She put on a pot of coffee. There were two bottles of wine rolling around somewhere on the floor of her truck and she desperately wanted a glass to soothe her nerves, but she was too overtired and overwrought and she feared the least bit of alcohol would make her drowsy and she needed to keep a clear head.
Charles, however, had no such qualms. He’d poured himself a glass of the amber liquid from the bottle he’d stolen. He toasted her with it before he drank. “Roman’s Applejack. It’s almost as powerful as Ruby’s lightning, but smoother on the tongue. You want some?”
“No. Thank you. Coffee is what I need, what we both need,” she said meaningfully. “Set the table would you? The dishes are up there.” She pointed with her chin.
“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”
He took two plates from the cupboard and opened drawers until he found the mismatched flatware.
“Yes,” she said, “But I need to get my thoughts in order as well as my house. Let me get some food on the table and then we’ll talk.”
While she cooked the steaks, with a twinge of regret that they were meant for Marshall, she could hear Charles moving around the living room, putting things to rights. She said nothing when he came and got the broom and returned a few minutes later with a dustpan full of glass and ceramic. It seemed her few bits of memories had been shattered along with her life.
She brought the steaks, bread and sliced tomatoes to the table and poured them both coffees though Charles had refilled his glass. The meat tasted like sawdust in her mouth, but she knew she needed nourishment so she ate it along with the tomatoes and bread. They ate in silence and she was halfway through her meal before she spoke.
“Why,” she asked, “Did the feelings I had for you go away? What made them go away? And can I make them go away with, ah, someone else?”
Charles’ fork stopped halfway to his mouth. This was not what he was expecting. He set the fork down and stared at her for a moment.
“Do you know what you are?” he asked cautiously.
Elizabeth nodded. “An Alpha’s Mate. I’m genetically preprogrammed to react sexually to an Alpha’s touch. I don’t have to like him.” She thought of Creepy Eyes and she swallowed down the urge to run from the room and vomit. “He doesn’t have to like me. It just happens. We’re puppets dancing on a chromosomal string.”
And this was the lemon juice poured over the open wounds of her heart. She hadn’t changed at all. She cut the strings of one puppet master only to find herself attached to another.
“Did Maggie tell you this?” he asked and when she shook her head no, said, “I didn’t think so.” He took a drink from his glass and blew out his breath. “I shouldn’t be the one to explain this to you.”
“I’m getting tired of hearing that,” she said. “Right now, you’re the only one available. Explain.”
He shook his head. “It’s more complicated than that.”
She could tell he was struggling for words. “First, it’s only unmated Alphas. Once an Alpha is mated, he has no interest in anyone else. Second, think of yourself as the receptacle of the Alpha’s lus… feelings. No sexual innuendo intended.” He thought for a second. “Although it does seem to apply.” He grinned.
“Not funny,” she said. His bad boy charm had its allure, but not here, not now. “Get on with it.”
“Okay, bossy woman. The strength of your reaction is in proportion to his need or want for a Mate.” He waited for her to digest the information.
“So it has nothing to do with the power or the strength of the Alpha.” She was thinking of Marshall versus Creepy Eyes.
“Certainly not.”
Charles looked offended and she almost smiled. She’d questioned his manhood or wolfhood. Whatever. At this point, his feelings weren’t relevant.
“You didn’t really want me, or I should say an Alpha’s Mate. That’s why I didn’t feel it as strongly from you as I did from… others. Right?”
“Others? Who else besides…?”
“I ask the questions. You answer them. You didn’t really want me. Right?”
“All right, guilty as charged.” He cut another piece of meat, chewed and swallowed, before he continued. “I ran into Eugene. Quite by accident, at least on my part. He said he thought he’d found my brother a Mate and then he told me about you, about your background and where you were from. He said the chances were slim, but you might not be able to adapt to life in Rabbit Creek. If that were the case, would I be interested in meeting you?”
He looked a little guilty, like the boy caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar. “I’m not really looking for a Mate right now. None of my pack are mated, so there’s no real reason to settle down and I enjoy the clubs and the company…”
“The single life. I get it. If you weren’t interested, why did I get those feelings from you and why did they stop? Why did you seek me out in the first place?”
“Curiosity?” He grinned and when Elizabeth didn’t respond, his face fell. “All right. I came down here to wreak a little havoc in my perfect brother’s life.” He took another swig from his glass. “But then I found that I liked you. I was a little interested. You were cute. And then I found out that you were smart…” Charles looked away from her. “… and wise. And I realized it wasn’t a game and I was going to hurt you as much as Marshall. So I decided to stop.”
Elizabeth believed him. It sounded just like something Marshall’s charming rogue of a brother would do; out of anger or jealousy or just because he thought it would be fun. She nodded that she understood.
“Now how do I get Creepy Eyes to turn it off?” she asked.
Chapter 29
Charles looked at her in surprise. “Surely you don’t mean…?”
“Yes. That creep you were with in the restaurant,” she said, “And I’ve got news for you, buddy. Whatever it was you thought you had under control when you left that place? You don’t.”
“I thought you meant…” She could see him readjust his thinking. “Calvin Everest? He… to you?”
“Yes. To me. Charles, it was revolting, repulsive.” He had to understand what this man did to her. He had to see the kind of man he was dealing with.
“I didn’t know he was unmated again. I didn’t see… You never showed any reaction… I…”
“I didn’t know what I was. I didn’t know what was happening to me then. I thought it was me, Charles, I thought those feelings were coming from me and I was sickened, disgusted with myself. It made my skin crawl.”
Her voice cracked on the last words. She could feel herself losing control and she couldn’t let that happen. After everything else, if she lost control now, she would never get it back. She reached across the table, grabbed Charles’ glass and swallowed the last mouthful remaining. It was as he said. The Applejack was smoother on the tongue, but it still packed a breath halting wallop when it hit bottom.
“I wouldn’t give that bastard the satisfaction of seeing how he made me feel,” she said angrily. “And now I have to tell you the rest of it and you have to tell me what part you played in it. This has gone beyond the petty little games you play to annoy your brother. This is deadly, Charles. People have died.”
She began with her accident, which she still believed was just that, but now she understood why Marshall would doubt her story. He wasn’t covering for his wolver’s. He hadn’t changed any of them that night.
She told him about the horses and the barn and the wolf that attacked her. And while she told him she saw how stupid she had been. There were so many things staring her in the face, said and seen, that she hadn’t questioned.
And when she described finding Max, crumpled and broken in her yard, and the boot prints she’d thought might be his, she cried. She couldn’t help it. It wasn’t hysterical sobbing, but a quiet weeping not only for the torture the girl endured, but for her own loss of someone she had thought of as a friend.
Charles got up from the table and brought her a box of tissues, but h
e didn’t try to comfort her in any other way.
“It wasn’t me. I couldn’t do that to a woman.” His eyes begged her to believe.
“I know that,” she said and tapped her chest over her heart, “In here. But these were your partners, Charles, your friends.” She spat the words. “They burned a house, a house with a mother and her children still in it. A boy almost died.”
Charles was shaking his head. “It wasn’t me. It wasn’t them. The growers, keeping Marshall running in circles, the little harassments on the top of the mountain. Those were us. And maybe the fire at Marshall’s.” He looked ashamed. “It got out of hand, but I took care of it.” He kept shaking his head. “I took care of it. It wasn’t us.”
“It was, Charles. It was.” She told him about the women coming to the Home Place and George being shot and the frightened women and children locked in the church for protection. “It was them and through them, you.”
“You don’t know that,” he whispered and his denial would have angered her even more if she hadn’t been convinced he was trying to persuade himself.
“I do know it,” she said, “Because what happened to Max almost happened to me.”
His head snapped up and he looked at her in horror.
“Yes. After you left, Calvin Everest sent his thugs after me. They used the same tactics they’d used on her and it was only because of that I made it this far. I recognized them, both as men and wolves and I’d seen them before at Marshall’s.”
Her whole body was shaking now and her voice quivered with anger and regret.
“Your brother came. He fought them alone until Henry got here. Henry should have died. Marshall used the last of his strength to save him. And that bastard, that monster you’re in business with, watched the whole thing. I saw him, too. He’s their Alpha. They couldn’t have changed without him. Just like at Marshall’s barn.”
“I only wanted what was mine.” Charles looked broken. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”
“How was it supposed to be?” She couldn’t keep the disgust from her voice.
“This mountain is worth money or it will be soon. They’re expanding the road on the other side of the mountain, turning it into a six lane highway. It’s going to open this area up to development. People will pay good money to own their own little mountain retreat. I’ve been buying up land on the other side, little by little, persuading people to sell.”
Elizabeth couldn’t help but wonder just what kind of persuasion he used, but that wasn’t her current concern. Rabbit Creek was. “What does that have to do with us?”
Charles smiled, but she didn’t know why. And then he became serious again. “The top of the mountain has the most value, the best views, living on top of the world, all that. I only wanted what I thought of as mine. If we made life uncomfortable enough, harassed them enough, put them in danger of too much attention from outsiders and government, the pack would put pressure on Marshall to sell. He’s not like Everest. He doesn’t rule with an iron fist. He’d listen to his pack. I didn’t want to take the mountaintop. I would have bought it.”
He was asking her to see how reasonable he was. She didn’t.
“How does Calvin Everest fit in?” How ironic that she’d chosen a name with the same initials. She still thought of him as Creepy Eyes and had to force herself to use his real name. It sounded so human and he wasn’t. He wasn’t wolver, either. He was a monster.
“Calvin was looking for investment opportunities. He’s been purchasing land, too. He’s got an old beef with Marshall and the Rabbit Creek pack.” He shrugged. “The deal suited his needs.”
Elizabeth knew she hadn’t heard the name before, but something was niggling at the back of her mind. She was so tired she couldn’t think. She raised her hand to stop Charles from going on and poured more coffee.
“What was the beef?” she asked after she took a moment to clear her head and straighten her thoughts.
“He didn’t say. Some slight, somewhere. Everest doesn’t like to be crossed. It could have been something as simple as disagreeing with him at a Convocation of the Alphas.”
Convocation? She wanted to ask, but didn’t. She had her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands. It was something about the SUV.
“Where is this Everest from?” she asked. It shouldn’t matter, but she knew it did.
“Wyoming. Why?”
The license plate. She saw it as she was leaving the restaurant and it flitted through her mind, as things often did. Huh, Gwenna was from Wyoming.
Gwenna, promised to someone else, had run away to marry George. It couldn’t be over something like that, could it? It was over and done with; settled through Pack Law.
“George Hadley’s wife, Gwenna, is from Wyoming. She ran away from an arranged marriage to come here. Eugene Begley arranged their meeting.”
“That would be it. Eugene Begley hates the Double W. He’d take real pleasure in sticking it to them. It has something to do with an Alpha’s Mate from a long time ago. Calvin’s had at least three of them, you know. Four, if he’s looking at you.”
At least? “I thought they couldn’t be interested in anybody else once they found an Alpha’s Mate?” This was all too confusing. She was getting her facts mixed up.
“You can if they die,” he said becoming agitated. “Elizabeth, if he wants you, you’re in danger. He’s not me. He won’t go away and he’ll have no respect for your choice. He gets what he wants. He’ll keep after you. You won’t have a choice.”
“That’s ridiculous. I told you. What he made me feel is revolting, filthy. I would never give in to that. And he knew in no uncertain terms how repulsive I found him. I all but told him so.”
“To a wolver like Everest, that would make you all the more attractive, like breaking a wild horse. His will would be stronger than yours. He’d devour you.”
She remembered Red Riding Hood. “This is barbaric,” she said, the repugnance clear in her voice. “How can you people live this way?”
She walked to the bedroom, though her legs wanted to run. She grabbed her suitcase from the closet and began throwing clothing in it at random. She would not be a volunteer for her own rape. That’s what it would be. Rape.
“Elizabeth, that’s not how it is for most of us.” Charles had followed her into the room. “Alpha’s and their Mates can love each other, do love each other. My mother loved my father. The original Goodman Mate left her family and country behind to follow her Alpha to this mountain. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
“It doesn’t have to be any way,” she snapped. “I’m going home. There’s no reason for me to stay here now. I’ll stop long enough to tell Maggie what’s going on and then I’ll be on my way. None of you will have to worry. I’ll go back to my old life and never say anything to anyone. I couldn’t. Who’d believe me?”
“You have to go back to Marshall’s. Stay where he can protect you until this is over.” Charles was adamant. “Give me a chance to straighten this out. Give Marshall a chance…”
“No. Marshall doesn’t need a chance. He never wanted a Mate. He never really wanted me and neither did the others. They wanted a Mate for their Alpha, any Mate. Who I am was never part of the equation. No,” she said again, more to convince herself than Charles. “I’m leaving this place and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do about it.” She grabbed another suitcase from the closet. She couldn’t take it all, but she’d take what she could; some clothes, her laptop, her useless phone.
Charles was nervously clearing the bed of bits of glass from the broken picture window, the one from which she had loved to watch the rising sun. This was her home and she was being driven from it. What more could they do to shatter her heart?
“Leave it, Charles, just leave it!” she cried.
“I can’t,” he said, “Everest will know where to look for you. I told him that, too. You have to go to Marshall’s.”
She turned to him in a rage. “No! Didn’t yo
u hear me? I will not…”
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I can’t let you go.”
She saw a brief flash of movement and tried to duck. Too late. Pain exploded in her head as she hit the bed and blackness descended.
Chapter 30
Elizabeth awoke in Marshall’s bed. Marshall wasn’t in it and by the looks of the undisturbed covers next to her, he hadn’t been. Good. It would only complicate matters.
She knew how she had gotten here. Well, not exactly. Her throbbing jaw told her that Charles had, in fact, socked her and she assumed he was the one who brought her here. He’d taken matters into his own hands and in a very brutal way, she might add, but it didn’t mean she’d put up with it. She wasn’t staying.
Someone had dressed her in her nightgown, so her suitcase must be here somewhere. She climbed out of bed and looked about the room. Nothing. She checked the closet which was filled with Marshall’s clothes, but no suitcase. They’d left her nothing but her flimsy nightgown.
She stamped her foot in frustration. They couldn’t make her stay. She was an expert at this game and she would find a way to leave come hell or high water, even if she had to do it in her nightgown… she looked down at the flimsy white cloth …which was transparent.
She climbed back into bed and settled down to think. The sheets and pillow smelled like Marshall, a deep, earthy aroma that smelled like the mountain itself. It was the smell of the very place she wanted to leave and it wasn’t right that it should feel so comforting. She sighed and it didn’t sound so nearly frustrated as she intended.
Maybe she should wait here until someone came and explained what was going on. She could then demand her clothes and be on her way. She needed to tell them about Creepy Eyes and the plan for the mountain, unless Charles had already told them. She hated not knowing. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been out. The sun streaming in the window made her think of late afternoon.
Charles. He’d hit her. The more she thought about it, the more enraged she became. How dare he! She’d trusted him. She’d told him things about Creepy Eyes that she’d told no one else. Oh, she knew he wasn’t only the charming rogue he pretended to be. Hadn’t he showed her that when he told her about his plans for the mountain and what he’d done to the pack, but she thought he liked her. She never would have dreamed he’d do something like this.
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