What I’m about to do is treachery of the highest order, at least I think that is how my mate would see it, and I can’t blame him. I sound dramatic, I know. Hannah’s been rubbing off on me.
It doesn’t change the facts though, and those are that I am about to betray Blain, take away his means of revenge, and very probably make him hate me if, when, he finds out.
“Talk to me, baby. Tell me what’s going on here,” Mom says softly, stroking the hand I have resting on the table beside my purse.
“Were you here when Blain came that first time to get Daddy’s help? When he knew I was his Fated?” I ask, my lip trembling when she looks away and bites her own lip.
“I was.”
“Why did you do it, Mom? Why did you let that happen?” I ask, hating that it did and knowing that she was involved.
Mom shrugs and looks down at the table, pulling her hands away to wrap around her cup.
“When he came he was…crazed. You were so little, Jules, just a baby still, and the thought of…it scared me to death. I’d met the Seers more than once, and that boy was, he was a wild one. Of course, I never knew that his father beat the hell out of them all. I just thought it was bad blood,” she admits, smiling sadly, and in a way that makes me think she regrets her mindset.
“He was a boy. A frightened boy, who got the hell beaten out of him when Dad tossed him on this father’s doorstep.”
She shudders, her emotions getting the better of her, and clenches her hands around the cup. I can see how hard this is, and yet if I’m going to do this, I want it all. I want answers from her no matter how much it hurts.
“I was…wrong. We both were. I knew it the night I found out you’d been taken. I knew it when I walked into the clinic and saw your face. Hell, I knew it at the New Year’s pack get-together when I saw you frowning at him,” she snorts, making me blush because I was drunk off my ass that night and having very raunchy fantasies about Blain and hate sex.
Shoulda known then, I think, toasting her with my cocoa and taking a sip.
“He’s had it bad, Mom. His life was…it was bad. He lost me. He lost hope, and then the one person he loved, Jessa, died because Dad refused to see that his new laws were hurting the pack. Blain blames Dad for not saving her, and I can’t blame him. I blame him a little, too,” I admit.
Mom mumbles a curse and stares down, her hair concealing her tears, though I smell them.
“Your father is a good Alpha, Jules. He just needs to find his way back from all the conflict those council members have caused in him.”
“I know that, Mom. I really do, and that is why I’m willing to ruin what I have now to save them both,” I say quietly, my throat closing with both fear and sorrow.
I’m about to lose everything. All the nights I’ve slept beside Blain, his affection, the sex and togetherness that we have now. All that progress and the possibility that he could love me. Poof!
Because males are so freaking stubborn and stupid and they can’t see that there is always a way forward. I see it. It’s just that for me, it’s a road paved with heartache.
“What are you going to do, Jules? Your dad won’t back down with Blain. He thinks the male is bad for you,” she warns.
“Tell me something I don’t already know, Mom. He isn’t though. He’s good inside, just lost in the pain. He treats me really well, Mom, and he takes care of me in ways that I never thought I would have with a male.”
Her face crumples before she can control it, and I’m left wondering why it is that we females even want men sometimes. Jesus, they make things hard.
“I’m happy for you, baby. That means he’s the one and only for you.” She smiles, patting my hand.
“Not for long though, not if I do this,” I mutter, taking a deep breath. “I have a plan that might fix all of this.”
She frowns, probably thinking that I’m being stupid because no one would believe that I could fix this messed up chaos. The truth is that I couldn’t, not if I wasn’t willing to lose everything.
“Baby, no offense but this is not fixable,” she says gently, patting my hand. “Blain refuses to stop taunting Nick, and your father just keeps getting more insane with his determination to kill that boy.”
Which I get. Trust me. Dad’s speaking out about what happened, at least his version is making our lives impossible. I’ve been attacked twice now, once physically and that other in a brutal way that could have gotten my mate hurt. I can’t let this go on.
“You know about Hannah’s gift?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, she used it to check out some stuff about the Lewis and Hedricks guys. It seems that they’re related to the last Alpha, who escaped the council and fled our pack at Barbie’s trial.”
“You know who it is?” she asks.
“Hannah does. At least from what she got from the Lewis females, they’ve had some strange calls from Alpha Sloan. We did a little digging, and he’s left his pack with his Beta Jacobs, so I’m guessing he ran because he thought someone would come after him.”
“Like Blain,” she interprets, smiling ruefully. “That male of yours is frightening in his calculation, Julia.”
“And Dad’s any better?” I scoff. “Look, we all know Dad can’t prove anything unless he plays under the table, and we know that he’s willing to do that. Hell, if Blain goes down, I get banished. No, don’t say anything, I’m so over it already. I don’t want to see my male hurt, Mom, not after every disappointment he’s already had, so I’m willing to lose here to save shit, but I need you to help me and give me a blood vow that you won’t betray me on this.”
I see indecision on her face, fear, and then she straightens her spine and I am reminded why Prissy Silverton is Alpha female of this pack. Strength. She is strong to the core, and I am praying that I possess just half of that strength to get through this. Not in one piece and whole because I highly doubt that can happen if I have a broken heart, but enough that I can get this done without falling apart.
“I vow it. On blood,” she says, shifting her teeth to open her palm.
I do that same and we shake, making an unbreakable vow in blood, an oath that if broken is punishable by death. I shit you not.
“Good, then I can tell you that I plan to pin all of this on Sloan,” I tell her.
“Wait. What?”
“You heard me. To get Blain off their radar and back on the council, I am going to frame Sloan. He’s been sniffing around here trying to get at Blain, so I’m going to set a trap for him and make it look like he tried to get at me, but I killed him.”
Not that I necessarily want to kill the guy, but come on, the male is sniffing around for two reasons only: the formula and Blain. I’d bet money he wants rid of Blain so he can lead the resistance.
Like I’m about to let any of that happen.
“You’re planning to…?”
“Kill him. Yes. After I get you to hand this formula over to the council and tell them that Blain slipped it to Althea. Cass is right, if we spin this so that everyone thinks Blain really was a double agent in the resistance, then it will help him.”
“Okay, but I don’t see how this will affect you negatively, Jules. You keep saying that you’re about to lose everything, honey, but if we do this right…”
“Nothing will stop Dad, you know that. No, I have to stop Dad, and I’m going to do it by turning myself in to the council and ‘confessing’ that I lied about Blain,” I whisper, the pain the words cause making my chest hurt to the point of agony.
Mom flinches, rearing back, and I can’t blame her for her horror because no female turns on her Fated. It just isn’t done.
“Baby—”
“Dad doesn’t care about Blain, Mom. If it hadn’t been for me, he’d have maybe tried to get him removed from the council and that would have been it. This vendetta is because of me, because he failed to keep me from the male he threw out of this house years ago. It’s not even about him thinking Blain is bad, Mom. It’s
about him having to acknowledge his own guilt if he accepts this Fating,” I say, receiving her agreement when she nods her head.
“He’s so stubborn. I tried to talk to him but…”
“He wouldn’t listen. Just like I begged Blain to let go of the attacks for now, just until things died down for him. This is all me. Two males fighting for possession, so I’m going to make it so that both of them don’t want me.”
“Oh God, Julia. You know if he believes you betrayed him, he could go feral,” Mom warns, making me smile sadly.
Sadly, because I know that no matter how I ignore it, we haven’t bonded. Blain once told me his brother Brig told him that if you pretend hard enough it will be true, and in Blain’s case he uses that mental strength to keep us separated on an emotional level.
I myself haven’t allowed it to grow. Mostly out of fear, but now I am glad because I don’t think I could do this if he was in danger of going feral.
“We haven’t bonded, Mom. Maybe if things had been easier, no dad or the council or all of this shit, but it’s just…. I told you he was damaged, Mom. He holds back from me and…well,” I say, sniffing and giving a rueful laugh when I can’t stop a tear from escaping.
“Oh, baby.”
“No, it’s okay. It’s better because now I get to do the one thing for him that he’s been looking for his whole life. I get to love him more than anyone, even myself.”
Is there any better way to prove love than to give it up for that person’s happiness? I ask myself. I don’t think so, at least that’s what I tell myself to make it more bearable.
“When do you want this all to happen?”
I slide the formula across the table at her, the one I found by scratching around in Blain’s office for hours yesterday under the guise that I need to go home to get some more clothes.
Cass asked me a thousand times just what I was doing, and I told her I was trying to see what Blain had planned for the families of my attackers. Which I found out! Sneaky, clever male.
I also happened to find his safe, and you know what, it hurt when I tried a few combinations and finally cracked it using my birthday. Hurt like a sonofabitch really. He feels for me, I know he does.
“Take this to Althea tomorrow and let her work up something, a small dose to test on an enforcer. I’ve spoken to Clarke, and he’s okay with what’s going down as far as the formula is concerned,” I tell her.
I am best pals with Clarke Kilter, my only real male friend since we used to hang out at the bar together a lot. Clarke to unwind and get laid and me to escape Mom’s perfection and her view of me. Noble, he’s in on it too because I promised that if he helped me he’d get a shot at Lync. Through Cass.
Hey, she owes me fucking big after I had to spend hours changing diapers yesterday. Gag.
“Clarke’s okay with this?”
“He knows I plan to give the formula to Althea, and then the council should be mollified. He was actually the one who volunteered to be the test subject.” I smirk. “Noble will help with the rest. Dad’s probably going to be unable to help with the next step of my plan, but Noble is going to be there so don’t worry.”
“What next step! You said you’re going to betray your mate, what do you need Noble for?” she demands, making me smile.
“Mom, this is what I needed you for. Let me worry about the rest,” I murmur, lifting her hand to kiss it. “If you can make sure Dad’s hands are tied for a hot second, I’ll make sure the rest of it goes smoothly.”
Shit. It had better because I now see that Blain was right in so many ways and what I’m going to do will see at least one part of his dreams come true.
Rising, I walk around the table to hug Mom and then unlock the back door. My last look at her is filled with pain, hope, and love because I should have known that she would always be there for me if it came down to it.
“I love you, Jules.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
Chapter Twenty
Blain
I growl when Julia finally steps into Banner’s house and grab her in a strong grip before shaking her gently.
“Where the hell have you been?! I almost had a fucking heart attack when I went up to check on you and found the room empty.”
It’s been an hour of scouring the woods, my mind frantic because I couldn’t pick up her scent well enough to track her because Lync keeps stinking the area up with his fucking aggressive scent all the time.
I thought maybe she snuck out for a walk since her and Mother haven’t exactly getting along in the last few days. I did warn her about Mother’s nastiness but trust Jules not to believe me.
“I…I’m sorry, but, just, you know I’ve been going a little crazy! Hell, you’re driving me crazy,” she mutters, looking back at me with a frown.
“I told you to stay in the house for your own safety, Julia, not because I’m trying to be some dominant asshole who controls everything. The people out there are at war with themselves right now, and until I find out what is going on and who to kill, you need to stay safe.”
Okay, so I admit that it’s been a bit much, watching her every single move and having Lync follow her. Hell, I freely take responsibility for the fact that she’s been trapped in the house for days because the one time she tried to sneak out I scared the shit out of her by grabbing her ass while she was shimmying out of the bedroom window.
I almost laughed myself sick when the sly little female tried to play her games with me and begged off lunch to have a nap because she was tired and spent an hour waiting around the corner just listening for her.
It was more than amusing to see Banner’s face and take his thousand dollars when the window opened and feet, legs, and ass popped out, Julia dangling high up before she just let go to fall to the ground.
Her screech when I caught her and then marched her upstairs again to tuck her into bed was so amusing I laughed for hours. After she cussed me out and pouted.
The thing is, I know her now, and she’s definitely got something up her sleeve. I’ve seen her sweet, well as sweet as anyone is capable of being when compared to Cass. I’ve seen her angry, loving, sated, sad. And I have seen her plotting when she finally cracked the other morning and dumped half a salt shaker in Mother’s eggs because the old crone keeps telling Jules her cooking is terrible and nowhere near Cass’s level.
Jealousy sparked in Julia’s eyes, and I waited, patiently, until Mother gasped and almost asphyxiated coughing when she shoveled eggs into her mouth and tasted Julia’s revenge.
I know her plot face, and right now, she’s wearing it.
“Julia.”
She huffs, shoving at me to step back, and fold her arms while tapping her foot.
“It’s not my fault you’re so stubborn! Dammit Blain, this is your pack too, and just because Dad is being an asshole doesn’t mean you don’t live up to what you promised to do,” she accuses, giving me pause.
Shit.
“I did,” I lie, feeling not one ounce of guilt because, well, I’m used to lies.
I’m good at lies, and besides, just because Cass and Jules have some cockamamie idea that I’m some knight in shining armor does not mean I will ever be that.
“Liar! You gave them a dud formula! How am I supposed to help you if you’re already trying to manipulate things! We’re supposed to be a team who works together and is honest, and all this time you’ve just been…been lying to me.”
Eyes narrowed, I purse my lips and consider her face, taking in the angry flush, her fidgeting, and the way she starts picking at her nails, a sure sign that I will not like what she’s done.
“What did you do?”
“Now Blain—”
“Julia, I swear to God if you don’t tell me, I will lock you in Mother’s room all day and let you keep her company. Then I’ll call Hannah and tell her you want to babysit!” I threaten, my mouth twitching when hers falls open and her eyes stretch.
Terror.
Good. Fear works all th
e time and—
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“You want me to die? Or go blind from the smell?” she gasps.
I would laugh. I mean, I don’t think she’s trying to be funny, but that shit is. At least it is when I see someone else gagging with tears streaming from their eyes and literally praying for death. Christ, what is in Hannah’s breast milk?
“I want you to stop stalling and explain to me just exactly where you have been and what you’re planning, Julia,” I reiterate, leaning back into the kitchen wall when she bites her lip and starts pacing.
“You have to understand…I…I had to do it! You’re being so pig headed about this and stubborn and—”
“Pig headed and stubborn are the same thing, Julia. Spit it out!” I snarl, wincing when I hear an answering growl and Lync walks into the kitchen, his face a mask of savage annoyance.
Great, just what I need. I yell, and he’s likely to rip my throat out with his teeth and present it to her as a gift. Animal.
“I… The thing is that…I sort of stole your formula,” she admits in a voice so low that I almost don’t catch it.
The moment the words leave her mouth, I go tense and fill with so much anger I have to close my eyes and count to avoid getting killed by Lync.
“But it’s all going to be okay because, er, Althea is going to take it to the council and then…then they’ll get off your ass!” she sings, sounding so hopeful I want to reassure her.
I can’t though because I know if I open my mouth nothing good will come out of it.
“Don’t be mad. Please. It was the best plan, Blain, and you know it.”
The best plan? The best fucking plan! No, the best plan would have been if she’d kept her nose out of my business and stayed in the house doing the things females should do instead of trying to involve herself in a situation she doesn’t understand.
That formula was my only card left, the one thing I had to hold over the pack. With them owning it, I have to face a lot more obstacles. For one, I have no leverage and—
Greyriver Shifters Page 113
