by K. de Long
For the first time, Tessa felt truly helpless. She was trapped between both men’s wrath.
No matter what happened from here, she wasn’t making it home. That was a child’s dream that would have to die...hard and fast.
Tessa’s gray haze filled the time, narrowing the world to each hateful heartbeat and hoarse breath. How long she sat like that, she wasn’t sure. No one else knocked or came looking for her. There were no distractions to keep herself focused on something neutral, something safe. Her head, her heart, they were the only things keeping her occupied, and with every fearful moment, it got harder and harder to keep her wits about her, and her heart closed to the weight of her own sins.
When Liam returned home after viewing the bodies, Tessa couldn’t meet his eyes. Seeing the blood anointing his brow, just as hers had been with Samus’s, just brought it all full circle.
Without saying a word, Liam reached for her hemline and, garment by garment, stripped her bare. He herded her into the bathroom and held her in the shower as the water streamed down their bodies. She scrubbed the blood from him, thankful that the noise of the shower disguised the quiet hitching breaths of her sobs and that the water streaming down her face erased her tears. She could hardly look at him, lest he notice her reddened eyes, or lest she have to face the red smears crusting him.
The moment he released her to finish washing himself, she slipped out of the shower, her distant demeanor cracking.
Soon, Liam emerged, toweling off and naked, but thankfully free of blood. Without saying a word to her, he wrapped her in his arms. She lost herself in his bare skin under her palms, the life in it that, even now, Elias was looking to extinguish.
With her help.
Tessa wanted to throw up. But with Liam’s strong arms around her, she had to put her own guilt and shame to the side; her mate needed her.
He clutched her to him, and the raw urgency in it seared her worse, driving it home: this was all her fucking fault.
Tessa wished Elias had simply abducted or killed her instead.
Tessa comforted Liam on autopilot, consumed by her own internal chaos. Tea, yes. Warm food, too. A gentle hand gliding across his shoulders. A quiet home, waiting for him to break the silence if he wanted to yell or throw things. But he seemed numb. Disconnected.
She climbed into his lap, guiding his head to her breast. His rough hands played over her body, handling her a little more firmly than she otherwise would have liked. But the pain was right. Maybe he’d write her shame on her body, the way it was already written on her soul. Either way, she welcomed the way his fingers dug into her ribs, her hips, her breasts.
Once, his touch had made her feel clean. Had made her feel alive, despite the gray fog inside her to be struggling to fit in with the Nefari. Now, every touch only etched her crimes deeper under her skin.
How could he touch her? How could he let her comfort him? Couldn’t he see the truth in her face?
Liam sighed, his cock flexing between her legs, already most of the way to hard. That was why he couldn’t see it. Because he was too taken with her body. Or too desperate to cling to whatever he could to feel alive, feel whole.
Well, he deserved for one nice fucking thing to come from their ill-fated mating. Tessa eased her hips up, and angled him to her entrance, sliding him against her slit.
He gasped, again. “Fuck, Tess. It was—”
She couldn’t hear it. “Shhh.”
She brought her lips to his, and kissed him for all she was worth. It was the best apology she could think of.
He sank into her inch by desperate inch. Her insides screamed in protest and surprise, not used to her rush. But his touch set her alight, chased the shadows far enough back that she could almost convince herself she belonged here, with him stroking her and pulling her onto him more firmly.
Liam took the hint. He jerked her hands behind her back, capturing both wrists in one of his. Her thighs clenched, to be helpless, impaled on him. Somehow, him having control only made it easier to let herself go, release herself to his touch, his need.
If she’d been willing to cede control sooner, maybe Elias would never have gotten his claws into her. Maybe even now, she and Liam would be tenderly making love, as Ryker did...whatever he used to do. She didn’t know the man well enough to say. Didn’t care, either, beyond Liam’s anguished look, the little moments of distress in his eyes that he fought to conceal, that he was temporarily letting her hide with the pleasures her body had to offer him.
He jerked her into a fierce rhythm, pinching her nipple roughly with his free hand. She cried out in pain. It seemed for the best, though, that he wanted to cause a little hurt to make up for what he was feeling, and she wanted to feel hurt, to make up for the pain she’d caused.
Tessa shut her eyes, trying to keep the wounded look in Liam’s out of her head. She fought to focus only on his dick inside her, his womb-pounding rhythm and control over her body. So long as she focused only on his body, she could numb herself to the pain plaguing both of their spirits.
She’d let him exorcise it like a demon, let him drag it out of her with pain and lust.
Liam’s nails dug indented crescents in her flesh, not quite drawing blood, but bringing it to just below the surface. The heat left behind warmed her senseless skin, forcing her to stay in her body and out of her head as he took her.
“L—Marrock,” she moaned, catching herself from saying his name at the last minute. Her eyes welled with tears at that reminder of her deceit. It went right over his head, though, and straight to his cock. He slammed himself into her even harder, and her eyes all but rolled back into her head at the sense of fullness.
When she was with Liam, she felt whole. Even though playing his submissive warred with her upbringing, her desires, even her very nature.
But for him, she’d be a chameleon. She’d take his pain and turn it into something useful. She’d bear his suffering, if it meant she could spare him a single moment of the agony that governed her.
Elias would kill her. This might be the last time she fucked Liam. This might be the last time she ever fucked anyone. She’d have to make it count.
She rode him single-mindedly, entranced with the way his skin caught with hers in the moments where he was in her deepest. He hit the sweet spot inside her, whipping her body into a fury even as her soul withered in self-loathing.
This—here, now—would be the last pleasure she could ever let herself feel. She savored the way he plundered her mouth with his, took what he needed, nipping her lips and sucking them, his tongue warring with hers.
She screwed her eyes shut.
“Look at me, pet,” he said, his voice clouded with urgency. Her eyes shot open automatically. His cock flexed inside her, and his rhythm intensified. She cried out as that stiffness, that pulsing inside her, carried her over the edge.
She felt filthy. Unworthy. She was a monster, luring him to his doom. But in those moments, all of that fell to the side, replaced only with her body convulsing against his, every muscle flexing and straining to take him to the hilt.
The tears fell free of their shaky place, streaming down her cheeks. Maybe he thought that she was crying because he couldn’t, but she knew the truth.
She was crying, because she’d destroyed herself, and might yet destroy him.
The meetings would be postponed until someone could review Ryker’s notes to take his place. Ryker’s assistant, Dax, would have to step into those big shoes entirely too early, and Liam wasn’t entirely sure the pup was ready yet. He’d prefer to put Hagen in Dax’s place, but it would take some thought on whether it was worth the firestorm it would cause, passing over the ambitious young man, who technically had earned the position. But with a traitor in their midst, it seemed like protecting their leadership’s sanctity was more important than preserving the bureaucracy.
He’d have to think on it more. Such decisions shouldn’t be made quickly, and he was already exhausted, angry, and raring for a figh
t. Choosing Ryker's replacement might simply be a tempting situation that would allow him to pick one.
But worse than the scramble of tactical planning to be done was the funeral planning. Already, he’d sent a message to the hunters on call for a special trip to gather branches for the pyre. That left it to him to figure out exactly what a leader should say as his friend’s body burned to ashes and was carried off in the wind. It was a Sisyphean task; there wasn’t anything he could say that would reassure the Nefari with the wound so fresh. He’d caught the stares and the whispers.
It was a statement. Elias would no longer be content to pick off stragglers or pull from the weaker ranks. He was coming for Liam. He was gonna take everything Liam cared about away and make Liam watch as it was slowly, brutally, murdered. Ryker’s torn lips were burned into the back of Liam’s eyelids.
That Tessa had dropped her own frustrations with him to prioritize what his pack needed, and what he needed to calm them, was a mark of her own strength. Now that they weren’t fighting, now that they were pulling together, he thought she’d make a fine leader and packmistress. She could be just what he needed to keep strong and wage the most fearsome war any of the clans had known in generations. He’d need her strength, her violence, at his side, if they were going to have a chance of withstanding Elias’s wrath. Thank fuck he hadn’t been mated to some delicate blossom of a woman suited only to gathering herbs and repairing gear.
The only thing that made it through his aching listlessness was her shadowed eyes, utterly focused on him. Just being around her soothed him, helped him drown out his wolf’s clamorous howls and pleas for vengeance. She cooked for him as he agonized over the words for the eulogy. At sundown, he’d have to face the Nefari and address them. It felt like a clock ticking down to his execution.
This time next year, would it be his twisted body on the green where Ryker’s had been? With the Nefari’s treacherous friends and the Malvati’s superior numbers, could they turn back the bloody tide of ruin Elias was determined to call down? Was he only seeing more harm done, refusing to turn himself over?
No. The Nefari fought because Elias was a bad leader, one they didn’t want and would never choose. Whether or not he was alpha, they would never serve Elias. If he still thought they might, it was simply his own delusion.
“Ahem,” Tessa said, and he looked up.
There were two plates in her hand, and his papers were blocking the whole table. He shoved his papers together enough to create an opening for the dishes.
She put his plate next to him: migas. He spared a smile at the memory of that first meal together, the beginnings of their uneasy truce sprouting from the charred earth at their feet. He welcomed the memory of happy times, digging in to eat as though she might take it away.
She put her palm on the paper he’d been writing on, tugging it toward her. As he ate, she read, and her pen scratched against the crowded sheet. Eventually, she pulled out a bare piece of paper, and began copying it down anew.
Liam stood and carried his plate to the sink. She was still leaned over the table, treating him to a view of her shapely ass. Unable to resist, he stepped close behind her, and put his hands on her hips, holding her against him. Like that first night, when he spanked her senseless. When she first gave herself to him. When he first saw the spark of submission in her eyes, all but choked out by fear and the raw energy of an animal in a trap.
It took him a few moments to track the changes she’d made to his speech—her handwriting was atrocious—but they were good. Confident. And it warmed him to think that he would not be addressing his pack alone. She’d be by his side, and in his heart, their worlds joined in the shared words offered to his family, his community.
“Does it look okay?” she asked.
“Beautiful, pet,” he whispered. “But you don’t write over someone else’s work without asking.”
She stuck her tongue out him, and his palm itched to spank her. Her eyes glowed with an eager spark.
Once again, she was a mind-reader, granting him some sort of release from his grave labors. He squeezed her ass, and then smacked it. Her weight lurched forward slightly, forcing herself to brace herself against the table.
“Guess you better teach me a lesson then,” she whispered, heat in her eyes and her rump pushing against his erect cock. “Alpha.”
Chapter 27
Liam led Tessa to the dueling grounds again. This time, the bare earth was obscured by heaps of wood and mementos from the three murdered Nefari’s loved ones.
Liam’s jaw was tight; in the end, he’d told Tessa he would honor the other two with Ryker. They’d been traitors, but they hadn’t been murdered as traitors. They’d died as Nefari, and to deny them their due would be to leave the rest of the Nefari wondering whether they, too, would be memorialized so ignobly, wondering whether Liam would remember years of service, if Elias threatened their families and forced them to harm their own. It could only divide the pack further. Tessa wondered if someday he’d make the same call over her body. Would she be honored as one of his, or would her body be sent back to her parents in disgrace, for an ignominious disposal?
At sundown, the Nefari gathered around the pyre, and Liam stood. Tessa straightened her shoulders and breathed deeply to quiet her anxiety for him. He raised a torch that had been thrust into the ground and lit it. Its glow signaled the horde of Nefari surrounding them to silence.
“Friends. Hunters. Nefari.” Liam’s voice echoed around the clearing, husky with his wolf’s anger and demands for vengeance.
She knew how the beast felt. Her ass was sore from Liam’s spankings, but it had hardly blunted his need for violence and discipline.
“The war has come to us. Three of our own, slaughtered in our own home. Only time will ease the sting left by their absence. Only time will allow us to grow into their bootprints and continue the noble work they’ve done to ensure our survival. But only bloodshed will keep us safe and keep us from being subjugated by depraved traitors.
“I’d once thought of Elias as strong—but the mark of true strength isn’t possessing it, but using it to ensure the survival of others weaker than yourself. Elias isn’t capable of that. But his flaw is our strength. Our willingness to ally, to protect, to nurture each other is what separates the men from the beasts. While he has the element of brutality on his side, he will never have the element of righteousness or justice.”
The crowd erupted in applause, and Tessa’s lips quirked into a smile. Liam had been so calm, radiating fury and safety at the same time. If she hadn’t seen him in private, she’d never have thought for a second that he was as lost as the rest of them.
Liam Marrock was a true leader, possessed of qualities Elias would never master. She was proud to be his mate.
She swallowed hard, barely able to conceal her pain. She had much to atone for...before her actions caught up with her.
She was his mate, his submissive, and his downfall.
“Ryker was a good man who served three successive alphas faithfully,” Liam continued. “He kept the gears greased and the machine running smoothly. He handled a lot of the administrative details that see you all fed, see you all clothed. He held a power that the Malvati will never comprehend. It will be my privilege to lead you all into this fight, with his name and the name of the others we’ve lost, on my lips. The coming months may be filled with sacrifice, may be filled with pressure to twist our community to turn on each other. But we are predators. Our world isn’t dog eat dog, it’s wolf eats prey. Elias has upended the natural order of things. But Elias will fall.
“In the short term, he may score victories using dirty tricks and low blows. But we aren’t the only ones watching him alienate his own and violate the rules of civilized combat. The stars are aligning themselves against him and bringing us together. And when the moment is right, Elias. WILL. FALL.”
The Nefari’s cries were nearly deafening, the whole pack’s voices raised, to howl at the moon, howl at fate, ho
wl at death. Liam plunged the lit torch into the bottom of the pyre. It caught quickly, flames roaring to life and spreading across the shrouded body.
The smoke, the smell, caught in Tessa’s throat, but she stifled the coughs. Liam took her hand and, in silence, they watched with his pack as the flames spiraled into the night. Eventually, the crowd dispersed. Still, Liam didn’t attempt to turn away from the flames.
She raised his arm over her shoulders, not knowing how else to comfort him.
He spoke, but she had to strain to hear his voice. “I’m tired of Elias taking people I love from me.” His arm tightened around her shoulders, as though he was trying to prevent her from being next.
Fat chance of that. One day soon, Liam would find her body strung up somewhere and would never know why until later, when he found out about her betrayal. But was that why the sentiment hurt? Or was it more to do with the way her heart constricted in her chest when he said the word “love”?
Was it possible that after so long fighting, and feuding, and running away from him, she’d developed feelings for him? Was it possible she cared about him, too?
Tessa turned her face into his chest, trying to block out the bleak thoughts. “What do we do now?”
“What do you think, pet? We fight. We gather our strength, and we fight.”
Tessa and Liam walked home, both of them lost to their thoughts. They got undressed and ready for bed in silence. She made no effort to return to her bedroom instead of his; that time was long behind them. As much as it poured salt into the open wound laying near him, knowing of her sins, hating him for not seeing through her, it was better. At least now, she would serve him while she could.