I DRESSED AND LEFT THE SUITE WHILE ZACH WAS IN THE SHOWER. I HAD an ominous list of people to talk to, but it seemed to me that the first person who ought to know about my little problem should be the one who helped cause it.
This trip down the stairs should’ve been easy compared to yesterday’s, but my feet felt leaden and my heart felt worse. Dread pooled in my stomach. Although at least I knew Jack wouldn’t be angry.
He just might be the only wolf who wasn’t.
My steps dragged as I made my way through the quiet house and into the peace of the solarium, where he stood looking outside through the glass wall. I stopped a couple of feet behind him.
“Jack.” My voice came out hoarse with strain.
He turned, concern darkening the blue of his eyes. “Chandra?” He took in my stiff posture, the defensive way I’d wrapped my arms around myself, and came to me. His hands settled on my upper arms. “What’s wrong?”
So many things. I had no words, so I took one of his hands and placed it low on my abdomen. If he could read a concussion by touching my head and bruising on my cervix by touching my stomach, he could read what lay under his palm now.
He drew in a breath. His other hand moved to my waist and urged me closer. I took a half step forward and rested my head on his shoulder.
“I can’t say I’m sorry.” He slid the hand at my waist around to the small of my back to rub lightly back and forth. His hand over my belly cupped as if shielding and cradling the little spark of life.
I closed my eyes and felt my throat swell, thickening my words. “I don’t want you to be sorry.”
“What do you want?”
I took a long shuddering breath. “I don’t know. I can’t choose you. You aren’t my mate, and even if you were, you have a position in the pack nobody else can fill.”
“I might not be your mate, but I’m in this with you.” He rested his cheek against the top of my head, still mussed from sleep and sex. “I’m also your friend. What do you want?”
“I want it.” A whisper of sound, choked with the threat of tears. “I want to keep it, but I don’t know how that’s going to work.”
Jack let go of my abdomen in order to wrap his other arm around me. “I want it, too. We’ll work it out with Zach. I’ll help however you want me to.”
One bridge crossed,
I thought, and took a deep, calming breath. The remark from behind us made me blow it out in a rush.
“You look cozy.”
David. I attempted to stiffen my resolve, my knees, and my spine. I had to face him sooner or later. I’d just hoped for later. After I’d had time to wash Zach’s scent off my body, and preferably not while trying to figure out how to deal with a co-parent who wouldn’t be my husband.
“Yep. We’re cozy.” My tone came out more flippant than I’d intended and I winced.
My discomfort communicated itself to Jack. He ignored David and brought his hands up to frame my face, meeting my eyes with his steady gaze. “I mean it. I’m in this with you.”
“I know.” His caring, open response took the edge off my tension. I rose up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek in gratitude. “Thank you.”
Then I turned to David and almost staggered. Jack caught my elbow to steady me. Good thing. The sight of David hit me like a gut punch, driving the air out of my body. I wanted to drink him in with my eyes, as if he were water in the desert and I was dying of thirst.
It hadn’t gone away. So what else hadn’t changed since yesterday? I had to know, and I had to know before I said something irrevocable to Zach.
I stumbled toward him. He didn’t meet me halfway. He made me cover the full distance between us, and then he didn’t reach for me. I heard the soft sound of Jack’s exit behind me, leaving us alone together.
“David.” I licked dry lips and stared at him, overly aware of the too-rapid rise and fall of my chest and the racing of my heart. He didn’t smile. Just stared at me with his face shuttered and his eyes unreadable, his body language closing me out. The silence dragged on, growing increasingly awkward, but I couldn’t move away. I had to know.
“If you’re waiting for me to give you a kiss and a cuddle like Jack did, you might want to take a bath first. You reek of sex and the alpha.”
My face burned and I longed to slap him. Instead, I shot back, “That didn’t bother you yesterday.”
He didn’t blink. “Yesterday you were a bitch in heat. What’s your excuse today?”
Good question. I didn’t have one. I didn’t know how to proceed. I couldn’t detect any openings in his guard. If I’d left my bra off, maybe I could’ve opened my zipper, flashed bare breasts, and then taken advantage of his momentary distraction.
Probably just as well. He might not even have bothered to look. I could hear his cruel, cold voice in my imagination.
Thanks, but I’ve seen the show.
I licked my lips again. “You’re making this very difficult.”
“Really.” He stared me down. “Too fucking bad.”
“Yeah.” I nodded in agreement and resignation. “It really is.” Then I brought my knee up to his groin. He blocked me as easily as I’d expected him to, but since kneeing him wasn’t my goal, I didn’t mind. I moved into him, and where our bodies touched it felt like coming home. I froze, dumbfounded, staring at him with wide eyes.
David froze, too. Then he let out a snarl, caught my arms, turned me, and pinned my back to his chest with my trapped arms crossed in front of me. “You fucked him. Not half an hour ago you had your legs open for him. You fucked him, and now you come to me? Did you think I’d still want you? Did you think you could make me challenge him for you?”
“No.” A whisper, but David heard me.
David couldn’t possibly be my mate. He didn’t want me. He didn’t feel what I felt. But I felt it, and now even if Zach was willing to take me pregnant with another man’s baby, how could I pledge myself to him?
Even now, even with David’s anger and disgust driving daggers through my heart, if he kissed me, I’d be lost. A year from now, ten years from now, if he crooked his finger I’d go to him. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
I guessed that meant I could add pride to the list of things I’d lost yesterday. Humiliation scorched my skin and tears blurred my eyes.
“No,” I whispered again, lips trembling. Reaction set in, making me shiver. “I didn’t think you’d still want me.” Why would he? “Let me go.”
I needed to get out. I needed to escape, run, hide. Most of all, I needed David to never touch me again. Why was he still touching me? He made me burn like fire and left ashes in my mouth.
“Let go!” I fought, twisted, dug my thumb into a convenient nerve point, and broke free when David’s hold on me loosened. I was running before he recovered, and by the time I reached the woods I’d far outpaced any potential pursuit. I still found a creek to confuse my trail, splashed through it until my pants were sodden and my legs felt numb with cold, then returned to the sheltering trees.
Run to the woods; woods, won’t you hide me?
I laughed at myself and the high, sharp sound sobered me. I stopped, put my hand against a tree to brace myself, and leaned there, panting hard. So David hated me. So what? I had to stop this. Stop acting like a hysterical girl and be a grown-up.
Time to remember I was the monster.
Time to remember I had somebody besides myself to think of.
And then there was Zach. Zach, who would publicly accept me and probably be kind to me in private, too, because he wanted to do the right thing and because he was a decent man. A political marriage didn’t have to be one without a shred of common courtesy or warmth. We had an undeniable chemistry, and physical attraction had to count for something. My future could be what I was willing to make of it.
I straightened up and brushed the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand. Okay, then. I had a plan. Go home, go to Zach, spill my guts about everything, including my unplanned pregnancy and my fatal attraction to David.
I turned around and headed back the way I’d come.
I didn’t make it very far, because the panthers surrounded me, and this time my good friends, Rhonda, Wilson, and Miguel had some interesting company. They had a man with them who was old enough to be my father, whose black hair was shot with gray, and who looked at me with the coldest stare I’d ever seen.
He could give a furnace frostbite,
I thought, and resisted the urge to warm myself by rubbing my arms.
I knew with icy certainty who he had to be. Out loud I said, “Hello, Ray.”
He looked me over with cold calculation. “You know who I am. You must know what I want.” Then he asked me a question that made my flesh crawl. “Have you named a king yet?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
A humorless smile twisted his lips. “The bitch lies.”
“That’s Queen Bitch. Or Bitch Queen, I’ll answer to either.”
Rhonda made a choking sound that bore a suspicious resemblance to a laugh.
“Bitch Queen.” My father’s killer came to me and unzipped my shirt. I said a silent thanks for the impulse that had sent me searching for my sports bra this morning instead of going without. I didn’t dare slap his hands away. Not now, not if he just intended to embarrass me by exposing my breasts.
Of course, if he tried to rape me in front of a crowd of witnesses, all bets were off. I’d kill him as swiftly and brutally as I knew how.
He smiled wider as if he could read my thoughts on my face. “She thinks she can fight me.” He sounded like I’d given him something to look forward to. He walked around behind me, undid my bra, yanked it off. I stood still, waiting for his next move. “She thinks she can defy me.”
Ray caught me by the back of the hair and used the hold to force me down to my knees. He ran his other hand over my breasts in an obscene caress. “She thinks she’ll be able to refuse when I order her to name me.” His hand moved lower, fisted in the fabric of my pants, pulled down.
He worked the fabric down to my knees, put his knee at the small of my back, and dropped me onto all fours. “When I’m finished, you’ll say anything I want to make the pain stop.”
I tore free of his grip, flipped onto my back, grabbed his balls, and squeezed with a force I hadn’t possessed two days ago. He turned a lovely shade of puce and rained closed-fisted blows down on me, but I refused to let go. Instead, I squeezed harder.
“Were you planning to use this?” I asked him. “I think you should wait for it to grow a little.”
The panthers didn’t rush forward to help him, and I wondered if they considered this a sort of duel. Maybe they wouldn’t interfere. Of course, that didn’t mean they’d let me go after I killed him, but one problem at a time.
“I’ll kill you slowly for that,” he promised me.
I shook my head. “You’re saying your lines all wrong. Here’s mine: You killed my father. Prepare to die.”
The monster under my skin rushed up, grew fangs and powerful jaws that would serve as the weapons of my vengeance, and then the hot taste of blood was spilling in my mouth and Ray fell backward with a gaping hole where his throat used to be.
“Heal that,” I snarled, although it came out as a growl, since human speech was beyond me just now. I kicked away the remnants of my clothes and let the change take me. A heartbeat later I stood over Ray’s fallen body on four legs. The animal I’d become decided he might not be grievously wounded enough to stay down forever, so I tore open his belly and spilled his intestines into the dirt.
I threw back my head and howled my victory into the air. Then I ran like the wind while the rest of my enemies scrambled to shift and come after me.
IT OCCURRED TO ME AS I FLED THAT I WAS MAKING A BAD HABIT OF running blind through the trees. I really needed to get a map of the area and learn the landscape. I didn’t exactly have the home ground advantage right now, despite being on home ground.
I could hear sounds of pursuit and it sounded like the rush of a thousand paws. How many damn cats were there? I hadn’t exactly counted. But I didn’t need to count noses to know there were more of them than there were of us, by at least double our number. No wonder they’d been bold enough to come against us.
And there wouldn’t just be cats hot on my heels. Ray had left the pack, but he hadn’t gone alone. The other rogues would be coming to reclaim their home.
Damned if I’d let them have it. It was mine now.
“You can’t stay out of trouble.” That cheery voice again. I was making a habit of running into its owner, too.
I kept running. I didn’t want to put the brakes on and get a panther up my ass. He plucked me off my feet and dangled me in midair so he could look me in the eye. “You don’t listen, either. Didn’t I tell you to let the boys finish this?”
I growled. If I was going to be the queen, then the boys could damn well get used to letting a girl play.
“No need to take that tone with me.” The Leshii didn’t sound offended. The lord of the forest tucked me against his chest like a pet dog and strode toward the house. “You’ll get to have your fun.”
Yeah, like now, when every shape-shifter in the world overran us and trampled us into the forest floor. I looked over the Leshii’s shoulder and wondered why I suddenly heard nothing back there but silence. I looked at him, my eyes full of questions.
“Where’d they go? I sent them to cool off.” He smiled and it was positively gleeful. I made a bet with myself that the whole crew had suddenly found themselves someplace very uncomfortable. “You have some time before they regroup and come again. Use it well.”
I nodded to show I understood, which felt very strange in this form, and my wolf perplexity at the sensation amused the Leshii all over again. He was still laughing when he deposited me on my doorstep.
Then he sank into the grass to vanish from view, and I nosed open the dog door that let me into the solarium. My nails clicked over the moon tiles. The hair at the back of my neck ruffled when I caught the scent of my fight with David. I skirted around that spot and made my way into the main part of the house.
I listened, and caught voices coming from the library. My paws padded in that direction. Odd sounds punctuated the indistinct speech. I couldn’t identify the source of those noises, despite my new and improved hearing. Until I walked into the room and took in the sight of eleven lean, mean fighting machines packing enough heat to finish Armageddon.
They were loading weapons and Zach was yelling at David. Well, not yelling. That quiet angry voice was so much worse than yelling that I had to fight the urge to drop on my belly. “You let her go. You let her leave by herself.”
“I didn’t let her leave.” David bit out the words. “She fights dirty. She got free and bolted, and I lost her scent.”
“What were you fighting about in the first place?” Zach looked furious. A good look on him, honestly. Not that I expected David to appreciate that the way I did.
“Nothing.” David rammed another cartridge home.
I felt my stomach drop at the sound of that word. “Nothing.” The touch of my skin to his that said home to me was nothing to him. The rush of events hit me and I staggered. The fight with David. My idiotic flight. Ray’s obscene hands on me, worse than him hitting me. What damage had those fists done?
I gagged and searched the room with frantic eyes. Jack, where was Jack? Jack would touch me and tell me everything was all right.
I found him and lunged forward, and everybody froze except Jack, who knelt down and opened his arms for me to rush into. I buried my nose in his neck, making soft whining sounds, and then I collapsed. When I blinked my eyes open, I was lying naked in his lap.
“Jack.” I hardly recognized my own voice. I sounded like I’d been gargling gravel. “Tell me it’s all right.”
Jack rubbed my tummy and gave me a reassuring smile. “It’s all right.”
Relief turned my muscles limp. “Oh. Good. That’s good.”
“What’s good?” Zach appeared in my field of vision, his eyes searching mine.
“The baby isn’t hurt.”
Behind me, David dropped something that landed with a solid thunk.
Zach bent to lift me into his arms. “Is that what you and David fought about?” he asked.
“No.” I curled an arm around Zach’s neck. “Not directly, at least. David didn’t know until just now.”
“Okay.” Zach’s worried gaze searched mine. “You had blood on your muzzle. What’s happened?”
I started to shake with reaction. “Can’t talk about it now. Need a shower.” I burrowed into him. “Is it too late to take you up on that offer?”
“No. It’s not too late.” His arms tightened around me. “Are you hurt?”
I shook my head. “I’m okay.” I turned my head to look at David. I wanted to kick him in the balls right now, but he was our soldier and I’d vowed to be an adult. To put the pack ahead of personal feelings. “It’s a good thing you’re ready. The panthers are coming and they’ve teamed up with the rogue wolves.”
David didn’t blink. “They’re coming now?”
“No. The Leshii sent them away, but he said they’d be back.”
“We’ll be ready for them.” David looked like grim death as he spoke. Good. He could go fight the bad guys and leave me alone.
Shivers wracked me and I clutched at Zach. “Cold,” I muttered. “Shower, please. I want to be clean.” I wanted the touch of my father’s killer washed away.
“I’ll get you clean and warm,” Zach promised. He carried me all the way up the stairs to my suite and didn’t put me down until he set me in the shower. He stripped and climbed in with me, then pulled me into his arms so I could lean on him while the water streamed over us. He lathered as much of me as he could reach, then turned me so that my back rested against him while he washed my front.
His hands felt so good on me. So right. I put my hands over his and guided them to cup my breasts. “There,” I said, my voice just audible over the sound of the water. “He touched me there. I want you to touch me until I can’t feel any hands but yours.”
Zach went very still. “Chandra. Where else did he touch you? Were you raped?”
I shook my head. I reached out to turn off the water and said into the sudden silence, “I killed him.”
Zach turned me around to face him. “Who?”
“Ray. It was Ray.” I took a deep breath and went on, “I need to tell you everything, but I can’t do it standing up.”
Zach slid an arm around me, supported me as he helped me out of the shower and followed me. He wrapped a towel around me like a sarong and another around his waist. Then he led me to the bed.
“Here.” He stacked pillows against the headboard, then used them to support his back while I sat between his legs, supported by his chest. His arms wrapped around my waist. “Comfortable?”
I nodded. I put my hand on his arm and felt the warmth and strength in him. Touching him made me feel like everything would be all right. And maybe it would be. Honesty was a good place to start.
“I shouldn’t have had sex with you this morning,” I blurted out. “I knew I was pregnant last night, and I didn’t tell you. That was wrong. This morning I’d just woken up. I was distracted.” I left unsaid
by your body and the way you make me feel.
“I wasn’t thinking, but that’s no excuse.”
Zach gave me a gentle squeeze. “Is this why you snuck off afterward?”
“Yes.” I felt a light blush sting my cheeks, but “snuck off” pretty well described it. “It’s not yours. Jack’s the father. I told him first because I thought he deserved to know. David saw me with him in the solarium, and . . . I think he misunderstood what he saw.”
“So you fought.”
“Not exactly over that, but yes.” My fingers traced the line from his wrist to his elbow. “We’ll come back to David in a minute. About Jack, he isn’t my mate. He knows that, and he accepts that you are.”
There. More out in the open. Keep going.
“I want the baby, Zach. I didn’t plan it, I didn’t expect it, but it’s here and I’m keeping it. You should know that before you agree to take me as your mate.”
Zach leaned forward to slide an arm under my knees, lift me, and turn me sideways on his lap so he could look into my face. “Did you think I’d tell you to get rid of it? To choose between your child and me?”
“I didn’t know what to think, Zach.” I dropped my gaze to his shoulder. “I’m having another man’s baby. I’d understand if that changed things for you. If it did, I’d rather know before we make a formal announcement.”
And now things got harder. I steeled myself to go on. “You might be willing to take me just for the good of the pack, to present a strong, unified front to our enemies. I’d understand if that was your only reason, but you should know . . .”
Oh, God.
I couldn’t say it. My tongue stuck and my throat closed off my voice.
“Chandra?” Zach stroked my cheek, his touch so gentle I wanted to cry. “What should I know?”
Coward, coward. Say it.
“I love you.” The words burst out in an agonized rush. I took a deep, shuddering breath. “I feel good when I’m with you. Right. Safe. Warm. I want to be with you. The first time—” My voice choked and I had to swallow hard before I could go on. “The first time we had sex, I knew I’d belong to you forever. The knot let me go, but I knew I’d never be free.”
“Do you want to be free? You said you didn’t want a mate.”
I put my hand over his heart. “I want you. I want to be with you. I think if I couldn’t be, it would break something inside me.”
The way I felt broken from David’s harsh rejection. I didn’t know how I’d stand it if Zach rejected me, too, but if he was going to accept me as I was, he had to know it all. “There’s more.”
“More? No wonder you ran off,” Zach muttered. His hands moved on me, stroking, soothing. “You had all this bottled up.”
I let out a half laugh, half sob. “It’s been an intense couple of days.”
“You got dropped in at the deep end. You’ve handled it, too. You just reached your limit.” The admiration in Zach’s voice warmed me. “Tell me everything you need to. Get it off your chest.”
I curled into him. “This may be the thing that makes you kick me out of your bed,” I warned him.
“Would that matter? We’ve been sleeping in your bed.”
I shook my head, my throat tight. “Don’t joke. I killed a man today, but this is worse.”
“I doubt it.” Zach kissed my hair. “And I’m still waiting for you to tell me that story.”
I shuddered at the memory of blood in my mouth. Ray’s fallen body. The smell of death. “I’m getting there. I thought I’d deal with everything internal to the pack first, and then the outside problems. Not that Ray’s a problem anymore.”
“So what else is internal?” Zach rubbed my back, and I felt the tension in my body ease a degree. “Is this where you get back to the fight with David?”
“Yes.”
I was quiet for a while, trying to find the right words. And then they came, halting and awkward, but honest. “Yesterday, I told you I’d want David even if he hated me.” My fingers dug into Zach, clinging. Holding on to him helped steady me and gave me the strength to go on. “He does, and I do.”
Zach went still. “Want, how?”
I let out a shaky breath. “I look at him and I want to touch him. I touch him and it’s like being home. It didn’t go away. I thought it would go away after we gave in to it, burned out with the heat, but I saw him this morning and it hit me all over again. I touched him and there it was.”
“There what was?” Zach didn’t sound cool, exactly, just very controlled.
What, indeed. Obsession? Infatuation?
“He thinks I’m a whore.” I said the ugly word out loud, feeling so cold inside I thought I might never be warm again. “He’s right. I belong to you and I’m pregnant with another man’s baby, and it doesn’t matter. Any time, anywhere, if he touched me, I’d spread my legs and beg him to fuck me again, because I’m his whore.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until Zach brushed away the tears.
“Shhh.” He rocked me in his lap. “Shhh, it’s all right.”
“I couldn’t deal with that on top of everything else, so I ran,” I said. “I stopped because I realized I was being stupid. But it was too late. All the panthers surrounded me, and Ray was with them. He wanted to rape me, and I think he planned to beat me until I named him king. He didn’t get very detailed, but his plans apparently involved a lot of pain. He tore off my clothes and got me down on all fours. I turned over, grew fangs, and tore his throat out.”
I was shuddering and sobbing now. “He fell. I tore his stomach open, too, so he’d stay dead. And then I ran and the panthers all shifted and ran after me, until the forest lord showed up and sent them away. He said they’d be back, but we’d have some time.”
I huddled into Zach and clung to him like he was the only solid thing left in the world. I cried until I had no more tears left, just a dull, empty ache. “I thought I wanted to know who I was,” I said when I could speak again. “I wanted to know who my real parents were, because I thought that would tell me what I am. Well, now I know.”
Monster. Whore. Murderer. God, how could I be a mother, too?
“Shhh.” Zach shifted us, turning and stretching out so that we were lying down on our sides, facing each other. He held me in a tight embrace. “It’s all right.”
I shook my head. “It’s not all right. But we have other problems to deal with. I think the rogues teamed up with the panthers so they could overrun us. They want to take the pack back. They’ll try to make me name one of them king.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Okay. You worry.” My eyes drooped as exhaustion hit me.
“You’re tired.” Zach pulled the comforter over me and tucked it securely around me. “Rest.”