by Roxie Noir
Leah looked at him for a second, then stood from the bed, hugging herself with her arms. She walked to the window and looked out over the parking lot, the fluorescent lights shining down over all the cars.
Then she turned around and nodded, still hugging herself.
“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s a lot to process, but it’s okay,” she told him, chewing on her lip.
He knew that face.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, still on the bed.
Leah sighed and hugged herself tighter, not looking him in the eyes.
“What if I’m not enough for you?” she finally blurted out. “Seventy five, or even fifty, is a lot, and I’m more than clueless. I’m super-clueless, and worse, I’m really nervous,” she said. “And you must be used to these confident women who have tons of sex and do the one night stands and know all the sex tricks, and I barely know the basics of the birds and the bees...”
She trailed off and shrugged helplessly.
“And I’m still just worried it’s going to hurt,” she said.
“C’mere,” said Nathan, holding out his hand.
She walked back toward him, sitting next to him on the bed.
“If I wanted to be somewhere else, with anyone else, I’d be there,” he said, simply. “But I’m here with you and it’s two-thirty in the morning at an Indian casino, and we’re getting married tonight.”
Leah slumped against him, and he put his other arm around her, holding her close, his lips right by the top of her head.
“Let’s wait,” he whispered, her hair half-muffling the sound.
“A whole sixteen hours?” she asked. She sounded like she was trying to joke.
“As long as you want,” he said. “I swear I won’t do a thing until you tell me to.”
No matter how much I want to, he thought, and swallowed hard. I think there might be even more cold showers in my future.
“Okay,” she said, and looked up at him.
“I want you to kiss me,” she said, and Nathan was only too happy to comply.
An hour later, he couldn’t sleep. Leah was curled up beneath a mountain of blankets, just the top of her head visible, that orange hair springing free across the pillow. The curtains across the window didn’t quite meet in the middle, and there was a slash of bright fluorescent light across the TV.
You have to tell her about Kaitlyn, he thought. You have to tell her the worst thing you’ve ever done and then let her decide.
Chapter Twenty Two
Leah
When Leah woke up at ten the next morning, she was spread-eagle across the double bed, face down in a veritable mountain of pillows.
She felt like Cleopatra or something: an entire double bed to herself! All the pillows she wanted, and probably more if she asked!
Leah knew that regular people stayed in motels sometimes, and had their own double beds, and that the little things she found so outlandishly luxurious were normal to them. Still, they were nice, weren’t they?
She sat up in her bed and stretched. Somehow, she’d had the forethought to pack a nightgown the night before. Even though it was incredibly frumpy — a long-sleeved, floor-length, frill-neck flannel granny nightmare — it was better than the awkwardness of sleeping in the buff with a man in the same room.
Your fiancé, she told herself. He’s your fiancé.
Just the thought sent a little electric thrill humming through her body.
Her fiancé was fast asleep in the other bed, on his back, one arm thrown out toward her.
From the looks of it, he did sleep in the buff, even though the blankets were covering most of him.
For long moments, she just stared at him, studying his body while he slept. He had powerful arms and shoulders, the thick, ropy muscle defined even as he slept. Leah’s heart beat faster, and she had that feeling in the pit of her stomach again, the one that made her crawl out of her bed, tiptoe to his, and bend over him, just watching him sleep.
I just want to lick his neck and bite his shoulder as he...
She blinked, biting her lip. As he what?
As he held himself above her, sliding himself inside her for the first time?
Leah turned bright red and quickly turned away from Nathan, like he’d be able to read her thoughts or something.
Like he hasn’t thought about that already, she thought. Mom always said that men only want one thing.
There was still something deep inside her, a desire, a hunger that she couldn’t exactly put her finger on, but it had a lot to do with the naked man in the bed next to hers.
The naked man rolled over in his sleep, onto his side, so he was facing her.
Leah took a deep breath and got into the bed with him, staying on top of the covers with him beneath.
Nathan opened his eyes.
“Morning, beautiful,” he said as Leah laid her head on his outstretched arm. “You sleep ok?”
“I slept great,” she said. “It’s so quiet.”
She reached one hand out to his face, daintily tracing her finger around his chin.
“Do I get a good morning kiss?” he asked. He reached his other arm around her back and pulled her close, the thick blanket still between them.
“I have morning breath,” she warned, but Nathan just shrugged and kissed her, the warm softness of his lips making her feel melty and strange, all over again.
She wondered again whether he was naked under the blankets.
It wasn’t a bad thought.
When the kiss ended, Leah put one of her hands on Nathan’s bicep, sliding it up his arm and to his shoulder, squeezing as she went.
“You’re naked, aren’t you?” she asked.
Nathan laughed, looking a little embarrassed.
“I didn’t think to bring pajamas,” he said, looking a little guilty. “I live alone, so I... spend a lot of time naked.”
Also not a bad thought.
“I’m wearing boxers,” he said. “So, not technically naked.”
Her hand moved onto his back, and then suddenly felt a change in his skin texture, a smooth lump that went on for a couple of inches.
“Is that a scar?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Nathan said.
“Motorcycle accident?” she asked.
“No,” he said, slowly. “It’s a brand.”
Leah frowned in confusion, her fingers still tracing the smooth spot on his back.
“Like for livestock?”
Nathan tried to laugh, but there wasn’t much humor behind it. “I guess so,” he said. “It was a long time ago, right before my brother left. A bunch of us got them. Brock’s got one, to show our loyalty to the clan. Shifter pride and all that.”
“That must have hurt,” she said.
“It did,” Nathan said, simply. “It seemed like a good idea at the time, but...”
He shrugged again, his words trailing off.
“Let me see,” Leah said.
She got on her knees and Nathan rolled over onto his belly.
The brand curved across the top of his back, the white-pink flesh obviously faded from how it had once been, but it was still obvious.
“Brock wanted you to do this?” she asked, tracing it lightly with one finger. “My god.”
“It goes all the way down,” he said.
Lightly, Leah grabbed the blanket and pulled it down, revealing more of Nathan’s muscled, defined back — and more of the pink scar tissue, curving around the bottom as well.
In the middle, she could just make out the shape of a bear in profile, a dot above it that she guessed was supposed to be a star. Probably the North Star.
“It used to say ‘true bear’ across the bottom,” he said as Leah fingers ran over him. “It turns out that twenty-year-olds are stupid and brands don’t heal very neatly, though.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“No,” Nathan said. “I mostly forget about it by now. It’s a symbol of how I used to feel about the pack, willing to burn myself that bad for it.
”
He paused for a moment, lost in thought.
“My brother nearly killed me when he saw it,” he said. “I’d never seen him that angry.”
“What happened to your brother?” Leah asked. “How did he die?”
Nathan laughed, and Leah jumped a little, pulling her finger away from his back. Nathan rolled back over, putting his arms behind his head, his whole torso exposed, his chiseled pecs and abs gleaming in the morning sun.
“Miles is fine,” he said. “He’s alpha of the pack in Montana.”
“Everyone talks about him like he’s dead,” Leah said, confused.
“He left,” Nathan said. “He really fucked some stuff up. I was angry with him for a long time, but we’ve been talking again lately. Brock doesn’t know.”
“What happened?”
“His mate happened,” Nathan said. “His high school sweetheart came back to town. The pack was really awful to her, and the former alpha tried to kidnap her, so Miles fought him for alpha, won, and then they drove off the next morning.”
Leah’s eyes went wide.
“He left the pack without an alpha?” she said, sounding incredulous.
That was nearly unforgivable — packs always had alphas. It was just the way things needed to be. A shifter pack was volatile and needed someone to be firmly in charge. Just leaving a pack like that was almost unthinkable.
“Well, first he challenged the alpha to a fight, which no one had done for fifty years, won, and then he split,” Nathan said. “He set the precedent that you won alpha by violence again. The former alpha was too hurt to be alpha again. There was a lot of fighting, and some bad shit went down, but then Brock won out and he’s been alpha since.”
“Wow,” breathed Leah.
“He did some crazy shit for his mate,” Nathan said, tugging on Leah’s arm, making her lie back down next to him. “You know, I think I get it now.”
Leah giggled and snuggled into his side, careful not to disturb the blanket covering his lower half.
Then, her stomach growled.
“Oops,” Leah said.
“Breakfast?” Nathan asked. “There’s a diner that’s supposed to be good.”
“Sounds perfect,” Leah answered.
Once they got there, Leah realized that she’d barely eaten in twenty-four hours — she’d been so busy making food for everyone else at the barbecue that she hadn’t eaten anything herself.
When they were finished wolfing down bacon and sausage and pancakes, they held hands on the table.
“You guys on your honeymoon?” the waitress asked as she left the check.
Leah laughed.
“Not yet,” she said.
This is what it feels like to be part of a couple in public, she realized. You can hold hands and everyone knows you’re together.
She sneaked a look at Nathan as he paid the check.
He’s mine, she reminded herself. Mine, not anybody else’s.
She wanted to shout it from the rooftops.
They walked back into the casino holding hands, Leah practically humming with happiness.
Then she saw him.
His back was to her, but she knew exactly who it was, facing away from the door, glowering at the casino room in a button-down long-sleeved shirt and slacks.
For a second, Leah’s heart froze in her chest.
But then, she was furious. How could he follow her here, after she’d left him? It was perfectly clear that she wasn’t interested in him. Or at least she’d thought it had been.
She left Nathan behind and walked up to Ian, her fury making her brave. Besides, he couldn’t do anything here in a room absolutely full of humans.
“What are you doing here?” she shouted, and he turned around.
Then he smiled a very unpleasant smile.
“There you are,” he said. “Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right,” she said. “How did you find us?”
His eyebrows went up in mock surprise.
“You’re my bride-to-be,” he said. “I would go to any lengths to find you when you’ve been stolen from me.”
Leah snorted and crossed her arms.
“You know perfectly well I haven’t been stolen,” she said. Nathan came up behind her and put one protective hand on her shoulder.
“I’m fine,” she told him, taking a step toward Ian.
“I’m here because I want to be here,” she told Ian.
“You need to come home with me,” Ian said. He took a step forward and now he was towering over her, threateningly. “Your father is furious. I’m sure you’ve guessed that, though. But we could forgive some of what you’ve done if you just come back with me, right now, even though you’ve been—” he looked at Nathan, disgust on his face, “—spoiled.”
Leah slapped him. She didn’t mean to, but it just burst out of her.
“Don’t you dare,” she said. She felt dangerous and wild, her own bear tearing at her skin to be let out.
Stay down, she told herself. There’s humans everywhere.
“Nathan is twice the man you’ll ever be.”
“Carson,” Ian said. “Come over here.”
Suddenly someone else stepped forward, and Leah looked at him.
Then she gasped. It was her cousin, only his face was broken and bruised almost beyond recognition. Both his eyes were swollen nearly shut, his lip was puffy and cracked, and his nose was bent.
“Who did this to you, Carson?” Ian asked.
Carson didn’t speak, just pointed at Nathan.
By now, a small crowd of humans was gathering around the four of them.
“It’s not true,” Nathan said.
“You didn’t take him out into the woods yesterday morning to teach him a lesson on Brock’s order?” Ian said. His voice sounded slimy, somehow, and just listening to him made Leah’s skin crawl.
Nathan’s gaze flicked to Leah, uncertainly.
“I did,” he said. “But I didn’t beat him up. I’m done with that. I told Brock. We drove out there, but I couldn’t do it, so I drove him back toward town. I made him walk half a mile with a hangover is all.”
“So he beat himself up,” Ian said.
“I don’t know who beat him up,” Nathan said, holding his palms in the air. “I swear it wasn’t me.”
Leah turned and gave him a long, searching look.
He’s done a lot of bad things, she thought. What’s one more?
His eyes turned pleading, and something inside her snapped. He hadn’t done this.
“Get out,” she said to Ian. “I’m not coming with you, because Nathan and I are getting married. You probably beat Carson up yourself.”
“Don’t make me take you,” said Ian, his voice getting dangerously quiet. “If you don’t think I’ll shift right here and take you with me back to Fjords, you’re very wrong.”
Leah stepped forward until they were almost touching.
“I dare you to shift,” she said. “Shift in a room full of Alaskans. See what they do when there’s suddenly a grizzly bear in here. I can see three forty-fives just from where I’m standing, and that’s only the guns that would get through a grizzly’s skull. I’d bet good money that there’s a rifle behind the front desk, too.”
Ian paused, his face moving almost imperceptibly.
Then he glanced around nervously, as if trying to find the guns.
Finally, he snapped his head around.
“Carson, come on,” he said.
Then he stormed off the casino floor, headed to the big glass doors that led to the outside, but when he reached the final bank of slot machines, he turned around.
“Nathan,” he shouted, much louder this time. “You told her about Kaitlyn, right?”
“Keep walking,” Leah shouted, but as soon as he turned his back to her, she glanced nervously at Nathan.
Who was Kaitlyn?
Last night he’d told her that he’d been with dozens of women, but he’d also sworn
up and down that those women didn’t mean anything to him. He hadn’t mentioned a Kaitlyn, though, and now Leah felt a stab of jealousy, right below her breastbone.
The big doors open, and Ian and Carson finally left the casino.
Leah exhaled, and suddenly realized that her hands and knees were shaking, but Nathan caught her up in an embrace.
Around her, the humans started applauding, and Leah looked at them all, baffled.
“Why are they clapping?” she asked.
Nathan kissed the top of her head.
“I love you,” he murmured.
Even though she was in Nathan’s arms, she felt uneasy about him for the first time.
Chapter Twenty Three
Nathan
Even as they walked away from the knot of humans on the casino floor, holding hands, Nathan could feel something wrong right away. Leah was suddenly distant, her mind somewhere else rather than wholly right there with him.
“I’m impressed that you spotted those guns,” he said, once they were in the elevator.
“I didn’t,” she said, her voice still sounding like it was coming from far away.
He had to bring up Kaitlyn, Nathan thought. God damn it, I was going to tell her.
He watched the light in the elevator click on for the third floor.
Maybe, he thought.
He didn’t want to tell Leah. He wanted to bury that part of himself forever, forget about the Nathan who could do something like that. A small, possibly stupid, part of himself thought that if he just never told anyone about Kaitlyn again then the nightmares would go away, and it would be like he’d never done it.
Of course not. Of course it couldn’t work that way, and of course that asshole Ian would use her to try to ruin the one truly good thing that Nathan had in his life right now. It was Kaitlyn who’d gotten him here, in a way; before her, he’d had morals, he thought, as questionable as they might have been.
It was only after Kaitlyn that he’d turned into someone who’d do whatever Brock wanted, no questions asked. It was only after Kaitlyn that the other members of the North Star pack started avoiding eye contact with him, started being extra-polite when they had to interact.
The elevator doors opened, and silently, Leah and Nathan walked to their hotel room. He opened the door and they both stepped inside, and then stopped, in the slight space between the beds and the TV.
