by R. E. Butler
“I’m worried about you.” She blinked her big brown eyes at him, and he swallowed at the sudden lump in his throat. She really cared about him.
He pressed his lips to hers, and she made a soft, sad sound in her throat and wrapped her arms around him. He pulled her close as they kissed, and then he lifted from her lush mouth and cupped her face. “I’m going to set you free so I can work on making you mine forever. I’ll be back in a few hours.”
“You’ll be careful?” She chewed on her bottom lip and he gently pulled her lip from her teeth with his thumb.
“Of course. You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.” He smiled, but she didn’t smile back.
Kissing her forehead, he hugged her and said, “I need to go, they’re waiting for me. I’ll be back before the day is over, and if there’s a problem, you can find Devin and Hayden outside.”
He left her in the breakroom, took a few minutes to scan the security footage from the night before, and then he left. He was anxious to get to Dorlan and get the situation settled.
When Malachi stopped in front of Acksel’s home and programmed the GPS to head to Dorlan, he was aware of two other vehicles pulling next to him. He glanced up and saw Sam and two protectors in one SUV, and Dade’s truck with Hollis in the passenger seat. Acksel walked down the sidewalk, opened the passenger door of Malachi’s SUV and sat down.
“Nila said that there’s a gas station on the edge of Dorlan that’s run by one of the pack members,” Malachi said.
“We’ll stop there first and ask for a meeting with Isaiah,” Acksel said.
Malachi nodded, put the SUV into gear and pulled away from the curb. The drive to Dorlan took over an hour, and Acksel and Malachi talked about the pack and Nila’s situation. Acksel was not the most compassionate male on the planet, but he didn’t approve of females being abused in any form, and believed that it was an alpha’s responsibility to ensure that everyone within the pack was safe. That included the mates and pups, whether they were entirely wolf or not. Isaiah’s pack was all-wolf, the way that the Wilde Creek pack had been not too long ago.
Acksel’s sister Eveny had been about to choose to leave the pack in order to be with her human mate, Luke, which was something that would have resulted in her banishment from the pack. She would never have been allowed to set foot in Wilde Creek again, under penalty of death, just because she loved a human. Malachi had never given much thought to what would happen if he were in a similar situation. If it weren’t for Acksel changing pack law for Brynn so that she, and any other mates who were human or other forms of shifters, were welcomed into the pack, Malachi would be taking banishment for Nila, and he wouldn’t have hesitated. Some other packs didn’t care what sort of mates their people took, but most had wolf-only laws. He was glad that Wilde Creek wasn’t one of them, but it wouldn’t have mattered in the long run. Nila was his, and he’d do anything to make her his and keep her safe.
Acksel grunted, and Malachi glanced over to see him reading the divorce papers that Nila had given to Malachi. “I wonder if Damien didn’t sign the papers because there’s also this little thing here that says he waives parental rights to Jack.” Acksel made a motion to one section of the papers.
“I wondered that myself. But if he really cared for his pup, he wouldn’t be terrorizing Nila and withholding support. According to her, when they were together she had to beg him to give her money for diapers and clothes for him. When she left, she had nothing at all, and if it weren’t for Diane she’d have wound up on the street. I think that if he actually wanted Jack, he wouldn’t just be terrorizing Nila but would be demanding that Jack be returned to him.”
“He might see Jack as a means to an end. If he keeps his parental rights, than Nila will never be free of him. Sever that link, along with the divorce, and she can be free.”
That was what Malachi wanted for her. He wanted her to be free of her past so she could make her own choices. When he asked her to be his mate officially, he didn’t want anything in the way of their happiness. He wanted to mark her and marry her as soon as she was ready and willing to be his.
“Brynn will skin you alive if you get married before we do.”
Malachi chuckled. “Get out of my head.”
* * * * *
Dorlan Auto was just about the filthiest place Malachi had ever set foot in, and that included a fraternity bathroom after a party. They waited for the owner of the shop to bring word back from his alpha. The male reminded Malachi of a rat, with a sharp nose and beady eyes.
“Alpha Isaiah is meeting you at the park outside town. It’s neutral territory,” the male said after thirty minutes. He handed Sam a slip of paper with an address scrawled on it.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Acksel said.
As they walked out of the shop and to the vehicles, Sam said, “I feel like I need to take about a hundred showers. That place was disgusting.”
“Me, too.” Acksel said, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
Sam led the way and Malachi and Dade followed, heading out of Dorlan and to a neutral-ground park. The ‘park’ as it turned out, was a grassy field with a rusted swing set and some picnic tables that looked as if they were about thirty years old. As they walked into the park, they found a small group of males next to one of the decrepit picnic tables. One male sat at the table, and the four other males with him stood in a row behind him.
“Welcome to Dorlan,” the male who sat at the table said. “My name is Isaiah Caruthers.”
Acksel extended his hand and introduced himself as he sat down. He tried to hide his grimace, but Malachi saw it. “Thank you for meeting with us.”
Isaiah was a thin male, but the sort of thinness that came from a life of hard living. He was graying and unkempt, his long hair pulled back in a ponytail and his beard long enough, and dirty-looking enough, to make Malachi want to spray him down with Lysol.
“I understand you wish to speak to me about my son, Damien.”
Acksel folded his hands on the table top, and although he appeared relaxed, Malachi knew that he wasn’t. “One of my pack members has entered into a relationship with Nila Caruthers. She is technically married to your son, and has been separated from him for nine months. I would ask you to see that he signs the divorce papers and releases Nila.”
Isaiah stared at Acksel in silence for a long moment and then said, “I don’t see what my son’s affairs have to do with me. Does your pack come to you with such inconsequential things?” The distaste was clear in Isaiah’s voice.
Acksel’s head tilted just slightly. “Your son is attacking the mate of one of my pack members. As alpha, I take issue with that.”
Isaiah’s brow lifted. “She’s human.”
Malachi bit back a vicious snarl.
“Regardless,” Acksel said, “Nila is Malachi’s mate and he wants her free from her past obligations so he can mate her appropriately. Your son never mated her. Their marriage is by human standards alone. As her true mate, Malachi is within his rights to demand her freedom.”
Isaiah straightened slightly and eyed Malachi as he stood behind Acksel. “My son didn’t want to really mate her because he would have been kicked out of the pack. He didn’t want to ruin his life because she was too stupid to remember birth control.”
Malachi tensed, wanting to leap over Acksel and punch Isaiah for the numerous insults to his woman.
“Regardless of your feelings on her humanity, will you assist, or do you accept that my pack member will be doing whatever is necessary to ensure he can mate Nila properly?”
Isaiah’s eyes narrowed. “Do not threaten my son.”
“Release Nila.”
Isaiah threw up his hands with a growl, and then he leveled a calculating gaze at Malachi. “We’ll settle this in the old way. Tomorrow at sunset, you will bring the human here to the park and she will watch you and my son fight for her. The winner keeps her; the loser walks away forever.”
Malachi bared his teeth.
Acksel raised his hand and Malachi bit back the growl in his throat. “I have some ground rules.”
Isaiah snorted. “You would.”
Acksel ignored the barb and said, “The fight is limited to human form. If either shift, they forfeit. When Malachi wins, Damien will sign the divorce papers within a week and you will swear as his alpha that he will never bother her again.”
“If your wolf wins, then I will agree to those terms.” Isaiah said the words, but Malachi didn’t trust him.
With the details set, Malachi and his pack left. Acksel was quiet on the way back to Wilde Creek. Malachi didn’t mind, because he needed the time to think as well. Nila was not going to be happy about this. She was human and hadn’t spent much time around wolves, so she wouldn’t understand this was the way things needed to be so that he could set her free. Her human marriage to Damien was like a tether around her neck. Malachi could mate her, but he couldn’t make her his wife and Jack his son until Damien was legally out of the way.
Malachi stopped in front of Acksel’s house and shifted into park.
Acksel cleared his throat. “You need to mate Nila tonight.”
“Uh, not that I don’t want to, but why tonight?”
Acksel turned in his seat until he was facing Malachi. “Aside from the fact that she’s your mate and you care deeply for her, going to the fight tomorrow night with her already marked will go a long way toward showing that she’s yours to Isaiah’s pack.”
Nodding, Malachi’s mind raced as he thought over how little time there was between now and when they needed to leave tomorrow for the fight. He should be training, and not sexing up his mate, but he couldn’t deny that officially mating her – tonight – was extremely appealing.
“I’d like to take her to the altar and talk for a bit tonight.”
“Of course. You can drop off Jack here before you go, and tomorrow he can stay with Brynn while we’re gone.”
“Thanks, Acksel.”
His alpha smiled at him. “You’re one of my oldest friends, and you’re also a pack member. That means a lot to me. I want you to be happy, and if that means we have to take a posse up to Dorlan so you can kick her ex’s ass, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Acksel got out and Malachi headed back to the clinic. It was almost time for the girls to stop work for the day, so he didn’t have much time to wait before Brynn and Nila were in the SUV and they were heading to the daycare. Acksel had contacted Brynn and told her what was going on, so Malachi only had to explain things to Nila. He waited until he’d made dinner for her and himself and they’d fed Jack together.
An hour after they’d been home, they headed back out and took Jack to Brynn and Acksel’s house, where Mia was also waiting to play with Jack. He noticed that Nila didn’t seem to mind leaving her son with pack members, and it made him happy to know she trusted them, and trusted him as well.
He’d made sure she was dressed warmly. As a shifter, his body ran hotter than a human’s and he didn’t mind the cold as much as she would, and he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable.
The snow from several days earlier had hardened, and it crunched under their boots as they stepped off the back porch and down into the yard. Malachi stopped and Nila did, too. He pointed up. “Wolves have been tied to the moon forever. When the moon rises in the sky, it’s a compulsion that we can’t ignore. We have to shift – hunt and run and commune in our wolf forms. We’re pack by nature. Although there are lone wolves out there, those that have been banished by deed or choice, wolves feel a need to be with other wolves on the full moon.”
He clicked the button on the battery-operated lantern he carried and took her gloved hand in his. The lantern illuminated the area in front of them as he led her toward the woods.
“Wolf packs are traditionally wolf-only. Our laws have always stated that if a member chose to mate a human or another type of shifter, he or she would be banished. Some wolves take the banishment willingly for their mate, believing it’s better to have their mate without the pack than the pack without their mate, but some wolves don’t want to be that noble and stay with the pack, ignoring their mating needs.”
“Why would your laws say that a wolf can’t mate with whoever he or she wants?”
He sighed. “I don’t know. Call it specist or exclusionary or whatever, but my pack was the same way until recently. Acksel’s sister, Eveny, knew that mating with Luke, who is human, would mean she’d be banished from the pack, but she didn’t care. Acksel didn’t mate with Brynn until recently because of the laws, but now he’s changed the laws so that our people can mate with whoever they want.”
They walked through the woods in silence, the snow and ice crunching under their feet the only sound. The altar came into view and he stopped in front of it and placed the lantern on the smooth marble surface.
He looked down at her and she tilted her head back until she was looking into his eyes. Sometimes he felt like she could see right through him. He clasped both her hands and said, “It wouldn’t matter to me if being with you meant I lost the pack. I’d gladly go rogue for you and Jack. My pack laws are different now, though, and that means that I don’t have to leave. When we mate together, you’ll become an honorary member of the pack. The protectors will protect you and Jack the same as they would any other member. You won’t be shunned for your humanity; you’ll be revered as my mate.”
His heart started to pound as he stared into her eyes. She looked at him expectantly, and he pushed back the desire to strip her and mount her on the altar, fairly certain it wasn’t what the creators of the stone monument had in mind when they’d carved it.
“Nila, since the moment my wolf urged me to follow the sound of your tears and I found you in the storage room at the clinic, I’ve known that you were mine. Everything that I’ve done since that point was with you and Jack in mind. I took over the house that Brynn had been renting from my folks and completely redid the interior, and I willingly sat next to Brynn every day so I could catch glimpses of you. I also shifted and watched your house from the woods sometimes, and I occasionally drove by your house.”
Her brow rose. “You were stalking me?”
He made a face. “It’s not stalking if you’re my mate.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sounds like semantics to me.”
“Semantics?”
“Sure. You say mate, I say stalker.”
He huffed her name. “Nila.”
She giggled. “I’m kidding. I knew you were watching me, at least at work. I didn’t know about the other stuff, but I’m not surprised. You’re a very determined guy, but you never crowded me or pushed yourself on me. I’m here now by choice, and that means the world to me.” She paused and said, “If I told you I wanted to go get Jack and go to Diane’s for the night, would you stop me?”
His wolf clawed at him from the inside, howling in dismay. Although he wanted to snarl and tell her no, he knew he wouldn’t. He couldn’t. “I’d drive you there myself.”
Her face softened and her eyes glittered suddenly with unshed tears. “That’s why I want to be your mate, Malachi, because you gave me the choice. You accept me for all my flaws and my humanity, and you care about Jack as if he were your own flesh and blood. I don’t want to be anywhere but where you are for the rest of my life.”
Now his wolf wanted to howl for joy, and Malachi would have danced a jig if he wouldn’t have looked like an idiot. He settled for wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close, dropping his mouth to hers. He loved kissing her. She tasted as sweet and wild as she smelled, and her body fit against his perfectly. He loved how he could hear her heart beat faster and scent her arousal even in the frigid night air. His attraction to her had started with his wolf’s recognition of her as his mate, but his attraction to her now wasn’t based on some wolfy knowledge or physical things. It went far deeper. He loved how much she cared about Jack, and how great a mom she was. He loved how she wrinkled her nose when she thought someth
ing was particularly funny, and the way she cared about her patients.
He’d fallen in love with her. He’d been aware of his slowly deepening feelings for her as they’d grown closer, but he hadn’t really admitted the words to himself.
Breaking the kiss, he stroked his thumb over the curve of her cheek and said, “Nila, I love you. I want you to be my mate, and when things are settled with your past, I want you to be my wife and I want to adopt Jack. Will you mate me and marry me?”
Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open. For a heartbeat, she said nothing, and then she grinned and tears slipped down her cheeks. “I love you, too, Mal. I will absolutely mate you and marry you, and I know that you’ll make a great father for Jack.”
A great weight lifted off his shoulders as he pulled her even closer and they kissed. In his mind, his wolf was doing cartwheels, and he grinned inwardly. It hadn’t really been that long since he’d found her – just a few weeks – but the journey to get to this place had seemingly taken forever.
He pulled from the drugging kiss and nipped her lower lip. “I need to explain some more things to you, sweetheart.”
“I’m all ears,” she said, hugging herself closer and laying her cheek on his chest.
His wolf growled in approval and Malachi smiled. She’d said yes. Everything else was just details.
Chapter 11
After spending two cold hours in the snowy woods, she and Malachi walked back to Brynn and Acksel’s house and took Jack home. She was quiet on the drive to Malachi’s house, looking at Jack as he tried to fight to stay awake. The girls had worn him out, and she smiled as she realized that not only was she getting a family when she married Malachi, but Jack was, too. A big family that wasn’t just Malachi’s parents and sister, but also the pack. Acksel had made it clear before they left that when she mated Malachi and he adopted Jack, her son would become a pack member, able to join the ranks when he shifted sometime during his sixteenth year.
