First Beast

by Faye Avalon

  He walked to the rear window and watched her hurry to her car. She brushed her hand across her cheek before yanking open the door and slipping behind the wheel. Brakes squealing, she headed out of the parking lot and into the street.

  Staring aimlessly out of the window, he replayed their confrontation in his head. His gut clenched, and his heart beat with the painful realization that he’d screwed up big time.

  Intent on self-preservation, and determined to make sure that nobody ever played him for a fool again, he had behaved irrationally and acted without compunction to accuse her of disloyalty. Once, she’d called him a brute. Maybe he was.

  Now she was done with him.

  Shit.

  He raked his hands through his hair again. His head pounded, while the ache in his chest intensified with each painful breath.

  She was done with him.

  In his overzealous efforts to protect himself, to protect his pack, he had driven away the woman he loved.

  His true and only mate.

  Chapter Fourteen

  With her head swimming, and her heart aching, Talia pulled into the driveway of the house. She couldn’t think of it as home anymore, not after what had happened in Caleb’s office. He still didn’t trust her. They would never get past that. His unfounded belief that she would somehow betray him and the pack would always be an obstacle between them.

  Despite his declarations last night, at the very first hurdle his earlier suspicions had resurfaced and he’d chosen to think the worst of her.

  But then she supposed a leopard never changed its spots—or in this case, a panther. She almost smiled at the bitter analogy, would have if the reality of her situation didn’t hurt so much.

  Pain lodged beneath her ribs. She pushed it back. A strong urge to weep almost overwhelmed her. She would never again feel Caleb’s strong embrace, never know his lips moving against hers, or feel him filling her so magnificently, driving deep inside her.

  She ached to think of what they could have shared. That it could have been just the two of them. Just her and Caleb. While Caleb’s declaration that it was time for Joshua to leave had shocked her initially, in her heart, she’d known it was coming. The memory of that night on the moor had attracted and bonded her and Joshua…until Caleb came into the picture and she had seen how shallow her relationship with Joshua had been. Now she’d be a fool to try and hold on to a marriage based on a dream that had shattered beneath lies and deceit.

  Intent on packing her things, she stormed into the hallway and straight into Joshua coming out of the living room.

  “I saw you pull up. Are you okay?”

  Talia brushed past him. “No.” She focused on hauling her suitcase from the wardrobe. “I can’t stay here any longer,” she said, slamming it on the bed. “I’m sick of both of you.”

  “Babe—”

  “Don’t you dare.” She shook off the hand he had wrapped around her elbow. “You think you can manipulate me, lie to me? I visited your mother, Josh. You know, the woman who masterminded the plot to have Caleb incarcerated? The poor woman can barely remember what she had for breakfast, let alone conceive a complex plan to have her stepson kidnapped and imprisoned for months.”

  “I can explain that.” Although he didn’t look especially confident in his ability to do so right then. “Caleb threatened me. I had no choice but to—”

  “And how did he threaten you?” Her face burning, she thumped her hands on her hips. “With what exactly?”

  His eyes darted around the room, landing anywhere but on her. “He said if I didn’t persuade you to go through with the marriage, he’d tell you lies about me that would convince you to divorce me.”

  She cocked her head, anger rising from her chest to her throat. “Oh really? So why, considering I went through with the arrangement, is he now demanding we separate anyway? You did what he said—you convinced me to marry him.”

  Joshua sucked in a breath. “Because he wants you for himself. Don’t you get that? Right from the start, that’s what he’s wanted.” He turned away, tugging at his hair before facing her again. “I had to take steps to stop that from happening.”

  “What steps?”

  “Shit.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Shit.”

  A chill trickled down her spine. “What have you done, Josh?”

  He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. Talia didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so unsure of himself. Without a word, he strode out of the room.

  Talia followed him down the hallway and out through the garden room at the back of the house. Outside, he paced the patio, his whole body tense. His fisted hands were tight to his body, his head down, jaw clenched. She had a sense that he was trying hard to remain in control of his beast. To not give in to a powerful need to shift.

  She grabbed his arm, determined he wasn’t going to stalk off and escape to the moor. He wasn’t going anywhere until she got those answers. “You need to tell me.”

  The ragged look in his eyes turned that chill to ice. “I don’t know how to make this right.” He sucked in a breath. “It’s true. I’ve lied to you.”

  Assured that he wasn’t planning to run, Talia swallowed and lowered herself to a garden bench. Her legs felt unsteady, her throat suddenly raw and tight.

  “You have to know how much you mean to me, babe. Whatever else I’ve done, that’s never changed.”

  Her neck seemed unable to support the weight of her head. Behind her eyes, tears threatened, but she refused to let them fall before she knew whether his explanation deserved them.

  “I don’t know exactly where to begin.” He pushed his fisted hands into his pockets, his expression tightening. “Maybe I should start by telling you I leaked that story to the press.”

  She jolted back, the breath momentarily knocked out of her. “Why…why would you do that?”

  “I needed leverage. Something to stop Caleb insisting I leave you. That we split up. I thought if I hinted to the press there was a story behind his recent absence, he might be open to reason. I never planned on releasing anything else to the papers—I just wanted to make Caleb consider what he was doing.”

  “By blackmailing him?” Her heart thudded against her ribcage. She didn’t feel like she could catch her breath.

  “It’s no more than he did to me.”

  “It’s nothing like that.” Furious now, Talia stood and did some pacing herself. “Didn’t you stop and think what this could do to him? To the pack? It could backfire so easily. Everyone knows that the press doesn’t give up if they sniff a story. You put Caleb and the whole pack in jeopardy by your stupid, thoughtless actions.”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  She reeled on him. “Don’t give me that pathetic excuse. We all have a choice. And don’t try and tell me you did it all for me. You can’t be that vindictive, put that much at stake, just so we could stay together. There’s more to it and you’d better tell me. Right now, Josh. I mean it.”

  She expected more lies, but Joshua leaned forward on the bench, his clenched hands between his knees. “I need money.”

  That surprised her almost as much as his leaking a story to the press. She knew Josh wasn’t rolling in it, but money had never been that much of an issue for them. “Why? What for?”

  He looked up, defiance in his eyes. “I’ve racked up debts. I’ve got people on my back who won’t take no for an answer.”

  Her legs went weak again, but she stood her ground. Was there no end to these revelations? No end to the shock of realizing that she barely knew the man she had married? She stared at him for long moments, wondering how she could have missed this. There must have been evidence. Or had she simply chosen to overlook it, to ignore it?

  “How much?”

  “That’s not important.”

  Anger spiked so fiercely she felt the blood
rush to her extremities. “Not important? It’s important enough for you to blackmail your brother. To endanger your pack. To lie to me.”

  “Seventy-five thousand.”

  She swallowed. “Does Caleb know? Have you asked him for the money?”

  “Haven’t had the chance yet.”

  “So he doesn’t know it was you who leaked the story? Doesn’t know about your debts?”

  He didn’t reply, but a telltale muscle twitched along his jaw.

  Talia walked to the edge of the patio, wrapped her arms across her chest in an effort to warm the ice forming there. She drew in a long, cleansing breath. “Why do I get the feeling that what you’ve told me is far from the end of it?”

  At Joshua’s continued lack of response, she turned back to glare at him. “Good luck getting anything from Caleb. Especially after you tell him you leaked the story. Which you’d better do, or I will.” It would be her last act for the pack. “You’ll have to find some other way to get your money.”

  After what seemed like an eternity, he dropped his head into his hands. Talia stood her ground, waiting until he sat back against the bench. “There is no other way. Caleb’s my only hope.”

  “Get a loan against the business. The property market is picking up, the bank will—”

  “I’ve already done that.” He dropped his head back, closed his eyes briefly before meeting her gaze again. “This isn’t the first time I’ve needed money.”

  Talia drew in a deep breath. “Just what sort of trouble have you gotten yourself into?”

  “Gambling.” He reached out a hand to her, dropping it when she drew back. “It’s a sickness. I can’t control it.”

  “Have you actually tried?” Talia asked in a strangely empty tone she could hardly recognize as hers. “Probably not, seeing as you say this isn’t the first time you’ve gotten yourself into debt. Who bailed you out the first time? Caleb?”

  “My father left over half a million in trust for me, for when I turn thirty. It’s hard cast until then, but Caleb could override it, get me the money. My mistake was telling him it was for gambling debts. He said I was on my own with that. That my father had worked long and hard for the inheritance he’d been able to leave us. There was no way he’d break our father’s wishes to dishonor him by paying off my gambling debts.”

  She could hardly blame him. Caleb was a man of principle, integrity. And she knew how much he had loved and respected his father.

  “I was desperate and under threat.” Joshua shook his head. “The people I’m involved with aren’t exactly the patient sort, or the type to let me walk away with all my limbs in working order. A year ago, I owed them…even more. I’d gotten that loan from the bank and used it to stall them for a few weeks. I thought around it every way I could, but I was left with only one solution. If I became leader I could override the trust conditions.”

  Busy trying to process everything Joshua was telling her, Talia almost missed the implication. “What? You mean…you… Oh hell, Josh. Tell me I’m wrong. That what I’m thinking—”

  “I had a couple of contacts in the London pack who could arrange to have Caleb taken while he was in South America. It was just supposed to be long enough for me to get the money released, but things went badly wrong. By the time I’d paid off my debts, there was nothing left. At least nothing I could get my hands on. Enoch saw to that. I didn’t have enough left to pay the men who arranged it all. They told me they’d keep Caleb as collateral until I could get the money. It was one of the reasons I started gambling again, to get him released. But it took too long and the next I knew, Cal went missing.”

  When the feeling left her knees, Talia stumbled toward a stone pedestal seat. “For God’s sake, what were you thinking?” Nausea swam in her stomach and her head spun. “You could have gotten him killed.”

  “I never wanted him harmed,” Joshua said as if it excused everything. “I only wanted him imprisoned. Until I could get the money.”

  “You left him to rot. You could have gone to Enoch, to the Principals. Told them what you’d done. They would have gotten him out.”

  “I thought I could handle it.”

  Bitterness burned in her throat. “You can’t be trusted to handle anything. Least of all something as vital as saving a man’s life.” She ran her hand over her queasy stomach. “Does…does Caleb know? Does he know what you did?”

  Joshua nodded. “He told me he’d keep it from the Council, from you, on one condition. That I’d allow him to take you as his mate. That I’d persuade you to marry him.”

  Talia’s simple nod belied the turmoil inside her right then. She felt strangely empty. A pawn in the treacherous games of two manipulative men.

  “And you decided to persuade me by using your mother. Convincing me you had to protect her from Caleb’s wrath.”

  “He said he didn’t care what reason I gave you. That I could make up whatever story I wanted. I thought if I used my mother, you’d be sympathetic and do what I asked.”

  “And it didn’t matter what I wanted?”

  “I knew you and Caleb had a thing going the moment I walked in on you that day when he came back. It’s something our kind can sense. I was afraid that if you knew what I’d done, you’d fall straight into his arms and never leave.”

  She brushed that aside. “Who else knows about this?”

  “Tynan. Caleb needed his help to get the evidence. Tynan has contacts from the Army, men who work in covert ops. Seems they were able to trace the mercenaries I used, get the information from them. Now Caleb has proof. Copies of paperwork, and he’s been using that to threaten me. His insurance to make sure I do what he wants.”

  Talia felt like her head would explode. She pressed her fingers to her temples. “God. I can’t take all this in.”

  Despite that he was also guilty of resorting to blackmail to get what he wanted, Talia found it hard to place too much blame on Caleb. How on earth must he feel to have been betrayed so viciously by a man he called brother? There might have been no love lost between the two men, but to betray a brother so despicably was beyond her understanding.

  Was it any wonder Caleb had an issue with trust?

  “I know what I’ve done takes a lot of forgiving,” Joshua said. “But I’m asking you to try and understand.”

  Talia shook her head. “Forgiving is not up to me, Josh. It’s Caleb’s forgiveness you need. As for understanding what you’ve done? I can’t. You put Caleb’s life in danger. You had no idea what could have happened to him, and yet you did nothing to help him.”

  Talia shuddered to the core of her being. She couldn’t bear to think of Caleb alone, betrayed by his brother, never knowing if he would survive his ordeal. Whether he would live to endure a hellish existence or die a horrible death.

  She suddenly had the overwhelming need to go to him. To wrap her arms around him, just to convince herself that he was alive and well. And safe.

  While she sat there feeling wretched, Joshua’s phone pinged. He dug it from his trouser pocket and glanced at the screen. Talia watched him read his text, unsure of how she could have fallen for someone so calculating and cruel. How could she not have seen it? Or had she seen it but merely pushed it away because of this whole romantic idea of hers about destiny and soul mates?

  That night, long ago on the moor, she had felt such an overpowering bond with Joshua in his primal state that it had blinded her to the truth of who he was. Then, after they had married, she had been so intent on making it work she’d pushed away all those niggling doubts, the absence of a real connection between them outside the bedroom.

  Josh looked up from his cell phone and smiled. “It’s from Caleb. He’s going to give me the money. He’s also seeking agreement from the Principals to have your marriage to him annulled. This changes everything.”

  Talia only heard one thing, the rest of Joshua’s
words dissolving in a pool of despair.

  Caleb was having their marriage annulled?

  Ice spread through her limbs, a tight feeling forming around her heart. A cry threatened to escape her throat, but she swallowed it back.

  “We can make a fresh start,” Joshua went on, sliding the phone back in his pocket. “I’ve got plans for the business. Like you said, the property market’s on an upturn. I’ve got my eye on some dilapidated cottages over near Warleggan. I can do them up, rent them out. They’ll provide us with a steady income and—”

  “So you can gamble it all away?” The shock of Caleb seeking an annulment morphed into anger. “After everything you’ve told me, do you really think I’m interested in anything you say?”

  He crouched in front of her and placed his hands on her thighs. “I’ll change. I’ll pay off these debts and we can start fresh. I swear I’ll never gamble again. I’ve learned my lesson. You have to believe that.”

  “It’s all about you, isn’t it, Josh?” She forced his hands away. “You haven’t once given Caleb a thought. You haven’t stopped to even think how all this has affected him. Do you think being taken hostage, being held in a cage and left to rot for months on end, and heaven only knows what else, will simply roll right off him? He lived through a nightmare, one of your making. He’s got scars, not just physically. Nobody goes through an experience like that and remains unchanged by it. Not to mention that he has to face up to the reality that his own flesh and blood betrayed him.”

  “I’ve explained to him the situation I was in. He understands that I didn’t have any choice.”

  She shook her head and gave a resigned sigh. “And still you lie to me.”

  His head snapped back and he narrowed his eyes. “Why are you so worried about Caleb anyway? He’s history. You won’t have to worry about his hands on you again. Once the Principals agree to the annulment, we’ll move out of the house and set ourselves up somewhere in town. It’ll be just you and me again, babe. We can put all this behind us.”