The question stunned him. He could challenge her, and he’d probably win. He suspected they both knew that. But it would be a long bloody battle. The price too damned high to move up only one rank when neither of them was going higher than they were now. He wouldn’t risk losing her for that little bit of gain. It was too important to her. Not the rank but the position it put her in. She thought he didn’t know about her little side projects. The girls she took under her wing. The abused refugees — human, wolf, and mage — she funneled through Redemption and sent to safer places. She didn’t discriminate against the needy. It was one of the things he loved about her.
“No,” he answered. “I’ve never intended that.”
She didn’t believe him. He could see it clearly on her face, in her eyes. But he also saw confusion and longing, and he knew he still had a chance here. She turned away.
“Baby, I can accept being your equal out there. I have never had a problem with that, and nothing has changed now.”
Her eyes were watery when she looked over her shoulder and met his gaze. “And here? Are we equals here?”
This is where her confusion came in. She was such a marvelous kick-ass woman out in the world, and she hadn’t accepted yet that she wanted something else at home.
“We can be,” he said carefully. “If that’s what you want.”
She gritted her teeth. He could actually hear her teeth grinding together before her gaze swung to Harris. “And you? Will you accept that?”
And holy fuck, we have a problem, captain.
Ethan was a dominant male, yes, and he knew it. But Harris was a Dominant, capital D, lifestyle male. Ethan seriously doubted Gabby had ever run across anyone like him. He was going to have issues with that equal thing. He accepted Ethan as an equal because Ethan could kick his ass. Huh. Come to think of it Gabby probably could too. But Ethan didn’t arouse the instincts of the Dominant the way Gabby did. Ethan knew Harris. Knew him as well as he knew himself. And he knew it burned in Harris, that need to control her, to own her.
Harris scrubbed a hand over his face as if it could wipe away any visible emotions. “Darlin’, I don’t think that’s what you really want.”
Ethan was surprised at the tenderness, the gentleness in the other man’s voice. He’d expected demands and orders, and was relieved when that wasn’t the direction he went.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out. Ethan wanted to go to her, hold her until the fine tremor in her body became a reaction of desire instead of the mix of fear and anger he scented now. He sure as hell hoped Harris knew what he was doing.
*
Harris took a step closer to her and held out his hand. “Come away from the window, Gabby. Anyone walking by will get an eyeful.”
He didn’t trust himself to not kill another man who got a good look at her like this. Which was bad all things considered. She was a lupine. She couldn’t exactly carry clothes around with her in case she needed to shift in a hurry away from home. Maybe once things were settled he’d get the primitive urge back under control.
“Come sit down,” he ordered. “Let’s talk this through.”
She bit her bottom lip, and he nearly groaned aloud. Tiny, perfect white teeth. He’d felt them on his body, on his cock. He hoped to feel them again soon. His body ached with his desire, with his need of her.
She finally moved from her post at the window and approached the long sofa, an unconsciously sexy walk that made his heart slam against his ribs. She grabbed the afghan from the back and wrapped it around herself, tucking it under her arms before she sat down and folded her knees up. She was covered from her chest down to the red painted toes that barely peaked out. That glimpse was amazingly tantalizing. He took the opposite end of the couch, fisting his hands against the desire to grab her ankle and yank her to him. She stared at him, and he reminded himself he was supposed to be talking.
“What’s your objection exactly, darlin’?” He couldn’t resist reaching over, slipping his hand under the blanket and wrapping it around her ankle. He didn’t pull her closer though. Not yet. “You liked me dominating you just fine yesterday.”
“That was the heat. That wasn’t normal for me,” she insisted.
Could that be possible? He used the bond between them. He couldn’t read her mind, but he could read her emotions, and he smiled. “It’s not nice to lie to me, darlin’.”
She glared and moistened her lips. “Don’t use that bond on me. Harper told me all about it.”
He narrowed his eyes. He’d only met the witch a couple times, but he knew some of her history, and it was ugly. “And what was that?”
She didn’t answer, and he gave her ankle a squeeze. “You started this, Gabby. What did she tell you?”
“That wizards use it to keep control of their wives. They use it to keep tabs on them. Where they are. What they’re doing.”
Well, fuck. He couldn’t really deny that, could he? The ability was what got him banished. He looked at Ethan. “Doesn’t your bond with her do the same?”
Ethan shook his head. “I don’t think so. I can find her by scent, and I can feel and scent her emotions, but I think you’re talking about something much more.”
Harris got the feeling the lupine might be a bit envious. At least he wasn’t freaking out like Gabby. Her agitation was rising by the second. It was a discordant drone in his head. She was breathing too rapidly, and he could feel her heart racing. He needed to calm her down fast.
“Take a deep breath, Gabby,” he commanded. “Calm down.”
She flinched when he reached for, but that didn’t stop him from pulling her over. He settled her on his lap and held her in a firm embrace while trying to send soothing energy through their bond. She punched his shoulder.
“Don’t do that,” she snapped, but she wasn’t struggling in his hold and her heartbeat was slowing, her breathing coming in slower pants. “Don’t manipulate me. First that damned potion, now this.” She glared at him. “You made a deal with me and then you made it useless.”
Okay, he understood why that pissed her off. Not that he’d change anything if he could. “I should be sorry about it. The bond,” he admitted.
“But you aren’t.”
“No.” What else could he say?
“You should have given me a choice.” She turned her furious gaze to Ethan, who didn’t look one bit contrite.
He felt her anger but under that so much else. Confusion. Resolve. She was determined to get away and if that didn’t work to at least distance herself from them. Harris knew they could lose her here, now, if he wasn’t careful.
“No,” he said. “I shouldn’t have given you a choice. I shouldn’t have used the bond at all. I know what it is, what it does. The lengths it will drive a man to.”
He definitely had her attention now. Ethan’s too. He took a deep breath before plunging on, tempted to get up and pace as he told the story, but unable to make himself release her from his lap.
“I came here when I was eighteen after my brother banished me.”
She gasped and slid her hand down his arm to his hand, gave it a brief squeeze. He knew after years of living among them a lupine couldn’t imagine a worse fate. He laced her fingers through his and brought them to his mouth for a lingering kiss.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“My parents were bonded, but that world is so different from anything you know. It’s cold. Love and happiness are frowned upon. Held in contempt. It’s all about power, and those emotions make you weak. My mother was a witch, but she was different. She refused to live like that. She told me she was leaving him, after my birthday.”
He took a deep breath. This part sucked. This was the part he’d tried to forget.
“My father found out,” he said flatly. “Because of the bond. He tracked her movements around the city, knew she wanted to flee, and he wasn’t about to let that happen. He would look bad,” Harris said bitterly. “He decided he didn’t need her
anymore since he had two grown sons.”
“Gods,” Ethan muttered, clearly understanding where this tale was going.
Harris didn’t meet his eyes or Gabby’s. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to finish, and they both needed to know what he was capable of.
“He was a cold bastard, my father,” he ground out, remembered fury thickening his throat. “My brother and I had been gone all day. It was my birthday. Mom left the house the same time we did. To run errands she said, but I knew that wasn’t true. I don’t know how he got her back to the house, but when we returned. He was standing over her in the foyer. The gun was still in his hand.”
Gabby turned her face into his chest, and her hand slid up to clutch the hair at the back of his head. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
“I’m not finished,” he ground out.
He knew his voice sound grim, like it carried death, but Gabby didn’t flinch or try to get away. She just held on tighter. He was afraid his heart might crack open.
“He killed her. He didn’t deny it. The rage was so consuming. He told us not to worry, someone would come along to clean up the mess in a minute. Then he turned around to walk away. I lost it. I lost control of my power. Slammed him against the wall until he was dead.”
“And they banished you for that?” Ethan asked, voice almost a growl as he shared Harris’s fury and grief.
“As the oldest surviving male in the family, it was up to my brother to decide my punishment. By our law, for killing an elder, there are only two options. Death or banishment. No matter what the circumstances are. There were some pretty loud demands for my execution.” He felt wrung out from telling the story, but he gave them a wan smile. “You’ll have to forgive my brother. He didn’t have a choice, and in the end, it brought the three of us together.”
“So you shouldn’t have created this bond with me because of what happened to your mother. Why did you do it then?” she asked gently.
He wanted to tell her he hadn’t been able to help himself, that it had just been instinct, but he gave her the truth. “Because I wanted to be that close to you. I wanted to feel this connection with you. I needed it.”
“And it had nothing to do with keeping tabs on me?”
He sensed a trap here. “I’m not trying to track your every move, darlin’.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Just some of them?” she asked tartly. “Will you know if I’m on pack business? Dangerous pack business?”
Yep, definitely a trap. He nodded.
“I don’t need protection. I don’t need a big strong man to keep me safe.”
He felt like he’d walked into a mine field. “I know that,” he said warily, not about to admit part of his motivation was protecting her. Even though it was more a guard against his people than any danger a lupine might pose. Any wolf challengers would have to get through Ethan first, and that wasn’t happening. “I can’t pick and choose which parts of the bond work anymore than Ethan can control his.”
She didn’t look happy about it, but she let the subject drop, and her anger faded with it. Thank the gods.
“Now about the dominance thing, darlin’.” He needed her to submit to him here, at home, and he knew deep down she wanted to. Ethan never would and that was okay because he didn’t want to. But Harris hated seeing Gabby deny herself something she needed. Something he could give to her.
Her eyes turned guarded.
“You lied to me about liking it,” he said. She scrambled to get off his lap and he let her go. For now. She got a stubborn look he recognized. “Don’t lie to me, Gabby,” he said softly, not bothering to hide the Dom from her.
She heaved a sigh, wrung her fingers, and looked down, refusing to meet his gaze. The actions of a submissive. “Okay. Fine. I liked it.”
Progress, finally.
He didn’t show his sense of triumph though it was damned hard to conceal it. She felt it through the bond. Her head snapped up. When she looked at him defiantly, he allowed a mean little smile knowing it would excite her as much alarm her. Knowing she needed the combination, that it was hardwired into her just as much as her need to submit.
He arched an eyebrow. “I don’t think I like your tone.”
He watched her struggle with conflicting emotions. Her desire to fight for dominance warred with her impulse to please him. Interesting. He let his senses expand, opened the bond as he tried to figure her out. She was one of the highest ranking females in the pack. There was only way to achieve her position: fight.
But her mind didn’t feel like a warrior’s. She was willing to fight. She wouldn’t hesitate. She got no joy from it, and she’d somehow managed to learn to contain that part of her separate from the rest. Almost as if she was insuring she wasn’t contaminated. He’d never felt a mind like hers, divided like hers.
“You were not born to be a dominant member of the pack,” he said, the realization stunning. “Not as dominant as you are, at least.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, defensive. Cagey. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, I was.”
“No, darlin’.” He shook his head. “You weren’t. Don’t worry. I don’t have any interest in taking it from you, but haven’t you ever felt divided? Torn between that public life you lead and what you want personally? Privately?”
He saw right away that he’d hit a nerve.
“Tell me,” he demanded, keeping his voice soft and gentle, every instinct he had urging him to go to her, to shelter her as she told her secret desires, but it was too soon. She didn’t trust him enough yet.
“I wouldn’t know where to start,” she murmured, sounding so confused and dejected it hurt his chest.
He glanced at Ethan and registered his stunned expression — he hadn’t had a clue about these revelations. Harris decided to push her a bit.
“You start by letting us help you. Do you want to be held, Gabby? Do you need it? Ethan is right next to you, and I’m only a few feet away.”
She bit her bottom lip and looked over at Ethan from below lowered lashes. Harris was instantly throbbing hard. He wanted her to look at him like that. Ethan met his gaze, a question gleaming in his eyes. He wasn’t sure how to proceed here. Harris shook his head when Ethan started to move toward her, and with a huff of breath, he stilled. Gabby needed to come to them. To know she could come to them. There was a lot he wanted to demand of her, but she had a right to demand a few things in return.
“Gabby? Look at me, baby,” Ethan said. He waited until she did before going on with an uncharacteriscally serious expression. “I’m right here.”
Harris held his breath when she moved. She let Ethan pull her into his arms, burying her face in his a chest with a heaved, almost sobbed breath that was easy to read as relief. Ethan held her tight, close, one hand lazily stroking her back until finally she calmed and broke away.
Harris knew better than to smile. “That wasn’t so bad, was it? Come back to the couch. I need you to tell me about this.”
Reluctance was in her every step. When she was close enough, he grabbed her hand and pulled her into her previous position on his lap. She was stiff, but she didn’t try to escape, and Ethan came over to sit next to them. She relaxed as he drew closer, but Harris was pretty sure she wasn’t aware of it. The mating bonds at work? He wanted it to be so much more. Wanted it to be an emotional response that had nothing to do with the bonds they’d forced on her.
Ethan lowered himself next to them, watching. Curious. Cautious. “Talk to us, baby.”
“And tell you what? I…have desires that don’t fit what I am. That frankly freak me out. A few years ago I thought maybe it would be possible to be…these two different people.”
“Why did you stop believing that?” Ethan asked.
She chuckled. “Too bad you can’t see how you treat your woman of the week in front of the pack. They’re all submissive females. Ever notice that?”
Her bitterness was sharp and hurt and angry in his mind. A shock. But nothing compared to
what Ethan was feeling if his face was anything to judge by. He was stunned. A little angry. It frustrated Harris. He didn’t how deeply this animosity ran between them or how to fix it. Ethan lurched to his feet and stalked away. When he whirled back around to face the couch, Harris considered throwing a telekinetic punch at him, the fury etched on his face was so easy to read.
“Don’t go there, Gabby. Just…don’t. You have spent your whole life keeping me at arm’s length. When did you realize that I was your mate? How long have you known? Because sometimes I think I was born knowing.”
He couldn’t disguise the hurt in his voice and though Harris was tempted, so tempted, to call a halt to this conversation, to all the painful revelations, he knew he couldn’t. They all needed to get this out. They needed to talk. But damn it was hard to watch Ethan hurting like that. To feel Gabby’s pain and confusion and panic. The three of them were supposed to be one unit. It didn’t matter who’d been together first, which of them had accepted the other first. But they couldn’t get on with the future until they dealt with the past.
“Damn it, Gabby, how long?”
She shrank away from Ethan’s fury, molding herself to Harris’s chest, and he shot Ethan a warning look. Ethan turned his back for a moment, shoving his hands through his hair. He was calmer, on the surface at least, when he turned back around.
“Gabby?”
“I don’t know.” She sighed. “I had a suspicion when I was sixteen, maybe a little younger.”
Gods. Harris felt for Ethan, understood why he’d armored himself as he had. What was that? Ten years? Eleven? Ethan stood across from them, hands clenched at his sides, body strumming with tension.
“Did you even care what that did to me, baby? Even a little bit?” he asked so softly, Harris almost missed it.
But Gabby didn’t. Her head snap up, eyes flashing yellow. Regret and annoyance shimmered through their bond.
“You’re three years older than me. Do you know what I remember most about you from when we were teenagers? All the females in the pack panting after you. And you were pretty damned happy to accommodate them. I didn’t want to add my name to that list. Of course, as I got older, the list grew. You think my not acknowledging you hurt you? What do you think your behavior did to me?”
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