“Don’t do that. I…I lo—like you the way you are,” I whisper, making him smile and tilt his head at me.
“I want to be what you want, Han, but most of all I would really like the chance to show you that we can be together without any change at all. You want two young? I’ll give you a house full of young. I’ll over achieve for you”
“Er—”
“You want a maid, I’ll get you four. You want a sports car, I’ll buy you three. You want—”
“You,” I cut in softly, my heart pounding with fear as I let the word slip out, taking the risk before I can talk myself out of it.
Logan stops, regards me silently and tears up when I bite my lip and nod to confirm what he heard.
“I only want you. I have wanted you since I was seventeen years old and my vagina started—”
“Okay! Alright, I think that’s my cue to leave!” Banner yells, slinking off before I can blink.
Once he’s gone, the big door at the end of the passage closes and we’re alone. I look back at Logan and force myself not to retreat from this. This is me. This is me in all my sickening softness, all that stuff I once felt and let rule me before it was slapped out of me. I like making people…happy. Sometimes. Not all people are worth knowing.
I like being happy, and deep down, I know the only way that will happen for me is with Logan. I love him. I want to be with him. The only thing that stopped me was the thought that I would never be loved back.
I’ve gone all my life without true love, if this is even halfway possible, there’s no way I’ll walk away from it.
“I’ve loved you forever, Logan. When I was a little girl, I told your brother I would mate you, and by God, no matter what happened between that time and when I grew up, when I turned seventeen my body and heart wanted you. I just never thought you’d want me back,” I admit, biting my lip when he doesn’t move or say anything.
Oh hell.
“And maybe I can’t blame you for everything. I made it hard for you to want to love me, but…but this is me. I’ll be sweet when I finally feel secure enough to stop deflecting. Maybe I’ll be a bitch. Hell that’s more than likely. I don’t know if I’ll ever learn to cook or stop messing up your clothes, but I will love you. If you let me,” I whisper, holding my breath until he slowly crooks a finger at me.
Crawling forward, my heart beating rapidly I get close enough to feel his breath on my lips, so close I can smell emotion coming off him in waves. Happiness. Fear. Remorse. I scent it all and feel his response when he puts a hand through the bars to cup my face and bring me closer.
“I’d beg if I needed to,” he whispers, kissing me softly, reverently, as if he can’t believe I gave in at all. “I want to mate you officially Hannah Kilter and have a whole house of young—”
“Er—”
“And love you until the day I draw my last happy breath. Willingly. With joy. Because you’re my choice,” he says, his eyes shining with the truth of that statement.
“You’re mine,” I croak, tearing up and laughing when he kisses me, pulling back with a curse when a howl off in the distance splits the air.
“Christ, let’s get you out of here before Nick gets back and decides to keep you here. I can handle being mated to a crazy person, I draw the line at convict.”
I’m still giggling when we walk out of there—arm in arm and only slightly lose the giggle when we make it out of the front door only to see Nick barreling our way with a curse.
“Run,” I whisper, smiling when Logan obeys without a pause.
Chapter Twenty-three
Hannah
“I can’t believe you did this,” Nick says for the thirtieth time, pacing his office while I sit in my seat trying to look contrite but failing miserably.
Logan, the bastard, keeps choking behind his hand, stifling his laughter, and I can hear Bear and Banner behind me, doing the same. Even Mika, young free because Prissy took Bran and refused to relinquish him, is giggling intermittently, and Clarke just outright laughs and tells me I’m failing to look remorseful.
“I can’t believe—”
“Yeah okay, I got that about thirty-three times ago, man. Cut the melodrama. Look, that male was not full feral and hasn’t been for a long time now. He deserves the chance to go out there and find a reason to live. Personally, I would love to hear news of him ripping apart that pack who killed his mate and brother, but okay, that’s obviously juuust me,” I mutter when others wince and look anywhere to avoid Nick’s piercing gaze.
“This is bad.”
“Eh, it could be good,” I wheedle, snorting when Nick curses.
“I should lock you away, you menace.”
“Dude, you’d be singing a totally different tune in a few months when I go into labor and leave uterus juice on your cell floor. Think of the mess,” I say innocently, smirking when Logan freezes and then yells, jumping up to grab me and do all that loving shit he seems so obsessed with.
Sappy idiot.
My sappy idiot, I muse, moaning when he kisses me so fiercely I can’t breathe for the pleasure.
“Christ. Get her out of here!” Nick growls, his own voice filled with laughter.
That’s all I hear, as Logan takes the order and carries me home. Though God knows, I am convinced the building isn’t my home, he is.
Jeeeesus. This hormone shit is gonna ruin me.
“I love you, Hannah Kilter,” he murmurs, kissing me as we reach the woods.
“I love you, Logan. Willingly.”
And that’s it, I think, as he carries me off into the snowy woods, our bond complete. I choose. Everything.
# # # #
Barbie
I shiver, wrapping my arms more firmly around myself, praying that I survive the cold long enough to make it into Glacier and find some sort of escape from the animals tracking me.
I’m so cold and hungry, and it’s all I can do to keep my animal inside and maintain my skin, my mind yelling at me to do just that even as I know that I’d be dead in moments if I let her out and she gave off a scent.
I don’t usually deny her since I don’t have to think about it. Usually, I am free to shift or stay in skin and block my scent as my DNA is geared to do.
Tonight, I have no choice but to stumble and freeze, praying for a miracle so that I can get home and report what I know. Just as I’m about to give up hope I hear something, a howl that splits the air and makes my skin go clammy with dread.
That does not sound like any wolf I know.
BOOK THREE
Chapter One
Beebee
Run.
Run.
Run.
It’s all I keep telling myself as I pump my legs, falling, stumbling, righting myself against the deep snow drifts and fighting the fatigue, pain, and hunger that hasn’t left me no matter how I try to ignore them.
I’m so tired. God, so tired I could happily curl up in the cold and sleep forever, I think, pushing forward only to cry out when my leg goes knee deep into the snow and sends me sprawling face first into icy powder.
The impact sends me sprawling, my breath wheezing as I go still, completely depleted and unable to move another inch now that stillness has swept away the mad dash of adrenalin that kept me moving. I need to run.
I have to.
I keep still, letting the cold wrap around my almost naked limbs and settle deeper, the numbness at least overriding the pain that I’ve felt for so long.
Breathing, I need to keep breathing. Just breathe and rest and maybe I’ll move in a little bit. Yeah, I’ll move soon, I tell myself, the cold seeping into me, as my body slows down and settles into that place just before sleep where I’m awake but not quite.
It’s now that I evaluate things, think about everything I’ve done and been, and I wonder if it was worth it. If betraying everything I know about loyalty was truly worth the price I’ve paid.
Everything I have done in the last while, the last few years really, has been abou
t pushing the boundaries and forcing a change that I now understand was too strong to force.
I should have listened to what Daddy said, each little wisdom he ever gave me, and used it to guide me instead of rushing headlong into something I haven’t lived long enough to understand.
Breathing deeply, I feel my wolf whimper, the dominant animal overlaying the cougar within me that is now crying out for survival.
The truth is, I don’t deserve to survive this. I deserve to lay here out in the snow, in the middle of the forest, and die for making choices I had no place making.
And yet, all I can think about is my pack, getting back and warning them of what I’ve learned. Everything I’ve seen. All those little pieces I’ve put together, using nothing more than my wits, rebellion, and impulsive nature.
I need to go home, go back to the people I’ve betrayed and throw myself down in supplication because I should right the wrongs I’ve done and fix everything before I give up.
Quitting is easy, Barbie, I hear Dad say in that part of me that longs for him. Don’t quit now, just soldier on through, and I promise you the accomplishment will be worth it.
But I have no accomplishment here. All I’ve managed to do is betray my own and open others up to harm in the bargain. I’ve not only exposed my pack to the monsters—but the weak and desperate as well.
Rolling over with effort, I look up at the moon, the big clear ball shining down on me where I lay, breathing out breath clouds and willing myself to get up, go, keep running until I get home to people who may hate me but will protect me.
All I want is my daddy and mama. I want one more time to feel their loving arms surround me in warmth. I want just one more hug and kiss, one more endearing lecture where Daddy bemoans my stubborn nature and mama pesters me to settle down and give her grandyoung.
I can’t have it though, I think, as my body stops shivering and tells me I’m in hypothermia territory. I can’t have that because I gave it all up the moment those shifters walked into my cabin and I made a choice.
I gave up my life, my freedom, my honor because I believed that the orders I’d been given meant more than what I had. I trusted that helping others would make me strong and honorable and that sacrifice would mean a better life for all.
To do what I was doing meant getting rid of the elite families that live within the community I grew up in. It was me striking out against shifters who believed themselves superior to mixed breeds, human matings, and anything that in any way went against our old laws.
I was helping by taking female shifters from mates they did not want but had to accept because their families dictated they did. I saved females from lives spent in loveless matings and constant unhappiness.
I saved the young whose parents weren’t fit to raise pigs. Mostly, I worked to make my Alpha stand up and see that his complacency was getting many a shifter wolf, bear, cat, whatever breed or mix thereof, killed. Or trapped in a prison of family ties.
I really was…am…an idiot. I should have seen that what I was doing was dwindling my pack down to bare bones and causing a power shift that almost, if not yet, unseated my Alpha.
I did all this not understanding that time is what it takes—not force.
So I took the order, ran headlong into danger, and by the time I came up for air and smelled the fucking cappuccino, it was too late. Now I’m basically dead or will be in a few minutes if the cold doesn’t get me.
They’re tracking me, hunting me like an animal, and when they find me I am dead. There’s no doubt about that. I know too much. I have seen too much. Heard too much for them to let me live.
You can live.
I hear the voice wash over my mind like a balm and crack a smile of pure irony.
Hannah Seers? Is that you?
Kilter now. I mated Logan.
Snorting at the irony of Hannah Seers, little princes of the elite, mating the lead enforcer of my Alpha’s army, I roll my eyes at the sky and wonder at the mysteries of the maker. Hannah Seers—wait, Kilter—mated to a male, who once looked at her and swore he’d never mate a bigot female who despised his mixed blood. Logan, a male who swore to me that he hated her and wanted nothing to do with her
I guess it’s true. Once you find your Fated, your one true mate, there isn’t anything that will stop that instinct from taking over.
Keep going, Barbie.
Can’t. Tired.
So tired. I’ve been tired for days now, on edge, hungry, desperate. It’s a miracle I’ve made it this far at all, I think, letting the connection I feel and have felt before ebb.
Yeah, Hannah has been with me before, and that time it was a total accident, too. I woke to feeling something, this strange niggling in my mind that I mistook for my anxiety. But then I can’t blame myself for the mistake because at that time I was both afraid and strangely uncertain of the circumstances.
Paranoid.
I don’t blame myself for the paranoia either because the circumstances were not ideal. I snort when the thought hits me and huff out a mirthless puff of air. Anyone would have been paranoid if they were being held hostage by a strange race of shifter, being imprisoned and forced to work for them to find answers about a genetic anomaly that quite frankly still boggles the mind.
It’s not that they treated me badly, that they starved me, beat me, or mistreated me in any way. No, that was not what I was afraid of. I was afraid…of what would happen if I ever found the answers they were searching, are searching for, and I became obsolete…to people who should be loyal.
I should have known that I was my enemy, not them, not the resistance, and most certainly not the people of my pack. And now I’m going to die because I made all the wrong choices. I trusted all the wrong people—
Barbie! Hey, hey female! Are you still—? Please do not die. Please.
I hear Hannah again, her voice in my head filled with fear, sorrow, and anger as I slip closer to sleep, the cold no longer there as warmth and comfort enfolds me.
Gone is the pain I felt screaming through my body from days of enforced captivity and hunger. Gone is the snarling animal inside my head that demanded I shift and run, survive, never stop.
All I feel is peace and warmth and this strange weightlessness that starts at my bare feet and works itself up my legs to where my black panties cover my lower half.
It travels up, over my belly, breasts, and shoulders and nestles into my head where before I was sporting a wicked headache.
Right now, I feel better than I have in ages, and lethargy, though strong, is welcome because it means I don’t have to get up and keep going. I won’t have to shake off the comforting sensation and welcome the pain again—
Pain lets you know you’re alive! Come on, Bar. Come on, female, get up.
So tired.
I know, female. I feel it, but please, please just get up and keep running. Please. Logan would be so hurt if you died out there all alone.
Not alone. I have my animals.
No! No, uh, Barbie, get up. Get up.
Hannah keeps yelling, and I smile, thinking it ironic that this female is being so rock solid and nice, where before all I saw when I looked at her was a spoiled little princess who treated people like crap and took what she wanted no matter the cost.
There was a time in my life where I despised her for having so much and not using it to help others. She had money and power and influence, and all she did was shop and treat people like they had no worth.
It’s damn hilarious that right now she’s talking to me in my head and trying to pep talk me to live when once I would have truly believed she wouldn’t care one way or the other.
I do care, Barbie. Oh God, get up, you stupid mixed breed! Are you weak? Of course, you are. Daddy was right, your blood is weak, and your mind is just as lacking.
The words have me snarling, my inner wolf hearing the scathing insult and perking up her head slowly. She’s so lethargic it makes me gasp when she tries to surge up and show her power, my b
ody tensing when her re-emergence brings with it sensation I don’t want to feel.
Strong!
Yes, yes that’s it. Wake up, wolf. That’s a good girl. You wake yourself up and don’t let that bitch fall asleep out there or you’ll both die. Stand up, wolf.
My body screams in pain once again when my wolf surges to the fore and forces me up, agony making my legs shake like two tree trunks in a gale force wind when I feel my body roll and push up, putting me on my feet.
I’m here, completely sentient and in control, and yet not, because my body is now up and moving. Granted, the first step isn’t a step but rather a stumbling, almost-numb shuffle through the loose snow.
Hannah—
Shut up! You shut the hell up, Barbie, and don’t mess with what I just did. She’ll take the brunt of it if you stay down.
She’s not feeling this! It hurts. Oh God, it hurts.
My mind screams with the hurt. It’s cold, so cold that it feels like fire is licking through my bones and blasting through every nerve ending I possess. I long for the return of the numbness and warmth I felt just moments before as my wolf and cougar both stretch awake and take control, pushing my limbs to work, forcing my body to move despite my protests.
It takes a long time, a lot of inner battle, but I realize I’m running, really running and not stumbling all over the place when I feel wind on my face, the icy blades slapping into my skin to revive me.
That’s right, wake up. You’re awake. Alive. Don’t let go.
I can’t—
Don’t say that, Barbie. You can. You can do this. You must do this. Just think, honey, you can come home and—
And explain to everyone why I joined the resistance, lied to my entire pack, and fucked it all up so monumentally? They’re going to hate me. My parents are going to be so ashamed of me and my Alpha—
Your Alpha is a strong, benevolent male, who will listen to you and not judge you, Barbie. Nick will just be ecstatic to know that you survived.
Greyriver Shifters Page 48