by Juniper Hart
“I shouldn’t exist, either, but you’re protecting me!” Although her point was valid, it was a different situation. Wasn’t it?
Wes didn’t want to argue semantics with her. Even though she’d gone willingly with Gabriel, she was still a victim.
“They’re murderers, Danica. Thieves, hackers. You know how they survive—by ruining lives. They just went on a killing spree! Doesn’t that bother you?” A terrifying notion struck him then. “Were you part of that?” he demanded, his face paling.
“No! No, of course not!” Danica cried, and he believed her. She was positively opaque at the thought, but she didn’t meet his eyes. Wes could see she was holding something back.
“What aren’t you telling me?” She inhaled and cast him a sidelong look.
“Gabriel wanted me to try and turn mortals,” she responded. “Once he realized that Landon had enforced a spell through the Council’s witch to stop him from turning anyone else, he hoped that the cessation spell didn’t extend to us.”
Wes’ jaw locked slightly, and he waited for her to speak. He’d learned his lesson about cutting her off.
“That’s what the pack was doing,” she rushed on, and he could plainly see the shame on her face. “They were just desperately trying to turn anyone they could.”
“Landon assumed as much,” Wes conceded, his brow arched. “But what about you? Did you turn anyone?”
Danica rose from her spot on the sofa. When he’d gone to the car, she’d hastily thrown on a white track suit and piled her shiny, dark waves into a high ponytail on top of her head. She looked stunningly innocent, and Wes was having a hard time reconciling her with an ally of such a vicious pack.
“Anything you tell me stays between us,” he promised her. “I haven’t betrayed your secrets thus far, Danica, and I definitely won’t now.”
“Because of the baby?” she asked dully.
“The child is innocent,” Wes said quietly. “He shouldn’t be made to suffer the consequences of his father.”
“Of her parents, you mean. You know I’m just as much to blame for all this as Gabriel.”
Ire sparked through Wes. “No,” he said flatly. “You aren’t.”
She looked at him, a sardonic smile touching her lips. “I’m telling you, I am. I am not some hapless victim. I went into this with my eyes wide open.”
“Really? You knew that Gabriel would go on a killing spree? You knew that he would take other women?”
“Well, no… but when I agreed to be turned—”
“He lied to you, made you promises that he couldn’t possibly honor. You were dragged into his world under false pretenses. Stop blaming yourself and stop thinking you have some role to play in his pack. As long as you have that mindset, Danica, you’re endangering us both.”
“I told you to just leave me be!” Danica hissed, her face twisting in indignation. “If you walk away, we’ll both be safe!”
“I don’t know how you can believe that,” he said. “I can only assume you’re lying to yourself. How do you see this ending if I just let you go?”
“We’ve gotten along fine this long,” she said, but there was no confidence in her tone.
She knows everything is different now. There’s no more running.
“You’re my mate,” Wes told her, reaching forward to gather her in his arms. “Look at me, Danica.” Reluctantly, she lifted her head to peer at him. He read the misery in her face, and he was sure he’d never seen a more conflicted being in his life. “I don’t care what you say—I will fight for you to the death.”
“I can’t tell you where the pack is,” Danica mumbled, looking away. Wes held back a grunt of anger. “I’m sorry.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t be responsible for the death of my pack!” she replied incredulously. “Do you really have to ask why?”
“They would throw you under the bus at first opportunity. You know that, don’t you?” he told her coldly.
“Maybe,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m not selling them out.”
Wes ground his teeth together and stared at her as if seeing her for the first time.
“What if Gabriel asked you where to find me?” he asked slowly. “Would you tell him?”
“He wouldn’t ask where to find you or any other Lycan,” she answered confidently. “He has made it his life quest to stay away from you.”
“But what if he did?” Wes insisted. He needed to know if she would sell him out for the beast to whom she believed she was loyal.
Their eyes met, and Danica shook her head slowly. “No, of course I wouldn’t.”
Can I believe her? Wes felt like a knife was twisting through his gut, and he continued to stare at her.
“You need to pack a bag and come back home with me,” he told her gruffly. To his relief, she didn’t argue, and he realized that she was just as confused by her emotions as he was by his.
She’s been through too much to trust anyone entirely, but fundamentally, she is good, a voice told him softly as she retreated into her bedroom. She doesn’t want anyone to get hurt, no matter who they might be. It was a slap in the face to Wes that she would cover for Gabriel, but he had to admit he was begrudgingly in awe of her steadfast loyalty. She truly is a wolf—faithful to a flaw.
But as he paced about the living room, he wondered who she would truly pick if push came to shove—him or Gabriel. Wes dismissed the idea as quickly as it had come.
I’ll just have to ensure that it never comes down to that, he decided. I won’t put her in a place where she’s forced to deal with anything more than she already has.
“I’m ready,” Danica said, appearing back in the living room. She gave him a wry smile. “Are we leaving through the front door or…?”
He managed a grin and shrugged.
“I haven’t seen you shift all that much,” he teased. “We could put your jumping skills to the test.”
Awe filled her eyes. “You’ve seen me shift?”
“Of course,” he replied. “I told you, I’ve been watching you.” Embarrassment colored her cheeks.
“I don’t understand why you never came forward sooner,” she sighed. “Maybe if you had…” She didn’t finish her thought, but Wes read it loud and clear.
Maybe if I had, the baby she is carrying would be mine and not Gabriel’s. He didn’t let himself get caught up in the sweeping of negative emotions. That baby is just as much mine as Danica’s.
“Come on,” he said, taking her arm. “We have a busy night ahead of us.”
She looked at him worriedly. “We do?”
“Yes,” he conceded. “You’re meeting your new pack tonight.”
7
Given the late hour of the meeting, Danica should have been struggling to keep her eyes open, but the mere nature of the gathering sent jolts of dread-filled adrenaline through her body.
“Don’t they know who I am?” she whispered, her fears flowing from her mouth one after the other. “They’ll want me dead!”
“Even if they do know who you are, they don’t know that you know anything about Gabriel’s pack,” Wes assured her. “The other women didn’t.”
She didn’t miss the undertone of disappointment in his words, and that made her wonder if she was making a mistake allowing herself to go with him. Logic dictated that she might be walking into a trap, but why would Wes go through such trouble to see her captured or killed? He’d had countless opportunities to see either happen.
He loves you, Danica thought to herself, inexplicably and despite everything you’ve done. He wants you and your illegal baby. Why can’t you just let him protect you? She certainly wanted to trust in the feeling of security that seemed to enshroud her by Wes’ nearness, but bringing her to his pack seemed dangerous somehow.
Instinctively, she pressed her palms to her still-flat belly and eyed Wes through her peripheral vision as they drove to the cabin in the Marin Headlands. Crossing over the Gol
den Gate Bridge, Danica felt a surge of panic, and her breaths began to escape in short, uneven rasps.
“Just breathe,” Wes instructed, his voice laced with worry. “Everything is fine. Think about the baby.” Oddly, the words were comforting.
He’s not going to hurt me because I’m pregnant, she thought. Almost instantly, she realized how inane that was. If they wanted Gabriel dead, they weren’t going to want his offspring around.
“Danica, you need to trust me and remember what I told you,” Wes told her urgently. “You can’t go off-script, all right?”
She nodded, struggling to catch her breath. He reached out and grabbed her sweating palms, squeezing her fingers tightly.
“Tomorrow, everything will go back to normal,” he promised. “We just need to get through tonight.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’ll go home after this and try to put this all behind us,” Wes answered, seeming confused by her question.
“We’re just going to pretend that Gabriel isn’t going to pop up? Go back to school and act like everything’s okay?”
Wes steered the car through the thick of trees, toward Kirby’s Cove, silent for a moment.
“That’s what we do, Danica,” he told her softly. “Being a Lycan isn’t bouncing around from place to place, hiding and hoping not to get killed. We live our lives peacefully and without attracting attention. So yes, we go back to life as it was. Maybe you need a couple days to rest up. We should get you to a Lycan doctor as soon as possible, too.”
Danica’s head swam. She hadn’t even stopped to consider what staying with Wes might mean.
Could I finally be heading toward consistency?
The notion was so foreign to her, she almost laughed aloud at it. When in her life had she ever known anything but stress and strife? Wasn’t that why Gabriel had appealed to her so much? He was the catalyst of an already messed up existence.
“My mother was a crack addict,” Danica said abruptly. “She tried to kill me without actually murdering me several times.”
Wes’ head turned, and he stared at her with no surprise in his face.
“I still have no idea who my father is. I doubt she did, either.” Danica idly wondered why she was telling him this, but it didn’t slow her tongue. “I still loved her, though, you know? Even when she left me home alone for days when I was barely out of diapers. Even when she whipped lamps at my head. I loved her. I wanted her to get better.”
“You persevered through that, Danica,” Wes told her in a low tone. “And you’ll make it through this too.”
“I don’t understand why I wanted her approval so much,” Danica laughed mirthlessly. “She would sell herself to her dealer for a hit. We lived in boxes, under bridges, and I wanted her to be proud of me.”
Wes didn’t speak, perhaps sensing that Danica needed to get it out of her system.
“When she died, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d dropped out of school to pay our rent when I was thirteen. I was lucky the Greek guy who owned the diner near me took pity on me and paid me under the table.”
“Stavros,” Wes offered. Danica gaped at him.
“How did you know?”
“He’s one of us,” Wes chuckled. “You didn’t know?”
She shook her head. “How would I have ever guessed anything like you existed before Gabriel popped into my life?”
“If we’re doing things right, you wouldn’t,” Wes agreed. They were silent as they slipped further into the night.
“I got my GED and managed to take part-time community college courses before being accepted at UCB. But even as I climb the rungs of success, I still feel like I’m the same disappointment I always was to my mother, the crackhead who was trying to kill me.”
“You’re not a disappointment, Danica. You’re an amazing success story who fought incredible odds.”
“Only to submit to a stranger who is going to see me dead, anyway.”
“Don’t say that!” Wes growled. “Gabriel will not harm a hair on your head.”
“Did I go with him because I wanted to feel wanted for once in my life?” Danica mumbled, barely listening to Wes. “I ask myself why I just followed this guy into the abyss without so much as a second thought.”
“He can be persuasive. You know that. Whatever happened, it’s not your fault,”
“Even this pregnancy?” She saw Wes’ jaw twitch, but when he spoke, there was a deep kindness in his words.
“We can’t waste time playing the ‘what if’ game, Dani. There’s nothing we can do to change the past, but we can ensure our futures are bright and secure. You’ve been alone your whole life, seeking approval from the wrong people. Now you have me, and I won’t let you down.”
She shook her head. “Is anything really that simple?” she asked sadly. Wes stopped the car along the path before turning to study her face fully with bright green eyes.
“I don’t expect you to believe blindly,” he replied quietly. “But I will prove to you that you’re secure with me.” He grabbed the keys from the console and gestured for her to follow.
“Wait… Where is this place?”
“We have to walk the rest of the way,” he explained. “We’ll shift so our vision is better.”
Uncertainly, Danica let him help her from the car and watched as he morphed into the graceful black beast of her dreams. His eyes glowed amber in the night, and he bowed his head, encouraging her to do the same.
“The baby,” she murmured. “Is it safe?”
Wes nodded, his gaze fixed on her encouragingly. Slowly, she lowered her resolve to permit her body to give way to the white-grey wolf of her soul. Wes nuzzled her neck gently, filling her with confidence she had never felt while in her unearthly form.
“Run with me,” he growled. Wes bounded forward, covering half the pathway before turning to stare at her. Danica didn’t hesitate, her paws pounding against the dirt path to follow the Alpha into the woods beyond.
Even though the redwoods towered all around them, Danica barely noticed, the exhilaration of the chase overcoming all her other senses. She’d never been so free, the fear of being detected that usually plagued her a distant memory. With Wes leading her, she was alive, unafraid.
Soon, the pair paused before a well-lit log cabin, and Danica looked at her mate warily. He remained in his wolf form, his breaths escaping in long rasps as he collected himself. It was only then that Danica realized they had covered a great deal more area than she’d been aware.
“Remember what I told you,” Wes said, slowly morphing back into his mortal form. “Speak little and do not rouse the subject of the baby.”
“Trust me—I had no intention of bringing that up,” Danica replied, following his lead to shift back into her slender form. Wes took her hand and guided her toward the cabin. As they neared, the sound of voices wafted out to meet them.
“—important,” someone inside was saying. “What do you want me to say? His Highness barks, and I have no choice but to respond.”
Wes threw open the door and glowered at the pack inside. There was an unmistakable intake of air as all eyes focussed on him.
“Am I ‘His Highness,’ Gale?” he demanded, sauntering into the single-roomed cottage, his emerald orbs flashing.
“You heard me?” the shockingly massive young man whimpered. Everything about him exuded power, from the broadness of his shoulders to the thickness of his calves. Danica guessed he was at least six foot six, but the moment he spoke, she had lost all respect for him.
“You and I are going to have a little discussion after we’re done here,” Wes told him, and Danica couldn’t help the flush of arousing warmth filling her at his authoritative tone.
Hot, she thought, despite the direness of the situation.
“Okay,” Gale squeaked, but Wes had already turned his attention to the rest of the pack.
“Thank you all for coming,” he said gruffly. “I know the hour isn’t ideal, but this
is a matter of great urgency and more discretion.”
There was a low murmur as the pack nodded.
They’re all staring at me, Danica realized, careful not to make eye contact. Even though she believed Wes when he said they didn’t know who she was, she couldn’t dismiss the idea that they could smell the treachery on her. Or am I being treasonous to Gabriel?
It was so easy to side with Wes when Gabriel was nowhere around. Would her tone change when he resurfaced if he ever did? Subconsciously, her fingers found the flat of her womb, as if to protect her unborn from her thoughts.
“What is the meaning of this, Wes?” a scruffy wolf demanded from his spot at the back of the room. He spoke with the undertone of a British accent.
“Before I begin,” Wes said, “I want you to know what I’m asking of you will require you to choose your loyalties. Either you are loyal to me, or you are loyal to the Council of Seven.”
Danica could have heard a pin drop in that moment, the only sound her own racing heart. What is he doing?
“Isn’t that loyalty one and the same?” another wolf demanded, his eyes narrowing as he stepped forward from where he was lounging against the wall, his wide arms folded over a barrel chest.
Gabriel’s pack does not look like this, Danica thought, noting the power exuding from the endless display of muscles and height. Gabriel may have picked the worst of the worst to join his crew, but not one of them portrayed an iota of the strength that radiated from that house.
“Not in this case, Mason,” Wes responded. “In this case, it will be our pack doing something in secret until our mission is completed.”
“What mission is that?” Mason insisted. “We cannot agree to something we do not understand.”
“You will have to trust me or walk out of here right now. Those who do will not be punished, but those who stay must never breathe a word of our task outside this room. Any who do will be gravely punished.”
The pack looked to one another, and Danica felt her head growing light as she tried to comprehend what Wes was asking of them.
“Who is this, Wes?” Gale demanded, finally regaining his pride. “What does she have to do with this?”
