by Holley Trent
Arnold tugged her back more, until her calf bumped the leg of his chair.
She opened her eyes in time to see Alpha shaking his head and dancing his thumbs over his phone screen.
“I didn’t ask you to leave. I need to know where you’re from—whether you’re from one of those places me and the boys always did our best to steer clear of.”
“Uh, Wolverton wasn’t much different than any other one-stoplight town.” She nudged a bit of lint on the carpet with the toe of her shoe, and added in a mumble, “Except for the polygamy thing.”
Arnold’s next yank had her on his lap, clutching Kinzy for dear life.
“Are you freakin’ kidding me? That’s what you meant by ‘depends on who you ask’ when I asked you how many times your husband has been married?”
The growly quality of his voice seemed to penetrate her like a Wyoming wind through a cheap coat.
She winced, and then gulped again.
He was too close for her to think, and he smelled too good—like a newly opened Cracker Jack box or something.
Biteable.
She rolled her eyes at the silly wolf in her head. The beast would have probably had Leo gnawing on him like a chew toy if she weren’t vigilant.
Concentrate on the baby.
Kinzy seemed entirely unaffected by the goings-on around her—a benefit of her extreme youth. Leo’s mother said Leo had been able to sleep through Armageddon at the same age. A little commotion probably wasn’t likely to startle Kinzy.
Arnold gave Leo’s left arm a squeeze. “Answer me.”
“Dang it. Ugh, maybe I disagreed with his tally, is all.”
“In what way?”
“That it was too high by one.”
“That one being you?” Alpha asked.
She nodded. “Not gonna lie or try to hash my words, I guess. I think everybody knew I wasn’t cut out for the job, but he got his hooks into me before I could get away.”
“No one knew you were thinking of leaving?” Alpha asked.
“I just bided my time. Went through the song and dance. The stupid little so-called wedding ceremony, because what choice did I have, right? And then came the so-called wedding night, and two weeks later, I found out I was stuck.”
“Stuck,” Arnold whispered. “You mean you were pregnant?”
“Yeah. I didn’t think running was a good idea then, which is dumb, I guess. Running would have been easier then when I was a little pregnant compared to after I’d had Kinzy and the jerk had bitten me.”
Alpha retook his seat, forcing out a harsh exhalation in the process.
Leticia stepped back into the dining room doorway and made a well? gesture at Leo. Then she mouthed, Never mind, obviously seeing that Arnold held Leo in a bit of a quagmire. Not that she wanted to move.
She should have moved. She hadn’t been raised to sit on strange men’s laps, but he’d been the one to put her there and, again, he smelled nice.
Wait…
She turned a bit and tried to look at him. “Don’t I stink of my mate to you? Isn’t me being this close to you hard on your wolfy nose?”
Arnold rolled his eyes and let out a ragged breath. “No.”
“Why not?”
Leticia heaved a dramatic sigh from the doorway. “We might have had a little chat about that if you’d come and nuked your omelet in the kitchen like you were going to.”
“Well, tell me now. I hate feeling so behind the curve.”
Leticia rolled back her upper lip and groaned. “With Arnold sitting there, maybe you should— Actually, you know what? I’m gonna go make another pot of coffee.” She zipped away.
“Coward!” Leo called after her.
“Yep.”
Leo craned her neck around and looked at Arnold again. “What happened last night?”
His lips were so close, and he had the nicest pair of lips she’d ever seen on a man. The top was a perfectly formed archer’s bow with a dip in the middle, sized just right for the press of a fingertip. Her fingertip, to be precise. The bottom lip wasn’t too bad, either. It looked pillow-soft and sweet enough to lick.
“But I won’t, because I’m holding a baby and that’d be weird,” she said.
“Pardon?” he asked.
“Huh?”
“You said you won’t do something because you’re holding a baby. Won’t do what?”
Derp.
She cleared her throat and scrambled away from him. “You’re hearing things.” Fortunately, he let go of her, sparing her another awkward plop onto his lap.
“Pretty sure I heard you too,” Alpha said, “but that doesn’t matter. Let’s clear some things up. First things first, you left your husband?”
Leo gave Kinzy’s diaper a testing squeeze, hoping she’d soaked herself and gave her mother a good reason to flee from the room.
Dang it. Dry as a bone.
Leo groaned, and her shoulders fell with resignation. “Okay, first of all, I don’t consider myself to be his wife. That dishonor goes to the first lady who got saddled with him.” She added in a mutter, “The poor wretch.”
Alpha snorted. “Duly noted.”
“And, yes, I left him. Or really, I left the home he put me up in. He wasn’t there at the time. Contrary to what you might think, he didn’t have us all in the same house. We were really spread out, and he’d hop around from one wife’s little shack to the next one.”
Arnold made some noise that was either a supremely disgusted scoff or a very controlled sneeze.
“What?” she asked.
He shook his head and made a go on gesture.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “What?”
“Forgive me for taking umbrage.”
“He can’t help it,” Alpha said.
Leo pulled her gaze back to him. Before she could spit out the obvious follow-up question, he said, “So you learned his wife schedule?”
“Well, sort of.” She shrugged. “I figured he’d have one, because that would make sense. That way, all the broodmares are equally miserable, right? But the best I could tell, he went to whoever’s house he felt like at any given time. He might stay a few nights at one lady’s, go to another, and then go back to the first one. Totally unpredictable.”
“How did you know when to run?”
She cleared her throat, and glanced back at Arnold, who was toying with the point of a steak knife and grinding his teeth. “What?” she demanded.
“You gonna tell me you ran right after he left your house one day, aren’t you?”
“I wasn’t gonna tell you.” She gestured toward Alpha. “I was gonna tell him. He asked.”
“So did I.”
“No need getting cranky about it.”
“The least thing I am is cranky.”
On that inscrutable note, a small woman with long dark hair and a profile that looked remarkably like that of the scowling wolf beside Leo poked her head into the room. “Oh. There you are.”
“No bloodshed yet,” Alpha said with a chuckle.
“I guess that’d be hard to manage with her holding a baby. Arnold, you don’t need me here, do you?”
“Nope. Why?”
“That consulting doctor is in town to run some tests on me. They want to rule out epilepsy as a diagnosis.”
“Petra, you never told me epilepsy was one of the options.”
Petra. Ah. The twin.
She was pretty, but Leo shouldn’t have been surprised at that. It would have been a travesty if Arnold had gotten all the looks.
Petra shrugged. “You weren’t here. You were out mate-snatching, I guess.”
“Snatch mate say what now?” Leo balked.
“He bit you, by the way,” Petra said, wriggling her dark eyebrows. “Bit you when you were on four legs. I witnessed the event. Ask him if you stink to him.”
“Petra,” Arnold said in a scolding voice.
“I already asked him that!” Leo exclaimed.
“What’d he tell you?” Pet
ra asked.
“Said I didn’t stink.”
“Well, there you go. Now, you stink of him. I can’t say if that’s an improvement, though. He’s my twin, and I can’t smell his hormones one way or another. He smells neutral to me. But, anyway.” She gave Arnold a little finger wave. “I’ll be either at the hospital or at Paul’s for the next couple of days. I figured I’d do you the courtesy you didn’t do for me, and keep you informed of where I was.”
“You bit me?” Leo asked Arnold.
Arnold didn’t respond. He was too busy giving his sister a death glare and pinching the bridge of his nose.
Petra’s grin widened and she waved once more. “See ya later.”
Alpha put his head in his hands atop the dining room table. His palms covering his mouth may have muffled the sound of his ensuing chuckle almost completely, but he couldn’t hide the shaking of his shoulders from his barely-restrained laughter.
The last time Leo’d had an alpha laugh at her had been the day she’d recklessly suggested to her old one that perhaps he should pick another blonde to be Samuel’s next mate, seeing as how they were all pretty much interchangeable.
Her alpha hadn’t been laughing because what she’d said was so funny, but because she’d dared to think she had a say in where she went—that she’d dared to think that she had ownership over herself.
She didn’t think Adam was laughing for the same reason, though. She didn’t get that megalomaniacal energy off of him. He was just amused by his pack members, and she wasn’t used to that.
She turned slowly toward Arnold. “You bit me.”
He shrugged and set down the knife. “Apparently, I did. I don’t have memory of the event, however. I was too tired when I got here last night. Just like you, I don’t remember my run, but I don’t believe anyone here would lie that I bit you if I hadn’t.” He ground his teeth for a few beats, and then added in a mumble, “There were supposedly several witnesses beyond Petra.”
“And I have your scent.”
“Apparently.”
“I let you bite me?”
He shrugged again.
Leo pulled out a chair beside him and flopped onto the seat. “Gods! This is like one of those books where people wake up married in Las Vegas, but instead of getting plastered last night, we got wolfy.”
“The question now is what do you want to do about it?” Alpha asked.
“She stays with me,” Arnold said.
At the exact same time, Leo declared, “Let me think about that.”
Arnold leaned his elbows onto the table and pinned an unforgiving stare on her.
She gave her head a hard shake. “Nuh-uh. No, sir, don’t make me think I have an option and then yank it right away. Don’t joke with me like that. I can’t take that mess. And I don’t like you squinting at me like that.” She reached over and gave his shoulder a hard poke. “You were nicer yesterday. Go back to being that way.”
“I hadn’t bitten you yesterday.”
“Isn’t that weird? One would think you’d be nicer now that you have, but I guess wolves don’t make a hell of a lot of sense in general. Samuel was nicer before he bit me, too, but I guess that isn’t saying much.”
“Do not compare me to him.”
“Why not? You’re doing the exact same thing he did—asserting your will on me and taking away my ability to make choices.”
“Woman, I’m not taking away your ability to choose. I told you in the truck that if you got here and decided that you want to go, no one would keep you in Norseton. That hasn’t changed. I just think giving this thing a shot for a while is a reasonable request.”
“What thing?”
“I bit you. You’re my mate.”
“I’m Samuel’s mate.”
Arnold scoffed. “Bogus. Looks to me like you had his baby and then ran, so do you really think that’s what you are? And you don’t smell like you’re his anymore. You smell like you’re mine. Maybe I don’t remember biting you, but I don’t regret that I did. I think that’s why I was sent the vision to fetch you in the first place. You’re supposed to be mine.”
“Always someone’s. Why can’t I be no one’s?” Her voice came out in a pathetic whisper she hardly recognized as her own, but she wouldn’t take the words back. She’d meant every one.
She took a deep breath, and pressed Kinzy tight against her chest. Kinzy was the most sure, solid thing in Leo’s life. Holding her was almost like medicine at times, even when Leo was so tired and uncertain. Kinzy made her want to persevere—to be better, because Kinzy deserved better.
“I’m a person,” Leo said. “I have feelings and opinions, and I’m so tired of not being allowed to express them. I’m tired of people not caring.”
“We care,” Alpha said.
“Do you really?”
“Of course we do. That’s the entire purpose of this pack, Leo. We’re scratching out a life for ourselves here, far away from where any of us were born, because we want to do things a different way. We want to be free to do what wolves naturally do, without having some alpha’s perverted drive for power and money and whatever else spoiling things. Everybody should have a chance to be happy, right? Not just the one or two fools closest to the top of the power pyramid.”
“Sounds wonderful, but that’s fairytale stuff.”
“That’s real life here,” Arnold said. “And that’s the life I want. Don’t you?”
Of course I do.
She wanted that life more than she wanted the next breath she had to breathe. She didn’t want for her little girl to grow up only to be told that choice was a luxury afforded to a few, and that she’d never get to be one of those lucky ones. But Leo was practical. Had to be, because survival demanded such of her.
“Wanting is one thing,” she said quietly. “Possibility is another.”
No one said anything, either because they knew Leo had told the truth, or because she was flat-out wrong and they didn’t know how to break the news to her.
As always, the silence gnawed at her, but instead of saying more immediately, she stood again, fixed Kinzy more comfortably in her arms, and looked from Arnold’s handsomely neutral expression to her new alpha’s.
“I’m going to give this place a shot,” she said after a minute of quiet. “If you’ll allow me to stay, I’ll find some way to contribute, and I’ll do all I can to not lure anyone here looking for me. I won’t mess things up for you. But can I ask you for a promise, too?”
Alpha’s nod came slowly. Maybe he knew as well as she did that the promise wouldn’t be for him, but for one of the wolves under his jurisdiction. The other man in the room.
“Let me decide to stay first,” she said. “Before you ask me to do anything else, let me decide that. Please.”
She didn’t dare turn around to look and Arnold. She didn’t want to be swayed by the look on his face, or see the defensiveness in his body language. As thrilled as she was to know that a wolf like him had staked a claim on her, she needed to consider Kinzy’s future. Kinzy’s best chance would only come from them starting with a blank slate. No attachments.
Adam kept his gaze locked on Leo, and nodded again. “All right. Welcome home.”
“Thank you, Alpha.”
She started moving and didn’t look back. Was afraid to. She didn’t stop moving until she’d reached the kitchen, where Graciella was leaning against the counter sipping coffee. Then, Leo finally let herself really breathe.
“Show me around?” she asked, voice shaking, but convincing enough.
Graciella set down her mug, and straightened her posture. “You decided to stick around, huh? Cool. Well, okay, then. Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“If you’re about to open your mouth to tell me I’m looking rough around the edges,” Arnold said to his approaching sister, “I’d prefer for you to do me a favor and keep your mouth shut.”
He set down the gun he’d been cleaning and leaned his forearms back onto the blanket he
’d been sprawled out on. Sunshine and fresh air hadn’t exactly been luxuries for him in the past few years, but there was something so magical and sublime about being outside with no external forces pushing him to run, and then run some more.
Except for his alpha.
Arnold’s probationary period for guard duty required a five-kilometer run three times per week, but he didn’t mind. The running distracted him from the thoughts that made him snarl and growl.
Petra knelt beside the blanket and draped her fingers over her knees. “I didn’t come all the way out here to tell you that, actually, but I may as well. You look like shit.”
“Fuck you, too.”
“You need to take better care of yourself.”
“Perhaps you have some suggestions as to how I should do that when I can’t even sleep without thinking about that woman—without the wolf in me trying to subvert even the smallest plans of mine because his instinct is to be near his mate. I’ve been purposely putting at least fifty feet between her and me for the entirety of the two months since I brought her here. I can’t deal.”
Petra sputtered her lips and raked a hand through her messy hair. She always looked something like a wild woman with her uncombed hair, just like their mother always had. Looking at her sometimes made his heart ache. Their mother would have loved Norseton—she would have loved the freedom and the opportunities. If she’d lived, they could have thrived there together.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t afford sentiment, not when the wolf inside him was already so short-tempered.
“Hey. I understand how you feel a little,” she said. “I don’t like being far from Paul, either. I’m about to go have lunch with him now and came here to see if you wanted to come along.”
“No thanks. Watching my sister make kissy-face with her husband when I’m trying to eat isn’t my idea of a good time.”
She shrugged. “Figured I’d ask. Haven’t spent much time with you in a while. We never hang out anymore.”
“Things change.”
“Yeah. That doesn’t mean you have to isolate yourself.”
“I’m not isolating myself. I’m giving her space.” He sat up and started to put his gun back together. “Choices. That’s what I’m giving her.”