by Lacey Thorn
She pushed off the arm of the chair, moving away from Declan’s touch. He felt each step like a rope coiling and tightening around his middle. He forced himself to stay seated. It wouldn’t do either of them any good if he went after her now. His bear felt way too territorial at her denial. The need to feel her rubbing against him and drowning him in her scent was strong, almost too strong to fight.
“Why? Because you lost parents? A sibling? What of those who lost the women who might have chosen them to mate? They lost their other halves, their children, their grandchildren, and all future generations that could have begun with them. They avenge their parents, their grandparents, all their ancestors who are now denied a part in the future. Those are the ones who have the right to Lawrence’s blood.”
Xandra stared at Laramie for a long moment. She flicked her gaze toward Declan very briefly then immediately glanced back at Laramie. “Am I free to go?”
Laramie sighed. “Don’t let this need for vengeance blind you, Xandra.”
“I see things just fine,” she retorted.
“Do you?” Laramie challenged, brow lifted as he held her gaze.
She was the first to look away, but Declan noticed she refused to look at him, as well. A person would have to be an idiot not to realize Laramie referred to what was happening between Xandra and Declan. She was the only one in the room denying they were mates.
“If you don’t mind, I’ve had a long day. I’d like to go see my sisters again.”
Laramie said nothing. His gaze moved to Declan.
“Go ahead,” Declan told Xandra. “I’ll find you in a bit.”
She nodded, not looking at any of them, then practically bolted toward the door. He was surprised she didn’t tear the door from its hinges when she ripped it open and walked through, closing it with a sharp snap behind her. Both Koby and Laramie stared at Declan.
“She’s going to run,” Koby finally said. Declan and Laramie both came to their feet as they nodded in agreement.
“Be smart. Stay alert,” Laramie ordered Declan. “Keep your phone on you and powered up at all times.”
Declan nodded his assent.
“I’ll give you twenty-four hours. Don’t stay at her house if you sense anything off. I’ll send Fletch and Milo after you when they get here. They’ll help you hunt,” Laramie stated.
“You need them here more,” Declan countered.
“I need you here more,” Laramie argued. “Since I can’t have that, I’ll send whoever I want to make sure you get back here safely.”
“You’re not going to try to order me into staying?” Declan asked.
“I might if I thought it would do me any good.” Laramie said as he crossed to Declan. “I want to get one thing straight though. Koby’s my top enforcer. When the others arrive, he’ll lead them. I count on Jensen to deal with everything medical. We all count on him for that. Brock has a brain like a computer. It comes in handy. Slade can fix anything we put in front of him, another handy skill to have. Matheus is the peacekeeper. God knows he’s prevented the lot of us from killing each other too many times to count.”
Declan snorted a laugh at that.
“There’s one thing you’re wrong about though,” Laramie added
“What’s that?” Declan asked.
“I’ve always needed you. Of all of us, you’re the most logical. You’ve never been one to let emotion lead you. Even now, when any other male would be racing after their mate, you stay here.”
“Xandra needs some time on her own. She’s safe on Holloway land. I’ll catch up with her before she gets to the property line.”
“No fucking way would I be able to let Sidia go off alone,” Koby said with a grunt.
“Your mate accepted you from the start. Mine is still trying to convince herself she doesn’t have a mate,” Declan stated.
“And that doesn’t piss you off?” Laramie questioned.
“I understand her,” Declan said. “How she feels, why she feels the way she does. I respect those feelings and her. For this to work, for us to work, she has to be the one to realize accepting me doesn’t mean losing herself.”
“He has nerves of fucking steel,” Koby muttered.
“And faith,” Laramie added softly, meeting Declan’s surprised gaze. “When the rest of us are ready to throw in the towel and walk away, you’re the one who remains, Declan. You remind me to believe. I’ve always needed you, and I always will.”
He pulled Declan into a tight hug, squeezing him tightly. Declan hadn’t expected such a show of affection from his eldest brother, his alpha. Koby slapped him on the back as Laramie released him and stepped back. A pack was slapped against his chest.
“Full pack. Should have everything you need,” Koby said. “Enough for two.”
“Thanks,” Declan said. “Both of you.”
“I expect you back here in one piece, with your mate admitting she’s your mate,” Laramie ordered.
At last, something he and Laramie could agree on.
Chapter Eleven
Xandra stood hidden in the shadow of the trees. A few more yards and she’d reach the edge of the Holloway land. She hadn’t meant to stop, but it was as if an invisible cord bound her to Declan. With every step she took away from him, pain settled deep under her skin. She told herself it was no worse than what she’d known over the last few years, but she knew that was a lie. So she stood and waited while the man she didn’t want to need drew closer.
“Did your brother send you to stop me?” she whispered, feeling Declan’s heat at her back but refusing to turn and see the censure she presumed was in his eyes.
He ran his fingers along her shoulders, sending chills racing down her spine.
“Why are you waiting here?”
She shrugged, her breath catching in her throat as he brushed her hair aside and skimmed his lips down her neck.
“Sex won’t make me stay,” she finally managed to push past the lump in her throat.
“So don’t stay,” he said, as if her leaving didn’t matter to him one way or another.
He fisted a hand in her hair and jerked her head back, claiming her lips in a penetrating kiss that emptied her mind of any thoughts of going anywhere. When he flipped her around and pressed her back against a tree, she lifted her hands to grip his strands and pulled him in so that their bodies were plastered together.
“You don’t want me to stay?” she questioned as he nipped along her jaw, his hands busy working her shirt up over her bra.
“Mmm,” he moaned. “Maybe, for a little bit.”
She meant to yell, to hit him, but all she could do was push her breasts into his palms and expose her throat more fully to him.
“You couldn’t have run some place with a bed?” he groaned as he ducked his head and latched onto a nipple, tugging and sucking through the thin veil of lace.
“We just made love in a bed,” she muttered back, fingers tugging at his hair, conflicted as to whether she should pull him back into a kiss or urge him to suck harder at her nipple.
“So let’s fuck by a tree,” he rasped, hands dropping to her jeans, popping the button and shoving the zipper down. One hand slid inside, cupping her sex through the damp material of her panties. “You make me so hungry. I can’t focus on anything but the need to taste you. Everywhere.”
He pulled away, dropping to his knees in front of her. Her jeans and panties were jerked to her knees and hot breath fanned her folds.
“Oh, God,” she moaned, her hands dropping to brace against the tree at her back. He cupped her ass, sheltering her bare curves from the rough bark.
He groaned again then she felt the rasp of his tongue as he traced the seam of her sex, dipping inside to flick against her clitoris. She pressed her shoulders back, arching her hips in offering. He moved one hand around to part her folds and those glorious lips of his wrapped around the bud, sucking delicately.
Xandra struggled to mute her cries, but it was a lost cause. The woods around
them echoed with the sounds of her pleasure. Declan proved how hungry he was, bringing her to orgasm again and again before he finally eased up and sat back on his heels at her feet. He ran one palm up and down her thigh, as if his touch would soothe rather than incite.
“I need you,” she whispered.
His chuckle sent a breath of air to tickle her damp folds. “Again?”
She stopped him before he could touch her sex.
“No,” she said and lost her balance when she tried to move away.
“Easy,” Declan said and helped steady her.
She reached for her pants, tugging everything up and back into place while Declan regained his feet.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded.
“Don’t you get it?” she bit out. “I need you!”
“Shouldn’t have pulled up your pants then.”
“You’re going to make me admit it, aren’t you?” she asked as realization hit her.
“Yes,” he rasped, holding her gaze with his.
“I don’t want to need anyone. Needing people opens you up to pain, to…manipulation.”
“Lawrence will die for everything he’s done. He’ll suffer then he’ll die. Don’t let his mind-fucks destroy what’s right in front of you,” Declan urged.
“Everyone I’ve loved and trusted has left me in one way or another. My father. My mother. Gone in the blink of an eye. My baby sister… I couldn’t save any of them. My brother left, and logically, I know he had to, but emotionally, I wonder if things would have turned out differently if he’d been there with us.”
“Xandra.” Declan moved into her, his strong arms wrapping around her and pulling her against the solid strength of his chest. “Chances are he would have died, too. Honey, you did nothing wrong. Nothing, and you have to stop feeling guilty for surviving.”
She’d thought she’d cried out all the tears inside her earlier, but more came as she clung to him.
“I need you, Declan. More than I’ve ever needed anyone in my life. I know it’s because you’re my mate. Despite what I’ve said before, I know that. I want to deny you because I don’t deserve happiness. I don’t deserve a man like you. But God help me, I need you.”
“I’m right here, Xandra, and I’m not going anywhere. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that. You just…you can’t. No one can promise that.”
“I can,” Declan countered. “We’re mates. We share a bond like no other. I’m already in here.” He tapped her chest, right over her heart. “As our bond grows stronger, I’m going to be in here, too.” He tapped her temple softly. “Nothing will ever be able to remove me from either of those places, from you.”
“I don’t think I’d survive if something happened to you,” she admitted. She’d survived so much, the loss of so many, but losing him would be the one thing that destroyed her.
“You think I’d feel any differently? That my heart wouldn’t cease to beat if I lost you? You think it doesn’t cut me to the core every time you’ve reiterated how I’m not your mate? Every time you’ve denied what’s between us?”
“I’m sorry, Declan. I don’t know how to be a mate.”
“Neither do I,” he shot back. “So maybe, we learn together by staying together.”
This was it. The moment when she had to choose between a plan she’d nursed for five long years, a plan for vengeance that had kept her alive when there had been so many times she’d wanted to give up, and the man standing before her, offering her everything she’d never known she wanted. One fed her soul with cold purpose. The other offered her a warmth she was coming to crave.
“Okay,” she agreed. “Let’s go.” She turned toward Declan’s home, pausing only when she realized he wasn’t following her. “Coming?”
“You’re going the wrong way.”
“What?”
“I believe you wanted to head back to your house then hunt down the son-of-a-bitch who’s responsible for the last five years of your life.”
“I… You…” Xandra shook her head. Declan didn’t plan to stop her. “You’re going with me?”
“Just try to stop me,” he warned then gave her a cocky grin. “I’m one of the best trackers in our pack. There’s no place you can go where I can’t find you.”
She moved back toward him. “That makes me a very lucky woman.”
“I’m the lucky one,” he countered. “Now, if you’re satisfied,” he lifted his brows and she knew exactly what he was referring to, “we should probably get going. Our alpha is sending backup just as soon as they arrive here.”
“Backup?”
“Two former enforcers he plans to reinstate, as his enforcers now. They’re good guys. They’ll be assets to our hunt for Lawrence.”
“I didn’t get the feeling Laramie was letting me go after Lawrence.” In fact, she’d gotten the complete opposite notion.
“For the last five years, we’ve been under the impression there were no surviving females in our pack,” Declan said. “Suddenly, discovering there are makes us even more protective. Especially, our alpha. His instinct is to keep you safe, shielded from further attacks—all of us feel the same. My brother understands that my mate needs to be a part of this and that I need to be a part of it with you. So let’s head to your house, get what you need then the hunt is on.”
She shook her head.
“You don’t want to go now?” He sounded incredulous.
“After Lawrence? Of course, I do. But I don’t need to go home. Not now. I won’t find what I was looking for there.”
“What were you looking for?” Declan inquired.
She shrugged. “A reason…not to feel so…empty. I thought if I went home, if I could just see…” She broke off with a shake of her head. “I thought I might find that, but it wasn’t home I needed. It’s not the past. It’s here and now. It’s the future.” She met his gaze. “It’s you. My reason is you.”
He stepped into her. “I don’t want you ever to feel empty again. I want to fill you. Every part of you.”
“You do,” she promised. It scared her just how much he already filled her heart and mind.
“You do the same to me. It’s a scary feeling, isn’t it?”
She nodded, relieved he felt the same. “So…what do we do now?”
“Since our plans have altered, any objections to sleeping in a bed tonight? We can wait for Milo and Fletch to get here tomorrow and all leave together. Or, if you really want to, we can leave tonight. Let them catch up to us. It’s up to you.”
“I was running, from you, from my sisters, from…everything. I don’t want to run anymore.”
“Then don’t,” he suggested.
“A bed sounds pretty good,” she said. “As long as you’re in it with me.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he stated.
She leaned into him, her hands pressing against his chest while his fell to cup her hips. Their lips brushed then parted as tongues met and meshed. She tasted herself on him.
He was the one who pulled away with a groan. “If we don’t stop, I’ll have you up against a tree again.”
“If that’s a threat, you’ve failed abysmally,” she told him with a smile.
“I do believe you’re smiling,” Declan commented. “And here, I thought all you were capable of was growling.”
“Maybe, it’s because I like the way your chest rumbles when I do.”
He let a rumble rise from his chest, and her smiled widened.
“That’s what I’m talking about.”
He sighed. “If only we weren’t about to be interrupted.”
“Yeah,” she agreed.
Xandra had known when she’d spoken in front of Koby that he’d tell his mate Xandra was leaving. At least, he’d given Declan a head start before letting Sidia know her sister had gone.
“Only two. Sidia must not have stopped to fill Jaeda in,” Declan whispered.
“She was occupied with her mate,” Sidia said as she stompe
d into the clearing with Koby right behind her. “I refuse to interrupt her. She deserves the happiness she’s found with Holt. The last thing I want to tell her is that you’ve left again. What the fuck are you thinking? Do you have any idea how much we’ve worried about you? Especially when we found out about Lawrence and knew he’d kept you all these years. We had no idea if you were dead or alive.”
“I know.” Xandra tried to soothe her younger sister. “I worried about both of you, as well.”
“Then why would you take off in the middle of the night when we just got you back?” Sidia demanded.
“I’m not going anywhere until tomorrow,” Xandra replied. She ignored the glance Koby gave Declan and focused on her sister. “My mate and I were about to head back when you two showed up.”
Sidia gave a pointed glare toward her mate then glanced back at Xandra. “Where are you going tomorrow?”
“Hunting,” Declan said. “With me.”
“Don’t even think about it,” Koby warned his mate. “You know I can’t leave right now. Laramie needs us both here.”
Sidia looked as if she wanted to argue, but the expression on her mate’s face must have convinced her otherwise. The bond between the two seemed very strong to Xandra.
“I need to do this, Sidia,” Xandra said. “I need to be a part of the team that hunts down Lawrence down. I need you and Jaeda to understand that.”
“And we need you to understand that we won’t be kept in the dark,” Sidia countered. “We’re all grown women with mates. Jaeda and I don’t need you to protect us. We need you to talk to us, to trust us.”
“I’ll try,” Xandra vowed. She understood what her sister was saying, but she’d been watching out for her younger sisters all her life. It wasn’t something she could stop doing on command, especially with all the threats Lawrence had made toward Jaeda and Sidia over the last five years.
Sidia pulled Xandra to her, hugging her hard, and Xandra returned the embrace just as fiercely. Funny how she’d thought visiting their old house would hold all the answers for her. Instead, everything she needed was right here on Holloway land. Home wasn’t a building. It was people. More specifically, it was her mate and sisters.
