I shrug, not caring because that asshole won’t be able to do a thing if the councils elect one overseeing council. He’ll be as responsible to them as he is to his pack. Hopefully enough that he won’t ever sniff around here again.
“It’ll work out. As for the jail time…I kinda need a place to hide out, Noble. I mean, it’s not like I really have anywhere to go afterward anyway,” I say sadly, knowing that Banner would help me, as would Logan, but not wanting to put them in any more trouble than they are. “I’m hoping that once Logan’s suspension is lifted he’ll reinstate Banner.”
He scoffs at that and shakes his head with a frustrated sigh before sitting beside me and pulling me into his side. We just sit there for a while and I try to calm myself and appreciate the wonder of nature around me. If Dad arrests me, I’ll probably be locked up for who knows how long, and then I won’t have the trees and the air and shifting. Best to take what I can get now.
“When Lync lost it…I was lost myself. He was the only person I had left in this life and he just left me,” he says, breaking the silence.
“Oh Noble. I’m so sorry about it, and I am doubly sorry that Dad chose to just lock him away,” I say softly, taking his hand in mine.
“It was…hard. I hated your father for a long time, Jules. It took everything in me to look at the situation and accept that maybe it was all Nick had. Other packs kill ferals, so I should just be grateful that Nick didn’t. The thing is though, I hated Lync too. For leaving me even if I know—deep down—that he couldn’t help it. I finally accepted all that because I understand what it’s like to have to look at another person and love.”
That shocks me mute, and I see him grin and shake his head before he looks out through the woods and blows out a breath.
“This thing you’re doing could lose you the one person you love, Jules. Are you sure you’re ready for that pain because I can tell you, baby, I almost crumpled when Lync went feral. I drank myself into a coma almost every night, didn’t care about anything or anyone, and hardly left the job unless I was home. Drinking.”
I understand him perfectly, I really do, because the ache in my chest is already at agonizing levels and I haven’t even faced Blain yet. I’ll probably break when I see him and see all his hatred, but for now, I have to tell myself that it’s for the best.
He doesn’t love me, and he doesn’t need me either. He wants me. I want love, not just lust and responsibility, and besides, this is me doing the right thing for once.
For the right reasons.
“I have to do this. Dad will lose his shit when I divorce Blain, and then the ‘protest’, well that should keep him even busier still. We just need another day or two, Noble. That’s all,” I say, rising to dust off my jeans and swallow. “Remember, don’t kill me with the cuffs.
He grins and shakes his head, rising beside me.
“Right in the middle of town, huh?”
I’m protesting the state of the pack and the laws in the town center, as loud and as unpleasantly as I can, and I hope to God Noble can protect me long enough to arrest me and get me to the Alpha before people form a fucking lynch mob.
From there, I’ll petition for divorce, which should go as speedily as any divorce in history. From there, it’s all up to Clarke, my trusty little man whore with the golden smile and Noble, my dark angel.
Stepping out of the trees, I grab the bell I stole from Cass’s Christmas decorations, my placard, and try to find my balls.
Here goes.
# # # #
Blain
I’m in the middle of a council meeting, the first of hopefully many when my phone rings and Banner starts yelling nonsense down the line that makes my hair stand up on my head.
“What!”
“I said your mate just got arrested in the middle of town, right near the Alpha’s house before a lynch mob could kill her stupid ass! Jesus! Cass honey, stop crying please. Please. We’ll go over there and get her, I promise, but you keep crying, and then you’ll puke, and I don’t have time to change my shirt again.”
“What is she doing in the middle of town?” I yell into the phone, not bothering to explain to the council when I jump over the table and take off running.
“Apparently according to my mom, she was protesting the state of the pack’s laws and the divorce inequality that leads to domestic violence.”
I don’t hear anything else as I yank off my jacket and dump it, my feet pounding towards my car. It takes me ten fucking minutes to reach the Alpha’s house where a mob is lining the streets and lawn, but when I do I am seething with impotent rage.
That little upstart! What the hell do I have to do to get her to stay out of trouble? My heart is pounding because I’ve been in this situation before. I jump from the car and race up the steps, shoving an angry shifter out of my way with a snarl.
“Traitor!”
“Oh get fucked!” I snarl, hitting a male who lunges at me with enough force I feel his jaw break before he hits the ground.
I’m sweating when I pound on the door and try to stop my lungs from seizing. Oh God, not again, I beg, the past and present merging in a sick replay of the day I heard that Jessa was taken.
I’d raced there just as I did now only to find out that she had ‘left’ the family. I know this situation can’t be the same. I know the Alpha would never hurt his own daughter, but as I stand here, my mind replays it all. All I can think is that I can’t do this again. Not again.
Jessa’s decomposed body flashes in my mind, the beauty that I once knew gone with the stink of death and months’ long searches I made of the woods all over the area.
All I can think as the seconds tick by and my heart races is that I can’t let another female I love die. Because I do love Jules, so completely that it is crippling in its intensity.
I love that she talks to Hannah even if they ‘hate’ each other. I love that she gets through changing one of the triplets before she pukes because she loves young and can’t resist holding them, even knowing one of them will eventually let off an atom bomb of poop.
I love that she smiles at me in a way that tells me I matter, but most of all I love that she chose me.
Goddammit! She chose me.
The knowledge of that, something I’ve denied myself for weeks, hits me like a slap to the face, and I feel the air leave my lungs just as the door opens and Prissy Silverton meets my eyes.
Her own blue eyes are filled with tears, but what shocks me is that she grabs my arm and yanks me into the house where I hear yelling, Jules and a wolf’s snarling.
“Goddammit have you lost your mind, girl!”
“No! I’m just doing what’s right, you big, big mule!”
“What’s right? How can my own daughter walk through town protesting my leadership?”
“I’m not protesting your leadership, you old fart. I’m protesting the laws you pass with that council of yours to make life ‘easier’. They suck. Who the hell ever heard of allowing an elite branch of purists to form in a pack, Daddy! It’s so stupid, and yet you did it because if they were separate then you wouldn’t have to go back to that side of things.”
I look over at Prissy, my brow furrowed, and she rolls her eyes before sighing.
“The Silvertons were part of our pure lines a long time ago. Before the elite formed and closed ranks. He hates them. They killed his aunt Pendleton because she got Fated but was already mated to another male. Rather than let her leave and take the male’s young he killed her, and the families buried it. It’s…he just doesn’t like the families,” she mumbles, making me laugh because Prissy herself was from one of the families before she mated Nick.
My heart is starting to calm slightly when I barge into the Alpha’s office without knocking to see Jules in the middle of the room, flanked by a black wolf that is snarling whenever Nick so much as makes a move near her.
Noble. I recognize his scent as well as the eyes. I doubt very many people even notice, but he has one slightly l
ighter eye, the blue just a shade lighter than the navy blue of the other.
Nick, the Alpha is storming around behind his desk, yelling curses while my mate glares and purses her lips.
“You’re insane. Those people already want to rip you apart. Why give them more fucking reason?” he yells.
“Because I need you to see, Daddy! Goddammit, you need to stop your bullshit and listen to me. This, the packs being ungoverned but for the Alpha, it isn’t working. They rely on you all the time and then the council influences everything else. We need one universal law system that guides and dictates the bylaws of our packs. I’ve tried to tell you this before, but you don’t listen.”
“One universal law would take us back to the Dark Ages!” he yells, stopping to glare at her so hard they haven’t even noticed my presence.
“Not if it’s done right. One law to rule all laws that are put forth. If you had listened to me, Jessa wouldn’t have died, Naomi the Granger girl wouldn’t have left two of her young to be with her Fated. We need to stop matings and focus on Fating matches, and the only way we’ll do that is to open the pack to new blood. All packs need to do it to increase the chances of Fatings.”
Her words have me stilling because I haven’t ever thought of that. All I considered was forcing Alphas to rule more carefully and without emotional decisions like Nick made with Bailey Rubens.
The idea has merit, I think, my lips twitching.
“If I do this, you divorce Seers,” Nick growls, his face a mask of authority and anger.
It shocks me almost stiff when I see Jules nod and voice her agreement.
“If you agree to listen and convene a master council with other Alphas, then I’ll do it, Dad. But you know what else you have to do.”
My chest is aching so badly I swear I feel as if part of it is split wide and opens up. She wants a divorce? Jules wants…
But she just told me she loves me. Things were going so well and-
“Then I’ll push the Sloan Alpha’s guilt on the council and close off his case, you have my word.”
“No!” I yell before I can stop myself, my anger overriding the pain that almost forces me to turn and walk away.
I hear the words, the bargain she’s trying to strike in exchange for my freedom and safety, and it hits me that this female, my mate is sacrificing everything for me.
Unlike Jessa she isn’t running away, she’s setting me free. She wants me safe and happy, even if she is shamed by a divorce and ends up having to leave the pack.
In this moment, I can’t think beyond that fact that I have never and will never love another the way I love Julia. She’s the light to my dark, the one female meant to tame the anger inside me with the love that I have taken for granted.
I will never let her say those words again without repeating them back to her. I will never make love to her without letting her know that she is my all, and I sure as fuck don’t give a shit what the Alpha does because I am not letting her leave me.
Julia jumps as I bark my denial and almost falls back before I stride forward and snatch her into my chest. Her cheeks are streaked with tears and her luscious pink lips are swollen from her teeth where she’s bitten into them.
Not caring about anyone but her and myself in this moment I kiss her deeply, staking my claim on her in front of her father in a way that he can’t deny.
When I pull away, she’s crying harder and trying to push away, her sniffles making the urge to just kill her father and simplify my life so much easier.
I’ll refrain but only because I have the very satisfying idea that having me in the family will be more punishment than death. Well, look at that, Cass’s bright side personality may be rubbing off on me.
I’ll have to hit someone soon to rid myself of the vexing trait.
“You won’t divorce me. In fact, I refuse to even contemplate a life without your irrational, spoiled, completely sexy ass right by my side. Even if your family are common rabble.”
“But—”
“I intend to love you until the day I die—”
“That can be arranged, Seers.”
“With every breath I have in my body, and I’ll give you a young to fill your arms and tie us together forever. Before you argue, because I can see you’re on that irritating fucking self-sacrificing streak of yours, I don’t give a shit what your father or the pack throw at me, you’re mine. If they don’t fucking like it, we’ll leave and join another pack,” I say seriously, drying her tears when she sniffles and looks down, her throat working.
“I just wanted to do the right thing. Just once. I mean…I just needed a little more time for your gift,” she whispers as Nick’s phone rings, forcing him to answer even as he’s glaring at me.
I feel the animosity, but I don’t care. I long since decided that all I need is one person’s love and that person is right here in my arms.
“I don’t need a gift, Jules. I don’t need anything. You’re all I need to live a good life and be happy. I love you, malina. I have since the night you crept into my hotel room and tried to stab me. I love that you’re sweet and mean all at the same time. You have no tact, less filter, and you shop like a demon.” I chuckle, her own laughter and blush making her face glow. “You’re not leaving me. You love me, and I love you.”
“You didn’t before.”
“I did, I just didn’t want to know it because it terrified me to love again and lose. Worse because this time it’s real love, the kind where I love someone who loves me and chooses me. Don’t…take that away from me, please. I love you, and I need you, Jules,” I plead, swallowing when she drops her face into my neck and chokes out a sob.
“I love you too.”
“Then no more talk of divorce, yes?” I murmur, cleaning the tears from her face before I kiss her tear soft lips.
“I…I was buying time, and I thought…I could get the whole council thing running before you decided for sure that you hate me.”
I laugh, pulling her into my chest and feel my world right itself in a way I haven’t ever known. I haven’t had love, not real love before this, and while I like it, it also terrifies me to death. I feel the bond I’ve denied spring up and look down to see Jules gasping before she smiles a wide-eyed smile up at me.
“Blain.”
“I’m all yours, malina.”
“Dammit! This is…Goddammit you’re as fucking sneaky as your mother!” the Alpha yells, as he slams the phone into the cradle, his face filled with shock before he starts laughing so hard I blink and shake my head to clear it. “You ran a fucking play on me?”
Julia’s mouth twists, and I see that she’s fighting a smile before she lowers her palm to Noble’s wolf who slaps his paw into hers and looks to be grinning.
“I told you I needed time.”
“To send out a pack call to all packs and arrange and interim high council so that we can vote a governing body into existence? Jesus Prissy, look what you created, female. The perfect politician,” he grumbles.
I laugh then, my shock and delight profound because…well, she’s just perfect. From what little I’ve heard, it seems Julia has established my dream, only not as I saw it in all my hatred and murderous rage, but as it should have been from the beginning, before Jessa and her death skewed my perspective.
“Oh, quit your belly aching! At least she’s not an idiot like those Thomas girls. Hells bells, do you know after that Banes boy died in a freak accident yesterday one of them tried to off herself?”
I zip my lips, not daring to move a muscle when Julia looks up at me through narrowed eyes. What?! I never ever said I was a good person, and chances are I never will be. Those assholes all deserve to die and I’ll keep taking them out one by one until their name is no longer a Greyriver memory.
“You didn’t,” she breathes, her eyes going wide when I grin.
“Christ! This isn’t how this was supposed to go. What happened to divorcing the little shit?” Alpha yells, making Julia stiffen.
> “I changed my mind! And you’re still pushing the Sloan thing, or I’m telling Mom you’re being mean again,” she warns.
Prissy simply levels a hard glare at her mate, who sighs and looks me up and down.
“He’s a murderer, Julia. Don’t think I haven’t known for years it’s you who’s been killing off that family.”
This time I grin at him, my mouth the picture of smugness before I say something that will have this male hating me until eternity.
“Prove it.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Jules
“I can’t believe you suckered me into this whelp.”
I giggle at Daddy as I take in his suit and the pink tie I chose for all males at my mating ceremony, this one concession to Hannah and her wicked sense of humor making me smirk when Dad pulls at the tie again and grimaces.
“Oh, give it up, Dad! You owe me for being such a damned dickhead for weeks and hurting me with your stupid stubborn pig-headedness.”
“Stubborn and pig-headed are the same thing, poppet,” he mutters.
I laugh because Blain says the same thing to me all the time, and once I pointed out to him that he and Dad are the same in some ways, and boy did I receive a glare and some very, very nasty comments about my reasoning for that crack.
Today is my mating ceremony, the day that has been years in the making since I was a little girl and Mom first told me about Fated pairs and the bond they share.
It’s five weeks after Dad agreed to my demands, not because he had to, but because I was not backing down and I think he knew it. After the other pack Alphas called him expressing concern for a project that was proposed by one Blain Seers—I put his name on it, and trust me, I earned a lot of rewards for that when Dad blew his lid—well, Dad couldn’t exactly move away from the inevitable.
To say that Dad caved is a leeeettle bit of a lie though. He growled and yelled and slammed his fist through one of Mom’s walls before he finally accepted that Blain and I are forever.
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