Borrowed Beauty

Dear Readers, This story is rated for mature adults. It will include explicit scenes of s*x, violence, and some drug references, as well as concepts of polyamory. I am placing this notice at the beginning of the book because I will NOT be placing trigger warnings on individual chapters. I believe trigger warnings take away from the overall reading experience for general readers. So I will tell you upfront, if you are a sensitive person, this book is not for you. For everyone else, buckle up, it's going to be a wild ride! ~Maureen OLIVIA “But Dad,” I whined like a child despite my twenty-two years of age, “I don’t want to go!” My father tried to nail me with his alpha stare, which was made even more intense by his bushy eyebrows and the annoyed, vertical wrinkle above his nose. Not that the stare ever worked on me. “Olivia, can you stop being so selfish and think of your sister for once?” This was standard step-into-my-office talk. If we were going to have a conversation in my dad’s study it was almost certainly going to go down like this. The fact that he was sitting in his massive leather chair behind his expansive yellow-wood desk, and I was sitting significantly lower, in the armless wooden chair he always brought in from the dining room, did nothing to help the matter. It was like I was sitting in time-out. I stifled a sigh. As far as I was concerned, there were already plenty of people in the world thinking about my sister. Although we were twins, Renee had made it out of the v****a twenty-seven minutes before I had made my appearance, and that made her the eldest. Birth order is a big deal to werewolves, especially when your father is the alpha. Being first-born made Renee the heir to the pack “throne”, so to speak. She’d been treated like a princess her whole life. Meanwhile, being the secondborn meant…absolutely nothing. I was like a spare, just in case. An understudy to the lead actress in the play, even though I knew full well I was never going to take the stage. And I was cool with that, really. Who wanted that responsibility? Not me! I also didn’t want the responsibility of babysitting my “elder” sister while she went to visit her possible future mates. That’s right, mates, plural. Because apparently, one is not enough. This duo was a set of twins from Prosperity Springs that Renee had met briefly at some conference last month that I hadn’t been invited to. They must have hit it off pretty well because, not even a week later, the brothers had formerly invited Renee to come to meet them for a visit of unspecified duration. Father often sent me along with Renee to keep things from getting out of control. She can be a bit of a wild child. But we are twenty-two now, and we are legal adults. I don’t think it's necessary for me to play chaperone anymore. Unless…I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. Unless my father was trying to pass us off as a package deal. A two-for-one, twin-on-twin special. The idea made me throw up in my mouth a little bit. All the more reason not to go. I wasn’t interested in finding a mate, or two, or five, or whatever. And those guys weren’t going to be interested in Renee’s spare. It would just be an embarrassing situation for everyone involved. Did I fail to mention that Renee and I are, emphatically, NOT identical twins? We look nothing alike. She’s gorgeous, petite, delicate, and feminine. All she has to do is blink her big blue eyes, and the world falls at her feet. Yeah, she wears contacts, folks, her eyes are really more hazel than blue. And me? I’m the ugly sister. People actually call me that behind my back. I got used to all the unflattering comparisons a long time ago. I don’t really think I’m hideous or anything, I’m just kind of ordinary. But that’s beside the point. “This could be an incredible opportunity for Renee,” my father reminded me for the umpteenth time, spinning his trusty ballpoint pen in his fingers and then stabbing it towards me as he spoke. Sure, incredible. She’ll be in the middle of a s*x sandwich between two hot guys, and oh yeah, it could be a political power alliance between our Red Ridge Pack, and the much larger Prosperity Springs Pack. Kind of. Maybe. The twin brothers weren’t even alphas; they were cousins to the alpha or something like that. But they still had mountains of money and influence, according to Renee. I didn’t care about Renee’s s*x life or her political position. Not caving into my father’s heavy alpha aura, I crossed my arms over my ample breasts, lifted my chin stubbornly, and said, “No.” It was my father’s turn to sigh and give me that exasperated, all-too-familiar look of disappointment. Like he just couldn’t quite believe he’d had the misfortune to spawn a child as stubborn and unreasonable as me. He leaned back so that his chair dipped back too and, folding his arms over his own ample breasts, swiveled the chair so that he could look out of the bay window beside his desk. “Okay, fine,” he relented after a short deliberation, turning back to face me. “What do you want this time?” My lips twitched, making every effort to keep my solemn expression in place. When Dad couldn’t bully me into doing what he wanted, he always resorted to bribery. And I was okay with that. “How long is this going to take?” I said, beginning the negotiation. “A month…six months tops.” “Six months!” Oh my god, half a year! I tapped my fingers against my lips as I considered the shelves of old, leatherbound books behind him that hadn’t been cracked open in decades. “Fine, I want six months, all expenses paid, to the location of my choice.” Dad grimaced, but he didn’t look too surprised. Traveling was my passion. The last time he asked me to escort my sister for a six-week class, he’d bribed me with a month-long vacation. Apparently, he was also recalling my last trip. “You aren’t going to go to Tibet again, are you?” “I was thinking about East Africa…” I said in a non-committal tone. My father groaned and covered his eyes with one large hand. “Two months,” he tried to bargain. “Four,” I countered, “Final offer.” He dragged his hand down his face and gave me a scowl. “Fine,” he growled. “Go pack your bags.” “Yes sir!” I shot out of the chair, and exited his study, stepping into the dark hallway. When the study door clicked shut behind me, I let my lips relax into a sad smile. Sure, it sucked having to follow my sister around like some kind of lady-in-waiting, but at least I had something awesome to look forward to. I went to my bedroom and started wrestling my suitcase out of the closet. I unzipped it and spread it open across my bed while thinking to myself, I would simply look at this as a job, an assignment, nothing more, nothing less, nothing personal. I would lie low, stay out of the way, and if I was super lucky, Renee and these guys would make a decision on their relationship sooner rather than later, and I would be on a plane to visit someplace new and exciting… someplace where I wasn’t known as “the ugly sister.” Switching on the TV just for the background noise, I started pulling out drawers and deciding what to pack for this particular assignment. Since I was born with practically no fashion sense, I just started throwing random things into the suitcase. As long as I had plenty of underwear, everything else I owned was fairly mix-and-match. Extra heavy on the “mix” part. At first, I really wasn’t listening to the TV. It was only when I heard the mention of Prosperity Springs that my ears perked up. After all, that was where we were headed. “...the young actress was found unconscious at the Dos Hermanos Nightclub in Prosperity Springs last night. Police suspected that Avalon Starr overdosed on illicit drugs, and administered Narcan immediately when they arrived on the scene. The woman was rushed by ambulance to Prosperity Springs General Hospital where she is still listed in critical condition…” Dos Hermanos? That was the name of the nightclub that was owned by the Salvador brothers, the same pair that we were about to fly out to meet. What a strange coincidence! The newscast flashed a picture of a gorgeous and delicate young woman, with stunning red hair and big, beautiful blue eyes. I felt a little stab of sympathy for the actress, even though I didn’t recognize her name. Life must have sucked for her if she had to turn to drugs for comfort.