Which was exactly what Jamie Roberts had done. Dakota understood not wanting to go through with a ridiculous death challenge, especially when it was to defend the “honor” of a loser like Shaun. However, sending Dakota up here to die in her place had been low.
Not that she could tell Miles that.
Had she thought that Dakota would just blurt out the truth and admit who she really was, so that Miles didn’t kill her? Or had she just not cared? Had she thought that Miles would kill Dakota without stopping to ask questions?
Odds were that Dakota would never know. Jamie was long gone.
“I just wanted to know what really happened up here with Shaun,” she said finally. “And then there’s the children.”
“Yes. Precious little angels, aren’t they?”
She stared at him. “You are kidding, aren’t you?”
“Of course I’m kidding. They’re a bunch of little brats. Although they seem a little less obnoxious now that they’re with you and your friend.”
She glanced at the naked shifters in the river. They had paired off and were locked in passionate embraces. She felt a stirring of longing deep inside.
She stood up, and Miles followed suit. “Speaking of which, there’s only so much torture I should inflict on her. I’ll go relieve her of duty.”
He gave her a roguish grin. “Well, whenever you’re ready, you know where my cabin is.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“So your way of ensuring that you never find a woman who’d want a real relationship is to insult them?”
He looked taken aback. Clearly he wasn’t used to anyone calling him out on his behavior. “How am I insulting you?”
“By making it clear that you want nothing more than a quick roll in the hay.”
“Well, let’s face it, Jamie, I’m not exactly life-mate material.”
And I’m not Jamie.
She glanced around. “You’ve created order out of chaos here. Well, at least more organized chaos. You’ve provided a safe haven for shifters who have nowhere else to turn. You have the respect of your packmates and shifters of every species. You even show mercy when it’s warranted. You might be a better life mate than you think. And no, I’m not applying for the job.”
“But you’re attracted to me.”
He waited for her to deny it, but she couldn’t. “So? Every woman’s attracted to you, Miles. That’s just biology.”
“Uh…okay.” He looked thoroughly baffled now. “Well then. So, the point I was trying to make, apparently not very well, is that I’m free tonight.”
“And? What exactly is it you want from me?”
He looked a little uncomfortable at that. Good.
“Well, you know…” he said.
“No, I don’t know. Tell me. What exactly are you asking me to do?”
At that, he regained his composure, and his lips curled in a slow, seductive smile. “Shall I start at the beginning and finish with you waking up next to me tomorrow morning?”
“No, Miles, I know how sex works, thank you very much.”
“Not really. You haven’t experienced it with me.” There was a gleam in his eye, and she had no doubt that he was telling the truth – that sex with him would be amazing and mind-blowing. But that wasn’t enough – far from it.
“What I’m asking,” she said, smiling through gritted teeth, “is for you to spell out what you want from me. I assume it would be a one-night stand, and then I’d leave in the morning. And I swear to God, if you make some stupid joke about how, no, you’d cook me breakfast first, I will punch you in the face and to hell with the consequences.”
Miles’s jaw dropped.
“And then, after our no-strings-attached one-night stand, I assume I would be treated to the delightful sight of you parading your next conquest of the day past my doorstep to your cabin. On a regular basis.”
“Well, no, I…I wouldn’t do that to you.” Miles’s face flushed. “And I haven’t even been dating that much lately. It’s been months since I brought a woman back to my cabin.”
“So you want a monogamous relationship with me, then?”
He looked genuinely pained. She could feel conflicting emotions tangling inside him, desire mingled with fear and the ghosts of some past trauma that was hidden down deep.
“Jamie, I’m just not a relationship guy. I’m just not wired for it. And this…” He gestured at the pack lands, at the shifters in the stream, and the lands that could just be glimpsed through the trees. “This is all my responsibility. This whole territory. If I fail in my duties to this territory, it doesn’t just hurt me or my pack. The entire area descends into anarchy, and a lot of innocent shifters suffer.”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s an excuse, and a pretty lame one. Plenty of Alpha Primes have mates and cubs. Here’s what I’m saying, Miles. Your constant come-ons make it very clear that you want to have sex with me, and then afterwards you’d like me to go away quietly, and I’m not interested in that, so knock it off.”
“Do you always say exactly what’s on your mind?” Miles spluttered.
She smiled and blinked her eyes at him. “Yes. All the time. Well, unless I’m asleep. But then again, I’ve been told that I talk in my sleep.”
“Of course you do.” He was standing there awkwardly now, not sure what to do next. She doubted he’d ever found himself in this position before. Finally he scowled and said, “The women I’ve dated in the past haven’t had any complaints.”
“That’s because you make it perfectly obvious what you’re looking for, and if they say yes, then they know what they’re in for,” she said coolly.
“I see.” He looked like he’d just bitten into something that tasted sour.
Dakota turned to go, then looked back at Miles. “I will work where you assign me to work. I will treat you with the respect due to your status. Other than that, please show me some basic respect, and stay away from me. And if you ever decide that you’re looking for an actual mate rather than a bed-mate, I suggest you approach the woman accordingly.” And she marched off into the woods without looking back.
* * * * *
Miles stormed out of the woods, startling Anders and Baldwin.
“Anything we can do?” Anders asked him.
“She’s infuriating! She makes my head want to explode!”
“So…you want us to move her off pack property?” Baldwin asked hesitantly.
“Of course he doesn’t,” Anders said. “Come on, have you ever seen him affected by a woman like this before?”
Miles fixed Anders with a deadly glare. “Before you talk about your leader like that, remember that he’s standing right here, and he is pissed as hell right now.”
Anders respectfully deflected his gaze, then looked up again and briefly met Miles’s eyes. “Sir, may I offer you some advice?”
“If it has anything to do with this woman, no. Not unless you want your head handed to you.”
Miles stormed away, headed for the woodpile by his cabin.
As he walked, he couldn’t help but hear the echo of her words. You’ve created order out of chaos… You even show mercy where it’s warranted… He’d never really stopped to pat himself on the back for that. He’d just did the job that needed to be done. He didn’t like to see weak shifters abused, and he stepped in to make sure that didn’t happen.
For some reason, the fact that Jamie thought well of him – at least as a leader – loosened the knot of tension that was always coiled inside him. Just a little.
He hadn’t heard the words “well done” since…well, since his parents had died when he was twelve.
Miles’s father had been kind, and supportive, and well-loved…and not strong enough to keep his pack safe from a challenge. Most of them had been wiped out by a neighboring pack, and his mother had killed herself rather than be taken prisoner and shared among the victors. Miles and Anders had hidden in the woods for days until his uncle Jarrod had showed up.
Jarro
d had come to seek revenge, and had wiped out every man, woman and cub in the challenger’s pack. When Miles had begged for mercy for their cubs, his uncle had beaten him unconscious and broken most of the bones in his body.
Still, no-one ever challenged Jarrod. Miles had gotten the message over the years. His uncle’s methods were brutal, but they worked.
Weakness equaled death. Death for him, and more importantly for the pack members who’d followed Miles here halfway across the country, and all the packs who had allied with him. Miles could never let himself forget that.
And yet… He glanced across the clearing at Jamie, standing in front of the cabin now, picking daisies and making them into some kind of garland. She tried to put it on Sarah’s head, but Sarah ducked and swatted it away, so she put it on Mary’s head, and the little girl ran around waving her arms in excitement.
He could have housed her anywhere on the property, but he’d picked a cabin that was close to his. He’d see her every time she walked out her front door.
Had that been a mistake? She was muddling his head and messing with his emotions, at a time when the fragile peace he’d fought for was threatening to shatter under a rising tide of rogue shifters. He needed to focus on one thing: defending the realm.
But looking at her made him smile, and made the heavy load on his shoulders feel a little bit lighter.
No, it hadn’t been a mistake.
Chapter Ten
“They’re up to something,” Naomi said to Dakota as the kids huddled in their bedroom. They were in there muttering amongst themselves while Naomi taught Dakota how to make meatballs for their spaghetti and meatball dinner.
“Well, of course they are. I’d be worried if they weren’t. It would mean they’d been replaced by well-behaved doppelgangers.” Dakota glanced at the bedroom door, then held her finger to her lips, telling Naomi to shush while she strained to listen.
Naomi looked puzzled. She couldn’t hear them, but Dakota could.
“Why can’t we leave now?” John was saying.
“I wish we could stay. They’re not too mean.” Mary’s voice was plaintive. “There’s food all the time.”
“Shhh, keep it down. You know why we can’t stay,” Sarah said. “We’ll just wait ’til she gets her first paycheck, and then we can take that money, I’ll hotwire a car, and we’ll head out of town while she’s sleeping.”
“But we’ll have to go to school while we stay here,” John complained. “I’m not going. She can’t make me.”
Dakota walked over and yanked the door open. They all started, looking at her with guilty expressions.
“Pretty sure I can,” she said.
Sarah let out a snarl.
“You always sneak around and spy on people?” she asked fiercely.
“All the time. And when I get my first paycheck, I’m planning on putting it in the empty coffee can on the top kitchen shelf. You won’t have to sneak out. You can just leave. As for hotwiring someone’s car, that’s not the smartest idea in the world, because the police will be looking for you, and then Sarah will end up in juvenile detention and the younger kids will have no one to protect them. But do what you want. Just know that there are consequences.”
“Is that true?” John asked Sarah, looking alarmed.
“I guess,” Sarah muttered, staring at the floor.
“See, you need to think these things through,” Dakota said. “Dinner will be ready in an hour, by the way.”
“You don’t want us to stay?” Mary asked accusingly. “You wouldn’t even try to keep us?”
Dakota smiled at her, but her smile was tinged with sadness. “I do want you all to stay here, and be safe, and learn how to read and write, and have food every day, and learn how to do some kind of job so that you don’t have to steal food and clothes and risk going to jail. But I can’t force you to be here if you don’t want to. My father tried to do that to me, he even locked me in my room, and I ran away from home.”
John looked up at her. “Do you miss your father?” he asked.
She sighed. “I do. I wish I didn’t, but I do.”
His brows drew together in a scowl. “I don’t miss my father. I’m glad he’s dead.”
“I killed him,” Sarah added boldly.
Dakota looked at the skinny little wisp of a girl who would blow over in a good stiff breeze. “Of course you did,” she said. “You know, you don’t actually have to say things like that to sound tough. There are people here who will protect you. I’d protect you. I already have.”
“Yeah, whatever.” Sarah looked away, her expression sullen.
“Dinner’s ready in an hour. You guys need to come out and help me chop some vegetables. You can go back to your plotting later.”
They’d just sat down to eat when a rap on the door made them all jump.
Dakota sniffed at the air as she stood up. “Anthea’s here.”
“How do you do that?” Naomi asked her. “It’s freaky. It’s like you’re some kind of Alpha Prime’s spawn.”
“Or I’m just a freak,” Dakota said, and walked to the door.
Anthea was standing there with her customary expression of annoyance, and she shoved several three-ring binders into Dakota’s hands. “Lesson plans for Monday. Study them. Show up half an hour early the first day. 7:30 a.m. sharp. I don’t tolerate lateness.”
“You’re the head schoolteacher?” Dakota said, trying to hide her dismay. Anthea would be a tough taskmaster.
“Do you always state the obvious?”
Dakota raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess. You’re like one of those Hollywood movie kind of schoolteachers. You’re tough but fair.”
“Nope, just tough.” Anthea turned abruptly and walked off before Dakota could invite her to join them for dinner. Which was kind of a relief.
* * * * *
Dakota spent the day poring over the study guides. That evening Hazel came to invite Dakota and Naomi and the kids to eat with the rest of the pack, so they headed over to the fire pit. There were a couple of dozen pack members there, sitting on folding chairs or standing by the grills where barbecue ribs were being cooked.
There were a group of female shifters there as well, some from the shuttle bus, some Dakota didn’t recognize. They were flirting and laughing, clustered around the men. Dakota couldn’t see Miles through the crowd, but she could feel him, and she knew exactly where he was standing, which unnerved her. She was far too tuned in to his presence.
She picked up her folding picnic chair and turned it around so her back was to the crowd, and faced the cubs. The younger cubs dove into their dinner with their usual enthusiasm. Sarah was sulking as usual, but at least she was clean, and so was her clothing.
Dakota felt that prickle of awareness again and twisted around to look at the crowd by the grills. She didn’t see Miles, but she saw Baldwin sitting in a folding chair by himself, eating a burger and pretending he wasn’t watching them.
“You should go talk to him,” Dakota said to Naomi.
“What? Who? Sailor, your face is dirty, come with me so I can wash it,” Naomi said, her cheeks turning red.
“Is not! I just washed it five minutes ago,” Sailor protested.
“Baldwin, that’s who,” Dakota said.
Naomi’s voice went up a notch. “Why would I want to talk to him?”
“Because he’s good-looking and seems like a really nice guy and I can tell that he’s checking you out.”
“Yeah, in case I attack him again. He doesn’t like me. He thinks I’m crazy. And every time I get near him, I start talking like an idiot. I’ll tell you what,” she added, as Dakota started to argue. “I’ll go talk to him if you go talk to Miles.”
“But I’ve already talked to Miles. Ha. I win.”
“Go talk to him again.”
Sailor started singing, “Jamie and Miles, sittin’ in a tree…”
“You could not be more wrong,” Dakota informed her.
“Yes, that’s true,” N
aomi said. “You would say sitting. You forgot to pronounce the G.”
“I thought you had my back.” Dakota scowled at her friend.
“I do. That’s why I want you to talk to Miles.”
“Jamie and Miles…” Sarah started singing louder. As she did, Dakota felt Miles’s presence, but she refused to turn around and look.
“What are those kids singing?” Miles’s voice rumbled behind her. He held out a plate piled high with ribs, and she took it and handed it to Naomi.
“Ignore them. There’s a strong streak of insanity running through that family,” she said.
“But they’re your family,” Miles pointed out.
“Yes, exactly, so you should be careful,” Dakota said. “I might snap and run amok at any moment.”
Miles smiled. “Please call me when you do. I want to watch.” And he walked away again, heading back to the crowd by the grills.
Dakota took a swig from an ice-cold soda and half-twisted around to watch him.
Miles stood with his back to her, talking to his packmates. Anders handed him a beer, and he took it and stood there chatting with him. The minutes dragged by.
She remembered that she had food sitting in front of her, and reluctantly reached out and picked up a rib. She chewed it but barely tasted it.
What was wrong with her, anyway? She’d told him to stop hitting on her and leave her be, and he had. And now she was annoyed.
And a woman was talking to him. A woman who wasn’t a member of the pack. A woman who was tilting her head to the side and giggling at him and stroking his biceps. A woman who would look much better if her head were separated from her body.
“You don’t like the ribs?” Naomi asked her, looking puzzled.
Dakota started at Naomi. “Of course I do. Why?”
“You’re glaring like they’re the worst thing you ever—” Naomi followed Dakota’s stare. Miles was walking away from the woman, but she was following him, still talking to him. “Oh. I see.”
“You see nothing.” Dakota scowled and glanced around. “By the way, here’s Sailor, Sarah, Mary… Why are there only three cubs with us?” she asked. “Why are we missing a cub?”
Shiftily Ever After: A BBW Paranormal Romance (Alpha Prime) Page 8
