The Panther's Rival

by Emilia Hartley

  Tom’s chest rattled in warning, but he didn’t speak. It wasn’t like he could disagree with his brother’s assessment. His body hadn’t fully recovered from the burn of Savannah’s rejection the night before. The passion they’d shared then was still fresh in his mind, tingling along his skin in an exhilarating production. He could almost feel the buildup of what had been about to come before she bolted without warning or hesitation. She was just… gone.

  “Just what the hell’s her angle?” Tom muttered furiously to himself, his bear grunting crossly in agreement. For once, their emotions lined up perfectly, anger meeting anger as Tom stomped indignantly around the shop, busying his hands with anything to keep his mind moving. If he stopped to think about the two of them together for even a moment longer, he wasn’t sure his bear would stay contained.

  Nick sighed. “Look, if she’d upsetting you that much, why don’t you go and talk to her?”

  Tom’s back rippled. “If I wanted your advice, I’d ask for it.”

  “And normally I wouldn’t care enough to offer it, but unfortunately we don’t have the luxury of tiptoeing around our issues like we usually do right now,” Nick replied, throwing down the oily cloth he held. Tom bristled in defense, but was unable to say or do more before Nick held up his hand in interruption.

  “Look, Tom. It’s been over a month and we’ve had nothing but radio silence from Lucas and his pack of thugs. The last time he was this quiet in-between attacks, he destroyed our cabin in an attempt to get to Jo,” Tom saw Nick’s eyes flash in anger as he recalled the danger his mate had endured.

  “We know he’s a second down, but we also know it was by choice. Which means we don’t really know anything at all.

  “I know at first, I was okay with watching from the sidelines as you worked on your little side-problem with Savannah, but as the days creep by with zero hints towards what Lucas might be planning, I can’t help but get a really bad feeling.” Nick suppressed a shudder. “The kind of bad feeling that I’ll never take too lightly again. Not after what happened with Jo.” Tom remembered how terrified Jo had been as the Northern Wind pack tore at the door of the cabin, human and defenseless against their wrath. Thinking back, realizing just how close she’d been to imminent death was a harrowing thought indeed.

  Nick steeled his gaze, spearing Tom with it. “So whatever new developments or setbacks you’ve experienced with Savannah, I don’t want to know nor do I care. That’s your business to worry about, and I’m more than willing to let you walk that journey at a later date, but right now, we cannot afford for you to be distracted.”

  “I’m not—” Tom began.

  “Oh, save it!” Nick interrupted with a snarl. “I know you know I spoke to Dan yesterday. About joining us. He didn’t say yes outright, but he seemed… receptive. I think if we expedite the process a bit, maybe show him we are open to trusting him a bit more, we might just be able to sway him to our side.” |

  He stared intently at Tom. “Lucas is lying in wait and Dan is nearly healed. Whatever the Northern Wind is planning, even you can’t deny that Dan offers a unique insight into their thought process, and could possibly supply us with a bit of extra muscle to boot. But we can’t guarantee that he’ll be of any help to us unless he agrees to join our pack.”

  Nick sighed. “So, yeah. This is what we’re dealing with right now. Anything else is unfortunately secondary and you are going to have to start treating it as such.” He turned back to the car they were working on. “And Tom? That’s not a suggestion.”

  Tom’s nostrils flared, but he held his tongue. Letting his bear run wild in response to Nick’s harsh words wasn’t going to negate the truth in them. The safety of the pack was always their first priority, Tom admitted. It was a rare occurrence for him to be too busy to keep the pack in order, but lately everything had decided to start spinning out of control. Nick wasn’t to blame for that — hell, Savannah wasn’t even to blame. It was all him, so he had to do whatever he could to keep things from getting worse.

  Fortunately, dealing with Dan offered a solution to their lack of pack muscle as well as providing Tom with an appreciated distraction from dealing with one particular mercurial, honey-eyed complication he knew would be walking into the shop at any moment.

  “Well, then” he finally sighed. “I’ll head to the back and get that ball rolling,” he said. Despite the friendly rapport he had established with Dan these past few weeks, he couldn’t help but feel a bit of his old, familiar distrust bubbling up just beneath the surface. “You sure about this, Nick?”

  Nick shrugged. “I can’t afford not to be.”

  Tom knew that was the best response he’d be getting from his brother. Without further dispute, he departed the garage to get started on the day’s biggest to-do item.

  He slipped into the office just as the front entrance swung open. He smelled the distinct scent of jasmine and honey, knowing immediately who it was before Savannah stepped inside with a slight shiver.

  “Morning!” Jo chirped.

  “Hey,” Savannah mumbled, fighting for something loosely resembling a smile as her gaze passed over his. Tom felt a pang of guilt as he took in the bags under her eyes. Maybe she’d been more affected by last night’s events than he’d originally thought.

  Shaking the thought from his mind, he kept moving. Nick was right, intense though it might feel at times, his attraction to Savannah and all the complications that came with it were not the pack’s number one priority. It was long past due that Tom got back to having the pack’s best interest at heart. He’d always been particularly good at it.

  Without another glance Savannah’s way, he slipped into the back room, closing the door tightly behind him.

  Tom entered the room to find Dan pacing back and forth —or at least attempting to. His gait was jerky and broken, still unable to put too much weight on his injured leg, but he was up and walking, and that was all that mattered. Progress was progress.

  “Hey, how ya feeling?” Tom asked, watching him with mild caution.

  Dan looked over to him with a strained smile, obviously feeling the pain of walking on a busted leg. “Better, and that’s good enough for me.”

  Tom nodded his approval. “Sounds good enough for me.” Dan gave him a look of mild confusion, making him crack a half-grin. “I mean, how would you like to finally get out of this stuffy old den, Limpy?” He turned the knob of the room door, pushing outward and letting it swing open.

  “It seems Nick thinks you’re good to come through now.” Tom was careful to omit his own instinctive wariness. “Though I’d advise against any running or shifting until that leg has had a bit more time to shape up.”

  A grin flitted across Dan’s lips, though his attention was almost completely on the door left tantalizingly thrown wide. “Yeah, well, I don’t think I could do any of that if I tried.”

  Doubt crossed Dan’s face, and Tom watched as he painfully tore his hungry gaze from the open doorway, licking his lips. “What about you? You sure about this?”

  Tom only shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think. Nick trusts you with your freedom. Whether or not his judgment of your character is justified lies solely with you.” He turned towards the door. “Either way, you’re free to do as you please. Run back to Lucas if you want, or maybe you want to go off and do your own thing; start over.” He gave another, smaller shrug. “Or maybe something else entirely,” he murmured, artfully avoiding any mention of joining the pack. “But that doesn’t have anything to do with me. There’s only one reason I’m here…” He beckoned Dan forward, assuring the injured bear that this wasn’t a hoax or a test.

  “Starting today, you finally have your life back, Dan. No catch.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Savannah was elbow-deep in paperwork as the door to the locked back room swung open. Her bear immediately raised its head and she followed its motion, sampling the air. That familiar scent wafted to her; it was full-bodied and musky. She was sure she’d e
ncountered it sometime long before her time in Woodhaven, perhaps with the Northern Wind, but she couldn’t be entirely sure. The soft sound of two male voices met her ears, discussing something she couldn’t make out in quiet tones.

  “Good morning Savannah.” She jumped at the sound of Nick’s voice s it sounded behind her. Nick wasn’t the second voice in the back? Then who…

  “M-morning,” Savannah stammered, shaking off the shock and replacing it with precaution. She didn’t want to make assumptions about what was going on, but she had to admit that a secret third voice coming from a room that stayed locked was odd to say the least. But even though the alpha pack wasn’t without their secrets, they were always open with her when they needed to be. She was an outsider, after all, so it seemed justified enough.

  Jo slipped into the office a moment later, going to Nick and whispering something in his ear that made him smile. They both seemed really relaxed, not how Savannah expected two people to react if they were about to reveal bad news. That’s all she needed to convince herself to calm down. She decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and let the situation unfolding before her speak for itself.

  Nick made a grumpy noise in the back of his throat, and Jo grinned at him. “It’ll be fine.”

  Savannah opened her mouth to ask what would be fine before a shuffling noise in the back room commanded her attention. She stared intently at the door, her mind running manically through her memories to pinpoint the pungent aroma, but nothing would take hold. She would unfortunately have to go into this revelation blind.

  “Who’s tha—” Savannah began to ask in a panic, her jaw nearly hitting the floor as Dan came hobbling and bandaged through the unlocked doorway.

  “Now, I know we’ve been really tight-lipped about things lately,” Nick began, his eyes becoming slightly wary as he trained them on her. “But we decided it wasn’t fair to either one of you to keep you in the dark. So this is Dan.” He looked to Dan. “Dan, this is Savannah. We hired her a while back.”

  Savannah’s heart began to pound; the sound of her blood rushing in her ears like white water rapids as her eyes met Dan’s was overwhelming. The two sides of the story, the familiar smell, the way this alpha pack acted despite Lucas’s attack… it all fell into place at once. She looked over the bit of gauze on his body. Dan was never dead; he was just healing.

  “Uh, nice to meet you!” Dan stammered frantically, eyes a bit wide. She could tell he was silently pleading for her to act normal. If either of them gave away that they knew each other, they were both likely to be in big trouble.

  “Hello!” she replied, trying to play off some of her initial shock as confusion. “I, um…” she turned to Nick. “He’s a…” she shut her mouth immediately, not sure what all to say in front of Jo.

  Tom grinned, though it seemed a bit tight-lipped. “Yep.”

  “Yeah, I know all this might come as a bit of a shock to the two of you,” Nick explained. “You both came into our territory at a time when we couldn’t afford to be very liberal with our trust. As a result, we ended up keeping a few things from you. I hope you can forgive that.”

  Savannah shook her head, opting for complete honesty. “I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know something was back there. I’d just never gotten around to asking.” She met Dan’s gaze again, mind still reeling about this surprise turn of events. “I’d have never guessed a whole man was back there, though.” A whole bear shifter, at that.

  Dan shrugged, feigning nonchalance though she could see his gaze flit to Tom’s scrutinizing stare for a split second before speaking. “I got hit by a car, banged up pretty badly. They opted to help me out until I was well enough to hack it on my own.”

  Savannah nodded her understanding, piecing together his words and adding them to the parts she already knew. No one before had told her about him getting hit. “That sounds terrible! Though I have to ask, why not just take you to a hospital?” she questioned, knowing they’d think it odd if she didn’t. She hoped desperately that Dan was quick enough on his feet to roll with the punches.

  Dan looked away with a rueful smile. “Well, I wasn’t exactly being a good Samaritan when I got hit, so, uh…” he tailed off, and Savannah let it hang unfinished in the air, hoping it was a good enough answer for the alphas to accept.

  She could feel them all staring at her, waiting for a response of any kind. A shiver ran involuntarily up her spine. “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but after that bit of news, I could use a cup of coffee,” she said.

  Nick murmured something in Jo’s ear as Savannah moved to the coffeemaker, Jo nodding affirmatively before saying, “Make one for me, Savannah, if you don’t mind!” before trotting out of the office entrance.

  As the door closed behind Jo, Savannah’s heart rate spiked. She couldn’t stop the nerves, and she knew they could hear them roiling within her as she fought and failed to calm her emotions. She couldn’t think of a worse scenario than being alone with the alphas as they tested her loyalty in the presence of a fellow Northern Wind bear. There was nothing honest about what was happening here; she was sure she would fail.

  Savannah poured Jo’s coffee in silence before making her own. Hiding her face behind the steaming mug, she slowly turned back to the bears in the office. “So,” she finally breathed, eyes moving over Nick and Tom, finally settling on Dan. “Another shifter.”

  “Yeah,” Dan replied, eyes moving from Savannah to Tom. “Why are we acting like it’s a secret?”

  “Mine is,” Savannah said with a shrug. “She knows you’re one?”

  “She hit me with a car while I was still in bear form,” Dan replied matter-of-factly. “Why not just tell her?”

  Savannah averted her gaze. “It just doesn’t feel right. Human’s shouldn’t know.”

  “And we respect that here,” Tom added, spearing Dan with a heavy gaze.

  “Wait, she hit you with her car?” Savannah asked, Dan’s words catching up with her frazzled mind.

  Dan shrugged. “I didn’t exactly give her a choice. I, uh… was doing some pretty crappy things under some pretty crappy orders.” He shot her a meaningful look. “I don’t come from a very good place. Took me getting knocked silly by a car and locked in a garage den for a month to figure that out, weird as that sounds.” Savannah couldn’t agree more. She was starting to realize it herself.

  “Remember the Northern Wind pack?” Tom asked. “Dan is… was a part of it. We’re not too sure on how current that information is though—this old pack leader isn’t very forgiving—so he’s been hanging out with us while he heals.”

  “Not to mention Jo felt guilty about banging him up,” Nick added with a stretch. “Even if it was to save my life.” Savannah saw Dan flinch as if Nick had punched him in the gut. Nick waved his worry away. “It’s in the past. Don’t fret.”

  “Anyway, he’s here until he’s ready to move on,” Tom explained. We figured we’d waited long enough to tell you guys about each other. So here we are.”

  “Move on where?” Savannah asked, genuinely perplexed. She was a newer bear in the Northern Wind, but even she knew enough to be certain that if Lucas had left Dan to die after sustaining injuries bad enough that she still wasn’t fully recovered even over a month later…

  Lucas was sure Dan was going to die. He didn’t want him back. She was sure of it. So what was Dan’s game plan? And what’s more, could she do the same?

  Nick shrugged. “In a perfect world? Here.”

  Savannah gasped slightly. “You mean…”

  “Yep. Asked him to join only yesterday.” Nick’s gaze met Dan’s. “Offer’s still on the table, by the way. But I won’t pressure you about it.”

  Dan looked at Nick contemplatively. “I appreciate the opportunity,” was all he said remaining non-committal.

  “Yep,” Nick replied, glancing down at Dan’s injured leg. “You’ve still got time.”

  “Just don’t take too long,” Tom added with a small grin. “We don’t like you
that much.” Nick chuckled and Dan even cracked a smile.

  Looking at the easy repartee that the three bears shared, Savannah suddenly found it hard to breathe. “Excuse me,” she mumbled, hastily setting down her mug of cooling coffee. “I need some air.” She stumbled out into the parking lot before anyone could think to stop her.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Savannah walked deep into the woods, ignoring Jo’s look of concern as she rifled through her car for whatever Nick had originally sent her outside for. She just needed to get away. Everything was changing so fast, she had so much new information to process. She wasn’t really sure how to move forward. Tilting her head back, she took a deep breath of the woodsy breeze, working to calm her thoughts.

  “Everything okay?” Savannah’s eyes snapped open to a mildly concerned Tom standing before her. His head tilted in confusion. “Savannah?”

  She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts and focus on the conversation Tom was attempting to have with her. Letting out her breath in a long sigh, she finally said, “I’m just… confused, I guess.”

  His dark eyes flickered. “Yeah, I got that feeling.”

  She ran a hand over her face, wanting to tell Tom everything, but knowing she couldn’t. She felt completely helpless. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

  He frowned. “What for?”

  So much. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “For everything, honestly. For complicating your life by coming to work here. For stressing you out.” She hesitated before finishing, “For running away from you last night.” She leaned against the thick trunk of a nearby tree, sliding down to sit on the cool forest floor.

  Sitting next to her, Tom looked deeply into her eyes. He didn’t seem angry, or even suspicious. Only concern for Savannah marred his strong features as he gazed at her, and she could see him working to continue the conversation.

  “Why did you run away last night, Savannah?” he asked, quietly.

  “Because I was afraid,” she answered, immediate and honest. “I’m afraid of what moving forward would mean for us. I’m not even a part of your pack.”