“Goddammit! Are you fucking stupid?!”
She gasps, rearing back, and I let my face shift when Lync growls, showing him that I will roll if he’s willing, and hell, I need the fight to work off the anger I can’t control.
“Blain—”
“Do you know why I didn’t hand it over in the first place?” I ask, my voice soft as I look at her and see the tears in her eyes.
Slow down Seers, don’t say shit you can’t take back.
“I—”
“Because if they have it, someone can take it. Hell, a whole pack can take it and sneak up on us without a problem! If those Lewis and Hendricks assholes had had it, they’d have killed us both before I knew they were there! You just fucked everything up, and for what, huh?! I can tell you for what. Because you thought if you went to Daddy and smoothed things over—”
“Blain that isn’t—” she says tearfully, holding her hands out in a plea for me to listen.
“No? Then I suppose I should believe that you did this for me? That this is you helping? I can believe it, Julia. I can because I do not think you’re capable of betrayal after what you have done. I just think that you’ll get us all killed with your naivety and good intentions,” I tell her coldly, ignoring the tremble of her lips and the tears she can’t hide.
“I…you needed to do something, and you wouldn’t, so I did. You can’t just expect that nothing will happen, and if I’m naïve, then fine, but at least I give a shit about you. If I didn’t love you, it wouldn’t bother me if you get fucking killed!” she yells, shoving passed me with her cheeks wet.
“Malina—!”
“No. Don’t you dare call me that, you asshole. Do you know, Blain, I felt so guilty even when I was stealing that formula, but I was okay with it because I’d rather have your anger than have you die. I guess I shouldn’t care at all, huh, because I’m an IDIOT!” she rages, stopping beside Lync who is glaring at me with so much violence I bet he’d rip me apart in a heartbeat if he could.
Male must be coming around fast now because just months ago I know he’d have ripped someone apart. Now he just stands, silently, sending me look of pure fury while Jules sniffles behind him, torn between hurt I can scent on her and anger.
“I just think—”
“Maybe that’s your problem, Blain, you fucking think too much! About everything that is wrong. Have you ever considered that what happened to your precious Jessa wasn’t all about you or my dad or even about the fucking laws? She chose to obey her parents, and she wanted money because she was a selfish little elite who only saw status. She wasn’t going to mate you because to do that she’d have lost all her standing and fine things. What were you going to do if she did run away with you, huh?” she yells, her blue eyes sparking. “Where would you have gone? To a pack where she’d never be elite because she was an outsider? You think precious little Jessa would have been happy with you without her Prada?”
The way she sneers that name, her contempt makes my blood boil, and before I can stop myself I yell so loud the windows rattle in their casings.
“That is enough! What the hell would you know about it? You’re just as fucking spoiled as any elite I have ever met. You walk around in designer jeans and plaid, as if you’re one of the many, but deep inside your just as bad. I bet it killed you to lose your standing in this community just as much as it hurt Jessa. The only difference between the two of you is that she tried to help herself. You just clung to me and looked to me to support you!” I rage.
I need to shut up. I know that even as I pace and get angrier, the boil up of emotions coming on so fast that for the briefest moment I actually hate Jules.
She gasps at my accusation, her eyes going wide and swallows so loud I hear it.
“I didn’t—”
“You sacrificed yourself for me?” I ask snidely, looking down at the brand-new clothes I ordered and had shipped here for her after I started calling in mortgages on the businesses in town. “Really? What did you lose, huh? You’re still a designer princess; you live in luxury; and you flit around making jokes and laughing about mundane shit that makes no difference in life. You’re still that little daddy’s girl who swapped out one keeper for another. Jessa? She died trying to save her family, and if not for your father and his laws she’d still be alive.”
“And mated to a Banes!”
“Goddammit!”
“You know what?” she says, her shoulders slumping. “You’re right. I am stupid and spoiled, and maybe I’m no different from any other elite female, but the one thing I can say is that I know what love means, even when it hurts.”
She walks out before I can respond, not that I can, because with those last words I feel everything inside me freeze. The anger dissipates as quickly as it came, the intensity of my emotions trampled beneath soft words filled with grief and so much hopelessness I can barely breathe as regret hits me.
“Pain.”
I hear Lync, his anger and disgust, and look up to meet his eyes, my own closing when I get his meaning.
“I hurt her. I’m sorry.”
“You!” he growls before turning on his heel and stalking out of the kitchen.
I’m left alone, feeling regret and anger at us both, and a large amount of weariness that seems to engulf me all over. I should have known we wouldn’t last. We’re Fated, true, but the truth is that we are in no way matched.
Julia lives in a world where she knew only happiness and freedom, while I did and still do live in a world where people aren’t good and nothing should be taken for granted.
“Fuck,” I mumble, falling into a seat as Banner ambles into the kitchen wearing nothing but sweats and a frown.
“What did you do, asshole?”
“Don’t start with me.”
“Don’t start? I just had to give up an afternoon of loving my female because she literally jumped out of bed when she felt Julia’s pain. Call me fucking crazy Seers, but for a female who saved your ass and gave up everything she knew and loved for you, she should be happier than what I just witnessed,” he growls, grabbing two beers before coming to sit and handing me one.
Of all the non-elite enforcers I’ve worked with, Banner irritates me the most because I find myself wanting to like him. He’s honest to the point of rudeness, but he’s fair. He’s hard. I haven’t met anyone more demanding in the field, but he’s never looked at a situation and been unfair because he hears both sides of the story before judging.
“She gave the formula to Althea,” I mumble, leaning back and pulling at my tie before drinking my beer.
“I thought you already did that.”
“I did. I gave them the initial formula, the one that lasted only minutes. Don’t judge me, asshole. It was my only bargaining chip, and I wasn’t about to hand Nick Silverton a weapon to use against me. Especially not after Jules was attacked. Twice.”
He nods, leaning back as well, and gives me a speculative look that I feel uncomfortable with. Those golden eyes practically glow before his mouth quirks, and he shakes his head.
“I know her, man. She’d have wanted to help you. She would think she’s taking some of the heat off you until we can sort things out.”
“Sort them out how, Kilter? I may be a bastard, and I feel absolutely no shame for my actions up to this point, but even I have to admit there is only so much to be done. If Jock finds anything, there isn’t a fucking thing I can do about it and handing them a formula that could buy me time isn’t exactly helping me.”
Banner nods, considering my words, and then smirks, his enjoyment of my suffering making me tense and battle against my wolf. I want to get out of here, run, just be free for a few moments. All this stress, the time it’s taken me to pull mortgages and gleefully watch the families scramble to keep their businesses, Nick, the council, it’s taken its toll on me in ways that are wearing me down.
The only solace I have is Julia, and even then I can’t fully find peace because I am ever aware of keeping part of mys
elf disconnected. I know it’s my fault, I do, but she doesn’t make it easy for me either. All I hear from her at times is how much she misses her mother. Not that she says it out loud, but when Cass talks about her own mother-in-law Ros I see the longing in Jules, and I hate it.
I hate that she’s sad, and I resent that guilt, so I get mad at her because…I don’t know why. I guess I just don’t know how to deal with everything she needs and also keep myself on track with my on-hold plans.
“It’s not always easy to change for your female. I get that. Before Cass, I was a slob, I didn’t give a shit about anything but work, home, and my family. I would work myself to the bone, treat my home like a dump, and see my parents every week because that’s all I had. For her, I had to accept a cleaner lifestyle, focus on more than working, and decide that I wanted more out of life.”
I understand that, I honestly do, but Banner is a normal male with a normal female—not me or Jules. I’ve been fostering a plan to improve packs even if that meant getting rid of Alphas. I’ve betrayed my own, plotted and planned, and never once regretted until Julia.
Hell, my mate is the daughter of the male I hate above all others, and she believes I don’t have a right to hate him in the first place. See why I’m so fucked up in the head over it all. She makes me happy, content, gives me peace, and yet to have that I have to break a vow I made years ago and just give it all up.
I can’t. Somewhere inside me I know people expect that I should let it all go, that she’s worth it, and I know that she should be, but I am not lying to anyone. Least of all Jules by saying that she’ll be enough.
I want her to be, and in her own right she is everything, but I’ve lived too long in the darkness, trying to change things. I can’t let her take it all away just because I should be good.
She either wants me as I am or not at all.
“I won’t change for Julia, and I would never expect her to change for me,” I tell him, finishing off my beer to stand and look out of the large windows leading into the back woods.
“No? Then explain to me how it is that she’s left her family and that isn’t change. Tell me how swallowing your morose shit when she’s used to having the males in her life lick her boots isn’t change? Not saying she’s perfect, not at all, but she saw something in you and she’s bent over backwards to change what she thought and felt to fit in with you.”
“Christ.”
“Yeah, well you should pray motherfucker because from some of the shit I hear her crying about to Cass, you should have your balls bludgeoned,” he informs me, rising to amble out without another word.
Fuck.
Chapter Twenty-one
Jules
I don’t know if I’m crying more because of what he said to me or the guilt I feel because I know some of it was true. Cass keeps sniffling as she lies down behind me and spoons me, her hips not lining up with mine because she’s so short and making the fit awkward.
I now know that only bigger people, males, should spoon their mates, and I sniffle because for that to happen Blain would have to walk in here and actually touch me, which I don’t see him doing anytime soon. Not after the blow out we just had.
I can’t say if I’m more pissed at him for the shit he threw at me, or if I’m angrier at myself for bringing up Jessa. Now admittedly part of that whole explosion was my own jealousy, and no, I’m not exactly proud of that, okay?
I just couldn’t handle the guilt I felt and then his attitude, and oh, I don’t know. It just all collided and blew up on me. I guess I have been carrying a little resentment around because the minute he made it sound like I haven’t sacrificed for him I went nuts.
Can’t he see that I gave it all up for him? I know it doesn’t exactly make me noble or anything because part of my choice was based on repaying him for what he did for me—but still.
I did give it all up, and I would have stayed with him forever, just waiting for him to love me and bond with me if only he’d made the right choices. Which he hasn’t.
I’m not the only one to blame in this mess, ya know. He’s being stubborn, and he’s being so freaking sneaky about stuff that no wonder people don’t trust him. I mean—
That’s not fair. Even if he gave them that formula, chances are he’d still be judged.
I grunt, hearing Hannah’s voice and realize that it’s only the two of us because Cass is now slack behind me and snoring so loud I blink and wonder how Banner sleeps.
He thinks it’s cute. It must be a bear thing because Logan was not nice about my pregnancy snoring.
He made fun of you?
No, he said it. That’s enough.
What do you want?
I’m so tired and hurt I don’t want to talk or even really think. I’ve learned to block some of my thoughts lately, not that I think I’m some sort of super female or anything, but with all the soup in my head I’ve had to find ways to keep some things hidden.
Right now though, all that’s in the forefront, thankfully, is the truth. God, it hurts to know that Blain sees me as some sort of hanger on he has to be responsible for.
Oh, suck it up! Stop being a ninny and go down there and punch him in the nuts.
Like that would help. He’d probably just call me stupid again.
I’m so sorry, Juju. It sucks that he said that stuff to you, and I get that it hurts. I can’t even say that you shouldn’t feel hurt because I wouldn’t be too strong in the face of that much scorn.
I can’t believe he thinks I’m just some spoiled rich daddy’s girl.
Because you haven’t ever told him otherwise, Ju. Be honest, senia, if you’d told him about yourself he’d understand that your life hasn’t been all fun and happiness.
Yeah but…I mean, how could I complain about growing up with so much expectation after the stuff he told me about how you guys grew up? That would be like saying yeah, that sucks, now listen to how unhappy I was with all that love and total attention all the time.
Hannah huffs out her understanding and doesn’t seem to have an answer for that, so I don’t even bother trying to understand half of what’s happened. All I know is that I love Blain, and even if he doesn’t love me, I’ll still put him first.
You just called me your sister.
Because you are my sister. Talk to me, sweetie. Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours. Please.
I shouldn’t, I can’t really risk having her know, but I also can’t carry all of it alone. It’s too much, too hard, and yet I know everything that I am doing is right.
Have you ever stopped and thought that some of the stuff he did is right?
Huh? What are you talking about, Ju?
I mean that Blain was right when he wanted one law, but I’m not talking about having some organization that uses terror to enforce it. I’ve been thinking lately, a lot since Blain’s had me stashed in the house and the males are always busy.
Thinking?
Thinking. Hard. He told me all of the reasons he was in the resistance, the hope he had for it, all of it, and I’ve been thinking that he’s right. All shifters have gaps in our laws because we’ve split off from each other and we’re too separated to see the impact of the subtle law changes.
I admit, I’ve been reading a lot lately since studying is my second fall back when I’m stressed. It’s the one thing that I’m used to doing all the time, and so when I had to stop the walks and ended up trapped, I started looking into some things that really knocked me on my ass.
For instance, did you know that last year the South American panther pack known as the Flores brought forth a law that all females had to stop shifting during pregnancy because their new Alpha believes it’s not healthy for the young they carry if they’re realigning their bodies?
I read and read, taking all stuff I found in Banner’s office and learning about some things that are great and others that were so ridiculous from one pack to the next that it’s frightening really.
Okay, I admit that I understood
Flores’s thoughts because the male had lost his cousin and her young to a shift, but the circumstances were so rare. She was walking in her own home and she tripped and fell, something that is not common but not unheard of among us because some shifter species have difficult pregnancies, especially if we have more than one young.
This female fell and ended up at the bottom of the stairs, and I guess her immediate reaction was to shift to heal anything that may have been injured. Unfortunately, she did it too slowly, I guess because she’d hit her head and it ended up killing her. And the young.
So here’s what I think, and you can’t tell me if I’m wrong. The packs are dwindling, whether from the new laws of different packs or whether it’s just a modernization of our ideals.
We no longer see procreation as the only way. Biology still plays a huge part in our make-up, but most females have said that if they have to settle for non-Fatings they’d rather not have ten young or more in a lifetime.
Holy moly I get it.
Buuut, and here is why I’m going feminist on these guys I’ve been dealing with, chicks are just smarter. I’ve been thinking about the Fatings, the normal matings, the divisions, and I think I know how to fix it.
At least I’ve drafted up a set of solutions that I think most Alphas would consider and that is so where Noble comes into this plan. He’s helping me.
What have you done?
I’ve thought of a way to make the resistance mean something. I don’t want Blain to lose the whole reason behind his resistance. We all know it’s not the resistance of myth but rather something he established and-
And it’s bad.
No. The scentless experiment was bad but the reason he started the underground wasn’t. He wanted to help females and males who were trapped by their packs and the new laws. Hell, sometimes the old laws. I respect the intentions he had.
She pauses, and I can feel her thinking about something before she sighs and agrees. Reluctantly.
Okay, so what do you want to do?
I want, well I mean I’ve come up with some ideas that I think will work for us. The Fating problem?
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