“You may look at me and see some exotic conquest, some little female from the wrong side of the tracks to slum it with, but all I see when I look at you is some male with more dick than common decency. You wanna fuck? You have two hands,” I say firmly, sliding into a seat to pull my plate closer.
Brig seems taken aback for all of two minutes before he grins and slides into his own seat, groaning when he forks up a bite of eggs and fried tomato.
“I seem to remember I wasn’t the only one throwing around the insults that night,” he muses, making me blush.
“Yeah, well, no female wants to hear that she’s trailer trash you’re willing to do just to see what she’s got under the hood.”
“I never once referred to you as trash,” he argues, snarling when I shrug.
“No, as I recall that was Borver, and you didn’t say anything to deny it or stand up for me. You just kept drinking and let that little hussy stroke your dick under the table!” I hiss, the food turning to ash in my mouth.
I keep eating though, not wanting him to know how much that night upset me. It was…a turning point for me. Where once I still clung to this idea of Brig, my romantic little mind hanging on tooth and nail to the good parts of him, I let it all go then and there and accepted that my crush was a stupid, idealistic fool’s view of a male instead of who Brig really was.
“You spent all night flirting with Clarke Kilter. You went home with him, too,” Brig counters, making me smile in a way I hope is smug and not sad.
“He was nice to me. He didn’t insult me, and he treated me with respect instead of using veiled insults about my lineage to make me feel like he was doing me a favor by talking to me at all. And yeah, I get that he couldn’t do that since poor Clarke is also just a half blood! But you know, I am seriously starting to think what you elites learn from the cradle severely fucks with your minds.”
“I never meant to—”
“Well, whatever you meant or didn’t, I went home with and gave my innocence to a male who made me feel good about myself, as if I was a gift and not some pity fuck to test out a mixed breed. He was kind and sweet, and to this day I am grateful that it wasn’t you, no matter how hot I was for you. Yeah, pathetic right? The mixed pussy having a crush on some male who always hurt me in some way or another,” I mutter, standing to take my plate to the basin and wash it clean.
Once it’s in the drying rack and I feel steady enough to face him, I turn and lean against the counter, folding my arms against my chest to hide my breasts from his view.
“Beebee—” he breathes, obviously still dumbfounded by my revelation.
“Don’t sweat it, male. I don’t. Not anymore. It was just a stupid crush, no more, no less, but hey, I was young, so don’t hold it against me. As for that crush, it crashed and burned hard, and I grew up. So yeah, I slept with Clarke Kilter, and it was an eye opener, ya know. I only sleep with males who are mixed,” I confess, not liking that I sound like a bigot but unable to lie.
“Why?” he grates, the way his mouth is compressed letting me know he doesn’t like that I make the distinction and it excludes him.
Shrugging, I finish off my coffee and place the cup in the dishwater.
“It’s easy to be with a male who won’t think about where I come from or have to ‘get over’ what is flowing in my veins. Plus, well, some of them are wild when they get creative. The cat breeds purr when they go…”
I gesture to my sex, my smile slow and lazy when he gets the meaning and his eyes narrow.
“The only thing a real male needs to bring a female off is words, his mouth, and knowledge,” he retorts, smiling when I flinch and clench my thighs against the arousal his words bring on.
“You’re being an ass—”
“Do you know, I only have to use words to bring you to the point of climax and then lick your clit once to get you off?” he purrs, smirking when I flush and breathe heavily. “I could tie you down and make you so hot for me you’d come if I breathed on your clit.”
I want that, badly, but I can’t do this, and we both know why. Well, I know I can’t do this because I would just want more and Brig wouldn’t, but Brig himself knows we can’t cross those lines.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re blue force, and I’m…I’m not exactly in good standing right now anyway,” I admit, wincing when his eyes narrow.
“No, I got that impression from the state of your ass but I assumed—”
“That I was running from the shifters with no scent and that I was reporting back to command?” I finish. “That—dearest—is not the case. You’ve seen my ass?”
Okay, now I do wince because anyone in the resistance knows the dishonor associated with the flogging. It’s a punishment that most endure before getting in line and doing the job.
In my case, it was the beginning before I escaped.
“Well, then you know that I was cited for misconduct. What you don’t know is that part of my misconduct was trying to get a message back to Nick,” I confess tiredly, my shoulders slumping as I lose the lust clouding me and accept my circumstances.
Here, in this cabin, it’s easy to forget that I’m still in a world of shit, but once I step out that door it all comes back and I am still in trouble any which way I turn. If I go home, I get arrested for treason. If I try to run, I may live a while in hiding, but they’d find me. They’re everywhere.
As for the shifters, that’s a story I am not telling anyone just yet. Not until I find the solution I’m looking for.
“Why not tell Hannah?” he asks, his eyes narrowed when I snort and shake my head.
“You know better, Brigger. Hannah isn’t exactly my best friend, and besides, I changed my mind real quick when I realized he can’t do anything about this. The resistance leaders are so well hidden that we don’t even know who half of them are. The other half are second string Alphas in their own packs. What would my telling do, but start a war that no pack can afford right now? No, I need to fix this on my own…when I figure out how,” I say tiredly, gently retaking my seat.
“What is so important that you can’t go home but can’t go back?” he asks, making me smile sadly.
“Everything. Nothing. Hell, I don’t even know anymore, but it’s enough that I suspect what they’re doing. I just can’t prove it yet.”
“That doesn’t give me very much to help you,” he says.
“Oh please, like you would. You’re what, third class command. I shouldn’t even be here with you, but I don’t exactly have a choice now, do I?” I say sardonically, looking down at myself with a sneer. “I have nowhere to go, no money, no friends to help me after what I pulled, and my folks will probably disown me. That isn’t exactly what I would call options.”
Brig nods, looks away, and runs his hands through his hair while I bite my lip and let my mind work. I don’t have anything. All I could think about when I escaped was surviving. There was nothing beyond that point for me because at the base level, survival was already so impossible I couldn’t see past it.
Now, here I am, with Brigger Seers, a male I do not and cannot trust, and he’s all I have, as pathetic and dangerous as it sounds. I can’t trust him, and yet I can’t not stay. At least for as long as I can before I’m on my own.
“What exactly did they intend to do to you?” he asks in a hard voice, his mouth tight when I shrug indifferently.
“After the public flogging? Three months in the hole before they handed down final sentence.”
“Jesus Christ! Beebee! Goddammit, you know they won’t stop looking for you!” he yells, exploding out of his chair to start pacing and throwing me dirty looks. “They could be tracking you here, right now!”
“Yeah, well, I’m sorry if that throws a wrench in your plans to remain here on vacation, but I have nowhere else to go! I have nothing to start running with, and I can’t go to the pack because there are agents everywhere. Hell, half of us don’t know who the other half is. Whom do I trust? Whom do I not trust? Who’s gonna
sneak into my house one night—if I don’t get arrested and sentenced by the Alpha—and slit my throat!” I yell, standing to do my own pacing, albeit slowly because my leg is killing me where I fell down a steep hill and slammed my knee and thigh into a boulder.
Dammit, I’m all messed up, scared out of my mind, and desperate enough to admit it. Things would have been so much easier if this idiot had left me to die out in the snow.
Chapter Five
Brig
I want to wring her Goddamn neck!
It’s all I can think as I pace the confines of the cabin and let her words sink deeper, making everything I already knew or suspected so much worse. The resistance won’t let her live, not now.
Defection is already almost impossible as it is, and then add to that what they consider a capital punishment and I know deep in my bones that she was headed to the executioner no matter which way you slice it.
A few months in the hole? That’s child’s play compared to the way they kill traitors.
“You fool! You should have stayed out of this from the start. Didn’t I tell you to get your ass out of the pack and go live somewhere else?” I snarl, my throat closing when her blue eyes go dull and she looks away to hide the moisture gathering in her eyes.
“You told me I was a drain on my parents and I needed to leave and start being a grown up!” she yells back, her blue eyes sparking at me with fury. “And I did grow up. I got a job as a trade ambassador, made my own money, and bought my own house from the Alpha. I didn’t sit around just waiting for Daddy to make it all better like some of you assholes do. Tell me, Brig, how long have you been a male of leisure before Nick called on all males of age to join enforcer ranks?” she sneers, making me grind my jaw.
“I have a job in my own right. I don’t, and never have lived off Damon Seers’s money. I trade in stocks and handle the investments for other enforcers in the pack for a fee,” I mutter, slamming my mouth closed when she stops and blinks.
“For real? So you’re like a money geek?”
“Beebee—”
“Oh my God! You are! The big bad jock, the popular boy who played pack ball is a geek in real life!” she crows, giggling with her eyes shining so bright I can’t get mad enough to shut her up.
God, she’s gorgeous, I think, taking in her long legs, the curved waist that screams her mixed blood, and the way her eyes glow when she laughs. In another life I would have mated this female so fucking hard, she’d already have given me ten young.
In another life I could have looked at life in shades of grey and avoided being the elite asshole I had to be.
“I’m not a geek. I wheel and deal on the market and make people a lot of money with my investment portfolios. How do you think Edan Stark made enough money a year out of his family home, to buy a home and mate his female?” I ask, smiling when I recall that male’s gratitude and excitement at his telling me that he could care for her and any young they wanted to have instead of waiting three years to start a family.
That’s what I want. I want to make a difference in every day pack life, not ruin lives the way I now know the resistance does. I made mistakes, just as Beebee did, and I had to fix them to get out.
I just don’t know how she’s going to do it, or if it’s even possible.
“I don’t know what to do here, Beebs, I’ll be honest. All you’re telling me is that they tried you and you were headed to a bad place. For sure the Alpha and your family and friends already know you’ve given away pack secrets, so you can’t go back.”
Her eyes lose the sparkle I so enjoyed, and I see her slump, defeated, as the situation hits her.
“I know. I know. And I’ll face pack justice; I can do nothing less to take shame from my family. But I have to fix things first, and to do that, I need to get back in there without getting caught.”
“Hell no! Beebee be reasonable. You’d get caught before you made it halfway there,” I say, horrified by the way she’s thinking.
Go back to the resistance and try to sneak in? It’s impossible. Trust me, I’ve tried.
“What difference would it make anyway? I have nothing right now. I did something stupid that is going to end up hurting our pack if I don’t fix it. I have no family after this as it stands, and look, it’s not as if I can successfully disappear anyway. I’ve thought about it far too many times for it to be a thought in my head now. They have people everywhere, Brig, you know that. I only ran because if I didn’t I’d be dead.”
“You’ll die if you go back!” I roar, my face shifting before I can control it and shifting back when I snarl at my wolf.
Beebee’s expression goes hard, the fact that she hasn’t said anything about my loss of control telling me just how angry the female is. I recognize that look; it’s the same one she wore right before she shifted into her cougar in front of an entire school of elite.
Stubborn fucking female.
“I’m dead anyway! This way at least I can try to repair the damage I’ve done,” she says firmly, smiling darkly when I growl. “Oh come on, Brig, don’t tell me you give a shit if they catch me.”
“Of course, I care Beebee. Do you think I would have run miles to find you and get you out of there if I didn’t?”
She scoffs, pursing her lips and considers me skeptically.
“You’re telling me you came to help me of your own free will?”
“Yes! Hannah spoke to me and told me where you were, and she held those idiots off long enough for me to get us out of there and to my car. She helped, but I…I’ve been looking for you, Beebee,” I admit, my voice going low with emotion.
Three months of constant searching, putting off my own escape, and it turns out they were holding her right under my nose. I thought she’d been taken by those no scent shifters that have been invading Greyriver…when in truth, she’s been right where I could reach her all along.
That pisses me off a lot, as does the thought that I was probably in that fucking building while they were hurting her. I may not be her biggest fan right now, but if I’d known, I would have gotten her out of there.
Likely why I wasn’t told, I think, promising myself that I will kill Blain the moment I get a chance. I don’t give a dam if he’s my brother, or if he’s been there for both Hannah and myself when we needed him. For this alone, I will find him and rip his eyes out…slowly.
“Well, then Hannah made you come for me,” she insists stubbornly, making me grind my teeth.
“No. She was looking for you because she knew I was, and she spoke to me because she finally fucking found you. If you hadn’t refused to hear her, I would have found you a long time ago. Do you know how many times I’ve been to Helena and been in that building?! I could have had you out months ago!” I say, snarling when she looks away and sighs.
“I couldn’t leave yet.”
“Why not?”
“I had to…there was someone I had to get out, too,” she admits reluctantly, making my anger rise higher.
“Who?”
“I…just someone! Like I was leaving another person there to rot and die. No way.”
“You’re lying, Beebee. I can see it every time you look away and worry the hem of that shirt. I see it because you blush and your eyes go glassy as if you’re struggling not to blink and give yourself away. Who?” I press, stalking up to her to grab her shoulders when her lips thin out.
“It’s my business!”
“Now it’s mine!” I yell in her face, my fear for her and what will happen if I leave her making me break out in a sweat.
I was going to take her back to the pack and leave her there, wipe my hands of it all, but as things stand now, I can’t do any of that, never mind go to Alaska and get lost in the wild.
If I take her back, someone there is going to report her appearance, and then she’s dead. Whether it’s in custody or outside if she manages to convince Nick to pardon her, she’ll be gotten to.
And they will kill her. Pack is pack, but in the resistance
all packs are connected and priority. One network spanning continents. One drive. One goal. Race.
Beebee means nothing to them if she threatens the outcome they’ve worked for over the years, and no, contrary to what she thinks, I can’t just walk away.
I don’t know why, but every selfish part of me fails to matter when I look at her and think of her hurting.
Dragging her into my chest, I keep her pinned and wait for her to stop struggling before I speak, clearing my throat of the obstruction there.
“I joined five years ago after I found my mom in the basement where my dad threw her for daring to contradict him in front of his friends. About a simple birthday party that he wanted her to arrange that he’d scheduled when she was supposed to take Hannah to Olney for her birthday. I knew then that I couldn’t ignore it anymore, that my intentions to leave wouldn’t make a difference to anything but my own life,” I say to her, sighing when I feel hesitant hands settle on my back.
The feel of her skin against mine, and knowing she’s touching me voluntarily, makes me shudder and close my eyes in bliss.
“So I followed the numbers it was rumored they leave behind and got into it pretty fast. But see, none of it mattered because in the long run, nothing changed. My mom wouldn’t leave; my dad still ruled us all with an iron fist; and honestly, I just got tired of doing shit that didn’t make sense to me. Namely, why I would obey my father and kill my own sister,” I say to her, shuddering when I remember seeing Goose Banes rip at Hannah’s throat.
I was paralyzed for seconds, stuck in my role as elite son and resistance agent, and in that time, I became complicit because my hesitation gave Logan the opportunity to save Hannah and I got her suspicion for not doing what I was there to do in the first place. Save Hannah.
That, right there, was the last nail in the coffin; having my superiors tell me not to act in saving Hannah, that it needed to happen.
Bee tenses and pulls away slightly though I notice she doesn’t push me away or let go fully, the concession making me fight a hard on while I try not to ruin it by showing her what I want right now instead of talk.
Greyriver Shifters Page 52
