Greyriver Shifters

by Kristina Weaver

  What problem? Honey, Fating is rare nowadays. I don’t take the fact that we’ve all been Fated recently as the normal way of things. My mom told me that we’re down to a one percent rate in the last two decades.

  Exactly! It’s a problem. Just think, Han, if Fating was more prevalent we wouldn’t have daughters mating males who hurt them because Fating and the animal’s mind prevents those males from harming their mates. There’d be less abuse, less young being hurt, less-

  Okaaay, so we need more Fating. I get it, but Jules you know how rare it is for Fating to occur. These days a pair are lucky if they discover their Fated before eighty or ninety years of age. No one wants to be alone for half of their lives.

  Precisely! That’s the thing, but have you ever thought that because of pack separation it makes it impossible for Fating to occur.

  You’re confusing me here, female. I don’t get what you’re saying or maybe I do and it’s just ridiculous.

  I laugh and start talking and by the time I’m done telling her everything I’ve outlined I think that yeah, I may just be onto something.

  # # # #

  Blain

  I go upstairs both reluctantly and because I can’t stop myself anymore, the dinner tray Banner put together from the food his mother sent to the house balanced in one hand while I wrestle with the door.

  Once I’m in and have the door closed, I take a minute to just breathe and swallow, the guilt I feel eating me up so badly I have to force myself to look up at my mate.

  She’s asleep on top of the covers, the scent of her tears and Cass’s own angry crying filling the air I breathe into my lungs. Hell, I fucked up. As much as I want to excuse myself and say that I have every reason to lose my temper with Jules, the truth is that I lost it because I didn’t want to hear her.

  I’ve lived for so long with the way I thought and felt about Jessa that it was like a slap to the face to hear all of those parts of the story that had hurt the most.

  Jules is right, more than right in fact. Jessa was never going to mate me. We loved each other, we were together for a long time, but that was just time to her. Hell, to me too if I’m honest because before her betrothal it hadn’t occurred to me to even ask.

  I hate that it took hours of back and forth inside my head for me to finally stop avoiding all the truths and accept them. I wasn’t going to mate Jessa. She was going to mate whoever her parents chose for her, money or no money.

  Her actions were her own choice, and as much guilt as I still feel over playing a part in her death I wasn’t the one who chose it. She took all the money she could, and her actions led to her death.

  If she’d run when I begged her, she would have lived. Instead, she chose to stay and try to explain herself, and for that she died. She wanted to mate a Banes and make her family proud, and it’s a tragedy that a Banes was what killed her, but that’s who did it.

  Not me. Not Alpha.

  Accepting that part of it was the hardest because I despise the male enough to want to lay the blame at his door. However…

  “Blain?”

  I snap out of my inner musings and look up as Jules sits up, rubbing sleep from her eyes and peering up at me blearily. God, she looks adorable pouting and frowning as she stretches and yawns wide enough to make her jaw crack.

  I clear my throat, walking forward on shaking legs and lower myself to the side of the bed with my heart racing. I fucking suck at this kind of thing.

  Palms sweating, I lower the tray between us and wait until she’s comfortable before I hand her a fork and watch her taste the venison stew Ros made for us because Cass is green at the gills and I didn’t want to disturb Jules.

  “This is good,” Julia says, keeping her eyes on the plate.

  I don’t like that she won’t look at me or that when she does she looks at a point just over my shoulder and doesn’t meet my eyes. Since we’ve been together, I have always had the security of her smile, her inquisitive gaze, and the knowledge that she’s not afraid of me.

  To think that she may not feel that way now, that I’ve hurt her so much she’s too unsure and uncomfortable to even look at me…it hurts. I’ve ruined the budding relationship we had.

  It’s all on me because the truth is that I…this mating has hit me for a loop. I haven’t ever done love, sharing, companionship. I haven’t ever wanted to, so I have no idea what the hell it is I am supposed to be doing.

  I want to though. All that love and togetherness I see with other mated pairs is what I want with Jules because if this is all I get to have, this one female, it’s enough.

  She’s good and smart and sweet and sexy as hell, and all mine.

  If I never accomplish my goals, fulfil my vows or sit on the council again, I think it would be okay because I’d know that she is mine and I won’t lose her.

  Right now, I am terrified that I will lose her, have lost her, because there is no bond for us. Banner told me Logan and Hannah struggled to form a bond as well, that Logan didn’t want to risk himself.

  I cannot allow myself to make the same mistakes and it terrifies me to think that I’m losing my mate bit by bit because of my actions, but I just, I don’t know how to stop!

  With these foreclosures, I am myself, doing something that brings me malicious glee and helping me defend my female’s honor. It’s something she hates, even as she laughs at me for being a sneak.

  We’re just so dissimilar, I think, leaning my elbows on my knees to watch her eat. We have no common ground whatsoever. I kill males who want to harm her, and she saves the life of one because she sees no use in killing.

  “I apologize for the things I said to you earlier.”

  Jules shrugs, keeps her eyes on her plate and keeps eating. The move, the lack of interest she shows me makes sweat pop out on my brow and the tension I’ve carried for hours morph into pure fear.

  I don’t have a clue how the hell to do this.

  With Jules, I’m walking on quick sand and every time I think I’ve freed a foot I step into another sink hole.

  “The things I said were unacceptable.”

  “The things you said are what you felt, Blain,” she says dully, wiggling passed me to place the tray on the side table.

  Once there, she swings around and faces me though her eyes still do not meet mine. The distance pains me because while I haven’t built a bond with her, I rely on the easiness she’s brings to our relationship. With that openness gone, trampled beneath my boot, I can’t even see her eyes to discern where I should step.

  Uncertainty fills me, and I rake a hand through my hair, floundering as she comes back to the bed and sits down, pulling her knees to her chest as she usually does when she feels uncomfortable.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Don’t. Today didn’t go well for any of us, so I understand, okay? You’ve had a lot of stress on you to find the shifters who want to hurt me; we’re living in someone else’s home because the next attack may be fatal; and this investigation hanging over your head isn’t making things easier, especially not with my father finding new angles to come at you daily. I understand. I just, I wanted to take away one thing off that list, just one to make things easier,” she says softly, picking at the sheet.

  I swallow and look down at my hands where they’re clamped between my knees so that I don’t touch her. I want to. Hell, I want to grab her and kiss her and use sex to distract us both from this until it’s a long-forgotten tiff and nothing more.

  “I understand your reasoning but—”

  “No, I don’t think you do so in the spirit of sharing or our mating or whatever this is I’ll lay it all out for you. I love you. No! Don’t speak because I get to have my say in this, too. I love you. I don’t know when or how or even why it happened, but it’s true. You’re kind to me; you look after me; and you’ve made an effort to include me in your life.”

  I gulp, knowing that I haven’t, not really and the guilt of that thought has my fingers clenching to stop me from slam
ming a fist into the side table. I haven’t done any Goddamn thing to make her feel this way, but I am grateful that she does because as mercenary as it sounds, I need whatever I can get right now.

  “Bria—”

  “I spoke to Hannah a while ago, and she told me that your opinion of me is my fault. It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow, but hey, I had to be honest with myself, and you know, she’s right. You look at me and see pack princess and spoiled little rich girl.”

  “Bria, I—”

  “And you would be right. Partly. Did my parents love me? Yes, unequivocally. Yes, they did. I had love and attention and everything I ever wanted growing up. My dad was an amazing father, and my mom was everything in this world a mother should be. She never abandoned me the way your mom did,” she says softly, her eyes soft on mine for mere seconds before she drags her gaze away.

  “But here’s the thing, all that freedom you think I had? A lie. From the time I could remember my first true thought I have had to be perfect. I dressed the way Mom thought a little female should, I learned how to read, write, and do basic arithmetic by the time I was four. By six, I was learning the role of pack Alpha and his female. By eight, I understood three different shifter languages, and by ten, I could read, write, and speak them all. I know every law that has changed, but for the last year when things started going wrong around here. I know how to negotiate trade deals with other packs. I have a business degree from the human university Stanford, and all while doing that I kept it hidden, as Mom wanted, because to this day a female of the pack has to be less than the males,” she says sadly, shaking her head.

  “My brother used to tease me about flunking out of school or having to retake exams about human history, but the truth is my real education was impeccable. By eighteen, I knew every shifter Alpha that had ever led a pack, here in the States or in Europe or South America. You name a pack treaty or deal, and I know about it. I have never, ever had freedom, not like you’re thinking, Blain, and that’s okay, but the one thing you cannot call me is stupid. I am far from it. That formula? It will buy us all time for Dad’s clock to run out on the investigation because the council won’t tolerate loosening the bylaws now,” she smirks.

  I flinch, my eyes narrowing on her and feel my heart beat pick up because it seems that my little mate knows exactly what she’s doing. Maybe. I just…

  “They’ll use that formula in the next attack.”

  “No, they really won’t because Althea is being guarded by Noble and Clarke, and trust me, that formula won’t leave her clinic until the Alpha and council agree on the law governing it,” she says. “Article Six of the Greyriver bylaws. No shifter, be it Alpha or high-ranking member, shall take steps within the pack that prohibit the natural biology of the individuals within the structure ruled over by Alpha and council.”

  My mouth drops open as the words tumble out, and I’d be astonished and jubilant that she knows that off the top of her head if not for the way her mouth turns down after the last word leaves her lips.

  “You broke that bylaw. If it ever came out that you created that formula and used it on this pack, you would be killed immediately.”

  “I did.”

  “Technically, you didn’t,” she says, grinning at me when I frown. “You used it on the Clayton pack, before they became Greyriver, so in reality this bylaw doesn’t apply to you. Handing the formula over to the pack, for the good of the pack, proves that your intentions for it were pure and that pack interest is your priority.”

  I’m stunned by the way her mind works, and even more so when she meets my eyes and smiles. Sadly.

  “You saved my life. Twice. First when you didn’t kill me when I was playing secret agent and came after you to identify the council leader, and then again in the basement. You’ve accepted me at a time in my life when everyone else abandoned me, and you’ve been as kind as you could in the way you’ve handled this mating—and for that I am forever grateful. Will be forever grateful.”

  “I don’t want you to be grateful! You don’t owe me anything,” I mutter, frustrated that we’re back to this.

  I don’t want gratitude and for her to feel like we’re indebted to each other. I want my mate back. I want her to look at me with softness again and be mischievous and laugh and give herself to me freely. Not as a duty but because she wants me. Only me.

  “I know that, Blain. We’re well past that now, I think. I do however want to point out that we’re in a situation that is necessitated by need. You’re here because we need to be, not because you want to be, and I’m stuck in the middle of two males who refuse to back down. Dad has a right to come after you, even if that right doesn’t include his anger at us mating. You formed an organization that was meant to override the sovereignty of all packs under one policing system, and you intended to put it into practice using males who would kill without question.”

  I flinch, hearing the words from her mouth for the first time and unable to escape just how crazy it all sounds. It does sound nuts. Like the rage filled vengeance of a male who didn’t think of pack but of his own goals.

  Hearing her, knowing that she’s right I can’t justify any of what I did and that is not comfortable. Neither is the realization that everything I’ve done for years has been a lie.

  “I never meant to hurt anyone. Least of all you.”

  “Oh no? Then why send the scentless for me?” she asks, tilting her head.

  At the beginning of this, the whole reason for the invasions was to grab Julia and keep her in confinement. I thought that if I could anger Nick he’d make a misstep and also…

  I flush, looking down at my hands and finally admit the real reason I had them searching for her.

  “I wanted to protect you. From myself,” I whisper, swallowing when I feel her come over my back and wrap her arms around me from behind.

  Taking her hand, I pull her close so that she’s blanketing me and all the heat and scent she puts off warms the coldness inside me.

  “And I want to protect you.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Jules

  I roll over in bed and snuggle up to Blain’s warmth, the smooth length of his muscular back putting off so much heat I can’t help but curl into him to absorb it into my cold bones.

  I’ve spent the last few hours thinking feverishly before I fell asleep in the wee hours and had fitful dreams filled with his hatred, anger, and recriminations.

  It’s to the point now that I am desperate to feel something, anything from him besides what I know is coming. Because it will come. All those things he yelled at me within my nightmares will come to pass, I have no doubt.

  He’ll hate me, reject me, divorce me the moment he hears what I’ve set in motion, and I can’t even say I blame him. I hate me too for the decisions I’ve made.

  Swallowing, I push closer and push a hand over his side, risking rejection to hold him close for just a little longer. He sighs in his sleep and pulls my arm closer, his hand interlinking with mine as if even in sleep he feels me.

  God, I wish that was true. If it were true, then we’d be so deeply bonded that his body recognizes mine even in sleep. It’s not though. We have no bond. After our heart to heart last night, I assumed that he’d at least…want me.

  We haven’t gone one night without sex since we decided to mate, and it hurt, a lot, when instead of grabbing me and spending hours inside me, he kissed my cheek and got ready for bed. To sleep.

  His shower took forever, and I lay in a state of nervous anticipation while telling myself that I can do this, I can seduce him and get him to love me just a few more times before things start unravelling for us.

  I intended to strike a pose and smile at him in this…well, I don’t really know how I thought I was going to do it since I’ve never been the one to initiate sex in any way or form, but what I didn’t expect was to don a sexy slip of see-through lace, and then have him completely ignore my overtures to climb into bed and go to sleep.

  It was h
umiliating, embarrassing, and painful when I rolled closer only to feel him shift away and go to sleep.

  I don’t know what to do with that quite frankly since it’s never been an issue. I’m not sexually confident, having never really had much experience, and I rely on him to make the moves in this relationship.

  Now I just don’t know—

  Oh stop whining! The male is asleep and at your mercy. Be a good girl and give him an early morning wake up lick.

  I cringe when Hannah’s voice pops into my head and groan when she cackles and sends me a mental image of something I can only describe as porn.

  It is porn. Bunny Hums the Star-Spangled Banner is a very graphic showing of oral technique. I watched it two days ago and made Logan roar like a lion or panther. I’m not sure which, but it was awesome.

  You realize that male is like my brother, right?

  So? Blain is my brother, and I’m all good with teaching you to spread your…love.

  What are you even doing up?

  Feeding Mox. The little darling eats like an actual pig sometimes. It’s so adorable!

  You know the more you feed her, the more she shits, right?

  It’s a mother thing, you won’t understand until you have young of your own. Anyway, I found this human thing on the internet that pumps fresh air into the room continuously. It doesn’t take away the stench, but it lessens it enough to make changes possible. I think my nose may be broken. I seem to have developed a lack of care for the reek.

  I chuckle, the thought of that eye wateringly potent reek becoming normal almost impossible to fathom.

  It’s because you love them.

  Love has ruined me. I used to be so cold and hard and cool, and now I love enough not to mind dying of asphyxiation. Whatever will become of me? If I turn into Mika, put me out of my misery, will you? It’s just kinder to me.

  Oh come on, you know you like her.

  Not fucking in this lifetime. Stop distracting me. Why are you awake at three twenty-eight in the morning trying to think of ways to sex Blain? Isn’t he into your taco anymore?