by Vivi Andrews
Roman frowned as they walked out of his office together. “Is that going to be a problem?”
The words echoed her reaction, but she didn’t want to say yes. He deserved the benefit of the doubt. “I have no idea what the fuck is up with him. I can never tell what that man is thinking. But I’ll find out. Right after I solve world hunger and the conflict in the Middle East.”
Roman snorted. “Yeah. Get right on that.” He paused at the stairs—the exit down and his own rooms up. “Thanks, Grace. You’re irreplaceable.”
The words hit her hard, right in her heart. It was a sign of how tired she was that tears actually rose to her eyes. Choked up as she was, she didn’t try to speak. She nodded jerkily and jogged down the stairs.
Irreplaceable. It was just a word, but it felt like everything she had ever worked for coming to her—right as the entire pride was falling down around her ears and she couldn’t keep up with all the chaos.
And one more thing to do before she could sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Six
He’d thought she would come sooner.
He hadn’t meant his actions at the cabin to be a gauntlet thrown down between them, but Dominec was still amazed that Grace hadn’t taken them that way and immediately charged after him to have it out. She wasn’t exactly known for her patience. Even in bed she’d rushed, pushing toward her climax like it was a race.
He shook his head sharply, trying to shake the image of her racing toward climax out of his brain.
He’d gone back to his condo, not even realizing he was waiting for her until he found himself pacing and watching the door. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually slept here. It had never really felt like his place, but he stayed because this was where she would look for him and tonight he wanted to be found. Though he didn’t know why.
He didn’t know what he felt tonight, didn’t think he would know until he saw her. She clarified things.
He would go to her, but he wasn’t sure where she was and tracking her by scent would take longer than just waiting for her to come to him. He was certain she would come to him.
Or he had been two hours ago.
Now he paced, eyeing the clock, needles of impatience piercing his skin. He didn’t know when his life had begun to circle around her, like a planet in orbit around the sun. He only knew it had been going on for longer than he’d been aware. She had become due north. He needed her to know where he was.
But he lost himself in her.
Dangerous.
So dangerous.
He shouldn’t wait. He should go. Leave the pride. Run far away from Grace.
If he could.
Footsteps on the stairs. She was here.
Dominec went to the door, opening it as she stepped out of the stairwell and into the hall. She looked exhausted. And magnificent. And suddenly he knew exactly how he felt. All the mismatched pieces fell into place.
Angry. He was angry with her.
“You didn’t call me.” He didn’t wait for her to get in the door.
Her brows drew down and she glared as she stepped past him inside. “I wasn’t aware I needed an appointment.”
“At the cabin,” he clarified, kicking the door shut. “You called Kelly and Xander.”
She faced him, eyes widening. “Tell me that isn’t why you tranqed them.”
“You turned to them. You should have turned to me.”
“Do you hear the words coming out of your mouth? You don’t even have a phone. And I called Xander because guarding the prisoners was his fucking job and I told him to bring Kelly because he was the first person I could think of who wouldn’t try to eat the prisoners.”
“I didn’t eat them.”
“Are you telling me you weren’t tempted? You’re volatile around them. I needed someone I could predict.”
She didn’t trust him. But could he blame her? He didn’t trust himself. But the others… “They can’t protect you.”
“I don’t want protection!” she shouted. “I’m about to the Alpha’s Second, for Chrissake—” She broke off, eyes widening. “Which admittedly I didn’t realize I had already decided to do until I was yelling it at you, but the principle is the same. I can take care of myself. I’m not looking for a big strong man to protect me. But I wouldn’t mind a guy who stuck around until my skin cooled off after sex.”
Warmth crept up the back of his neck. But the fact that he wanted to be the one to hold her as her skin cooled changed nothing. “I can’t be what you need. I’m too broken to be with you.” Those needles of agitation jabbed at him again and he began to prowl the room. “But I can’t stand seeing you with them. They don’t deserve you.”
“That isn’t how this works. You can’t just claim me and not claim me.”
“I can’t keep you safe.” And the idea of anything happening to her was like acid in an open wound. He had wanted to prove he could protect her, to redeem himself, but he’d failed. Those fucking wolves had tranqed him and put him in a cage. But the others weren’t good enough for her either. She deserved… His thoughts scattered, breaking off into pieces again. He couldn’t seem to hold onto the focus she gave him.
“No one is ever completely safe, Dominec,” she said as she watched him prowl the room, never coming within five feet of her. “That doesn’t mean we stop ourselves from caring about them.”
“Yes. It does.”
But how? He needed her. He couldn’t breathe unless he breathed her air, so how the fuck was he supposed to get the distance he needed for his icy calm?
Distance.
He was stronger than this. He would beat it. Dominec Giroux didn’t care for anyone. He didn’t need anyone. He was an animal. A machine. A fucking island.
And he would not be caged, even by his own heart.
“Yes, it does,” he repeated, pivoting and walking out the door.
She didn’t shout after him that it was his room this time. It wasn’t his really anyway. Just a place at the pride to store a few things and crash on occasion. Nothing had been his in years. And he wasn’t going to start with her.
Dominec stripped out of his shirt as he jogged down the stairs, losing his fatigues at the bottom and shifting. The tiger twisted and snarled, as tangled up as his human half. He stretched out his legs, racing toward the pride’s training course. Outpacing the demons on his tail.
“That went well,” Grace said conversationally to the empty room after Dominec bolted.
Again.
At least this time she wasn’t naked.
Unfortunately, she was still just as confused as when she’d set out to find him—though that might have been a function of her exhaustion.
She didn’t bother returning to her own place. If he wanted to leave her here, he could deal with the consequences. There was a dark duffle bag to one side of the couch. She unzipped it enough to pull out one of Dominec’s black T-shirts. Stripping out of her own clothes, she pulled the soft cloth over her head and flopped down onto the couch. His scent on the cushions was faded and mild, but it was there and she inhaled deeply as she burrowed down, finding a comfortable position.
She didn’t know what was going on with her and Dominec. Nothing, perhaps. But it didn’t feel like nothing. It felt like something big. Something that could be good. Although good seemed like too tame a word to ever apply to the tiger. Powerful. That was Dominec. Rarely good, but always strong. They were alike in that.
She’d never aspired to be the good girl. The nice girl. She’d wanted to be the best. The strongest.
Kelly was too nice for her, but Dominec might be too much for her. How did she bring a wild tiger to heel? She felt like whatever she might have had with him was already slipping through her fingers. Everything was out of control. Racing toward some finish line she couldn’t see or predict.
She just ho
ped they all survived to cross it.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Over the next few days, Grace threw herself into pride business.
She never saw Dominec—though she often searched empty rooftops for the sight of his fur. After a few short hours of sleep to recharge at his place, she had woken alone and returned to her office to get on with running the world.
The Hawk had found Madison and after he brought her in, Grace talked to him about staying on at the pride long-term and taking their ill-trained security forces in hand. He’d resisted, concerned about Rachel’s safety at the pride—what the fuck was it with men and their obsessive need for safety?—but eventually relented after talking to the doc.
Rachel had become a pet project of Patch and Lila’s. The Alpha’s mate and her best friend had decided to wage a PR war within the pride to make sure everyone knew that Rachel was not like those other Organization bastards. A public ceremony of gratitude was scheduled for the pride’s communal Thanksgiving ceremony—which would be bigger than ever this year, thanks to all the new members.
Grace hadn’t officially accepted the Second position yet, not wanting to rush into anything so major, but Roman had already started directing people to her for smaller decisions on pride business. She had her place. Irreplaceable.
And she still hadn’t gone out to see her parents since she got back.
She told herself it was because she was busy—and God knew that was true—but the fact was she just didn’t know what she would say. If she told them about the Second position and they suddenly stopped judging her and approved of her choices, she might have to hate them for that. Like if their love really did prove to be that conditional she wouldn’t be able to forgive.
Which was ridiculous—at least that’s what she told herself—but she was already on edge, her nerves strung razor-wire tight and the last thing she needed was her parents gouging into her confidence in the way only family seemed to be able to do. She didn’t know how to get to a place where their opinions didn’t matter and she couldn’t control how she would react to their reactions—so she stayed away.
The wolves had—shockingly—proved incredibly helpful. Between Adrian, the Archive and Zoe and Tyler, they now had contact information for a hundred and twenty shifter groups in North America. Since the Organization hadn’t spread to other continents yet—that they knew of—those would be the shifters who would need to rise up and fight against them.
Mateo had figured out whatever code he needed to use the shifter masking technology to identify possible shifter strongholds and that information confirmed the Archive’s accuracy. Kye, Grace and Zoe were working together to compose a plea that would go out to all of them the day after Thanksgiving. Grace agonized over each word, knowing that their message could be the difference between cooperation and failure.
Roman had decided to postpone making the announcement about the coming attack until after the feast—giving his pride a few more days of normalcy, he called it, but nothing was normal these days. Rumors were already working their way around the pride. Everyone knew the fight was coming. It was just a question of when.
Life at the pride consumed Grace—but it did nothing to help her figure out what to do about Dominec.
She only knew he hadn’t left the pride lands because Kye and Adrian reported seeing him.
Her friendly neighborhood stalker was missing. And she missed him.
On the eve of Thanksgiving, Grace bent over a table with Zoe in one of the small conference rooms in the Alpha’s mansion, going over the Big Plea for Unity and Attack one more time. Kye had been called away, but Grace and Zoe were actually doing all right without a mediator.
If she was honest, she was almost starting to like the southern lioness. Amazing how much better Zoe seemed in comparison to Amala and the Creeper Twins. They were practically friends now. Patch hadn’t been wrong that they were similar in a lot of ways. Zoe was more impulsive than Grace, more inclined to push the limits and fly off in a temper, but they both spoke their minds and held their own in prides where males tended to think they were masters of the universe.
It was that mutual respect for forthrightness that told Grace Zoe wouldn’t react badly when she said, “You know, I kind of hated you at first.”
Zoe didn’t even look up from her latest scan of the twenty-seventh draft of the letter. “Of course you did.”
Grace snorted. “Of course?”
“We both want to be Head Bitch all the time. Neither of us could respect a weak female, but neither can we tolerate challenges to our dominance. There was going to be some friction until we figured out if we were going to have to try to kick one another’s ass or if we could work together.” She pointed to a paragraph midway down the page. “Are you sure this language is strong enough?”
“It’s strong enough,” Grace insisted. The verbiage Zoe had originally written sounded more like a thinly veiled threat than a call to action. “When did you decide you didn’t want to try to kick my ass?” she asked, curious.
But before Zoe could answer, the door to the small conference room opened and Patch poked her head in. “You guys, go home,” she scolded, shoving the door open farther so they could see Lila in the hallway behind her. “If the letter isn’t perfect by now, staring at it for another three hours isn’t going to help and you’re going to need your rest tomorrow. Lone Pine doesn’t screw around when we party.” She directed the last at Zoe.
“This Thanksgiving is going to be bigger than ever,” Lila put in. The lioness was Patch’s best friend and the former Alpha’s daughter. She was also somewhat of the pride authority on parties. “Everyone needs a reminder of what we’re going to be fighting for.”
And everyone is desperate for one last chance to play before we have to fight, Grace added in her head, though she didn’t ruin the determinedly cheerful mood by saying the words aloud.
“Tyler and I will be there,” Zoe promised, setting down the tablet they had been using to tweak the letter. “What about you, Grace?” she prodded. “You bringing that sexy hunk of a boyfriend of yours? Or is it not a bring-a-date thing?”
“Kelly isn’t my boyfriend.”
Zoe arched a brow. “I wasn’t talking about Kelly.”
“Ooh,” Lila cooed. “Are we going to gossip about hot guys? Hang on. Lemme text Whiskey. We haven’t had a girls’ night in weeks.”
“And Rachel,” Patch added, when Lila reached for her phone. “We need to remember to include her in pride stuff.”
“This isn’t pride stuff,” Grace protested, but neither Lila nor Patch were listening to her.
“She won’t want to come. She and the Hawk are in the love bubble,” Lila protested as her thumbs sent texts at warp speed.
“Oh please. Like you aren’t in the love bubble too.” Patch rolled her eyes.
“You’re one to talk,” Lila countered.
“Excuse me,” Patch said, exaggeratedly offended. “I do not make moony eyes at Roman and get all girly and fluttery every time I hear his name.”
“If you say so.”
“I wasn’t the one who insisted we talk to Rachel about cross-breed pairings with visions of little shifter babies dancing in my head.”
“You weren’t protesting very hard,” Lila taunted.
“Shut up,” Zoe interrupted the bickering. “You’re both in the love bubble. Suck it up.”
“This from a woman who still makes moony eyes at her mate,” Grace put in, lest Zoe get too comfortable up on her pedestal.
“They’re on their way,” Lila interjected, tucking away her phone. “And Whiskey’s bringing refreshments.”
“This is why you always make friends with the pride bartender,” Patch said with a grin. She reached for one of the empty chairs at the table, dragging it out and flopping into it before turning to Lila. “Don’t let me get too hammered. I cannot be hu
ngover during my first Thanksgiving as Alpha’s mate.”
“Hydrate,” Lila advised, grabbing a water bottle off the sideboard where snacks were kept in case meetings ran long. She tossed the bottle to Patch and shot questioning looks at Grace and Zoe who both declined with shakes of their heads. Grabbing a water for herself, she drew another chair back from the table and sat down. “So who are we gossiping about? I feel so out of the loop.”
“You are out of the loop,” Patch told her. “That’s what happens when you spend all your waking hours playing chase the jaguar with Santiago.”
“I don’t spend all my waking hours that way,” Lila said. “Sometimes he chases me.”
Grace grinned in spite of herself. She’d never spent much time hanging out with Lila and Patch. They were enough younger than she was that it had only really been appropriate in the last couple of years and by then she’d been fully engrossed in her role as a pride lieutenant.
She had been bemoaning her lack of someone to agonize over Dominec’s first kiss with only a couple weeks earlier, but now that she had a ready-made pack of females to gossip with, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to talk about the complicated and confusing situation she found herself in with the tiger.
She’d always been the one handing out advice and telling others to get their heads out of their asses and embrace true love, but it was a lot harder to be on the receiving end. She liked her emotional superiority, thank you very much. This being vulnerable and confused stuff sucked.
Whiskey and Rachel arrived within minutes—which at least brought the median age in the room closer to hers. Whiskey came bearing a couple of buckets of beers from the Den where she tended bar and a bottle of licorice-flavored liquor called Lion’s Milk.
“Who’s guarding the booze at the Den?” Grace asked as she accepted a pale ale. The shifter watering hole was known for never closing, but Grace didn’t know if she’d ever seen anyone else behind the bar other than Whiskey. Though Grace wasn’t exactly a regular. There had to be someone else. The tigress had to sleep sometime.