by Susan Bliler
Aydin’s eyes hardened. Staring at Mira, his gray eyes sparked with something she couldn’t place before he jerked his chin toward the door. “Get down to the hotel. You can manage, right? Send the guys up when you get there.” Pulling his hands from his pockets, he curled them into fists. “I’ll wait for the WG Beta. You just rest at the hotel and wait for me.”
Something eerie was stirring in her belly. Aydin’s words held the slight weighty push of an Alpha command and she didn’t like that. She didn’t like being ordered around.
“You asking me or telling me, Alpha?”
The venom slipped from Aydin’s expression, and his hands slowly opened. “I’m not forcing anything on you, Mira.”
She felt a bite of guilt at his contrite expression. “I’m sorry,” she offered, and fisted her own hands. “It’s been a long week. I don’t mean to be . . .”
“You’re not,” he cut her off, and slowly closed the space between them.
Aydin towered over her, and even though he wasn’t as tall or as broad as Tallius, he made her feel small and feminine. When he lifted a hand and cupped her cheek, Mira jerked back. She was always jumpy around men and didn’t like touch. She didn’t like a lot of things. Loud noises, startling awake, unwanted advances, they were all reminders of how fucked up she was. Tensed, she frowned up at Aydin.
“I’m sorry.” Quickly, he lowered his hand and backed up a step. “I didn’t mean . . .”
“Don’t fucking touch her!” The words exploded into the room and had Aydin whirling around at the vicious command.
Mira stepped away from her Alpha, tucking her hair behind her ear before offering, “Tallius, this is my Alpha, Ayd . . .”
“You know who the fuck I am,” Aydin cut her off and puffed out his chest.
Tallius didn’t back down an inch. In fact, he stepped fully into the cabin and slammed the door so hard behind him that it had Mira hunching her shoulders against the sound.
Stepping up to Aydin, Tallius snarled, “Why in the fuck are you touching her?”
“He wasn’t!” Mira cut in. “He just . . .”
“Was trying to fucking touch you,” Tallius snarled.
His reaction had Aydin angling his head as he studied Tallius. “She’s my Beta. What the fuck do you care who touches her?”
Dipping his head low, Tallius growled, “I care!”
Behind them, Mira breathed, “Jesus.” Then more loudly, “Just calm down. Will both of you just calm the hell down.”
Ignoring her plea, Tallius asked Aydin, “Why you here? What do you want?”
“I came for Mira. We heard about the avalanche.”
Tallius glanced over Aydin’s shoulder to look at Mira. He only held her gaze a moment before Aydin stepped to the side and cut off his view.
“It’s time for my girl to come home.”
Mira knew what Aydin was doing. He was baiting Tallius and using her to do so, and she didn’t like it. Stepping forward, she bit out, “Knock it off, Aydin. I’m not your girl, you’re just riling up Tally.”
Aydin’s brows winged up. “Tally?”
Chapter 18
Tallius was on the verge of punching a fucking hole right through the Fury Alpha. He could do it too. Taking out Aydin would be a goddamn breeze, but then the Fury pack would belong to Tallius, and what then?
Eyes jerking over Aydin’s shoulder to Mira again, he realized he didn’t really give a fuck what happened then.
Eyes locked with his, Mira shook her head, silently asking him not to. She knew exactly what he was thinking. “He’s here to take me home. He’s making sure I’m okay.”
Tallius’s eyes slid from hers to Aydin’s before he snarled, “She’s fine. Now leave!”
With a chuff, Aydin snorted, “Fine.” Turning to Mira he held out a hand. “You ready? You want me to grab your gear?”
“She isn’t fucking going!” Tallius snarled, and knew he had zero grounds to make that declaration. The mutual meet was over. The terms were agreed to, and Mira’s Alpha had come to retrieve her.
“The fuck you say, boy?” Aydin dropped his hand and whirled on Tallius, going chest-to-chest with him.
It was a mistake because Tallius was zero point two seconds away from wrecking the Alpha’s life.
“Stop!” Mira yelled, and backed up.
Her action drew both men’s attention.
“Just stop,” she breathed, and then huffed, “Jesus!” Turning, she disappeared into the bedroom leaving the men to glare at each other for long tense minutes before she returned carrying her suitcase.
“Stay, Aydin. I’ll send up the guys.” She slid her gaze from her Alpha to Tallius, and he could tell she wanted to say something but couldn’t.
“Come on,” he bit out, holding a hand out to Mira. “I’ll see you safely down the mountain.”
“What?” Aydin snapped. “She doesn’t need help. She . . .”
“Was out of it for the better part of a week! Which you’d know nothing about. And regardless of what she says, I can sense she’s not back at one hundred percent, so I’m gonna make sure she gets down the mountain okay.”
Aydin’s gaze sliced between Tallius and Mira before settling angrily on the WG Beta. “If anyone’s gonna make sure she gets down the mountain alright, it’ll be me.”
“The fuck it will,” Tallius snarled, and just that fast he was nose-to-nose with Aydin again.
“Oh my God,” Mira groaned. “I’m a wolf shifter and the Fury Beta,” she interjected. “I can get myself down the damn mountain!”
“What in the fuck is going on?” Aydin snapped. Eyes on Tallius, his nostrils flared as he turned his head slightly toward Mira.
Tallius knew what he was doing. Aydin was trying to scent Mira to see if she and Tallius had shared more than just the cabin.
Mira’s cheeks flooded with color while Tallius puffed out his chest in pride. He hoped that fucker smelled it! He hoped Aydin picked up their mingled scents. He hoped Aydin smelled Tallius on Mira, and Mira on him. The perfume of the passion that was shared between them still clung to Mira and Tallius, regardless of the shower he’d taken.
Color crept up Aydin’s neck and landed in his cheeks as his furious gaze locked on Tallius. He knew. Good! The fucker should know that Tallius had a claim to Mira.
Eyes locked in a silent battle, Tallius wasn’t going to lose the glaring contest he was having with Aydin, but when Mira stepped forward and gripped Aydin’s arm, his focus faltered as his eyes dipped to her delicate hand.
Clearing her throat, Mira suggested, “We should go.” But she wasn’t talking to Tallius. She was speaking to her Alpha, and the realization felt like a donkey kick to Tallius’s balls.
Whipping his head around, he frowned at her and demanded in a clipped tone, “You’re leaving?”
Eyes leveling on his, Mira huffed, “Of course I’m leaving. There’s no reason for me to stay.” Releasing Aydin, Mira stormed out the front door leaving Tallius stunned a moment before he shook out of it and followed her.
“Hey!” Aydin barked, but before he could follow them out the door, Tallius slammed it in his face.
In the dark, Tallius had no problem locating Mira, and not because there was only one single path dug out from the door of the cabin to the woods. No, it had nothing to do with sight. Yeah, his animal’s night vision was excellent, but he was honed in on her scent like it was a damn lifeline.
Jogging to catch up with her, Tallius caught her elbow just as Mira spun and hissed, “What are you doing? You can’t disrespect my Alpha like that!”
Pulling his hand back, he lifted them both in a show of surrender and asked innocently, “Like what? I just . . .”
“You just ordered him around and did it in front of me! I’m a Beta too, Tallius! Disrespect like that requires action on my part. I should have tied into you for the slight.”
“Okay, okay,” he soothed. “Sorry. I just . . .” But he didn’t know what to say. He just what? Didn’t want her Alpha
touching her? Didn’t want any other man touching her? Instead, he said, “Mira, we need to talk about what happened between us.”
Her face softened a moment and her eyes dipped to his chest before the sound of the front door opening had her eyes shooting to it and her expression going hard. “I can’t,” she whispered. “It wasn’t anything. Just sex. Let it be.”
She turned from him, but Tallius caught her arm and pulled her hard into him with a snarled, “The fuck it was!”
“Hey!” Aydin barked and then raced over. “Take your goddamn hands off her!”
Tallius didn’t even glance at him. Eyes locked on Mira, he waited for her to say something.
Finally, she lifted her chin and looked him dead in the eye before demanding, “Let me go.”
The coldness in her face shocked him and had him releasing her instantly. All he could do was stare in disbelief as Mira walked down the shoveled path. Let me go? Her parting words ricocheted around in his head and felt like they meant more than just taking his hands off her.
Beside him, Aydin’s eyes were glued to Mira as he snarled, “Stay the fuck away from her. You and your pack have done enough damage to her.”
Eyes still on Mira, Tallius’s lips ticked up in a snarl as he growled, “Shut the fuck up!”
Aydin didn’t. “And if I find out that whatever happened here wasn’t consensual . . .”
Tallius turned and punched him right in the fucking mouth.
Aydin reeled back but was held up by the wall of snow behind him. Turning his head to the side, he spit out a mouthful of blood and growled, “Is that a challenge?”
“If it was, I’d take your fucking pack and we both know it.” Jamming a finger in Aydin’s face, Tallius snarled, “And don’t you ever tell me what I can and can’t do where Mira’s concerned. She’s your goddamn Beta, not your child or your mate! Remember that!”
Turning, he strode angrily for the cabin, acid filling his mouth at actually having to use the word mate when talking about Aydin and Mira’s relationship.
Inside the cabin, he slammed the door closed and pressed his shoulders into it before sliding down to the floor, elbows resting on his upraised knees as he glared at the wall and tried to ignore the gaping hole that had just been ripped in his middle. Mira had left him. She was gone.
Chapter 19
Mira sipped on her bottle of beer in the darkened corner of the little dive bar she liked to slink to when she needed a break from her pack. Today was one of those days. She was feeling anxious and lonely and, oddly, a whole lot of nothing much else. Popping a puffy Cheeto into her mouth, she pulled her hand back and frowned at the orange scuzz on her fingertips before wiping them on the napkin beneath her beer. Beer and chips. This had become her life. Hiding from Aydin, avoiding her pack, and eating shit she wouldn’t normally eat just to keep herself going.
She’d been back from her meeting with Tallius for six days now, and she’d been lethargic and disinterested in all the things that had consumed her before the mutual meet. It wasn’t like her to get down like this, and she knew it had everything to do with what happened between her and Tallius and how they’d left things.
Tallius.
Using a thumbnail to peel up the corner of the label on her bottle, she thought about why she couldn’t seem to shake him. No matter what she did or how busy she kept herself, there he was, constantly lingering in her thoughts. She realized now that the mutual meet with him had been an epically bad idea. She’d agreed to it for two reasons. The first had been because as Aydin’s Beta, she wanted him to know that she was up to any task he placed in front of her. But the second reason, the bigger reason, was because she’d wanted to face her fears, and Tallius had tortured her dreams since the night the WG had attacked her pack. Now he was still plaguing her dreams, but it was for entirely different reasons. Her feelings for him had done an about-face. She’d been trying to convince herself that the residual feelings she had for him were simply gratitude, but she couldn’t lie to herself. There was more to it than that. Hell, it was more than even just mere attraction.
Taking another long draw of her beer, she stared at the people playing pool on the other side of the bar, not really seeing them. All she ever managed to see now was images of Tallius in her head. She thought of him constantly, and something felt wrong with her wolf. Yeah, she’d come back to Mira, but she’d come back different. At first, Mira thought her animal was simply pouting, but as the days passed, her beast grew more and more lethargic and unresponsive. Today, she’d gone out to do a perimeter run of her pack’s territory, but had been unable to shift. Things with her wolf were getting out of control, and that needed to change because it was impossible to be a pack Beta without a goddamn wolf that she could call to her at will. Hell, even now any member of the pack or any outsider could issue a challenge for her spot and she’d be required to defend it. If anyone knew just how vulnerable she really was, her pack status would have been taken already. It was one of the reasons she was avoiding the pack, but not the only reason. She was floating again. Disjointed, disconnected, she was back to the way she’d always felt in the FourClaws. She doubted she’d ever feel like she belonged anywhere, and it had her feeling bad for Aydin and the Fury. They deserved better, but try as she might, she couldn’t muster up the loyalty or connection they were due. She was a shit Beta and a shit pack mate, and a shit woman for not even considering Aydin. She hadn’t flat turned him down, not yet, but she knew she’d have to soon. He was forcing her to it with his constant attention and lingering presence. It sucked too because Aydin was a great fucking guy. Hot too, but her loins only heated up for one shifter, and unfortunately, it was one she couldn’t have.
The jukebox came blaring to life, and it was a sappy country song that used to be one of Mira’s favorites. Now it had her rolling her eyes and slamming the rest of her beer before she waved down the waitress to close out her tab. Her head and heart were already a fucking mess, she certainly didn’t need Eric Church reminding her of how Tallius could easily rock some sheetrock off the walls.
***
Six days! It had been just a mere six days since Tallius and Mira had parted ways up on Baldie, but Tallius still couldn’t seem to shake her. Thoughts of her plagued his every waking hour, and even after countless showers and rewashing his laundry a half dozen times, Mira’s scent still ghosted him. It hit him right between the eyes at the most inopportune moments, like earlier in the morning when he’d been barking orders at the WG enforcers. He’d been busting their balls about how lax their patrols had gotten, when the delicate scent of Mira wafted to him and had him stammering to a halt. Bodie had laughed at him and had earned himself back-to-back patrol shifts for the next two weeks. Even now, jamming clothes into a duffle bag, Tallius couldn’t muster up any guilt over the action.
A knock at his door didn’t slow his hands in their task. “What?” he snapped.
A chuckle preceded War through the door. “Still pissy, eh?”
Tallius shot his Alpha a dirty look. “I’m not pissy!”
“Yeah”—leaning against the door frame, War crossed his arms over his thick chest— “you’ve been a real gem since you came back from Baldie.” Eyeing the duffle bag, War asked, “Going somewhere?”
When Tallius didn’t immediately answer, War shoved off the door and stepped further into the room. “You’re going after her, aren’t you?”
“I’m going to Fury territory,” Tallius confirmed, but didn’t look up from his packing. “Don’t know when I’ll be back.”
“Does Aydin know you’re coming?”
“Don’t know, don’t care.”
War’s brows hiked as he snorted and mumbled, “O-kay.” Crossing to the bed, he dropped onto it and leaned back on an elbow to watch Tallius. “Does Mira know you’re coming?”
Zipping his duffle bag, Tallius lifted it and slung it over his shoulder. “No.”
Tallius made it to the door before War barked, “Stop!”
The
Alpha command cracked through the air like a whip and had Tallius slamming to a halt.
He hadn’t asked for permission from War to leave the Fortress. He hadn’t told War about his plans to go after Mira, either, because he was worried his Alpha wouldn’t allow it. Now, frozen in place, he waited for what he knew was going to come. Behind him, his bed creaked, and then War was circling him with a scowl.
“You going unannounced into Fury territory isn’t gonna fly.”
Tallius’s angry eyes tracked War.
“It’ll be seen as a sign of aggression. It’ll be a message from the WG, and it’s not one I want to send.”
“I am going after her!” Tallius snarled.
With a roll of his eyes, War huffed, “Then fucking do it right, man!” Walking to the door he said, “Give me twenty goddamn minutes.” His eyes dipped to Tallius’s bag. “And that’s a fucking order.”
For twenty minutes, Tallius paced his room and seethed. Fucking War! Alpha was so goddamn nosey and bossy and . . . nosey!
Footsteps in the stone corridor indicated that someone was coming, so Tallius stopped pacing and faced the door mutinously.
War poked his head in. “Let’s go.”
Confused, Tallius stepped into the hall and watched War striding down the hall with a duffle bag of his own in his hand.
“Uhhhh?”
Without breaking stride, War tossed over his shoulder, “I’m going with you.”
“War,” Tallius began, but quieted when his Alpha stopped and spun on him.
“I contacted Aydin, and he ain’t open to a visit from you.” War canted his head and narrowed his eyes on his Beta. “What’d you do to him?”
“Nothing!”
War grunted, “Didn’t sound like nothing.”
“Fucker’s got a thing for Mira! I mean who does that?” he scoffed incredulously. “Who has the hots for your own Beta? It’s fucking gross!”
Lips curling up in a slow smile, War grinned knowingly and uttered a slow, “Oooooh.”
“It ain’t like that,” Tallius snapped, and then muttered, “Fuck!”