Alliance: an Alpha Shifter Romance (Mated in Hell Trilogy Book 1)

by K. de Long

  The idea grew to be an obsession, pinging in her chest every time she saw his amber eyes turn toward her. She couldn’t keep it off her face—the guilt, the paranoia, the shame.

  She took to walking in the woods surrounding the encampment, where the sentries could keep her safe, but she could at least pretend to be scavenging herbs and supplies. The sentries would look at her pityingly, or suspiciously, but keep their fucking mouths shut. Thank god. She might have torn them limb from limb if they’d prodded her for the truth of what was between herself and M.

  No. Marrock. She wasn’t one of his pack to use the informal nickname. She didn’t belong with him, and she never would.

  It was about two weeks later. Two weeks of Marrock and Tessa barely exchanging more than a few words with each other. Just when they had made their biggest step forward together, they made the biggest fall back—and this time, there was no sign things would ever get better again. The bubble had finally burst.

  Tessa was cutting sprigs away from a rosemary plant when Mara approached. The woman’s appearance couldn’t have been less welcome, but what was she to do? She put on a fake smile, and nodded, praying the woman wouldn’t talk to her.

  “Long time no see,” Mara said, oblivious to Tessa’s roiling irritation.

  “Mmm,” Tessa responded, pretending to be engrossed in the contents of her satchel.

  “How are things?” Mara asked, a little catch in her voice. Tessa didn’t think the woman was capable of that kind of vulnerability, but it was obvious that her cousin’s death had hit her hard.

  “Fine, you?” Tessa replied politely, scanning the undergrowth for more plants to occupy herself with.

  “Hanging in there. Gunner just…it got to me. I didn’t even know he was considering that. I wish I could have talked him out of it, before...”

  Under other circumstances, Tessa might have been taken in by the raw grief in the woman’s voice. But she had no sympathy for her just now. After all, it was Mara’s fault that she and Marrock had butted heads so much. It was Mara’s fault that she and her mate were at odds, and forever would be.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “And it’s so much worse, too, for it being M, you know?”

  “Hmm?”

  “It’s so much worse, that Marrock was the one to kill him. I mean, he was hotheaded, so I always figured it would be someone’s mate coming home and tearing him open for the infidelity. I never figured my own lover would—”

  Tessa’s heart stopped. “What?”

  “Ex-lover, I mean,” Mara said with a downtrodden sigh. “Well, you know what I mean.”

  “No,” Tessa bit out. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh,” Mara said, frowning. “I thought everyone did. I’m sorry. I thought he’d have told you. You shouldn’t hear it from me—”

  Well, she was damn right about that. Rage boiled in Tessa’s veins, making the blood coarse through her strongly enough for her wolf to howl. Why hadn’t Marrock told her? Of course, it was an arranged mating, not like, love or anything, but still, he must have known that it would make her heart twist in her chest to be hearing about his sexual exploits from his packmates and exes. And here he’d been worried about her fidelity? Just how recent was their separation? It must be close enough for Mara to still stumble over saying it.

  She fought to keep her breathing even—the last thing she wanted was for Mara to see how much pain she’d caused. “It hadn’t come up, I guess.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. So sorry. I really thought it was old news—”

  Tessa shook her head. Mara’s apologies were only grinding sand into the wound. “New news to me,” she said, forcing a smile. “But I’m all ears. Go on and start from the beginning.”

  “Well, not much to say,” Mara said, jumping at the opportunity. “We were fuckbuddies. He got obsessed with me and it set off alarm bells. So I left him. He was just too…too much for me,” the woman finished blandly. “I don’t think he’s let it go. Let me go.”

  It made sense. Too much sense. Marrock was too much the alpha to tolerate rejection, and even being in his good graces, as it sometimes seemed Tessa was, was dangerous. No wonder Marrock hadn’t told her. For all his big talk about cooperation, growth, and the power of trusting someone else, he was still just a jealous kid clutching every toy he could.

  “Are you mad at me?” Mara asked. “Your mate-bond is your mate-bond and I don’t want to be between you two. It’s been over for more than a year now.”

  “It’s fine,” Tessa said. “Not your problem, and not any of my business. I shouldn’t have asked you to gossip about it. Marrock and I—we’re…politics only.” The words left a bitter taste in her mouth, one that was soon supplemented by a bloody metallic tang as she bit her lip.

  Suddenly, she was filled with a burning urge to hear it from Marrock’s own mouth. For all she knew, Mara was baiting her again. She shoved the last of the herbs into her satchel and looked up.

  “I better head back,” she said. “I need to—” Talk to my mate, she thought to herself. But that wasn’t Mara’s business. “I need to get dinner started. See you around, okay?”

  Liam came home to a tempest. Tessa had cooked, but he soon realized the delicious food was bait to ensnare him. He’d barely gotten the first bite in his mouth when she emerged from her room and stood beside him at the little table, staring down at him with her arms crossed.

  “You didn’t tell me you and Mara were lovers.” Her voice was dangerously quiet.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You didn’t tell me you two were fuckbuddies,” she said. “Tell me honestly—how many of your warnings against her were because you truly believed she was bad politics, and how many were because you just didn’t want me to find out you’re in love with her.”

  He laughed. Oh, for fuck’s sake. In love with Mara? “Pet, I was never in love with her. I was attracted to her. We fucked. That’s it.”

  “Liar,” she accused. He hated the clouded look in her eyes. “She said—”

  “Like I told you, she’s dangerous. She uses people. As she’s using you, and this, and the memory of us right now.”

  “Then why didn’t I hear about it from you?”

  “Because it wasn’t relevant.” He didn’t want another fight; he’d long ago learned that it was nearly impossible to correct Mara’s misinformation without it coming across as sour grapes. But it still wounded him to see the hurt in Tessa’s grimly set lips. “It was in the past. I walked away from her because she was horrible for the pack. Because she used me to further her own ambitions. I’ve steered clear of her, and still would if you two weren’t apparently best fucking friends!”

  That last part came out before he even realized she’d struck a nerve.

  She stiffened. “She’s one of the only people who’s tried to be my friend here. And you don’t think it would matter to me that she…”

  Her eyes raked over him, caressing his muscles and lingering on his cock. If it weren’t for the circumstances, he’d have enjoyed that look. Maybe even the knowledge that she actually cared who he slept with, too. Fuck knows he’d done his best to avoid thinking about whether she’d left a lover with the Kumori to take her place at his side. Some things belonged in the past. He hated the thought of someone else’s hands on her, tracing over the curves and muscles that gave her such a perfect weight in his arms.

  Tessa looked away, the anger in her eyes bleeding away to leave only bleak resignation. “You tell me to trust you. And then you do shit like this.”

  He hated that it seemed that way. Once again, he cursed himself for ever getting involved with Mara. He pulled Tessa into his lap and wrapped his arms around her. She let him. He didn’t know whether that meant that she wasn’t that mad or simply that she was aware that she couldn’t exactly go venting to someone else about her pain.

  “You shouldn’t have learned about it like this,” he conceded.

  “Damn straight,” she mumbled
, but she was already clamming up.

  He concealed his anger by consoling the listless woman in his arms. He couldn’t believe Mara had meddled again so soon after Gunner’s death. Or maybe it was her revenge, a last little “fuck you” to him. He couldn’t be sure. Either way, he hated that Tessa was the victim. He hated that Mara’s lies and his own avoidance of the subject had caused the erosion of the fragile trust he’d worked so hard to establish with his mate.

  He couldn’t let it stand, but his hands were tied. Going after Mara for this would, to anyone else in the pack, seem heavy-handed and out of line. He didn’t want to be viewed as a tyrant. That would only further erode the fealty of the pack.

  He would have to think of something else. He just didn’t know what.

  Chapter 23

  Tessa rested in the circle of Marrock’s arms. She hadn’t expected to let go of her anger so soon, but after the whole thrill ride her time with the Nefari had been, she was losing the ability to think things could get worse. She’d been adjusting. So of course life, and Marrock’s ex, had thrown her a curve ball. But the confrontation had also gotten her and Marrock talking again. She bet Mara hadn’t planned for that.

  Him acting apologetic helped, she couldn’t lie, but it couldn’t fill the hollow ache in her gut, the void inside her where she’d once felt something for him. She couldn’t muster emotion for him, not even the confusion and fear that had plagued her for so long. She was just…numb.

  Even when he pulled her into his room to sleep alongside him, no sparks fluttered inside her. How could she look at him without seeing Mara’s hand in his? How could she bask in his touch without imagining him lavishing touches just as gentle all over Mara? How could she remember his husky voice as he commanded her to trust him without remembering the surprise in Mara’s face when she realized that Tessa hadn’t known about their history?

  No. She couldn’t sleep next to him.

  She pried his arm off of her and slid away. She scribbled a quick note so he wouldn’t worry if he woke: Gone walking. Will stay near the sentries.

  And then she left the home that didn’t truly feel like home, leaving the man who could never really feel like he belonged to her and the people she’d never truly feel a community with.

  Only once she was safe in the trees, listening to the owls hooting and the flutter of bats, could she collapse onto a rock and weep.

  How long she sat there crying, she couldn’t say. The minutes blurred to hours as she sobbed. Eventually, she’d have to return, have to face Marrock. But she was happy to put that off as long as possible.

  She’d never have a home here. The rest of her life was a sacrifice for her people’s safety. She could only hope that they made the best of it, made her dead soul worthwhile.

  Tessa stood and began walking again. Maybe moving would help ease her tears and calm her nerves. Deeper and deeper into the woods she wandered. She probably wasn’t so far away from where she and Marrock had first roamed on their mating hunt. Maybe if she squinted, she could spot the bear’s decaying skeleton where once they’d clashed over how to handle Elias’s raiders.

  Footsteps behind her raised her hackles. She twisted, drawing her knife. “I swear to fuck, you’re gonna want to stay away from me. I’m not in the mood…”

  She trailed off when she realized it wasn’t Marrock approaching her. Here she’d been about to stab one of the sentries. Wouldn’t that just be the coup de gras of her volatile time with the Nefari?

  She sighed and lowered her knife. “Sorry. I’m having a rough night. I thought you were someone else.”

  “Problems at home?” the stranger asked. The moonlight cut across his face, stressing a well-shaped jawline and sharp cheekbones.

  “Just couldn’t sleep,” she answered.

  “It’s not safe here. Who knows what rogues are in the woods?” He flashed her a sarcastic grin and sat next to her.

  That didn’t seem right. If Marrock knew his sentry was so lax, he’d have the man’s hide for it. But it wasn’t her place to discipline the man on Marrock’s behalf.

  “I take care of myself.”

  “You’re new to the Nefari, right? You’re his new mate?”

  Of course the asshole knew who she was. She didn’t know why that stung. Just once, she wanted to feel like she used to, separate of him. Herself, not someone’s mate. “Yeah. Tessa.”

  He didn’t offer his own name. “I knew it. You just had the look of a predator about you. I knew you weren’t an ordinary hunter.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And you are?”

  “Elias,” he said. “Elias Marrock.”

  Her blood froze, and she reached for the knife again. Her Marrock—Liam—had warned her that Elias would try something eventually. And if he knew she’d killed his scouts…

  “Oh, calm down,” he said with a laugh. “You don’t need to cut your way out just yet. We’d have to be idiots to do anything to piss off the Nefari, interfering with you. I don’t want a war.”

  She thought of Samus’s body, cold in the street. That didn’t sound like the clan leader who’d been dogging the Kumori for more than a year now. But if he was here, that meant there was a raiding party with him. She’d be captured. Probably not ransomed. Probably just murdered for a message and to fray the alliance when her dad found out about her death.

  “Want a drink?” he offered, holding his canteen out to her.

  When she didn’t take it, he took a large swig, and tried again. Hesitantly, she accepted, if for no other reason than to not want to fuel any animosity. The warm tea, with just enough liquor in it to burn her throat, was a blessing.

  Now that she knew what she was looking for, she could see several other hunters in the shadows, still in lupine bodies. So that was the raiding party. Still, she might be able to take them.

  “Come on, honey, none of that,” Elias said with a laugh. “I’m not gonna bite. Here.”

  He offered her a second canteen. She sniffed it warily. Absinthe. He was giving her the opportunity to know that she could fight her way out and run on comparatively equal footing. Grudgingly, she downed it.

  They might have to walk back to Malvati lands as men, if they lingered too long, but she wasn’t about to chance them having the endurance to track her. The acrid potion loosened the bonds tightening her chest as her wolf gained confidence and chased the numbness and exhaustion from her body.

  “How’s my brother doing, anyways?” His lips set in a bitter twist. She knew that feeling. She’d worn that same look for Marrock many times. Apparently she wasn’t the only one he infuriated.

  “Cursing your name, I expect,” she said, flashing him a grin. “As we all are.”

  He laughed, a rich, open grin on his face. He swept his hair back from his forehead. “Fiesty, eh? I shouldn’t have expected any different from Alder’s girl. We played together once, do you remember? My dad dragged me on a diplomatic trip to the Kumori. Alder told him to leave me with Sanra, and you were there. You hit me when I stole your stuffed animal.”

  Tessa didn’t remember the specific incident, but wasn’t surprised in the least. “If you’re looking for an apology, you’ll be waiting a long time. Didn’t anyone ever teach you stealing is wrong? And poaching?”

  He roared with laughter, again. “I like you. It’s a shame you aren’t the Kumori’s alpha. You’d be a better leader than Alder.”

  “That’s my dad, you know.”

  “But you know as well as I do that he’s lost his edge. My brother’s guiding us toward war, and your pop’s playing right into his hands. The Kumori deserve better.”

  That didn’t sound right. Elias had been the one escalating things, not the Nefari. “Bullshit. I’m here because Marrock’s trying to stop a war.”

  “Is that what he told you?” Elias shook his head. “Do you really believe that he didn’t threaten Alder into the alliance, so he could throw his weight around?”

  She…she didn’t. Not so long ago, she’d watched him beat
a dozen men to death for something he apparently believed was her fault. And he’d lied to her. She wouldn’t put it past him to have lied to her pack, too. “None of us want any bloodshed.”

  “Is that so?” He frowned, looked into the distance, and took another swig from his canteen. “I’m probably gonna regret this in the morning, but if you can help me get my brother out of the picture and get the Kumori to stay out of it, no more bloodshed, your pack is yours. Or a new pack, if you prefer. No one forcing you to be anyone’s mate for power, no one holding you back. No one lying to you.”

  Her eyebrows raised. It was probably a gamble on his part, something to sow conflict, but it hit a nerve. He was kind of describing her idea of paradise. And if he was right, if Marrock truly was lying and using people...

  She couldn’t let her emotions rule her. She firmed her voice. “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because I’m the Marrock brother with honor,” he said, his voice husky with remembered pain. “I was to have been the Nefari alpha. Until his dad turned on me to see him rise through the ranks instead. Deceit is in his blood, almost as thick as his ambition. I know what it’s like to be shut out of something you deserve, forced to beg for scraps and pretend I didn’t know I was due more.”

  He caught her questioning look. “Liam’s dad and mine had an agreement, when it came out that they were sharing a woman. They would support my dad’s ambitions, and then mine, out of respect for the pack’s peace of mind. Instead, Liam’s dad stabbed mine in the back over her and forced the pack to shun me.”

  They certainly had been none too welcoming to her, either. But that didn’t sound right. And Liam? Liam? It seemed strange that she was only learning her mate’s name. And not even from his own lips. Another secret. Another lie of omission. Maybe he thought it would help him keep distance and mystery, so those he was supposed to rule couldn’t think they had claim to him. It certainly had that effect on her.