It was respectful and honorable.
But the discord was coming. Tentacles of misery crept out from the dark shadows of their souls. This would not be an easy fight or one without more blood spilled.
I just needed to be sure it wasn’t Charlie’s blood on the ground. Or mine and my brother’s. No matter how much she loved this pack, they weren’t worth martyring ourselves. I’d learned years ago that death was a useless form of tribute unless those you died for loved you.
There was not much love left in this place, but come hell or high water, Garrett and I would give it everything we had because they were all Charlie had left. We knew firsthand the pain of losing everyone you loved. If we could spare her that pain, we would in a heartbeat. I knew without asking Garrett felt the same way. I’d seen the determined way he rolled his shoulders and held his tongue.
The evil stalking the Mason pack was smart and left no tracks. Until we had Victor lifting his physical hand against her, we couldn’t act without betraying her trust—our bond—and he knew it.
Chapter 23
CHARLIE
Another whole day passed without incident. Victor was minding his manners, or so it seemed. Travis and Garrett were wired, though. We slept quietly together after Dean and Kara’s funeral. They held me while I slept, but took turns sleeping themselves. I woke once in the night and saw the moonlight glinting off Garrett’s open eyes. He’d turned toward me a second later, no doubt hearing the change in my breathing or the slight rise in my heart rate.
A smile and deep kiss was enough to coax me from Travis’ arms. But he was only taking me from his brother so he could take a turn sleeping with me tucked tightly against his body. I wasn’t complaining.
I loved being near both of them. Being held, caressed. Loved. It was everything my soul had dreamed of experiencing with one mate. Fate had given me two. But two meant twice the heartache when Xerxes stole them from me. I steeled my heart to the avalanche of emotions threatening to kick in the walls I’d erected to protect myself.
Each touch. Kiss. Look. Everything they did was for me, but all I could see was pain and how much it was going to hurt to lose them. I couldn’t love them the way they loved me. Recklessly. Completely. Without hesitation.
The bond flowed between the three of us, bathing me in the constant glow of their feelings for me. Of their hopes and dreams of our future together. A future that Xerxes would invariably steal from me if Victor didn’t first. But it didn’t matter if the whole pack hated me. I was their alpha. It was my job to love and care for them and make sure they were taken care of first. I came second. My needs, wants, and wishes were at the bottom of the list. They always had been as long as I’d lived. My parents had raised me to put the pack first.
That was why the disloyalty and hatred hurt so much. I’d given everything to these people. To my family. But they were blinded by the same pain I carried in my heart. Pain that had left my eyes wide open but stolen my ability to hope. No obvious way out of this mess existed. I’d tried to show my dedication, my forgiveness to the two pack members who’d tried to assassinate me so Victor could lead them to the slaughter. It wasn’t enough. They wanted to follow my uncle to their deaths.
Travis and Garrett were both a walking bundle of sizzling nerves. If they thought I couldn’t feel their anxiety and smell the concern seeping from every pore of their body, they were wrong. But I respected them more for staying quiet about it. They were doing their best to help me achieve my goal of keeping the pack safe, no matter how crazy an idea it might be. For that, I would be eternally grateful.
“You need to let your mind rest, Charlie,” Travis whispered, his big bass voice rumbling through the air between us.
He used my nickname most of the time, unlike Garrett who always called me Charlotte. Charlie made me feel strong and capable of fighting the war that threatened to swallow us up. Both fed different parts of my soul. Both gave me something I desperately needed, but wouldn’t wholly accept.
Even so, I would make my vows to both of them when the sun rose. Crawley had insisted we complete a traditional Lycan marriage ceremony. A decade had passed since the pack had celebrated a wedding, and it would be a nice change from the hell we’d been through lately. I’d agreed totally with him, surprised and pleased with his change of attitude since Travis and Garrett had appointed him their beta. That one choice had changed Crawley from a whining, self-serving jerk into a loyal, steadfast member of our pack.
Our pack. A pack that consisted of Travis, Garrett, myself, and Crawley, for all intents and purposes. Crawley said disloyalty was rampant, though others had not publicly raised their voices against our alpha status, and that many spoke of leaving Ada with Victor permanently.
“Yours doesn’t,” I finally whispered back.
He sighed like a man who understood why my mind couldn’t rest. Like a man who knew, but wouldn’t stop me from trying my damnedest to make this work.
What if I kept pushing and pushing and I was the reason I lost these two perfect mates Fate had delivered to my doorstep? Was I so blind that I would waste this opportunity? An opportunity not every Lycan was granted. A chance to be so connected to another that you could feel their essence inside you. A chance to have a family. There was a time when that had been all I dwelled on.
But it seemed so small in comparison to the evils out in the world. The evils that could snuff out everything I cared about with one little breath.
“Are you concerned about the vows we take tomorrow?” Travis asked.
“She better not be,” Garrett murmured in my ear as his arms tightened around my body. “I’ll die before letting go of her.”
His words warmed me, sending heat flaring through my body from the tips of my toes all the way to my cheeks.
Travis’s mouth parted, and his white teeth shone in the moonlight filtering through the open curtains. Neither of them would allow the curtains to be closed since that first night when the soldiers had attacked. On the off-chance they returned, they wanted to see them coming. At least that’s what they said, though I wondered sometimes if it was just so they could watch me sleep. Or they didn’t like the dark. It was a toss-up.
“It’s not that. I’m sad that my parents will not witness our vows, but I’m not doubting them at all.”
“You still won’t open to us completely, Charlie. I can feel the block on your magick. It flows between us, but not as completely as it should. You’re holding back.” Travis’ words sliced through those bricks around my heart. Guilt was a powerful wrecking ball, but as fast as he tried to knock them down, I built them back up twice as thick.
“Why do you hold back, Charlotte? You are everything to us. We’ve pledged ourselves to you. To this pack. What more can we give you?” Garrett asked, his body flexing and stretching around mine as he fully woke from his brief nap, if five minutes could even be called a nap.
I lay in silence, wanting to tell them about the fear that plagued me, that paralyzed my mind. Instead I shook my head and attempted to lie. “I don’t know. Everything is such a mess. I just need time.”
“You can have the all the time you need, Charlie.” Travis reached out and caught my chin, turning my face toward his. “But you can’t lie. You used sex to avoid talking once already. And now you would choose to lie to my face?
Tears burned behind my eyelids as I squeezed them shut. I didn’t want to lie. But I also didn’t want to tell them I was purposefully holding back, refusing to allow the magick to settle completely. It was exhausting, but it was survival.
A second later, I was hanging over Garrett’s legs, my belly pressed to his thighs and my ass straight up in the air. He moved so fast I didn’t have time to protest before his palm connected with one of my butt cheeks.
“Ahhhhh!” I screeched, bucking against the heavy forearm he had across my upper back to hold me down. Travis had jumped from the bed and was sitting on the floor, holding my arms, staring at me with eyes that reflected all my pain and guilt.
Another smack made me squirm. My ass stung, but it hurt my pride more than anything else.
“We are an alpha triad, but we are only as strong as our weakest link, Charlotte. If this continues, you will drag us down with your pack instead of giving us a fighting chance to save them,” Garrett said, his voice deepening almost to a growl by the end. “Give it up, Charlotte. Let it go. Whatever eats at your heart and frightens you so much that you won’t let your Fated mates anywhere near it.”
“I can’t!” I shouted, not caring a whit if the pack heard us or not. They didn’t care about me. They hated me. Crawley had to stand outside our door when we slept. Thank the gods he’d come over to our side or Travis and Garrett would’ve insisted on taking shifts at the door. The curtains had to remain open at all times. “We aren’t safe.” The words slipped between another cry and a sob as Garrett’s hand struck the curve of my panty-clad ass again. The lace was doing nothing to diffuse my mortification or the pain.
“You are safer with us than alone,” Travis said from the floor in front of me. His hands squeezed my wrists gently as I tried to yank them free.
“Let me go. This is all I have left to give you. There’s nothing else.”
“You’re still lying, Charlotte.” Garrett’s hand came down two more times, and tears ran down my cheeks. “Our mate bond is strong, but it’s not complete. That’s on you. You have to let us in. You have to let it finish. We deserve to have all of you.”
“No! If I let the bond completely settle, then I’ll die when I lose you!” I cried, the words pouring out before I could stop them. Damn them both. Sneaky bastards set me up. “It will kill me. I can’t lose more people. I have pack trying to assassinate me. A psychopath hunting me and mine. And now his soldiers are in town actively trying to take over the pack. My own uncle has turned against me and is bent on taking the whole pack down with him. You two are the only good thing I have left, but if I let myself l—” I cut myself off. I couldn’t say it. But it didn’t matter. They’d figured it out. I could see the pain reflected in the surface of Travis’ irises. The tension melted from Garrett’s body, and he let my body slip gently from his knees to the carpeted floor. Travis released my wrists and backed out of reach.
The distance from them both felt like a great chasm. The very thing I’d been trying to prevent had happened.
I’d lost them.
The sun rose, covering the fields behind the lodge with blankets of yellow and pink light. We stood holding hands, creating a small circle; the pack stood in a circle around us, also holding hands. Their circle represented the strength of the pack, uniting around the alphas. Our circle represented the heart and soul of the pack. Though the circles were complete and everyone held hands, there was no strength. No loyalty.
Even the magick between Garrett and Travis and I was weak, broken by the revelation in the bedroom only an hour before. The confession they’d coerced from my body by force had left our bond barely there. I couldn’t understand why they remained. I’d all but told them I couldn’t let myself love them.
Why did they stay at all? What was here for them? An angry pack and a mate who didn’t deserve to be touched by them again. Yet they stood next to me, one on each side. Their hands gripped mine with strength and determination.
“As the sun rises and falls, as the moon rises and falls, also eternal will be my devotion to you. Fate has put us together, and nothing short of death will tear us apart.” Travis spoke the words first, keeping my gaze locked with his. When he finished, his gaze moved to Garrett’s and so did mine, locking onto the pain in Garrett’s eyes.
What have I done? How can I throw this chance away because I am afraid? I wanted them so badly it hurt. They were all my heart longed for, but I wouldn’t let my heart have them.
“As the sun rises and falls, as the moon rises and falls, also eternal will be my devotion to you. Fate has put us together, and nothing short of death will tear us apart.” He spoke the same words, but unlike Travis’ stony monotone voice, I could hear Garrett’s pain. The pain of my lack of faith in them to win this fight. To keep us all safe. I was letting that psychopathic monster steal something from me, and he wasn’t here. My fear was ruining my chance at happiness with these two men. My best friend, Eira, would’ve beaten me if she was here. She would’ve told me to suck it up and take life by the horns before it took me. She would live thousands of years longer than me, but she’d known love, and when her love had returned, she didn’t let fear keep her from embracing her happiness.
“As the sun rises and falls… as the moon rises and falls… also eternal will be my devotion to both of you.” I paused, looking to Travis and then again to Garrett. “Fate has put us together, and nothing short of death will tear us apart again.” A tear ran down my cheek, but both my men smiled down at me. Magick surged through each of us, creating a circling ring that only death would break.
I let the love I’d been holding back pour out of me—a tsunami hurtling through me tearing down every brick of the wall I’d put up. My breath whooshed from my lungs, and I gasped for air as I felt their love fill my soul. The magick settled, and the waves calmed.
We were a triad.
We were alpha.
We were everything and more than I’d ever thought having a Fated mate would mean. Perhaps if I’d realized what it would feel like to join our souls, I wouldn’t have pushed them away for so long. Maybe not at all.
Chapter 24
GARRETT
I leaned against the wall behind Charlotte’s chair in the great expanse of the lodge living area. The huge fireplace had been lit to roast a pig flank, and the scent of the barbecuing meat filled the room. Faces smiled that had been solemn during the ceremony as food and wine were enjoyed around the room in excess. We’d discreetly secured an unopened bottle of wine from the cellar and had only consumed it during the meal. Crawley had procured our food personally and tasted all of it before we ate.
Charlotte had finally accepted our bond, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t been right when she’d cried that we weren’t safe. She was still afraid. I could smell it on her—an oily film that threatened to suffocate the happiness she’d taken the chance to reach for. And with good reason. Right now we were in a den that didn’t belong to us.
Travis sat in the chair next to her. We took turns, though neither of us ever stopped watching her. After the second attempt on her life, it was difficult for us to let her use the bathroom without checking the window first and then standing guard outside the door.
Twice we’d almost lost her. At least Crawley added a third set of eyes. The young Lycan had proven himself a worthy beta. I just wished more of the pack would see through Victor’s lies like he had. So far they smiled and moved about the room like nothing was amiss, but their eyes told another story entirely.
Lycans were unable to read each other’s minds, but it was very difficult to hide everything. Our kind picked up on the smallest shifts in pheromones, pupil dilation, breathing, heart rate. Everything was noticed. Nothing was ignored.
Living in a pack was like being hooked up to a lie detector 24/7. It had its perks, like never having to wonder if your pack had your back, but it had its downsides, too. When disloyalty reared its head, it spread like a virus, infecting almost everyone.
Charlotte rose from her chair, and Travis stood immediately. “What can I get for you, sweetheart?”
“More wine?”
“I’ll get another bottle.”
“But there’s more, just there,” she said, pointing to the table. She turned slightly as she answered, the unspoken question of why we were only drinking from our own bottle hung between us, a ripcord waiting to be yanked. But it only took a few seconds for the answer to come to her. The rising pain in her gaze ripped a hole in my heart. “Oh.” The word floated in the air like a bubble waiting to be burst by the hatred simmering in the room. She sat down again, and Travis crossed the living area, maneuvering quickly through milling people an
d disappearing into the kitchen.
My chest tightened, and my heart froze momentarily. I knew my brother was more than capable of taking care of himself, but being alone meant vulnerability. I didn’t think anyone would try to take him on, but Crawley noticed my discomfort immediately and nodded his head in the direction of the kitchen before following in my brother’s footsteps.
Before he stepped out of view, Travis reappeared. Crawley was only a few feet away, and Travis raised a suspicious eyebrow at him before swinging his gaze across the room to me. He narrowed his gaze, but didn’t give away whether he was annoyed or in agreement that we couldn’t be too careful.
He used the corkscrew on the table in front of Charlotte to open the bottle then poured her a glass. She picked at her meal and tried to smile at a few people nearby. No one gave her a second look.
Movement in the entryway caught my eye. Victor ducked around the corner, and I heard the door open and close. I stepped forward from the wall and leaned down between Travis and Charlotte’s heads. “Victor slipped out the front.”
Travis nodded. “I think it’s time we called in some help, Charlie. As long as your uncle is here and calling the shots behind the scenes, this will never be your pack. But the final choice is yours.”
“I can’t force them to accept us,” Charlotte whispered.
“But you can force them to respect you,” I said, laying a hand on her trembling shoulder. “We will let those leave who wish to follow Victor, but he must go, Charlotte. He can’t be allowed to stay.”
A sigh slipped from her chest, and her chin fell in defeat. “Do it.”
Travis rose from his chair and disappeared from the room, shadowed by Crawley. I took his place in the chair next to Charlotte.
“You think they hate us now? Just wait until more of your people arrive and act like they are in charge,” Charlotte warned.
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