Xander's Mate

by Abigail Raines

  The Tremblays will ruin us all.

  I won’t lie. I am obsessed with that truth. It’s all I can think about in this cage. Xander Tremblay somehow stumbling upon Olivia is only the icing on the cake. I don’t know how she found him or how he found her. It must have been deliberate. He set out to ruin me, to keep me locked up here because I dared to attempt to find a path forward for shifter kind.

  There is only one answer to this nightmare future the Tremblays would create.

  I must destroy them. How I will do that from this cell is the question. But there is no other option. I have been plotting how though. There’s nothing else to think about in here anyway. If I’d been granted probation, I would’ve been pounding the pavement seeking allies and putting an agenda together. As it is, my only option is to find allies here and plot an escape. After that...the sky’s the limit.

  I’ve been speaking to the other prisoners. Everyone near me is from Hardwidge. I always thought of them as a trash pack but in truth, they have had the right idea all along. They were true to their principles of living like wolves. We all should be following their example, not trying not to prevent another pack like them. The only wolf who will not speak to me is Jason. From what I’ve gathered, he’s the brother of the girl who escaped Hardwidge and ended up with Mason Tremblay and is now trying to impose these fascistic new rules. Jason won’t give me the time of day. He won’t speak to anyone in fact. It’s too bad. He’s managed to escape Mulligan before and I don’t know how he did it. Now he’s back, in a cell across from me. He never speaks to anyone, he only sulks in his cell. He even seems remorseful. He’s a useless wolf then. And too weak to be of any real use.

  “Kyle?” I’m shifted back into human form, clutching the bars of my cell. To my right is Kyle. He was Jason’s lackey from what I gather. Jason won’t even talk to him now. I can tell Kyle is pissed about it. When Kyle isn’t shifted he’s sitting up against the bars and often yelling pretty colorful insults at Jason who just sits there, staring and taking it. “Hey, Kyle.”

  I’ve spoke to Kyle a bit. He seems wary of me as a “city shifter.” But Hardwidge wolves are always suspicious of anyone from another pack. To some degree though, he does seem to respect me just for having been an alpha.

  “Yeah?” Kyle was standing up and now he sits on the bench against the bars between us, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “What, Jack?”

  “I’ve been thinking…”

  “I’ll bet you have,” Kyle says, cackling a little. “Probation hearing didn’t go so well, huh?”

  “No,” I say darkly. “No surprise there. Most people are in the pocket of Xander Tremblay. But there were some votes in my favor.”

  Kyle gives me a long look. I get the impression he wasn’t much more than a yes man toadie for Jason. That’s good. I can exploit that. “What do you want, Jack?”

  “Me and everyone who fought for the Hardwidge pack want the same thing,” I say slowly. “We want wolves to act like wolves and not humans. We want to preserve our kind.”

  “We want to take down the Tremblays,” I say smirking a little. He turns toward me, gripping the bars. He’s paying attention now.

  “Listen, I’ve got allies on the outside,” I tell him. “Hardwidge doesn’t. Because people didn’t understand it. But they could. What you do have is numbers where it counts. Right here in Mulligan.”

  “You want to plot an escape,” Kyle says, whispering.

  “I want to plot an escape,” I say, nodding. “And then I want to form an army. And if you’re saying that you’re on board, I need to know that you don’t mind getting your hands dirty when it comes to the Tremblays or anyone who would defend them?”

  “Dirty?” Kyle licks his teeth and cackles. “Well, I know an explosives guy Dax always meant to use if things had gone the way they were supposed to. How’s that for dirty? All I need to do is make a call once we’re out.”

  “That’s good,” I say, nodding. ‘“That’s real good. Now about this escape…”

  “It wouldn’t even be hard,” Kyle says, glancing around to make sure nobody’s listening. “Mulligan isn’t used to so many prisoners. They don’t have the manpower to stop a mass breakout. It would be messy as hell, but it can be done. Just gotta put the word out.”

  I look at him steadily and say, “Then put the goddamn word out.”

  Chapter Ten: Olivia

  When I wake up in Xander’s arms, nothing seems even slightly out of place. It should, I guess. A few days ago, I would have thought waking up in Xander’s arms would mean that one or both of us would immediately panic. I would have thought he’d get skittish or cold just like he did in Chile, and say that this can’t happen again. And then I’d pretend that it was fine. But all that’s over now. I’m sure of it as he spoons up behind me. I hear him stir and I feel his warm breath on the back of my neck, his arms around me as his body presses up against mine.

  He’s mine.

  “Your bed’s comfy,” he murmurs.

  “I hope so,” I say, playing with his hand where it clasps mine. “I sleep in it every night.”

  “No, I mean...my bed was so expensive,” he says into my skin. His goatee pleasantly tickles my neck and I shiver. “But it wasn’t worth the money. Yours is just as good.”

  “Good to know,” I say, chuckling.

  “It might be the woman I’m holding onto that makes me like it so much,” he says. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he sounds just a little bit tentative. It’s as if he’s asking for confirmation that this is as real to me as it is to him.

  “It might be,” I say, smiling to myself and playing coy.

  “Oliviaaaa,” he says, singing a little bit.

  I roll over in bed to face him. There’s always something sweet (or anyway there should be) about waking up in somebody’s arms in the morning. There’s not time for makeup or even to get rid of the morning breath and wash your face. Your hair is messy and you probably have wrinkling from pillows pressing into your skin. I look in Xander’s eyes and smile slyly as I reach up to press my fingers to a pillow crease in his cheek.

  “You look beautiful in the morning,” he says softly. He plays with my hair, twirling a lock around his finger. “You look beautiful in the afternoon and in the evening and at four o’clock in the morning. I love the way you look. I love you.”

  “Am I your mate?” I whisper.

  “Fucking hell yes, you are,” he says before pressing a kiss to my neck. One kiss becomes three and then five and I chuckle and then moan just a little bit, tangling my fingers in his hair. Finally he pulls away and picks up my right arm and lightly runs his fingers down my bicep as if marvelling over every little part of my body and then I hear a murmur of discontent.

  “Aw, what’s this scar?”

  I pull my arm in, automatically self-conscious. I have a whole bunch of scars. They’re so old that I often forget about them at this point. Nobody usually sees them. I’ve had my hook-ups with guys sure, but they usually didn’t mean much and everything was done in the dark, the soft light of morning never laying me bare before somebody who really cared for me.

  “That was my dad,” I say. I know it’s not my fault or anything. But the scar is a thick white line that came from one of Didion’s “tissue samples.” It’s not very pretty. “Please don’t make a big deal out of it.”

  Xander doesn’t say anything but he sits up a little, leaning on his elbow. He reaches over to caress my cheek. His gaze isn’t pitying and I like that. Instead it’s only steady and loving. “I had an anxiety attack last night,” he says. Of all the things I might have expected Xander to say...this wouldn’t be in the top thousand. “Yeah. A real anxiety attack. After that probation hearing… It didn’t go great even though Jack is still locked up. It was kinda brutal. And then my dad read me the riot act. It was partly about you but that’s not surprising. And my brother’s pissed at me… And shit with the company… It was just too much shit at once and I had an anxiety attack.”

&nb
sp; “That sucks,” I say. “How awful.”

  “It’s okay, I don’t need you to…” He licks his lips. I think it’s hard for Xander to accept sympathy like that from anyone. “I used to get them all the time is the thing. When I was younger? I was so stressed out about being a perfect alpha and a perfect Tremblay and then a perfect CEO...I’d shake and my heart would race and I’d think I was having a heart attack. Honestly. I thought I was dying a whole bunch of times. A few times I forgot where I was or why I was there. Got terrible stomach cramps. But I just dealt with it myself. Never told a soul about it. Not even Mason. I haven’t had one in a long time but I had one yesterday.”

  “You never told anyone?” I say, and I can’t help but feel a little bit upset about that. It makes sense. I know how shifters are, wolf shifters in particular. He would’ve felt like it made him weak. But still. “Not anyone?”

  “But I’m telling you,” he says softly. He kisses the tip of my nose and smiles, adoring. “Because I know I don’t have to hide from you.” Ever so gently, he tugs on my arm and his fingers trace that scar again. “You don’t have to hide from me either.”

  I feel winded. That wasn’t what I was expecting and tears well up in my eyes. He leans forward and kisses each of my cheeks. “Thanks for being you,” he says simply.

  As much as we’d like to stay in bed all day, it’s a work day and Xander just took the previous day off to go to that probation hearing. He looks bothered about work and basically anything that’s not us. I can’t help but think that this relationship is entirely responsible for making everything so hard and as if sensing my thoughts as he pulls on his trousers, having just dried off from the shower, he smiles over at me.

  “You’re the best thing in my life,” he says. “I have a great life. Usually. And I don’t mean things settle down, you won’t be the best thing either. I mean...from now on you’re the best thing.”

  I think I blush at that and he comes over to kiss me softly. “You bewitched me, witch,” he says.

  “Are you going to work like that?” I ask him. He’s wearing what he came over in; trousers and a white t-shirt.

  “I’ll sneak in through the back,” he says, winking. “I have suits at work.”

  “You keep extra suits at work?” I say, incredulous.

  “Sure.” He shrugs like everyone keeps extra suits at work. “Not because of mornings after like this either. But you never know what’s going to happen and I spend so much time at the office…”

  “It really wasn’t for mornings after?” I say, disbelieving.

  Xander looks just a little bit sheepish and says, “Not usually.”

  Xander’s already running a little late but he insists on taking me along to work since I’m coming in for a few hours anyway. There’s something so natural about it all. It doesn’t feel at all strange that my boyfriend is the guy I was investigating for evil doings by his company. It feels like this is the way it’s supposed to be. I’m his and he’s mine. In the car, as he drives, he holds my hand and kisses my knuckles. He won’t stop talking about my hair either. He can hardly keep his fingers out of it.

  When he parks in the structure behind Tremblay Company though, he just sits there for a minute, staring. Sooner or later, I imagine things are going to catch up with him. As much as he might love me, I’m a human and he’s a wolf and this has never been allowed. And for a Tremblay who’s always followed the rules, I can’t expect him to just forget his code.

  “They’re going to say I’m a traitor,” he says softly.

  I unbuckle my seatbelt but for a moment I just sit there with him, staring where he’s staring. “I know. Do you think you are?”

  “I am in their eyes,” he mutters.

  “What about in your own eyes?”

  “The thing is, your own father was a shifter,” he says, squinting. “So how… I mean you’re not just some random human and even if you were, I’m getting to think that it shouldn’t fucking matter. I know it would’ve mattered to me a few months ago.”

  And then I say what hurts to speak aloud but which I know is true. “If it comes down between me and everything else, you can’t choose me, Xander. You know that, right?”

  I fully expect him to agree albeit reluctantly because he knows how much it might hurt me to hear. But instead he just looks at me and gets out of the car without a word. I’m blown away. I can’t count on that but I think it means he’s not sure if he’d be able to choose them over me. And that’s shocks me.

  I get out of the car and watch Xander saunter through the parking structure toward the backdoors of Tremblay Company. He turns his head to see if I’m following and then walks backwards, beckoning me because I guess I look reluctant but it’s really because I’m so surprised. He’s wearing those trousers and that thin white t-shirt and his hair isn’t all styled neatly like it usually is. He looks about ten years younger as he grins at me, his laugh echoing in the garage.

  I love that man.

  I feel as if there are multiple Xander Tremblays I have yet to meet. And I can’t wait to meet them all.

  He gets a funny look from the receptionist in the lobby who’s on the other end toward the front doors but she does see him making his way to the elevators with me having caught up. He’s taken my hand in his, unapologetically and I bite my lip. I guess on the spectrum of things, the complication of dating a colleague is not his biggest problem but I’ve never worked in an office before this. I’m not sure how it’ll go over.

  Xander, however, seems to have no such concern as he smiles adoringly at me.

  “‘Morning, Mr. Tremblay!” The receptionist calls out just as the elevator dings.

  “‘Morning, Sally!” Xander and I step into the elevator and we don’t make a clean get away as two other people (I don’t know them) step inside with slightly raised eyebrows.

  I guess I’ll just have to get used to that.

  But on the seventh floor, nobody looks twice, though we’re not holding hands this time as we walk onto the floor. We part ways and Xander leaves me with a wink before sauntering into his massive office and I make my way all the way down to the other end of the floor to my much tinier office that still has a couple of boxes I haven’t unpacked. I still have to ask IT to hook up my printer for me and the only reason I haven’t is because I haven’t needed to print anything. I do have my very favorite knicknack sitting on my desk however. It’s a blue ceramic elephant. I like to think it brings me luck. It’s a small office but I think it’s cosy and anyway it still has a nice view. They actually offered me a larger one but considering I’m only here part-time to begin with, I felt like a jerk taking it and insisted on the smaller one.

  Things with Chile are moving ahead. I have emails from diplomats and a few other corporate contacts who are showing solidarity, promising not to use any altanium mines in Chile at all until this is resolved. I handle a few emails and then head out to find the coffee cart that roams this floor around this time. There’s also a regular old break room coffee but I feel like something fancy today.

  I get myself a mocha and when I get back to my office, there’s a rose on my desk and Post-It that just has a heart and a big X scribbled on it. It makes me smile and I sit back in my chair, smelling my rose and wondering how Xander managed to get one and have it sent to me so quickly. There’s a half-full water glass on my desk and I drop the rose into it. I find myself all starry eyed and moony and when Xander happens to walk by my office, he looks over at me and I smile, probably looking like a completely love struck dope. Xander sees me and stops for just a second. He doesn’t say a word. He just smirks and slips his hands in his pockets, nodding to himself before going on.

  I have a feeling that I’ve unleashed a little something. It’s another side of Xander. The sappy and romantic Xander. I’m very excited about seeing more of him.

  Sadly though, that will have to wait. Because at around lunch time, Xander comes to my office. I see him through the window, making a beeline from across the f
loor, ignoring a couple people who are trying to talk to him. He’s carrying his phone and he does not look happy at all as he stomps into my office and shuts the door. I was in the middle of writing a letter and now I stop, frozen and immediately filled with dread, as I watch panic play out across Xander’s face. He runs a hand through his hair and stares at me with wide eyes.

  “There’s been a breakout at Mulligan,” he says, breathing heavily.

  “Mulligan,” I mutter. “The shifter prison-”

  “It’s happened before,” he says, shrugging. “Alice’s brother got out but this… This was a mass breakout.”

  “Didion,” I say, an icy feeling crawling up my spine.

  “Yes,” Xander whispers. “He’s out.”

  It’s the stupidest thing. I didn’t know he was in until a couple days ago. As far as I knew, my father who basically kept me hostage and tortured me for years, was free as a bird since I ran away. And anyway, by then I was sure he was only glad to be rid of me. But I have always feared him. And now I’m dating his biggest enemy. If my father has it out for anyone, I’m guessing he has it out for Xander Tremblay.