“I hope my feelings about you are clear, Juli.”
“They’re clear, all right. You want to mate with me so long as I know I’m in second place. I’m not really sure why you want me for that when you could have plenty of Ospreys fans or another woman from the pack. Maybe because you miss my father?”
Neil stared at her. He couldn’t understand where she’d gotten that impression of him. “This has nothing to do with Darrow, Juli, other than that I used to worry he wouldn’t approve if he knew how I felt about you.” He folded his arms over his chest, feeling too defensive to open up about any of his more romantic thoughts. “This isn’t about wanting you in second place, either.”
“Why not, Neil? If you really don’t care which of us ends up on top, then let’s mate tomorrow instead of fighting.”
Neil’s jaw dropped. Juli sure knew how to raise the stakes on a conversation.
“I see you’re hesitating,” Juli said. “Maybe that’s because your feelings about me aren’t clear, not even to you.”
“You’re just baiting me, Juli. If I said we should mate tomorrow, you’d balk just as much.”
She did pull the car over then, veering into the shoulder with a screech. Cars zipped by alongside, but Juli shut down the engine and turned to Neil. “I can’t believe I’m doing this again. Every time you reject me, I swear to myself that I’m not putting myself out there for you anymore. I’m tired of getting hurt, Neil. But you’re acting like you still don’t get it, so I’m going to do this one more time.” She rubbed a hand over her face. The brilliant blue of her eyes shone through even when shaded by her fingertips. “I have been in love with you since I was fifteen. I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking sometimes, if it’s some crazy reaction I have to the amazing way you smell, but I’ve never been able to get it to go away. I—”
Neil didn’t need to hear any more of this. He knew what he wanted. The radiating warmth of her body tempted him to reach across the seat for her. Pulling her closer, he pressed his lips to her forehead, her cheek, the tip of her nose, the corner of her mouth. Finally, he kissed her full on. Her mouth opened to his, furnace-hot and delicious. If he could just sink into her, give in to every urge... He felt himself begin to change, and Neil wanted to follow that too, to experience perfect freedom with her.
Juli stiffened and shoved his chest hard. The claws on her hands revealed she’d been experiencing the same intensity he had. Neil smiled, wanting to tell her everything he’d come to feel and understand. But when he turned to her, Juli’s lip curled up into a snarl. “First, we have to control ourselves, Neil. We’re parked on the side of the road right now. There are like a million humans driving past us. You can’t get hairy on me like it’s nothing.” She glared at her own arm as if by shifting it had taken Neil’s side. “Second, don’t cut me off when I’m talking to you. I get that you want my body, damn it. That’s one thing you’ve made plenty clear. I’m saying that much as I’d love to get on top and ride you until you’re seeing stars, I can’t handle that unless I know what’s going to happen between us afterward. There’s a time and place for one-night stands, Neil, but that is not what we have here, at least as far as I’m concerned.”
“Juli, this isn’t about a one-night stand. Believe me.”
“Then what is it about? You’ve never been straight with me. What do you feel?”
Neil opened his mouth to reply, but pulled up short. She’d just said she’d been in love with him since she was fifteen. Could he say the same? Sure, he’d always thought about her, always wanted her, but when she’d left Missoula he’d been prepared to live his life without her. Didn’t love mean not being willing to move on that way?
Juli stared at him, waiting. He needed to say something, but everything that came to mind seemed inadequate beside the confession she had just made. Why couldn’t she let him speak in the language so natural to him? To both of them, really. Their bodies could tell each other everything they felt. Where words left him tongue-tied, body to body, his tongue would speak just fine. It could make every promise she needed to hear, and seal them together in a way neither could draw back from. Neil had no intention of using Juli. Why couldn’t she trust him?
His mouth worked, but no sound came out, and slowly a disgusted expression came over Juli’s face. She sighed, then growled a little. “I knew I shouldn’t have done that to myself again. Again!” She slapped her palm against the rim of the steering wheel, then turned the car back on.
“Juli, wait.”
“No, Neil. I did what you asked. I showed you I’m not baiting you. Like an idiot, I told you how I feel again, and now you get to feel great about yourself and I get to see one more time that you don’t feel the same way. Let’s just... not talk anymore until we get to that trail. And then tomorrow, I can rip out your throat and be done with it.”
Stunned, Neil sat back in his seat. She pulled the car back onto the road. “Juli, I never wanted to hurt you.”
“You have hurt me plenty of times, Neil. So now I do want to hurt you back. Which is convenient, I guess, because you’ve challenged me to fight on the full moon tomorrow. So everything’s working out just fine. Just great.” She spat out her words with such force he almost expected the windshield in front of her to crack. She accelerated hard.
Watching her, Neil knew he’d bombed yet again. He couldn’t find the right way to talk to her, no matter how hard he tried. He gripped the sides of his seat and braced himself for the rest of the jerky ride.
Chapter Nine
Juli couldn’t bear to speak to Neil for the rest of the drive to the trail. She continued to remain silent when they got out of the car and started down the paved path. The trail used to be a railroad, and Juli wanted to ask how he thought they would find a good location for a challenge in such a straight, wide-open place. She bit her tongue.
They walked along the Clark Fork River, and sadness came over her. There she stood, beside the man she’d wanted as long as she could remember, with the moon on the verge of full and a new direction coming into her life. She knew his kiss felt right like no other had, and yet she couldn’t have been farther from him. To the north, she saw the lights of Ogren Park, where Neil played with the Ospreys. She wished he would point it out to her, tell her what he did there and what it was like. She wished he would open up to her in a real way, even a little. Anything to show her that her feelings for him were justified. How could she be so hopelessly wrapped up in a man she didn’t really know?
All the years of watching him at her father’s side had fueled plenty of fantasies about him, but Juli had no way of knowing what he really wanted or thought or did. After serving her father for so long, how could he even hint at joining the free tribes in Wyoming? How could he hurt her over and over again? No, she didn’t know Neil Statham at all.
The trail grew rougher and thinner. Juli felt squeezed between the mountain on one side and the river on the other. At this point, she wanted to get away from Neil, except that even the landscape pushed them closer together.
He broke the silence. “This is kind of where I was thinking.”
Juli straightened. She needed to pay attention to this. “Fine. Let’s walk a little farther so I can get a sense of how it’s laid out.” She peered at the shapes of the rocks and the pattern of the river lapping at the bank. Face to face and strength to strength, Juli had no chance of defeating Neil. Without an environmental advantage, she’d lose after all.
She slowed her pace, but kept it casual. It would be best if she could take him by surprise, shifting the ground of their contest in a way he didn’t expect. Juli’s gaze swept up the side of the mountain, but she noticed Neil following the direction of her eyes. Unless she distracted him, he’d pick up the real object of her scouting before long.
Unfortunately, if she wanted his attention, she’d have to talk to him some more. Taking a deep breath, she shoved her fists into her pockets. “If you win this, are you still going to join the free packs?”
He stared at her. “I thought you weren’t speaking to me.”
She blew out a breath through flared nostrils. “I want to know what I’m fighting for.”
Neil shrugged. “The Werewolf Council hasn’t exactly impressed me.”
“My father would be disappointed.”
She saw his wince. “Darrow was pretty bitter about...”
“My mother?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, it’s got to be pretty embarrassing for your mate to run off with a rival alpha, even after you defeat his challenge.”
Neil started. “I thought she left over politics.”
Juli had his attention on the past now. She studied the side of the mountain freely while he gaped at her. “She got political after she hooked up with the Wyoming packs, sure, but at first it was all about Lance Lyda. Daddy beat him into last century when he tried to take over our pack, but the next morning when he took off with his tail between his legs, he also had my mom at his side. My father wouldn’t have talked about that part if he could help it.”
She thought she saw a good spot. Jumping height off the ground, a series of lacy outcroppings looked like they would fit a wolf of her size—but not Neil’s. Juli could retreat up there if she needed to catch her breath, maybe wear him out a little while he tried to get at her. Or she might be able to sneak up there and pounce on him from above. The river on the other side offered another tactic. She could confuse him by plunging into the water. Her smaller body would probably have a bit of a speed advantage.
“Don’t werewolves mate for life?”
Damn. Now he’d distracted her. The two of them had talked too much about mating over the last few weeks for that to be anything other than a loaded question. “Yeah, it’s the only case I’ve ever heard of where a werewolf ran out on her mate. Divorce is one thing. Mating always seemed too chemical to be broken.”
He folded his arms over his chest, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Juli shifted uncomfortably. When he looked at her like that, she didn’t know where to put her hands or how to stand. “Do you talk to her?”
“I did a few times after she left. She seemed to want to forget she’d had a life in Missoula.” She paused and swallowed, thinking about her own efforts to escape. “I guess maybe that runs in the family. Anyway, she and that alpha became co-leaders of their pack, and they both got killed in the course of a challenge a few years back.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It wouldn’t have happened if it had been a Council-sanctioned challenge, you know. The Council always sends observers and officials charged with protecting life where possible. Once a challenge is resolved decisively, they’ll intervene and give treatment to the losers. My mother and her alpha didn’t have any protection like that. I guess the pack had decided they preferred to run challenges with no safety net of any kind.” She smiled despite the residue of old anger within her. “My father must have known about it. I bet he spent a while ranting about the free packs and their unsafe challenge protocol.”
A smile ghosted over Neil’s face in turn. “I think I may remember a series of rants like that. I’ll confess that a lot of times I didn’t understand why he’d gotten on particular subjects.”
“It’s like you told me when I got here. He didn’t usually come out and ask for things, or say how he felt straight out. Still, he had other ways of letting you know. You just had to listen carefully to attune to them.”
“Whenever he talked about mating, I thought it was a subtle hint for me to go find a girlfriend and get out of his hair.”
“That could be. The man did like his alone time.”
Neil touched Juli’s arm. “Does it scare you?”
“What?”
“Mating, since it didn’t work for your parents.”
“Hell, yes.”
His fingers slipped lower, brushing her wrist and the back of her hand. As always, her desire flared, distracting her from the words. Her fingers curled involuntarily, catching his. “Tell me,” Neil whispered. He held her hand more firmly.
Juli shrugged. She knew she shouldn’t get on this subject with him again, but couldn’t hold back. “I don’t really know what my father did wrong, or what Lance Lyda did right. I don’t know why it happened. All I know is when I was younger, my father liked to tell stories about how hard he worked to win my mother as his mate. When he talked about their courtship, she’d always smile and take his hand, but she’d never tell me what she thought at the time it was happening, no matter how much I asked. After she left, I’d lie in bed and think about her expression while he told these romantic stories. I wondered if I could have picked up clues from it.”
“The forensic scientist speaks.”
“Yeah, I guess I was looking for data. Something that could have predicted what eventually happened between them. He seemed so happy back then, but I guess I’m not sure what she felt.”
Neil gave a little tug, and Juli found herself pressed against his side again, his scent working its way into her very pores the way it always did. She knew she ought to get away, to stop pretending this could go somewhere, but right then she couldn’t summon the will. The warmth of his body felt too wonderful in the cool night, and she couldn’t stop staring at how the moonlight caught in his pale brown eyes.
“Nothing I say is ever going to satisfy you,” Neil said.
“What are you talking about?”
“About how I feel. I’m not going to be able to say anything that makes you believe I wouldn’t leave you behind if something more convenient came along.”
“Well, you haven’t exactly—”
“You blasted me when you got here for the way I stood by your father, but doesn’t that tell you something about who I am? I’m not exactly a capricious guy.”
Juli frowned. “Yeah, nothing capricious about threatening to secede from the Werewolf Council.”
“I need to do what’s best for the pack. That’s never going to change.”
“And I’m not best for the pack.” She nodded. “I get it. You don’t have to keep rubbing it in.”
“I love you,” Neil said, tightening his hold on her hand. “I want to touch you so badly whenever I even start to think about it, but I’m going to try to keep talking here, because that’s what you seem to want.” He breathed hard, as if he’d run a race to bring these words to her. “I love you, and I want to be with you. I want you to stay in Missoula with me, no matter what happens. I’ve never done what’s best for me, Juli, or I’d run away with you right now so we wouldn’t have to fight over this anymore. We might both be confused about duty and the pack and the Council and all the rest, but I’m not confused about how I feel about you. I’ve been confused about a lot of things, but never about that.”
Juli stared. This, she had not expected. “Never?”
He shook his head. “Nobody took me seriously when I first started working for Darrow. They thought of me as Darrow’s stray dog, abandoned by my parents and blindly loyal to him. Any time I said anything, they assumed I was just repeating something he had told me. I got treated like I didn’t have any of my own thoughts or feelings, and that continued right up until your father died.” He brought his free hand up to cup the back of her head. “Only one person held me responsible for everything I did and every word I spoke. Only one person could look past Darrow’s shadow and into me. I always felt your eyes, Juli. So many times, I did the right thing just because I knew you would notice.”
She couldn’t bear to see the earnest look on his face any longer. Juli dropped her gaze. “Then what’s stood in our way all this time?”
“Juli, everything gets so complicated every time we try to talk about all this. The past is complicated. Politics are complicated. What’s between us is the only thing that feels like it doesn’t have to be complicated, but then we open our mouths and...” He trailed off and sighed.
“We’re both very tied up with the pack, with politics, with doing the right thing.”
She smiled sadly. “If either of us could compromise, we’d be mating tomorrow, not fighting.”
Neil growled in the back of his throat, but not in the restrained way of a werewolf trying to hold back his animal nature. Juli snapped her head up and was shocked to see fangs protruding from his mouth.
“I’m tired of compromising,” Neil said, his voice barely human. “I’m tired of waiting and tiptoeing around.”
“What are you talking about?” Juli asked, but the thrill of fear and arousal running through her body told her exactly what he meant.
The hand at the back of her head twisted, wrapping a hunk of her hair around it. His grip on her hand tightened even more, and his claws pricked her flesh. “Juli,” he said. “I want you.”
“Neil, you know how I feel.”
He squared his body against hers with a grunt. His insistent erection pressed against her stomach through his jeans. “Not what you feel. What do you want?” Neil’s eyes burned down into hers, inflected with yellow now. “Do you want this?” He thrust his hips forward. Juli thought about breaking away from him, but could not stop the answering moan that rose to her lips. He responded with a triumphant and toothy smile.
“Neil, we need to talk about this more before we do anything.”
“No more talking.” He bent closer. The beast within her answered the wildness she felt from him. It rose to the surface, and Juli knew rational thought would be lost to her very, very soon.
“Neil.” She swallowed hard. “I can’t control myself. I’m going to shift.”
He gave a satisfied growl in reply. “We’ll both shift.”
“That’s mating, Neil. We’re only allowed one shift within the time 24 hours before or after the moon’s fullest point. We can’t—”
“No more Lewistown talk. Just tell me if I can kiss you or not, Juli. Please.” His fingers felt hairy.
Not The Leader Of The Pack Page 8