by Olivia Arran
Her eyes flicked to the window, spotting me. Her hand drifted up to touch her ear, our agreed upon ‘okay’ signal. No danger here. Not yet.
With a sigh, I crouched back down, wishing like hell that I’d worn gloves. Sure, shifters ran hotter than humans, but crouched down this low to the damp ground and not moving—anyone would feel the cold.
Two peals of feminine laughter drifted through the wall.
I’d been right. All the men had left. Though it had fucking taken them long enough. If I’d had to spy on yet another one fawning and lusting over my mate… A low growl escaped from my mouth before I could stop it.
A flurry of emotion hit me square in the chest—fury, shock, and anger mostly, but underneath, there was the slightest hint of fear. Amanda! She was using the bond!
Jerking to my feet, I spied her still seated on the couch, her eyes wide as they stared at the wall, right next to where I crouched. I saw a hand extend, the black steel of metal dull in the low-lit room.
With a roar, I threw myself through the window, glass shattering with a loud crash, and twisting myself to the side in midair, barreled head first into the person who was threatening my mate.
I wrenched the gun from his hand, pinning him to the floor, my lips drawn back in a snarl.
We had got him!
Slowly, my mind registered the softness of curves beneath me, the feminine roundness to her face, the long lashes blinking at me, spiked with tears.
Correction. We had got her!
***
Amanda
I watched Tarq throw himself at the woman, ripping the gun from her hand and pinning her to the floor. I couldn’t believe it!
I scrambled over to where he crouched, his back rigid with shock. The shattered glass pricked at my hands, scraped at my knees though my jeans, but I didn’t care. We had caught—her!
Not once had we thought it would be a woman, and I certainly should have. Looking back, the events had female written all over them. Not that I would fight like that, but a weaker pack member? Setting a fire, using a gun to do their dirty work—it spoke of someone who didn’t want to get up close and personal with their kill, and what man wouldn’t attack with his bare hands?
Tarq glanced at me over his shoulder. “You okay?”
I nodded, and he hurled the woman up, roughly marching her into the office and over to a straight-backed chair, pushing her down.
Our captive shoved the hair from her face, then rubbed her wrist, wincing in pain.
“You broke her wrist?” I asked Tarq, closing the door and watching as he took position behind her, his hand on her shoulder, holding her down.
“Probably. When I disarmed her, most likely.” He sounded like he didn’t care, but I could tell he did. He wasn’t a man who liked to hurt women, no matter what they might have done. I had come to the conclusion that he was a gentleman at heart, and having done this went against the grain for him.
I strode over to the desk and perched on the top, so I looked down at her. I let the disgust I felt show on my face as I took a long, lingering look. At a person who had fooled us so completely, I was still reeling with shock.
“So, Kate, why did you do it?”
“You should have died, you bitch!” Kate spat out, lurching to her feet, but Tarq shoved her back down, keeping her pinned with one hand like she was nothing.
She was spitting at the mouth, her eyes wild with fury, crazed with a kind of madness I couldn’t even start to understand.
“Why do you want to kill me?” I glanced at my nails, idly picking at the manicure. They needed re-polishing, and wait, was that a hangnail? I gave the now silent Kate my best bored look. Wait for it… “Maybe I should just kill her…”
Kate’s mouth gaped open in disbelief, her hands knitting protectively across her stomach.
Now that was interesting.
“You—you can’t! You won’t! I haven’t killed anyone!”
“But you did try and kill your Alpha—”
“You’re not my Alpha! So it can’t be treason.” Kate was worrying her lip, the skin starting to tear and bleed.
“I am the Alpha of the Smithrock Pack, and whether you claim me as your Alpha or not, you still tried to kill me. Do you want to be Alpha?”
This time I watched her hands carefully. Watched how she stroked her fingers back and forth, ever so slightly.
“She’s pregnant,” I stated to Tarq, ninety-nine percent sure I was right.
Kate glared at me.
Now I was one hundred percent sure.
“I’m guessing the father is…” I watched her face, looking for a tell. “Gary? No, Eric? Bingo! Raving-dead-lunatic as the father. Congratulations, Kate, he was quite the catch!”
“You didn’t know him properly, no one in this pack did—only me. I was his chosen mate—”
“I think you’ll find Kara was his chosen mate. The one he fought for in front of the Shifter Council. The one he died for.”
Kate flinched as if my words were causing her physical pain. “He was murdered. Tricked and murdered. Gary told—” She stopped short, her mouth clamping shut again.
“Gary told you what?” Tarq growled, leaning over her shoulder, glaring at her at eye level.
But the woman stubbornly remained silent. Tarq and I exchanged looks. We could hardly beat the information out of her, not with her carrying a pup—even that bastard’s pup.
I took a deep breath. I was going to have to try and connect with her, woman to woman.
“Eric wasn’t what you thought, Kate. He had many women, and you were just one of them.”
“We were mated!” she cried out, shaking her head rapidly. “The other women didn’t count, didn’t matter—he told me that! He just wanted that Kara back so he could teach her a lesson, use her as an example to the pack. He said that if you let one bitch get away with it, then they’d all think they could do whatever they wanted. He only wanted us to mind, to treat the men with the respect they deserved!”
I felt physically sick as I listened to her spew Eric’s tainted bullshit, her eyes glowing with certainty. In her mind, she was right. The bastard had brainwashed her.
“Did he ever force himself on you?” I asked gently.
“No! He didn’t!”
“Are you sure? Try to remember, did you always want him?”
Kate looked confused, as though I were the one losing my mind. “Well, a woman doesn’t always want it. You must know that! But it’s our job to service—”
“I’ve heard enough of this fucking bullshit,” Tarq barked out, striding around to face Kate. “It is never okay for a man to force himself on you. It is always okay to say you don’t want to, you don’t feel like it, you don’t fucking want him—whatever! You don’t even have to give a reason! You just say no, and he should respect that!” His words built until he roared the last word.
Shocked, I looked at him. He was shaking, his legs braced as he ran a hand through his hair, trying to hide his face from me. But I caught a glimpse of his eyes, and they were filled with anguish, with hurt and sorrow.
Kate was staring at him, too, then her lips twisted in a mockery of a grin, teeth glinting white. “You’re not a real man, not if you’d let a woman say no to you.”
But he had. And he was. And this bitch wasn’t going to say otherwise, pregnant or not.
My hand flew out before I had time to think, cuffing her around the cheek, knocking that silly smirk off her face. “He is a hundred, no, make that a thousand times the man Eric ever was. Tarq has more honor, more compassion, more strength of character, more…” I searched for a more eloquent way to phrase it, then decided to boot eloquence straight out of the window, “… has more raw sex appeal than Eric had in his little toe!”
“Thanks, that’s nice to know,” Tarq murmured next to me, a touch of color flushing his cheeks.
“Well. It’s true. Doesn’t mean—you know—”
“I know. It’s still nice to hear, though.”
> “When you two lovebirds have finally finished, care to tell me what you’re going to do with me?”
Tarq grunted, his brow creased in thought, then turned to me, dismissing Kate as insignificant. “I think it’s time we chose some lieutenants, now the traitor is out in the open. And don’t even bother to suggest Seb—he’s too much your type for me to handle right now. I need to keep my mind on the task, not be fighting off rages of jealousy.”
My heart thudded in my chest. He was jealous! I had guessed that he was, he had hinted—but for him to come right out and say it… I tried to extinguish the warmth that started in my belly at his words, spreading through my body, at just the thought of him caring that much.
“Mark and Jed?” I proposed. Kate’s twisted grimace confirmed they would make good choices.
“Sounds good to me. You can give them a go, and if they don’t work out, we’ll figure out replacements later.”
Tarq lifted the phone and called the men, asking them to come down to the office. Minutes later, they strolled into the office, their hair mussed up and clothes askew, having obviously been hard asleep.
Tarq took them to the far corner and quickly explained the situation, finishing by offering them lieutenant positions in the pack. They turned to me when Tarq had finished, and both had matching looks of disgust as they raked their eyes over Kate.
“You in?” I asked them, the events of the evening crowding in on me, the mantle of responsibility weighing heavily.
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Thank you, Alpha.”
The men didn’t hesitate for a second, their faces set with determination. “We’re to secure her in a room and wait to hear from you?”
“Yes. Just make sure you keep eyes on her at all times. Don’t let her pull any feminine bullshit with you. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
The men nodded, then escorted a complaining Kate from the room.
CHAPTER TEN
Amanda
“Can we trust them?” I asked Tarq, letting my shoulders slump with fatigue now that we were alone.
“You’re Alpha, what does your gut tell you?”
“It didn’t tell me about Kate—”
“But you have the bonds now. Feel for them, then tell me.”
I did as he asked, searching for Mark and Jed in my head. “They’re good,” I finally said.
He nodded, then threw himself onto the couch, slouching with an exhaustion that matched my own. “Are we still on for stage three? I briefed your new lieutenants privately. They know what to do.”
I hesitated, considering the question in light of what we now knew. Eventually, I answered, “Yes, we’ll announce the trial at breakfast tomorrow.”
“Good. Now can we sleep? I don’t know about you, but today has worn me out!”
“Can I just ask—?”
Tarq groaned, rubbing his face, then pinching the bridge of his nose. “Can’t it wait for the morning? Unless you’re going to admit that you’re my mate and that you want me?” He raised his eyebrows hopefully.
I had to give it to him—he didn’t give up! “There’s a lot to talk about—why my Alpha powers didn’t affect you, why you went bat-shit crazy on Kate.”
“Can you at least admit that we’re true mates?”
“Will you answer my questions?”
He hesitated, his gaze shifting away from mine. “If I did, would you do it? Would you give us a chance?”
It felt like he was tentatively reaching out, offering much more than answers to simple questions, like he was preparing to bear his soul.
But I couldn’t. I had to pay for what I had done. “I—I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Maybe one day you’ll tell me why you keep punishing yourself for his death.”
It was too close to the truth and I couldn’t stop myself from flinching.
Tarq was scrutinizing me and caught my reaction. “What happened, Amanda? Why are you hurting yourself after all this time?” He rolled off the couch and strode over to me. Grasping my hands, he squeezed gently, and I could feel warmth and affection pouring through the Beta bond.
The wall I had built around my heart splintered, tiny shards shearing off and falling away. Raw pain hit me, as fresh as it had been so many years ago. “He died, because of me!” I gasped, unable to hold the words back. It was if he was dragging them from me, forcing me to relive the past.
“What happened?”
He didn’t let go of my hands, instead gripping them tighter. I focused on the heat of his skin burning into mine, the roughness of calluses at the tips of his fingers like sandpaper, rubbing and smoothing.
I coughed, clearing my throat, forcing my mind to go back to that horrible day. I didn’t want to tell him, but maybe it might help. Make him understand why he had to move on. “We were young, only teenagers. I had known Max all my life, had grown up with him, had known from when we were kids that we were destined to be together, that we were true mates. We’d snuck out, it was a warm evening, and we were just…discovering each other, exploring the world and each other, together. We ran as wolves in the forest, not too far from here. Max was larking around, as usual—he was such a fun loving guy, easy going and kind. I lost sight of him, thought he was messing with me, so I started trying to track him. You’ve got to remember, I was only fifteen—I didn’t know what I was doing!”
I swallowed, forcing myself to continue.
“I was going round in circles, all the time thinking that Max must be having a good laugh at me from wherever he was hiding. I mean, at the time, I couldn’t track a slug’s trail in moonlight! I must have gotten turned around because when I eventually gave up, I was miles from home, deep in the forest. I howled for him, not sure whether to go home or keep looking. I couldn’t understand why he had just disappeared like that. But he didn’t answer.”
Large fingers gently wiped away the tears that were coursing down my cheeks, then cupped my face, offering silent support.
“He didn’t come home. Not that night, not ever.” I shook as wracking sobs tore from my chest. If I hadn’t suggested we sneak out, if we’d stayed home that night? Would he still be with me? Would we have a family of our own? Would he have been the one supporting me, comforting me? Loving me?
Tarq pulled me to his broad chest, absorbing my sounds of anguish into the warm cotton. “What happened to him?” His voice rumbled against my ear.
“His mom and dad found him the next day. All the bones in his body had been shattered, his skin shredded. He was dead.”
“But—? You would have heard something!”
I nodded, expecting the question. “Everyone thought that, too. But I didn’t! And no one believed me. They thought I’d run away and left him to die.”
“If you didn’t hear anything, then he must have been silenced until you were clear and out of the way.”
He believed me! Just like that. No questions, no reproachful looks. “That’s the conclusion I finally came to, but it didn’t matter. Everyone blamed me, and I did, too. If I’d just been able to keep up, track better, I could have saved him.”
“You don’t know that, you could have been killed, too. It wasn’t your fault, none of it was. You were fifteen, for fuck’s sake! Just a kid!”
“We left Smithrock, Mom and Dad took me away to start fresh where nobody knew. They told me that I couldn’t tell anyone, that if I did, people would start talking again, that everyone would blame me—”
“Sounds like they blamed you, too—”
“They did what was best for me, for us, as a family. But they had loved Max like a son. They were devastated when he died.”
“So, they let their daughter believe she was to blame for something she had no control over. While the real culprits—?”
“Never found. It had rained overnight, diluting any scent markers that could have led us to them.”
“Convenient.”
I pulled away and looked up at him. What did he mean by that?
He caught my look, expanding on his one word comment. “If you were fifteen, then Eric and his friends would have been in their twenties. The Alpha’s son? I would imagine something so violently against pack law would have been covered up, and quickly.”
I blinked, mulling his words over in my mind. “But—? How—? Is there anyway of—?”
“I doubt it. Eric is dead now, and I don’t imagine paperwork was kept…”
Any new hope that Max’s killers might be brought to justice evaporated, leaving me deflated. I sagged against Tarq’s chest, allowing myself to lean on him, just for a short while.
“You have to stop blaming yourself, babe. You’ve been brainwashed into believing it was your fault, and that, paired with the pain of losing your mate…you must have come close to losing your mind!”
“It hurt, it still does.” And it always would.
“You need to permit yourself to heal and not keep on ripping open the wound and deliberately pouring salt on it—just because you feel like you have to. Like you’re not allowed to get over it. Give yourself a chance. From the sounds of it, Max was a good guy, and he wouldn’t have wanted to see you beating yourself up. The Smithrock Pack seems to enjoy brainwashing people, first you, then Kate… A pack should hold together, through thick and thin. The stronger members have a duty to support the weaker ones, not manipulate them, like what was done to you and Kate.”
I couldn’t believe he was comparing me with Kate! “We are nothing alike—”
“You both are, or were in your case, weaker pack members. The pack should have supported and loved you both, guiding and counseling you both when needed. Not pinning blame and shunning, abusing and twisting the code of honor. They did that—to both of you.”
I could see his point. But that would mean… “I still took Max to the forest.”
“So what? Loads of teenagers sneak out all the time! I know I did. If everything had gone well and you’d both gone home safe that night—would you have blamed yourself? What for? Would you blame your daughter? Your son? Would it be their fault?”
