by Belle Kayce
“Now, if you guys will allow it, I’ll be the one to deal with Kade.”
“You have nothing against him except land?” I don’t know where I got the confidence to speak, but I just did.
Grayson looks at me again, his eyes narrowing a fraction. He then looks at my close proximity to Lance. His eyes widen a little. “All hope for me isn’t lost for finding a mate, is it? Especially if someone like Lance, demon a—”
“Grayson.” Lance’s voice holds a warning tone when he suddenly cuts him off.
Grayson sighs dramatically and shrugs. “What do you guys think about it?”
“You’re not going to take his land,” Lance answers.
Grayson’s eyes darken at this statement. It totally, completely changed his relaxed stance to a defensive one.
“Oh? Then tell me who will?” Grayson asks cockily.
Lance looks at Paxon. “The stolen lands that Alpha Kade took will be returned to their proper owners.”
“So, you’re being the good wolves in this case?” Grayson scoffs. “You’re saying someone like Kade should still keep his lands? You don’t think he’ll fight back?”
“We’re planning on him to fight back,” Paxon answers. “The alpha council will hold him accountable for what he has done, alongside Trent and Steven.”
“And if they’re put in the Prison of Alphas, they’re betas will rule. The betas usually take after the alphas. Nothing will be changed,” Grayson says.
“No land will be taken,” Lance repeats.
“We’ll see.” Grayson has the audacity to not look at Lance but at me. “You look tired.”
“Can you leave, so I can sleep?” I suggest.
Grayson grins at me.
“If Paxon will have me stay here for the night, I promise I’ll be good.”
“You know where the guest rooms are.” Paxon yawns too.
The day is taking a toll on all of us.
“Where’s that beta . . . Sargon?” Grayson asks. “He brings out a sort of liveliness to this place.”
“He’s doing his own thing for the time being.” Paxon waves at all of us. “Good night.” Paxon leaves. Cole goes after him while Grayson lingers a bit before disappearing.
I get up to go to my room, but Lance gets up with me.
“Ava—” Lance stops when I glare at him.
“I don’t want to argue with you at . . .” I check my phone. Three in the morning. Wow. We talked a lot. I don’t know how I’m still awake right now because it is way past my bedtime. “I don’t want to argue.”
Lance scratches the back of his head and averts his eyes. “It’s not that. I was wondering if we could sleep in the same room.”
Huh?
“Um,” I begin to say. I don’t think we’re at that point yet. It’s a huge step in our relationship.
“I mean, my wolf . . . we’re still . . . and Grayson is here too, so I would be more comfortable to know you’re in the same room, in case anything happens. We can go to your room and I’ll take the couch,” Lance rushes in.
Oh. I scrunch my nose. “You think Grayson is going to do something?”
Lance shakes his head. “He wouldn’t harm you intentionally, but he might do something reckless.” He takes a deep breath, still not looking at me. He almost looks bashful. I’m feeling a little less angry at him now. “I would just feel better if you were in the same room as me.”
“Our argument isn’t over though,” I tell him. I’m going to help Tiffany. I’m not going to stand back and just let them fix it by themselves.
“No arguing, just sleeping,” Lance says. Lance is fully looking at me with a puppy-dog expression. I can’t say no to that face.
Curse you, Lance Stryder, for being unfairly adorable. I make him wait on it as I eye his bed.
“Welp, your bed is way bigger than mine, so your room.”
Lance nods eagerly and takes a pillow from the bed. There are probably ten pillows. There’s an extra blanket too. He takes it and then makes his way to the small couch. I feel bad for him because his huge frame barely fits.
I’m standing there watching him as he cutely makes the pathetic couch comfortable with the pillow and blanket. Ugh. Sometimes, I’m too nice. I’m mad at him. I shouldn’t care if he has to sleep in a stiff spot. He’s not going to budge in our argument and I’m not either.
“Lance.” I sigh, knowing I will not be sleeping peacefully by making him spend the night on the small couch. “Just sleep on the bed.”
Lance frowns, looking up at me.
“It’s alright. I can sleep here. I am the one who asked for you to sleep in the same room.”
“It’s okay. There’s enough space for the two of us.” I take at least six pillows and make a divider in the middle. I look at him, unmoving. “Come on, it’s no big deal. Don’t even think about crossing this line or else.”
Lance lifts a brow. “Or else?”
“You don’t want to test me.” I’m totally bluffing because what can I do really? Thankfully, Lance doesn’t ask any more questions because he takes his pillow and blanket with him to the bed, probably as tired as I am.
“Which side is yours?” he asks. This is such a married couple thing. My cheeks heat up.
“I don’t have a side,” I say, “but I’ll take the one furthest from the door in case a murderer comes.”
“So, it’s okay if I get killed?” Lance teases.
I grin at him and roll my eyes. “Shut up. You can hold your own.” I hop onto my side and pull the covers over me. I hear him get on the bed too. “Lance?”
“Yeah?”
“If I see you watch me sleeping in the middle of the night, I don’t know if we’re really meant for each other.”
“Edward Cullen was a creep.” Lance’s voice holds a tone of amusement.
I laugh at the fact that he knows who I am referring to. “But, seriously, night.”
“Good night, my luna,” he says, sounding as tired as I feel. I turn over to where the pillow dividers are, smiling at the sound of his voice, loving the “my luna” part.
“Sleep tight,” I murmur sleepily and close my eyes.
***
I’m up before Lance is, and I only take a fleeting moment to take in his peaceful sleeping face. Getting out of the bed, I go to the bathroom to wash my face with the charcoal soap bar I am using. I’m breaking out. I make a face at the pimple forming on my right cheek. Maybe I should lay off the chocolate . . .
Nah.
Feeling that my skin is clean, I walk out of the bathroom and pause when Lance’s back is faced towards me. He’s changing his shirt.
“Lance,” I breathe out, the horror clear in my voice as I take a look at his back.
It looks like it was torn to shreds, and the amount of scars is just mortifying.
Lance quickly turns in my direction as if he is ashamed. He quickly finishes putting on his shirt.
“W-what happened?” I ask him, walking towards him. My heart drops at the sight.
Lance is reluctant to reply. “The whipping post.”
I ball my fist in anger. It makes sense now the amount of hate he has for the whipping post and why Grayson said he stopped using it because of Lance.
“Who did that to you?” I ask him a little harshly. And when? Why?
“The alpha before me. My father.”
No words come out of my mouth because a father is the worst possible person to do something so atrocious to a child. Silver scars a wolf, and Lance’s back literally looks like it was hit a hundred times. The notion of being mad at him goes flying out of the window. Before I know it, I almost leap at him, hugging him tightly. Lance snakes his strong arms around me too, squeezing me a little.
“You don’t deserve this,” I tell him.
“How do you know?”
“Even if you do, I don’t care. You don’t deserve it. Period.” No one does, especially not him. My throat clogs a little. I am not the type of person to cry, but just thinking about how much pain Lance,
my mate, went through makes me want to cry for him.
“It happened a long time ago,” Lance says softly. “There’s no need to be sad.”
“Can I see it fully?” I ask him, needing to see the full evidence of his pain. I need to know this about Lance because I don’t know much, and this is important.
Lance takes a hesitant step back. He turns his back to me as he takes his shirt off, letting me get a full view of his back. The scars are so deep, and there is a huge “X” branded on his back from the whip that hit him too many times.
I swallow thickly. “How many did you have to . . .”
“About a hundred,” Lance replies. “I lost count.”
I bite my lip from the tears that are starting to form in my eyes.
I am now seeing that this strong, beautiful mate of mine had endured something that left him with physical reminders of his strength and willpower to overcome the horrible things in his life. Who can ever do that to their child? What kind of monster was Lance’s father?
“You’re stronger than I thought, with what you endured.” How will I ever come to understand the pain he’s been through? “What can I do?”
Lance turns around. His shirtless eight-pack-abs self usually renders me speechless, but I’m too caught up with wanting to know what I can ever do to relieve him of his pain.
“It’s done. You’ve done more than enough,” Lance says. He takes my hand and places it over his bare chest, where his heart is. “More than I deserve.” Lance let’s go of my hand abruptly and gives the door a hard stare. “Come in.”
A smirking Grayson strolls into the room and looks at us both. “If I was interrupting something, you could just send me away.”
Lance takes a red t-shirt and puts it on. “I thought it important that you come to me instead of Paxon.”
“True,” Grayson says, sitting on the couch with his leg crossed over. He looks at me. “Sleep well?”
“Yes,” I respond.
“Same here,” Grayson says amiably. He turns to Lance, all business. “Paxon’s pack is in great danger. His borders aren’t secure, and Sargon is missing in action. Little does Pax know that it’s easy to get into his territory. Yesterday, I was surprised by how easy it was. I walked in without the usual hassle of wolves. This had me thinking of why Kade was in the territory. Some party a mourning beta organized? I am a conspiracy theorist, and something doesn’t add up here and feels really off.”
“You think there’s someone here working for Kade?”
“Exactly.”
“Is it his beta?” I ask.
Grayson shakes his head. “Vanessa was his twin sister, and he’s a very loyal one. I think, if anything, it’s Paxon’s third-in-command, Miguel.”
“Miguel? That’s . . .” I look at Lance, who’s also very confused. “Kade found his mate yesterday.”
Grayson’s mouth hinges open. “That prick has a mate?”
“Miguel is Kade’s mate’s father,” I inform him. “Kade . . . beat up Miguel.”
Lance crosses his arms. “It could be that Kade meant to kill the mole or make him keep quiet.”
“I guess we’ll have to visit Miguel then and see if he’s awake,” Grayson says cheerfully.
“Can I have coffee first?” I grumble.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Miguel is gone.
The empty bed makes it seem like no one was ever there.
Cole examines the bed. “It’s as if Miguel was never here.”
“Well . . .” Grayson drags out the word, shaking his head. He takes a deep breath. “I am always right, but sometimes I wish I wasn’t.”
“What’s going to happen now that your prediction is right?” I ask.
“Now is the perfect time for you to get back home,” Lance tells me.
My eyes meet his, and I give him a glare. He wants to keep me away from this, but it’s my problem to face. I mean, yeah, I ran away from my problem, but that’s beside the point. I feel like I owe it to Tiffany to at least help her escape Kade.
Paxon comes in the room suddenly, probably wondering what we’re doing. Luckily, he looks a whole lot better now than last night. The night had been rough for all of us.
“Does anyone need to go to Walmart?” Grayson pipes in, trying to get out of this situation or whatever.
“No,” Cole answers.
“I’ll go with you,” I say to piss off Lance.
Lance clenches his jaw but does not object. Good.
“Great! There’s just one problem. I need a car.”
Grayson nods at me. “Blame yourself.”
Right. Because I can’t shift.
“You can use one of mine,” Paxon offers.
“Your Lambo?” Grayson asks excitedly.
“My Toyota.”
Grayson snorts.
***
After grumbling for about a solid ten minutes on how much he’s being treated like a peasant, Grayson makes his way to the good old Wally World.
While we make our way to find where the deodorant aisle is, Grayson looks at the human woman worker, gives her a charming grin, and winks. She giggles and bites her lip, blinking her baby blues at him. This alpha is eating it up. It’s like he thrives on attention.
“Could you not?” I ask him as we enter the deodorant aisle. Grayson continues his staring love fest with her.
“I’m mateless, therefore I will use it to my full advantage.” Grayson drags his eyes over the men’s deodorant section for a few seconds before searching for the human again.
“Can’t argue with that.”
I guess. I take one of the Dove men’s deodorant.
“Lance smells bad?” Grayson chuckles as he takes one for himself.
“It’s for myself.” I shrug.
“What?”
I shrug again. “It’s not fair that men’s deodorant is stronger.”
Grayson just blinks at me and bursts out laughing. A few of the humans stare at us.
I sigh. “Can we also note how dumb it is to have men soap too? They gender-label everything.”
“And men lotion.”
“Why can’t men smell like strawberries?” I ask.
We walk towards the checkout lines.
“Masculinity is so fragile.” Grayson rolls his eyes. “We’d rather die than smell like fruit.”
I walk over to the self-checkout machine that’s open. Thankfully, I still have leftover emergency money from the nice Uber lady-driver. It’s been such a long time since I ran away from my pack. Everything has changed.
After we exit the store, Grayson opens the car door for me like a gentleman.
”How is Lance treating you?” Grayson asks me as he gets in the car and turns on the engine.
“Why do you care?”
“Just making conversation,” Grayson says defensively as he reverses. “No one really hears anything about Lance and Noctis Luna. They just mind their own business. I’ve always thought it to be some facade Noctis Luna maintains given the history of the previous alpha. I always heard stories that Lance might want to rule over and be alpha king. It’s all stories but meeting him? Totally different.”
“Alpha king?” I ask, taken aback. What kind of nonsense is that?
“Someone to bring in order to the werewolf world,” Grayson replies. “Sure, the alpha council is doing a half-ass job, but there are those alphas who don’t care about anything but getting power.”
“Like you?” I hear myself say.
Grayson looks at me, a Cheshire like grin forming on his face.
“You mean you’ve never heard of the alpha king? The alpha of alphas? The most powerful alpha to rule?”
“It sounds kind of horrible actually,” I answer honestly. “Who can ever be responsible enough to rule over everyone? And someone with that much power is kind of scary, don’t you think? Who would keep this alpha of alphas in check? Will this alpha king even fit to be King?”
“He or she is out there,” Grayson says, staring at the ro
ad intently. “Maybe we never deserved one or really needed one.”
“For your information, Lance is great,” I say, wanting to get away from this topic. Who would want to be a dictator for the alphas? What if someone horrible rose into power? Wouldn’t that just be a real crap show?
“Is that why you came with me to aggravate him?” Grayson asks, seeing through me.
I open my mouth but then clamp it shut.
I sigh. “I want to help get Tiffany, and apparently it isn’t safe.”
“You think you can go into Kade’s territory and just take his mate from him?” Grayson raises an eyebrow. “Either you really are hiding something or you’re really stupid.”
“I’d prefer the term courageous.”
“It’s not courage if you’re being really dumb and choose to die.”
“Who says I’ll die there?” I ask, irritated.
“Kade will kill you, Ava. If not him, then Trent or Steven. I don’t even know why I’m saying this, but Lance is right in trying to keep you away from this. Ava, someone needs to say it and I will. You’re really stupid if you go there.”
I mull over his words. The rest of the car ride, only the radio with the latest pop songs can be heard.
***
Coming back from the store, I go to Lance’s room to get my toothbrush from his bathroom. I think for one second about going to Tiffany. No one will probably notice if I try to make my way to Kade’s territory.
Turning around, I swallow hard when Lance is in my view, blocking the exit. It’s like he read my mind. Mates can’t do that, can they? He hasn’t marked me or anything, so we don’t really have that weird mind-linking thing mates do, right?
“Ava, I ask of you one thing. Just one thing.” Lance isn’t looking at me but burning a hole through the wall right past me. “You think you can help her if you’re dead? Do you truly believe if you go into Kade’s territory, you can save Tiffany?”
It’s like a slap in the face. I’ve tried with my former pack to train, but I always lagged behind. I’ve worked with Bo in the early-morning trainings, but I’m still not good enough. Will I ever be good enough?
He didn’t say it straight up, but the unspoken words are there: you can’t save her given how weak you are.