by Moira Rogers
Having her walk away for good would weaken his authority with the wolves, maybe even force him off the Conclave. Looking into her father’s eyes, Nick could tell he didn’t give a damn anymore. “All right. Michelle’s taking care of herself for once. What we need to handle is the situation with Coleman.”
Derek cleared his throat. “Alec told me a little about that.”
Of course he had. Nick rubbed her hands over her face. “Coleman’s bigger than me, but I’m fast—”
“No.” Derek’s voice, quiet and intense. “You’ve asked me to stand by and watch this shit nearly kill you. This is the one thing I can do. For God’s sake, let me do it.”
“Can you do it?” She kept her voice as quiet as his. “You can bet your ass he’s trained for this sort of thing. He’s ambitious, and no matter how civilized Dad keeps trying to make things, Coleman wouldn’t have gotten this far without tucking a few victories under his belt.” She had to make him understand. “A challenge like this is a fight to the death, Derek. It’s not the same as sparring with Alec in his backyard.”
He caught her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “Remember, someone has tried to kick the shit out of me on just about every business trip I’ve been on.”
“But not someone who clawed his way up to a seat on the Conclave.”
“Oh, and how many Conclave members have you fought?”
Mahalia cut in. “That’s enough. Your father was right, Nicole. You may be quick in a fight, but that’s no advantage against Coleman. He’s just as fast, and you can’t match him for size. Derek, on the other hand…”
Nick had swallowed tears until her chest ached. Maybe it should have been simple to ask Derek to do this for her, for her family, but she couldn’t.
Had Michelle felt this way, taking that first step? Getting involved with Aaron, knowing she might as well march him in front of the Conclave and declare him a traitor? Had it felt this selfish?
“Do whatever you need to do,” she whispered thickly, avoiding his gaze as she slid off the barstool. “I’ll be in my room.”
“Nick—”
“Give her a second.” Her father, low and sure, and his words continued as she fled the kitchen. “Remember how you felt, being helpless…”
She didn’t stay to listen. Her eyes burned and she couldn’t see, but she made it to her bedroom anyway, slamming the door shut behind her.
It opened seconds later, even with her leaning against it. Derek’s scent coiled around her, followed by the warmth of his hands as he grasped her shoulders and pulled her to him. “Have a little faith in me.”
“It isn’t that. Christ, Derek, you’re the strongest person I know.” Over the last two years, she’d watched him more closely than she’d admitted to herself. “You work your ass off, and I’ve never seen you give up on anything. This isn’t about you.”
“It’s about me if you want a boyfriend who sits on his ass when you don’t need sex or waffles.”
“I don’t!” Nick jerked free and rounded to face him. “You shouldn’t have to fight Coleman. It’s my fault. All of it, everything.”
Derek groaned and leaned back against the door. “Everything? Come on, Nick. Give the rest of us a chance to fuck up once in a while.”
“Not like that. Not the situation.” Misery churned through her. She wanted to stop arguing, to give in and go to him, let him hold her, but she forced herself to stay still. “Would you be okay with it? If I had to face something like this because of you?”
“What the hell do you think the last month has been like?” He caught her shoulders again and leaned down. “I want a partner, Nick. I want to be a partner. I’m never going to be able to do the political shit the way you can, but I can fight. You did your part, so let me do mine.”
He still didn’t get it, and he probably never would. Their situations weren’t reversed, and he’d already spent more than his fair share of time having to think of her in danger. That none of that danger had been directly attributable to him didn’t matter.
She took a deep breath and tried one last time. “Because of me, Derek. If something goes wrong, you’ll be dead because of me, and not in some hyperguilty, theoretical fashion. Because you took my place in this fight.” She held up a hand to halt his protest. “Hang on. You want to do this, and I understand. Really, I do. I just need some time to get okay with it.”
“No.” He tilted her head back again. “You need to get okay with the fact that there aren’t your fights and my fights anymore. This is our fight.”
His conviction was absolute, and his strength both calmed and humbled Nick. She squeezed her eyes shut and leaned against him. “I think you’re getting the short end of the deal here.”
Derek laughed and kissed the top of her head. “Only literally, baby. And that’s okay. We’ll get you a step stool.”
She let go of his shirt and smoothed the fabric. “We have an advantage, you know. A big one.”
“Yeah?”
“My father. He’s seen Coleman fight before. He knows his moves.”
“Then he can show me.” A feral smile curled his lips. “You have no idea how much I want to hit something. I got in a damn fistfight with Andrew.”
“Did he deserve it in the slightest?”
“Don’t think either of us deserved it, but we both needed it.”
“Hopefully it helped you both blow off some steam.” She bit her lip. “How is he doing? And Kat?” She’d been so wrapped up in her own problems that she hadn’t thought to ask.
Derek closed his eyes, and she knew the news wasn’t good. His thumbs rubbed along her collarbones, the touch almost absentminded. “Why don’t we sit down and talk?”
Nick stirred the mixture in the double boiler. “Almost ready. You still like cinnamon?”
“I think so.” Michelle’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I never know how things will taste these days.”
“You can try it first and see.” The thick chocolate had just started to foam, so she cut off the heat and reached for two mugs. “Did you and Luciano get things worked out?”
“He agreed to everything.” Michelle sounded tense. Worried.
“You don’t think he understands what you’re asking of him?”
“I think he understands.” Her voice dropped, and Nick heard the first hint of pain. “I think I’m taking advantage of him, and he’s letting me.”
“Sweetie.” Nick braced her hands on the counter and leaned down to catch Michelle’s gaze. “You think that, and you may be right. But it’s what he wants. He wants to be able to take care of you.”
“I’m not going to love him, Nick. Even if I did some day, for some reason…it wouldn’t matter. I’m done.”
Only a few days earlier, Nick would have protested the finality of the quiet declaration. “I understand.”
Michelle tucked her hands in her lap. “I suppose what upsets me the most about it is that I’m not sorry. I’m using his feelings and doing it unkindly, and I should feel something. Anything.”
She’d been walking around in a fog all morning, and Nick had the feeling it wouldn’t clear until things were settled. “I don’t think you should feel anything right now. If you could, it might drive you crazy.”
“Maybe.” Awkward silence filled the kitchen for a few moments before Michelle changed the subject. “I talked to Dad. He said he’s issuing a challenge on behalf of the Peyton family.”
“It’s nothing less than they expect.” What they couldn’t foresee was who exactly would be showing up to participate. “I wonder if they think he plans to fight Coleman himself.”
“They can’t imagine a girl issuing a challenge. They could think Alec’s going to step in for us.”
A hysterical giggle bubbled up in Nick’s chest. “God, can you imagine his father’s reaction to that?”
Miche
lle didn’t laugh. “His father would be ecstatic if Alec defeated a Conclave member in a challenge. It would put Alec one step closer to being a serious contender for real power. And New Orleans is in the Southeast council.”
Michelle wasn’t joking, not in the least, and a shiver claimed Nick. “If that’s what he still expects, he’s crazy. I don’t care if the council was headquartered in Alec’s front yard, he’d never take a spot on it. He’d wall himself up in his basement first.”
“Do you think his father wants to believe that?”
“No.” Alexander Jacobson would believe the earth was flat if he thought it might help elevate his station. The man craved power more than anything else.
“But it won’t be Alec.” For the first time, something other than pain or blank stillness shone in Michelle’s eyes. She smiled, a trembling, tentative movement, and warm magic filled the kitchen. “He loves you so much.”
“I know.” Derek loved her. Without her own uncertainty blurring her perceptions, she could see how much every time he looked at her. “We both spent so much time running.”
“Aaron really liked him.”
The mention of his name brought back memories of the day Aaron had forced her to promise him she’d take care of Michelle when he was gone. Nick tightened her hand around the edge of the marble counter. “He told me Derek was worth more than a few of these Conclave sons.”
“He was right. He usually was.” Michelle’s smile wavered. “Except when he told me I’d be fine without him.”
Nick had no words to comfort her, so she rounded the island, slid her arms around Michelle’s shoulders and rested her cheek on the top of her head. “I think…he wanted to believe it. For your sake.”
“We’ll have a son,” Michelle whispered, her voice thick. “I need to be fine for him. I need—” Magic spiked in time with Michelle’s gasping sob, pain tearing through the room, riding on an edge of power that would have sent the Conclave scrambling in fear. “I can’t do this alone, Nick.”
Michelle’s pain sparked her own, and Nick closed her eyes against the tears that welled. “I’d planned on selling the bar when I came here, and I think I’m still going to. Maybe I can visit you on the ranch? Stay for a while?”
“I—” Another sob, and Michelle’s icy control shattered. Deep, jagged sobs wracked her body and her tears fell hot on Nick’s shoulder as her pent-up grief spilled out.
“Shh. It’ll be okay.” Nick rocked her sister, only half believing the words she whispered. They may have figured out their options and made a plan to deal with things, but nothing could change what had happened, and what Michelle had lost.
The only thing she could hope was that time would bring relief, and that Michelle would heal. At least she’d have something to live for—her son. Without him, the rest of her sister’s days seemed almost too bleak to imagine.
Chapter Twenty-One
Derek spent the three days leading up to the challenge learning why Nick’s father ruled the wolves. Seventy years and change, and John Wesley Peyton had still kicked Derek’s ass around the room with an ease that left his ego just as sore as his body. By the end of the second day, Derek was bruised and exhausted, and thanking every god he’d ever heard of that Andrew and his newly aggressive instincts were safely on the opposite end of the country.
The interminable wait culminated in a lengthy drive upstate, their destination a private bit of land owned by the Conclave. When the scenery had shifted from urban sprawl to rolling woods, Derek glanced at Nick. “Do they use this property for anything other than beating the crap out of each other?”
“Running,” she murmured. “Congregation. We used to come up here all the time when I was a kid.”
The car slowed to turn down a long, unmarked drive lined with towering trees. “Guess it’s a good place to run.”
Her hand tightened around his. “Don’t forget. He’s too aggressive. He leaves himself unguarded.”
“I remember.” He took a breath. “So what do you think they’re going to do when they find out the representative of the Peyton family is a mutt?”
“They’ll be scandalized, and Coleman will think you’re bound to be easily beaten.” She turned until she was facing him on the seat, pride shining in her eyes. “He’ll be wrong.”
“Yeah, he will.” The expensive leather creaked as he shifted his weight and looped an arm around her shoulders. “How’s Michelle?”
She leaned into him. “Holding up. She and Luciano should be married by the time we get back. Dad seems to think they were right to not wait and ask the Conclave’s permission.”
“Luke explained it to me.” It hadn’t seemed logical at first, but Derek had to admit there was a certain cunning in the maneuver. To the Machiavellian minds on the Conclave, it would probably look like Luciano had leapt at the chance to snatch up Michelle’s money while no one was around to stop him.
“Mmm. They get rid of two problems—him and Michelle—all at once, and it looks just self-serving enough for them not to be too suspicious of his motives.”
“His mother’s going to be furious, isn’t she?”
“That doesn’t really cover it. Apoplectic with rage, maybe?”
Derek slid his fingers through Nick’s hair, taking comfort from the soft strands on his skin. She was safe. She was his. Life would be perfect, if it weren’t for his impending fight to the death. “Can she do anything to hurt either of them?”
“Not unless Hoffman and Ochoa don’t officially support Luciano’s plan, for some reason. Personally, she’ll never lower herself to acknowledge that it bothers her.” The car stopped, and Nick sat up and glanced out the window. “Here it is.”
Here proved to be a graceful mansion with at least four stories and two distinct wings. It looked completely out of place nestled in untamed forest, and it took a few moments for Derek to realize it was the lack of landscaping that bothered him. Trees were trimmed back from the roof itself, but the only token attempt to control the wild around it came from the rough gravel drive that lead to two heavy oak doors adorned with massive carvings.
He slid out of the car without waiting for someone to open the door for him and reached back a hand to Nick. “This is surreal.”
Most of Nick’s attention as she climbed out of the car was focused on a group of men standing near the mansion. “More or less so because you’re about to be dueling in the backyard?”
“At least it’s not pistols,” he murmured. Several of the men watched them closely. “That’s the Southeast council, I take it?”
“Part of it,” she whispered, turning away from the group. “The Mendoza brothers and a few of their supporters. Cesar, the oldest, has been looking for a way to oust Coleman for years.”
Derek couldn’t look away. Something feral rose in the face of such blatant appraisal, a feeling he’d choked back dozens of times. A wild hunger, one that demanded blood and violence.
For the first time, he let the magic come. His skin tingled, and power settled around him with an almost tangible click. He felt the difference as he met the gaze of the tallest man and let the new awareness fill his eyes.
Nick stepped closer to his side, her touch soothing on his arm. “Cesar challenged Coleman about five years ago and got his ass handed to him.”
He held the man’s gaze for another few heartbeats before Cesar looked away, a grudging surrender accompanied by a sneer of disdain.
Derek had seen that look enough times. “Looks like my total lack of reputation precedes me.”
She pulled him toward the wide front doors of the house. “It doesn’t matter. They’ll know your name after today.”
They knew his name already, and he’d bet his business on it. “They’re not sneering at me because they don’t know who I am, Nicky. They’re sneering at me because they know exactly who and what I am.”
For a momen
t she looked almost shocked, as if he’d reminded her of something she’d forgotten, and her eyes hardened. “Then they won’t sneer for long.” Her thumb rubbed over the back of his hand. “I’m proud of you for doing this, Derek. For standing up to this sort of thing.”
As if he was doing it to make a stand. Derek lifted her hand and kissed it, enjoying the shocked murmurs from behind them. “I’m not looking to become the poster boy for the disenfranchised, baby. I just don’t give a shit anymore, as long as I’ve got you.”
The foyer was lined with more people standing along the walls. Among them was Nick’s father. “They’re waiting in the conference room.” He stepped forward and lowered his voice. “Are you ready?”
Derek wasn’t sure which of them the question was meant for, but he answered it with all the courage he could muster. “Absolutely.”
“Let’s go.”
Nick didn’t release his hand as the crowd parted for them, though the murmurs and questions grew so loud he could easily make out the astonished words. She held her head high, her cheeks red with what he knew had to be anger rather than embarrassment, and gripped his hand tighter.
The conference room turned out to be a large, open area with glass walls and ceiling, built more like a greenhouse or solarium than a boardroom. Instead of sitting around a table, the three remaining members of the Conclave waited in the middle of the room.
One man wore a sling on one arm. Hoffman, Derek thought, and that meant the darker man pacing the stone floor was Ochoa. Enrica Maglieri had a cell phone to one ear and a frown on her face. Trying to call Luciano, probably, and Derek knew how useless that would be. Yesterday morning, Luciano and Michelle had used the chaos of the impending challenge to apply for their marriage license. By now they’d be in front of an official. By the time the challenge was over… Please let me be alive to buy them a stand mixer.
The dark man stopped and frowned a little in Derek’s direction. “You’re late, Peyton.”
“Everyone is,” Enrica interjected. “Did Luciano come with you?”
John shook his head. “Luciano agreed that Michelle didn’t need to be alone during this trying time, so he stayed behind with her.”
