by T. S. Joyce
It was Dad. “Did you see him?”
“No, he’s still upstairs fucking his side piece.”
Dad’s dark eyes narrowed to slits. “I was talking about the Blackwood crow.”
“I like how you don’t deny what Samuel is doing,” she uttered sarcastically, giving the clear pool water her attention again.
“I saw him on TV. Almost didn’t recognize him with all the tattoos.”
“Yes, I saw him there.”
“I fuckin’ knew it.”
“Knew what?”
“Knew it was a bad idea for you to cater at the interviews. Didn’t I tell you that?”
“It’s my job. I go wherever Donna books cooking gigs.”
“I don’t want you anywhere near those vermin. Those—those—”
“Lesser shifters? Monsters? Don’t want me around evil? Afraid I’ll lose sight of the path you paved for me?”
“Samuel requires patience, just like all Seconds.”
“Bullshit.” Rike was Second in Red Dead Mayhem, and she would bet money if he ever did choose a girl, he wouldn’t pull the shit Samuel did. You’ve never been safer than you are right now. She felt safe with Rike, but her heart would never be safe with Samuel.
“I can’t do this,” she said low.
“You can and you will. It’s your duty. I gave you thirty years to pair up, and here you sit, rubbing that fucking scar your mother gave you.”
“Not my mother’s scar, Dad. This one is mine, given by someone I chose. She just supported me.”
“She shoved you at him. Naïve females playing their little wedding games. Both of your mothers were childish. Best friends plotting and planning their children getting married from the days you were born.” Dad sat in the chair beside her and stared at the horizon. “She took a good girl and pointed you at a villain. Life ain’t a fairytale.”
“I’m pretty sure Mom knows that. You shunned her, your own mate, from your Clan. I still remember what that Hell was like for her. You don’t because you weren’t there. You were busy making an example of her, and ignoring her, and building the new Clan.”
He huffed a breath and shook his head. “She should’ve obeyed my rules and she would’ve kept my protection. My advice?” The chair creaked as Dad leaned back in his lounger. “Marry for duty, not love, and you’ll never expect too much from someone else. You’ll never be disappointed if you know exactly who they are going into the pairing. And you’ll never disappoint them in return. Everyone wins.”
“You’re so jaded,” she murmured.
“Careful how you talk to your Alpha, Bailey.”
“I’m not talking to my Alpha right now. I’m talking to my Dad. The mate you chose for me is upstairs railing another girl, right in your own clubhouse, and you’re okay with me settling for that?”
“It’s not settling. He’s a man. A wolf. He is doing what he has to do to keep his animal steady. You’ll be a good mate and accept that early on. You aren’t fit for a submissive, so you’ll learn the good and bad parts of dominants.”
Now it was her turn to huff a laugh and shake her head. “I didn’t realize until this moment how unimportant I am to you.”
“Oh, you’re wrong. I raised you here, in my Clan, in my MC. No sons, and I never made you pay for that. Human step-kid. That’s all you were, but I made you more. I gave you the wolf so you could stay right here by my side. So you could be protected. So you would have an entire Clan bowing at your feet. I gave you everything. I’ve done everything. This is all I’ve ever asked from you.”
“That’s all. My heart? You’ve only asked me for everything, and you want some Dad of the Year trophy?”
“Careful,” he snarled.
But she was already done taking shots at him. She was exhausted and sad, and now Samuel leaned against the door Dad had left open.
Dad’s nostrils flared, and he looked over his shoulder at his Second. “Fix this,” he growled, standing. “Fix it or I will.” He strode to Samuel and said under his breath, “That bitch isn’t allowed in the Clubhouse anymore.”
But he hadn’t said she wasn’t allowed in Samuel’s life. Thanks for nothing, Dad.
Samuel was tall and muscular, perfect brunette hair and chiseled jaw. The only tattoo he had was up his forearm, and it was the one he’d gotten the day he’d pledged fealty to this Clan. It was the Wulfe emblem, similar to the one she had on her left hip.
He looked perfect in the waning sunlight, like a model. Bright hazel wolf eyes that had always captured the girls’ attention, perfectly groomed scruff on his chin, and his hair was spiked up just right. He had dimples, but she couldn’t see them because he wasn’t smiling. This man was a show-stopper. But she’d never been attracted to him. His insides weren’t as pretty as his outsides.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “She’s gone. Went out the side door.” He said the words with no remorse.
“Being sorry means you’ll work on not letting it happen again.”
“She won’t come here anymore.”
“Because my dad ordered her to stay out?”
Samuel looked bored and shrugged up a shoulder.
“This is what I have to look forward to,” she said, feeling defeated.
Another shrug. “You knew what you signed up for. So did I. We will be friends that tie our families—”
“And you’ll keep her on the side?”
Another shrug. He looked like he wanted to yawn, and this was the moment she lost Samuel as a friend. The moment she saw him differently. She’d forgiven too much. Let him get away with too much. Hadn’t made her stands because she hadn’t really cared about his actions until now. Until her heart had woken up.
Until Rike.
Shit. She’d been prepared to go her whole life numb. Friends with benefits had been okay with her because nothing better had come along. Samuel had been safe because he would never ask for her heart, and it wasn’t hers to give. Rike had it. He’d had it all these years.
“I’ll keep a man on the side then,” she said, lifting her chin and glaring at him right in the eyes.
Samuel chuckled. “Oh, come on now, Bailey. You know it’s different for you.”
“Because I’m a girl?”
“Yeah.”
“So I stay loyal to you, but you can fuck whoever you want?”
Anger flashed through Samuel’s eyes, and they lightened to an inhuman lime green. “You’re pushing it.”
But she was pretty sure Rike had busted her give-a-damn button, because when she would’ve told him, “Forget it, all is forgiven” before and moved on with life, today she told him, “I’m out.”
And now the anger on his face turned to fury. “You’re out? What the fuck does that even mean?”
“The betrothal, or whatever you want to call it? That’s off. I deserve better than you.”
“Ha! You deserve better than a damn high-ranking Dayton? What do you think is out there for you, Bailey? A fucking Pegasus shifter?”
Or a crow would work.
“What you did in there with your side chick was completely disrespectful to me. On every level it was disrespectful, and you aren’t sorry at all. I’m not putting up with that shit, Samuel. I would take a weasel shifter if he knew how to treat his woman. Bring her here all you want. Marry her. Pair up with her. Have a trillion babies. I don’t care.”
“You’re just mad. Tomorrow you’ll come to your senses, and then—”
“No, Sammy,” she said, calling him by her nickname from when they were actually friends who respected each other. “This is me coming to my senses now. Tell your girl she’s free to come in the front door whenever she wants. Now that you’re allowed to have her, you’ll probably lose interest. I give it two months before you get bored and move on.”
She stood and marched past him, but he grabbed her arm and snarled low, “You’re making a mistake.”
Bailey ripped her arm out of his. “You were the mistake.”
She let her wolf gro
wl rattle her throat as she glared at him for a few seconds longer. And then she gave him her back and made her way out of the clubhouse, ignoring the Clan gawking at her. They’d be pissed tomorrow when they figured out what she’d really done. She was one of the only female wolves in existence, and this was the first step of her bowing out of her Clan. This just wasn’t done.
There was a moment, right as she pushed open the door to the clubhouse, when she almost chickened out. This was her life, the life she’d known, and in one day she was throwing it away? For what? For a crow who was more monster than man? For the chance at real love? For a shot at normal? That didn’t exist for shifters like her.
Her hands shook as she shut the door behind her, and she got the overwhelming urge to puke right there by the side of the building.
Was she really walking away from this life? From safety and community? Was she strong enough to leave?
She needed to see her mom.
Chapter Nine
It had been an hour drive to get here, and the entire way, Bailey had bounced back and forth between happy memories of the boy she’d fallen for, and fear over what she’d done.
Her whole life, the scariest thing for her was losing her dad’s acceptance. She couldn’t put her finger on why, either. Perhaps it was because her biological father had left her so easily and never looked back. Perhaps it had given her a complex and made her work harder for her step-dad’s love. She’d reveled in the feeling of every proud look and “good job, kiddo” as she’d grown up. She loved him. Wanted to be the tough girl he raised her to be, but maybe she wasn’t that—maybe she wasn’t tough at all.
She felt like she was out of control and breaking, and for what? Because of meeting with a boy she used to know? Or thought she knew?
The old farmhouse where she grew up was just up the road. It was a dirt road that bisected a meadow and led to a clearing with a home. Her home. How many times had she roamed these woods with white fur and teeth and claws? How many times had she dangled from that tire swing and jumped from the second window of the old barn onto a trampoline? How many times had she swam in the creek and tromped through the snow to help feed the animals they’d kept in the barn? Animals that didn’t last long around a family of werewolves, but they tried. Her mom especially had tried to make Bailey’s upbringing as normal as possible.
Why? Because Dad wasn’t her real dad. He was an add-on. A wolf who found a couple of lost sheep and made his home here. Bailey had been three when he’d taken Mom on their first date. She was already friends with Lina, Brandon—er, Rike’s—mother. Two normal women, two humans, best friends from childhood who’d fallen in love with monsters, who’d had children at the same time, and yeah, Dad was right. They’d brought her and Brandon and Ethan up together, teasing about how much she and Brandon got along, how cute they looked together.
There. There was the place they’d been handfasted, right by the barn, in front of a bed of colorful flowers. Their mothers had performed the ceremony two weeks after she and Rike had asked to be handfasted. Two weeks after they’d chosen each other. They’d been bound right before all hell broke loose, and Rike’s father, Lucian, went on a killing spree that wrecked the old Wulfe Clan and left the entire town in tatters.
Their mothers had been so scared for them. So. Scared.
Mom had slept with Bailey every night that week, and eventually, Lina brought her boys over, and they stayed at the house together. But Bailey hadn’t missed how Mom and Lina took turns watching out the window, never far from a shotgun.
War was happening between Lucian and the wolves, and Lina and Mom were planning an escape.
Handfast and then escape. Love first, then survival a close second.
It wasn’t about binding the families either. Mom had asked Bailey if she really loved him, and when she’d answered the honest words of her soul, “With all my heart,” and he’d answered the same to his mother, they’d allowed the pairing.
She’d only had three happy days with Rike before Lucian stole his sons away, left Lina nearly dead, and Bailey’s mom forever banished from the Wulfe Clan for binding her daughter to a crow shifter.
Watching what her mother had gone through in the years following the banishment was what had started her fear of leaving the wolves behind.
And today…she’d done just that.
She couldn’t breathe.
Bailey threw her truck in park in the gravel circle drive of the old house and wiped her damp cheeks. Fighting for breath, she made her way to the door and knocked.
Mom answered, but she didn’t look surprised at all to see her standing there.
“I wondered when you would show up. Your dad called.”
Bailey’s shoulders were shaking with her quiet sobs. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Mom pulled her in for one of her back-cracking hugs. “Oh, my sweet girl. My tough girl. That’s not true. You know exactly what you’re doing.” She pushed her back to arm’s length and searched her face. “I have something you should see.”
Mom pulled her by the hand into the living room and poked a few buttons on the remote, rewound a length of news footage, and hit play.
On the television, there was shaky video of her sitting on the curb outside the Darby Community Center. She was resting her crossed arms on her knees and staring at her cell phone. Rike came out of the building and linked his hands behind his head, looked up at the sky, and huffed a breath.
“Look at your face,” Mom murmured.
Bailey’s eyes were wide and locked on Rike. It wasn’t surprise on her features either. It was awe. They spoke, but the volume didn’t catch it. She remembered every word, though. And when she stood and hugged him, kissed his arm and walked away, he watched her leave.
“Now look at his face,” Mom said.
Rike was shaking his head slightly, rubbing his fingertips on his arm where she’d kissed him, as he tracked her with his eyes. He looked…stunned.
“I recognized that boy the second he showed up on screen. I sat up in my chair and started crying. I prayed you would meet him there. Your father said you cancelled the betrothal to Samuel. He knows why, and so will anyone who sees this footage.”
“But…he doesn’t remember me,” she choked out, her tears never-ending streams down her cheeks as Mom re-played the footage that showed the look of regret and worry on Rike’s face as Bailey walked away from him.
“What?”
“He has no memories of his childhood. He doesn’t remember me.”
“Oh, Bailey. Look at that man.” She paused on his face, his lips slightly parted as though he wanted to ask Bailey to stay. “A part of him does.”
“Which part?” Bailey squeaked out.
“His heart.”
Bailey sat on the couch and buried her face in her hands. “What am I going to do?”
“Whatever you want. Being shunned isn’t the end of the world.”
“It’s the end of my world. My whole life has revolved around the Clan. You and the Clan are my family.”
“Oh, Bailey. You forgot someone important, my loyal little wolf.” She picked up Bailey’s hand and traced the scar. “Maybe you made the mistake of forgetting him, too.”
Chapter Ten(Ten)
Hell, yeah, Rike had tracked Bailey down.
And by tracked her down, he meant he’d broken into the bakery he’d dropped her off at, made his way to the back office, and while munching on a stolen chocolate cupcake or five, he rifled through the file drawer until he found her information, including her home address.
As he made his way out, he made a mental note to tell her to have her boss install more cameras. That was the easiest B&E he’d ever done.
His head was still hurting from the memory earlier. It should’ve been lesson learned. Memories equaled pain, but he’d never been afraid to ache. Life was pain for a man like him. He’d fought his whole adult life, had turned his body into one big scar, and every Change was moments of willing agony. Emb
race the pain, and life hurt less.
Bailey was the key.
She was a link to his old life that Ethan had kept hidden from him. And he had this awful feeling that Ethan keeping those secrets of their childhood was the reason he was turning into Lucian 2.0.
Bailey could unlock it—his past. All it had taken were some smudged-up pictures of a white wolf and a raven and two kids holding hands, and look what had happened. He’d remembered. He hadn’t even tried, hadn’t lain in bed for hours digging for it. The memory had just happened, and his crow hadn’t even fought it.
Inside, the animal was quiet, as if defeated…or exhausted perhaps.
Fine with Rike. He had a girl to stalk and didn’t need the interference.
“Caw!” Rike jerked his attention to the lone tree near the street light. Sitting in the branches was a crow with a white diamond on its chest. Not the crow he secretly wished to see. Not his brother. This was Ramsey.
“Caw!” You’re doing something bad.
Fuck off, Ramsey. “I’m fine.”
Rike got on his Harley and started it. He sat there on the seat, staring at the cracked asphalt illuminated by his front lights. Ram was probably just worried. He was being a good friend. Rike lifted his eyes to his Alpha, and in a softer tone, he repeated, “I’m fine.” Still sounded like a lie, even to him, but it was the best he could do right now.
Without looking back at the crow, he hit the throttle and blasted onto the main road to the sleepy little town of Stevensville. He ripped all the way to Bailey’s little one-bedroom cottage on the outskirts of town. He didn’t need a map. He had a memory for places, and he’d flown all over these mountains for years and years. The fact that it was wolf territory hadn’t deterred him. Danger was fun. Danger erased the numbness for a little while. It got the blood pumping and the adrenaline working. Danger was living.
There were eyes in the woods when he turned onto her street. They reflected in the high beams, and he allowed a wicked, private smile. He was gonna live tonight.
Bailey was out front. Her fair skin contrasted against the dark night. There were no lights on at her house, and she was holding a bag of groceries and staring at him with shocked, round eyes. Her full lips were parted in surprise. Pretty Little Wolf. Her eyes reflected just like the ones in the woods.
