“About tomorrow.” Raleigh took a deep breath. He knew Kingston wasn’t going to like what he was about to say, but he felt it was time to speak, and that he was right. “Another thing we need to do tomorrow is tell Andorra who and what we really are. We need to show her we’re shape-shifters, transform for her, explain about the pack, and then tell her about mates. If she’s to be our mate we have to be completely honest with her so she can make an informed choice. We can’t really know if she’s the one for us until she’s aware of the true facts. Only then can we deepen the relationship and be sure she’s ours.”
“I can’t expose the pack to such a huge risk. What if she goes back to the outside world and denounces us in the press all over the country? Our business would be bankrupt in the blink of an eye and then how would the pack survive?”
“That’s not going to happen and you know it. For a start, I don’t believe she’d do anything like that. But secondly, we’ve checked her background and she hasn’t got the power or connections to expose us even if she wanted to. Any newspaper journalist or television reporter would come to us for our side of the story and we’d be able to stop the program in its tracks. People who know who we are have as much to lose as we do by any wild rumors getting out into the world,” said Raleigh.
Kingston jumped to his feet. “What if that’s been her plan all along? To get us to expose ourselves so she can milk us for hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the secret. Shit, we’d be paying blackmail to shut her up for the rest of our lives. She might be equally happy to marry me, or to be bribed to go away. Either way she still makes a shitload of money. Our money.”
“Fuck it, Kingston, get over yourself will you? You’re sounding even more paranoid than you usually are. Yes, the pack has money, and yes, you’re an eligible bachelor, but you’re acting like you’re Obama’s firstborn son, or a fucking prince of the royal blood or something.”
“Barack Obama has two daughters, not a son, and Prince William is already married with a kid, not a bachelor.”
“Don’t be so anal and legalistic. The other prince then. Whatever his name is. You know what I’m saying. You put your pants on one leg at a time every day just like the rest of us. The whole world is not trying to marry you or rip off the pack. Take a chill pill. We will never know if she’s our mate if we don’t trust her and tell her the truth.”
Raleigh put his heart and soul into the last few words. He knew Andorra was theirs. Their mate. Their one and only perfect match. But making Kingston admit it was proving tougher than he’d thought.
Kingston’s black eyes drilled into his heart. “I’ll agree to this. Tomorrow we’ll play a dungeon scene with Andorra. Then I’ll ask her to trust us. I’ll lock her in her room with a challenge to complete. If—and only if—she passes the challenge we’ll tell her about being wolves and about mates. Agree?”
Raleigh stared right back at him. “The challenge will be fair.” It was not a question, but a statement. Kingston might be a grumpy, dominating shit at times, but he was honest.
“The challenge will be fair. But when she finds out what it is, she might turn tail and run for her home instead of attempting it.”
“If she does that it’ll prove she’s not our mate. And not the woman I believe her to be,” said Raleigh.
Chapter Five
It took Kingston several hours the next day to plan the scene he wanted to do with Andorra. It had to push her to the limits, but it also had to give her enormous pleasure. He needed to push Raleigh as well. Raleigh was getting too damn fixated on Andorra and there was no guarantee at all she was who she said she was as yet. Just because he hadn’t been able to find out anything against her didn’t mean it wasn’t there, just hidden so deep he couldn’t find it himself. For a moment Kingston considered calling in his IT guru, York, to begin an in-depth search about her, but that could wait. He would talk to York later, though. It was something he should have thought about already. Dammit, his brains were in his dick lately.
He wondered if Andorra would complain about being locked in her room again. Would she be happy enough watching television all day? Or was she the kind of person who would like something to do? He got out his old laptop, one that had no modem to connect to the internet, but which had quite a few games loaded in it. Then he went to his desktop computer and found his e-book collection and transferred a random dozen of the books onto the laptop. Right. That should keep her happy. Some books to read and games to play. But no Internet. He didn’t want her researching him if she hadn’t done it already.