“It’s good to see you,” Thor said, throat tight from some unknown emotion. He’d known Lock had to be out there somewhere, because they’d had a link since birth that when the other was badly wounded, they knew.
When Lock had been shot helping Misty back at the mansion, Thor had felt the bullet tear through his body and sheer panic had engulfed him. He’d felt like he was going to die.
Lock gave him a guilty look as he slumped into a chair. “I know I should have come back sooner. I was still figuring things out. And I didn’t want you in danger again.”
“If you’re in danger, I’m in danger,” Thor said, folding his arms and taking a chair across from his brother.
Lock looked well. His hair was a little unkempt, a little longer than usual, and there were a few stress lines around his eyes that would probably resolve with a little sleep and some good food, but all in all, he seemed healthy.
“Where have you been?” he asked. “And what has happened since I’ve seen you?”
Lock let out a hoarse laugh that was more like a bark. “What hasn’t happened?”
“You know what I mean.”
Lock sighed, a rough exhale of breath that made Thor think his brother hadn’t had a chance to relax in a long time. “You know how I was caught, right?”
Thor shook his head. “It was actually Fifi who even let me know you were in trouble. He didn’t have the power to do anything about it, but he told me to go to Matt. Said he could.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “That’s back when I thought Matt was a boy.”
“Fifi, hm? I thought he might have interfered.” Lock sighed and got a cryptic expression that Thor couldn’t read. “And as for Matt, even as a boy she kind of got under your skin, didn’t she?” Lock asked, a teasing gleam in his eyes. “I guess she can’t be all bad. She did turn on her family to let me go.”
He sighed and put his face in his hands, slowly pulling them down, stretching his skin. Then he sat up. “I’ve gone and done it now. It’s just, I’ve been preparing myself to come tell you what I know, knowing how angry it’ll make you. How angry it has made me. And then I see you, with her legs wrapped around your waist. Carrying her like it never occurred to you there could be something wrong with it.”
Thor nodded. “I know.”
“And then, it’s like, it was always us, you know? Somehow I thought I’d come back and we’d go back to the way things were, fighting the man, trying to win our way in the world. But now you have this cabin and the pack back. Was everything I did for nothing?”
Lock looked up at the ceiling like it had the answers he was looking for, and then looked back at Thor. “I can’t unlearn what I know, and that kills me. Because all I wanted was for you to be happy, and now I don’t see how that can happen.”
“What do you mean?” Thor asked, a dark feeling in the pit of his stomach.
“I guess I’ll tell you what I know and we’ll take it from there,” Lock said.
“She hasn’t agreed to be my mate,” Thor said. “Just so you know. Nothing is final. But she’s on the run from the Tribunal and she came to me, and I’m attracted to her, and the pack needs an alpha female, so why not? But nothing is set in stone yet.”
Lock nodded. “I know, I could scent it when she was close. I don’t know what came over me. I wanted to hurt them like they hurt me. So I grabbed her. But you know I wouldn’t have done anything.”
Thor bit his lip and eyed his brother. Did he know that? He thought he did, but this brother was new to him. Knew things he didn’t. Showed anger like he never had before.
Growing up the way they had had been hard on both of them, but he’d never seen that in Lock until he’d started to cross the line.
He was seeing it now. “What did you find out?”
Lock shook his head. “Not here. Let’s go outside. I don’t know how much she knows, but I’m not saying more just in case. If she’s a spy, I don’t need her tipping them off.”
“She’s not a spy,” Thor said. “She’s as scared of them as you are.”
“I’m not scared of them,” Lock spat out. “I’m disgusted by them. There’s a difference. Nevertheless, I’m not talking in front of her. If you can’t keep a secret, then I’m not telling you anything either. Your choice. I can deal with this on my own.”
Thor’s heart clenched. This was his blood, his twin, part of him. He didn’t want to keep Matt out of the loop, but until she was his mate, she didn’t come before his family. “Fine,” he said. “Tell me what you know, and I won’t tell her until you’ve had time to see that she’s on our side. Although it seems like you’ve already blurted out most of it anyway.”
“Fine,” Lock said. “Now walk outside with me. I’d like a chance to see how the grounds look anyway.”
Thor nodded and led his brother outside, dread circling inside him like water circling a drain. All his life he’d wanted to know what happened to his parents. Why he’d grown up the way he had. But suddenly, he wasn’t so eager anymore.
Suddenly, he was wondering if it was better if he didn’t know.
* * *
When Matt woke up, soft evening light was filtering through the slits in her drapes. She pulled herself off the ground and stumbled to her bag to look for clothes. She sat on the bed and started to wrap her chest wearily, the action pure habit after doing it for so many years. Even though the two wolves nearby knew her secret, there was no telling who else might come by.
A soft knock sounded on her door and she stood, stretching as she pulled on a shirt and some pajama pants. “Coming.”
“It’s Thor,” the voice said.
She opened the door and looked him up and down. Damn, he was a sight for sore eyes. “How did it go?” she asked. “With your brother, I mean.”
“He’s out in the woods right now,” he said. “Running it off. It’s probably safer for him there. Less likely to be spotted.”
She nodded. “Especially since they might have scouts out looking for me by now.”
Thor nodded. “Can I come in?”
She opened the door wider and swept a hand in welcome. “Of course. It’s your home. What did he say?”
Now that they were alone, she could feel the heat rising again. Remember how it felt when her legs had been wrapped around his waist when he’d been carrying her to the cabin. How promising that had been.
Thor hesitated. He ran a hand through his short hair, mussing it further, and from the many tortured directions it was sticking in, she guessed he’d been doing that a lot since she last saw him.
“How long was I out?” she asked.
“A few hours,” he said. “When I heard rustling, I knocked. Other than that, I thought you needed space. What was that you did to me and my brother?”
She shrugged. “My alpha ability,” she said. “Unfortunately, it renders me as helpless as the people I use it on. It’s part of why my father sent me to alpha challenges. He said it was to make sure no alphas killed each other. But after what your brother said, and after he turned on me, who knows what’s really true?”
“Matt, what my brother told me. He told me not to tell you. Not until he’s ready to trust you.”
She frowned, feeling a tightness in her chest that she didn’t like. “And you agreed? You’re going to keep secrets from me?”
“You have secrets too, don’t you?” he asked. “They aren’t my secrets to keep. And Lock has been gone for years, waiting to find them and tell me. And they are about my parents, not yours.”
“Or both?” she guessed. “He said my parents were involved.”
“That’s part of it,” he agreed. “But yeah, I can’t tell you everything. I can tell you this though. None of this changes anything for me. I want to mate you, Tribunal or not. I want you to join my pack. I want you for my own. I won’t let anyone take you.”
“That’s nice and all, but you don’t really trust me, do you? Or you’d tell me.”
“Have you told me everything you know about
the Tribunal?” he asked.
She sucked in her cheeks. What she knew about the Tribunal could fill a small book. But what she didn’t know could probably fill a much larger one.
“I thought so,” he said, suspicion lighting his gaze. “Anyway, we don’t have to know everything about each other to mate.”
“But can we really keep secrets from each other?” she asked.
“I don’t see how we can’t. When Lock is won over, then I can tell you. Until then, can you put it out of your head?”
“Can you?” she asked. “If you truly think my parents murdered yours, can you really be with me? Can you really look at me and not see them? Are you sure you wouldn’t grow to hate me?”
He sat in the chair by her bed and looked out the window. “You know, Lock and I are different. I guess I gave up on finding out about my parents long ago. I had my rebellious phase, my hating the world phase, my wanting everyone to pay phase. And then I came back here, inherited the money my parents wanted us to use to take care of the pack. With my brother gone, I was the obvious choice as alpha, and I found meaning here in ousting my uncle and trying to repair the lives he damaged. It wasn’t only my life he ruined. And that need to help others has been consuming my life, while revenge has been consuming Lock’s.”
She nodded.
“I’m hoping one day Lock finds something that means more to him than revenge. Because I have.”
She flushed, and then realized he might not be talking about her. “You mean the pack?”
He nodded. “Yes. They need me.”
“Oh.” For a minute she’d thought he meant her, and that would have been wonderful. Even if it made no sense.
“But you as well. With you, I can rebuild more than I ever have before.”
“So it’s just for the pack, then?” she asked. “It’s just so that I can help you rebuild?”
He let out a long, exasperated sigh. “We keep coming back to that. No. If I wanted to hunt down an alpha female, I would have left the pack and done it. But none had ever interested me.”
“Maybe you just weren’t in the right place yet.”
“No,” he said. “Don’t you see? You’re the key. You came at just the right time. You need me as much as I need you. And we’ve known each other, fought each other, and helped each other for a long time.”
She sighed. “I know.”
He captured her chin in his hand and kept her gaze. “Some cultures believe in a red thread of fate that binds us to our soul mate. The longer I’m with you, the more I know. You are my red thread mate.”
She swallowed. It was the most romantic thing she’d ever heard. And it made sense. They kept meeting up. Kept finding each other, kept needing each other.
Perhaps there really was something like destiny pulling them together.
But did that mean that nothing could pull them apart?
He reached for her, pulling her onto his lap in the chair. Despite the complications between them, she couldn’t resist. She’d never been romanced before. Never been attracted like this before. And his big, hard body felt so right beneath hers.
Whether they could officially mate or not, she wanted to be with him.
“When will your brother be back?” she asked quietly, reaching up to play with an errant spike of hair.
“Late,” he said. “He’s not spending the night in the house.”
“Are you sure that what he told you didn’t change things?” she asked.
“Positive,” he said. “I’m not going to let the past determine my future. Lock knows this.”
“Then what will you do?” she asked. There was a husky note in her voice. Sitting there together now, with Lock and his secrets out of the way, and Thor having just talked about destiny, it was almost as if the disruption in the afternoon hadn’t happened. As if no one had interrupted them while he carried her to the cabin.
“I’ll take it one thing at a time. And right now, I want to take the she-wolf that I feel has been destined for me.”
“Not as mate,” she said. “Not yet.”
“Just let me make love to you,” he said. “And we can decide on the rest later.”
“Hell yes,” she murmured, as he pushed her hair back from her ear and stroked a finger along the delicate inner shell. She shivered. “The rest can come later.”
He picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. They locked eyes for a moment, an electric current running between them, and then he set her down gently in the center of the covers.
Who knew what tomorrow would bring? But right now, she’d enjoy everything that it seemed the universe had intended.
Just for one night, she’d enjoy all the pleasure he had to give.
12
Thor felt her body under his hands, needing to reassure himself that she was here, she was his.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I should be asking you that,” she said.
“I’ve been sure from the moment I found out you were female. And if I’d found out sooner, I would have been sure before that.”
“Oh,” she said.
“And when you were male, you were just confusing,” he said.
She giggled and then paused, her eyes wide. “What did I just do?”
“Why Matt, I think you just giggled,” he said, teasing as he played with the edge of her shirt, threatening to lift it.
“I did not,” she said. “Call me Lacey.”
“No,” he said. “I like Matt.”
“You want to have sex with a girl named Matt?”
“No,” he said, easing the shirt up and grabbing the edge of her breast bindings gently with his teeth. He tugged them loose and then brought up his hands to unwind them. She arched to make it easier.
“I want to mate with a girl named Matt. I want to grow old with a girl named Matt. I want to have babies with a girl named Matt.”
“But you hated me when I was Matt,” she said.
“And fate knew better than I did,” he said. “At least I always noticed you.”
She nodded, a pretty flush filling her cheeks as she looked down and saw that she was nearly bared to him. “Thor…”
“What?” he asked.
“When do you think Lock will trust me?” she asked. “I mean, maybe he’s right. Maybe you shouldn’t be trusting me.”
“Right now, you’re the one trusting me. In fact, you’re giving me the most trust one being can give another.” He looked down at her body, naked from the waist up, and hooked his fingers into the waistband of her pants. “You’re letting me make love to you, being fully vulnerable.”
“I think there are worse ways to be vulnerable,” she said, as he pulled down her pants and played with the top of her lace underwear.
“Lacey,” he said.
“Yes?” she said.
“No, these. Lacey,” he said, grinning. They were so light, so delicate. Nothing like the hard female alpha wolf he’d gotten to know. But in these moments, he saw the vulnerable side of her, the soft side. In these moments, he’d never let anyone hurt her.
Blue eyes looked up to his and blinked rapidly. “Thor…”
“Yes?” he asked, toying with the edges of her panties, excited to pull them off.
“Give me everything.”
“What?” he asked. “I thought you didn’t want…”
“I want,” she said. “But use protection.”
“Ah, everything but mating.”
“Yes, but I want you to make love to me.”
“I can do that,” he said, feeling only slightly bitter that he couldn’t go all the way and make her his right now. “I’d rather do more, but I can do that.”
Her body was prettily flushed, the tips of her nipples dusky and erect. She covered herself with her hands and he pulled them to the side and kissed the top of each breast lightly. She quivered beneath him, biting her lip, and the sight drove him to near madness.
He tore the panties off and tossed them to the side
of the bed. She tried to sit up but he pushed her back on the bed. “Not so fast, Princess.”
“Bully,” she grumbled, but she lay back and let him climb on top of her. He was still fully clothed, and he could tell from the way she eyed his body that she’d liked that rectified. He gave her a wink and then reached for the bottom of his shirt and lifted it slowly over his head, giving her a view of the body he’d sculpted through years of work. He was an alpha male, and his body was all hers. These muscles would protect her. These hands would hold her.
And nothing anyone told him could change that. His wolf had decided that. And his wolf had led him to the only happiness he’d had so far, so he was going to listen to it.
He tossed his shirt and then reached for his jeans buttons. She bit her lip and exhaled slowly as he undid the button and slid the zipper down. She lifted a fist to her mouth and bit down slightly, and the knowledge that he was driving her as crazy as she was driving him made him hard as a rock. He shifted as he lowered the zipper, but then stopped, leaving it only slightly undone.
She was writhing slightly beneath him, and despite promising her he would give her what she wanted, he found himself wanting to give her a little something else first.
He cupped her face in his hands, savoring the wonder there, and then moved down her body, letting his hands make a searing trail over her as he knelt between her legs. Then, before she could say anything about it, he hefted her legs up so that her knees were over his shoulders, his hands on her thighs. His mouth…just where he wanted it to be.
He flicked his tongue out and she gasped and jerked, but was held completely by him. He looked down her lean body and saw her breasts, peaked and sheened in sweat, and her face, shocked but quickly being taken over by pleasure.
He licked out again, feeling up the center of her to the place where she jerked most intensely, the spot where all the pleasure was centered. He kissed it gently and she moaned and put her hands up in her hair, dragging her fingers through it.
“Thor, what are you—?” Her words cut off in a gasp as he sucked gently and then grazed her ever so lightly with his teeth, testing the pressure she liked best. He wanted to know everything about how to please her. He wanted to see her come apart in his arms an unlimited amount of times. Nothing else mattered but that.
Alpha Defender Page 8
