The Flame Trilogy (Books I, II & III)

1.07

Dimitri leads me to his office. It's a large room with a vintage finish; the floor is a wooden brown matching the oak tables all polished to perfection. At the far end of the room is a large mahogany desk with a matching wooden desk seat. Large panel windows lay behind them both overlooking the back of the pack house.

The walls of the office are lined with shelves, packed with books, there's even a spiral staircase leading to a second floor which I assume has even more bookshelves. In front of the table is a light grey sofa and a smaller coffee table. There are a few more chairs dotted around the room, all fitting with the style and colour scheme of the room.

Dimitri invites me to sit on the sofa whilst he sits down at his desk, I kindly decline. He watches me as I walk around the room observing the spines of the books, appreciating the organized design.

"You should be in trouble for your stunt this afternoon, but considering that you've neither done anything wrong and managed to impress me I'll let it go." Dimitri's deep baritone shatters the quiet that previously surrounded us. The sound fills the empty space with a softness that I would never expect from someone like him; it sends a new kind of feeling through me, and I'm slightly flattered. "But the last thing I need is for you to start trouble in my pack."

"Maybe if you treated your pack bitches equal to the males, then it wouldn't start trouble." I shrug nonchalantly.

He opens his mouth to argue but doesn't get the chance as the large brown doors to the office open. In stroll the three large men that seem to follow Dimitri everywhere. The men incline their heads in respect and subservience to their Alpha.

Immediately, whatever softness that Dimitri had been previously showing vanishes, his stoic 'Alpha' face replacing it. His muscles clench, shoulders squaring, chest puffing out in a display of his impressively large frame. I can also feel the small waves of Alpha influence rolling off his body steadily.

"Glad that you could finally join us." He nods to his men in respect to them, though it is more affectionate than anything else.

All their influence pushes into the room in a huge show of dominance, it might've been overwhelming if I was anything else. The power being exuded from these men is enough to send any normal wolf staggering to their knees, with a pounding headache. One would assume that I must've been intimidated in a room filled with such large men, testosterone and dominance. However, I rather felt quite at home though it is unfamiliar having them doubt me so.

"My mate was upset over something you said to her," Mikhail accuses after a moment of tense silence.

"I said nothing more than the truth, but if she has a problem with anything I said then she can address it with me herself." I tell him, not unkindly. The matter of fact tone seems to take him aback a moment, his anger dissipating as he looks at me with a new look on his face.

There is another moment of tense silence, as if the other men are waiting for Dimitri to berate me for my response. I turn to him myself, daring him to say something just so that I can snap right back; like a cobra coiling itself getting ready to strike.

"It hasn't escaped my notice that you didn't share the Alpha-female's name..." Viktor breaks the silence when he realises that Dimitri isn't going to say anything. His voice trails off as if waiting for Dimitri to give him the answer he's looking for. It's more than slightly irksome that he is asking Dimitri, as though he somehow has power over me, instead of asking me directly.

Both Dimitri and Alexei physically tense, in anger and discomfort respectively at Viktor's fishing. I remember their reactions to hearing my 'name' the first time and hardly doubted that they would want to hear it again. Their reaction also makes me slightly insecure; where I have never batted an eyelash before, suddenly I feel as though that tag that I had been given isn't fit to be deemed a name.