I nod, knowing that it is time, but not liking it because I don’t think Logan Kilter is going to want me alive after he discovers just how deep I’ve been playing them all.
“I’ll talk to Hannah and see if she can do something. I know he’ll come for Beebee, but I’m not about to die when I’m this close to the life I want.”
Jock snorts, leaning back in his seat, chuckling when we hear Beebee hammering on the trunk. Stubborn female.
“That sister of yours is something else. We could have used her in this a long time ago.”
“Please. Hannah isn’t near as tough as she wants everyone to believe. She cries when Fall arrives because the leaves die. Besides, we agreed when she tried to get in years ago that we’re keeping family out of this,” I remind him.
“We did.”
“So why involve Bee?” I ask quietly, wanting to finally know that answer.
I haven’t asked him, didn’t even in the beginning, because despite everything I still think I had every intention of leaving. Hell, I practically begged Beebee to choose a different path so that I could avoid needing to ask him this.
I wanted to leave, even knowing that I wouldn’t.
“Because she made it so easy, Brig. Honestly, I’m tired of this shit, man. Hardly anyone who defects ever makes it to trial. If I hadn’t done this, Beebee would have been tracked down, even to your pack, and killed and then all of this work, it would have been for nothing. I hate doing it, using a small female with that much softness, but I will if it means we get to complete six years’ worth of wallowing in this shit. I want to go home, Brig, maybe convince myself that I can want another female for something besides sex. I want a home, family. Hell, I want a dog.” He chuckles darkly, making me smile sadly for him.
“Angie wasn’t yours, Jock. No, listen to me. When your sister died, I felt for you, man, and I get it, the pain, it’s almost crippling. You were in a bad place, making one bad suicidal decision after the other and you weren’t thinking clearly. Angie offered you kindness, understanding, and a problem to solve. She was a female you thought you could save, Jock,” I say quietly, wincing when he whines unconsciously.
“I got her killed.”
“No. You took one moment of happiness that she was all but shoving down your throat and then her mate killed her for betraying him. She made that decision, Jock, not you.”
“I…I left a young without his mother and—”
“And stole him from his father and gave him a good life in your own pack. That little male won’t grow up learning to look at females like objects. He’ll grow up right, with values and one day mate and treat his female right. He’ll teach his own young that same way, and as time goes on, that is one more male you saved,” I insist, my voice filled with conviction because I truly do believe it.
Whether Angelina lived or not, is not the point. That boy was going to be raised by a male not worth his salt. This way at least Jock saved someone. It’s small comfort, but it’s there all the same.
“I don’t deserve to be happy after this. To find my Fated…she died, and I walk away to live a full life?” he asks, sounding beaten and weary.
“I think she would have wanted that for you though. She loved you, as a friend more than anything else. She’d have wanted you to be happy.”
Jock nods, swallowing loudly and looks out of the window at the passing scenery. I don’t say anything more, trapped in my own thoughts about what tomorrow will bring.
I have to get my head on straight and work this in such a way that even if I don’t get what I want, Beebee can go back home, finally have that conversation with her mama, and live in the house where I replaced an entire bobblehead collection.
Snorting at how sappy I am with the female, I keep driving and center myself, surrounding my mind with cold, hard logic and pushing away the wolf that wants his Fated.
Chapter Nineteen
Beebee
I roll over on the dirt floor, groaning when my muscles stretch and protest the movement, the cold unforgiving ground beneath me made only barely tolerable by the two blankets Brig tossed in here sometime last night.
I was so cold I almost thought, ‘I’ve never been this cold in my life’, until I remembered that river-ravine thing and the debilitating cold I experienced in there.
So yeah, while I may be freezing, hungry, and sore all over, I have positives to look at.
“You awake, Barb?” Scar calls out softly, probably hearing me shift as I stretch.
“Yeah. God this floor sucks ass.”
“I have a cot in here,” she says smugly. The bitch.
“Lucky you. I have to sleep in the dirt. What time is it?” I ask, deciding to do some yoga to relieve my muscles a little.
Going into a plank position, I push up, feeling my body elongate and curve into downward dog before I shift my feet and spread my legs, falling into a split that makes me moan with relief.
“Five. I woke up about an hour ago when I heard someone moving up above, and I haven’t been able to sleep since. I get the sense that something’s going on with lover boy and Jock. Are they leaving?” she asks, surprising me.
“No, as far as I know Brig is staying here with Jock until after I get my body ripped apart by a rabid dog foaming at the mouth,” I quip, moving my legs around to pull one straight up beside my ear.
“God you’re dramatic,” she mutters.
I giggle, knowing it’s true and think of all the times I would get hurt as a kid and run to Mama, wailing that I’m dying, bleeding to death, and in excruciating pain.
I’ve always been this way. Most days, my family finds it amusing. Well, all days really because they’re all I have, and I am all they have. As an only child, the result of a bad birth that Mama couldn’t fully heal from because Daddy wasn’t here—gone on a sudden business thing for the pack—and couldn’t blood her after I came into the world, I am their world.
I am one kid, the only thing in this world that shows everyone the proof of their love and bond. As a result, I’ve always been coddled and spoiled, the little princess who could just think it and get it with a smile and a joy that still makes me want to cry.
I had millions of Barbies growing up and the latest in technology. Heck, I even beat the Seers kids and was the first kid of our generation to get a cell phone.
I learned to cook with Mama because we spent all our time together. Daddy taught me to fish, change the oil in my car, and kill a deer.
I have had everything, always, no matter what I wanted, and now, I won’t ever have that again. I won’t go home to my little cabin and remind Daddy that I don’t have the Michael Jackson Thriller bobble head.
I won’t wake up in the morning and walk into my living room to see it sitting there with a sweet note telling me he loves me. I won’t get hugs and kisses and constant “I love you” phone calls, just because they feel it in the moment.
I won’t give them anything back. I won’t have the opportunity to give Mama the grandyoung she’s been begging for over the last decade. My life is over. Done.
And I want to blame Brig exclusively and hate him. I do hate him. But I can’t only see him because I see me, too. All of this could have been avoided if I’d just been Barbie, the airhead princess who lived off Mama and Daddy and dated and mated.
I’m rhyming again, sorry. It happens when I don’t cry enough.
I chose this. Well, not this, but my choices led me here, and I can’t blame others for it. I should have listened to Brig in Helena when he begged me to leave.
Wait. Brig begged me to leave, I think, trying to recall that conversation in full and figure out why.
“You still awake Crier, or are we talking?” Scarlet says, interrupting my thoughts.
I smile, finish off my stretches and lay back down to let the tension drain from me.
“I’m here, just thinking.”
“About dying? Don’t focus on it all the time, Barbie. It won’t change anything,” she says and sighs.
“What about you? You’ve been own here for months, alone, what do you think about?” I ask, genuinely curious and needing to change my thought pattern.
I can’t think about Brig yet, not until I feel more stable. At least I’m not crying anymore.
“My family. I only had my sister Angelina left after Mom and Dad died in a raid when I was seventeen. Angie was already mated to a guy whom I only refer to as Dildo, so I couldn’t even go to her when they passed away. It was just me, but I still loved her. Still missed her and I always thought she’d return to the pack eventually,” she says sadly.
“What happened?”
“I got a call one day from Angie herself, this really strange whispered call that was all about telling me she missed me and she loved me and she’d come back because she found a male who wanted to save her.”
I hear the grief in her voice, and my heart reaches out to her. To lose your parents so fast, together, and be alone—even though you still had family—must have been hard. What’s even worse is that I think her sister chose not to come home. At least from what I know.
“Was it Jock?”
“Yes,” she grates, her voice hard and filled with hatred. “She was…mated to a male she thought she loved. It was a choice she made that…it turned out to be a mistake. They weren’t happy together for very long, and then Angie conceived and she was miserable. I think her mate—Reynolds was his name—went a little crazy after that, knowing that his female didn’t want his young.”
I gasp, feeling awful for the male, even if I shouldn’t, because it must hurt to know that your mate did not want your young. It’s not common at all in our race for a male or female to be uncaring of any young, never mind their own. To hear that a female…
“What happened?”
“God, I,” she rasps, her voice thickening. “I was angry at her for being so callous. She had chosen Reynolds against my father’s wishes, convinced us all he was the one for her and then to hear…I was angry that she could be that unfeeling as to not want her own young. I refused to speak to her or answer her calls until one day I just…did. I don’t know why, but that day I saw her number and answered. She sounded happy, like the old Angie. She could be selfish and frivolous, but she was good at heart, and for once, I heard that in her. She said she’d met a male who believed she was his.”
I hear the words, and yet what I hear is that this chick knew she wasn’t Jock’s Fated but let him think it because she wanted him to. Or maybe she wanted it to be true. I don’t know what the truth is, and I’m not judging her for it. I just don’t think it’s right to play with a person’s emotions.
“Did she believe they were Fated?” I ask, looking up at the ceiling where wood beams are reinforced with some type of mesh that I can’t get through.
I’ve tried, trust me. Even if I am short, I have tried many ways to get out, and it just won’t work. Maybe—
“No. She said she knew he wasn’t hers, but he was kind and caring, and he was angry that Reynolds hurt her. He used to hit her because, well to be honest, she could be quite a bitch,” she admits, making me smirk.
I like her honesty, even if it sounds like it’s being ripped out of her and leaves bloody wounds behind. I’d tell her not to talk about it and save herself the pain, but I’m the first person in here in months, and I think Scar should talk, if only to get it out.
And okay, I’m curious.
“So…what happened?”
“Nothing. Everything. She called me the day before she died, laughing and telling me to prepare the guestroom because she was going to ditch Reynolds and the kid and finally come home where she belongs. I don’t know how because our pack hadn’t amended the laws yet. Divorce wasn’t a thing yet, at least, not until after she died. I was…shocked. I told her I wouldn’t accept her in my home if she left her son behind. I mean…goddammit…I should have just let her come home.”
Yeah, well, I can tell you honestly, my parents, as loving as they are would straight up disown me if I pulled something like that. The thought reminds me of the revelation Mama made to me about how they all think I’m pregnant with Brig’s young, and I find myself smiling, enjoying the irony of it. No chance now, I think, shaking my head.
I’d have accepted the young though and loved him, no matter what I thought of Brig. Even if I didn’t love him. Which I still do. So much.
Damn you, Brigger.
Staying silent so that Scar can decide herself whether she wants to talk or not, I let myself think about dark-haired little babies, young with blue eyes like their daddy, who would be Beta wolves in their own right. Strong boys, who would nag me to death and ruin my flowerbeds. Little girls, who would be stubborn and have Brig wrapped around their little fingers.
“She refused to answer the phone after we argued, but I called the next day, around lunch time when I got off work and…and Reynolds was crying. Hell, he was sobbing so hard I swear I felt his pain through the phone. He confessed to killing her, Barbie. Told me he’d gone into a rage when he scented her and scented another male on her,” she hisses.
Ouch.
Now I know that would be almost unforgivable. Even in our modern pack. Males are…territorial. They scent mark their mates, regularly, if they’re having sex, which it sounds to me was not the case with these two. Jock, no other male, would smell a female, scent another, and go there. It just isn’t in the DNA.
So it sounds like this Angie denied her mate, didn’t want her young, and then played on Jock’s male dominance, and possibly the grief he still felt over his sister’s death, to get out of her mating and start a new life.
The sad part is that I don’t even think she wanted Jock.
Oh God, that poor male. Because if she want him, she would never have endangered him that way.
Taking a mate from another isn’t something males do lightly because this Reynolds could have challenged Jock and killed him. Instead, he killed Angie, something I in no way condone, but…
I understand our biology, our mental drives, the instinct, the emotions that are almost too powerful at times. I don’t blame Jock for this. I blame a female who was disloyal to a male she mated. I blame her mate for hurting her and killing her.
I blame the laws, which I still don’t agree with one hundred percent but will support because—in my pack, at least—divorce is an option.
“Barbie?”
“Yeah?” I ask, holding my breath at the hesitant tone of Scarlet’s voice.
“I wish I hadn’t gone after him. I should have grieved her longer, thought about it all, and let it go. I know that. I mean, I still hate him, and I blame him. He shouldn’t have touched her! But I…I blame her, too,” she whispers, making me strain to hear her.
She sounds as if she’s crying, silently, the only indication the rough rasp of her voice, and my heart goes out to her in a way that makes my own chest ache. Because this female is me… and I am her.
I shouldn’t have done all this. Now it’s too late.
******************************************************************
I wake with a start, rolling over on the thin blanket with a groan and tense, pushing myself up and back into the corner when I scent Brig and see his eye flashing from the corner of my cell, closest to the door.
I’m so shocked that he’s here, that he got in here without my wolf waking to warn me, that all I do is stare, shivering when his eyes flash blue again and the scent of alcohol hits me.
He’s been drinking, obviously heavily, and is still doing so if the sloshing sounds I hear are a bottle being raised to his mouth.
“What are you doing in here, Brig?” I ask, my voice sounding husky even to my own ears.
“Watching you sleep. Thinking about that night in the cave when I hurt you so much,” he growls, his words slurring on the last bit, as if he’s on the road to tipsy.
I want to yell at him that he didn’t hurt me, but that would be a lie and we’d both know it, so I don’t bother. He didn’
t want me even then, not really, and the reminder is a hard pill to swallow.
Pulling my hair over my shoulder, the long strands knotted and in need of a wash, I focus on detangling the mass while he watches me in silence for long minutes.
“I hated myself for doing that to you, for using sex against you, because I didn’t want to take anymore and hear your voice, silently accusing me of being a liar.”
I snort because I had no such thought then. All I was thinking about was how weak I was and how much I wished I wasn’t. In fact, that was my truest moment with Brig because the way he’d cared for me reminded me so much of love. I wanted to believe he could love me.
“You humiliated me,” I whisper, my honesty coming from hopelessness more than a place of wanting to hurt him.
“I know,” he says, as he breathes out heavily, the bottle sloshing again. “I wanted to tell you that it was all me. I couldn’t get hard because I was so disgusted with myself I felt sick.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
“What difference would it have made, Bee? None. And anyway, I wanted you angry enough to push me away,” he confesses, his eyes closing so that all I see in the darkness is a slightly blacker shadow in the corner.
When he opens them again, it’s startling to behold. Electric blue shining out of the darkness, almost like a beacon, guiding me home. I snort at the thought, angrily shoving it away and lean my own head back to close my eyes.
“I still wanted you. Because I loved you. I thought… Hell, I don’t know what I thought. I just wanted you, so I didn’t care that I shouldn’t. I ignored the warning like I always do because I’m a fool.”
“I’m a fool too, Beebee. A lying fool, who wants so much for things to be different.”
“They aren’t though. You’re still…a liar and a traitor. You’re still going to do this, no matter what you feel or what I feel because you care more about yourself than me,” I whisper. “Can I have some booze?”
Brig grunts, and I hear the twisting of a cap before the glass bottle rolls over. I unscrew it, feeling in the darkness and sniff angrily when I tip the bottle to my mouth and find it empty.
Greyriver Shifters Page 66