brain to make it possible. How do you think--“

Cullen cut her off. “Calm down. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m sure Sarah would be more than happy to just have help for a while. It’s not necessary for you to be alpha. I could have mated with an omega if I wanted.”

Aislinn’s eyes narrowed. “Then just have a toy in your bedroom all the time. Totally useless except when you get horny.”

“If that’s the job you want,” he teased.

“I don’t think so. I want to do something, but that’s not something I want people seeing as my
job
. I can already hear everyone calling me your
pussy
cat,” she groused. Sarah started laughing at that, and Cullen grinned, trying not to be amused. Their reactions earned them both deadly glares.

“Alright,” Sarah said. “Now that I’ve established that I’m still in charge for the time being, what are my current orders?” The relief in her voice and her obviously relaxed demeanor brought a new calm to Cullen as well.

“I think that first order of business is that I’ll get a hold of Jenna and thank her for the return of our people. Then I’ll call the feds and check up on the weres that were handed over to them. I want you and Keith to get a feel on the atmosphere around here. Arrange something to improve moral and includes dealing with pack doubt about Aislinn. I’ll do my best to try and keep things more public, but if they think she’s messing with my head I don’t know how much that will help. I’m going to set up a meeting with the elders for after the funeral, and I’ll deal with the mating ceremony issues. I think the only other thing would be assigning Aislinn to work with some of the others. They’ll get more comfortable with her if they meet her. Finally, as much as I hate to bring this up,” he looked at Aislinn apologetically. “Make sure everyone knows that Brinah was a druid from the same order as Rafe and, she gave her life to help us. That might help.” Cullen took another drink of his beer.

Aislinn was playing with her cup, staring at it. Feeling a strange uncertainty, Cullen watched her expectantly. “Whatever it is just ask it,” he said.

“Now who’s over-reading whom,” she snapped.

“I could have read that from anyone. Stop playing with your drink, and say whatever it is.”

There was a long pause. Sarah watched the two of them, smiling in amusement. “How strong is your bond anyway?”

Nearly choking on his beer, Cullen swallowed and wiped his mouth. “That has yet to be completely determined.” He was still wondering what Aislinn was afraid to ask. “How strong is yours? It’s been a long time since I had that part of my lycan education,” he clarified when Sarah chuckled.

“Well,” she said thinking about it. “It’s been so long since I was without Drake. I don’t really remember what it’s like to feel by myself.” She sat contemplative a moment. Both Cullen and Aislinn stared at her attentively. “We seem to have a connection that’s good for most of the territory. I can still sense him even at the reservation, but it’s weak from here. I know a couple people who have stronger links than that. I don’t know really what determines the distance allotment. Uh,” she thought some more about what he might be trying to find out. “Sometimes I pick up things that he didn’t mean to project at me, but that’s usually only when he’s projecting at someone else and angry. From the sounds of things,” she smiled, “you two go a bit beyond that.”

Cullen glared at her. He wasn’t finding it funny.

Aislinn growled. “You know, if it bothers you so much, I could always try and teach you how I blocked Rafe out. Then you could shut me off whenever you wanted.” Sarah suddenly felt like she was about to become the third wheel in a dangerous argument.

Cullen could feel the hurt coming from Aislinn. He hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings. “That’s not it,” he said gently.

“It just seems to me that everyone else around here accepts this part of mating. If you didn’t want it you shouldn’t have done it. Logically, considering that I’m the outsider here and the one who didn’t see it coming, I would have thought that I’d be the one having such a hard time adjusting.” Aislinn almost started to cry. She wanted out of here. Her head was throbbing.

Cullen breathed out heavily. This was not a conversation that should be happening in front of Sarah. It didn’t take any kind of bond for Sarah to sense the need for privacy. She shot Aislinn sympathetically and excused herself to go to the lady’s room.

Cullen reached across the table and took Aislinn’s hands. She glared at him and tried to pull them back, but he wasn’t about to let her have access to running away from him again. He knew she wanted to. Speaking very softly, he was trying to coax her into looking at him. “Piseagan, it’s not that I don’t want it. I love you with all I am. You can feel that can’t you?”

Aislinn stopped trying to pull away from him, but still wasn’t looking into his eyes. He decided a different tactic might be better. “Do you really feel so sure of yourself that you have no problem with me knowing everything that goes through your head?” Aislinn didn’t answer. Cullen smiled, knowing that she caught his point, and her answer would have been ‘no’ if she were speaking to him. “Now add to that the fact that you seem to pick up far more from me than I get from you.” She looked up at him when he said that. There was confusion in her features and he continued. “I know that I’m picking up more from you than normal bonds give the others. I can feel more reasoning behind your emotions than the others get from their mates. I know most of the others only know if their mate is happy or sad or whatever. I know you’re upset now and somehow get why you’re upset too. If that were all you were getting from me, then I don’t think I would be nearly so concerned. But you also seem to pick up on thought process as well. You answer me like I was talking. I’ve never had to censor my own head before, and I don’t think any of the others do either. How happy would you be with the situation, if our positions were reversed? You only get to know feeling and why, but I could hear you thinking.”

“I don’t know why it’s like that,” Aislinn said. “I can try not to listen,” she offered. “I mean, I could probably block it out the way I did with Rafe. But,” Aislinn hesitated, “I kind of like knowing you this well.”

“It’s certainly adding to your confidence level,” he said with raised eyebrows, thinking about how she was carrying herself, and the way she was talking to Sarah.