Utibe gave no reaction, while her mother overcompensated, placing a hand over her stomach as she gave the pretty version of a belly laugh. “I suppose that’s true!”
Utibe stood abruptly, then walked over to where Keri lingered at the oven and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “See you tonight, my darling,” he said in heavily accented English.
“See you tonight,” Keri answered, giving his arm a dainty little squeeze.
The kitchen door swung open and closed, and then he was gone, leaving nothing but the awkward silence between her and her mother in his wake.
Keri made a graceful fuss out of setting a warm plate in front of Halle: eggs and waffles with a few orange slices artfully arranged on top. “I got you some coffee, too,” her mother said going over to a little black enamel-and-glass set that looked out of place in the colorful kitchen. “Utibe went back to Cal-Mart to pick up a coffee maker just for you since we only drink tea.”
“Oh, you didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course we did!” Keri replied as she poured the coffee. “You are our guest, and besides, I’ve been meaning to get one for years now.”
Our guest. The description pinged inside Halle’s chest. Was that all she was to her mother?
But Halle smiled and said, “Pretty cup,” when Keri set a cup and a saucer with a purple-and-blue watercolor design down in front of her
Her mother beamed. “Thank you, Halle.” But then she fretted her hands, suddenly remembering, “I forgot about the cream and sugar. We don’t have any because Utibe’s lactose intolerant and I used the last of the sugar in the waffles, but I can go to the store if you’d like. Just let me order a car…”
“No, this is fine,” Halle assured her, going straight for the coffee.
But then she winced at the strong taste. It tasted like someone had dumped a whole bag of grinds into a pot that was only supposed to take a cup.
“Oh, I knew I was doing it wrong,” her mother said, frowning. “That machine is so confusing! I swear I had to go through the instructions five times just to turn it on.”
“It’s okay. Seriously, it doesn’t matter. I slept for hours and hours anyway. I don’t even need coffee. It’s just a habit. All I care about is breakfast. See...”
Halle rushed to take a bite of waffle, prepared to pretend the food meant more than it did. But then she didn’t have to pretend when the bomb of perfectly proportioned sugar, butter, and homemade mix popped off inside her mouth. “Oh wow, I forgot what a good cook you are. These waffles are the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”
And just like that, her mother was beaming again. Strange what all you forgot only to recall it clear as day. Memories of her mother’s frets being stopped cold with the right compliment came back to Halle. And she remembered thinking rather unkindly in the ugly aftermath of Keri’s departure that her mother had been nothing more than a pretty flower that withered without the sun of compliments.
Her mother carefully perched in the chair her husband had just abandoned. She seemed to want to say more or maybe ask questions, but in the end settled for a silence filled with only the sounds of Halle’s fork clanking against the beautiful china until she was all done.
Halle ate everything on the plate, leaving only the overly strong coffee behind.
“You’re sure I can’t make you another cup?” her mother asked on the other side of the table. “I could try to figure out the machine again.”
“No, I’m good. Thanks, M…” she trailed off.
“You…” her mother shifted on her perch. “You can call me mom if you want to.”
Halle thought about it, but the M-word felt too intimate for a woman she hadn’t seen in twelve years. The woman who’d abandoned her and told her to move on with her life.
“I’m done,” she said, deflecting to her empty plate. “I’ll just…”
“No, let me.” Her mother picked it up and took it to the sink. “Any ideas about what you want to do this afternoon?” she asked as she ran water over the plate.
Halle glanced out the window. “Oh wow, is it already afternoon?”
“Yes,” her mother answered somewhat apologetically. “You seemed exhausted when you showed up here yesterday, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I was,” Halle admitted. “Um…thank you for taking me in.”
“Oh, honey, you don’t have to—” Her mother’s breath caught. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m happy to have the company.”
Halle crooked her head, wondering if company was how her mother qualified her now. Not her daughter, but a visitor who’d showed up out of the blue. Someone new to throw southern hospitality at. “Well, I am grateful,” Halle said anyway because she was.
“We could go to Main Street. They have a few nice boutiques there. Maybe we could get you some things…” her mother’s gaze trailed down to Halle’s outfit, “…other than sweatpants.”
And there it was. The disapproval Halle remembered so well. Never being good enough or fashionable enough for the former Miss Teen Wolf.
“I think I might go back to sleep, actually,” Halle answered as another wave of depression washed over her. “I’ve had a hard week.”
A few ticks went by, and Halle wondered what her mother knew. About the Chivaree and her pregnancy.
Maybe the former. Definitely the latter. Her mother might be a delicate brown teacup, but she still had her shifter senses under all that perfectly applied make-up. She could probably smell the pregnancy on her.
As if to confirm her suspicions, Keri returned to the seat across from her and said, “Maybe now would be a good time to talk about what brought you here. We haven’t spoken in many years, but of course, I read what everyone else did on the WolfNet about you and the King of Alaska—”
A knock interrupted her careful segway into meatier topics. And like a pretty poodle who’d suddenly been beckoned, her mother’s attention went to the door. “Oh, I wonder who that could be?”
She rose from her seat and after smoothing her already perfectly smooth dress went out to the front room.
Real talk, Halle was glad for the unexpected reprieve. And nearly as soon as her mother was out of sight, she stood, preparing to escape back to the guest bedroom while Keri was distracted at the door…
But then a voice called out, “Halle?! Halle, where are you?!”
No, no…it couldn’t be!
But it totally could. In the next moment, Nago slammed into the kitchen, his face thunderous with rage.
Chapter Twenty-Four
They stared at each other.
Nago enraged. Halle aghast.
There had been a time when no matter how big Nago got, she would have trusted he’d never hurt a fly. But those days were long gone. And the details Eric had shown her floated back into her head…not just numbers, but accountings of ugly deeds. Threats, blackmail, manipulation.
Her mother ended up speaking before either of them did. Bursting through the kitchen door behind Nago and saying, “Now wait just a minute! I don’t think Halle wants to see you right now,” to the King of Alaska.
“You ran,” Nago said to Halle as if her mother hadn’t spoken. As if she wasn’t even there. “You ran, and you never gave me a chance to explain.”
Halle blinked at him, thoughts tripping over fear. Fear tripping over anger. “How?” she demanded. “How did you find me? My bioware is off.”
“Yeah, there are ways to access offline bioware,” he answered with an aggravated look. “It requires huge oversteps you probably don’t want to know about.”
“But you took them,” she pointed out, her voice shaking with anger.
“Yes, I did,” he answered with no remorse. “Halle, you’re the mother of my child! What did you expect me to do after you left me chained up in that clinic bed? Just go home without knowing if you were okay?”
“I’m okay,” she answered without an ounce of hesitation because he didn’t deserve to know how not okay she was. “You leaving now?”
Nago stared at her for a tense second. Then broke off, his handsome face contorting into an ugly frown. “Dammit, Halle. We nearly made it. If Ohio hadn’t interfered—”
“It still would have been wrong. What you did—the way you sabotaged my life for ten years—it was wrong!”
“And I’m sorry for that. But—”
“There should be no ‘but’ after that sentence. What you did goes beyond a simple ‘I’m sorry.’ How can you not see that?”
“How can I not see that?” he repeated, throwing her question back at her like it was the stupidest thing he’d ever been asked in his life. “I can’t see that because if any of those guys had been remotely worthy of you, they wouldn’t have taken the payoff! Wouldn’t have cared about their reputations more than they cared about staying with you. If any of those guys had deserved even an ounce of your love, they would have sacrificed anything to be with you.”
“Oh, yeah? Eric didn’t take your bribe,” she pointed out. “His character is unimpeachable. So why didn’t you just let him have me and be done with it?”
Nago’s head jerked back as if she’d punched him. “Ohio? That overreaching fuck was the worst of them. He only wanted you for your title, Halle. Otherwise, he would have fallen into line, too!”
“I was okay with that! Totally okay with that!” she yelled back at him. “Because you know what? Only wanting me for my title is better than pretending you’re in love with me before tossing me out like trash. And then manipulating my entire love life to the point that I felt like there was something wrong with me. Like I was damaged goods who deserved to be left in that hotel room…”
God, it had been ten years ago, yet hot tears sprang to her as if it happened yesterday.
“Halle…” Nago said, shoulders deflating. “There’s nothing wrong with you. But it was the only way I could…”
He broke off, shaking his head. Then taking a deep breath, he said, “Halle, there are things I have to tell you. About my wolf. About why I did what I did—”
“There’s something wrong with you,” she guessed, cutting him off. “Something happened in the Marines that changed you and made you unable to control your wolf—even after mating. That’s the big secret you’ve been keeping, right?”
Nago stopped. Completely taken aback by her assessment of his situation, because… “Yeah…I mean, yeah, that’s exactly what happened.”
He reset. Squared his shoulders and finished telling her the flat-out truth. “A mission went bad while I was in the Wolf Force, and it…it really messed me up. I thought I could handle it when I got back Stateside, but I couldn’t. This wolf inside me was out of control…” He swallowed, thinking back to the hardest time of his life. “So I left. To keep you safe, I left. Even though you were the love of my life.”
He put it all on the table. Finally. But Halle only stared at him before saying, “You left me. To keep me safe.” She threw his words back at him like they were the most idiotic things she’d ever heard. Then she asked in a derisive tone, “Did it ever occur to you, King Nago, that the only place I ever felt safe was with you? That I didn’t care how damaged you were when you came back, I just wanted to be with you. I would have done anything to be with you!”
“But I couldn’t be with you like that! I tried, and I barely got through your first heat session without shifting. The whole time I was terrified of hurting you, but I couldn’t stop it—couldn’t stop my wolf from claiming you. And you saw what he was like. Uncontrollable. I never wanted to put you in that position. Which is why I stayed away. This whole time, I’ve been working toward one goal. Getting the wolf in line and getting you back. Please believe me! What looks like lies and manipulations was me doing the best I could with the shitty set of parameters I was given.”
Another long stare. And then she asked, “Did you think I wouldn’t have understood what you were going through?”
He flinched at the question, because couldn’t she see… “It wasn’t about you understanding. There wasn’t anything to understand. I had a wild, uncontrollable beast inside me. There was only getting it away from you. Learning to manage it, so I could be the man you deserve.”
“The man I deserve is honest,” Halle shot back. “Someone man enough to be with me even if there’s something wrong with him. Especially if there’s something wrong with him. Dude, I’m a great fixer upper!”
A joke. Somewhere on the edge of his reason, he got that. But he yelled back, “No, I was supposed to be your fucking prince, Halle! Do you think I wanted you to take care of me like you have to take care of your worthless father and that rundown kingdom-town of yours? Do you think I wanted to be another fucking thing on the list of ‘shit Halle needs to fix?’ Hell, no! You’re the one who needed saving, not me. That wasn’t what you signed up for. And I’d be damned if I was going to let you waste ten years of your life with a fucking invalid wolf—”
“Is that how you see yourself? How you see me?” she demanded, cutting him off.
She shook her head at him. “Like I’m some tragic princess, and you’re this huge invalid, too imperfect to love? Well, fuck you, Nago Nightwolf. I didn’t want a prince and a fairytale. All I wanted was you. I loved you. Unconditionally. And I wish you could have loved me the same way.”
Her words cut him to the bone. “I do love you, Halle,” he said, his voice coarse with emotion. “I’m out of my goddamn mind in love with you—obviously—or we wouldn’t be here. Don’t ever say I don’t love you.”
But she didn’t back down. “No...if you loved me, like at all, you would have trusted me. You wouldn’t have consigned me to this living hell without you for the last ten years.”
“Halle, let me…” he said, coming toward her. He couldn’t take it anymore. She wasn’t listening to reason, and he knew if she’d just let him touch her, hold her, then she’d see it from his point of view. Choose him again as she did in the cabin.
But she held up a hand, staying his advance. “No! Don’t touch me! It’s over!” she yelled at him.
“It’s not over,” he ground out, not even able to comprehend how she could say those words to him. “I fucking love you and I know you still love me. You chose me to be the father of that baby you’re carrying.”
“Yes, I chose you when I was out of my mind with heat. But right now? I’m choosing not to be with a wolf who lies and manipulates me for ‘my own good’ anymore. We’re done!”
She meant it, Nago realized. Every word that was coming out of her mouth. She really meant it.
The wolf went strangely quiet inside him. Leaving nobody but the human he’d clung to for so long to say, “No…no. This isn’t over. Whether you like it or not, I’m still your state’s king. And I won your hand by Chivaree. That means you don’t have a choice when it comes to this. You also don’t have the resources to battle me in court. And I know you still love me, no matter what you say. So this is not over. Not until I say it is.”
She lowered her arm, but the look on her face did just as good a job of telling him to stay back. “I used to love you, Nago. But you killed it. With your lies and your schemes, you killed everything good that we used to be. You took the person I loved the most in this world away from me, and I’ll never forgive you for that.”
She shook her head at him, disappointment radiating from her now as strongly as her heat scent did a few days ago. “Even if you make me marry you, you can’t make me live with you. So yeah, go ahead and use this baby as leverage. Prove to me that you’re the asshole I thought you were all these years we’ve been apart. Because the only thing we will ever share between us is custody of this child. And this web of lies you want to call a relationship? It is over. So until you have a court order to be here, you need to get on out of this house.”
For some reason he wanted her to hit him again. Because at least that response showed passion. But she only stood there. Cold and immovable.
And the wolf said nothing. It stayed completely silent as if it was st
anding over the grave of his and Halle’s relationship.
“Halle…” he started.
But then a voice said, “Young man, my daughter asked you to leave, so please do so. Right now.”
Halle’s mother. He’d forgotten she was still there.
The woman who’d abandoned her.
The other person she’d loved who’d abandoned her.
And suddenly Nago understood how badly he’d fucked up. That his plan not to return to her until he could be the mate she deserved had in fact ruined any chance they had of a happily ever after.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Halle watched Nago process her words.
Kept her face composed in a cold mask so he could see she was one hundred percent sure of herself and wouldn’t back down. Ignored the wolf whimpering inside her for her mate.
He’s not our mate, she told her wolf. The Nago we fell in love with is dead. This guy was just pretending to be him.
Yet he stood there for moments on end. Looking like something she’d broken.
For a moment, it seemed as if he might argue again, but then with one last dark look, he turned and stormed out of the kitchen past her mother.
Gone. Finally. Halle could only hope for good.
At least that’s what she’d keep telling herself. Until both she and her wolf believed it.
“Halle?” A hand touched her arm.
Her mother was standing beside her.
“Would you…?” Her mother looked to the side as if scanning through her etiquette books for how to handle the ugly scene in her kitchen. “Would you like to talk about it? What just happened?”
Halle stared at her mother for a beat, then said, “You haven’t been a mother to me for twelve years. There’s no reason to start acting like one now.”
Then without another word, she went back to the bedroom to gather her things.
There was no reason not to return to the Mississippi kingdom house now. Nago had found her which meant there was no way or reason for her to hide anymore. Plus, the kingdom-town was what she knew. What she’d always known.
The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy Page 13