by Lia Davis
She had believed death was the only punishment for her. He’d picked up on the thoughts that morning as he watched her sleep. It was the only time he was able to read her thoughts, although he never did it on purpose. He considered it too much of a violation of his mate’s privacy. However, that morning, she’d muttered the word onyx. And after everything the rogue Pack had done to them, he couldn’t stop himself from slipping into her thoughts. He opened his gift to ease the nightmare he believed she was having.
What he found tore his heart out. She talked with the Onyx Alpha as if they were friends, revealing that Keegan and Blaine would be away from the den that afternoon. It was never okay to reveal Pack secrets or any information to another Pack Alpha. To feed information to the one Alpha who wanted to destroy Ashwood and the other Packs in the southeast region of the United States, was an act of treason.
And punishable by death.
Fury mixed with hurt from her betrayal made him withdraw from her thoughts, and he’d pushed the emotions away and refused to believe that his mate would betray him. For all he knew, it could be her own mind creating the thoughts from a dream she had.
Regret washed over him. If only he’d woken her and asked her about it while he wasn’t armed. Maybe he could have stopped her from ending her life...
The rustling of clothes and a soft shuffle of feet against the hardwood floors drew his attention to the opening of the hallway. Addyson Lewis, Pack Scribe, stood wringing her gloved hands in front of her. She’d changed her hair color again right before they’d come to cabin three days ago. The thick straight stands were now blond with purple streaks that made her violet eyes stand out more.
She was beautiful.
He peered into her worried gaze and offered a weak smile. The way she hung back, careful not to come too close to him, and the way she shifted nervously from foot to foot told him she’d sensed his dark mood. She smiled back in that timid way that said her snow leopard was a submissive, but she didn’t move from the spot where she watched him.
Addyson fled to Ashwood just about twenty-five years ago when she’d escaped captivity from Onyx. Generally submissives weren’t scared of others. Cautious, yes, but they didn’t run unless the dominant pushed their cat into total submission. That was rare within a healthy pack because the submissive shifters were the ones to calm and bring peace to the dominants that protected them. They were the backbone of the Pack and a vital asset in keeping the balance within the den.
In Addyson’s case, she’d had a hundred years of hell at the hands of Felix and his rogues. So, yeah, she had a right to be extra cautious.
With a sigh, he held out his hand. “Come here.”
She stepped into the living room and sat in the chair across from him. He felt his lips twitch at her small defiance and dropped his hand. Leaning back on the sofa, he studied her closer. “Did I wake you?”
“No. I’ve been up for about an hour.”
He frowned. It was still early morning, only 7:00. “Why didn’t you wake me?”
She shrugged. “I read until I heard you stir.” Her gaze drifted to his bare chest then back up to his face. A hint of pink colored her cheeks, and her strawberry scent intensified a little. She cleared her throat and asked, “Did you have a bad dream?”
He nodded, not wanting to lie to her. He never liked lies or sugarcoating shit. God knew there’d been enough of that shit while he’d been mated. With Addyson, Keegan knew that she preferred the ugliness along with the beauty that life offered. He was free to speak his mind without worrying about offending her or scaring the shit out her.
“Today is the anniversary of my mate’s death.”
Addyson didn’t gasp like most submissive females would. Instead, her face softened in a caring way. Then again Addyson wasn’t like any female he’d meet. “Thirty-seven years,” she offered softly.
He nodded, not surprised she knew or remembered the date. She was a Scribe, and from what he understood about them, they never forgot anything. Besides the date of Cate’s death was common knowledge within the den, and to most outsiders as well. Only everyone believed rogues had killer her. Shot in the head trying to save her mate.
Yeah, did he say he hated lies?
Well, some lies are meant to protect. This one held up the walls that blocked in the uncontrollable rage that lived inside him. The rage that had taken him three years to contain. The lie also honored her memory to the Pack that had loved her as much as he did, and still did.
“You care to talk about it?”
He snapped his gaze to Addyson’s at the question. She was trying to help, and he so didn’t need her kindness right now. “No.”
Unfazed by the clipped word, she stood just as Will, the fifteen-year-old that had lead a group of rogue assassins into the den two months prior, walked in the living room. Will wasn’t very tall, maybe five two at the most, and he was much too thin for a shifter his age. At first glance the teen looked to be around twelve. Although he had started to fill out in the months he’d been with Addyson.
The kid immediately went over to Addyson and hugged her. She froze for a moment then relaxed and wrapped her arms around him. Her expression softened almost as if relieved to have the touch of another shifter without pain. The two of them had explained that Scribes couldn’t pick up on each other’s psychic signatures.
It was one reason why Scribes didn’t mate with other shifters and lived in pairs or groups within the den they were connected to.
Addyson and Will had both been ripped from their families and made to serve the rogues. They were forced to use their psychometric powers to pull secrets and histories from objects. Without the protection of another Scribe to buffer the ill effects caused by the emotional backlash from the visions they’d go insane. Keegan was amazed that Addyson hadn’t lost her mind. Instead she lost the ability to shield the emotions and the pain that came with them.
Pulling back from the hug, Addyson ruffled the boy’s blond hair and smiled. Will rolled his eyes playfully. Keegan felt his own lips lift at the exchange between the two. “What do you want for breakfast?”
Will stole a quick glance to Keegan before answering. “Can I have an omelet?”
Addyson smiled and nodded. “Sure, hun.”
Keegan watched her and Will walk toward the kitchen, which was a few feet away. When they were out of eyesight, he dropped his head into his hands. What the fuck was he doing?
He was hiding out in a two-bedroom cabin in the mountains.
This was crazy. He was the Alpha, damn it. Well at least until he transferred the power to his eldest son in a few hours.
He’d brought Addyson and Will to the safe house to protect them. He was sure Onyx would look for Will or at least discovered that Addyson was alive.
He stood and made his way to the kitchen, leaned on the doorframe, and watched Addyson carefully flip the omelet. Her blond and purple hair was now tied back with a black ribbon. She was smiling, making her look angelic and otherworldly, almost elfin. As if sensing him, she lifted her gaze and met his stare. Her smile faded, and disappointment washed over him.
He stepped closer and studied her as she turned back to the omelet. Keegan ground his molars, took a deep breath, and calmly asked, “Do you like it here?”
She peered back at him, her eyebrows bunched together before she smoothed out her features in that practiced control she used around others. “It’s not home, but it’s nice. I don’t need much, Keegan.”
He took another step toward her. She turned the stove off and handed Will his plate. The boy stood, watching Keegan as if he would harm Addyson. It made Keegan proud of the kid that he’d want to protect her.
Without looking at the teen, Keegan said, “Will, take your breakfast in the living room and eat before it gets cold.”
From the corner of his eye, Keegan saw Will peer at Addyson. When she gave him a nod, he left them alone. Keegan took another step forward, stopping inches from her. He heard her heart beat speed up an
d smelled her strawberry scent intensify, but not in fear. She was turned on by his presence.
He inhaled deeply, taking in her scent. His leopard rubbed up against his chest, trying to feel Addyson. He’d never imagine in the past thirty-seven years that he’d find another mate. Then Addyson stumbled into his life about twelve years after losing Cate. He wasn’t ready then, the pain still too raw to acknowledge what the leopard tried to make him see.
He’d finally started to accept it, accept the fact that Addyson had a place in his heart and in his bed.
That was exactly where he wanted her every night.
“I have to leave,” he said in a low whisper.
Her shoulders dropped, and she let out a sigh. “I know.”
“There will be two sentries, Tanner and Kirk, coming to watch over the cabin. I have to go to the den and transfer the Alpha power to Blaine.” He watched her eyes shift from deep purple to almost a lavender as she studied him for several moments. God, he wished he could read her thoughts, but her mind was one of the few he couldn’t enter. Not even in sleep. He’d tried once, about a year after she’d arrived at Ashwood, but it wasn’t for selfish reasons. He’d wanted to help her mind heal from the trauma she endured at the hands of Felix and his rogue den.
She didn’t have any mental shields, yet she was unreadable to him. In fact his whole telepathic ability seemed to dull around her.
She narrowed her eyes and said, “You’re not coming back.”
He sighed. “Not here. Tanner and Kirk will move you and Will to a new location. Can you make sure you’re ready at a moment’s notice?”
“Of course. Do you expect an attack?”
He gave a nod, and she removed the glove from her right hand and cupped his cheek. They’d discovered a couple of months ago when he visited with her to see if she could pick up something from a journal that belonged to Graham’s ex-lover, that his touch didn’t hurt her. Addyson had a way to read an objects energy without touching it. That way she’d know if the object held dark emotions and could gage how much it would hurt to read the object. When she went to stand to get him a drink, he grabbed her arm to stop her. She’d said she hadn’t had a vision when he touched her. Even though he was still careful with her, he could sense that his gentleness annoyed her at times. Yet he still didn’t understand why his touch didn’t affect her. Why she couldn’t read his psychic energy like she did others.
Looking into her violet eyes, he asked, “Is this causing you pain?”
“No. It’s like when I touch Will. There’s no transfer of energy at all.” She averted her gaze shyly and he had the urge to kiss her.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Closing his eyes, he covered her hand with his and pressed his forehead to hers. Complete silence and calm. He didn’t understand how her touch could shut off the low hum inside his head due to his telepathic abilities, but he was selfish enough to enjoy it.
“Be safe, my Alpha,” she whispered then pulled away and lowered her eyes so he couldn’t see her face.
He didn’t have to see the emotions she tried to hide behind that wall of control she clung to. He could smell them. Fear and sadness were a mixture of sour and sweet that came together like spoiled fruit. His leopard growled and clawed beneath his skin, wanting out so he could comfort the broken female in front of him.
No, Addyson wasn’t broken. She was scarred on the inside so deeply that she hid from the world around her.
Why? Keegan didn’t know for sure. He might be the only one, besides Rhea, the head den mother that ran the nursery, and Shayna, Keegan’s daughter, that were close enough to Addyson to be considered her friends, but that didn’t mean he knew anything about her. Sure he knew she’d spent most of her life held captive by Onyx, and they’d forced her to use her psychic gifts to feed them information—like which Packs were the weakest and any Pack secrets she could glean from stolen items.
When her mind finally broke, tearing down all her natural shields that protected her from the painful emotions she received from her visions, and she was of no use to Onyx anymore, they set her free, only to hunt her down like an animal.
Keegan ground his molars together at the memory of the day he’d found her, beaten, bloodied, and crazed out of her mind. She’d crossed over Ashwoods’ wards as she ran from the mutants hunting her. Keegan’s sentries and enforcers destroyed the half-animal assassins while he wrapped Addyson in a blanket and brought her to his home, where he discovered that he couldn’t read her thoughts, nor could he help repair her mind.
She had to do that on her own.
Coming out of the past, he studied her for a moment, then asked, “Will you be okay while I’m gone?”
She cut her gaze to him. “I’m not a child. I’ll be fine.” She lifted her chin and left the kitchen.
He couldn’t stop the smile from forming on his lips as she walked away from him. She had a hidden fire inside her, and he was going to enjoy bringing it out.
****
Addyson sagged in relief as a knock sounded on the door and drew Keegan’s attention away from her before he could chase her down. He was too close in the kitchen. His heat caressed over her body in sensual waves, calling to her. She had the overwhelming need to rub up against him like a needy house cat just to see if a full body skin-on-skin shorted out her senses. It’d been way too long since she’d let another touch her or even be as close as Keegan had been the last few weeks.
God, his wild, earthy scent drove her mad.
She peered at the door as Keegan opened it to the two young sentries. Each nodded to Keegan in greeting then flicked their gazes to her. Tanner Raines, Luna’s youngest son, offered her a gentle smile. She relaxed a little more.
Tanner was a strong, yet quiet, wolf. He was also very handsome like his brothers, Dane and Hayden. Tanner’s dark auburn hair fell over his ears and reached his jaw line, framing his young face. His boyish good looks and his quiet nature told nothing of the power inside him.
He was telekinetic—able to move and control objects with his mind—and from what Addyson heard, his ability was very powerful. Shay, Keegan’s daughter, had told her once that Tanner’s gift went beyond just moving objects. He could bend them, break them, and even shatter glass with his mind.
She smiled back at Tanner then at Kirk, who was always a little too serious. “Hello, boys.”
Kirk grunted, but she swore she caught a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. The sentry was a leopard shifter. Underneath that hard exterior, he had a gentle soul. His family had survived the first wave of attacks on Ashwood over two hundred years ago. He’d been there when Keegan found her outside the den. God, how long ago had it been? Twenty-five years, give or take.
“I’m hardly a boy, ma’am.” Kirk took a step toward her with his hand raised as if he was going to touch her. It was an automatic response for shifters. In fact touch was as important to them as breathing. When they greeted a fellow Pack member it was customary to touch a hand or shoulder.
It was something Addyson couldn’t allow no matter how much she craved it.
She took a step back and Keegan moved to stand in Kirk’s path, halting him and drawing his gaze from her to his Alpha. A moment later Kirk lowered his head in a submissive way.
Addyson’s heartbeat kicked up for several beats. None of the sentries or the enforcers was submissive by any means. Each one held a dominant power that was unique.
She wanted to tell Keegan it was okay, but she remained motionless. Mistakes like the one Kirk was about to make could get him killed. And not from the Alpha who protected her in a way she didn’t quite understand.
No, in the field, if Kirk forgot the dangers for even a split second, he’d lose his life.
With his head still lowered, he lifted his gaze to hers as if waiting for her reaction and spoke to the Alpha. “I will go back to the den and have Blaine send a replacement.”
Silence filled in the space around them for far too long
. Addyson wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand it. The childish urge to knock over furniture or a lamp or something to break the silence made her palms itch. She’d had enough of the cold quiet during her hundred years as the Onyx’s pet.
Finally Keegan spoke, easing her tension a little. “Be at ease. Your comfort with Addyson is the reason you’re here. However, be warned that if you forget about what touch can do to her again, you will know exactly what she feels.”
Kirk lifted his gaze to meet Keegan’s and nodded. “Understood.”
The sentry didn’t even flinch at the warning. However, she did, even though she knew that the Alpha was law and if he didn’t have a handle over his soldiers, then he’d be seen as weak.
She stepped forward until she was a foot from Keegan and offered her gloved hand, first to Tanner then to Kirk. Each gently squeezed her hand before releasing it. She dropped her hand. “Thanks for babysitting me.”
She didn’t bother keeping the annoyance out of her tone. She was still mad at Keegan’s too-careful, too-fathering tone in the kitchen. She wasn’t a child, damn it. She sure wasn’t some helpless submissive that needed coddling.
When she was around Keegan, she had an uncontrollable urge to spar with him, in more ways than one. The male just brought out a side of her she didn’t recognize. A side that was a little naughty. She wanted to misbehave so he’d stalk her and make her be good.
Keegan turned to face her, and she knew her skin was flashed from the thoughts running in her mind. His brown eyes narrowed as if he was trying to read her, but she didn’t feel the dull pressure that usually came with a telepath shifting through her thoughts. After a few moments he lifted his hand, knuckles facing her as though he was going to caress her cheek, but he dropped his hand and stepped away from her.
She frowned. She’d thought Keegan had shared the information that he could touch her. Pushing away the tinge of hurt she had no right to feel, she turned her attention to Will, who came up beside her and wrapped an arm around her waist. She smiled at him and ran a hand over his hair.