by Roxie Noir
Leah opened her mouth, but Nathan stopped her.
“Sit down,” he said. “It’s easier if you’re sitting down.”
Without a word, she sat in the arm chair in the room, but Nathan paced in front of her. Four steps and turn. Four steps and turn.
“Well?” Leah finally asked once she got tired enough of waiting. “Were you in love with her? Engaged? Married? Secret love child?”
Nathan just shook his head, then ran both hands through his hair. He took a deep breath.
“Worse,” he said.
Leah’s face didn’t move.
“It happened five years ago,” he said, slowly. “Well. Not really. It starts when Brock became alpha, after everything that happened. We’d always been best friends, and when he became alpha, I more or less became his enforcer.”
He rubbed his hands together and started pacing again.
“And, you know, at first it wasn’t a big deal. I’d go threaten people, tell them that they needed to step up, get their kids to stop dating humans, that sort of thing. It was just my job to look like I could hurt people, and since my brother had won alpha in a duel, I kind of got a reputation as someone you don’t fuck with. Plus, you know, I was this bachelor, I rode a motorcycle and got laid a bunch, so people weren’t really sure about me.”
He cracked his knuckles, not sure how to get into the next part.
“It got worse,” he said, slowly. “Brock started asking me to rough people up, threaten them with guns, that sort of thing. You ever wonder why that house is empty that your family is staying in?”
Leah didn’t answer, just looked at him with her big saucer eyes, waiting.
“I made the people who lived there move,” Nathan said. “Brock asked me to. There was this minor rebellion in the pack, and they wanted someone else to be the leader, so I got sent over there at midnight. I think I broke the father’s nose, but they left.”
Nathan sat on the bed, the flimsy mattress sinking under his weight.
“They had kids,” he said, shaking his head, talking to the floor. “The thing I remember is, as they were driving away, the little girl had her teddy bear in the back seat and she just looked right at me, and she was so sad.”
Leah swallowed, hard.
“Was that Kaitlyn?”
Nathan just shook his head. He didn’t even know where the start the story about Kaitlyn. There was no good part of it, no way to ease into the terrible thing he’d done.
“The thing that Brock hates the most is intermarriage,” he said. He was slumped, with his elbows on his knees, examining his hands. “Shifters marrying humans. He absolutely hates it, and he thinks that shifters who try to intermarry should be killed, the humans run off, the whole thing. He says it dilutes our blood, renders strong bears weak, you know.”
Leah just nodded.
“My father too,” she said.
“There was this kid in the pack named Boone,” Nathan said, slowly. “He was fifteen, and he was dating a human girl from town. Him and his friends thought that the pack didn’t know, but of course we did. He wasn’t very good at hiding it.”
He rubbed his palms together, desperately not wanting to say the next part.
You have to, he told himself. She deserves to know.
It would be easier to tell Leah that he’d been in love before, even been married. A thousand times easier.
“Brock wanted me to teach this kid a lesson,” he said. “One Friday night, we found out that him and this girl and two of his friends were going to the movies in town. So we followed them, and when they came out, we were going to talk to them. Give them a good scare, that kind of thing.”
Nathan felt almost nauseous, and he squeezed his eyes shut, wishing that he could just say it and not have to relive it at the same time.
“This human girl mouthed off to me,” he said. “Nobody did that. Not by then, when I had the reputation. And for a second, I just saw red. Who the fuck did she think she was, you know?”
He flexed his hands into fists.
“So I slapped her,” he said. “I backhanded her right across the face, but I’d forgotten how fragile humans are. She just crumpled, and as she fell her head hit the bumper of the car behind her with this awful crack and then she just stopped moving. I barely even noticed right then, I was so hopped up on nerves and adrenaline, and we grabbed the three shifter kids and took them to an empty lot to teach them a lesson.”
“What about her?”
“We left her.”
Nathan looked up and could only see Leah flex her jaw, siting rigidly in that chair, her mouth a hard line.
She must hate me, he thought. Why wouldn’t she?
“The three kids we beat up pretty bad,” he said. “Brock did, really. He said he just wanted to teach them a lesson, but he was really hard on them, and then we drove away. He swore up and down that they’d show up in town the next day, ready to toe the line, be better shifters and all that.”
Nathan swallowed. He couldn’t look at Leah. Unshed tears burned behind his eyes.
“The shifter kids disappeared. The girl was in a coma for a week.” Nathan’s chest tightened. “She never woke up.”
He took a deep, deep breath and forced himself to look up at Leah, bracing himself for what he might see. As far as he was concerned, she’d have every right to storm out of the hotel room and never see him again.
“That was Kaitlyn,” he said. “She was fifteen.”
Leah was crying, silently, tears running down her face. She looked out the window at the parking lot, and then finally at Nathan.
“What happened to the shifters?” she asked, quietly.
“They ran off into the woods,” said Nathan.
“Are they dead?”
Nathan paused.
“I don’t know,” he said. “For a while, people around Fjords kept saying they saw them around, always as bears. But that hasn’t happened for years.”
“Maybe they went somewhere else,” Leah said.
“I wouldn’t blame them.”
“What were their names?”
“Jake was the oldest,” he said. “Boone had the girlfriend, and Coleman was just along for the ride.”
Leah was quiet for a long, long time, and Nathan felt all the words he wanted to say gnawing at him from the inside, until finally, he spoke.
“I have nightmares about it still,” he said. “But I feel like I’m broken, Leah, and the only thing that’s any good around here is you. I don’t want to be this person that I became, and I feel like, around you, I’m not. I’m the guy I was before Kaitlyn, before my brother left and Brock became alpha.”
When Leah finally spoke, she spoke slowly, her words deliberate.
“Could you give me twenty minutes?” she asked, very politely. “I need a little time to think.”
“Sure, of course,” Nathan said, standing quickly from the bed. He walked toward the door, Leah sitting still, and then turned when he was almost there.
“If you don’t want to marry me I understand,” he said, the words rushing out of him. “I’ll tell them that I kidnapped you or something, that it’s not your fault you’re here with me. Or I’ll give you money and put you on a bus to Seattle.”
He looked at her one more time, eyes pleading.
“Leah, I’m at your mercy,” he said. “I’ll do anything.”
Then he left the room.
He gave her half an hour, more time than she’d asked for. At first, he went downstairs and tried to play blackjack, but he couldn’t even concentrate enough to add two numbers together. Even the slot machines were too hard for him just then — all the big noises and bright lights, when all he wanted to do was crawl into a hole and freeze time for a little while.
Nathan ended up getting a club soda at the bar. What he really wanted was whiskey, but he made himself stay sober.
You can drink after she ends it, he told himself. He checked the time on his phone.
Just ten more minutes, and t
hen you can get as drunk as you want. Hit on every woman in the place, fuck three of ‘em at once.
The thought offered absolutely no comfort. He didn’t even want to fuck anyone else.
I’m ruined, he realized. She’s going to reject me but she’s still going to be the only one I’ll ever want.
Seven more minutes.
Finally, he forced himself to go back upstairs and hear Leah’s verdict. As he opened the hotel room, he felt nothing but total dread.
What if she wasn’t even there?
But then he saw her, standing by the window, wearing the same brilliant blue dress she’d worn to her engagement party.
She’s gorgeous even though she’s about to break my heart, Nathan thought, and Leah turned her head to look at him.
“I’m back,” he said, saying the only thing he could think of.
“Good,” she said. “We’re almost late. Come zip my dress up, I can’t reach.”
Obediently, Nathan crossed the room. For the first time, he dared to hope.
Leah didn’t say anything until she turned around and gave him a long, hard look from head to toe, her face critical.
“Aren’t you going to change?” she asked.
“Why?”
“You can’t get married in a t-shirt and jeans,” Leah said, matter-of-factly.
Chapter Twenty Four
Leah
In the bathroom, trying in vain to do something to her hair, Leah wasn’t certain that she wasn’t making a huge mistake. After all, hadn’t he just told her that he was capable of doing terrible things to other people? Hadn’t he just admitted that he’d caused pain and suffering to plenty of people?
He’s not a bad person, she reminded herself.
No matter what happened, she couldn’t believe that he was. When she looked at him, she saw goodness shining out. Maybe she was the only one who could see it, she thought.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t meet him earlier, she thought. But whose fault is that?
Around her neck, Leah wore a thin, delicate gold necklace. It had four small gold beads on it, hanging perfectly in the hollow of her throat, and she touched it once, a little afraid that she might break it.
Her mother had given it to her for her to wear at her wedding. It had been intended for her wedding to Ian, of course, but that wasn’t the wedding she was going to have.
She’d wear it at her wedding, like her mother had, and like her grandmother had. It had been saved for her, being the oldest, even though she had two married younger sisters.
For a moment, Leah felt a pang of sadness that her mother and her sisters weren’t there with her.
It’s the happiest day of my life, and it’s going to be me, and Nathan, and a couple of strangers in a chapel, she thought, and she couldn’t stop her eyes from welling with tears.
But you’ve got the most important part, she reminded herself. You’ve got your mate.
Just thinking it made something in her heart swell.
I’ve got my mate, she reminded herself, then knocked on the inside of the bathroom door.
“Are you decent?” she called.
“I’m never decent,” Nathan called back.
Leah rolled her eyes and opened the door.
“Is this what I’m getting myself into?” she asked, teasing him. “Stupid jokes for the rest of my life?”
He wore gray slacks and a long sleeve, plaid, button down shirt.
“I don’t actually own a suit,” he said, apologetically. “And I ripped up my other nice outfit when I shifted at your... party.”
Leah just laughed. “Roll up your sleeves,” she said. “You may as well go full lumberjack for the wedding,” she said.
Nathan raised one eyebrow.
“Besides, I think your forearms are sexy,” she said, feeling the heat creep into her face even as she said that.
I don’t think I’ll ever master dirty talk, she thought. Not if I can’t handle ‘Your forearms are sexy.’
In a flash, Nathan’s sleeves were rolled up and he was ready to go.
“All right,” he said. “Are you ready?”
Leah nodded, but then put her arm on his.
“Wait,” she said. “I just want to say something.”
Nathan waited, taking her hand in his.
“It’s not okay that you nearly killed a girl,” she said. “And I thought really hard about leaving, just now, when you were gone. I almost did.”
She swallowed.
“But I don’t think you’re a bad person,” she said. “You did a bad thing, and now you wish you hadn’t. I think that’s all I can ask for, in the end.”
Nathan squeezed her hand.
“I wish that every day,” he said.
“Let’s go get married,” Leah said.
The justice of the peace was waiting for them outside the door of the chapel, two rose corsages in his hand.
“You must be the happy couple,” he said, smiling.
“That’s us,” said Nathan.
As he pinned the corsages onto them, he spoke.
“The ceremony will be fairly short,” he said. “No religious stuff, no frills, as long as that’s fine with you. Most people just want to get married.”
“That’s us,” said Leah, blushing as the justice of the peace pinned her corsage to her chest. He didn’t even touch her, but she was still a little embarrassed by it.
How am I ever going to manage sex? She wondered, feeling a little desperate.
“Who are your witnesses?” he asked as he finished pinning.
Leah and Nathan looked at each other.
“I forgot that part,” Nathan said, apologetically.
The justice pointed at the casino floor, only about fifty feet away.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “This comes up all the time. People love to witness a wedding.”
“We’ll just grab someone and be right back,” Leah said, grabbing Nathan’s hand and walking toward the floor.
The first people she saw were two older women, gossiping with each other on the casino floor. They both had lanyards around their necks, casino membership cards hanging from them.
As Leah and Nathan approached, they stopped talking and looked up.
“Hi,” Leah said. “We’re getting married in the chapel, and we were wondering if you’d be our witnesses?”
The woman on the right, who wore a pink shirt and had reading glasses on a chain around her neck, clapped both hands over her heart.
“Are you eloping?” she said.
“Yes ma’am,” Leah said, not certain what the reaction would be.
“That’s so romantic!” the woman said.
“What?” asked the other woman, her gray hair back in a severe bun.
“THEY’RE ELOPING, PHYLLIS,” shouted the first woman.
“Oh, you poor thing,” said Phyllis, a bit loudly. “You look lovely!”
“Thank you!” said Leah at top volume.
Then she noticed that the first woman was giving Nathan a pretty good once-over.
“If I were forty years younger I’d show you how to elope properly,” she said, winking at Nathan.
Leah and Nathan looked at each other. Neither had any idea how to respond.
“Thank you,” said Nathan, a bit formally.
“What?” asked Phyllis.
“I THINK HE’S A HUNK,” shouted the first woman.
Leah felt like they were getting nowhere. Then, a man came up behind them. He looked very Alaskan: jeans, a camouflage t-shirt, suspenders, and a gray beard.
“You’re getting married?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Leah, hoping she could get this back under control. “We need witnesses.”
The man smiled and pointed at Leah, then winked.
“Hold that thought,” he said, and walked away quickly.
“So, would you mind being our witnesses?” she asked the two old ladies.
“Of course, dear—”
Phyllis was interrupt
ed by the PA system crackling on over the whole casino floor.
“Everybody listen up,” said the man’s voice. “You all remember that sweet girl who told off that asshole an hour ago? She’s gettin’ married, and she needs a couple of witnesses.”
Suddenly, everyone on the casino floor was looking at Leah and Nathan.
“Please raise your hand if you’d like to help these two lovebirds out,” the man’s voice said.
Every hand in the casino went up.
“We’ll need a change of venue,” the justice of the peace said, coming up behind them.
Fifteen minutes later, everything was sorted. The crowd had formed an aisle between the rows of blackjack tables, and everyone stood alongside it, with Nathan at one end, next to the justice of the peace. Someone had cued up something classical on a Walkman and was holding it up to the microphone of the PA system.
Leah stood in the women’s bathroom, two old ladies fussing with her hair. It didn’t look any better, but she felt like she might cry with gratitude. Could these two women possibly know that they were doing more for her than her own family?
“All right, dear,” one of them said. Leah hadn’t even gotten her name. “Ready?”
Leah just nodded, afraid she’d cry if she said anything.
The other woman opened the door to the ladies’ bathroom, and Leah looked out, down the aisle that the throng of people had made for her.
She thought her heart might just beat out of her chest as she started walking.
There was Nathan, grinning. It was the happiest she’d ever seen him look.
Right away, Leah felt better.
It’s going to be okay, she thought. For the first time since they’d run away, she felt like it was true.
It felt like she was walking on clouds, even as she walked between old people at poker tables, all of them watching.
Then, when she reached Nathan, they started applauding.
He reached for her hands and bent down to kiss her.
“Not yet!” a lady shouted from the crowd, and everyone laughed.
