Deceiving the Protector

by Dee Tenorio

  He flicked his gaze to the rearview mirror, his eyes drawn behind him as much as the rest of his body and soul, only this time there wasn’t a blank reflection of his forward view. This time, there was a car back there. A small black speck of a thing.

  It didn’t take long for the speck to get bigger.

  At a hundred miles an hour, nothing took very long to get bigger.

  His foot dropped on the brake, his jaw falling along with it. The sound of a horn bellowing from behind didn’t help matters. At least the screech of his tires almost drowned out his swearing but no doubt left half the rubber as permanent streaks on the asphalt. He almost broke the key off shutting the engine down before throwing open the car door and jumping out.

  Of course, that hellcat he’d raised had yet to stop honking, despite pulling up right behind him. Not that she was the one he was staring at.

  Lia sat in the passenger side, her hand locked around the sissy bar, her jaw set and those catlike eyes of hers all but squinting in absolute pissed-off fervor. Maybe it made him a sick bastard, but he couldn’t imagine a more beautiful sight.

  Or one that made him more angry.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” he yelled as soon as Betha finally got off the goddamn horn.

  Lia got out of the car, not even bothering with opening the door. She hopped up on the window edge and slid her legs out without missing a beat. “Me? Why are you out here? Alone!”

  No way in hell he was touching that one. Rather than run the risk of running over and burying his face in Lia’s neck, he turned on her driver. “Betha, goddamn it, you were supposed to make sure she stayed at the cabin.”

  “Actually…” Betha leaned her head out and he knew he was about to regret speaking to her. “You just said I needed to make sure she got where she belonged.”

  Lia’s head turned as she stopped midstep to glare at Betha.

  “Time to go. You two play nice.” She revved the engine with a maniacal grin. “And hey, if you don’t want Pale tracking either of you down, you might want to turn off the GPS, dumb ass.”

  If he had a blade, he’d have thrown it in her seat shoulder already.

  Of course, if he had any blades, she’d never have stayed still long enough to be threatened.

  By the time he finished the thought, the car had whipped around to go back the way it’d come, leaving him and his thoroughly pissed-off mate alone on the side of the road.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Lia.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say. His brain was torn between the need to throw her on the ground and gorge every one of his senses on her—touch, taste, smell, hunger, desire, greed—or yell at her until he was purple and she was deaf.

  “I thought this mate thing meant something to you.” Lia put her hands on her hips, the pissyness coming off her in waves. “Or was that the same kind of bullshit as never leaving me behind?”

  So she wanted to push buttons already? “I wanted to give you a choice.”

  “If you wanted to give me a choice, you shouldn’t have made it for me by leaving. Or were you just running away? What’s the matter? A mate you’d have to live with was too much to commit to?”

  “I’m not running away now, am I? I’m standing right here in front of you.” Trying like hell not to grab you.

  “Betha says you think you failed me.”

  “I did fail you.” And it wasn’t a wound his Wolf—or his humanity—could live with easily. He stared up and down the road, frustration eating at him until he started moving into the open field of tall grass, unable to stay still. “If you want to talk about this, walk with me. I’m not doing this out in the middle of the fucking road.”

  She shook her head, hair swinging in every direction, looking as if she were about to burst with energy. “Just admit it, you didn’t think I would stay with you.”

  The accusation hit too close to the bone to ignore, even knowing it for the deflection it was. He kept walking, calling out over his shoulder. If she couldn’t hear him, that was her fucking problem. “Why would you? You’re free, remember?”

  She stayed by the car for a few stubborn moments before stomping into the grass after him. “What does being free have to do with you leaving?” Her unspoken moron all but echoed in his ears. Even with her forceful steps, she made up ground pretty quickly, only a few paces behind him.

  He spun, his hands catching thick stalks of yellowing grass blades. “You don’t need me anymore—not that you needed me in the first place. You can go anywhere and see anything as long as you’re careful. See everything about the world you’ve been missing.”

  “I’ve been walking around out here for years, Tate. I haven’t missed anything.”

  If his pride wasn’t beaten to hell as it was, that’d still be a hell of a ding. “Bullshit. You were out here, but you weren’t free. If you were, you’d have gone back home years ago. It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. You were hoping to find Laurel.”

  She flinched as if he’d slapped her. “Laurel’s dead, Tate.”

  “What?” The pain on her face sliced clean through his anger.

  “Asher.” Her eyes were still closed, her mouth twisting as she said the name. “He killed her. The same day he found me. That’s how they had her scarf. My scent led him right back to her. She’s been gone since this whole thing started.”

  “And I suppose he’s the one who told you this?”

  She nodded, her eyes finally opening again, this time with pointed accusation. “Right before he shot you.”

  “Why would you believe him? When all he ever wanted to do was hurt you?” Damn it, how was he supposed to keep his resolve when her eyes turned glossy with unshed tears. She wasn’t the type to win her arguments that way. He’d rather she punched him than cry.

  “Because it’s not about him.” She slashed at her eyes with an impatient palm. “All these years, everything I ever did to stay alive, I did it for her. She was my reason for everything. What if she’s been gone all this time and it was all for nothing?”

  “Not nothing,” he snapped, unwilling to let her plant that thought in her mind. “You’re still here, Lia. I’m here. That’s not nothing.”

  Her doubt, the struggle to reconcile where she was now with where she’d been, was more than he could stand. He wanted to hold her, but he forced himself to stay those scant feet away. To give her the answers she asked for. “I wanted to find her for you, one way or another. If she was alive, if she was free, she’d head back home. I haven’t gotten any info on that task force you mentioned yet. I thought Horton might be the best place to start. Maybe the only place we have. I couldn’t protect you, but I thought maybe I could give you peace of mind, whatever the answers on Laurel turned out to be.”

  She shook her head again, this time slower. “Finding out what happened to my sister isn’t going to change how I feel about you, Tate.”

  “I didn’t mean it to.” He’d just wanted to give this to her. Wanted to give her what she needed. If that meant shredding his pride and his soul, he’d do it without a second thought.

  “I don’t need a protector. I don’t want one. I need my mate.” The deadly calm in her voice stilled him as nothing else could. She wasn’t fucking around. “I do not need to be abandoned for my own good or so you can lick your wounds until they’re infected.”

  “I was going to force the bond, Lia,” he finally admitted, remembering that moment of weakness back at the cabin. For a moment, in his hunger, he’d almost acted no better than Asher. “I had to leave. I wasn’t about to take anything from you, not like he did.” And if she couldn’t see how hard that had been for him, she had to be blind.

  “You could have asked me. Asked me to bond. Asked me to come with you. Or even asked me to go to Resurrection without you. It’s not hard, you’re a lawyer remember? It’s supposed to be your job to ask questions.” The ease with which she rejected his excuse should have shocked him. But that was just Lia, always seeing through crap he didn’t
even realize he was piling up. “Why did you really leave?”

  There wasn’t an answer his already shredded pride would let him offer.

  “So we’re back to that. How many times do I have to say this? You didn’t fail me.”

  He ground his teeth together. He didn’t want to talk about this, but she had her right to a pound of his flesh. He was man enough, Wolf enough, to stand there and let her take it.

  She shoved him, striking his chest hard enough to push him back a step. “Don’t do this martyr shit, it’s not you. Talk to me. You talked until I was blue in the face before. Say something now, Tate.”

  “This has nothing to do with being a martyr.”

  “Then what does it have to do with?” She popped him again. “Talk, damn it!”

  “You died, Lia!” The words barked out even as he caught her wrist to keep her from another inciting blow. “You fucking died and there was nothing I could do to stop it. To stop him.”

  If he expected his outburst to scare her, he still had a lot to learn about his mate.

  “You were drugged, you idiot!” She yanked on her hand, frustration and anger giving her enough strength to actually require his effort to hold onto her. “Why do you think he uses the darts? No one fights past that sedative, not even when they realized they were about to die. But you did. You came for me. You ripped out his throat. For me.”

  His turn to reject excuses. “I came too late. I was useless.”

  She gave up fighting fair, pushing a breath out before closing her eyes and leaning against him. Breast to breast, belly to belly, hip to hip. The woman had been made for him, every inch of their bodies fitting like molded clay, and he felt his resolve to somehow send her back to safety start to slip. “You saved me, Tate.”

  He should never have put his hand on her, because it was going to hurt like a son of a bitch to let her go. And he had to, even if the reasons why were losing clarity like water stirred with dye. “You saved yourself. Calling to Jade was just desperation.”

  “I’m not talking about Jade.”

  God, did she know she was breaking him down, settling her head under his chin like that, her arm wrapping around him until they might as well be one person? Her hair coursed over his hand where he’d automatically placed it on her hip. His grip probably bit into her flesh but he couldn’t help it. She felt so damn good, warm and fresh against him.

  “I’m talking about me. I was dying long before we got to that motel room.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean my soul. I mean I’d spent so long just trying to survive, I’d buried who I was, what I was, until I was a ghost inside my own body. Too afraid to breathe, too scared to remember there was more to living than existing. I kept going only because I wanted so badly to believe it was keeping Laurel safe. Protecting her was all there was left of me.

  “But then you came along and wouldn’t let me hide in my shell anymore. You made me feel. You reminded me I used to have strength. At first I didn’t know what to do. I had to keep you safe but you were destroying every way I knew how to survive my life. I either had to wake up or let you die, and that last one just wasn’t an option I could live with.” She leaned back, pinioning him with her heated glare even while her hand slid over the beard on his cheek. “Don’t you understand? Knowing you, loving you, gave me a reason to claw my way past the fear and fight back. You saved me, even when I didn’t know there was anything left of me to save.”

  The absolution in her eyes tempted him almost beyond endurance.

  Pure frustration skated over her face. “Why can’t you just understand that I needed to face him? I needed to be the one to end my own nightmare. To know I could protect myself, even if I had to sacrifice my life to protect what meant most to me. That’s something you do all the time. For your family, for your brother and everyone in Resurrection. You, of all people, should understand. If I had to face the rest of my life wondering when Asher might come back, never knowing down to my soul that he was truly gone? That would have destroyed me. I needed to know that I’d paid him back for everything he did to me.” Her gaze flickered, her chin wobbling as she added, “To Laurel.”

  He finally let go of her wrist so he could brush his fingers over her cheek. She was right. Look how the guilt of not ending Vayere’s attack had infiltrated his life. Thinking that he’d brought his lover’s wrath down on his family. Lia was as much a protector as he was, as much a fighter. She had every right to need her own restitution and he couldn’t belittle her by not acknowledging that.

  “You’re right,” he said softly, lowering his forehead down to hers. The acceptance didn’t take all the self-directed anger away, but it did put some things into perspective. Her hurt outweighed his pride. “I’m sorry, I should have understood.”

  “You don’t get to walk away now,” she whispered, but it could have been a shout for the way her words, the determination in her eyes, impacted him. “Do you understand that? Wherever we go, whatever we face, we do it together. I don’t want to be the one you protect. I want to be the one you stand beside. I’m done being less than the man I’m with.”

  “No one in their right mind would think you’re less than me.” More, he could understand. She made him want to be more for her.

  “We make our decisions together. We face whatever comes next together. Equals. No one gets sheltered, no one gets left behind.”

  “Lia—”

  “Don’t Lia me. It’s a yes-or-no proposal. If I let you talk, you’ll just try to weasel in loopholes.”

  He couldn’t help but smile. “Some loopholes are important.”

  Her mouth took on that mulish rainbow shape.

  “First of all, I am always going to put your life ahead of my own. Even if the bond makes that point moot. That’s who I am. I’m a protector—by nature and by vow. I gave Pale my word I’d protect him and the interests of the pack with my life. A pack that, if you haven’t noticed, includes you. So you can complain all you like about me protecting you—after I believe you’re safe.” Possibly unwise, but he ignored her growl. “I’ve been doing this job a lot longer than you. It’s going to be a while before we’re equals in everything. Since you have this insane belief that you’re indestructible, I’m not going to feel safe putting you on the frontline for so much as the kiddie table until you’ve learned how to defend yourself properly.”

  “Like Betha?”

  “I think one psychopath in the pack is enough, don’t you?”

  A hint of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “You’ll really let me fight beside you?”

  He nodded. “Eventually.”

  The scowl came back in force. “I’m not kidding, Tate.”

  “Neither am I. Like I said, this is who I am. If you make the choice to stand with me, you’re also making the choice to be logical while you’re there. To be safe. We all work together and protect one another like a team. No more of your bulletproof-take-the-world-on-my-own bullshit.”

  Despite her expression, he could feel her happiness around him like a mist, see it in the glitter in her eyes. “I’d already made that choice when I chose to stay with you after the farmhouse. I wouldn’t have given my life for you if I hadn’t.”

  “Yes, you would have.” He closed his eyes to focus on the words and not the lure of her body, of the bond to her soul he wanted more than his next breath. Because this was the most important thing they had to get straight between them. “You’d give your life for anyone in need, Lia. Because you value it, almost more than anyone I know. That’s just the point. I don’t want you trying to get killed every chance you get. You’re supposed to live, dammit. Why can’t you do that for me?”

  She drew in a shaky breath. He opened his eyes to stare down at her. Those pink lips of hers parted, all but begging him to take a taste. “Is that what you want? For me to live for you?”

  “Yes.” So I’m a greedy asshole, sue me. “I want you to live for me, the same way I want to live for you. A re
al life. A full life. With a home and pups and plans for whatever the hell we want. The kind of life that shifters like us forgot we had a right to.” The right to love, to run, to explore both parts of their heart—the human and the animal—to raise their children without fear or death chasing them at every turn. It didn’t matter at all if those things weren’t part of the era in which they lived. For a few stolen hours, just two stolen lifetimes, he wanted to take what should have been his and hers from birth.

  For better or worse, he was going to take them.

  “I want you, Lia, all of you. Including the parts you’re afraid of.”

  Her eyes widened, her full lips turning into a moue he made a mental note to fully investigate later, when he reached to the back of his collar and dragged his T-shirt up and over his head. Carelessly, he tossed the shirt to the ground and took a few steps back, ready to carry out this demand to its necessary end. She said nothing, so he kept going, unbuttoning his pants and toeing off his shoes. Within seconds he stood before her naked in the high grass, barely shrouded by gently swaying verge.

  “I won’t accept less. Because if you can’t accept everything about yourself, you’ll never accept everything about me.”

  “What? That you’re a Wolf? That you’re a protector?”

  She knew what he meant, he could tell by the fear in her eyes. Fear that had no business in a woman as strong, as amazing, as her. “That I’m yours.”

  He let himself have one more taste, his lips fitting over hers, his growl filling her mouth just before his tongue swept inside. He stroked, savoring her taste, willing her to feel his hunger as starkly as he did.

  Her hands landed on his arms like a brand, sliding up his shoulders and sinking into his hair as she dueled with him, trying to control the rising passion. But that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted her wild, wanted the Wolf in her heart, in her soul, to be free.