Taming Her Mate

by Kathy Lyon

  “Charming,” the doctor drawled.

  “Message says, ‘Return Emory and the traitor Francesca.’”

  “Not much of a negotiator, is he?” Simon answered. Then when no one responded, he sighed. “Anything else?”

  “Just a time and place for the exchange. Dawn. A park on the edge of wolf territory.”

  “He’ll attack here first,” Frankie said. “Sometime tonight.”

  “Isn’t he worried about the cops?” Simon asked.

  She sighed. “He wants to expose shifters to the world.”

  Silence. Then Simon spoke with an incredulous tone: “Just how crazy is your brother?”

  Ryan felt her grip go painfully tight, but when she spoke, her voice was flat. “I don’t even recognize him anymore.”

  “Hopped up on his own poison?” That was from the doctor, condemnation in every syllable.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Frankie’s voice dropped into resignation. “Probably.”

  “Didn’t anyone tell him that drugs are bad?” Simon asked. It was a rhetorical question that no one bothered to answer. And then Ryan felt a grip on his shoulder. “Do whatever you need to do, Ryan.”

  Thanks. Assuming he could figure out what that was.

  He heard several people leave, but Frankie wasn’t one of them. He kept a grip on her hand and felt her drop her forehead to his arm.

  “I should have listened to you,” she said. “I was stupid to think I could handle this on my own.”

  He wanted to stroke her hair. He needed to open his eyes and look at her, but speaking with Simon had drained him. It was all he could do to just lie there and touch her. She seemed to understand. Or maybe she needed to talk to him. Either way, she stayed and started whispering to him. Simple things at first. He dozed to the sweet sound. But eventually, her words took on different meaning, and he roused to listen more clearly.

  “We’re alone now. Dad’s in the next room recovering, and everyone else has gone to prepare. We’re in the upper floor of your headquarters. It’s kind of nice. Not exactly the mansion my parents have, but comfortable upstairs and useful downstairs. Who’d have guessed that bears were more practical than wolves?”

  Anybody. It was well known that wolves like to put on a show. Every wolf alpha in a major city had a mansion, whereas the bears just liked a cozy, protected den.

  “Growing up, I was the daughter of an alpha. They told me there was nothing I couldn’t do. I just had to work hard enough.” She snorted. “What a load of crap. I’ve never worked harder in my life and I’m still out here and called a traitor.”

  “What happened to pulling together as a pack?”

  She looked up when he spoke. He’d managed to finally open his eyes because he was pulled to look at her face. He wanted to see the emotions there, to catch the shift of grass-green eyes and the sweet curve of her mouth.

  “The pack is only as strong as its weakest link.” Her lips quirked in a bitter twist. “I guess I’m the weak one here.”

  “Or your brother.”

  She shook her head. “He’s the leader over there now. That means he’s the strongest.”

  He focused, lifting his hand to stroke across her tear-streaked face. “I was told to protect my family.”

  “And you have.”

  “My family didn’t protect me. My parents can’t even say the word ‘shifter.’ Nanook tried to kill me. And even the cops I work with day in and day out don’t know what I really am.” He wiped at her wet cheek. “I say we throw out all those stupid sayings and start making some of our own.”

  Her mouth curved into a smile. “Like what?”

  “How about, I’ve got your back, if you’ve got mine.”

  She tilted her head, nuzzling her cheek deeper into his palm. “Do you?”

  “Tried to.”

  “Yeah, my bad.” She glanced across his shoulder to the hallway where—he guessed—she could see her father through the open doorway. “You protected my father anyway.”

  “I still serve and protect. What I’m looking for is my family.”

  She arched a brow. “The Griz don’t support you?”

  “Not one went up against Nanook when he tried to kill me. He might have been holding them back. I don’t know.”

  “But you don’t trust them now.”

  “Simon and Alyssa are new. They seem okay. Vic, too. But I’ve been going it alone since Nanook betrayed me.” And where had that gotten him? Nearly dead in a sewer. Nearly dead at an abandoned factory. “Going solo isn’t working for either of us.”

  She nodded but if anything, her expression turned even more sober. “Why do you trust me?”

  Good question. There were obvious reasons why he shouldn’t. She was a wolf and she’d bailed on him at the storage area. But he’d understood why and would probably have done the same if he were she. She’d saved his life in the sewer and tried to protect him at Hazel’s home. That counted for something, but it wasn’t enough to explain why his instincts kept pushing him to trust her.

  “Remember when I told you about roaming the woods? When I was a teenager?”

  She nodded. “While your grandfather fished.”

  “I was amped up from shifter hormones, but something about the place centered me. Life was chaos, or at least it felt that way, but the smell of the pine and the whisper of leaves made me feel stronger. Like the storm was outside instead of inside. And I could deal with that.”

  “I get that.” She pressed her lips to his palm in a quick kiss. Then she pulled back enough to explain. “It’s what a good pack feels like. No matter what’s happening in your life, there’s that solid center inside.” She blew out a breath. “I haven’t felt that since turning hybrid.”

  “Because your brother started taking over the pack?”

  Her gaze turned thoughtful. “Maybe. I just assumed it was because I’d changed into a monster.”

  He smiled. “You’re no monster.” Then he took a deep breath, letting her scent settle into his lungs. “No one who smells so good could be evil.”

  She snorted. “I need a shower. I went full hybrid to escape the community center, stink and all.”

  He frowned. “Were you hurt?”

  “Only my pride.” Then her expression turned confused. “Do you seriously like the smell?”

  He smiled. “I do. Could that be because you injected me with the stuff?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe you’re just weird.”

  Maybe. He let his gaze linger on her face and he fell into the emotions that swirled inside him whenever he thought of her. “It feels like you’re my woods. When you’re around, the problems are external, not internal.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise and she went statue still, but in the end, her lips softened. “You know that doesn’t make logical sense, right.”

  “I know.”

  “Yeah. And…” She blew out a breath. “I feel the same way about you.”

  Warmth flooded his body at her words along with a healthy dose of surprise. “I need to shift,” he said. “I need to get healthy, so I can kiss you.”

  She grinned. “I’m okay with that.”

  Yeah, so was he. Except when he reached for the change magic, it wasn’t there. “I can’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  He hadn’t the foggiest idea. “Could it be the serum?”

  “It makes you stronger. Even after one dose, you should be able to shift more often, not less.”

  “Even after it wears off?”

  “Yeah.”

  He grimaced. That eliminated a physical problem as the cause. Which meant his problem was all mental. He could have guessed that.

  “Except for my night with you, I haven’t slept since Nanook attacked me.” He would have shrugged, but knew his side would punish him for the movement. “If you don’t count when I was unconscious.”

  “What happens when you try to sleep?”

  He tried not to remember even as he spoke. “My thigh gets shredd
ed, two slugs hit me in the chest, and Nanook laughs.”

  She shuddered. “That’s some grade-A trauma you got going there.”

  His lips quirked. Trust Frankie to put it bluntly. “Guess so.”

  “It’s a wonder you’re not in the corner drooling on yourself.”

  He arched a brow. “I kind of am, aren’t I?”

  She tilted her head as she inspected him. “No drool, so you’re okay there.”

  “Good to know.”

  Her face softened as she stroked his good shoulder. “I am so sorry for leaving you to face the police alone. I shouldn’t have bailed. We could have helped each other.”

  “At least you know it now.”

  She nodded. “But I don’t think your magic does.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “Think about it. Everyone you trust has betrayed you. And then you find the one person who makes you feel like you’re centered again, and what do I do? I bail.”

  “I understand why.”

  “Maybe on a conscious level, but what about underneath where the magic comes from? At this point, your magic has got to think that the world is a terrible place and it’d be way better if you just stayed in bed where it’s safe.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. Hell, his conscious mind thought that too. But he had a duty to the people of Detroit, promises to the Griz, and a bone-deep need to stop the coming violence between the wolves and the bears. Up until now, he’d always relied on that moral center—the knowledge of duty and responsibility—to guide him even when the rest of the world seemed to think lies were the norm. Now he wondered if that was enough. All those responsibilities didn’t really feel like they gave anything back to him. And right now, he was running on empty.

  She stroked a finger across his brow, gently smoothing away the frown he hadn’t even known was there. “You seem to be thinking a whole lot of stuff right now. Care to share?”

  “I can’t argue with what you’re saying. I just don’t know how to fix it.”

  “Your subconscious needs to feel safe again.”

  He snorted. “Great. How?”

  “Do I look like a therapist to you? I haven’t a clue. But I’m willing to sit here and talk it out with you if you want. Will that help?”

  It couldn’t hurt. And looking into her soft green eyes, he believed it would help. A lot. “I don’t know where to begin.”

  “Start anywhere. Let me listen.”

  So he did. He talked backward in time, starting with Nanook, but ended by relaying how his parents had reacted when he’d told them he was a shifter. Back in Noelle’s bedroom, he’d told Frankie it was a fun experience, that he’d loved showing his parents that magic existed and making his sister scream. He hadn’t told her about the rest because he didn’t like to think of the negatives. When he’d first said the words to his parents—not shown them—his father had stared at him like he was insane and his mother had shaken her head, no. As if he’d shared a cancer diagnosis or something. They fought the knowledge even after he shifted right in front of them.

  They were good people, and he loved them, but they struggled to accept what he was. It made them uncomfortable on a gut level, and he didn’t want to force them into a place they couldn’t go.

  It hurt. Deep down, it really hurt, and this was the first time he’d told anyone about it.

  She listened to him. And though they held hands at the beginning, eventually she stretched out in the bed beside him. Her body pressed intimately close to his, but she kept her head braced on the palm of her hand as he talked. Every once in a while, she would tell him a similar story from her childhood, but mostly she listened as she held him. And when the pain seemed to pour out with every word, she wrapped her arm around his torso and pressed her lips to his cheek.

  He felt the wet of her tears, but didn’t acknowledge them. Especially since they might have been his own. His throat gave out more than once, but he sipped water and soon fell into talking again. She brought that out in him. Words, feelings, things he hadn’t acknowledged even in the privacy of his own thoughts. They spilled out to her, and she absorbed them as if she couldn’t get enough.

  At one point, Hank’s mantra slipped through his thoughts. The greatest mastery is a mind that lets go. He’d been trying with very little success. Until now. Now he saw that he had to let go by giving it to someone else. To share the pain and the burden so that it could finally dissipate.

  He gave it to her. He told her everything until his throat shut down and his words failed. He closed his mouth and his eyes. He settled his cheek on her head, and he held her just as tightly as she held him.

  And together, they slept.

  Chapter 20

  Frankie woke with a start, the feel of her pack mates in her head. Normally that would reassure her, but this time, she felt their aggression, knew they were angry, and all of them were very close.

  “Easy. You’re safe.” Ryan’s words rumbled through his body into hers. He was lying flat on his back and she was wrapped around him.

  “My pack is near,” she said. “And they’re pissed.”

  She started to get out of bed. She had to go downstairs and warn—

  “We know,” he said as he tightened his hand on her shoulder. She could have broken his hold, but didn’t want him to strain his injury.

  “How? I just started feeling them.”

  Ryan’s expression eased into a smile as he held up his phone in his free hand. “Simon just texted me. Told me to keep my ass in bed or he’d personally kick it back up here and he can’t afford the distraction.” He arched a brow. “Yours, too, by the way. Nothing you can do but make it worse.”

  Unfortunately, that was probably true. Still, the need to go burned in her. From the feel of them, her pack was hopped up on the serum and ready to eat bear. Literally. “You don’t know what you’re up against.”

  “Simon knows. He’s got surveillance cams and nonlethal surprises. Plus, the police on speed dial.”

  She frowned. “You’d bring cops into shifter business?”

  He arched a brow, not even bothering to respond, and she felt her face heat. Of course he’d bring cops into their business. He was a cop.

  “Look, the bears aren’t doing anything but hanging out and respecting your brother’s wish to talk in the morning. If he wants to attack us unprovoked, then he can explain to the police why he’s creeping through the streets with cherry bombs and rabid wolves.”

  “They’ll say it’s because you bears poisoned the city.”

  “And the cops will say, they already suspect us, and that vigilante justice is a crime.”

  She winced and looked out the window at the dark night. She couldn’t see anything. Just a haze of light over the city streets and the shadows of nearby buildings. First thing her brother would have done is kill the electricity to the block. “How come the lights are still on in here?” She could see the red numbers from a clock on the nightstand. 2:48 a.m.

  “Building has its own generator.” He arched a brow. “Got a black bear security expert and a grizzly bear electrician.” He tilted his head. “Don’t you wolves have people?”

  She nodded. “My brother loves electronic toys.” God only knew what elaborate stuff he’d set up around the mansion and the community center. She’d been involved in every aspect of the construction process, but Raoul had added all sorts of special stuff at night. At the time, she’d thought it a good idea. Now she wondered if he’d doctored the water pipes so he could easily dose the pack with serum. Not to mention what he could have done to the electricity, the air vents, and she had no idea what else.

  Before she could comment, floodlights kicked on all around the neighborhood. What had been dim or shadowed a second ago, now stood out in stark relief. And inside, she felt the collective surprise ripple through her pack. As best she could make out, they were coming from all sides, intending to surround the bears as they stormed the former hardware store. But with the sudden flood of light
s, they all seemed to pause.

  “Can you send them a message?” Ryan asked. “Through the pack link?”

  She shook her head. “It’s not a verbal thing. We get each other’s emotions and sometimes a general sense of direction. No words.”

  “Then there’s nothing you can do.” He said it as a statement, and she wanted to argue. She was an alpha’s daughter. She ought to do something, but what? Usually she would send support vibes through the link, but she didn’t support what they were doing. “Go away” would likely inflame things. At best, she should stay quiet and pretend she wasn’t even here. Few people in the pack could get a directional sense from the pack link, but those who could would know she was sitting here with the bears.

  She sighed and dropped her head on his shoulder, feeling frustration eat at her. The drive to do something—anything—to save the ones she loved from disaster churned like acid in her gut.

  “Simon won’t hurt them unless he has to.”

  She tried to take comfort in that. Maybe the pack would get spooked by the floodlights and turn around. Except the moment she thought the words, she felt the wolves stir. Anger surged quickly followed by defiance. It was a madness she hadn’t felt from her people ever. Normally the pack link calmed and soothed, but this link stirred to violence, and she felt her own blood surge with the connection.

  Worse, she felt a single, strong vibration through the link. A dark mind pushing the rest to madness.

  Raoul. What the hell was wrong with her brother? Why would he push the pack to madness? Unless he was already there, and he was just bringing everyone else along with him.

  “He’s going to get them killed.” People she’d known all her life, pack mates who were good people, though maybe not very discerning when it came to complicated issues. They didn’t know how to think logically, to separate emotions from passionate words to look at the sense of things. She’d tried to reason with them, but they moved with the crowd without thought or discretion.

  She bit her lip, beating her brain for something—anything—that she could do to stop them. They had to think. But she could already tell from the link that there wasn’t a soul among them who would listen to reason now. Not with Raoul stirring them up.