by Kimber White
Tucker bounced his head softly against the headboard. He threaded my fingers in his and brought them to his lips for a soft kiss. Then he laid at least one of his secrets bare.
“There was a fight. But it wasn’t between me and my father. Asher’s father, Marcus, challenged my father for pack leadership. My father was old, and getting sick, and I begged him to let me fight Marcus in his place. He wouldn’t hear of it. I told him he was a stubborn old fool, and that it was my birthright to fight Marcus. I told him the pack belonged to me, and that he owed it to me. Except I said those things in the most hurtful ways I knew how. Our last moments together as father and son were filled with hostility and hurt feelings. God, I was such an asshole. But in the end he swore he’d let me serve as his second. Then, that night, he disappeared into the woods and met Marcus alone without telling me. He lied to me. I looked it as a betrayal of the pack, even. He did it because he didn’t think I was ready to take his place yet, but he was too old himself to lead us with the strength we needed. He died alone after Marcus ripped his throat out. He thought he was sparing me from something. But the way he died just made it worse. It weakened me in the eyes of the pack.”
“Oh Tucker. Couldn’t your father have just stepped down?”
Tucker shook his head. “There’s no such thing as retirement when you’re an Alpha. You lead until you die. You become Alpha by either killing an Alpha or building your own pack. We don’t get to die peacefully in our beds, Neve.”
“Is that what you did then? Formed your own pack after your father died?”
Tucker shook his head. His eyes were still in that far off place. He choked out one word that sent a chill through me and answered the biggest question about Asher I had.
“No.”
The pieces slammed into place. If Tucker didn’t form his own pack after his father died, then he had killed an Alpha to claim one. Marcus. Asher’s father.
“You killed Marcus.” My words weren’t a question, but a validation. After Marcus killed his father, Tucker had sought vengeance and killed Marcus. His father had been wrong. He had been exactly strong enough to bring down an Alpha and lead his own pack.
“Yes,” he said. “A week after my father died. I thought I had no other choice. And maybe I didn’t. I was young, filled with hate, and I acted. I thought I was proving to the pack . . . to my father how strong I was. Asher had been like a brother to me. I did what I thought I had to for the good of the pack. Sometimes strength doesn’t equal wisdom, though. That was the lesson my father had been trying to teach me. The pack split in two after that. Reed, Barrett, Mal, Jake, Jake’s father and a few of my father’s closest friends stayed with me. The rest followed Asher. But we outnumbered them, and drove them out of Wild Lake and out of Michigan.”
“It was a brave thing you did, Tucker. You avenged your father.”
He pounded his fist against his knee. “Yes. I did. But it was selfish. I know that now. It’s what my father was trying to teach me. An Alpha should rise for the true good of the pack, not to serve his own vengeance. My father wanted me to wait until I’d grown wise enough to see that. He was right that I wasn’t ready. My actions splintered the pack, and have put us on the verge of war for over a decade.”
“But you would have ended up in the same place, wouldn’t you? Marcus couldn’t lead forever, and then what? You’d have ended up fighting Asher anyway, right?”
My heart ached for Tucker, all of the regrets he had, and things he couldn’t take back. And I understood them. I’d lost my own parents, too, and every day I missed them and wished for just another moment with each of them. But there was something else. Tucker’s brooding strength filled me with awe.
“Maybe you weren’t as mature as your father wanted you to be, but you were ready in the end, weren’t you? The way you took over may have caused problems in the beginning, but no one has challenged your leadership in ten years have they? The weres of Wild Lake are thriving. You lost Asher and some of the others, but the pack is strong. Remember, I can sense them too.”
Tucker smiled. “You sure you’re not part were? You even sound like my mother. That’s exactly the kind of thing she would have told me.”
The comparison warmed my heart. Though I didn’t know Camilla McGraw, I knew her son more and more every day, and if even a part of her lived in him, she must have been a great lady.
“So now Asher wants to come back to Wild Lake,” I asked.
“Not just now,” Tucker said. “Always. The last fifteen years have been filled with skirmishes between the wolves of Wild Lake and those still loyal to Marcus, and now Asher.”
“But what happened with Magda escalated it?”
Tucker nodded. “Yes. She was one more thing between us.”
“And now I am.”
Tucker’s eyes flashed. He sat up and turned, facing me straight on. “You have no blame in any of this. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. If it hadn’t been you, Magda would have found some other way to end her life. She had problems. Deep problems.”
“But why? What happened to her?”
Tucker’s eyes went dark. He closed some wall around his heart, and I couldn’t sense what he was feeling. He went stone cold and pulled away. Whatever lay between him, Magda, and Asher, he had revealed as many secrets as he was going to today.
“It’s getting late,” I said, sliding out of the bed. “Pat’s going to wonder if the big bad wolf ate me for breakfast.”
The light came back into Tucker’s eyes and his low, sultry laughter sent a flash of heat through me. “The big bad wolf plans on eating you for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, my pretty.” His silvery wolf eyes glinted and he snapped his teeth. For the briefest of moments, he was part man, part wolf as he lengthened his fangs and snapped his jaw.
My blood raced. “Oh my! What big teeth you have. And what the fuck? I didn’t know you could do that.”
Tucker let out his wolf growl. Then his eyes dimmed and returned to their normal, blue-gray. “I’m just getting started showing you all the things I can do, baby.”
“Mmm. And if I wasn’t afraid you’d have me walking funny for the rest of the week, I’d let you start showing me right now.” I slid my jeans past my hips and pulled one of Tucker’s Wild Lake Outfitters t-shirts out of the drawer and over my head. “But I’m starving, and I smell bacon.”
With wolfish speed, Tucker dove across the bed and threw his arms around my waist. He pressed his face against my stomach and inhaled my scent. “I’ll give you a few hours off. But that’s it.”
“Yes sir,” I gasped. I ran a hand through Tucker’s thick, black hair and pulled his face up until he looked at me. His beautiful eyes filled with tenderness and admiration. The shadows that had darkened them when he spoke about Marcus and Asher had receded for now. I leaned down to kiss him, hoping in time I could help him drive the rest of them away once and for all.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
After lunch, Tucker took Jake and the others out to hunt. Jake’s wounds had healed completely, and it was time for him to get out and let his wolf run wild. There’d been no sign of Asher, or his pack, but I knew Tucker was still on edge. I was anxious to go with him and meet some of the other packs that called this place home, but that would have to wait. Tucker wanted to keep a close eye on Jake, and he thought the safest place for me was back with Pat and Harold. Again, I sometimes wished I could shift along with him so he didn’t feel like he had to protect me all the time.
I jumped at Pat’s offer to show me around the Bonner farm. If I couldn’t help the pack hunt, I wanted to start pulling my weight with the humans of Wild Lake. I learned quickly. The only crop they grew was feed for the dozen horses she and Harold kept. She took me to the stable. Harold was already there, pitchfork in hand, throwing hay into one of the stalls. He wore a wide-brimmed Stetson that looked like it had its own stories to tell. A long rope hung low through the center of the row of stalls. Harold ran his hand along as he moved from stall to st
all. The rope was knotted roughly dead center in front of every doorway to each stall, so he knew exactly where to toss the hay. Harold’s eyes were another mystery I hoped one day to understand. The three jagged scars he bore from temple to temple must have been made by a werewolf. I shuddered to think at the damage it must have inflicted when fresh. He was lucky to have survived it. Tucker had said something about a pack war during his grandfather’s time, and I guessed Harold’s injuries were connected.
“Patsy finally givin’ ya the grand tour?” he called out as we entered the stable. The smell of fresh hay, leather and horse filled my nostrils. A large chestnut mare poked her pink nose out of the closest stall. Pat pulled a brown wedge out of her apron pocket and handed it to me.
“Keep your hand flat when you give it to her. Tallulah’s eyesight isn’t much better than Harold’s. She’s been known to chomp a finger or two.”
I did as Pat instructed. Tallulah pulled her lips back, showing a fearsome row of yellow teeth. She twisted her head sideways and took the treat from my hand with a great sweep of her tongue. She nodded her great head up and down in gratitude when she was finished. I reached up and rubbed the velvety patch between her ears.
“Aw, now you’ve done it,” Pat said. “Tallulah’s kind of a whore. You’ve got a best friend for life now.”
I laughed.
“She’s jealous though,” Harold called out. “Don’t let the big black mare at the end see you making friends with her or she’ll knock you over if you get too close. We call her Brat for a reason.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Harold tipped his hat, leaned his pitchfork against the wall, trading it for a cane, and headed out into the pasture.
As soon as Harold was out of earshot, Pat turned to me. “You settling in okay, hun?”
I nodded. “This place feels like home already. That has a lot to do with you and Harold being so welcoming. Thank you.”
“You got people back where you came from?” Pat placed a hand on my shoulder, and pointed with her chin toward the other end of the stable. Just outside, there was a white painted bench, and she gestured to it. She threaded her arm through mine, and we walked to it together. The bench heaved when Pat sat. She pulled up her apron and wiped her brow with it.
I blew a loose strand of hair out of my face and shielded my eyes against the sun. “No,” I answered. “My mother died when I was pretty young. I lost my Dad last year to cancer.”
“Well, that’s a terrible thing, sweetie. I’m sorry to hear it.” She patted my knee.
“I can’t imagine what my father would think if he met Tucker and the others.”
Pat’s soft laughter startled one of the horses behind us, and it let out a loud bray in protest.
“Oh you stuff a cork in it, Ladybug. I’ll let you know when I want your opinion.” She turned back to me. “It’s quite a thing the first time. Takes your breath away and shifts the ground under ya. Then, once you grow used to it, it’s like you can’t imagine how you ever lived without the pack in your life.”
It seemed Tucker wasn’t the only one in the mood to spill secrets today. Pat’s eyes clouded as she looked back to some far off place and time. She picked that moment to turn her head away from me. It was a subtle movement, almost meaningless. But as she cocked her head to the side and looked out at the pasture, the sun fell across her hair, and my eyes were drawn to the mark at the base of her neck. The scar was old, faded to almost nothing, but it was there. The distinctive crescent shape of an Alpha’s mark.
She turned back and her hair fell back into place. She gave me a knowing smile that made deep creases at the corner of her eyes. “You don’t have to lose yourself,” she said. “Someday, you may need to remember that. And you always have friends here, honey. Remember that too.”
Of course, I had a thousand questions, but Pat rubbed her hands on her knees and stood. “Why don’t you hang out here for a while and get to know some of the ladies and gentlemen in here. I keep a bucket of treats on the hook by the hose. Do you ride?”
“I . . . uh, no. Not really. I went to horse camp for a week when I was like ten but not since then.”
Pat batted her hand in the air. “They probably taught you that silly popping up and down business. And with those saddles where there’s nothing to hold on to. I might not look like much anymore, but I can still ride like the wind. If the rain holds off, maybe we can get out there and I’ll show you the right way to seat a horse.”
“I’d like that,” I said, as Pat stood with her hands on her hips, looking out across the hills. Harold had made his way to the far edge of the property and was busy kicking a loose fence post.
“I’d better get down there and see what he’s up to. Shoveling hay is one thing, but if he gets it in his head to grab a hammer and nails, he’s liable to crucify his ass to the post.”
“Don’t let me keep you,” I said through giggles. “I think the ladies, gentlemen, and I can entertain ourselves just fine.”
Pat nodded, leaned down and took my face in her rough hands. She rubbed a thumb over my brow and kissed my cheek. “You have friends here, sweetie. And I don’t just mean the horses.”
I squeezed her hand gently and blinked back tears that sprung out of nowhere. Her touch was loving, motherly. And it had been so long since I remembered what that felt like. Before I could react, she straightened and headed down the hill, swearing a blue streak after Harold. Far away as he was, I could still make out the middle finger he flashed in her direction.
I caught a whiff of ozone, and the breeze picked up. It didn’t feel like the rain would hold off after all. The temperature dropped at least ten degrees in the space of a few minutes, and I pulled Tucker’s t-shirt tighter around me, wishing I’d thought to grab a sweater. Summer would be over in just a few days. I grabbed a handful of the treats Pat mentioned, and passed them out one by one.
I had just made my way to the infamous Brat when the hairs on the back of my neck rose and my pulse began to quicken. I became aware of the mark at the base of my own neck. Not the intense flash of heat I normally felt, but a throb of warmth that let me know I wasn’t alone. A shadow fell across the stalls and my heart leapt in my chest. I wondered if I’d ever stop feeling this thrill when my Alpha drew near. I smiled and turned, ready to run into his arms. I stopped short as he came out of the shadows and into the light.
It wasn’t Tucker, but Mal leaning against the wall on the far end of the stall, his golden eyes flashing with desire.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I put a hand up to the scar at the base of my neck, fingering the raised edges. The mark flared hot, sending a shiver straight down my spine. The mark burned for Tucker, not Mal. Or at least it never had before.
Mal twirled a piece of hay between his fingers. He pushed himself off the wall and walked toward me. “Storm’s going to be a bad one. It’s coming out of the northwest, off Lake Michigan. Moving fast.”
“Should we warn Pat and Harold? He’s down there fixing the fence.”
Mal shook his head. “Pat knows how to watch the skies and Harold can smell an approaching storm better than the horses can.” He had a hand on Tallulah’s nose. She nodded and kicked at the stall. Mal ran his hand down her neck, gentling her in an instant.
The air between us held a strange vibration. It was so close to what I felt when Tucker was near, but not quite as strong. Still, it was very different from any other wolf in the pack. We’d never been alone together until just now, and I wondered why I’d never noticed it before. Unless it was something new. Mal had a distinct energy about him that was raw, dangerous, and undeniably sensual. I moved toward him without really thinking about it. I’d crossed the distance between us as he quieted Tallulah. I leaned against one of the empty stalls, folding my hands behind my back.
Mal turned to face me. Tallulah gave a snort of protest as he stopped petting her. He walked toward me. He was close enough that I could feel his body heat coming off of him in waves. His scent was int
oxicating. I shuddered as he drew closer. I had the urge to reach out and place my hands on his chest, but I kept them pressed against the small of my back. Though he may be miles away, I could still feel the distant pull of Tucker’s heartbeat. But I could feel Mal’s, too, layered beneath Tucker’s in a strong rhythm.
Mal kept coming. My breath came hard. My breasts heaved as I struggled to keep my pulse even. The twin sensations of Tucker’s pulse, Mal’s, and my own erratic cadence joining with theirs made spots flash in front of my eyes. A trickle of sweat ran down between my breasts.
Mal put a hand on either side of my head, leaning against the stall door. He held my eyes with his. His turned golden, the wolf within him rising to the surface. I pressed my head against the wooden planks, trying to widen the precious space between us, but there was nowhere else to go. My head swirled with my warring emotions. I belonged to the pack. I had lain with Reed and Barrett. I would have lain with Jake, too, if he’d been able-bodied that night in Hidden Forest. But somehow, that felt natural. A momentary diversion while Tucker was away.
Mal was different. Every cell in my body seemed to call out for Mal’s the same way it did for Tucker, even though my head told me that was a betrayal. I loved Tucker. I craved Tucker. But, as Mal seared me with his golden eyes, my heart thundered. My nipples rose to hard peaks beneath my shirt and I knew Mal could see. Electricity sparked between us, and my sex ached, begging to be filled.
“Tucker just took the others out for a quick hunt,” I said. “They’ll be all right in the storm, won’t they?” My voice sounded so far away and shallow. I asked him questions I already knew the answers to, as if my words could provide another type of barrier against the rising heat within me.
Mal licked his lips, his eyes still searching my face. I focused on the strong pulse beating near his throat. I had a powerful urge to press my lips against it and kiss him there. It wasn’t wrong, though, was it? When Tucker was away, he knew what could happen to me. He’d told me time and time again the difference between true mating and everything else.
