Choices

by Viola Rivard

  That seemed to distract him and he grinned. “Get used to it.”

  Hale stood, grabbing a pelt to wrap around his hips. Taylor had lost her dress, bra, and panties somewhere between the den entrance and Hale’s bedroom, so she reluctantly followed suit, grabbing what looked like a deerskin and wrapping it around her shoulders.

  “Can you bring me something to wash up with?” she asked, noting that she was, well, sticky.

  When Hale didn’t respond, she glanced up at him. He was facing away from her, looking down toward the doorway. She peered down, just in time to see Alder enter the room.

  Her muscles locked up, only her heart moving—no, slamming, inside of her chest. In a moment of ridiculous optimism, she thought maybe he’d come to join them. As soon as his face came into view, that idea was banished. He looked pissed.

  She just stared at him, her lips too oppressed by guilt, humiliation, and self-loathing to speak. His full attention was on Hale.

  “Let’s go,” he said, pointing to the doorway.

  It didn’t even sound like him. His voice was a deep baritone, steeped in anger and authority. Hale didn’t argue, didn’t look at her, he just let out a small sigh of resignation and followed.

  Before he left, Alder spared her a glance. “Stay here.”

  For a minute, she complied, sitting on the furs and willing herself to keep it together. All of the heat seemed to leave the room and she clutched the pelt tighter around herself.

  “What did you think would happen?” she hissed at herself. “Did you really think Alder was going to be okay with this?”

  Taylor put her hands on her hair and shook her head, letting out a loud groan. When her fit subsided, she felt marginally better.

  “I have to fix this.”

  She got up from the pallet and adjusted the deerskin so that it covered the bulk of her nudity. She fiddled with it for a few moments before recognizing that she was stalling. After a brief hesitation, she grabbed the candle and left the room.

  The cold hadn’t been her imagination; the passageway was actually quite cool. Finding Alder and Hale wasn’t as hard as she thought it would be. All she had to do was follow the shouting.

  Light spilled into the passageway, emanating from the room they were in. She blew her candle out, approaching the doorway with caution.

  “Did you think I wasn’t going to find out?” she heard Alder yell.

  Taylor could tell it was Alder because he still sounded furious. She froze at the door, blood rushing to her face. The thought had crossed her mind that he would be mad, but this—she’d never heard him like this, even the night he’d caught Hale feeling her up.

  “Do you want me to answer that honestly?”

  In contrast to his twin, Hale sounded calm, though some of his trademark confidence was gone. She felt bad that he was taking the brunt of Alder’s rage. It was unfair, but she couldn’t bring herself to enter the room.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, Hale? Why can’t you be satisfied with what you have?”

  “Silas was a bomb waiting to blow up in our faces,” Hale shot back. “I did what I had to do.”

  Huh?

  “You went behind my back and provoked him, then you left that poor girl there to deal with the aftermath.”

  “I did what had to be done.”

  Alder let out a humorless laugh. “Well, it sounds like you’ve got everything under control then. I’m done here.”

  Biting down on her lip, Taylor peeked around the corner. The room was sparsely furnished and an oil lamp sat on a square table. The men faced off near the table. Hale had his arms folded across his chest, his posture defensive.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Hale asked.

  “I’m through letting you use me,” Alder clarified. “I’m leaving tomorrow and I’m taking Taylor with me.”

  Alder moved to pass Hale, but Hale slammed his fist down on the table with such force that Taylor jumped. The oil lamp wobbled, nearly falling over as the sound bounced off the stone walls of the cavern.

  In a low voice that was full of menace, Hale said, “You aren’t taking her anywhere.”

  Alder seemed unimpressed by his brother’s outburst. “There you go again, not thinking about anything but yourself,” he spat. “You have no business having a mate and I’m sure as hell not letting you anywhere near mine ever again.”

  A muscle in Hale’s jaw ticked. Taylor saw his hand clench into a fist and she quickly stepped into the room, making sure her footsteps were loud enough to draw their attention.

  “Please don’t fight,” she implored them.

  Their heads both snapped in her direction. In unison, they said, “Stay out of this.”

  It was almost funny how alike they looked in that moment, but Taylor was too irritated to be amused. She put her hands on her hips and glared at them.

  “No,” she said firmly. “I’m not going to stay out if it because you’re both standing there with your brains all jacked up on testosterone, making major decisions about my life.”

  She looked at Alder. “I don’t want to leave.”

  To her relief, he didn’t seem angry anymore. Pushing past Hale, he approached her, opening his arms. She went to him without hesitation, sinking into his warm embrace.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “If anyone should have to leave it should be him.”

  Taylor turned her head towards Hale. “What did you do?”

  Hale refused to meet her gaze.

  “He intentionally incited war with Whiteriver,” Alder supplied. “Then he lied and said they instigated it so I’d help him.”

  Taylor pinched the bridge of her nose. She wasn’t quite invested in the pack enough to share Alder’s anger, and if truth be told, she was mostly just relieved that Alder wasn’t mad at her.

  “There has to be a way we can fix this,” she said. To Hale, she said, “I don’t have any say in how you run your pack, but if you are going to start a war with Whiteriver, I won’t stay.”

  Hale opened his mouth to speak, but she held up a hand.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Take some time, think about what you want, and then let us know.”

  Taylor took Alder’s hand and gave it a gentle tug. Reluctantly, he let her guide him from the room. The passageway was dark and she regretted blowing out her candle. Thankfully, Alder seemed to know where he was going.

  They walked in silence for a few moments. Taylor was unsure which subject she wanted to broach first. Eventually, she decided to bite the bullet.

  “I’m sorry that I was with Hale tonight,” she said quietly.

  “It’s fine.”

  “No, it’s not fine,” she said. “I’m attracted to him. It feels different with him. It’s more sexual, but with you it’s like…”

  “You love me,” Alder supplied.

  Taylor would have stumbled, had Alder not had an arm around her waist.

  “Am I wrong?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, her voice cracking. “I do. At least, I think I do. But how can I love you and be attracted to your brother? And for that matter, how could you ever love me?”

  Alder pressed his forehead against hers.

  “I’m extremely pissed at Hale right now,” he told her. “I think it would be better if we discuss this when I’m less angry.”

  She ran a hand across his cheek. “Okay, fair enough.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  The quail coop wasn’t pretty, by any stretch of the imagination, but it did look sturdy. At Taylor’s behest, they had moved the hutch a few yards away from the cabin and closer to the trees, as she was worried the smell would bother any guests with sensitive noses. A fence wrapped around the hutch, sectioning off an area of grass and dirt where the quail could scratch, peck, and stretch their legs.

  “You did a great job,” Taylor remarked, smiling at Glenn.

  He returned the smile. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without your help.”

  That was generous,
to say the least. She’d helped with the frame, but Glenn had done everything else while she’d been away the night before, eloping with Hale and then Alder.

  Her body ached at the memory of the previous night, and it wasn’t the good kind of ache. After feeding her and handling some business with Fenix, Alder had taken her back to his room.

  It had been the first time she’d seen Alder’s room and it was wonderful. Part of the wall was open, letting in the night air and providing an amazing view of the stars. Taylor wished she’d been able to get a better look at the room, but Alder had pounced on her as soon as they’d entered.

  They’d had sex, twice. Not wanting to remind him of how he’d found her with his brother, she couldn’t complain about how sore she was. Alder did seem to pick up on it, though, and during the second time he slowed down, taking her gently.

  It had just been starting to get light out when they’d fallen asleep together. That had been, hands down, the best part of her night. Alder held her in his arms and she didn’t even care that it was too warm or that they were sweaty. She slept like a kitten.

  “I suppose we actually have to find a quail now,” said Lark, stating the obvious.

  Their heads turned in the direction of Fenix, who leaned against a nearby tree. The hawk shifter appeared to be wholly focused on cleaning his fingernails, but Taylor knew better. She doubted anything escaped his notice.

  “We’d like to go quail hunting now,” Taylor said, aiming her sweetest smile in his direction.

  He didn’t look up. “I don’t see why you need to go.”

  Taylor bristled with annoyance. “I want to help.”

  “What are you going to do, cheer them on?”

  Before she could respond, Glenn put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s sort of right, Taylor. You won’t be much help. Lark and I will go. We’ll be back before you know it.”

  “No, you go,” said Lark, waving her hands in a shooing motion. “Taylor and I have some things to do around the cabin.”

  “We do?” Taylor asked.

  Lark nodded with enthusiasm, taking Taylor by the hands. “Yup! We have to decorate.”

  It was only once they were inside that Taylor realized Lark had only been trying to keep the peace. She was still annoyed that she couldn’t go with Glenn, but she was glad Lark had stayed with her to keep her company.

  “I feel like a kid, lately,” Taylor said, flopping down on her bed. She’d given in and used the furs Hale had given her, making a pallet that was far more comfortable than she wanted to admit.

  Lark cracked open a window, letting in a gust of cool air. Today had been the first day since Taylor had come to the valley that it hadn’t been sweltering out. She wondered if it was an off day or if the summer really was coming to an end. How long had she been there now? A week? It felt like so much longer.

  “How so?” asked Lark, taking a seat beside her.

  “I hate not being able to go where I want,” she said. “Even worse than that, Alder and Hale seem to think it’s okay to make decisions about my life without consulting me.”

  “They only want what’s best for you,” Lark said. She must have sensed that that wasn’t the answer Taylor wanted to hear, because she hastily added, “But they really should ask you first.”

  Taylor laughed. “I know you’re right. It’s not safe out there, so long as we’re still fighting with Whiteriver.”

  She hadn’t told Lark what she knew about Hale’s part in the Whiteriver conflict. Though Alder hadn’t said as much, she knew that it was one of those things that would be kept within their inner circle, which now must have included her.

  It felt nice to vent about the twins, but it wasn’t what she really needed to talk about. Leaning back against the wall, she tilted her head towards Lark. Her lips opened and closed several times before she was able to force the words out.

  “I slept with Hale.”

  Taylor had wondered if Lark had already known, but the look on her face told Taylor she hadn’t. Her eyes bulged and her mouth hung open in a comical display of shock.

  “And Alder,” Taylor added. “Together.”

  “Like, at the same time?” Lark choked out.

  Taylor nodded and the words came tumbling from her mouth. She told Lark about their encounter in the river, the night she spent with Hale, and how they both seemed bizarrely okay with sharing her. Lark listened intently, a faint blush staining her cheeks.

  As soon as Taylor finished her recounting of the events, Lark blurted, “Who’s better?”

  Now Taylor was blushing, too. “I don’t know, they’re both too different. Alder makes me feel loved and cherished. Hale is…”

  She trailed off, unable to put her finger on what it was about him. Before last night, she would have considered him to be a couple hundred pounds of muscle and sex, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  “Are you in love with them both?”

  “No,” was Taylor’s immediate response. “Alder, yeah, but not Hale.”

  She wanted to tell Lark about her feelings for Hale, but they were too new. She didn’t understand them herself. She also couldn’t tell Lark about how Hale had flipped his lid when Alder had threatened to take her away, as she’d have to divulge the circumstances surrounding Whiteriver.

  “But you’re still okay with the, um, arrangement?” asked Lark.

  “I am…”

  “But?”

  But Alder wants to have kids and he thinks I do, but I don’t. But Hale is going to sleep with other women and he thinks I don’t care, but I do.

  She went with the safest topic. “I feel like one of these days, as soon as I let my guard down and start getting comfortable, they’re going to make me choose.”

  Lark frowned and pulled Taylor into an impromptu hug. Taylor hugged her back, not caring that Lark was topless.

  Lark said, “I suppose the real question is, why are you telling me all of your secrets?”

  Taylor laughed. “Who else am I going to tell, Glenn?”

  Lark made a face. “I see your point. I’ll keep it a secret,” she said, holding up a pinky. “Promise.”

  Taylor hooked pinkies with her. “Okay, now I really do feel like a little kid.”

  They both leaned back against the wall and fell into silence. Given that it was her home, Taylor wondered if she should find something for them to do. She tried to think of activities to pass the time, but found that she still wanted to talk.

  “Remember how I told you about my mom?” Taylor said. “How she just showed up one day when I was fourteen?”

  “Yeah,” Lark replied, giving her a look of curiosity.

  “Well, at the time, I was living in a foster home with this family, the Smiths. They owned a farm. That’s how I learned about gardening and taking care of animals.”

  “Did you like it there?”

  Taylor shrugged. “They were pretty strict. They made me do most of the chores which, believe me, on a farm can get pretty insane. They also made me go to church on Sundays, which I hated. Then, when we got home from church I’d have to clean the barn and weed the garden. By the time I was done, I’d have to help my foster mom with dinner.”

  Taylor ran a hand through her hair. “I’d never been in a home that had so much structure. I was used to being able to do whatever I wanted. I used to think they were trying to torture me, but looking back, I realized that they were just trying to make me a better person. I know now that they were acting the way normal parents did and despite the fact that I was always complaining, they really cared about me.”

  Lark scooted closer, so that they were shoulder to shoulder. “What happened to them?”

  “I was with them for a while and eventually they decided to adopt me. Before the adoption was finalized, my mom came into the picture. She showed up out of the blue one day, with her nice car and her hair all done up.”

  Taylor paused, searching for an adequate analogy for what she wanted to explain, but couldn’t pinpoint one.

&n
bsp; “I think it’s only something you can understand if you’ve never seen a biological parent before. It was amazing to be able to look at her face and see parts of myself. We looked so much alike. She was a skinny, grownup version of me, without the acne or braces.”

  Lark gave a wan smile. “I looked a lot like my father. I suppose I always took that for granted.”

  “I was in awe of her,” Taylor said. “She told me all about her life, how she’d had me when she was a teenager and that her parents made her give me up for adoption and she always regretted it. She told me that she’d been looking for me for years and that she wanted to be a part of my life. She wanted to adopt me.”

  “But what about the Smiths?”

  Taylor bit down on her lip. “I didn’t think twice about it. I went to live with my mom.”

  Her eyes became distant as she thought back to when she first went to live with her mother.

  “My mom was nice, her husband was nice, my little sister was a brat, but she was a good kid.” Her brows furrowed. “I should have been happy with them, but from the very first night I laid down in my new bed, I had this terrible feeling in my gut, this feeling that I’d made the wrong choice.”

  “Did you go back to live with the Smiths again?”

  Taylor shook her head. “My mom knew I regretted choosing her. She never said it, but I knew that she knew. If I would have asked her to let the Smiths adopt me, I think she would have said yes. But I couldn’t go back to them, not after I’d turned my back on them. I don’t believe they would have held it against me, but at fourteen I lacked that level of insight.”

  Taylor let out a heavy sigh and closed her eyes. “I don’t know who I would have been happier with. I think if I had chosen the Smiths, I would have always wished I went with my mom.”

  Lark said, “And you’re worried that if Alder and Hale make you choose, you’ll regret not choosing the other?”

  Taylor silently nodded.

  How long had she been there now?

  A week?

  How had already she fallen for both brothers?