“Before you go throwing around accusations, you might want to get all the answers. Maybe tell your good for nothing father to get off his old ass and help us when we ask for it.”
Archer held her gaze, unflinching, but she saw the change in them. The fury faded. Something passed across his face, a brief flash, but it moved too fast for her to recognize the emotion. Archer glanced back at his brothers, both of them shifting uncomfortably.
“What is it?” she snapped.
Gage moved past her, reaching into the fridge for another beer. As he passed, he threw her a wink. “Looking hot, Jo.”
Joanna gave him a playful punch in the arm and he pretended to stagger beneath it, all the while something dark lingered on his face. Gage pulled away and slipped out the door, his playful demeanor and smiles gone. She knew time away had changed them, but the air in the room was dead and lifeless.
She turned back to Archer, a question in her eyes. One she would demand to have answered.
Archer’s shoulders slumped. She saw the bear moved behind his eyes, a glimpse of gold that betrayed his frustration. “Dad is dying. He has cancer. Stage four, he says. I don’t know all the details.”
Joanna fumbled back. “That’s not possible. Shifters can’t get cancer…”
This time, Cohen stepped in. “Who says that? Sure, we can’t get human diseases, but if you think about it, cancer is entirely possible. We are continually rearranging our cells into different formations. Just one mutation between shifts and that small mutation grows larger and larger with each following shift.”
Her stomach sank through the floor. “How bad is it?”
Both Archer and Cohen’s lips pressed into a firm line. They glanced at one another, message enough for Joanna to understand.
It was bad.
Archer shook his head, the gloom dispelled. When he pressed in on her, there was gold burning in his eyes once more. “Why the hell are you here?”
“I came to ask for help.” She sucked in a breath. She’d been coming to the Vancourt pack for an alliance for the past year, but she’d yet to see any real help. They worked to keep their own territory safe, but did nothing to help her. She’d come to ask why, to guilt the brothers into helping, but found herself lost.
Sampson Vancourt, the Bear of the East Coast, was dying. That explained a lot, but it did nothing to help her. She cursed under her breath.
“In fact, he had no idea what was going on with your pack.”
Her head snapped up, suddenly stricken. “Have they told him nothing? About Killian? About my family? They’re… they’re dead.”
Chapter Five
“What?” Archer reached to grip the nearby counter.
Joanna’s swallow was audible. Her eyes dropped to the floor and Archer felt the bear shove himself to the surface. The bear wanted to rip apart the fool who hurt her, to make them suffer and scream.
“I thought they were telling your father. I’ve been coming to the Vancourt pack for months now, telling them what I knew so he could stop Killian from taking over your territory. I never thought they would keep any of this from him.”
The world had been burning around the Vancourt Pack and they hadn’t thought to tell his father. Archer looked back to Cohen and he nodded. They had the same thought. Even if neither of them were a part of the Pack, they were calling a Pack meeting tonight. He would get every one of the sorry souls under the same roof, and then he would tear them apart.
Nothing, they’d done nothing other than push the sadistic Alpha out of the store. They didn’t try to put him down or hold him accountable for his crimes. Someone might have asked if it was even their responsibility, but when the Alpha threatened exposure to the humans, it became their job.
Tradition was sacred to the shifters and one of the biggest rules had always been secrecy. Sampson had cast his own sons out over tradition. It was high time they upheld their beliefs.
“When you…” Joanna started then shook her head, as if swallowing the words she’d been about to say. Her voice was tight when she spoke again. “Killian isn’t the man I thought he was when we first started dating. When I brought him home, he… he killed my family. With my father dead he took the place of my Pack’s Alpha and started to make more shifters. He wants an army and he wants to use it to take over the Vancourt territory. I doubt he will stop there.”
“How long has this been going on?” Archer’s hands fisted at his sides. The bear pushed and shoved against him. He would need to go outside soon. There was no keeping the animal caged for much longer and he didn’t want to hurt anyone.
Joanna’s smile was tight and grim before she spoke. “Four years.”
“And you never asked for help?”
Joanna changed, her face twisting as she looked at him with burning eyes. “Like I said, I came here, every day, asking for help. I crawled to the Vancourt pack and begged them to put an end to this. What else was I supposed to do? Call the man who left me standing at a figurative altar without so much as a goodbye?”
Archer felt a barb pierce his heart. Her anger washed over him and his own rose in turn. Instead of lingering in the room, instead of roaring and raging, he pushed past the woman. As much as he wanted to drag her with him, he kept his hands clenched at his sides.
Outside, with the open sky above him, he could breathe a bit easier. Fixing his mistake ran deeper than he thought. There was nothing he could do to turn back the years he’d been gone, to bring back Joanna’s family, but he could put an end to what was happening now.
The bear pushed forward, and this time he let it. His body bent double as his bones thickened and his form heightened. Fur unraveled between growls and snarls. His bear was a towering beast with massive paws. A roar rumbled out of his belly and broke the skies.
Dropping to all fours, Archer surged forward. He ran for the woods behind his childhood home. Paws slammed into thin, dead trees to watch them splinter and crack. It felt good to break something. It felt good to watch it crumble beneath his strength.
Archer struck down the small, dead trees until he was huffing for breath. After long, he realized there was someone standing behind him.
***
Joanna stood away from Archer as he let out the pent-up frustration. Was it seeing his father stricken with cancer that angered him? Or, was it the news of her Pack’s situation?
She found a stump and let herself drop onto it, the spring air cooling her warm face. She wasn’t proud of the past four years, but she’d been doing everything in her power to put an end to it. Perhaps, with the brothers back home, they would finally be the answer to her problems.
Part of her feared they would turn their back on their father and walk away once more. While watching Archer beat up trees, she chewed her lip and tried to concoct a plan to make the brothers stay. Gage and Cohen had followed their brother out of solidarity, more a family than one might think. She could see Gage staying, if only to ruffle the feathers of the pack members, but Cohen and Archer would be harder to keep.
Archer had nothing tying him to Stonefall. He’d proven that once before when he chose a human over his own kind. What would keep him here now? Joanna tried to tell herself that Cohen would be enough. He was monster enough to stand against Killian and the Alpha’s terror tactics. Cohen wouldn’t even blink in the face of them.
Joanna must have zoned out for a while because when she came to she could hear heavy, human panting. Looking up, she saw a fully naked Archer standing not ten feet away. Her face warmed with embarrassment even though her eyes greedily roved over his body. Her eyes followed the V of muscle cut into his lower abdomen, and she was caught by the package hanging freely, her mouth going dry, before she tore her eyes away.
“I still have enough energy left for a romp if you’re up for it,” he said playfully.
Her chest burned. As much as she wanted to hate him, to curse him, her lynx purred, and her body turned on her. She found herself considering it, eyeing him from head to toe like h
e was a luscious French Silk pie, and locked it down. Not Archer.
“If you think you can come back here, woo me, and make all my problems disappear then you’re mistaken. You walked away from that chance once. You don’t get a second chance.”
Archer’s face twisted with anger. “I didn’t come back here for you and your love box, but I will fix your problems.”
She guffawed. “Because you did so well at that the first time.”
Archer’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “You wanted me to settle for a lie?”
His words were an arrow through Joanna’s heart, painful and sharp. There’d been a time when her heart fluttered when she looked at Archer, when his presence would make her hands tremble and force her to fumble over her words. When news of their impending marriage reached her, she hadn’t bothered to hide her excitement.
Joanna Bart had been engaged to Archer Vancourt. Sure, it’d been an arranged marriage to help the packs stay civil, arranged by their fathers, but she loved Archer Vancourt. He was handsome and sweet. They’d met a number of times and, each time, he was more of a gentleman than she’d ever seen. No one had ever treated her with such kindness.
Now, he was just some guy who’d driven in from Illinois. There was an unkempt beard covering the strong line of his jaw and a dullness that glazed over his eyes as he looked at the people around him. Everyone except Joanna. When he looked at her his eyes blazed. She could feel them creeping over her body. Heat that she shoved aside with a sneer.
No, body. I will not let you dictate me. No one will ever tell me what to do.
“I wanted you to do what was right for your family,” she said, leaning into his space.
His eyes widened, just a fraction, as she stood and moved closer. She could see the way his breath caught. His body stilled, and the bear moved behind his eyes. The smell was stronger now, the musk overpowering her. It might have been because he was naked before her now. But, her heart thumped, and her eyes dropped to his mouth.
“I wanted you to want me,” she whispered.
Instead of the man she’d loved as a young woman, she’d invited a monster into her life and destroyed her family. This was all her fault. If only she’d been stronger, if she had been able to live with the pain after Archer’s denial.
Hands gripped her hips and jerked her forward. His mouth crashed into hers, tongue forcing its way past her lips. Her hand rose and grabbed onto his shoulders to keep her steady while her head spun. His tongue quickly explored the deep recesses of her mouth, tasting her, before he drew back.
His eyes were dancing, and her breath came short.
“I wouldn’t mind having you,” he said with a sly smile, his eyes looking her up and down.
She scowled and punched his chest, shoving herself out of his grip. The taste of him lingered on her lips, no matter how hard she tried to ignore it. “Who do you think you are?”
“The outcast son of Sampson the Bear?” He shrugged his shoulders, and her eyes betrayed her to watch his cock bounce. It’d grown since she’d last checked and the thought made her face warm. The cat inside her purred. Joanna could do nothing more than curse the beast’s libido.
Chapter Six
She enticed him, drew him closer. The bear demanded to be close to her, demanded Archer wrap her in their arms. He hushed the bear, reminding it they would save Joanna and her pack. Only then would the bear leave him be.
They’d never spent this much time together before. When their marriage had been arranged, he’d only ever seen her a few times. She was younger than him, barely an adult at the time. He thought he’d been in love with someone else and the decree that he would marry this teenager cut him in half.
He knew now that love was a sham, but the woman she’d grown into and the heat that burned between them promised much. And, it had delivered when he’d captured her mouth. She tasted like sweet, summer tea. He could drink her down for days.
Seeing her shrink like that, fall in on herself, Archer knew he had to do something. It hurt him to watch the snarky woman grow quiet. Pain flashed across her eyes, cutting deeper than it had in Paul’s Mart. He’d done the only thing he could think of in the moment to make it go away. And, it’d worked. For a blissful moment, she’d let him taste her. Then, with her fiery self returned, she hit him.
“Go on! Eat her face,” Gage’s voice shouted from near the back door of the house.
Archer shook his head and offered his younger brother his middle finger.
“He hasn’t changed,” Joanna muttered.
“Then you don’t see anything.”
She looked back at him with a question on her face.
Archer sighed. He bore the weight of his decision, knowing that Cohen and Gage had followed so he wouldn’t be alone as an outcast. He tried to return the favor by keeping them together, but it had been a struggle. As the years went on, Cohen drifted away from them. He took jobs that kept him on the road until, one day, he didn’t return home. Gage had taken the blow personally. It’s left the youngest brother bitter, something he did his best to hide behind humor.
“The only thing that hasn’t actually changed since we left is Dad. Sure, cancer got its evil fingers into him, but he’s still the same old asshole he’s always been.”
“You’re not wrong there,” Joanna agreed. “You know, you’re still naked, right?”
Archer smiled. “What’s wrong with that? Am I distracting you?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and turned her head away from him. He couldn’t hide the smile that spread across his lips.
“Welcome home, Archer.” She walked away from him, arms still crossed over her chest.
He stood back and admired the view as she left, enjoying the sway of her ass. She wasn’t what he’d expected. Archer wondered if it would have been so bad had he chosen to stay and adhere to his father’s decree. Life with Joanna wouldn’t have been so bad. Not if that was what he got to lay with each night.
But, he knew it would have been loveless just like his own parents’ relationship. They would have grown bitter and angry at one another before long, just like the clients he helped serve divorce papers for.
No, he’d made the right decision. Archer only wished he could have known what it was like to lay with her before he’d left. As he watched her leave, he decided he would find out before he hunted the man hurting her. Archer would have her in his bed before he died.
With a new resolution bolstering him, he turned back toward the house to find the clothes he’d shed earlier. It wasn’t until Gage held up a scrap of flannel that he realized he might have been a little hasty in his earlier shifting. The bear demanded destruction and his clothes had paid the price.
“I’m sure you could find something inside,” Gage said before throwing back the last of beer in his bottle.
Archer sighed and resigned himself to old clothes before looking around. “Where’s Cohen?”
“Being a responsible adult?”
Archer bit his tongue. He didn’t have the energy to deal with the fountain of bitterness that was erupting from Gage. The day had already dragged on, hours of driving, an ambush, and a nasty surprise already weighing on him. Archer wanted to crawl into bed and pull the feisty Joanna down with him, basking in her scent, exploring her taste, but he knew there was more to do.
He also knew she’d never let him.
Gage said nothing, nothing further than he was willing to give. He went to take another swig from his bottle before realizing it was empty. Instead of taking it inside, the shifter chucked it into the woods. They heard it shatter against a tree in the distance.
“Good job, asshole. I hope no one steps on that later.”
Gage probably had nothing to say, but the chance to retort was cut off by the sound of voices around the front of the house. Their eyes met, and they realized what was going on.
Cohen announced that he’d called the Pack, igniting a phone chain that would have them at the stone house by night fall. Arche
r was not looking forward to seeing them. He wanted to beat sense into their daft heads. Joanna had been coming to them for years now, begging for help with the monster in her pack. Not once had they thought to tell their Alpha what was going on. If Archer hadn’t been at Paul’s Mart earlier, there would have been more deaths on the Pack’s heads.
Did they even care at all?
Better yet, why did Archer care? They’d turned their backs on him when his father cast him out. Not one of them spoke up in his defense. No one thought to argue for his happiness. No, they stuck to tradition and saw him as a traitor for even considering breaking tradition.
What good it had done them all.
Still, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. They might not have been happy, but would the monster of an Alpha have been able to get his fingers into their territories if Archer had listened?
He shook his head. Now was no time for thoughts like that. He couldn’t go back and change the past. He could only move forward. That meant dealing with his father’s pack mates first.
Gage followed him inside, splitting to grab another beer from the kitchen before meeting him in the parlor. Cohen stood by the far wall, leaning with his hands in his pockets, but looking no less threatening. Archer was sure the dark shadows over his brother’s eyes were mimicked in his own. The Pack had a lot to answer for.
***
Joanna was nervous to go home, but she knew it had to be done. If she stayed away too long, Killian would start to suspect something, and her Pack couldn’t afford that kind of recklessness. She’d already ruined their lives.
A few of them remained, some of them having escaped before things took a turn for the worst. Some of them fell when Killian made his bid for power. She wished she’d been as smart as those who’d left. If only she’d seen the signs.
She’d been too wrapped up in her own pain and how his attention made it go away. She’d been a silly young woman, too trusting of those around her. No longer would she be that woman. No longer would she put her faith into the hands of others.
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