by Zoe Chant
Malachi eyed her. “Why do you like her so much?” Like most teenagers, Hayley wasn’t usually that interested in what adults were up to.
Hayley hesitated, and then admitted, “There aren’t a lot of ladies like her around here. Most of the woman are just—married, and they have kids, and they don’t do anything exciting.”
“Most of the men are the same,” Malachi pointed out, amused. “Besides, you know that you can be married and have kids and still do exciting stuff sometimes, right? It’s been known to happen.”
Hayley rolled her eyes. “I know. I just—when I was with Mom—”
Malachi sat up and paid attention. During the last skirmish with Victor, he’d sent Hayley to stay with her mother in Arizona for a couple of weeks, because he couldn’t stand to have her around while people were being kidnapped out of the woods left and right.
She’d come back quiet and moody, but he’d figured that was just because of the situation, and he’d reassured her about her safety as best he could.
He’d also been slightly distracted by the war with the lion pack. But it looked like he should’ve been paying more attention.
“What happened while you were with Mom?” he asked gently.
“She just—” Hayley shrugged. “She’s got this whole idea for me. She wants me to be better at doing makeup. She thinks I don’t dress pretty enough. She kept asking me if I’d met any boys. I kept wanting to tell her I was a lesbian to make her stop talking.”
“No one would be mad if you were a lesbian,” Malachi said automatically, trying to keep a lid on the anger that was rising inside him. Amanda had always been invested in being very—feminine, which was fine and good and looked great on her.
But Hayley was more of a tomboy. She had been her entire life. And Amanda had never really been able to make peace with that, wanting to dress her up in cute bows and nail polish, getting mad when Hayley came home with grass stains on her adorable outfits.
Hayley smiled sadly. “I think Mom would be mad. And that sucks.”
Malachi always tried to stay very neutral on the subject of Amanda, and Hayley’s feelings towards her. He had no interest in sabotaging Hayley’s relationship with her mother, even though Malachi’s own relationship with his ex-wife was basically nonexistent. It wasn’t constructive to badmouth his daughter’s other parent.
But he did have to say, “It does suck.”
As usual, Malachi attempting anything even vaguely close to teen slang made Hayley giggle, which was what he’d intended.
“Anyway, I just—Elizabeth is this cool lawyer, she took down Victor’s whole pack from the inside, all by herself, she doesn’t—she’s not like all that stuff that Mom likes.”
It sounded like Malachi was falling down on the parenting job, if Hayley had so few female role models that she was looking for ones from out of town. “Have you spent any time with Lachlan’s new mate, Cam?” he offered. “She’s a scientist, you know. As far as I know, she never wears makeup or dresses or anything.”
Hayley smiled a little. “Cam is super cool. I just—you know me and science. Not best buds.”
Hayley’s grades always struggled the most in math and science. She was great in English and history, which Malachi supposed would make her a good lawyer, if she did decide to go that route.
“Well,” he said, “if you want to be a lawyer, I’ll support you a hundred percent. And when you’re a Supreme Court Justice someday, I bet even Mom won’t have a thing to say against it.”
Hayley started laughing. “Daaaaaaad.”
“Whaaaaat,” he mimicked, and so they were both laughing when Reid came downstairs.
They quickly sobered up and turned expectantly towards him, but he shook his head. “I can’t tell you anything about her condition,” he said, “but I’ll come back in a couple of days to check on her again.” He hesitated. “Try not to stress her out.”
Then, maybe feeling like he’d overstepped even with that much information, he quickly made his excuses and left.
Malachi stood up. “I’m going to go check on her.”
“Can I—”
“No, Hayley. Let’s give the poor woman a chance to rest up a little, okay?”
Hayley sighed. “Fine. I have to leave for work soon, anyway.”
Hayley worked in the little coffee shop that Katie, their first refugee from Victor’s pack, was starting up down the street. It wasn’t quite open yet, but there was plenty of work getting the place ready for business, and Hayley was enjoying herself.
Malachi went upstairs, knowing that he was indulging himself in the same way he’d forbidden Hayley to. Let’s give the poor woman a chance to rest up a little—okay, yes, but he wanted to just check in first.
Stay with her, his dragon insisted.
Stop it, Malachi told it, still kind of baffled at its interest in Elizabeth, and knocked.
And he found himself in exactly the situation he’d warned Hayley against.
He asked how Elizabeth was, she said she was fine. But she was clearly lying—even apart from what Reid had said, she looked exhausted and frightened. So Malachi didn’t listen to her, didn’t do her the courtesy of believing her and backing off. Instead, he pressed, “I don’t want to push, but—”
“Then don’t!”
Elizabeth’s eyes were wide, almost wild. She looked...stressed.
Great job, Sheriff. Scare the pregnant woman by refusing to leave her alone.
“I’m sorry,” she said, almost immediately calming down.
“Don’t worry about it.” He’d brought that on himself for sure.
It looked like it was time to give her a chance to rest up a bit. He murmured something polite and closed the door behind him.
Out in the hall, he shook his head at himself. All right, law enforcement offers were all naturally nosy people, but he didn’t normally have this much trouble leaving well enough alone.
Still, he couldn’t get the picture out of his head, of Elizabeth sitting on the bed, looking pale and tired, her hands clutched together. All alone in the world.
He wouldn’t push. But he’d be right here if she did need something. She wasn’t going to be alone any longer.
Chapter 7: Elizabeth
Elizabeth was sitting on Malachi’s guest bed, regretting snapping at him and wondering if she should get up and go apologize again, when her phone rang.
Startled, she had to rummage through her purse to find it. Who would be calling her? She’d cut all of her old connections, and almost no one in Oak Ridge even had her number.
But when she pulled the phone out at last, the screen said Nevin.
With a sinking feeling in her stomach, she answered it.
“You think you’re so smart,” Nevin said. She could hear a sneer on his voice.
“Nevin, I—”
“You turn traitor and then skip town? You think I’m not going to be able to find you?”
She closed her eyes. “Nevin, I’m sorry. But I couldn’t do anything else. The pack was—broken. Packs shouldn’t be like that.”
“Maybe people shouldn’t be like that. People shouldn’t be able to just turn their backs on their family like it doesn’t matter.”
He was genuinely upset, was the problem. If he hadn’t had any feelings at all, it would have been easier.
But then she wouldn’t ever have been with him in the first place.
And Nevin’s feelings were always too—aggressive. Angry. Violent.
“You were always a stuck-up princess, weren’t you,” he was saying. “Thinking you were better than all of us because you’re a fancy lawyer? I’m going to show you what being a fancy lawyer means in the real world.”
“Nevin, stop it—”
“How many of us were you sleeping with?”
That accusation froze her voice in her throat. Her eyes were watering.
“Whose baby is that, really? I bet it’s not mine. Not even one of the pack’s. Could be any man—one of those dragons
, I bet that’s how they convinced you to switch sides—”
“Nevin!” she yelled, her face hot, tears starting to spill down her cheeks.
A knock came at the door. “Elizabeth? Are you all right?”
“No,” came out of her mouth, and the door opened instantly, Malachi coming in with his arm outstretched.
Nevin was still spitting filthy vitriol. Elizabeth didn’t know why she handed the phone over instead of just hanging up. Maybe she needed someone else to know, to know that these threats were being made.
That her ex was swearing at her, telling her she was lower than dirt, threatening her.
Malachi put the phone to his ear. “I don’t know who you are,” he said, low and menacing. “I don’t know where you live. But I can find out. Stay away from Elizabeth, or you’ll have a dragon at your door.”
He hung up, and handed the phone back. Elizabeth took it and stared down at it.
“Are you okay?” Malachi asked, his voice soft and concerned. “Do you want me to call—someone else? Lila, maybe?”
“No, I—” Elizabeth didn’t know what to do. Her whole body felt like it was frozen, except for her face, which was on fire.
Tears were still dripping down her cheeks. She never cried. She never cried.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
Why was his voice so kind? Why did she want to do what he asked? She never wanted anyone to poke their noses into her business. She never needed anyone’s help.
“He’s—um.” Should she even admit this? Maybe if Malachi knew, he’d stop being so goddamn nice, and things could go back to normal. As normal as they could be. “He’s the father,” she bit out.
When she managed to look up and meet Malachi’s eyes, they’d gone wide. “Of your baby,” he clarified.
She nodded.
He let out a breath, then came over and sat down next to her on the bed. Silently, he put a hand on her shoulder, one thumb rubbing warmly over it.
Somehow, that quiet gesture did more than any words could have. Her tears grew from a hot trickle to a burning flood, and before she knew it, she was crying for real.
Malachi sat by her through it all, rubbing her shoulder. He didn’t try to say anything, didn’t smother her in any crushing hugs or endless platitudes. He was just there, solid and warm and quiet, while Elizabeth felt like her chest was breaking open with everything that had happened.
He handed her a tissue when it looked like the tears were finally starting to subside. She blew her nose. Her whole body felt wrung out, like the ice that had frozen her solid while Nevin spoke had melted, leaving her liquid and flimsy.
“Sorry,” she managed finally. Her voice was ragged and nasal. “You probably didn’t want to see that.”
She felt shaky, fragile. Cold. She didn’t know how she was going to face Malachi, have a conversation with him, now that he’d seen all of—that.
“Everyone’s gotta cry sometimes,” he said mildly, as though it wasn’t a big deal at all. “And that seemed like plenty of reason for it.”
She closed her eyes. “I swear he wasn’t like that while we were dating. I don’t want you to think that I’m...”
“You don’t have to make excuses.” His hand squeezed her shoulder. “You’re not any worse of a person because your ex-boyfriend called to yell at you.”
That made her laugh a little, damply. “He’s angry. Because of what I did to Victor.”
“That doesn’t excuse him speaking to you like that,” Malachi said carefully.
She shook her head. “No, no, I don’t—I know. I just. He wasn’t like that before. God, why am I such an idiot? I always go for the musclebound jerks.”
His body shivered with a little chuckle, and Elizabeth started to feel a little more stable, more like herself. Less ready to shatter at the slightest touch. Thank God.
She shook her head. “It’s the worst cliché. The strong, silent type. Turns out the strong, silent type is just an asshole.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said. His voice was so gentle, it was awful. Awful? Something unbearable, anyway. “You’re not responsible for the choices he made. Or any other guy made. At least this one chose to harass you in front of a police offer.”
That softened the weight of his concern, and made her giggle. “I suppose he did. God.” She scrubbed at her face with the tissue, and then surprised herself with what felt like a full-body yawn.
“You want to lie down for a bit?” He looked sympathetic. There was absolutely none of the judgment she’d been expecting, for ever having thought that dating Nevin was a good idea.
“I guess I should,” she said, rather than taking any time to process how she felt about that. She didn’t seem to have a lot of feelings at all right now, anyway. It was like the tears had drained them all away.
Rest, came a whisper of a voice inside her chest. Curl up, rest, recover.
Her lioness. Elizabeth hadn’t heard anything from her in weeks. The deep, visceral instincts against betraying her pack had been too powerful for a long time, and she’d shoved all of those anguished wails down as far as they could go, packing them so far down inside her that she couldn’t hear them any longer.
Hi, she thought tentatively. I missed you.
Rest, her lioness repeated.
“Dr. MacAllister said I should rest,” she told Malachi. “So...I guess I should.”
“You definitely should. Take a nap. I’ll be home, so no need to worry about anything.” He squeezed her shoulder one last time, a firm and reassuring touch.
She was already lying down as he stood up, heading for the door. The last thing she thought as her head hit the pillow was that, astonishingly, he was right—the knowledge that he’d be home did make her feel like there was nothing to worry about at all.
Chapter 8: Malachi
Malachi waited until he was absolutely certain that Elizabeth was asleep before he started pacing.
He still kept himself from punching the wall like he really, deeply wanted to; he wasn’t about to make enough noise to wake her up. But he couldn’t sit still a second longer.
He’d been able to hear part of the other end of Elizabeth’s phone call before he picked up the phone, and what he’d heard—
No man should talk to any woman like that. The language the man—Elizabeth had called him Nevin, and Malachi knew that that was the name of one of Victor’s enforcers—the language he’d been using to her had been obscene. Hateful. Inexcusably violent.
Even if they had only been packmates—if Nevin had been angry because Elizabeth had turned their alpha over to the police—it would have been far, far over the line.
But he was the father of her baby. He’d been with her. To descend that far, to threaten her like that—
He was the sort of man that Malachi had become a cop in order to protect people from. He was exactly the kind of shifter that made places like Oak Ridge necessary, little safe pockets of civilization where shifter kids were taught how to behave like a person needed to behave to function in society.
Not like a violent animal.
Malachi was aware that his own feelings, at this particular moment in time, were somewhat less than civilized themselves. He couldn’t quite bring himself to care, though.
But he really didn’t want to punch the wall. So after a few minutes of pacing didn’t calm him down at all, he quietly left the house, went into the backyard, and shifted.
He hurled himself into the air with furious wingbeats. Just for a moment, he went as high up as he could stand, until the air started to get thin and cold and the town was just a speck beneath him. Most dragons couldn’t fly so high, but Malachi had always loved it—the rush of the extreme, the knowledge that he’d left all of civilization far below him.
But he’d promised Elizabeth he wouldn’t leave, so after just a few moments of cleansing cold air, he turned and dove, letting the freezing air whistle past him for long seconds, longer—until finally he snapped his wings out and leve
led off, circling the neighborhood. He stayed close enough to the house to know if anyone approached it or anything suspicious happened nearby.
When he’d flown himself to near-exhaustion, he landed in the yard, shifted back to human, and let out a long breath.
Then he thought about the phone call, and rage rose inside him once again.
Frowning, Malachi looked up at the sky. That should have helped. That was how he always dealt with feelings that were too strong to suppress in the moment. That had been one of the biggest fights he and Amanda had always had—she’d hated how he’d storm outside and shift whenever he was angry, rather than sticking around and talking it out.
He’d tried to explain to her that he had to, that it was the only way he’d found that worked, that let him exorcise the furious energy that filled him sometimes. A good hard flight would leave him drained and calm, ready to discuss anything that needed discussing, once the fury of the moment had dissipated.
But this time, it hadn’t worked. His body was tired, but his mind was still enraged. He wanted to find Nevin and show him what it meant to have a dragon at his door.
Yes, his dragon hissed. Why fly nowhere? Fly to the enemy! Fight him, kill him!
Well, he couldn’t do that. And...not just because he didn’t know where Nevin was right this second.
He was an officer of the law, and he wasn’t about to go premeditatedly assault someone. And the most he could arrest Nevin for right now was harassment, and one angry phone call wouldn’t go very far with a judge.
God. He just wanted to shift and take off again right away.
Well, that hadn’t helped him much the first time, and he had his doubts about whether it would help any now. So instead, he turned and went inside.
Going quietly upstairs, he paused outside Elizabeth’s door and listened. Her breathing was soft and heavy. Still asleep.
Good. She needed her rest. He could still see her exhausted, tear-streaked face in his mind’s eye. The way her shoulders had slumped, resigned to everything that had happened. Losing her pack, her job. Her body weak and unable to handle the stress. And then the man who should have been taking care of her, doing the exact opposite.