by Dane, Lauren
“You won the challenge. Even though the challenge is to the death, he was so close that the governance council deemed it your victory.” Cade smiled.
Rage flooded through her. “Oh, goody. Now that he’s attacked me and made me into one of you while not a single fucking one of you did a thing to stop a werewolf from attacking a human—I’m victorious. Lucky me.”
“I couldn’t stop it, Nina,” Cade’s voice was filled with anguish. “As Alpha, I had to let the challenge go forward. You offended him. He had a rightful challenge. You could have apologized.”
Nina sat up then and Lex moved forward to push her back to the pillows and she shoved at his hands. The Doctor tried to move Cade and Lex away.
“I could have apologized?” Nina shook her head. “It’s my fault?”
“Nina, baby, Carter has been disciplined for biting you. We have rules about that. He’s been stripped of his power and moved to the bottom of the Pack. Now that you’re a wolf, you share my status as Second,” Lex said softly.
“Oh you’re all so civilized!” Nina said sarcastically. “You can attack a human in your living room as long as you kill her without biting her. With her husband standing three feet away!”
“You’re upsetting her. It’s hard enough on her wolf to have to heal this sort of damage to her system,” Dr. Molinari told Cade and Lex with a frown.
“It’s over now, Nina. You defeated him and you did it as a human. The rest of the Pack sees that as a mark of great power and they respect you for it.”
She looked at Lex in disbelief. “Are you actually proud of that? Are you proud that I had to empty a gun into someone in your living room all over that twenty-thousand-dollar Oriental rug?”
“I’m proud that you were so strong—that you never gave up. Even standing there, your arm broken in three places, a gash on your head pouring blood, your throat nearly torn out—even then you fought back. Yes, I’m proud that my mate is so strong. More than that, I’m glad you’re all right and safe.” He knelt next to the bed.
“I need to be alone, please.” Her voice was flat as she said it.
“You can nap. I’ll just hold you,” Lex said, touching her hand before she took it from him.
“Alone. As in, me only. I don’t want to see another fucking werewolf.” She looked straight ahead, not meeting anyone’s eye.
“Nina, you’re going to have to go through a change. You can’t do it alone. The first time is very difficult,” Dr. Molinari said soothingly.
“When?”
“Usually the first change comes at the full moon. After that you’ll be able to change at will.”
“The next full moon is?”
“In a week.”
“Fine. Now all of you get the fuck out.”
“Nina, why?” Cade asked softly, feeling both her and Lex’s agony.
“Why what, Cade?” Nina turned to face him.
“Why are you sending us away?”
“You weren’t there when I needed you. As in to live! You stood there while someone tried to kill me. I’m supposed to just take that with a smile?”
“Lex had to be restrained by nearly my entire guard! He almost risked Shunning to save you, Nina,” Cade said, his voice hardening.
“Almost didn’t save my life, Mr. Warden. In the end, all I have is myself. For a brief time, I allowed myself to think differently. Some lessons are apparently best learned the hard way.”
“You allowed yourself to think differently? Mr. Warden? What the hell is wrong with you? What do you want, Nina? Blood?” Lex yelled.
Nina winced as his guilt, anger and fear rushed through their connection. “No. That’s how you do it. All I want is for you to get out of my sight.”
“Don’t do this, Nina.” Cade used his Alpha mojo on her and she felt herself begin to respond.
She gave an anguished cry and shot up out of bed.
“You need to lie down, Nina. I know you’re upset but your system was just under attack from the virus and then your wolf healed all of that damage,” Dr. Molinari said, reaching out to touch her.
“Nina!” Cade yelled so loud that the pressure of it knocked her to her knees.
She crawled toward the door and Lex picked her up and put her back in the bed. “Cade! Stop it,” Lex said urgently.
“You can’t keep me here.” Nina huddled into a ball.
“The hell we can’t! You’re one of my wolves now, Nina. Mine to protect. You’re not safe out there,” Cade stated through clenched teeth.
“No, I’m not safe here. Nothing about you people is safe,” she mumbled.
Dr. Molinari touched Nina’s arm and then a sharp pain hit as the needle slid into her flesh and the heat of the sedative coursed through her.
“I can’t believe you just did that,” Nina slurred as her eyes slid up into the back of her head and she lost consciousness.
* * * * *
“Jesus, I can’t believe how fucked up that was,” Lex said, pushing a hand through his hair as he paced the hall outside their bedroom.
“She’ll get over it.” Cade slid down the wall and sat on the floor. Tracy put a mug of coffee into his hand and gave one to Lex as well.
“You have to let her deal with all of this, Lex. She’s human. Or she was. She doesn’t have a frame of reference for anything that’s happened. She was changed, attacked, she doesn’t feel safe. She expected you and Cade to protect her.” Tracy held up a hand to stop them from arguing. “No, I’m not blaming you. I saw that it took four men to hold Lex back. I saw your palms bleeding where your nails pierced the skin, Cade. I know you did what you had to as Alpha. But she doesn’t know that. She has no way of knowing. She’ll see it. You just have to give her time.”
Lex took his sister’s hand and squeezed it. “Smart wolf.” His anguish was clear in his voice.
“I’ll help however I can. For what it’s worth, Lex, she wouldn’t be so upset if she didn’t love you so much.” Tracy cocked her head at her brother.
“There’s more than just this,” Cade said. “There’s a lot of layers to that woman in there.”
“It has to hinge on the past she’s so stingy with. I’ve had my investigators on it for a month now. I think they should be able to come up with something soon. One way or another, Nina is going to share her past with me if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Lex, let her tell you. This whole situation is so tenuous, if you push her any further she’s going to break,” Tracy said gently.
“What about me?” Lex stood up with a yell. “Huh? You think I wanted this? You think I wanted a human mate who I fight with more than I make love to? She’s a goddamned pain in the ass.”
“Well, you know there are supposedly ways to undo the mate bond. Rumor of course, but I’m betting Grandma knows if they’re true or not,” Tracy said nonchalantly as she watched Lex.
“What? You think I’d dump her because she’s difficult? I love that woman in there. I can’t believe you’d try to get me to undo our bond.”
Tracy rolled her eyes at him and Cade barked out a tired laugh.
“What are you laughing for?” Lex’s face was angry until he got it. “Oh. Yeah. Okay, I got it, smarty-pants. But she should tell me. I shouldn’t have to beg her to share her life with me.”
“Lex, why are you so thick? She’s obviously this way for a reason and the reason can’t be very nice. We know that she and Rey were orphans and that she essentially raised him alone. Rey didn’t share much more than that but from what I gathered, it wasn’t pretty but she never let him down. She’s got a spine of steel for a reason. You’re both the most stubborn people I’ve ever met. You’re made for each other and you know it and that’s why you’re both so prickly about it.” With a smirk, Tracy grabbed the now empty mugs and went downstairs where other family members waited.
* * * * *
It was dark when Nina awoke from her drugged sleep. She knew immediately that Lex was in the room, sleeping next to her in their bed. She lay there for a long t
ime thinking about the whole situation, not knowing what to do.
She loved Lex Warden and there was no denying the connection between them. At the same time, she couldn’t get around the terror and betrayal she’d experienced as Cade stood there doing nothing. Yes Lex had to be restrained but he had a gun, she knew that. Why hadn’t he just shot Carter? She’d have done it for him. Hell, she’d had to do it for herself and that’s what burned deep in her gut.
She’d been forced to put herself and her life in the hands of these two men. It hadn’t been easy but she’d done it. When she’d entered the Pack house that night, she hadn’t thought for a moment that she’d be unsafe. No, she’d felt the deep comfort of belonging. The ease of partnership instead of the pressure to be in charge—not always having to guard and protect. Those few hours had been perfect and the comparison between then and what she felt as she stood there while they all watched someone try to kill her sliced through her heart and left her in tatters.
And she had no idea what to do about it.
“How are you feeling?” Lex asked quietly, not moving from her side. He somehow knew she was awake.
“Like a werewolf tried to kill me.”
“Nina, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you. Sorry you lost faith in me—in us.”
“I don’t know what to say, Lex. They’re nice words and I’m sure you actually mean them. But this is just one more in a long line of fuckups in my life and I’m so tired.”
“Please tell me. Help me understand, Nina. I swear to you I’ll do the same. We can’t go on this way. We need to try and know each other if we are going to make this work. And I want to. I love you.”
She thought about it. Could she do it? Could she expose herself and tell him her story after what had happened? Could she trust him? Because if she didn’t open up, she wasn’t sure they’d make it. But he was Mr. Law and Order, what if she was repulsed by what she told him? What if he couldn’t accept her past?
She’d held on to her secrets for a very long time, never letting anyone in. She wasn’t sure she’d even lived really. She had a house and her shop but never really any true interaction—intimacy—with anyone. When you opened up, you took risks that what you shared could be used to hurt you. And that terrified her. But losing Lex terrified her more.
Reaching down, she opened the door she’d kept barricaded for so long. “About three weeks after my twelfth birthday my parents went off on a trip. It was just for three days. My daddy was going to bring me back saltwater taffy from the shore.
“Gabriel and I were playing in the yard of some family friends and the police came. They told us that my parents had been killed in a fire at the hotel. A lot of stuff happened, I don’t remember all of it but eventually they put us with a distant cousin of my mother’s. But they hated us. They just liked the money.
“And Gabriel was…he didn’t know how to deal with our parents being gone. He’d been such a sweet child but he got in with the wrong crowd and got in trouble. A lot. Before long they’d kicked us out.”
Nina relayed the story in a quiet voice. Lex reached out slowly and took her hand, relaxing when she didn’t pull away.
“What did you do?”
“They wanted to put us in foster care but they couldn’t guarantee that we’d stay together and even at just ten, Gabriel was already on track for trouble. I couldn’t take the chance of being separated from him. So we ran. I was nearly fifteen and I worked odd jobs and we lived here and there, ducking the social workers and the system. I became an expert at lying to get what we needed.
“First I ran street cons with some other, older kids. But then I ran up against the small time hoods who were part of organized crime. I was a pickpocket. I stole food. I stole clothes. I stole things I could resell for money to pay for rent. I got picked up a few times. Did a few stints in juvie.
“I cleaned houses for a while. I think one lady I worked for knew we were on the edge, saw how desperate I was. She helped me get into some continuing education classes and I got interested in computers. She had one and let me use it. I started keeping her books for her. I don’t know where I’d be today if it weren’t for her.”
Nina began to cough. Her throat was so dry. Lex sat up quickly and poured a glass of water, handing it to her in the cool darkness of the room. A few minutes later she stacked pillows up and sat against the headboard.
“Anyway, the money was all right. She let us live in an apartment over the garage. Gabriel was nearing eighteen and I was so afraid he’d end up in jail. I started hacking for fun. It was a way to pass the time as I waited up for him to get home. And I got to be good. Really good.
“People found me and hired me to do jobs for them. I never hurt anyone but I broke the law, Lex. I used the money on hospital bills. Damn Gabriel was always getting in fights, needing stitches or bones set and casted.
“But there were crackdowns and I was terrified of getting caught. If I went to prison what would happen to Gabriel? I wanted to have enough money to walk away. To get us across the country and set us up. So I did one last job. I nearly got caught but it netted me a very, very large payoff.
“I bought two bus tickets and picked Gabriel up and we traveled for a few days and ended up here. We lived in an apartment and I got my GED and went to community college and discovered how much I loved floral design and plants and flowers in general. I was good at the business side of things but I was always careful to not have a computer at home hooked up to the internet.
“We’d gotten out. I had a business and things were good. And then Gabriel got bitten in that bar fight and I couldn’t protect him anymore. He was your problem and god help me, I was relieved. I loved Gabriel but twelve is too young to be a mother.”
Lex’s heart was pounding as he listened. He ached for her. He’d told her that he hadn’t been handed anything—and he hadn’t, he’d worked hard for his accomplishments—but compared to her life, he’d had it so easy.
“People have failed me my entire life, Lex. The only constant I’ve had was myself. I’m not proud of the things I’ve done. I know they were wrong. But it was all I knew how to do. Maybe I should have let us go into foster care. I don’t know. All I had was myself.” Her voice broke as she repeated it.
“I believed in you. I allowed myself to believe that for once in my fucking life I was with someone who might take care of me every once in a while. Or at the very least, take care of themselves so I wouldn’t have to.”
Her entire body began to tremble at the effort to free all of the things she’d kept inside. “I trusted you. I trusted Cade. I don’t know how to get back from this place where I feel so betrayed.”
Lex leaned over her and turned on the lamp, casting a low golden light into the room. He sat next to her, searching her face.
“Oh, baby. My poor wounded bird.” He kissed her fingertips and realized he could scent her wolf and he had to close his eyes for a moment as the intensity of the feeling passed through him.
“Why, Lex? Why would you all stand there and watch someone kill me? You don’t think issuing a challenge to the death was a bit of an overreaction for a nick on the forehead? Could you really just watch as he killed me, Lex? You had a gun, you could have shot him first. Do I really mean so little that an entire room of people would do nothing to stop him from killing me?” Nina’s voice was a mere whisper, laden with emotional turmoil.
Lex took a deep breath. “Werewolves have existed, hidden from humans, for thousands of years. We’ve only just come out in the last hundred years. All that’s kept us safe, free from persecution and being hunted to extinction, was the Pack.
“The Pack is life, Nina. Our rules create order. A Pack is a unit. You have to trust everyone in that unit to get your back if you’re attacked. Our rules aren’t just words and ceremony—they’re wired into our very existence.
“You felt it when Cade spoke earlier, I know you did. It’s biological determinism for werewolves. But in order for a hierarchy to exist unchallen
ged—to avoid infighting and backstabbing—every wolf has to rely on the absolute of the rules that govern us.
“We can’t obey the rules only when it suits us. If Cade had stopped the challenge, the Pack would have torn him apart. Literally. They would have lost confidence in his leadership. That would have thrown the Pack into total chaos.
“Cade was born to lead this Pack. Just as I was born to be the Enforcer. It’s my job to enforce our laws.” His voice hitched with deep emotion. “I would have killed Carter if he’d killed you. But they took my guns, I couldn’t have shot him. Challenge or no, I would have ripped him apart with my bare hands and then I’d have withered away without you.”
Tears were running down her face and he reached out and took the teardrops with the tips of his fingers. They clung there like diamonds. He put them to his lips—taking her inside of him.
“I’m sorry that I couldn’t be what you needed. I’m not making excuses for it. Carter betrayed the Pack by misusing his position. It’s one reason why the rest were so quick to demote him so severely. But Cade couldn’t have stepped in. He had to weigh your life against the existence of the Pack he was born to protect. It wasn’t easy for him, but there was no other choice.”
She looked into his face for several long minutes. She didn’t speak, she just studied his features as she drank him in. Aside from being incredibly handsome, there was something about the shape of his eyes, the curve of his bottom lip, the fuzz of his day-old beard—something about the sight of him that calmed her.
She reached out and touched his bottom lip and they both shivered at the contact. So much existed between them that there weren’t words adequate to express it all. Love and hope, hurt and anger, disapproval and betrayal, but above all, connection. Love is not simple, it is not easy. But between them, it simply existed.
It was like slow motion as Lex brought a hand up to enfold her hand in his larger one. “You’re still recovering. We should wait.”
Her eyes narrowed and he laughed. She shook her head. “I need a shower.”
“Dr. Molinari said that would be fine. Do you need help?” He got up gingerly. His cock was so hard it ached. His wolf was barely leashed, wanting to mark her, excited that she now had a wolf. It took their bond to a completely new level. Where before he’d been able to keep his wolf suppressed because Nina was human, there were no such restraints now and his wolf knew it.
