The Tempering (The Mackenzie Duncan Series)

by James, Adrianne

  Liam didn’t say anything. He just tugged at her hand and pulled her into his lap. They sat together for a while and planned out what movies they wanted to see or places to go. It was obvious to Mackenzie that Liam was trying to give her exactly what she needed, time with him without the pressure of defining it.

  “Mackenzie, may I speak to you in private?” Completely lost in her conversation with Liam, she hadn’t heard Geoff enter the room. Seemed Liam had that effect on her.

  “Yeah, one sec.” Mackenzie looked to Liam with worry in her eye. He squeezed her hand briefly before letting go. Mackenzie stood and watched Geoff leave the room. She sent a quick goodbye wave to Liam before following behind.

  ~*~

  Geoff didn’t look back at her to see if she were following. Mackenzie was certain that he knew she would follow him anywhere. What she wasn’t sure of was if that were a good thing or not.

  When he passed the office and the deserted den, she knew that he was taking her to his room. Whatever he wanted to say, he didn’t want anyone to overhear it. Her heart raced at all the possibilities of the conversation, both good and bad. Truth be told, she didn’t know how she was going to react with either possibility.

  The stairs creaked with every step, but she didn’t hear a sound. So wrapped up in her own head, going over all the ‘what if’s’ of the pending conversation, she marched on in a fog. It wasn’t until she ran straight into Geoff’s back outside of his bedroom door that she snapped out of it.

  “Sorry.” It was the only thing she had managed to say after agreeing to follow him when he walked in and saw her sitting on Liam’s lap. She had meant it just for running into him, but once the word was out, she wasn’t sure what else she was apologizing for, or if she even needed to apologize

  “Come on,” he said as he opened his bedroom door.

  Once they were inside, all sounds ceased. Geoff’s room and Margret’s office were the only two rooms in the entire house that were completely soundproof. She didn’t know the mechanics of it, and had never asked, but they were the only places that it was truly silent. If only the door had been fully closed the night she slept in his bed, no one would have heard her moaning in her dreams.

  “Are you and Liam a couple?” Geoff stood in front of her, his arms crossed and his shoulders squared. His body language screamed out power and confidence. His eyes, on the other hand, were desperately seeking validation. They darted around her face, before locking in on her eyes. She could see right through his act.

  “No. I told him how much I care about you. But I also care about him. I am a confused mess right now. You are hot one second, cold the next. You keep things from me and expect me to wait around. To top it all off, I was told that because of your position in the pack, we can’t ever be mated. So I am supposed to fall for someone who can never actually be mine?”

  His stance visibly relaxed. When he stepped toward her, she felt herself move toward him without even thinking about it. He placed his hands on her arms, and rubbed them, looking down to where he touched her.

  “I didn’t tell you because I was trying to find a way around it. I want you. I want you more than anything and I will find a way to keep you and my position with the pack.”

  “You don’t act like you want me. Everything you say and do feels like you don’t want to lose me, but not like you want me. There’s a difference.”

  “I want you.”

  Geoff closed the small distance between the two and grasped her firmly in his arms. His lips found hers in a hungry passion as his hands kneaded whatever flesh they could find. Walking them backward over to his bed, they tumbled down, bouncing together as they tore at one another’s clothing.

  Mackenzie’s shirt ripped open, exposing her lace-covered breasts. A growl resonated from deep within Geoff’s chest as he took in her glorious body. Mackenzie was lost to all reason as she relished in the attention Geoff was giving her body. He nipped and kissed along her jaw and down her neck, making his way to her hard nipples that were pressing against the fabric of her bra. His mouth enveloped one nipple while his hand sought out the other.

  Moaning loudly at the contact, she needed more. She needed skin on skin. Clawing at his back, she was able to tear his shirt from him. Geoff pulled back long enough to remove the torn fabric from his body and stare down at her. A smile played at his lips. With a single flick of his hand, he unclasped her bra, freeing her breasts and showing him how absolutely stunning she was. Mackenzie had never been more grateful for front clasp bras in her life.

  Geoff, covering her body with his own, returned to kissing her. It was rough and it was glorious. She had never had someone take charge as he was. Except for the other night with the magical kiss between her and Liam.

  Liam. How could she get so caught up that she had forgotten about Liam? As Geoff lavished her chest with his mouth, his hands began traveling south. No longer completely in the sexy time haze, Mackenzie stopped his hand and sat up.

  With one hand over her chest, the other reaching out to Geoff, she took a breath.

  “Wait. We can’t. You said so yourself, and I told you. I am so confused.”

  “We can. We just don’t talk about it. What happens in here stays between us. I can work with that. You have wanted this since the first day we met, and now you can’t?”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “You’re right. Sorry. Is this about us or about Liam?” He sounded annoyed. She knew that he would be. Hell, she was irritated with herself for not giving in. It had been a very long time since she had been intimate with anyone.

  “Both. You say that you want this, us, but we need to do it in secret. I understand that you have a pretty important role in the pack and that you want to keep it. And how can I sleep with you if I have feelings for someone else? I can’t do that to him or to you. I can’t believe I am saying this, but can we just slow down and make sure of what we want? In a month’s time you may decide that I am nothing like you want for a mate and if we are already sleeping together, isn’t that like cheating on the were-woman who you do end up mated to or something?”

  “Something like that, but I won’t. I am just glad that being with him doesn’t mate you to him the way it would to me. Bittens don’t get pack positions so their loyalties do not have to be tested and proven time and again. I couldn’t stand to see you out of reach forever.”

  Mackenzie leaned forward and kissed him softly on the lips before attempting to put her bra back on. He had broken the clasp.

  “Shit. That was my favorite bra!” The two laughed and she stole a tee shirt from his drawer to cover up with seeing as how the buttons on her shirt had been popped off, too.

  “We’ll talk later?” she asked before opening his door.

  “Yeah, we will.” Smiling at him, she stepped out and ran for the stairs. For whatever reason, luck was on her side and no one roamed the halls to see her ‘walk of shame’.

  Chapter 26

  After Geoff returned to Alaska, the house was in full gossip mode. Did he leave again because of Mackenzie? Did he leave to begin with because Liam was moving in on his girl? Did Margret force him to leave to keep the two lovebirds apart? It didn’t matter how many times all three of the parties still at the house protested; no one wanted to believe the truth. The stories seemed to be much more entertaining.

  After two weeks of listening to the comments and speculation, Mackenzie went from annoyed to pissed off. She stayed in her room whenever possible and with Liam, Teresa, and Natalie. When it wasn’t, she avoided all conversations regarding her love life, or lack there of.

  The best way to avoid it all together was to go out for a run. Only a few members in the house enjoyed running as much as she did, so when it all got to be too much, she just laced up her sneakers and hit the road.

  The freezing wind whipped around her and not for the first time did she appreciate the amount of heat generated by her Werewolf body. When winter temperatures could drop below zero, the added ten de
grees internally helped tremendously. Taking in all the bare trees and piled up snow along the sides of the road, she was able to ignore everything happening in the house and in her heart.

  Finally slowing down as the large log house came into view, she saw a car pull into the driveway that she had never seen before. When the driver exited the car, she stopped completely in her tracks.

  It had been so long, she had thought he wouldn’t have remembered her. How the hell did he find her? But there he was walking up to the front door of the house that she had thought was her safe haven. It was the park ranger.

  Had she actually harmed a person on her first night as a wolf? She hadn’t seen any evidence that said she had, but then again, she was in such an emotional state she could have missed it.

  Quickly ducking behind a large tree, she watched as the man went right up to the front door and rang the bell. He looked around and shifted from side to side while waiting until finally, the door opened and he went inside.

  What was she going to do? Hide in the forest all day and hope he left? Sure, that would make her seem perfectly innocent. As far as she knew, she was innocent, at least from the first full moon. What if he had been tracking her since she left and found the site in Granby where she had buried whoever it was that had been unfortunate enough to cross her path?

  When he hadn’t left the house after an hour, she knew she had to go in. She needed more information and she needed to talk to Margret. They might not agree on everything, mainly Geoff, but Margret was the pack leader and she would protect Mackenzie as one of her own. At least, she hoped so.

  ~*~

  Tiptoeing through the front door, Mackenzie craned her neck around, looking in every direction, hoping not to be spotted by Margret or the ranger. When she knew the coast was clear she ran up the stairs, not stopping until she was safely in her bedroom. Slamming the door behind her, she slid down and sat with her back pressed up against the wood that separated her from what could be a really bad situation.

  A soft knock from the other side made Mackenzie nearly jump out of her skin. The voice that followed, however, instantly calmed her.

  “Hey, open up.” Liam whispered. Crawling away from the door just enough to allow it to open a crack, she grasped the knob and pulled. Liam stood there with worry painted clearly on his face, looking down at her. “What’s going on?”

  “Come in and shut the door.”

  Liam looked around, obviously not sure if he should listen to her or not. It was against the rules for the boys to be in the girls’ rooms after all, but Mackenzie tried to look as desperate and pleading as she could manage. It worked.

  Once the door clicked behind him, the two took a seat on her bed. Taking a deep breath, Mackenzie looked up and saw him staring intently at her. She had been able to talk to him before. She explained how she couldn’t control herself when she bit him. But she never told him about the moon before him. There really is never a good time to say something like ‘by the way, I killed someone before I turned you into a blood hungry monster just like me.’

  “Someone showed up here from my past. From Massachusetts.”

  “Okay, and you don’t want them to know your here. I get that. Why not just tell Margret to have them leave? Why the cloak and dagger?”

  “Because he was a park ranger and caught me leaving the woods after my first cycle. I don’t know. Do park rangers investigate shit? Or are they more or less like mall cops?”

  “I don’t know. What happened that night that has you freaking out?” Liam’s voice trembled and she knew that he was afraid of what she was going to tell him. He knew that she had no control, and that it wasn’t her, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t see her differently. Hell, she saw herself differently.

  “Not that night. That night it was just animals. But if he was able to track me here, maybe he tracked me to the place where Geoff and Margret found me. And helped me clean up the next morning.” Mackenzie could no longer look Liam in the eye. She didn’t want to see him look at her as a monster again. She had quite enough of the month before and if he looked at her that way, she wouldn’t be able to keep her own feelings of self-loathing at bay.

  “Clean up?”

  “Please, don’t make me say it.”

  “Okay. Do you want me to see what I can find out?”

  Mackenzie looked back up slowly, hoping she had really heard him correctly. He hadn’t moved away or worse, left her sitting there by herself, but offered to help her. “Are you sure?”

  “Until the day comes that I have more control than you in wolf form, I can’t judge you. And as far as I’m concerned, until you have full control of the wolf, you weren’t even there.”

  Closing the distance between them on the bed, Mackenzie wrapped her arms around him and relished in the warmth he provided both physically and in her heart. He kissed her forehead before standing up to dig into his pocket.

  “Okay, call my cell phone and then you can hear whatever I do. I will go walk around a bit until I can find them. Sound like a plan?”

  “You are a genius! Yes, that’s a plan.” Hoping off the bed to grab the little cell phone she had picked up just for emergencies and dialed Liam’s number. The phone rang in his hand and he pushed the button to answer it.

  “Okay, let’s see what we can find out.” He leaned in and pecked her cheek before slipping out the door. With her phone to her ear, Mackenzie sat on the bed and waited.

  ~*~

  Mackenzie could hear Liam’s footsteps and the background chatter that was almost always present during the day in the house. Closing her eyes to try and picture everything she was hearing, she lay back on her bed as her heart pound furiously in anticipation.

  The loud creak that sounded through the phone told her he was on the stairs and the door opening followed by a whistle of wind into the receiver let her know that he had just passed the front door.

  “Mack, I think they are in her office. I didn’t see them in the living room or the den.” He was whispering so she wasn’t sure if the phone was up to his ear or just in his hand. Either way, she heard him and was instantly disappointed because if they were in the office, there would be no way to hear a thing.

  When she started to hear a faint wisp of Margret’s voice, she knew that luck was on her side that day. “The door isn’t closed all the way. I’ll head to the bookshelves close to the office but I don’t know how much we can hear from there.”

  Mackenzie could see exactly where he was in her mind. He was right, unless they were both talking at normal levels and were close to the door, the chance of hearing much of anything was next to nothing.

  “That doesn’t explain why you are here, Donald!” Margret yelled at him. Apparently arguing was good at making others forget little details like closing doors.

  “Your Majesty, I...” Donald, the park ranger, was apparently not so bold as to yell back and she couldn’t really hear him. Mackenzie couldn’t help but wonder what the whole majesty thing was about. “wanted to be with...”

  “I understand that, but I told you, you are no longer in this house. You can’t be! What if you had been seen?” Mackenzie sat up at that point. With her legs crossed, she held the phone to one ear and blocked the other with her fingers to keep out any other sounds. She needed to focus on what was being said. What on earth was going on?

  “I wasn’t. She wasn’t anywhere around. I did as you asked. You said...” Damn it. Mackenzie stood and began pacing the room. If only the park ranger would stop doing the same. At least, that’s how she pictured it, because he would be clear one moment then she couldn’t hear him the next.

  “A position? Never once did I say that. I hate to remind you again, but you are bitten. My mother would have had my head if I allowed a bitten on council. You know that.”

  “Your mother would have been proud of...” What did Margret’s mother have to do with anything? The more she listened, the more she knew she herself wasn’t in any kind of trouble. It sounded more a
s if the ranger was. Why hadn’t she known he was one of the pack? Why hadn’t Margret told her? But she did mention she had members all over and had been tipped off about a new pup in the area. God, she hated that term. She wasn’t a goddamn puppy. She might have been a bitch at times, but she was no dog.

  The creak of a door sounded and she knew they were coming out. All of a sudden, the phone filled with clunking sounds and coughing.

  “Liam, what on earth are you doing out here? Did you need to speak to me?” Margret asked.

  “Nope, just looking for a book.”

  “All right. I need to ask you a favor if you don’t mind. Go on into my office, I will be right there. I just need to walk my guest out.” Footsteps followed as did the sound of a chair scraping across a floor.

  “Mack, I’m in the office. How much of that did you hear?”

  “Enough to confuse the hell out of me. Please tell me you heard the whole thing?”

  “Yeah, but it won’t make it anything less confusing. I’ll fill you in after talking to Margret. Oh shit, she’s coming.” The line went dead after that and with more questions than answers, Mackenzie moved to the large window and watched Donald the park ranger climb into his car and drive off.

  After an hour of waiting to hear from Liam, her phone buzzed in her palm. When she looked at the screen, she saw an incoming text message.

  She sent me to the airport to get Geoff. Snowing its ass off and hope to fuck I don’t get stuck. See u soon.

  Chapter 27

  Mackenzie took the entire day of the full moon to center herself. She needed to stay focused on everything she loved about being human, all day long, instead of just before turning. She thought that just maybe it would help her.

  The pack was just as joyous as always heading into the cycle and still she couldn’t understand it. Liam didn’t speak to anyone and Geoff stayed as close to her as she allowed. She could see he was back to trying to keep things platonic with a hint of something more, but she was actually okay with that. That was exactly what she had asked for, and while she and Liam grew closer, she still couldn’t get Geoff out of her head.