by Nikki Winter
And he looked pretty fucking comfortable! “You—”
“We’re not discussing me,” he interrupted smoothly. “We’re discussing you.” His gaze narrowed. “All of you.”
It was the tone of his voice, his intent stare, which told her he knew. He knew everything. Shards of ice slid through Cree’s veins. “Fallon,” she whispered.
He nodded. “Fallon.”
She went to stand but his hands smacked against her thighs and sent her tumbling back onto the couch. “No,” Maddox growled. “No more running. No more fucking hiding from me. You don’t get to do that anymore. You don’t get to ignore my existence out of some misguided sense of duty.”
Her laugh came out on a hard bark of bitterness. “Misguided sense of duty? Did you practice this speech in your head, Maddox?”
A muscle worked in his jaw. “I know about your gift and—”
“Gift!” she roared. “You think that this is a fucking gift?!”
Maddox looked at a loss.
Cree wrapped her arms about herself, her lips curving in a sharp smile as she shook her head. “A gift,” she said softly. “You really believe that this thing—this cancer—is a gift.” Her eyes rose and the sadness she saw in his gaze made rage bubble up beneath her skin. “It’s a disease, Maddox. A sickness that erodes your soul. You can never be certain that every thought belongs to solely you. There are desires, wants, compulsions that move you to do things that you believed were unfathomable at one point and time; your body is no longer your own!” she finished on a shout. “This is not a gift! It’s death! It’s something that destroys everything you love and all you can do is sit back and watch it happen. You can pull, you can yank, you can scream and howl and roar but you don’t belong to yourself, you belong to every. Single. One. Of. Them.”
She rocked, pulling at her hair. “There are days when I avoid the mirror because I know that if I peek, I won’t see me, I’ll see them. There are days that I can’t even remember a conversation or an event that happened minutes after it’s occurred because it wasn’t me.” Agitation began in her chest and spread outwards. “I change, I move differently, I look at the world differently and when something runs past my line of sight I’m liable to stare at it as though it’s prey rather than another living being. All because my humanity is dying. It disappears more and more each minute and I can feel it. There are too many of them. Too many thoughts, too many needs, too many emotions and they’re all festering. My empathy is being feasted on, my compassion has been shredded and my loyalty is being tested. This will never be a gift.”
His touch was tentative—light—as he moved her hair. “You still owe me a day.”
Cree’s head jerked up at the unexpected words and Maddox’s face gave away nothing but resolve. “You’re fucking off it.”
“I want my day.”
“You don’t get it do you?” She gazed at him in disbelief. “We’re not Fallon and Ransom, Maddox.”
“I want my day.”
She shoved at his chest. “Stop!” Cree pushed him again. “We don’t get to be that way! We don’t get to be happy!”
He took her hands into his own and squeezed slightly. “You swore.”
“Did you not see what I did to that buck?” Trying to jerk free failed so her best option was to scare him. “I could do that to you. I could do worse to you.” She could, she’d seen what this side of her nature was capable of; she’d seen what hell really looked like.
Maddox only blinked and repeated, “You swore.”
“I wouldn’t care that it was you, Maddox. I wouldn’t care about feelings or humor or lust. I’d kill you and then cut down half that pack afterwards,” she pushed. “I’d kill you and I wouldn’t look back.” Cree bit her lip to stop the trembling that had begun there. “There is no fairytale ending to this. You can’t be my knight, you can’t slay the monster lurking in the shadows.” Her vision changed and she knew he was staring into the eyes of whatever had taken hold of her for the moment. “I am the monster.”
Keeping his gaze on hers, he angled himself until their noses were touching and whispered, “You’re not your mother.”
Her jaw worked. “Shut up.” He didn’t know that; couldn’t know that.
“You’re not a senseless beast that can’t be contained, Cree.”
“I mean it, Maddox.”
“You’re kind and funny and intelligent.”
The fight was steadily draining from her. She was tired; so tired. “Please…”
“Your pack mates love you.”
Her eyes closed. “Don’t.”
“I love you.”
Those words devastated her. Something warm and wet slid down the bridge of her nose. He’d voiced something that shouldn’t exist. He’d knocked down that final wall and what could she do now but stand by and watch him step over the rubble?
“And whether you see this as a disease or not,” he continued, running his thumb just over her cheek. “It’s a part of you. It’s a part of what makes up someone I would decimate an entire city for. You can’t frighten me, beautiful. You can’t make me walk away from something I never knew I needed until I stumbled across it. I don’t care what I have to do to keep you; whether it be immoral or illegal, you’re mine. Even darkest parts, the parts that you want no one else to witness, belong to me.”
***
Her rage seemed to deflate, the hard notes of anger in her scent giving way to something soft and desperate. When she pulled away Maddox allowed her to and watched her curl up on her couch, a piece of furniture that smelled like her, as did everything else in her home. It was strange. No matter how many times the aroma of Cree’s skin altered due to her well-kept secret, it always remained distinctly her own; the same way Maddox would always remain distinctly hers. It scared her, it scared him but it wouldn’t change. What Fallon had told him today reformed the way he saw Cree. It reformed the way he saw himself.
Anoki’s words from the day before had haunted him as he spent an hour fixing her damaged door. “No matter how much she may deny it, no matter how many times she may Sparta kick others for saying it, she needs love just like the rest of us…”
She did. She needed to know that she wasn’t something to be caged and feared but someone who was adored despite what lurked in the shadows of her heart. This thing wasn’t her. It was simply a part of her; a part that needed to be unraveled so he could understand what was underneath.
He kept his spot on the solid coffee table, resisting the urge to wrap around her. “Tell me.”
Her lips lifted in a sardonic grin. “Didn’t Fallon give you all the sordid details of what it means to be a freak of nature?”
Maddox’s jaw worked. “Tell me,” he repeated. She closed her eyes and he felt his bear just beneath his skin. “No hiding.”
Those topaz irises focused on him once again. “I come from a tribe that originates from the Athabaskan who are children of the Cree Indians—a people who bonded so strongly with the earth that the Great Spirit took mercy on them during their hardest hunting season and gave them the gift of the wolf. My namesake—the Cree—inherited more than one beast as their own in the midst of a war with those attempting to take their land.” She focused just over his shoulder and her stare seemed to gloss over. “They couldn’t fight using only the wolf because that beast alone didn’t have the power they needed so they asked for more. Their prayers didn’t go unheard and the Great Spirit had enough grace to give them the lion for stealth, the cheetah for speed, the leopard for reflexes, the bear for incomparable strength and a bevy of others.” Cree’s eyes drifted back towards him. “But what wasn’t accounted on was the fact that all of these separate entities existing in one form could drive a shifter to the edge of madness and back.”
“Too many thoughts, too many needs, and too many emotions,” he murmured, remembering her earlier words.
She nodded. “By George you’ve got it.” Her hands fisted briefly. “It began as something that was a gift but bec
ame a curse; a mutation almost. It spread from one generation to another, coming to rest in my previous pack. It wasn’t uncommon and it didn’t seem that strange to those of us who’d heard the story, understood the legends. However, no one knew of the storm that was coming. No one understood how dark this really was.”
He was silent for a moment. “Your mother.”
“My mother,” Cree confirmed. Heaviness seemed to shroud her as she resigned herself to unveiling what she’d covered for so long. “One of the most beautiful beings I have ever known. I was an only child, regularly interacted with other pups, but the majority of my time was spent with her; near her. She was…everything. I’ve never known someone to be so incredibly pure; so incredibly perfect.”
For just a few seconds Maddox could see the little girl Cree had been, a child who had so much admiration for her parent that it was tangible.
“My father was all wolf. He was big and gruff and didn’t know what it was to be any other way,” she said smiling now. “But he loved her. He loved us both.” Her lashes fell and he could see wetness forming there. “When she began to seclude herself away from the rest of the pack and us also, we figured that it was simply her way of dealing with transitions going on in the tribe. A lot of the original traditions were beginning to die, new leadership was taking control and elders were stepping down from their positions. Her moods dipped and sometimes we’d have conversations but I could swear her eyes were vacant, that it wasn’t her. My father brushed it off, said that she was simply finding her way but I knew better, I knew my mother and she wasn’t the same.” Cree’s voice broke on the last sentence. “I watched her, you know? I watched it take over. I’d follow her scent from our home out into the woods and I’d find her the way you found me this morning. But she couldn’t remember a thing, she couldn’t tell me why she’d gone hunting without us. She couldn’t tell me why she was changing. And then”—her lids lifted—“disaster.”
“She killed…”
“She murdered,” Cree insisted. “She murdered and had to be put down because she couldn’t tame it; she couldn’t control it anymore and it began to control her.” She shook her head. “That’s the danger of this, the risk. You never truly hold the leash, Maddox. You only delude yourself into believing you do. Then others come along, others who already have their own preconceived notions of who and what you are; others who hate you just because they don’t understand you. They hate you because they’re afraid that you hold the potential to do harm to everything they love. So they strike the moment you’re on your knees and broken, looking to twist a knife that hasn’t even been removed from when you were first jabbed between the ribs.”
“You were pushed out,” he said filling in the blanks.
“I would’ve been had I not left on my own,” Cree rejoined. “I caught the tail end of a conversation between Enli and Kuzih, my father’s sister and her mate. They were discussing what would happen to me if I didn’t simply slink off.” She smirked. “It was like I was never a part of the pack. All because of what I am.” She shook her head. “ Enli had been his last living relative after too many deaths to count. All they’d had was one another as children so the bond was strong. She never truly approved of my mother and essentially gave me a wide birth along with the others. When hell basically opened up and almost swallowed us all whole, that was her breaking point. There’s really no love lost there. When you’re a child, your naiveté keeps you shielded, your ignorance is bliss. You feel invincible because you’re protected, shrouded in love. I have boxes full of videos and pictures of them that I can’t even look at because it pours vinegar into every cut.” Cree’s lips trembled. “I saw it all for myself; I saw the looks they gave me. As if I were no more than a stray rogue riddled with disease. My tribe was simple; unadorned. Grandiose shows of strength and the desire to create a dynasty? That wasn’t us. Spiritual growth was at the core of every decision we made. We didn’t have millions, lived off the land, and barely interacted with others outside of our own; so I simply thought I’d always be welcomed. I thought there was nothing wrong with me until I was discarded.”
She didn’t need to tell him the rest. Fallon had already given him the details, things that would stay with him for the rest of his life. To be a child and witness that type of corruption happening to the people meant to protect and love you was something beyond his comprehension. Cree then spent her life hiding herself, hiding what she was, for fear that the same thing would happen to her again.
“The Wilders helped you,” Maddox said.
Her smile was watery at best. “They saved me. To give help is to assist someone. I wasn’t of any use by the time they found me. I was lost, weak and ready to die. The weight on my shoulders—on my heart—was so heavy that I really didn’t care what happened at that point; I only wanted peace, I wanted it to all be done. But I found myself in the presence of people who could see something in me that I couldn’t. I didn’t know until later, but I was home. I blended in with the others here. Not hard to do with so many Native Americans already inundated into the pack. I’ve always given just enough of myself to keep everyone else at bay; keep them from getting too curious. I became the wolf shifter; the woman no one wants to ever get too close to. Now that’s twisting into something that I have no control over and before events occur that can’t be taken back, I need to leave.”
“To keep yourself safe?”
“To keep everyone safe. Seems to me that my safety is a moot point now.”
“No one can touch you here,” he told her.
Cree laughed and the sound grated him. “If you honestly believe it’s me who needs to be protected then you’re delusional. I’m not afraid for myself, Maddox. I’m not running or hiding from you. You should be running and hiding from me. There has to be something really dark within me that I could be disowned by everyone who claimed to love me. No one fought it, no one argued, they simply accepted my aunt’s decision and marched alongside her.”
“You’ve spent the last year trying to convince me of that and do you honestly believe I’d be sitting here right now if I thought there was no hope, no chance, for you? Your humanity is far from gone, Cree. You just showed it to me.”
“Really that determined to fuck me, Maddox?”
The mocking pitch in her voice caused red to briefly flash across his vision. Maddox slammed a hand down on the coffee table and her smirk melted. “Your insults, your evasion and your sporadic violence have never been a trigger for me Cree but if you want to see me flip my shit, dismiss my feelings again.” He gripped the edge of the wood and felt it crumble slightly. “Do I want to fuck you? Yes. Break tables and beds? Yes. Smash door frames and listen to you scream so hard that the key of your voice shatters glass? Yes. But don’t you ever accuse me of being here only because I’m interested in something that I could get from any number of women walking around this very lodge. If I were engrossed in solely finding someone to make a wet spot with then all I’d have to do is snap my fingers. You’re not a challenge to me Cree. You’re not a puzzle that I simply can’t leave alone and do you know why?” He stretched out his hand and grasped her sweatshirt again dragging her forward. “Because I’ve already won. And no amount of acidity you give is going to dissolve that victory. Nothing you say is going to make me turn away from you. Get used to this face, darling. You’ll be smiling into every morning for the rest of your life.”
She opened her mouth to argue. He could see the “fuck you” forming but refused to give her the opportunity; so instead, he swiped the words away with a brush of his mouth then fused it to her own. He didn’t let up, he wasn’t gentle and her small punch to his shoulder never even gave him pause. Maddox was on a very clear, very concise mission—Cree Chayton’s surrender. Fuck her reservations, her doubts and whatever nonsensical objections she had because she believed herself to be a danger to him and the rest of the pack. She wasn’t ambling out of his life after coming in and knocking him on his ass with one fan of her lashes. He
wanted her. He wanted her flaws, her anxieties, her rage and her obscurities. Maddox wanted it all and she’d give it to him; every last bit.
His tongue pushed against her own and the low charge of arousal in his gut lit to a full flame. Her pushing against his shoulder turned into a hard grip, her nails digging into his skin. He was too focused on the fact that he had Cree kissing him and making noises that left his cock perking up with a, “Good evening, madam. Table for one?”
When she nipped his bottom lip and tugged, his bear nudged him, demanding release and Maddox knew it was time to stop. He moved away and she attempted to follow but his gentle push sent her back into the couch.
Panting, he watched her through his grizzly’s eyes. “Bed. Go.”
“Right,” she breathed, nodding. Cree then reached for the hem of her sweatshirt.
“No!” Maddox barked, wincing. If he fucked her now, she’d only think that what she’d said was true. “You go to bed alone. I’m sleeping out here.”
She blinked. “Alone? Why?”
“Because giving into the urge to bend you over and steadily tap away all our frustration will end badly. So I’m telling you—go.”
Chewing her lip, she looked from him to the hallway that led to her bedroom. After a minute of staring, she finally got to her feet and walked away, muttering, “A year of clamoring for my vagina, I practically offer it lying on a bed of field greens, stuffed with an apple and he tells me to go to bed alone. I’ve obviously displeased God in some way.”
“If you’d offered it with a honey-balsamic vinaigrette perhaps my will power would be a bit weaker!” he called after her.
The slam of her bedroom door was all he received in response but somehow it only served to show that here was exactly where he belonged.
Seven
Sleep was an impossibility. Each time she closed her eyes all she saw was Maddox’s mouth, words tumbling from his lips; slapping around her insecurities before that same mouth covered her own. He loved her. He’d said it and for reasons she couldn’t understand, she believed every word. How could she not when he looked at her with an indulgent tenderness that she only saw when James and Helena were in town? His eyes gave him away; they’d always given him away. Cree had just been too intent on protecting herself to see it. Every lie she’d told herself centered around her supposed need to safe guard everyone else—safe guard Maddox—but it had always been about her. Ever fearful that she’d be seen a freak or worse, she’d distanced herself from something that tugged at her constantly. Now Cree wasn’t so sure she could do that anymore.
