“It doesn’t matter, Hannah, because you’re okay. Kilter found you and saved you.”
“Because you wouldn’t! Do you know how messed up it is that a male who has told me for years how much he hates me was the one who saved me? Has it even crossed your mind that Logan could have seen Banes ripping me apart and not done a thing to stop it?” I hiss.
It’s futile. All this anger and questioning is futile, and I know it, but I keep going because I want him to admit it! I want him to snap and snarl at me and tell me that if Logan hadn’t arrived Brig would most likely have watched Banes kill me. I want him to tell me that if it hadn’t been Banes, he’d have done it himself.
I want the hard truth, the truth I am used to because I am floundering here, and I need something familiar and real to bring me back down to earth and give me a slap to wake me.
I can’t trust anyone. No, that isn’t true. I can trust Logan. For now. For now, he has me and wants me. For now, I serve a purpose.
“He would never do that. I know Logan Kilter, and I know that no Fated, no matter how he feels, could watch his female be harmed,” he insists.
“Oh please, spare me your excuses, Brig. If you don’t want to admit what a fucking asshole you are, then fine. You keep fooling yourself, but don’t try to fool me. I know you. I know you’re cold and calculating and you only give a shit about yourself—”
“Hannah—”
“What do you want? You aren’t calling to find out how I am because you don’t care, so I can only assume you’ve found another way to use me and likely fuck up my life now that it’s actually good. What do you want, Brig?”
“I don’t want to fuck up your life!” he snarls, making me laugh, loud and long.
“Please, spare me the brotherly love! You and I both know it isn’t there.”
“Hannah, you’re my—”
“Nothing. I am nothing to you. All this time that I’ve been risking myself to help you, I kept telling myself that you’d love me. That if I just proved myself, you’d find some small little scrap of the emotion for me. But I was wrong and foolish. Because the truth is, all you care about is what you want,” I say, forcing myself not to sniff even as a tear leaks from my eye.
“Hannah, I do—”
“Don’t. Don’t lie about it. That would hurt more than knowing you don’t care. Just, what do you want this time?” I ask tiredly, running a hand through my black curls with a grimace of annoyance.
I need to get it cut and styled, but Logan seems to like the heavy curls, and I find myself reluctant to change anything that he likes. God, the sex must be making me weak.
“I need you to tell me if you hear anything important about the council,” he finally admits.
“What? No! No, Brig. I am not spying on my mate and his family,” I hiss, my heart plummeting when he sighs again.
“Hannah—”
“No! You can’t ask this of me. You can’t. I did your spying for you and passed messages off to Bear. For God’s sake, I went on a date with the eldest Banes—even though he has a tendency to get nasty and constantly tried to touch me. I broke up with Bear to go on that date! I can’t. This isn’t fair, Brig!” I snarl, pacing across to the sink to stare out at the backyard.
“It isn’t, but it’s what I need, Hannah.”
“What you need? Why do you even need anything from me? I should be dead. You watched someone try to kill me, Brig. If I was dead, how would you get the information you need?” I rant, curling my fingers into the marble counter to stop myself from hitting it and shattering the beautiful stone.
“I would have made certain Kilter met someone who knew how to dig for information.”
My eyes close, defeat and pain lancing through me, because I know this ploy. They’ve tried to use it on Banner Kilter more than once, but the male is far too reclusive in his private time and doesn’t seem interested in anything more than fast sex and moving on.
The one time I heard of Brig sending in a plant, I laughed my ass off because I knew Ban. He doesn’t give a shit about anything other than his family, his job, and protecting his Alpha. The chances of him having a bedroom talk session with a female he considers a one-night pussy party are slim.
Apparently, Brig now thinks he could have gotten to Logan that way. The hard part to swallow is that he probably could have gotten a female in there while my body was still cooling. Worse, he’d probably have slept with her.
They wouldn’t get anything from him though, so I content myself with knowing that they would have failed, choosing not to focus on the other facts because it pains me to admit that Logan would have had another not long after I died.
“And you would have failed because once again brother, you may think you know these males, but I can promise you…that is not the case. Fast sex and pillow talk are not on the Kilters agenda. You’re wasting your time trying to infiltrate the enforcer ranks,” I sneer, smiling when he curses.
“Only since your fucking mate started grinding his fist against us! Jesus Hannah, he’s working me and Blain so hard I can’t get a thing done. I hardly sleep. I just manage to get something down, and then the male is calling us up again. I’ve never been this tired in my life.”
“Oh, poor baby,” I mock, giggling at the thought of Logan torturing my brothers.
There are only two things that can rattle Brig, lack of sleep and being thwarted. I bet Logan has them so tied up and so watched that they can’t make a move without him breathing down their necks.
God, it’s good to have a mate who’s as vindictive and mean spirited as I am.
“It’s not funny, Hannah! The council is at a very fragile point right now. I can’t afford for things to go south because of your mate.” He snarls.
“And you think I should care because…?”
“Because you know the only thing that’s been keeping the balance for the last few months is my work. Look, you may not trust me, and I get that, I do, but I’m not the enemy here,” he says, making me close my eyes in rejection.
I try to deny that, I do, but the truth is that Brig isn’t the enemy. He’s not good, not by a long shot, but he’s been dusting the council for so long now I sometimes wonder what he’s doing exactly.
He never supports the Alpha, preferring to stay in the background, but neither does he betray him. For a long time now, I’ve suspected that he’s leading the underground, a collection of shifters who are dedicated to protecting the interests of all, not just pack, but the race as a larger whole.
I’d have believed it if not for the fact that Brig is so cold. The male doesn’t care about anyone or anything, and the truth is…that being hurt that he feels that way about me is stupid.
“I’m not using my mate to spy on the Alpha, and I am not saying anything that could help that fucking council.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything that would. I just need you to help me out with a tidbit here and there. Please, Hannah. Things are heating up, and Father is getting more unstable by the day. You know I can’t do anything about getting rid of the council, but I can keep him from the leader seat,” he murmurs.
Shit. I know this. I know that most of his efforts have been centered around stopping my father from holding that seat. I don’t know why; sometimes I think it’s just to hurt Daddy, but for whatever reason, I know it’s the one thing that is keeping things together and stopping the council from outright calling a challenge on Nick.
“What do you want to know? I can’t tell you anything if I don’t know what you need,” I say tiredly, rubbing at a spot on my head where a headache is starting to form.
“I just need to know if anything comes up about the attacks. Anything. Father is digging, and I know Nick is hiding something big, if Father finds out about it before I can do something, we’re all fucked. He’ll be appointed so fast our heads will spin, and then you know what will happen.”
Fuck. Closing my eyes, I breathe hard and feel my loyalties pull at me, one going in a direction as f
ar from the other as possible. Being caught here in the middle—with no idea how to help or who to help—isn’t easy.
“Brig.”
“Anything, Hannah. Anything. Please. You know me. I may not be a good male, Han, but I’m not out to hurt the Alpha. We’ve always been in agreement there. I am loyal to the pack. Always,” he vows, the familiar phrase making my mouth tremble.
It’s the one thing we’ve always had that held us together, as fragile as the alliance is. We are pack, for the pack, never to betray the pack, and we both agree that to do that we support Alpha. It’s our one noble creed, possibly the only saving grace we have on our black souls.
“I’ll call you,” I say eventually, biting at my nail guiltily.
No way am I telling him about Barbie Kendall, not yet. I will have to, I mean if at the very least I can ensure that Nick has backup if things go wrong, then I can content myself knowing that I did something to help if things blow up.
And they will. I know they will. Logan is still clinging to hope, probably telling himself that I can find that female, but I know it won’t matter when the pack discovers the truth. Found or not, they’ll turn on him.
“That’s all I’m asking.”
“That’s all? You’re asking me to betray my mate, Brig,” I say, swallowing the terror that thought evokes.
“I’m asking you to keep the creed, Hannah. Creed trumps personal happiness.”
I snort, knowing that he doesn’t give a shit about my personal happiness and never has, creed or not.
“I don’t trust you.”
“That’s smart, baby sister, because you shouldn’t.”
The line goes dead with those words ringing in my ears, and I feel myself go cold inside with the warning, my mind stuck on one thing: Things are going to blow up.
Chapter Sixteen
Logan
I grunt, pumping my hips faster, as I watch my dick speed in and out of the slick wet tunnel wrapped around it. Hannah is clawing at the bed, her perfect ass jiggling with every pounding thrust, her nails scoring the sheets when I hike her hips higher and drill down, my hips slamming into her ass forcefully.
“Fuck, fuck!” I groan, the sight of her heat coating my flesh making the arousal burn high, deeper, stronger, the more I take.
I’ve been out of control since I came home this evening to find her in the darkened kitchen just staring out at the night, her expression pensive. That expression made me feel…uncertain, so out of place, and as I watched her, I became desperate to re-establish some sort of connection with her.
If this is all I have right now, then it’s what I’ll use.
“Logan.”
“Take it, mella! Don’t fight me!” I growl, bending over her back to lock my jaw around her shoulder in warning when I go too deep and she tries to move away. “You want this. I feel you inside, getting hotter and wetter. Does it turn you on to know I’ve been hard all day for you?”
“Yes. Ah, right there!” she screams, her sex convulsing when I ignore my inner voice and ram into her, bypassing the tight ring of her cervix to dig into her womb.
Hannah screams, her whole body going into a shaking convulsion when she clamps down and starts coming, the force of her inner spasms making me grind my jaw to stave off my own climax.
I keep thrusting, even though I know she’s sensitive, the two previous orgasms I gave her with my mouth having driven her to a point of sensitivity that makes her so hot and tight inside it drives me crazy.
Keeping up my pace, a steady, hard grind, I lean over and palm her mound, reveling in the overflow of moisture that coats my palm and covers us both.
“What happened today?” I ask again, having started this line of questioning the minute I walked in and my wolf sensed danger.
I can’t pinpoint it, but I trust my wolf where Hannah is concerned, and I know that something happened to upset her. I just don’t know what.
“Nothing! Oh god, it’s too much. Please,” she whimpers, making me growl and flick her clit until she’s so ready to come that I smell it.
Stopping all movement just when she’s about to climax, I huff through my nose and lick at her neck, warning her not to move or I’ll start up again. We’re both covered in sweat, sex, and the desperate sexual tension I’ve been driving high in her for the last hour and a half, my own body howling at me for relief.
“What happened, Hannah!” I yell when she starts crying, her teeth digging into her lip hard enough to draw blood.
Leaning over I lick at the wound, savoring the taste of my mate, loving the zing of possessiveness that licks through me when I not only taste her blood but her need for me.
“Nothing, oh God, nothing! Please, please stop. I can’t take much more!” she wails when I start rubbing at her clit again, my fingers slick with the juices her body keeps pumping out.
“Talk to me, mate. Give me everything!” I demand, taking her high before stopping again, my cock screaming its own protests when I feel her go more liquid around me, the slide of her arousal coating my crown and sliding out to wet my balls.
We’re both trembling when I stop, my shaking met with her own quakes and movements as she tries to find her pleasure, her body desperate to come now that I’ve filled her with my essence.
“I am! Oh please, I burn!” she says and gasps when I thrust once, stop and rub at her bud again, stoking her higher but not quite giving her what she needs.
“You aren’t. You’re keeping something from me, Hannah, and I don’t like it. I told you, I do the worrying. Now tell me or I’ll keep this up all fucking night!” I grate, clenching my ass when I pull out slowly, feeling every tremble and spasm inside her snug sheath. “Tell me!”
“Brig! Brig called me, okay!” she pants out, fighting the hold I have on her hips when I go back in just as slowly, bottoming out in a place that causes her as much pleasure as it does pain.
Not that it matters because as a shifter female, Hannah is used to coming the moment I fill her, her body going into one long orgasm that is designed to make her mate come and come, filling her up to capacity to ensure breeding and young.
I’ve held that off, not giving her everything she needs to make that happen. It must be killing her by now, but God help me, I am loving it. The slow burn, the painfully suppressed pleasure that only makes the sex burn hotter.
By the time I let her come again, she’ll be a mess of bliss and satisfaction. When I let her.
“What did he want? How did he get your number?” I snarl, my fingers sliding back to her slit in a move that makes her keen and pant, her ass shoving higher to tempt me to move.
“I don’t know! Oh God, Logan, please. Please, let me come. Please.”
“Why did he call?”
“I, oh! Oh God, please…I don’t…he asked me what is going on with Nick! I…I didn’t…please, Logan. I’ll tell you after…!” she wails, her voice going high when I shove deep and still.
“Tell me now. What did you say?” I ask, my suspicions roused against my will.
Anger burns through me. Fury that I can’t fully find it within myself to trust her. Rage that the first place my mind goes is to betrayal. I hate feeling this, hate feeling as if I need to question her when I should know the answer.
Thrusting again, I feel Hannah’s body go weak before she screams and sobs out a plea.
“I told him…I don’t know! I don’t know anything! Logan, Logan, please. I don’t know anything,” she says and cries, the smell of her tears snapping my control.
Dropping my hand from her sex, I grab her hips and saw into her in hard, sharps bursts of lust, taking her savagely, as she keens and starts shaking, her sex exploding around me in wet quakes of blistering heat. She comes so hard I get trapped inside her, my cock going thick as my own orgasm bursts forth, jetting out in long streams of agonizing pleasure.
Hannah collapses beneath me, hitting the mattress with a grunt as her body releases and falls into a stupor, her sex still shivering when I come d
own on my elbows to cage her in.
My chest heaves with every hard pant of breath, the slow satisfaction of release pumping through me while I struggle to breathe and return to sanity.
By the time I can speak, my cock is slipping free, so I roll to my side and blow out a breath, peering over at Hannah where her back is to me, her body tense.
“Han—”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” she cuts in, her voice a flat tone that makes my chest ache because I know I caused this.
Jesus Christ, I just spent over an hour sexually torturing my female because I don’t trust her. What the hell is wrong with me! Goddammit.
“I’m—”
“I’m tired, Logan. I need to sleep, so I can go to Barbie’s place tomorrow and try to hear her. Please, just leave me alone.”
“Han—”
“Good night, Logan.”
Sighing, I let her be, not pushing because what the hell can I say. I should have known Hannah wouldn’t say anything, but the moment I heard her say the words, I was filled with shock, fear, and my own failure to find the little female. Time is running out, and the more I try, the more frustrated I become.
Yeah, so you take it out on your mate, my wolf sneers, his disgust and anger slapping at me like physical blows of fury.
No. No that isn’t true. I started this because when I saw her and felt her distance it drove me crazy, and all I could think of was having her again, forcing her to come closer, to reaffirm the fragile bond I felt forming last night.
The truth is that I feel unsteady and unsure of myself to the point any distance between us makes me crazy with the need to bridge the gap.
I didn’t expect Hannah to confess that her brother had called her. Fuck, it didn’t even cross my mind!
This was about my own stupid possessive pride and the need I feel inside me to own Hannah, to know her thoughts, her feelings, and yes, to possess so much of her that my mind can trust her without doubt.
If I’m not there yet, then that’s on me too because it’s not just up to Hannah to prove to me I can trust her. It’s up to me to give her a reason to be trustworthy. Fuck.
Greyriver Shifters Page 40
