by C. D. Gorri
She moved to shut the door the rest of the way, but paused when she heard Abel answer a call on the other side.
She knew she shouldn’t eavesdrop. Knew, and failed to curb the impolite urge anyway. But he was in her home, after hauling her around all night, and flashing those seductive smiles. Overhearing one half of a conversation in her living room seemed like some harmless snooping on the white knight she’d been forced to accept.
“Did anyone challenge him?”
Dakota eased to the side and peeked through the crack. True, hard anger coated his words.
On the other side, Abel bared his teeth at no one in particular. A hand pushed his hair out of his eyes as he began to pace. Tightness spread over his shoulders and down the rest of his body, throwing agitation into the air with every step. The answers he gave didn’t make any sense, but they grew sharper and angrier until defeat and doubt raced to take hold.
Those last two made her feel like an intruder. He’d given her smiles full of confidence and charm during their interactions, and she could twist a justification for snooping out of needing to judge if his growly anger was a threat, but the rest felt private. Her low moments weren’t ones she wanted to share. The stranger who helped her out of a tough spot deserved the same space she’d extend herself.
She made to close the door.
“I found someone. Whether or not she’ll help remains to be seen.”
She. As in her.
The fuck did he want her for?
The question circled through her head. Every pass gathered up a moment of their night and tilted the encounter on its head. He’d helped her out of that gully, taken her to the station, and offered her a ride home. Going above and beyond, sure, but not exactly sinister.
Except he’d been looking for her. Her. Not someone else. Dakota Martin.
The fuck did he want her for?
Only one way to find out.
She yanked her towel off the rack and hastily slung it around her body before ripping open the door. Abel spun to face her, eyes widening with surprise.
“Why did you need to find me?”
“Mom, I need to go,” he said into his phone, eyes never leaving her face.
Dakota folded her arms over her chest. If only the tight squeeze would calm the rapid beating of her heart. At least she could hide the shaking of her hands. “What did you mean about whether or not I’ll help? Help with what, exactly?”
“It’s…” Abel shoved a hand through his hair and turned away with a wince. “It’s complicated.”
“Complicated?” she repeated. “Complicated is what you call math the first time you’re confronted with numbers and letters in the same equation. Explaining what the hell you want with me shouldn’t be that damn complicated.”
“Dakota…”
She shook her head at his hesitation. “You need to go.”
“I can’t,” he rasped. “Not now that I’ve found you.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re my mate, Dakota.”
Mate. The word rang through her like a gong. Then the alarm bells sounded.
She wracked her brain for the little she knew about shifters. Most of the tales going around the internet and plastered across magazines in the checkout lane seemed like trashy gossip. Predilections for red meat and brawling didn’t help understand people who’d kept their existence a secret for so long.
“Explain,” she ground out.
“Mates are…” he paused, clearly searching for the words that wouldn’t run her off or send her calling for backup. She was three seconds from doing just that when he said in a rush, “It’s as if the whole world, all your dreams and desires, every aspect of what you consider you, all of that reorients. You ever spin around and around until you’re dizzy, then still have some wobble when the horizon finally settles back into place? It’s like that. Everything from before is still there, but something is different. There’s a connection tying us together.”
That sounded awfully close to how her father described her mother. They were this big, important explosion in their own personal universes. No one else cared, but to each other? There was a before and an after, so completely changed by the other stepping into their lives.
Nothing but disaster waited once that fire burned out.
She took a step back. “Thanks for all the help tonight, but you really need to leave.”
“My father was murdered.”
The words froze her in place and stilled her tongue.
Abel matched her step away with one that carried him closer. His eyes brightened and locked on her face. “You wanted to know why I was living out of my Jeep? Because my father was murdered, very likely by my uncle in a bid to seize control of the pack. A bid, by the way, that’s going swimmingly for him, since he also banished me when he turned up to claim the alpha spot.”
“And you left? Just like that?”
“Our politics are…”
“I swear, Abel, if you say ‘complicated’, I will show you the door.”
“Complicated.” He flashed her a smirk. “There are laws that are more like guidelines now that my world has been blown wide open, and old traditions that are as rigid and unbreakable as the need for air in your lungs. My uncle wielded both when he offered me the choice of banishment or bending the knee. Leaving seemed the sure way of keeping my head attached to my body and the rest of the pack from splintering immediately.”
“What about the police? If what you said is true—”
“It is true, but asking for the police—human police—is unheard of. Some would see it as a sign of weakness, needing others to mete out justice. They wouldn’t be trusted at best. At worst, I’d be putting them in danger.” His jaw tightened as his eyes flashed bright. “Rasmus will pay, believe me. How much damage he does beforehand is the bigger worry. Asshole has already faced down two challengers and sent their surviving families packing. Now he’s threatening to cull the pack.”
“Cull? As in kill?” At his nod, she pressed a hand to the queasy pit forming in her stomach.
Abel nodded. “He’s dangerous. He already has at least two human deaths under his belt. He’ll twist the pack into something wicked and set them loose on anyone who steps too close.”
Horrible, horrible creature. He didn’t deserve to be known as a man. Or wolf. Worm? Now, that had a nice ring to it.
“How does that all connect to me?” she asked.
Because as troubling as Abel’s problems were, they didn’t belong to her.
He was quiet for a long moment before turning away. Dakota opened her mouth to demand he give her an answer, but he dropped onto her couch. Fingers steepled, forearms on his thighs, tension thick enough to cut rolled through the room.
“My father sent me here. To you,” he said softly. “His final words were a jumble, but two were clear. Yellowstone. Dakota.”
Goosebumps lifted along her arms.
“I didn’t expect to find anything. He’d lost so much blood by then.” His hands tightened into fists. “Wounds like that, there isn’t much sense in the end. But I had nowhere else to go. My father is dead, my mother is still home and grieving, and my pack has been taken over. What was there to lose by making the trip?” He lifted his eyes to her. “And then I caught your scent.”
“That’s it? One whiff of, frankly, not the freshest of daisies after my day, and you’re convinced we’re supposed to be together? Where’s the free will? What about my choice?”
“You have a choice. You absolutely have a choice. If I had my way, this isn’t how you’d be introduced to my world. I’d take you out and make you feel special all hours of the day. We’d have time to learn more than each other’s names and occupations.” A muscle jumped along his jaw. “But I don’t have my way, Rasmus is going to destroy my pack, and I can’t make an alpha challenge until I have a mate at my side. I need you to save the others.”
Quiet swelled in the room, broken only by the steady pel
ting of the shower in the background.
“You need to go,” she said again.
Not because he had secrets or intruded on her space. Not because he tempted her in all the right ways. He had a life elsewhere. One desperately needing his focus. Instead, he was visibly torn and upset by the news on that call, all while pacing through her living room.
That sort of devotion was admirable. He saw himself responsible for those left behind. She shouldn’t factor in when the stakes were so high.
Her life was there. His was with his pack.
Dakota rubbed the heel of her hand over her heart and the sudden ache that blossomed in her chest.
Abel scrubbed a hand down his face. Bright eyes shot a look toward her door before returning to her face. “I can’t,” he repeated. “My wolf won’t let me leave you.”
“Run with the wolves,” she said softly.
“What was that?”
“Something my grandmother used to tell me.” Sweet fuck, how many times had she heard them? How many times had she lifted her face to the sky and let off a howl? “Run with the wolves, Dakota. I always assumed it was something empowering, just a phrase to dig deep and find my own wildness. I turned it into a career choice. Running with the Yellowstone wolves, keeping them safe. But now…”
What if the wolves she needed to run with weren’t the purely animal kind? Clearly, Abel received something similar to put him on his path to finding her.
Impossible. Absolutely impossible.
But so were shifters just a few short months ago.
“I’ll…” Fucking hell, she was an idiot. A complete and total idiot. She didn’t know him. She couldn’t help with any of the problems piling up in his life. But the thought of sitting around her living room while innocent people might be hurt or killed wasn’t one she could live with. “I’ll go with you.”
He blinked. Opened his mouth. Closed it. Blinked again.
“What did you just say?”
“I said I’ll go with you.” Putting the words to air eased that strange tightness in her chest. She didn’t understand it, or him, or her reaction to both. But it felt right. Staying with him felt right.
“You walked buck ass naked into my life at the right time, it seems.” He barked a laugh, and she continued, “I have the time off. Probably couldn’t drive for a few days anyway, so that’s already a delay in my plans. I’ll go with you.”
“Not looking like that, you’re not.”
She glowered at the words until his eyebrows hitched high with amusement and his gaze dropped to her middle.
Her currently hidden by a very, very short, fuzzy pink towel, middle.
Lifting her chin, she fixed him with an imperious look. “It’s called a minidress, and is high fashion in some circles.”
“Ah, yes, can’t wait for the Worn Terry Cloth Collection to hit the runway.”
She shot him a narrow look and turned to make her way back to the shower. Abel’s hand closed around her elbow before she even cleared the couch.
Dakota fought not to step closer to the heat blasting off his chest or turn her face to catch a deeper whiff of his scent. Dark spices and evergreens, she thought. Whatever that translated to in the cologne world.
“And the rest?” he asked, eyes suddenly serious.
Mates and tipping the whole world on end and orbiting around one another. That was what he meant. And all the damage and silence that came after. The emptiness and never-ending darkness and letting the rest of the world fade away. The problem with those great loves and fiery disasters was the collateral damage that washed through every other life those people touched.
She put a step between them before she gave in to temptation. “I can’t give you anything else.”
Chapter Eight
“Your family has been running things since the beginning?” Dakota’s brows shot together. One hundred years, he said. One hundred years of running their little piece of land and keeping their true natures hidden. They weren’t even the oldest pack. There was one that he made sound like snobbish royalty who held that title. At least in North America.
Now that was far more interesting than the predilections for red meat and brawling the gossip magazines splashed all over their covers.
Abel braced his arms on the roof of the Jeep. He shot a quick glance to the gas pump, but the numbers kept ticking away. “We’re the Blackthornes for a reason,” he said. “Less cocky answer, the bloodline is strong but not everything. Most of the time, the alpha role has passed from father to son, but sometimes only daughters are born or a cousin is just a monster of a wolf.”
“Women can’t hold the spot?”
He clicked his tongue. “Out of turn question. What’s the worst crime you’ve committed?”
They’d alternated questions since early in the road trip, after learning they were both unfit for much of anything until after the first cup of coffee kicked in. That was a pleasant surprise. She’d had too many chirpy coworkers take offense that she didn’t bound out of bed with a beaming smile at sunrise. Abel hadn’t expected her to be firing on all cylinders, and she’d been just as accepting of his quiet.
She’d even found herself imagining other mornings spent in quiet as they slowly woke up. Her topping off their mugs, him frying eggs and periodically shoving his hair out of his eyes. A splash of cream in his, a touch of coffee in her cream and sugar. Both reaching for that last slice of bacon before huffing laughs and splitting the piece, only to insist the other take the slightly bigger portion.
Which was insane.
Wasn’t it?
“I snuck into the movie theater through a back hallway on several occasions in high school, but have zero guilt because the manager was a dick who only hired pretty blonde girls.” Dakota rolled her eyes and tacked on her earlier question. “Women can’t hold the spot?”
“It’s not impossible, but it’s rare. Their animals are usually on the smaller side, and challenge fights are brutal. But that’s not to say they’re not respected. Everyone in the pack has a role, be it the alpha or second, mothers, fathers, the poor bastards skilled at healing the worst of our wounds. Relying on strength of body is a shitty habit of shitty alphas.”
“You make it sound like it’s a job. Like you’re the CEO of Wolf, Incorporated or something.”
He snickered. “It’s a little more involved than that, but essentially, that’s what it is. A good alpha is in charge of his pack. He makes sure no stomach goes hungry, there’s a roof over every head, and goes to the mat if there’s any danger. Only, there’s no separate HR department, so all the squabbles get booted up to him, too.”
The clicking of the pump stole his attention, and he disappeared from the door.
“Now,” he said when he reappeared, “the most important question of all. Incorrect answers get left behind. What road snacks do you want?”
“Ooh, my fate coming down to candy choices. Not an ending I expected.” Dakota tapped a finger to her lips and made a show of considering her options. “I’m going to pick peanut butter cups and a cherry slushy.”
“Final option?”
“Out of turn question,” she shot back.
He backed away with his hands raised in mock surrender.
Giggling from the next pump over caught her ear, and she turned to see two teenage girls pressing hands to their foreheads and faking swoons. She couldn’t blame them. Striding across the parking lot, looking like he’d been poured into his jeans, Abel Blackthorne definitely turned heads.
As if he could feel multiple sets of eyes watching his every move, Abel glanced over his shoulder. The girls squealed and spun away, but he paid them no mind. He tossed her a smirk and added an exaggerated sway to his step before holding the door for another customer and stepping inside.
Dakota snorted. The man had an overabundance of confidence, but she had a hard time faulting him for it. He came equipped with a talent for peppering in jokes and sarcasm without overdoing it, and hadn’t once made her fee
l like an idiot for all her questions or a burden with her sprain.
She flexed her foot. Damn ankle still hurt, but the pain had faded a touch with time and painkillers. She could support almost all of her weight, though the thought of running made her stomach twist with preemptive agony. Not that she’d need to with a hot wolf shifter ready to tend to her every need.
Care and consideration were never far away with Abel. He hadn’t even questioned when she went to snap a picture of his license plate as a safety precaution. Instead, he’d knelt down and framed it with his hands like he was Vanna White proudly showing off letters in a game show.
Her phone buzzed. Dakota rolled her eyes as soon as she read Lucy’s message.
How’s the sexcation going?
It’s fine. We’re gassing up now. She paused, then quickly added, Also, not a sexcation.
That’s too bad. You could use one.
Dakota wrinkled her nose at the eggplants, peaches, and water drops that followed a second later. I’m just helping out a friend going through some stuff.
Everyone has baggage. His must be small enough to stuff into a handbag if you’re willing to drop everything for him.
Her fingers hovered over the keys, ready to type in a dismissal. But… she didn’t. What could she say? Any denial was instantly negated by the facts of her situation.
Fact: She had followed him. Her plans, barring healing time, would have taken her to the opposite side of the country to handle a task she really didn’t want to do. He had a very pressing score to settle. Avoiding one in favor of the other still meant she followed a strange man on his mission.
Fact: He claimed they were mates. Despite herself, every kind word, snorted laugh, and answered question chipped away at the wall around her heart. She could easily picture not-morning-people mornings followed by fun afternoons and busy evenings.
Fact: Maybe, just maybe, she wanted those little emojis and accusations of having a sexcation to turn into the real deal.
Which, again, was insane.
Wasn’t it?
The door cracked open and pulled her out of her thoughts.