“A relative?” Jace asked Creed, indicating the young man with a jerk of his thumb.
“My nephew, Bain.”
“As in ‘bane of your existence’?”
The younger were smiled. “I try.”
Creed cut him a look that was more affection than disgruntlement. “And succeed more often than not.”
“Then my job here is done.”
Jace shook his head, removed the shield from Miri.
Come here.
She did, hurrying across the space between them, a tremulous smile on her lips, her gaze locked on Creed.
“Hello, Creed, Bain.” She nodded to the others, her smile shaking at the edges.
“Hello, Miri.”
There’s more than one level of were mating.
Tobias’s words echoed in Jace’s head at the warmth coloring Creed’s greeting. Jace pulled Miri in to his side, away from the werewolves who circled around. Penny whimpered, sensing the tension. Miri’s attention diverted to quieting her.
“So what did you think of our new toy?” Bain asked.
“Clever, but it needs refinement.”
Creed smiled, displaying his canines. He was an arrogant son of a bitch. “It got you going.”
“The energy is not quite right. I would have figured it out with more time.”
“Shit. We were worried about that,” Bain muttered. “I’ll need you to give me feedback on that while you’re here. Vampires sense energy differently than weres.”
It wasn’t phrased as a request. Arrogant pup. “No problem. As long as you’re planning on sharing the technology.”
“Of course he’ll share,” Miri interrupted, her cheek rubbing the side of his chest as her energy slid along the edges of his in an unconscious soothing. She didn’t want him fighting with her kin.
That was going to be damn hard to accommodate, considering how the men watched the gesture, the younger with a hint of flames in his eyes. Jace took a step toward him. “If your nephew wants to live to see another minute, he’d better get his eyes back in his head and off my mate.”
Bain’s taunting smile marked him even more as Creed’s kin. “You wear her mark?”
Jace gritted his teeth. “You value that pretty-boy smile?”
Miri grabbed his arm. The pup squared his shoulders. Tobias materialized out of the shadows. “We don’t have time for this.”
Jace waved at the wall of men. “Tell your friends that.”
Tobias ignored the comment and held out his hands for Penny. “Hello, bright eyes.” She smiled and went to him easily. He swung her up. “Did you miss me?”
“Hell, no,” Jace retorted as Penny made a liar out of him with her happy squeal. “She’s got better taste than that.”
“I think she disagrees,” Creed noted.
Tobias chucked the infant under the chin. She gave him another big drooling smile. “C’mon, little one. Let’s get your mommy and daddy to the stronghold before your daddy embarrasses himself by committing needless mayhem.”
Jace flashed his fangs at one of the bigger weres in an aggressive parody of a smile. One whose eyes had lingered a bit too long on Miri’s thighs. “Who says it would be needless?”
Miri’s claws nipped his palm as she tugged him forward. “I do.”
16
IF one more male were stepped out of the traditional homage of D’Nallys lining the path leading up to the Alpha’s house and came up to Miri to welcome her back with a lingering handshake and a double-edged grin, Jace was going to knock the hell out of his smile. Along with a few teeth.
A tall were ahead of them tensed in anticipation of Miri’s approach. Jace cut Creed a glare. “If these boys don’t back off, the D’Nallys are going to be missing a few of their prime males.”
“They’re just checking on Miri,” Creed said, no small amount of amusement in his voice as he eyed the weres fascinated with Miri and Penny.
“And pigs fly.”
Jace recognized men on the prowl when he saw them, and the D’Nally males flanking either side of them were definitely prowling.
“They’d better back off a good twenty feet.” The words were almost incomprehensible due to the snarl beneath them. The skin over his talons itched with the need to release them. His fangs ached.
“Jace!”
Miri’s caution only made the situation worse. He was jealous, plain and simple. He wasn’t used to jealousy, but the emotion was consuming him now, spurred by the way Miri’s energy flickered and flared in an ever-changing pattern, waffling between excitement and fear as they walked the path up to the main house. He could sense her thrill at seeing the old friends standing in the welcoming line on either side of the path, feel the pack’s reserved welcome, feel how it hurt her that the reserve was there at all. But most of all, he felt her longing for her home. She was pack, and even this stroll along the perimeter of acceptance fed something in her that he could never provide. A part of her he didn’t understand. He didn’t like it.
Her hand touched his; her gaze met his. “Please.”
Hell, she knew what it did to him when she looked at him like that. Jace sighed and cupped Miri’s elbow, forcing back his bad humor. Maybe later there would be repercussions for Miri when the pack got past the fact that she was alive and moved on to the issue that she was mated to a vampire, but right now, she was happy because she was home. He wouldn’t take that from her.
The path curved up a steep hill. The pack line thinned here to a few well-spaced males—hard-eyed men with more suspicion than greeting in their gazes. Guards. Cabins dotted either side of the hill. The door to one opened as they drew alongside.
A familiar silhouette stood framed by the light. Derek.
Jace walked to the bottom of the porch. “You look like hell.”
He did, too. His muscular frame had to be down twenty pounds, his face drawn to the point that the angles were almost brutally cut. Scratches marred his chest. A bruise darkened his cheek. Derek grunted. “I can’t leave Kim long.”
“Is she all right?” Miri asked, studying his face.
The smile on Derek’s face was grim. “We’re working out an understanding.”
Miri snarled. “If you hurt her, McClaren—”
Catching her arm, Jace pulled her back.
Surprisingly, Derek smiled. It was a weary stretch of the lips, but a smile nonetheless. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m the one wearing the scars.”
Shit, that wasn’t encouraging. Miri tugged her arm free. Jace kept an eye on her. The last thing they needed was a civil war between packs. “Need help?” he asked Derek.
“I’ve got it.” Derek glanced up the hill to the cabin at the top. “Besides, you’re going to have your hands full enough soon.”
“Know what Ian wants?”
“That’s D’Nally business,” Creed cut in.
Jace turned on him. “Who the hell asked you?”
Ian’s second in command just stared at him coldly.
Derek nodded. “He’s right. It’s the D’Nally’s place to make his plans known.”
From the interior of the cabin came a moan and a harsh gasp.
“Your almost mate requires your attention, McClaren,” Creed growled.
For a second Derek looked torn between his loyalties.
“Almost mate?” Jace asked with a quirk of his brow.
Derek’s teeth came together with a snap. “She is a very opinionated woman.”
“You’ve been known to have an opinion or two of your own.”
“A were woman would not carry her defiance to this level.”
“But you didn’t mate were,” Miri interrupted softly.
“I know.” Derek’s lips flattened to a straight line. “She doesn’t understand any of this, fights all of it.”
“She’s been through a lot. You can’t know what it was like for her—”
Derek’s eyes flashed with were fury as he cut her off. “I know enough.”
Distress ca
me off Miri in acrid waves. Penny fussed. Jared put his arm around them both. “Derek would never hurt a woman.”
Least, he hoped the hell not. The McClaren was stretched taut with inner tension. Another moan came from the cabin, followed quickly by a curse. Jace motioned with his gun to the door. “Take care of your mate. I’ll handle the D’Nally.”
“Call if you need me.”
“I will.”
“Tell Kim I’m thinking of her,” Miri whispered.
Studying her for a second, Derek nodded. “I will.”
He turned and entered the cabin. The door shut with a harsh click.
“The D’Nally does not get handled,” Creed snapped, motioning toward the big cabin at the top of the hill. Lamplight poured from the windows, spilling down the steep hill in a golden glow. That was their destination. Stars sparkled in the deep black sky behind. It was an amazingly picturesque scene for what could be a very volatile encounter.
“The D’Nally will get whatever I give him.”
Jace glanced over at Miri. Her cheeks weren’t as flushed as they had been and he could make out the beginnings of circles under her eyes. Her energy was waning. Carrying a baby, even one as light as Penny, up that incline would drain her. She was going to need all her strength for the confrontation to come. “Pass Peanut over here. I’ll carry her for a while.”
“I can carry her.”
“No need when I’m here.” She looked pointedly at the males around them. It took him a second to make the connection. She was worried about his image upon meeting Ian. He tweaked Peanut’s nose. She made a face and scrunched up her eyes. “If Tobias’s ego can handle being seen carrying a baby, I think mine can take the hit.”
“Men don’t carry babies during formal occasions.”
He took the infant from her arms, passing Peanut up high, the way she liked, getting a smile as the weres waited and watched. “That would be were thinking again, but Miri, I’m not—”
“Were,” she finished for him. Nothing in her eyes told him how she felt about that now that she was home among her pack. His jealousy grew stronger. “You could at least try to fit in,” she groused.
He put his free arm around her waist as they started to climb the hill. “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
He expected a protest, but instead she gave him a little more of her weight than normal. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. But he wasn’t convinced. Did she need to feed again?
Creed, overhearing, turned around. His breath frosted the air between them. “She’s tiring?”
Jace glanced over. “She’s had a rough week.”
“From what I heard, it’s been a rough year.”
“I’m fine.”
Jace drew them both to a halt, shielding her from the view of the crowd behind. “It’s no skin off my nose if you want to rest.”
She shook her head.
Creed said, “No one will think less of you.”
So that was it. He should have known. Miri was worried about her pack seeing her as weak. Alpha females were never weak. Under the guise of stealing a kiss, he whispered in her ear, “You lean on me, and I’ll get you up the hill, pride intact.”
“How?”
He stroked his hand down her arm in a seductive trail, knowing how it looked to the watching crowd. He nipped her ear, turning her slightly in to him. “By playing the jealous mate.”
She shivered delicately. “Playing?”
He smiled against her cheek. “Got to admit, it won’t be much of a stretch.”
There was a long pause and then she leaned against him. “Thank you.”
Over Miri’s head, Jace caught a strange expression on Creed’s face. Approval? A growl rumbled out of the crowd.
“You might want to save the public displays for private,” the other man suggested.
“Where would the fun be in that?”
Creed shifted his rifle to the crook of his arm. “If you think provoking them is harmless, you don’t know weres.”
Jace looked into the eyes of the men around him, knowing they wanted what he had, knowing they would never have her, because he wouldn’t give her up, mark or no. Law or no. He flashed them an easy smile and dropped a kiss on the top of Miri’s head. “So everyone keeps telling me.”
THE door opened as soon as they approached the porch. Even if Jace hadn’t known Ian was Alpha, his posture would have proclaimed it. Shoulders squared, he stood waiting for the small group to reach him. Ian had the D’Nally coloring, complete with amber eyes that seemed to glow as he studied Miri and the baby. Jace wouldn’t say he looked happy, but he also wouldn’t say he looked angry. “Torn” might be the right word. The question would be, about what? As they reached the bottom step, Ian nodded. “Welcome home, Miri.”
His long black hair blew about his face as he came down a step, each footfall sounding loud in the crisp night air. His golden eyes held a faint glow as he studied Miri. Standing behind Miri as he was, Jace couldn’t help but feel her start and apprehension as he reached the ground.
Miri inclined her head. “Thank you.”
Ian’s gaze lingered on the scars on Miri’s cheeks. He tipped her chin up, raising her face to the porch light. A growl rumbled in his chest.
He touched one with his thumb.
Against Jace, Miri quivered, her heart aching. Behind them, the pack watched. Jace slid under Miri’s mental guard, touching her mind, searching for fear, finding only a soul-deep longing for a hug from the man she thought of as a brother. A sign that it was okay. That he still saw her as he always had. She wanted it with every fiber of her being.
The least you owe her is a hug.
Not by a twitch did Ian indicate he heard the message, but an answering thought came to Jace, loud and clear.
Do not interfere in were business.
Jace didn’t give a shit about were business. All he cared about was Miri’s pain as the silence stretched her out on a rack of dread. Opening a channel from Miri to Ian, Jace let Ian experience the emotion tearing Miri apart. There was a flinch at the corners of Ian’s eyes. Snow crunched as his weight shifted. He reached out slowly. Miri stopped breathing as his hands closed over her shoulders. She went when he pulled, taking a small step toward him, then hesitating. Jace couldn’t see her face, but he could guess at her expression. Hope clashing with fear beneath that brave front she wore. Jace wanted to snatch her back, shelter her. Take the pain away, buffer her from possible rejection.
Too low to carry far, Ian whispered, “Shit.”
Then, very carefully, as if he worried she’d shatter with too much pressure, Ian hugged her. Hell. Maybe he wouldn’t kill the big were after all.
Miri’s chest jerked on a soundless sob, so painful to watch. Her hands came up, her fingers made fists in Ian’s coat, her shoulders shuddered. Ian rested his cheek on her head, pulling her closer, holding her tighter as she sobbed. His eyes closed. “We missed you.”
Miri’s joy and relief flooded Jace in a staggering rush of emotion. Ian just held her harder, sheltering her, siphoning off her anxiety so deftly that Jace wasn’t sure Miri even recognized the touch, but he did, and now he was going to owe the D’Nally. As if it was the signal they’d all been waiting for, the pack converged on Miri. Men and women welcomed her home, reaching out to touch her hair, her clothes, hundreds of touches that reinforced the connection between them. Every touch took her away from him, back into pack. Jace heard Miri give a harsh sob, had a glimpse of her tear-ravaged face before someone came between them, cutting him off. He held Peanut and forced himself to stay back. Miri needed this reunion the same way flowers needed the sun. As long as he could stand it, he would let her have it.
Tobias came up beside him. “Nice move.”
He pretended innocence. “What?”
“Forcing Ian’s hand.”
“He was taking too long.”
Tobias crossed his arms over his chest and watched the reunion. “You don’t
give a shit about tradition, do you?”
“Not if it hurts Miri.”
“He would have hugged her eventually.”
Jace noted that not only had Tobias known what he’d done, he’d known the reason behind it. “Miri was hurting then.”
Tobias shrugged and cut him an assessing glance. “If I didn’t know better I would say that was Ian talking.”
“Stop comparing me to that bastard.”
“Can’t help it, when you’re so much alike.”
The weres stepped back, leaving a path through the center. “Looks like it’s your turn and Peanut’s.”
Ian and Miri came toward him. Miri’s face was red from crying, wet with tears, but her eyes were beaming. Beside her, Ian walked, holding her hand. Jace snarled. Ian laughed out loud. “Relax, vamp. She’s my cousin.” Ian’s gaze dropped to Penny, where she slouched against Jace’s chest, sucking her fist. There was something in the focus of his energy that raised the hair on the back of Jace’s neck. “You have no claim on Penny.”
Ian didn’t spare him a glance. “Actually, I do.”
Jace handed Penny to Miri. “Then we have a problem.”
Miri growled and snatched Penny out of Ian’s reach.
For an instant surprise flashed in Ian’s eyes, then his expression closed up, but not before Jace caught a glimmer of hurt. Against his will, Jace found himself feeling sorry for the man. Clearly Miri no longer trusted her Alpha. That had to pain. “Don’t mess with my family, Ian,” Miri warned.
“You’re calling a vampire and an altered were child family, Miri?”
Ian made it sound impossible. Maybe in his opinion it was. Miri’s chin jerked up. Fire flashed in her eyes. For all that the last year had messed with Miri’s confidence, she was still a hundred percent were and no one messed with a were’s family. “You do anything to hurt either of them, and I’ll kill you.”
This time Ian’s flinch was visible. Jace felt his pain and inwardly cursed. Damn! Some days it didn’t pay to get out of bed. He wrapped his arm across Miri’s chest as she backed toward him. Ian might be a son of a bitch, but Jace didn’t believe for a minute he’d hurt Penny or Miri. “Thanks to the Sanctuary’s influence, Miri has all kinds of worries, like that you’re going kill me because I’m vampire, and the baby because she has a clubfoot.” He pinned Ian with his gaze. “You know, silly things like that.”
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