Shoot for the Moon (Black River Pack Book 2)
Page 7
“Spencer, please,” she begged. “Don’t go through with the claiming. Don’t lock yourself into a life with this…this imposter.”
“Shut the fuck up!” he roared. “Don’t you ever say anything about Eliza ever again. Not one single fucking word.”
“Fine,” she hissed. “I’ll leave your precious Eliza alone if you’ll admit to me and her and everyone here that she’s not your fated mate.”
“And why the fuck would I do that?”
“Because somewhere deep down inside, you know she isn’t,” Layla argued. “That’s why you didn’t mate her when she joined the pack. Why you used her as one of your fuck buddies for an entire year. And why she didn’t agree to the marking for six months after you mated her. Because you’re forcing this mating.”
I finally managed to pull free from Parker and stood next to Spencer. After grabbing his hand, I squeezed it to let him know I was okay.
“It might have taken this long for Spencer and me to become mates, but neither of us has any doubts about each other. I’ve dreamed of him for years, and I am the mate from his grandmother’s vision.”
“Dreams? Visions?” Layla scoffed. “What do I care about these things when I’ve known since we were children that Spencer was my mate? You might not have had faith in him, but I never have.”
“You think you’re my mate?” Spencer asked in shock.
“Yes,” she answered, reaching out to touch him.
I swiped at her hand with the claws that had appeared the moment she had come within touching distance of him. “No touching my mate,” I growled, more wolf than woman in that moment even though I hadn’t transformed yet.
“Then you’re fucking delusional, because there’s no way in hell you’re my mate,” Spencer said scathingly.
“Spencer,” she pleaded. “You had to have felt it when we were together.”
My teeth lengthened at the news that Spencer had slept with her, and the red haze clouded my vision again.
Spencer must have felt me tense as I was getting ready to spring at her, because he stepped in front of me. “I made lots of mistakes in my past. Just because I was stupid enough to think with my dick doesn’t make you my mate.”
“And it doesn’t make her your mate, either!” she yelled. “I say you could have been my fated mate if you just would have tried. If you had given me the same chance you gave her. You kept her in your bed for a whole year, but you never tried to mate her in all that time. Because you weren’t supposed to ever do it.”
“Even if I hadn’t mated Eliza, what we had for the year before I mated her is a thousand times more than I ever had with any other woman in my entire life,” Spencer told Layla quietly before raising his voice. “I was a stupid motherfucker and denied to Eliza and myself that she was my mate for a long damn time. That’s on me, and if anyone has a problem with it, they can come to me and leave her out of it.”
He swiveled his head to stare down everyone in the room until he returned his attention back to Layla. “I didn’t share this with anyone else because it was nobody else’s fucking business, but I guess you’re going to force my hand.”
I squeezed his hand again, and Spencer turned to look at me.
“It’s okay,” I whispered. “You don’t have to do this. We don’t have anything to prove here.”
“I know we don’t, my dream girl. But the connection we have? It should be shouted from the mountaintops. That’s how lucky I am,” he reassured me with a gentle smile and a light kiss on the lips. His face turned harsh when he looked at Layla again. His eyes were iced over, and his utter disdain shone through loud and clear. “Years ago, after the death of our parents, my grandmother shared a vision with my brothers and me. One that told us each something very specific about our mates. As time passed and there was no sign of the woman from my grandmother’s vision, I played the field hard and clearly used poor judgment if today is any indication.”
Layla gasped in outrage and her face turned red. “Poor judgment?!”
“Shut the fuck up and let me finish my story, because then and only then will you realize how incredibly stupid it is for you to think for even one second that you could be my mate,” he ordered. “When my grandmother died, she urged me to have some patience because I wouldn’t have to wait much longer for my fated mate. I stopped sleeping around so much and closed myself off from women as much as possible while I waited to meet the one my grandmother had described.”
“Don’t you see? It can’t be her then,” Layla hissed.
“Except that she is. Eliza walks in dreams just as the vision said she would. Just as no other woman I’ve ever met has been able to do,” Spencer explained. “And if I hadn’t been so goddamn stubborn, then I would have known that way before I did. I wouldn’t have wasted time with my mate because I would have made sure she felt comfortable enough to share her gift with me. If I could go back in time, I would have listened to how my wolf had acted whenever she was near. I would have taken off the blinders I’d apparently put on in my search for my fated mate and questioned why her scent called to me so strongly. Why I felt the need to make sure she was okay when I didn’t even know her. And why, when I threw out my rule about no more flings to sleep with her, it felt like coming home. All I can hope now is that my mate forgives me for being so damn blind for so long.”
I’d never heard Spencer speak so much before—ever, and certainly not in front of others. By the time he was done, Layla was looking at the floor with her neck bared in submission. Glancing around the room, I saw respect in the eyes of the men and tears streaking the cheeks of the women. Even though my heart had melted at his announcement, I still felt the need to prove a point.
Stepping forward, I clenched the front of Layla’s shirt in my hands and called upon the strength of my wolf so I could lift her off her feet. “It’s my right as Spencer’s mate to demand blood from you for what you pulled here. You know the rules as well as anyone else. Nobody interferes with mated couples,” I growled, allowing my wolf to show in my eyes as I spoke.
“I didn’t know,” she said, trying to defend herself, her voice wavering with fear. Understandably so since it was clear that my wolf was the stronger of the two and I had the right to hurt her as badly as I wanted because of what she’d done.
“I could fucking care less,” I responded,
Parker chuckled behind me. “Sounds like she’s starting to talk like you, big bro,” he said.
“So here’s what we’re going to do,” I told Layla as I jerked her closer to me. “I’m going to let you walk out of here as long as you can promise me you will never do something this fucked up to anyone again.”
“I won’t!” she promised.
“Damn straight you won’t,” Spencer agreed. “Because if you do, I’ll bring you in front of our alpha. As the enforcer, I’m the one who is responsible for the punishment of any pack member who breaks the rules. And if you fuck with my mate again, you can be damn sure I won’t go easy on you.”
“I swear,” she pleaded.
“You better not go back on your word, because if Eliza wants you out of this pack, then I will demand you be exiled,” he threatened.
“No!” she cried out. “I couldn’t survive as a lone wolf.”
“And you really thought you’d make a better mate for me than Eliza?” he said derisively. “She lived through the death of her parents, being ostracized for her gifts, and finding herself on her own. And after all that, she used her gift to help save our alpha’s mate. Even if she weren’t my fated mate, she’d still be better for me than you ever could be.”
“I think she finally understands,” I told Spencer.
“Then she can prove it,” he insisted. “By apologizing to you and telling you to your face that she knows you’re the better woman for me.”
Layla’s horrified gaze swept the room before settling back on me. She was trembling and reeked of fear. “I’m sorry,” she began in a shaky voice. “I was wrong.”
“And,” Spe
ncer angrily prompted her.
“I couldn’t possibly be Spencer’s mate because you’re the better woman for him,” she mumbled, tears streaking down her cheeks.
“I’m glad you understand,” I said. Relief flashed in her eyes before I continued. “But I still want blood to settle your debt to me.”
I dug the claws of my free hand into her shoulder. The sight and smell of her blood settled my wolf, giving her some degree of satisfaction. Then I tossed her across the room and towards the front door of the diner. Layla scurried to her feet and rushed out the door. Everyone surrounding us stood in shocked silence until Parker clapped slowly.
“Too bad she wasn’t the one whose family discarded her,” he said. “Because you sure as hell got a good one there.”
I couldn’t stop the laughter that bubbled up at the ridiculousness of Parker’s complimenting Spencer for getting me as his mate. His sense of timing was as absurd as his sense of humor.
“Stop gawking at my mate,” Spencer grumbled at his brother.
“You’ve gotta admit that was damn hot,” Parker quipped.
“My mate’s always hot,” Spencer replied before he pulled me into his arms.
“And I think she just earned an extra day off,” the she-wolf who managed the diner chimed in.
“No, I couldn’t possibly,” I tried to argue.
“Of course you can,” Parker disagreed. “You are newly mated to one of the owners. And it looks like he could use some quality time with his mate right about now.”
“Although it rarely happens, I have to agree with my baby brother,” Spencer said as he grabbed my hand and led me towards the door. Then he dragged me to his truck and practically threw me into the passenger’s seat.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“Back to bed,” he clipped out. “I never should have let you out of it in the first place. And we’re not going to leave until it’s time for the claiming. I won’t feel safe having you around anyone else until our bond is completely formed and unbreakable.”
Chapter 8
Eliza
Spencer hadn’t been joking when he’d said that he was taking me back to bed. As soon as we pulled into the driveway, he lifted me out of the truck and tossed me over his shoulder. His hand rubbed my ass while he strode up the stairs and opened the door. And before I knew what was happening, he had marched through the house and thrown me onto the bed.
“Clothes off,” he demanded. “Now.”
I watched him rip his own clothes off as I wiggled out of my own. The surge of adrenaline from our confrontation with Layla had both of our beasts closer to the surface than usual, and I could practically smell our desire in the air. By the time he leapt onto the bed, I was down to my bra and panties. They didn’t last long though—he slashed them with his claws.
“Whoa there. Down boy,” I murmured, trying to get him to calm down a little.
He’d barely spoken since we’d left the diner, and I could tell he was being ridden hard by the need to prove to both of us that I really was his. As much I was up for some rough, life-affirming sex with my mate, I needed to make sure he understood that he had nothing to prove to me.
“Need you,” he growled, his chest heaving with exertion.
“You have me,” I reassured him. “I’m yours, Spencer.”
“Mine,” he rasped.
“Yes, yours,” I agreed. “And I need you to listen and hear me. Really hear what I’m saying. Can you do that for me?”
Spencer’s body stilled as he stopped to gaze down at me. His breathing started to slow down, and the frenzied look in his eyes seeped away. Once he’d finally calmed down a little, he nodded in agreement.
“Yes,” he rasped.
“I don’t forgive you,” I began, and his body tensed when he heard my words. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. Because you don’t need my forgiveness. We both played our parts in how our relationship began—”
“No,” he interrupted me. “I held you at a distance because I was so wrapped up in that damn prophecy of my grandmother’s that I couldn’t see straight.”
“Spencer, we’re here together now. If anything, you need to forgive yourself,” I urged.
Grabbing my hands, he looked at me beseechingly. “Not until you understand why I was so fucking stupid,” he pleaded. “When my parents died, my grandmother’s vision gave me something to hold on to. I grew up seeing how in love my parents were with each other, hearing the stories about how my grandmother had predicted their mating years before it happened. And I knew that, when I met the woman she’d seen in her vision, I would finally have what they had together for so many years.”
“If you wanted to find me so badly, why did you close yourself off so much from the possibility that I could be your mate?” I finally asked. It was the question that had been bothering me ever since Spencer had told me that I was fated to be his mate.
“I needed you so badly back then. Needed your love to make sense of the madness in the world. On the heels of losing my parents, I was struggling with my role as enforcer and the things I’ve had to do to keep the pack safe. As I looked at every woman I met, I wondered if she was the one who would be mine. And I lost myself a little searching for you,” he explained. “Until my grandmother urged me to focus on my role of enforcer and making the pack as safe as it could be for the time when my mate would come to me.”
I squeezed his hands in encouragement, happy that Spencer was truly opening up to me and sharing his past hopes and dreams. “You’ve succeeded,” I assured him. “I’ve never felt safer anywhere else.”
“You will always be safe with me,” he swore. “I just wish I hadn’t taken what my grandmother had told me before she died so literally.”
“What did she say?”
Spencer heaved a sigh and a tinge of red colored his cheekbones. “I’m a guy. You know I have a past. Hell, you just had to deal with part of it today,” he grumbled.
“Yes, Spencer. I get that you’ve slept with other women. Just as I’ve slept with other men,” I replied sarcastically.
“Don’t remind me,” he growled as he quickly went from looking embarrassed to pissed the hell off at the thought of another man touching what was his. Considering what I’d been through today and where this conversation seemed to be headed, I wasn’t too bothered by the idea that I was poking the beast with my comment.
“Then don’t bring up your past conquests to me!”
“That’s not what I’m trying to do, my dream girl,” he reassured me. “Before my grandmother died, she opened my eyes and made me see that the way I was searching for you was wrong. That it was something I might regret once you found me. So I stopped and promised myself I would wait for you. And that I would know who you were because of the dreams. I just needed to wait until the woman who walked in dreams found me.”
“But I didn’t tell you about my dreams,” I whispered.
“I felt the pull when we met, but I worried that maybe it was because I hadn’t allowed myself to sleep with anyone in months. That it was just my dick talking and I was fooling myself into thinking you could be the one,” he said. “But the desire never went away. I just had to see you from across town to feel the need. So I did some checking into your background, hoping like hell I would find something—anything that would even hint at the possibility that you could walk in dreams.”
“You didn’t find anything?” I asked, stunned by the news that Spencer had wanted me so much when we had met that he had looked into my past. I didn’t understand how word hadn’t filtered to him from my pack though.
“Fuck no!” he growled. “If I had, I would have mated you in an instant. But when I couldn’t find a single hint of your ability to walk in dreams, I shoved the possibility out of my heart and mind and tried my best to forget you. And then, when I found you in the bar that night, I couldn’t resist you anymore. It tore me to shreds thinking you couldn’t possibly be mine forever, so I acted like an ass.”
“What I did find was bad. Really fucking bad. And I knew how much it would hurt you,” he admitted.
“What could be so bad that you couldn’t at least ask me about my past?” I demanded.
“I don’t… Fuck, Eliza! How do you tell someone that the pack she called family didn’t just exile her?” he asked in a tortured tone. “Eliza, they shunned you.”
I gasped in shock. Shunnings were almost unheard of within wolf packs. If the alpha decided that your transgression was bad enough, that you were a continued risk to the safety of your pack, then all memory of you was wiped away. No photos were kept. No memories were shared. It was as if you had never existed for any of the people who had once been your family and friends.
Being exiled was bad enough, but being shunned meant that your odds of ever being accepted into another pack were slim to none. The stigma remained with you forever since it was nearly impossible to prove you hadn’t been worthy of a shunning when there were no stories to combat it. Nobody to defend yourself against because there wasn’t a single person willing to speak to you or about you.
“Shunned?” I repeated.
Spencer gathered me into his arms before responding. “When I reached out to your old pack’s enforcer, the only thing he would say was that your alpha had declared you shunned.”
“But Hunter accepted me into the pack? Why would he do that without knowing what happened?”
“It’s hard to explain,” he began. “When you came to town, you were so guarded. Hesitant to let anyone close—almost like a wounded animal. And then, when I spoke with your former pack’s enforcer, there was something in his voice. It wasn’t much to go on because the rules would have prevented him from speaking out against the shunning, but it was enough for me to think that he didn’t approve of the decision.”
“And Hunter was willing to let me into the pack based on a hunch you had because of a tone of voice someone you’d never met before had used when speaking of my being shunned?” I demanded, not understanding this kind of blind acceptance at all.