Maylee flinched, and he knew the truth in Dustin’s words.
Esme wasn’t hers.
The realization hit Ellis hard in the face, the chest, the gut. She’d passed off a child as her own with sly words about the father not being in the picture.
Yet there he was, demanding the return of his cub.
Not her mate. Not her cub.
More shock and confusion bubbled inside him than anger. That had to be a good sign, right? His wolf wasn’t howling to fly at any of them, to make others hurt as much as his own insides ached.
He was in control, not his rabid inner beast.
Ellis hadn’t caught her in the arms of another. She’d kept secrets, but hadn’t betrayed him personally.
Except she didn’t trust him. Didn’t trust any of them.
“Jumping Maylee and making all those pretty threats doesn’t exactly scream Father of the Year to me,” Jensen said in a low voice. The stench of fur and pissed-off dominance puffed into the air with his every exhale. “Take your clan business and get the fuck out of town.”
Dustin met him snarl for snarl.
Ellis clenched his fists hard enough to crack his knuckles. Three on three. Four, if he counted Maylee. Much as he didn’t want her involved, he doubted she’d stay out of the fray.
They’d faced worse odds before and fucking won.
The bear could count, because he stepped back and softened his stance.
“No offense intended, alpha.” He punctuated the lie by spitting on the ground. “All right. We’ll be back in the daylight hours to make our claim. I’m not leaving without my cub.” He pointed at Maylee. “Don’t let this one skip town.”
Jensen waited until the trio turned the corner before speaking. “We stagger going home. Wyatt, you leave first. Keep a watch for anyone tailing you and let me know either way. Maylee, Ellis, you’ll leave after he gives us the all-clear. I’ll follow since you need to pick up Esme from Noelle.”
Maylee stirred. “I should—”
Jensen growled low in his throat. “If you’re about to suggest anything other than heading back to your room and getting a good night’s sleep, I will strap you down myself.” He reached forward and squeezed her shoulder. “Tomorrow. We’ll figure it out tomorrow.”
Ellis met his alpha’s eyes over her head. The order was clear.
Get the full story on the threats the pack faced.
Chapter 10
Maylee followed Ellis down the winding road to his small house, set apart from others on his street. The darkness loomed at her, even with assurances that Wyatt hadn’t been followed and no one had tailed them to Jensen’s. She wiped her slick palms one at a time on her thighs and glanced in her rearview for the thousandth time to check on Esme.
She slept peacefully, as she’d been when Maylee picked her up and strapped her into the back seat. No sign of the trouble Dustin brought marred her chubby cheeks. Maylee envied the little cub’s tranquility.
She had a duty to uphold it.
Ellis pulled to a stop in front of the small house and held up a hand once Maylee turned in beside him. His eyes glowed gold as he cast a look over the darkened home.
She rolled down her window. No extra scents filtered through her nose, but anxiety still clawed up her throat. Her inner bear paced under her skin and made her even more jumpy.
“Stay here until I check it out,” Ellis said without looking at her.
Worry, resignation, and the events of the night all sapped the fight from her. Maylee simply nodded and checked all the car locks.
Alone again in the darkness, her shoulders slumped. Weight pushed at her with more force than gravity alone, but she felt a strange sort of relief. There would be no more hiding behind her shield of lies. Dustin had cleared away the web she’d woven and all her secrets were ready for others to pick through. Starting with the man coming back down the steps with his brows drawn tight.
Funny. If she’d been told a week ago that she’d feel the hollowness of guilt ringing inside her at that look from that man, she’d have laughed.
“Nothing out of place,” Ellis said gruffly. “We were the last ones here.”
He waited until she clicked out of her seatbelt and unlocked the door, then opened it for her.
Time was up. She had to come clean.
Esme barely stirred when Maylee took her out of the car and carried her inside.
The front door closed softly, the click of the lock cracking through the living room like gunfire. Maylee glanced over her shoulder. Ellis leaned back against the door like he leaned when he stood as bouncer inside Dark Horse. His eyes were tight as he tracked her movements, but he didn’t try to get in her way or make demands for answers.
That would come after she was free of her charge.
Maylee padded through the living room and down the hall. Little details poked out at her when she reached the room she shared with Esme. A thin inch of her sheet poking out from under the thicker comforter. The slight misalignment of the crib against the wall.
She settled Esme into her crib. Skies above, she was growing bigger every day. It wouldn’t be long before she was ready for a toddler bed. After that came school and boys and more trouble than any sane person would sign up for, but did anyway whenever they decided to have a child because the quiet moments like the one that held her made every last struggle worth it.
Ellis’s eyes followed her there, too, feeling like the lights of a train coming for her.
Maylee glanced over her shoulder, then back down to the sleeping cub. Struggles waited for her on the other side of her door. No matter the words that were said, she would honor her vow to keep Esme safe.
“You’re still bleeding,” she said softly.
Ellis pressed fingers to his lips and pulled away red. “No bother,” he answered gruffly. “Should heal by morning.”
“Let me take a look.”
Ellis moved only to make room for her to pass. His eyes followed her as she went into the bathroom and returned with a clean washcloth. When she turned toward the kitchen, he pushed off the wall and trailed after her, pulling the door closed to a crack.
Maylee kept her hands busy while her mind raced. She tried out the feel of sentences and wiped them out before they touched her tongue. Nothing seemed right.
With the washcloth damp, she turned to find Ellis seated at the table. Dark eyes didn’t leave her face as she approached. No anger. No demands. She was struck by the difference between him and Dustin. Ellis was beefy big and used his size to intimidate, but only when necessary. Dustin wanted the whole world to cower before him. He’d have fisted a hand in her hair and yanked her around until she gave him her words.
Ellis flinched when she dabbed at his split lip, but otherwise remained still and silent.
“The cut isn’t too deep.”
“The fucker knows how to hit,” he answered, voice like gravel.
“That he does.” Maylee winced. Her bear roared at the conjured images of Helena. She had enough real examples to make the last imagined set particularly horrifying.
She swallowed hard and took a seat across from Ellis. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Just tell me one thing. Something small. The rest will come.”
Maylee sighed. She stretched the damp cloth between her fingers, pulling and pushing the edges apart like an accordion. “The beginning, then,” she said finally. “Esme’s mother, her real mother, was my twin.”
Familiar grief swelled in her heart. Her throat tightened and her lungs felt pierced with needles. Alanna knew Helena existed, but not how the puzzle piece fit in with the rest. Outside of the players in her tragedy, Ellis was the first who would hear it all.
“Helena and I, we did everything together, but that had to come to an end sometime. People grow up. Matching outfits forced on us by our parents stopped being cute. We had to make our own paths. But even so, we were still best friends. Then Dustin came along.
“Our town wasn’t
much bigger than this, though we boasted two bars and several bring-your-own-beer private gathering places. Helena spent her evening hours at the bigger bar. Most of the younger crowd, in fact. And she could make friends with anyone. Young, old, male, female, she’d have you holding your stomach and wiping the tears from your eyes within a half hour. So it was natural that she attracted Dustin. Hell, all the unmated males tried to get her to notice them.”
That spark she’d tried to ignore with Ellis, it’d been there from the first night. Long looks, sudden intakes of breath. Helena hadn’t been able to take her eyes off Dustin, and he seemed just as under her spell. Maybe that was why he twisted her up so much. Allowing someone that much power was a form of submission, and a man like Dustin couldn’t abide relinquishing that much control.
“Within a month, she stopped going out as much. By two, she started pulling away from friends and family. Three months, she announced they would be mated. Four, just after he took alpha, the first visible bruises. I tried to get her to leave him, but he was alpha and her mate. How do you leave a man bonded to you for life and who can alpha order you back into the house? Where could she have gone? That was when she found out she was pregnant.”
Ellis shifted in his seat. He could do the rough math. Esme was about a year old. Time was running out for the Helena in her story.
Maylee crushed the washcloth in her fist. She should have done more. She failed her twin by not dragging her kicking and screaming into her car and driving off into the sunset. Esme should have had her mother for more than six months. The arms that held her, the kisses that soothed her, those should have been Helena. The cub deserved more than a life on the run with an aunt just trying to get by.
Ellis reached forward and covered her hand until she relaxed her fist. Warmth flared, and instead of pulling away, Maylee sank into the comfort it provided.
Ellis wasn’t like Dustin. He helped with Esme, taking her out of her crib for breakfast instead of yelling at Maylee to keep the brat quiet. He opened his home to them when he could just as easily turned them out on the street.
None of the Rawlins pack were like that awful man. They were rough, wild, and cursed too much when they weren’t minding their tongues, but they cared for each other and the women and children in their care.
“Dustin was as big a shithead while she was pregnant, but at least he didn’t put his hands on her. Didn’t want to risk his future heir, I guess. He flaunted his conquests around town, though, and didn’t deal with any of the appointments or buying of baby things. Hell, he didn’t even show up when she went into labor. I held her hand during her contractions and cut the cord because he had zero interest in ‘female things.’”
Ellis narrowed his eyes and growled. “Asshole,” he muttered with pure venom.
Staring off into space, she gave herself over to the calm before the storm. “But he couldn’t ruin the first moment Helena held Esme in her arms. Sweaty, disheveled, she was beautiful when she beamed a smile at her little girl. Nothing rotten touched that scene.”
Maylee couldn’t help but smile as the fresh sending shoved at her by her bear. Ellis was front and center, a tiny blonde girl dancing around his legs. He crouched low and held an even tinier, dark-haired bundle close to his chest.
Her heart seized at the perfect picture of a proud father he made. He’d make some woman very happy one day.
It wouldn’t be her. She’d hurt his pack with her lies. They’d given her aid while she kept up her deception. Even if she could tolerate the idea of a mate, her place wasn’t with the Rawlins pack.
The end barreled down on her, but there was no avoiding the details. They’d all taken their steps and moved the pieces on the board.
“You see, in my old clan, boys were for war and women were for babies. Dustin didn’t want Esme. He didn’t want Helena, either, after she gave him a little girl. But what can you do when you’re marked and mated?
“The peace lasted barely a month. Babies cry. They need love and attention, neither of which Dustin provided. Helena caught the brunt of it because she couldn’t keep Esme quiet all hours of the day. Then came the accusations that Esme wasn’t his, that Helena had stepped out and that was why the alpha didn’t have an heir. Maybe it was pure projection. Maybe he was laying the groundwork for what came next.”
The air vibrated around her with another growl from Ellis. “What came next?”
Maylee’s throat worked, but no sound left her lips. She dropped her eyes.
A thick finger tucked under her chin and lifted her gaze. Ellis’s eyes swirled with golden concern. “When you’re ready.”
Maylee nodded and dragged down a deep breath. “Helena died from multiple stab wounds. Her body was found in a ditch, not even hours after she took her final breath.”
Words. Facts. Her brain echoed with the roar of her bear. She pushed the beast aside and held back on the wave of pain that threatened to crush her heart.
Simple words held such power.
She wiped the tears that sprang to the corners of her eyes. She’d cried her tears for her identical half. Helena had given her a job that she intended to see to the end.
“I think she knew what would happen. She dropped Esme off that night and told me to keep her safe. So that’s what I’ve been doing.”
Silence expanded in the air around them. Maylee prepared herself for the snap. Ellis had sat and listened. Commiserated, even. But she’d told lies and endangered his pack. The calm exterior would crack and reveal the aggressive male underneath.
He stood and drew her to her feet.
Then crushed her tight to his chest.
“He will never get his hands on either of you,” Ellis growled. “That, I swear to you.”
Maylee sagged against him, face buried in his shirt, and breathed through the shakes that consumed her body. She shook her head and murmured, “This isn’t your fight. I should go before dawn.”
Ellis grabbed her shoulders and forced her back a step. A growl ripped out of him. “Not my fight?”
His hands went to her cheeks, and he kissed her.
Shock dumped over her, which was the only reason she didn’t pull away instantly. Or so she told herself. The deep hum from her very middle told a different story. A story of want and need.
She wanted the man. She needed his touch.
The knot that’d bound her from head to foot for six long months unraveled in his arms.
One breath melded into another as his lips caressed hers. Hot, demanding, his kiss was one part distraction and ten parts pure ecstasy.
Maylee groaned when Ellis swept his tongue against the seam of her mouth, and groaned again at the electricity that sparked against her skin when he deepened the kiss. Twisting strokes held her in place and left her wanting more.
Ellis pulled back with a soft smack. “This became my fight the moment I caught your scent. You have my word. You have my pack. I will keep you both safe.”
She wanted to believe him.
Chapter 11
A persistent knocking on the front door jerked Ellis awake. His head pounded in time with the rattle against the house. Or maybe that was his own worry-induced hangover shaking things around.
His wolf growled at him to make it stop.
Fuck. What had he been thinking? Kissing Maylee after she’d told him some dark shit?
He’d been thinking he needed to stop her from leaving.
Because locking lips was the surefire way to make a cautious woman who’d already seen the rough side of relationships stick around.
The next round of knocks cut his argument with himself. His wolf’s growl rumbled into the air as he threw himself out of bed and into a wrinkled pair of jeans.
Maylee poked her head out of her room once he hit the hallway and, fuck him, he nearly stopped dead in his tracks at the wisps of hair stuck up from sleep.
The knocking sounded again and Esme let off a wail.
Ellis shook himself and motioned her back inside. “I
got this.”
Yeah, he didn’t care who was on the other side of the door. They were getting a fist to the face for waking the sleeping cub.
Ellis whipped open the door with a growl which he cut off immediately. Alanna and Wyatt bracketed Atticus, their grins competing with the cub’s glare as he dutifully held out a drink holder filled with steaming to-go cups.
“Good morning!” Alanna chirped cheerfully. “Apologies for coming over so early. We brought coffee to make up for the intrusion.” She peeked around the doorframe. “I hear Esme. How are the girls doing?”
“We’re fine!” Maylee called as she came out of the back hall, bouncing Esme on her hip. The tears of a rude awakening had dried up to begrudging smiles and half-hearted laughs. Grumpy cub probably wanted her breakfast.
Alanna slipped past to help take care of Esme while Wyatt and Atticus lingered with him by the door.
“All good, big guy?” Wyatt asked.
Ellis slashed his eyes to the side at the trace of concern in the man’s voice.
He’d looped Jensen and Wyatt into the news as soon as Maylee fled back to her room. After their kiss.
The words echoed through his head. After their kiss. After their kiss. Fuck him, he’d taken advantage of her and she’d run away. He just couldn’t keep from shooting himself in both feet, then sticking those suckers straight into his mouth.
Ellis blinked. Wyatt looked at him expectantly. Well, fuck him. So the long, tense night without sleep left him a little off. Nothing those cups of coffee wouldn’t fix.
“Fine,” he answered. He plucked one of the coffees from the holder and resisted pouring the whole thing down his throat in one go. Barely.
In the kitchen, Maylee and Alanna quickly turned the hungry cub into a smiling mess. Esme’s eyes shot wide at the first blueberry she shoved into her mouth, then giggled when one shot off her tray and rolled across the floor.
“Yum,” Maylee encouraged and offered a spoonful of yogurt. “Can you say yum?”
Bourbon and Bears: Book Three: Shifters and Sins Page 7
