A moment I wouldn’t give back for the world.
“Looks like everybody’s home.”
Abby’s voice jolted me back to the present. The semicircle driveway was lined with cars, none of which belonged to the other Alphas. Marc would have picked them up at the airport.
I parked at the far end of the line and she was out of the car before the engine even died. “I’ll come back for my bag,” she called over her shoulder as she jogged toward the house.
For one embarrassingly long moment, I was captivated by the sway of her hips as she ran, highlighted by the beam from my headlights. Hell, even her shadow was alluring, with its exaggerated proportions and sleek outline. She really had grown up while I wasn’t looking.
And you still shouldn’t be looking.
Abby was my subordinate Pride member and the council chairman’s only daughter. She was likely still suffering long-term trauma from everything she’d been through. And she was another man’s fiancée. There was no of-age tabby in the country more off-limits to me than Abby Wade, and she deserved an Alpha who could respect that.
At least in action, if not in thought.
I got out of the car and made myself take the next few steps because if I hung too far back, everyone would think I was trying to avoid the inevitable, awkward reunion with Faythe. But the front door flew open before Abby even made it to the steps, and a tiny blur blew past her like that cartoon roadrunner, leaving a small dark smear across my vision.
“Uncle Jace!”
I knelt and braced for impact just as the child launched himself at me. “Logan!” I wrapped him in a bear hug, breathing deeply to take in his scent. Ethan’s son smelled almost exactly like he had, but the lingering grief his scent triggered couldn’t overcome my joy at seeing the boy. “What are they feeding you, kiddo? You got huge!”
“Meat and veg-ta-bles,” Logan said as I stood with him seated on my forearm. “Mommy said nuh-uh, cotton candy is not healthy, even when it’s green!”
I chuckled. “I tried, little man, but your mom’s too smart for me.”
His head bobbed solemnly. “Me too.”
When I looked up, I found Abby watching me, her freckled forehead crinkled. “If you haven’t been back in three years, why does Logan remember you? And call you Uncle?”
“I said I hadn’t seen Faythe in three years. I come see this little monster at his mom’s as often as possible.” When I tickled Logan, his head fell into the light from the front porch.
Abby gasped. “He looks just like Ethan!”
I realized she probably hadn’t seen him in months, and kids change so fast at that age. Which was why I visited as often as I could.
Logan nodded at her. “My daddy. Hero.”
“Damn right he was.” I squeezed the boy, and a smile took over Abby’s face when his bright green eyes lit up. In spite of whatever genes he’d inherited from Angela, his human mother, Logan’s resemblance to the father he’d never met was uncanny when he smiled.
“How old are you now?” Abby brushed a strand of dark hair from the boy’s forehead. “Two?”
“Three.” He held up four chubby fingers. “And a half!”
The conclusion surfaced in her eyes like an accusation when she turned to me. “You haven’t seen Faythe since Logan was born.”
I nodded. I’d moved on after Faythe chose Marc, but for a long time, seeing them together had stung. So, I’d stayed away to make things easier for all three of us.
Until now.
“No fair!” A new voice called as a larger but equally dark-haired boy stumbled to a stop on the top step, glaring at Logan. “You tripped me! And Grandma says close the front door ’cause she’s not in the business of heating the great outdoors.”
I took me a moment to recognize Desiderio, and if his eyes hadn’t been identical to Manx’s, I might not have. He was nearly five, by my count, and well-spoken for a kid his age. At least, judging by the standards my collection of younger half brothers had set.
Abby laughed and held her arms open, and Des ran into them.
“Abby! I didn’t know you were coming!”
“I didn’t know you were coming!” She scooped him up and held him on her right hip, unfazed by his size or weight. “Where’s your mom?”
“Feeding the baby. Daddy said we could wait up for Jace. Tell him to let us stay up longer!”
“Ha! That’s well beyond my authority,” Abby told the child, and he glanced over her shoulder at me, still hopeful, even though he couldn’t possibly have remembered me. He’d been less than a year old the last time I’d seen him.
“That’s not up to me, bud,” I said, and Logan pouted in my arms.
Desiderio looked puzzled. “But you’re an Alpha, right?” He sniffed the air in my direction, scenting out hormones. “You smell like an Alpha.”
“Dads trump Alphas every day of the week.” I set Logan down and the boys ran into the house together to find Owen, who’d adopted Des when he and Manx had married a couple of years before.
“Ready?” Abby whispered, and I could tell from how intently she was watching me that she knew how nervous I was. If she could see that, so would everyone else, and Alphas couldn’t afford to be nervous. Especially the junior-most Alpha—the one with the most to prove.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
She stepped into my path, facing me from just inches away, and her sudden nearness made my chest ache. Damn, she was beautiful. Light from the porch lit her curls on fire, and it took every scrap of willpower I had to keep from reaching for her. From leaning in...
“You’re going to be great.” She stared up at me as if I’d hung the very moon reflecting its light in her eyes. “All you have to do is let them see what I see.”
My throat felt tight. What did she see?
“Strength. Confidence.” Abby smiled up at me, answering a question I hadn’t even voiced. “Passion. Dedication. Determination. You’ve given everything you have and everything you are to this job. They’ll be able to see that.” She stood on her toes to wrap her arms around my neck, and the easy contact caught me by surprise. My pulse spiked before I could check the reaction.
If Abby noticed, I couldn’t tell. She snuggled closer, and as I wrapped my arms slowly around her, breathing her in, I told myself to keep it in perspective. Cats thrive on physical comfort from their Pridemates, and that was all she was offering. In fact, it had probably never occurred to her that anything else would occur to me.
Not that I was thinking of never letting her go.
I tried to relax into her touch, telling myself that this was more like hugging my sister than like touching…any other woman I’d ever touched. But my body didn’t believe my brain.
“I hope you’re right.” So far, I’d run my Pride in a virtual vacuum, intentionally maintaining distance from the other Alphas and their territories while I worked to establish my authority and get things organized. This meeting would be my in-person debut as a leader, and Faythe would be there to see it.
Marc would be there to judge.
If I failed to impress the rest of the council, my authority as an Alpha would be weakened, and I could not afford for that to happen before Melody got married. Before I had a chance to train her husband.
“I’ll be right beside you.” Abby’s breath brushed my earlobe, and again I lost control of my pulse. “For moral support.”
When she finally let me go, I exhaled slowly, trying to deny disappointment I felt like a physical ache. What was wrong with me? She was off limits, and if I couldn’t get my head in the game, the rest of the council wouldn’t let me play for much longer.
I followed Abby into the house and pulled the door closed at our backs. For a moment, I just stood there, taking it all in. I felt like I’d gone back in time to an alternate past in which the floor plan of the house was unchanged but the rooms had all been assigned different purposes. And different occupants.
When Greg was in charge, the ranch had felt
busy but structured. Orderly. Organized.
Faythe was an entirely different kind of Alpha, and under her leadership, chaos reigned. But it was a cheerful chaos, and that was actually a nice change.
A rocking horse sat in the entryway, still draped with a little boy’s Batman cape in place of a saddle. Down the hall, one of the kids was crying, and behind the last closed door on the left, fast-paced, half-synthesized music blared from the room that had once belonged to Michael, Faythe’s oldest brother. Kaci had moved into it more than four years before, after the South-Central Pride had taken her in as a lost and traumatized thirteen-year-old.
From the kitchen came the hum of both coffee pots running at once, along with the soft growl of the dishwasher and the clank of heavy pots. Faythe’s mother was cooking chili, based on the scent. At ten P.M. Because a shifter’s appetite knew no schedule.
Before I could absorb all the other nostalgic sights and sounds, the back door flew open and three large, broad enforcers came in, debating the benefits of one video game sniper rifle over another. Victor Di Carlo led the group and the moment he saw me, a smile took over his face.
He jogged down the hall, arms already open, and a second later, he was thumping me on the back. “Three years, you selfish son of a bitch! When we said don’t be a stranger, we meant it!”
“Sorry, man.” I gave his back an affectionate whack. “Things have been busy.”
“I bet.” He studied my face while his subordinate enforcers gave me a nod of respect, then filed into the kitchen for what could only be dinner, part two. “Responsibility looks good on you.”
“Thanks.” But my next thought trailed into oblivion when I saw Brian Taylor coming down the hall, his gaze trained on Abby as if no one else existed.
“Abby.” Brian’s heartbeat spiked and he dared a brief glance down the length of her body, obviously caught between the desire to look and the enforcer’s imperative to remain respectful, especially to his psychologically fragile fiancée. “You look amazing. Really beautiful.”
Her cheeks turned pink and she smiled.
Irritation shot up my spine in a white-hot blaze. I’d never seen the two of them together and I hadn’t spoken to Brian in at least a couple of years, yet I was suddenly certain that he wasn’t right for her.
He wasn’t good enough.
If Brian were truly Alpha material, shouldn’t I feel threatened by him, on some level? Shouldn’t my respect for his power and leadership potential be at constant war with my instinct to stomp them both right out of him?
I mean, sure, I wanted to shove him facedown on the floor and make him lick up the dirt I’d tracked in on my boots, but where was the admiration that was supposed to temper the demand for Alpha dominance coursing through my veins? If I pushed Brian down, he would stay there. I could feel that, just like my inner cat felt the call of the woods.
Abby needed a man who would get up. Who would push back.
She needed a man who couldn’t be knocked down in the first place.
Don’t start, I thought as I choked back an instinctive growl in Brian’s direction. She is not yours.
But she was mine, at least on some level, and she had been since the day she’d joined my Pride. And that wouldn’t end until…
Until she swore she would have Brian as a husband, then later let him take her as his wife.
The thought of him touching Abby made every muscle in my body clench with rage.
Vic’s brows rose in my direction and I realized he’d caught some small, revealing twitch. Or maybe he could sense fresh pheromones rolling from my body like smoke from a fire. He would have questions for me later.
Fortunately, both Brian and Abby seemed oblivious.
“Are you hungry?” he asked her. “Can I get you…”
“No, thanks, I’m…” Abby shrugged, absently twisting the ring on her left hand.
Could neither of them finish a sentence?
A door on the left side of the hall opened and Owen stepped out, mercifully drawing my attention from the poor junior enforcer who’d unwittingly inspired my disdain. Cradled in the crook of his right arm was a tiny bundle wrapped in a pale pink blanket. “Abby!” The new father’s eyes lit up when he saw her. “Come meet your new cousin!”
“Oh, let me see! Letmeseeletmesee!” She brushed past Brian on her way to view the new arrival, and his obvious disappointment soothed me. “I’ve seen a million pictures of her, but that’s not as good as holding the real thing!”
Owen’s baby was the first tabby born in the US in more than a decade—we’d all seen the pictures. But few outside of the immediate family had actually held her.
The proud papa put his daughter in Abby’s arms, and she practically melted on her feet. “You named her Mercedes, right?” she whispered, obviously afraid to wake the infant.
He nodded. “Manx didn’t want to, but I insisted she be named after her mother.” He ran one rough finger gently down his sleeping daughter’s cheek, love for his family stamped all over his face.
Owen was a lucky, lucky man. Manx was the first tabby in history, as far as I knew, who hadn’t married an Alpha. She’d fallen in love with his gentle spirit and honest affection almost from the moment they’d met, and if not for him, she might never have overcome the trauma and grief that had brought her into the South-Central Territory from the war-ravaged Prides in South America.
Owen shrugged and smiled at Abby. “But Parker started calling her Sadie, and it stuck.”
“Stuck!” the two-year-old in question echoed, and I glanced through the open doorway to find him curled up on the bed with his mother. He looked just like the pictures Owen sent out periodically. Tall for his age and gangly, like his father.
Manx waved at me over the top of the Spanish-language storybook she was trying to read to their middle child. They’d named him after Parker Pierce, the only South-Central Territory enforcer who’d died in the fight against my stepfather.
“Full house tonight,” I said, watching Manx with her son. It was great to see her happy after all the tragedy that had preceded her acceptance into the Pride.
Owen laughed. “Yeah, we came up to watch the kids during the council meeting, but I’m starting to wonder if we don’t create more chaos than we cure,” he said as Des and Logan tore past us down the hall in matching superhero capes. Owen and Manx had built a house of their own on the other side of the property the year they were expecting Parker. That kept the kids close to their extended family, yet gave everyone some much-needed space and privacy.
“We should all be so lucky.”
Owen’s happiness was like a light shining just beneath his skin, casting its warm glow on everyone he came into contact with. He was perfectly content managing the ranch for his mother and raising his family, and I’d never in my life seen an existence fit a man so well.
“Hey, Ab—” Brian began, but the last half of her name was cut off by a shout from the office.
“Jace! Abby!” Rick Wade’s voice boomed down the hall, startling baby Sadie awake. She began to fuss and Abby reluctantly handed her over to her father as we were summoned to the meeting. “We’re about to get started in here!”
“She’s beautiful, Owe,” I said, as Owen took his daughter back. Then I gestured for Abby to lead the way toward the office, conveniently cutting Brian off before he could finish his sentence.
I could feel him glaring at my back all the way down the hall, and if he’d had the balls to call me out, I might have thrown my support behind his engagement to Abby.
Maybe.
But he didn’t say one damn word.
THREE
Jace
I stepped back to let Abby head into the office first, and from the hallway, my eyes confirmed what my ears and nose had already told me—that several of my fellow Alphas hadn’t shown up.
That was no surprise. The rogue was killing in my territory, which meant he was ultimately my responsibility. Those who’d supported my stepfather in the
war would rather sit this meeting out so that if anything went wrong, they could legitimately blame me and my allies.
My least favorite part of leadership was the politics. Which was why Abby’s choice of college major baffled me.
I stood back while she accepted hugs and greetings from Jerald Pierce, Ed Taylor, and Umberto Di Carlo, Alphas of the Plains, Midwest, and Southeast Prides, respectively. Faythe sat behind her desk at the back of the room, trying to tune everyone else out while she spoke on the phone, but she looked up when I stepped through the doorway. I could tell from the tension in her frame that she’d known the moment I walked into the house.
She’d probably heard my car before it had even turned into the driveway.
Faythe’s green-eyed gaze met mine and I froze, bracing myself for the flood of conflicting emotions that had engulfed me every time I’d ever looked at her. Every time she’d ever looked at me.
Love. Lust. Jealousy. Frustration. I expected the entire toxic cocktail, and I was prepared to hide my pain behind the professional mask I’d been wearing for years. But instead of a flood of emotion, I got just a trickle. A mere echo of what I’d once felt and had long ago been forced to let go of.
My history with Faythe was now the rainy-day ache of an old wound.
I could live with an ache.
Still staring at me, Faythe tucked a strand of black hair behind one ear while Paul Blackwell spoke into her other one from the phone. For one long moment, she didn’t breathe. When I was sure my heart wasn’t going to implode—that it felt more bruised than injured—I grinned, and the tension drained from her frame. Her smile looked genuine. She was happy to see me, even under such grim, official circumstances.
Counting Faythe and me, we were still missing representatives from four of the ten US Territories, yet even from across the room, I could hear Paul Blackwell listing the litany of old-age complaints that were keeping him from attending. Faythe rolled her eyes, and I knew exactly what she was thinking—that if he was too old for the job, it was time he passed on his position to the next generation. It was past time, in fact. Blackwell’s daughter and son-in-law already had a two-year-old grandson.
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