“Belle’s in labor,” Sierra murmured.
Maverick hopped over the paddock fence, both of them rushing into the bed of the pickup truck. At least on his part, he was grateful for the distraction, because without it, he might have been forced to admit that she was right. He was protecting himself and his pack.
He’d never have anything more than that.
* * *
Sierra hadn’t anticipated the terrified look on her brother’s face. Not concern but total and complete terror. Colt had seen some of the pack’s most malicious battles, but still he was as white as a damn sheet, his eyes flitting about like a scared, kicked pup at the possibility that he could lose his mate. She gripped his hand in reassurance, but he stared at her, his expression blank as if he couldn’t even think straight.
“Austin’s in with her now,” he muttered. His eyes were wide like he was looking at her without really seeing.
Until Maverick approached.
“Packmaster,” Colt breathed. Not Mav or even Maverick, as she’d heard her brother call him thousands of times before when they were in an unofficial capacity. Not even brother.
Packmaster.
That single word held so much weight that she struggled to comprehend it.
Maverick mounted the porch steps to Belle and Colt’s cabin, standing before her brother as he gripped Colt by the shoulders. His eyes flashed to his wolf, steady and reassuring. “She’ll be fine, brother. She’s strong and a helluva fighter, enough that she’s willing to put up with the likes of you.”
Sierra released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. In the wake of her anger at him, over the way he continued to push her away, she hadn’t anticipated this would be the moment she understood exactly what he was talking about all along. As he gripped her brother’s shoulders, steadying his commander and friend with that reassuring gaze of his, she finally saw it.
All the responsibility that’d been pressed down upon Maverick since the moment of his birth.
His mere presence as their packmaster, their ultimate protector, brought back a hint of color to her brother’s panic-stricken expression, giving him strength and fortifying him for the hours to come. And hours it was.
The whole of the pack waited for word.
It wasn’t until Colt poked his head out from their cabin again and smiled at her and Maverick with a relaxed grin filled with the knowledge that his mate and young were fine that the whole of the pack started to howl again. Maverick threw back his head first. She was quick to follow. All the Grey Wolves joined in as the pastures and mountains sang with their collective celebrations.
Colt beckoned them inside. It was customary for the packmaster and, on this occasion, his wife—the babies’ aunt—to be the first among them to greet the newest members of the pack. Belle lay on top of some freshly changed sheets, two babies in wooden bassinets beside the bed and one cradled in her arms nursing.
Sierra rushed to her side, clasping her hands over her mouth as tears filled her ears. “Oh, Belle, they’re just beautiful.” She stared down at the small babies in their swaddles. “Can I pick one up?” Sierra asked, addressing the gorgeous she-wolf before her.
“Of course.” Belle smiled, her eyes tired but happy, as Sierra bent down and cradled one of the warm newborns against her chest. She lifted it to her cheek, marking her scent across its skin and inhaling the scent of him.
This one was a boy, but there were also two little girls.
When she’d had her fill of snuggling the one, she flicked her gaze toward Maverick. Knowing what she knew now, this moment would be harder on him than it appeared to most. But to her surprise, there was no remorse or sadness in his face, only pride and a hint of joy for his friends as he promptly pulled Colt into a tight brotherly hug. Colt’s eyes went wide in surprise over Maverick’s shoulder.
Sierra wasn’t certain Maverick had hugged Colt in years.
Once Maverick released Colt, after a few grumbled congratulations muttered under his breath, Maverick turned toward her.
“Would you like to hold this sweet boy?” Sierra asked, extending the swaddled newborn toward him.
Maverick didn’t even hesitate. He cradled the baby in his arms, bringing the swaddled babe to the coarse hair of his cheek and marking the little one as he cooed several soothing words in the Old Tongue.
Sierra shook her head. Monster of Montana…right.
She’d never seen him so at ease, so excited.
One by one, he held each of Belle and Colt’s young, whispering to them and marking them with his scent, the scent of the pack, with soft, snuggling strokes that forced a lump to form in the base of her throat. The fact that he’d been robbed of such an opportunity for himself caused her chest to ache.
If it’s children you want, I can give them to you. It wouldn’t be a problem.
His words from that first night barreled through her. What had it cost him to make such an offer to her when he’d lost so much? Only for her to accuse him of doing it for his own selfish reasons. Yes, he’d been trying to protect himself, but she realized that she couldn’t even begin to understand the scope of his grief.
But she could try. She could love him, empathize.
Her part was the easy one.
She could try to understand, even if she didn’t like the way he still met her gaze with that sad, pained look in his eyes.
It was sometime later when she found him standing on Belle and Colt’s now-empty cabin porch as she finished saying her last goodbyes for the night. Her brother and his mate deserved some rest and time alone with the littlest members of their family.
She leaned next to Maverick on the edge of the porch frame, staring out at the sun setting over the mountains in the distance. Most of the ranch had already gone dark, the last rays of the sun’s winter light casting blue, green, and purple hues across the distant edge of the sweeping landscape. She nodded toward the star-coated darkness. “Walk with me?”
He grunted in agreement, which only served to make her smile considering she’d just watched him spend a prolonged time snuggling a small trio of sleepy newborn babies, yet still on the exterior, he was that same stern, grumbling grump of a man.
They walked for a fair distance, headed in the direction of her cabin in companionable silence, before finally to her surprise, he was the one who spoke.
“I didn’t react well when I found out she was pregnant.”
She didn’t need to ask to know that he didn’t mean Belle.
“When we’re surprised, sometimes we say things we don’t mean and—”
He stopped walking. “No,” he said, cutting her off. “That’s the problem. I meant it.”
She slowed her pace, coming to a stop beside him. They were only a few yards from her cabin now, her porch and the painted green swing on its hinges within sight, thanks to her wolf eyes. Tentatively, she gripped him by the arm and led him toward it, sitting down beside him and cradling her head against his chest.
“I know you regret it,” she said.
A low grunt. Short. Pained.
They were silent for a long time, listening to the sounds of the window and an occasional hoot from an owl in the forest. The quiet swish of a hare passing through the underbrush.
“Rose knew I wasn’t in love with her. At least, not in that way. Not at first. I did come to care for her over time, but I was up-front with her. We both knew that our marriage was arranged, but we agreed that for the sake of the pack, we’d try to find a small bit of happiness together.”
She nodded, watching the way the warmth of his breath swirled in front of his face as he spoke. She was grateful he’d had that, at a time when she’d been so caught up in her own hurt that she’d abandoned him and turned away from their friendship—at a point when he likely needed her.
“We were never ecstatic about one another, but w
e fell into a sort of comfortable companionship. I thought that was enough for her. It seemed as if it was. We’d never discussed children. As far as I knew, she’d been taking precautions against it, carefully timing her cycles throughout the month and the shifts of the moon.”
For females of their kind, that was the only way. Human birth control wasn’t exactly effective on them, considering their bodies metabolized it within only a few hours. But the fact that pups were rare blessings, more common among mated pairs, kept most unwanted pregnancies at bay.
“I’d just returned home from a long night against the Wild Eight. It was when Wes was still their packmaster, and as you know, prior to my now brother-in-law, Wes was one of my most formidable enemies to date.”
She nodded, rubbing a hand against his chest in encouragement.
“When she sprang the news on me, I didn’t know what to say. I knew we’d have to have children eventually to produce an heir, but I hadn’t expected for it to happen then. When she told me, all I could think, all I could feel was anger. Anger at the fact that it was never Rose I’d wanted to have a family with.” He turned toward her. “All I could think about was you, how it was supposed to have been you I called my mate.”
Sierra couldn’t have fought the tears that began to fall from her eyes even if she tried. “Maverick—”
“No.” He shook his head. “Let me finish, and damn it, don’t you dare apologize to me, warrior. Let me say my piece,” he growled.
She didn’t push him further.
“I said things, hurtful things, about how I’d never wanted her or the babe. Things that later, once I’d had time to process, I didn’t mean, though I’d meant them in that moment. I may not have loved her as I love you, but I cared for her all the same, and I did love the child we’d created together. But in that moment, all I could think about was how a child made it all so much more permanent, how after the baby’s birth, things would never be the same, because even if Rose and I ended, I couldn’t have ever been with you. Not in the way I envisioned.
“I left Wolf Pack Run then, against my better judgment. But my head was clouded. It took days for me to cool down. Since we hadn’t been trying to conceive, I foolishly felt betrayed, manipulated. But that wasn’t the case. In her own way, Rose was just trying to create a small bit of happiness in the otherwise dark space that was our marriage, and I’d spit on it. So when she called me a monster, she was right. I deserved it. I deserved every one of the hurtful words she had to throw at me, because I’d done the same. I’d cast the first stone.
“I meant to apologize. When I returned to Wolf Pack Run, I spent a whole week putting together that nursery for her—for the baby—to apologize. I’d been reluctant before, but I wanted to show her that I was beside her now, that I’d be willing to let go of everything I thought my life should have been and embrace the little bit of happiness I could make out of my real circumstances. But I didn’t get the chance before the vampires came.”
Sierra rubbed a gentle hand over his chest. She’d been home that night. On leave from the MAC-V-Alpha for a few days when the alarm bells had rung.
“You have no idea the guilt I harbored after her death for ever wishing to be free of her. She hadn’t asked to give up her life for the pack any more than I had, but now she and the baby were gone. They’d been targets because of me, because of who I am, and I realized my true mistake. It wasn’t in thinking I could be happy with Rose. It was in thinking I could ever find happiness in the first place. That’s not who I am. The pack comes first in all things, which makes me a terrible mate and a beastly monster of a man to boot, and if Rose’s death taught me anything, it’s that a packmaster is best off alone, when he doesn’t open himself to the weakness that comes with loving someone.”
Love wasn’t a weakness. It was a strength. She wanted him to see that, but until he found that answer on his own, they’d be empty words. She rested her head on him again, leaning into his hard, masculine weight on the opposite side of the bench. They stayed like this for a long time, her giving him the space to breathe, to feel and remember, until finally she cleared her throat. “Do you know why I wanted to become a warrior?”
The question seemed to catch him off guard. He stroked a hand over her hair, gentle and relaxed. This time, the grunt was longer. A sign of encouragement. She understood it as clearly as if he’d said, Go on.
“I’d wanted to be one from the time I was a girl, mainly because my father had forbidden me from it, but by the time I realized that was the sole reason, I’d already spent so many years telling everyone that’s what I was doing that it seemed too late to change course.”
“Too late?” He chuckled. “You couldn’t have been more than a teen.”
She shrugged. “In any case, I did eventually find a different reason, around the time that my mother passed. It sounds crazy but at first after she died, I was…angry with her. For moving from our hiding place, for risking herself for me, for not fighting harder, being better prepared, you name it.” She shook her head. “But there was a moment when I finally realized I was just hurt that she’d left me behind, that she’d died and I was still here. And then I started to admire her. The courage and bravery it would have taken to try and protect me like that, even though she had to have known that she barely stood a chance. I promised myself then that I’d always try to be brave and courageous like she was.”
She lifted her head, positioning herself beside him as she wrapped her arms around his neck and tugged him into an embrace. “And then there was you.”
Me? his lifted brow seemed to say. She nearly laughed at how thoroughly she was coming to understand those quiet, grumbling expressions of his.
“You were so powerful, so brave and fearless that I felt like if I stayed that vulnerable, that weak, I’d…I’d never be worthy of you.” She inhaled a deep breath. “Everything I am, everything I’ve become is in part because of you, because I’ve been fighting to not be that weak, cowering girl anymore, fighting for you to see me. I love you, Maverick Grey, and I have since I was a girl, and no silly promise about no love or attachments is going to change that.” She pulled him closer, resting her forehead against his as he’d done when they’d been in his office. “Please say something,” she whispered.
Gently, he cupped the side of her face, bringing her lips toward his. “You don’t have to fight anymore, warrior. I see you. I see every part of you.” He kissed her then, a kiss that let all his quiet actions speak louder than the words he still couldn’t bring himself to say. Their tongues mingled and danced, both of them drawing closer. It didn’t matter how long he held her. It would never be close enough.
And then he made love to her. They spent the whole of the night together there on that bench, exploring each other’s bodies, the heat of their wolves warming them from inside out despite the cold winter winds. They didn’t say anything to each other through those quiet hours, because somehow, she realized, they didn’t have to. They understood each other perfectly.
In a way that only friends who’d also once been enemies could. They knew all of each other’s flaws, fears, doubts. It was all laid out between them.
When the last remnants of night faded into morning, it wasn’t until she heard Elvis crowing from his heated cage on her back porch that she realized their time was about to come to an end. She stirred in his lap, waking from what had been a comfortable half sleep as they had lain together on the swinging bench, thoroughly sated.
“Packmaster!” His title was shouted again off in the distance.
He let out a soft groan as he pulled the blanket he’d retrieved from inside over her.
“I’m starting to realize why your long days extend into long weeks.” She’d learned as much during their tour and in the following days. “You never seem to be able to catch a break.”
“Duty always seems to call at a time that’s…” His voice trailed off as he buried
his face in the crook of her neck, kissing his way up the length of her skin. She moaned and he let out a rumbling purr in response. “Inconvenient,” he finished.
“Packmaster!” The shout came again. This time, closer.
“Go,” she said, urging him off her, though she instantly regretted it. “I’ll be fine.”
He nodded before he turned and shifted into his wolf, lifting his pile of clothes from the ground with his teeth and dragging the garments along with him as he ran off to meet Blaze’s shouts in the distance.
She knew for certain he wouldn’t be returning anytime soon.
With a level of resolve she didn’t realize she had in her, she’d accepted it. Maverick Grey was his own man, and he was never going to be fully hers. She couldn’t heal him. She couldn’t make him realize he was better off with her by his side than he was alone, because he was all the things she’d accused him of and more.
He was the Monster of Montana. Her packmaster. Her friend. Her husband. A grief-stricken widower.
All of it.
And she couldn’t ask him to change, flaws and all.
Not if she truly loved him.
And she did. She loved him with every ounce of her being.
Which meant she had a choice to make.
He’d already made his, and as much as it hurt, she refused to be second any longer. She couldn’t make him call her a true mate. She couldn’t make him defy the council. No more than she could make him love her, though she had more than a passing suspicion he did, even though he’d hesitated to say it.
No, the choice she had to make was how she would handle his decision.
Pining away at the side of a man who refused to have her?
Or claiming her life as her own?
It was the only choice that was left to make.
Fortifying herself, Sierra inhaled a deep breath, entering her cabin to dress before she trekked out to the pack’s nearest truck. The key got jammed in the ignition, and from the frost they’d been getting, it took her a couple tries to get the engine to turn over, but it finally did.
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