Pack princess, p.15
Pack Princess, page 15
Meanwhile, Justin’s wolf appeared to share Sarah’s tender feelings, even if his human side hid the attraction beneath an impassive exterior. And, as I met Dale’s gaze from across the room, I belatedly realized the purpose behind the duo’s deception. The doctor currently facing off against werewolves with me was the only medical professional with the knowledge to operate on a shifter...and thus Dale was the only doctor likely to ensure that a werewolf pregnant with a bloodling baby would survive. Which in turn suggested that Sarah hadn’t been the only one pulling the wool over my eyes. Justin must have tossed his mate in our direction with the full knowledge that Wolfie and I were likely to bring Dale into the picture as soon as we realized Sarah’s state. Meanwhile, the pack princess had simply played along with my assumptions, waiting until she was shed of the wolf pup within her womb before returning to the arms of her loving spouse.
Well, loving might have been an overstatement. But after pulling my nephew alongside him as he edged his way to the window, Justin did bark at his underlings until several turned two-legged and carefully lifted the pack princess out of the room. The others soon followed in her wake, and then Justin was the final invader remaining inside the clinic, my nephew clutched in one strong arm to ensure the alpha’s own safe escape.
Only then did Justin deign to meet my eyes, the grin that reminded me so much of my mate’s spreading across his equally handsome face. “You really shouldn’t play games that you can’t win,” Wolfie’s brother said after a long, gloating pause. Then, pushing Keith in my direction, the alpha leveraged his body through the window-shaped hole and was gone.
It was then, as I took in the crumpled form of my nephew, my beaten brother-in-law, the quiet bloodling, and the dead yahoo who had protected me with his life, that I knew that Justin was right. I shouldn’t have embarked on a campaign that required skills so far beyond my capabilities. When it came right down to it, Justin had played me as easily as my father had. And both times, the opposing alpha had won.
“WADE IS DEAD,” I GREETED my mate, barely able to speak the words as Wolfie came down the hallway at a run. And I might as well have killed him myself, I finished silently. There was no breathing room to castigate myself in public, though, not when our few remaining pack mates required the support of a strong leader to raise their flagging spirits and to tend to their wounds. But it was hard to stand tall when my own weakness had been the cause of Justin’s escape and of the death of a shifter under my care.
At least Wade appeared to have been the only casualty. Behind Wolfie, David was pressing his shirt into a large gash that cut across Blaze’s ribs, but both shifters were walking easily, so I quickly dismissed them from my attention. Meanwhile, the tiny wolf pup that I’d scooped up moments earlier was gnawing at my finger with needle teeth, and both Keith and his father were standing unharmed at my back, but even the bloodling’s furry warmth couldn’t make up for the loss of the yahoo who had stood so staunchly by my side...and whom I’d been unable to save.
“And Sarah?” Wolfie asked simply in lieu of a greeting or a remark on his yahoo’s demise. My mate took in the blood-stained floor, the two dead wolves, and the room’s living inhabitants at a glance, and I couldn’t tell by his tone whether or not he blamed me for the yahoo’s death. There was no criticism or grief in Wolfie’s voice at all, in fact. Instead of focusing on the past, my mate’s wolf was completely unified with his human mind as the duo thought three steps ahead in order to win a game that had not yet entirely played out.
“Gone,” Dale answered when I seemed unable to force words out of my constricted throat. The doctor motioned for Blaze to hop up on his examining table, and the human quickly began stitching the shifter’s wound without benefit of anesthetic. Unlike me, my brother-in-law had realized that none of us had time to fall apart—we would need to take full advantage of the current lull if we wanted to reach Haven in time to throw in our lot with the other members of our pack. So the doctor stitched, and then, turning to open another cabinet, pulled out baby formula and a bottle, which he pressed into my shaking hands.
Well, if my human brother-in-law was able to keep it together in the face of a werewolf battle, then I could do no less. So I squashed my guilt and grief, swallowed hard to force incipient tears down my throat, and then I finally told Wolfie what had occurred in as few words as possible. Because, if I couldn’t protect the werewolves in my care, then at least I could give all the facts to someone who would be able to do the job properly.
As Wolfie and I conversed quietly, Blaze and David were lifting Wade’s still form in preparation for evacuating from the room, and I followed their lead by putting my hands to use as well, fumbling with the baby bottle until I could raise the nutritious liquid to the pup’s lips. Despite the formula’s cold temperature, the bloodling accepted the nipple and sucked greedily, relaxing into my arms, and even though I wanted to hate this peppermint-and-pine-needle-scented bundle as much as I now hated its mother, I knew I didn’t have that kind of malice within me. So instead of leaving the bloodling to perish as Justin would have, I just hugged the pup close to my naked chest, and Wolfie took a precious second away from our departure preparations in order to pull both of us deeper into his arms.
But there was no time to wallow in emotions. “You’ll come with us?” my mate asked the sole human present once our small crew had gathered everything we’d entered with...everything plus one newborn wolf pup. The bloodling alpha was giving my brother-in-law the benefit of a request rather than a command, although we all knew that there was no other way that Dale could keep himself and his son safe alone, and the doctor thanked Wolfie for the courtesy with a wan smile and a nod. Then, with one last glance around the clinic-turned-battleground, we turned toward the outside and the war to come.
I DIDN’T FALL APART until I saw the smoke rising from the ashes of what used to be Wolfie’s clan home. Our little convoy of vehicles was forced to drive past my mate’s property on our way to the highway, and Wolfie didn’t even pause when he noticed that his crazy-quilt conglomeration of trailers and gardens had been burned to the ground in his pack’s absence. Yes, my mate’s jaw did clench, but then he relaxed, and I realized that Wolfie was already busy reassuring himself that every one of his pack mates had been long gone before Justin’s lackeys poured gasoline across the walls of his hard-won home and then struck a match to set the residence flaring into destruction. To my bloodling mate, the compound and its buildings were just things, not people, and thus weren’t worth mourning as long as all of the shifters who once lived inside were safely gone.
But, to me, the charred remains of a home that had been so full of joy and laughter just a few days earlier was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Tears overflowed onto my cheeks as every one of my failures rose to the surface of my mind and clouded other thoughts. Over the last week, I’d played into Justin’s hands repeatedly, had believed the words of a pack princess who had never told me anything but lies, had allowed my nephew to be held at knife point, and had failed to prevent my peaceful human brother-in-law from being drawn into a shifter battle. Last, but certainly not least, I had been unable to protect Wade, the yahoo who had stood by my side the entire time that my mate and I had been apart and who had been the most staunch ally that I’d ever known. And now, added on top of all of those other deficiencies, I’d also been responsible for Wolfie’s pack losing their unique and beloved home. How could I not be wracked with guilt?
So, I did the only thing I could think of when my heart seemed to be breaking beneath the weight of my own negligence. I opened my mouth...and attempted to pass every bit of that blame along to my mate.
“You knew that Sarah didn’t really want to leave her mate, didn’t you?” I demanded, the sleeping wolf pup in my lap stirring at my angry words but the alpha beside me simply continuing to drive down the dark country lane without flinching. Smart man, he didn’t remark on my out-of-the-blue accusations, just allowed me to vent my fury onto his strong back. “You knew, and yet you sent Sarah to me with no warning,” I added.
At that, Wolfie was forced to at least respond, if not to lash out at me in kind. “I wrote you a note. I said: ‘I’m sending you trouble,’” he quoted himself, cocking his head to one side and shooting a glance in my direction before returning his eyes to the road. Even when defending himself, my mate’s voice was calm and soothing, but his quiet tone only turned up the heat of my anger.
Rather than speaking right away, though, I glanced under my mate’s skin, where I saw his wolf attempting to speak with my own. Given time, chances were good that the two canines would have found a way to settle my human half down, but I was too upset to be reasoned with. So, instead, I fortified the walls that I so seldom used to cage away my animal half, shutting her out of sight and enabling my human mind to unleash its ire with minimal distractions from the more rational side of my brain.
“And then you told Wade to obey you, not me,” I continued shrilly, ignoring both wolves’ attempts to placate me and plunging further down the dark path that I’d embarked upon. “How did you expect me to lead if half of the shifters in my pack were answering to another alpha?”
I might as well have shifted forms and bit my mate instead of spewing angry words, because his wolf now dropped its tail between its legs as I continued to rant. Only when I took in Wolfie’s reaction and felt a jolt of disappointment run through my body in response did I realize that my subconscious had been hoping to provoke the other alpha into anger all along. I wanted my mate to yell at me, to say that I was a failure, that my pack would be better off without a weak woman at its head. Perhaps then I’d be forced to fight back and would forget for a few blessed moments that I had disappointed every shifter within my care.
But while I’d sought anger, my mate instead offered sympathy. Wolfie dropped one large hand off the steering wheel, allowing his palm to settle atop my thigh, and the warmth of his touch made my nearly-squelched tears flow faster. “You’re right,” the bloodling alpha said simply. “It’s past time for our packs to be merged....”
And there was that spark of fury that I’d craved, resurfacing in my chest just in time to wipe away my waterworks. “So I failed and now you’re ready to take the reins out of my hands?” I demanded. Moments earlier, I’d been ready to pass the Wilder clan over to my mate’s capable command, to relieve myself of the burden of responsibility that I barely seemed strong enough to shoulder. But now, when Wolfie’s lips quirked up into a hint of a smile, I started loosening my wolf’s chains in preparation for scraping that smirk off the side of his face.
But Wolfie didn’t rise to the bait, nor did he give me time to build up to further outrage. “No,” my mate said simply. “You didn’t fail.” Stopping the truck in the middle of the nearly-deserted road, he unhooked my seat belt and pulled me toward him across the bench seat, the wolf pup in my lap crawling over to settle into the hollow between our conjoined hips despite the angry words that had been passing over its young head. “When werewolves fight, werewolves die,” my mate continued, reaching over to wipe a lone tear off my right cheek. “You kept us from fighting for as long as you were able, and no matter what you think, that’s a success. But it’s time to join forces and work together so we can prevent further bloodshed. Which is why I say we need to join our packs. Because two pack leaders are better than one.”
And, unlike any other alpha male I’d ever met, I could tell that Wolfie was fully willing to give up part of the control of his own pack, and to take only partial control of my pack in return. He sincerely believed that our two clans could and should be merged together, and that the two of us would be flexible enough to navigate the resulting maze of power without stepping on each other’s toes. Now, looking at his strong but cordial wolf who could have snapped at my unfounded accusations but was instead pressing toward me through my mate’s insides, I knew that Wolfie was right.
But I still looked away, returning my attention to the darkness outside the window. “You don’t want me to join you as pack leader,” I said quietly, but now I knew that I did want to be convinced, so I allowed my wolf to wriggle up out of her prison and join in our conversation. Not that she or my mate’s animal half seemed to be very interested in the subject at hand, offering not a single word of advice. Instead, the two lupines frolicked, overjoyed at our physical proximity after such an extended time apart.
I would have loved to submerge myself in the wolves’ joy, but my human brain wasn’t quite so willing to relieve herself of guilt. “I let Wade die and Sarah get sucked back into her mate’s pack,” I said simply, flagellating myself with the words and trying to explain to Wolfie why I didn’t deserve to continue as the leader of the Wilder pack. A physical blow couldn’t have hurt more than the knowledge that I’d failed those two shifters...had in fact failed one of them all the way to the grave. How could I pretend that I wouldn’t make the same mistakes all over again?
“Sarah would have left no matter what you did,” the bloodling alpha rumbled, not rejecting my guilt, but rather mitigating it. “And Wade....” Wolfie paused, and I could tell that my mate was as brokenhearted about the eldest yahoo’s loss as I was. But Wolfie’s voice was firm when he continued. “Seven years ago, when I saved Wade’s life, he told me that he’d keep trying until he could repay that debt. I’ll never forget Wade, but I can promise you that he died happy.”
So when a younger yahoo beeped his horn impatiently from the car behind us, I was forced to accept Wolfie’s absolution. In fact, by the time my mate put the car into gear and started driving toward the new home of our joined packs, the wolf pup and I were united in our urge to snuggle as close as we could to the warm form of the alpha beside us. And when, to the delight of my wolf, my human half, and the bloodling in our lap alike, Wolfie dropped his right arm off the steering wheel to wrap it around my shoulders, our entire family felt encircled within his protective care. Perhaps, together, Wolfie and I could similarly guard all of the shifters who called us chief.
Dropping my head onto my mate’s chest and closing my eyes, I relaxed at last into the belief that every part of the pack of my heart might soon be united at last.
Chapter 19
Ready or not, here I come.
The telegram shocked me not so much in its language as in its very existence. Dozens of Haven werewolves plus Wolfie’s transplanted pack had traded off guard duty throughout the night, fully expecting Justin to bring the battle to our doorstep at any moment. So no one was surprised by this dawn sally...no one except me, that is.
Why the astonishment? Well, this second missive reminded me far too much of an earlier telegram, and of a message that had given me the strength to avoid my mate at All-Pack. And now I realized that my telegram-inspired evasion had played right into Justin’s hands by keeping Sarah within the Wilder pack until she went into labor.
“You never sent me a telegram while we were apart, did you?” I asked my mate quietly as we stood side by side on the doorstep of Cricket’s home. Wolfie simply shook his head, his sharp gaze taking in my distress, but he didn’t ask for details. There was no time now to share the tale of how I had once again been hoodwinked by his brother, and the particulars didn’t really matter this time around anyway. Because I refused to let Justin shake my focus again with childish tricks—Haven was where Wolfie and I had chosen to make our stand, and we would defeat the invading pack that was even now rumbling toward us up the driveway. There was simply no other alternative except success.
“We’re ready,” my mate said simply, following my train of thought with ease. And although his reassurance was primarily meant for my ears, he raised his voice slightly so that the ever-present shifters around us could make out his words. There’d been some dissent already among my more straight-laced relatives, their growing unhappiness with my own leadership exacerbated by Wolfie’s presence, but no one seemed willing to provoke my mate with outright argument. Instead, the werewolves around us just kept their heads down and busied themselves by preparing for the immanent invasion.
We didn’t have long to wait. Dozens of black SUVs so much like the ones my father loved to send out to intimidate other packs crunched up the gravel drive and then halted with geometric precision atop the carefully manicured grass in our central green. “No regard for landscaping,” Wolfie said lightly, and I could feel the tension levels around us ease slightly. If our pack leader could joke about tire marks on our perfect lawn, then surely no shifter would be harmed today.
Unfortunately, I could tell that Wolfie’s humor was just a bluff. Because his lupine half wasn’t resting calmly on its paws, but was instead rising up behind their shared eyes and growling softly as my mate’s brother stepped out of the lead vehicle and onto Wilder ground. And when Justin strode up the steps to the porch, too confident in his own power to even wait for the protection of an entourage, then held out his right hand to his sibling, I could tell that my mate was restraining his inner wolf with an iron hand.
“Brother,” Justin said, the greeting cordial even though there was no warmth in his tone. But the younger sibling simply raised an eyebrow and rejected the proffered handshake, causing Justin to take a step back in response and to drop all semblance of civility.
“Well, if that’s the way you want it to be, then you have five minutes to leave before I torch this place too,” the older pack leader said. Justin’s words still lacked heat, but since several of us had driven past Wolfie’s former home just hours before, we knew he wasn’t joking. I forced my muscles not to quiver in response to the threat, and I could feel the other shifters around us similarly working hard to maintain their own composure.
