Chapter 36 Reckoning
Reckoning
As Cade carried me to the bed, he paused. “She hasn’t eaten. We just fucked our mate and she hasn’t eaten in like five days.”
“Your blood would have healed that,” Luca said, shrugging.
I scowled at Luca. “I am hungry, actually, but I also feel fantastic. So, I’m down for food or sex. Or the other way around. Or both at the same time. We haven’t tried that before.”
Cade laughed, and I reveled in the deep, throaty sound, before chiding myself. One apology and an orgasm didn’t make up for how he’d been the entire time I had known him. But if I was honest, it wouldn’t take much more.
“Food, then sex,” Cade decided.
Getting dressed took a while with two men trying to help me. I finally fussed at them and they let me go, allowing me to tug on a shirt and soft shorts. They’d be easy to shed later.
It felt strange leaving the bedroom with both of them. Surreal.
Luca held my hand down the stairs and Cade’s warm palm rested on the small of my back. I had a feeling they wouldn’t stop touching me for weeks, not that I minded.
The pack house was quiet.
They led me to the table, and Cade sat with me while Luca retrieved food. He returned holding a platter of food. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches stacked high, beside a pile of fruit. It looked like he dumped out the entire fruit bin from the fridge.
“I didn’t want to wait for Holt to make anything,” he admitted, grinning as he set the feast before me and reached for his waistband.
I went stiff. “Holt,” I repeated. Blurry memories rose up, and I fought against them. I didn’t want to relive a second of my time with Evrin. But there was something important that I needed to remember.
Twisting, I looked at Holt’s friendly face. His eyes were glued to me, and something about the tightness in his mouth seemed wrong.
Lana and Lux came around the curve of the hallway and stopped, both frowning at me as I glared at Holt.
“Summer?” Luca asked.
“Holt betrayed us to the vampires,” I said, my voice shaking.
The air in the room felt charged, dancing across my skin painfully. What if Cade didn’t believe me? It was my word against his.
Holt frowned. “What are you talking about?” His casual demeanor didn’t look guilty.
Cade stood, his expression cold. “Holt, can you explain?”
“Summer, why are you making up lies about me?” Holt asked, coming around the counter. My heart squeezed. I wish I could believe him, but I knew what Evrin had said.
“You were in love with Harper, and Evrin has her,” I said hoarsely. Rage flickered across Holt’s face, but it was quickly schooled.
Bristling, Cade stepped forward. “Holt, you’re going to come quietly. There’s no reason for violence.”
For a split second, the only movement was Holt’s eyes widening a fraction, and then he was off. His injured leg must have been a lie because he darted out of the kitchen toward the door before I could blink.
“I don’t think so,” Lana said, grabbing him by the neckline of his shirt and slamming him to the ground. Together, the twins made quick work of incapacitating him.
“Excuse me, I’ve got to take out the trash.” Luca grabbed rope and helped Lux tie Holt up. The twins hauled him up, but Luca strode back to the table, his eyes narrowed.
“I’ll be right back,” Luca said, pointing at Cade. “I swear if you stick your dick in her while I’m gone, I will make you regret it.”
I laughed dryly at Luca’s threat, as he stalked away. But my heart still raced, and I pressed a hand to my chest, trying to regulate my breathing. I was shaking from the stress. Cade wrapped his arms around me, and I fell into his chest, soaking up his sweet scent.
“Now I want to do it, just to see what he’ll come up with,” he murmured, chuckling.
“Thank you for believing me,” I said, choking on the tears threatening to fall. I’d done way too much crying recently, but it was unavoidable.
“I won’t doubt you again, ever,” Cade said, kissing the top of my head. “I mean it. I won’t make that mistake again. It almost cost me everything.”
His confession sent a fresh wave of tears dripping down my face. Cade wiped them away, swiping his thumb across my cheeks.
“Do they need your help with Holt?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Luca has it under control. We agreed one of us would stay with you at all times, at least for a while.”
It should feel smothering, and eventually it probably would, but relief coursed through me knowing they’d keep me safe. Evrin was dead, but that didn’t mean his mother and brothers wouldn’t want revenge.
“Sit, you still need to eat.”
His arm stayed tight around my shoulders even after we settled into chairs. I devoured two sandwiches and a small bushel of fruit, and Cade kept putting more onto my plate.
“That’s enough, I’m going to explode. You can’t stuff me this full of food and expect to stuff me full of dick later,” I grumbled.
Cade laughed that glorious rough sound, which was for sure my new favorite noise in the world. The ice around my heart melted a bit more.
“What I don’t understand,” I said, popping a grape in my mouth, “is what Harper’s problem was. It seemed really personal.”
“Honestly,” Cade said, his mouth thinning, “I think she wanted to be Alpha.”
“Why didn’t she start her own pack like you did?”
He leaned back in his seat. “She didn’t have the connections to get a territory or recruit members. So taking over this pack was the easiest way for her to get what she wanted. I should have realized. She started showing signs pretty quickly after we arrived.”
Taking another bite of fruit, I waited for him to continue. He scrubbed his hand down his face.
“I think originally, she was hoping to have a baby with me and try to become second-in-command, and then probably some accident would take me out. I’d been rejecting her, but your arrival really ruined any chance she had.
So I think she was hoping by taking you out, it might weaken me enough.
She already had Rae and now we know Holt too, so maybe she would have staged a full-on coup.
Honestly, it doesn’t make much sense, but I can see how she would get there. ”
“That’s awful,” I said, leaning into his touch. Cade lowered his head, placing a lingering kiss on my shoulder.
“It doesn’t matter now.”
Sighing, I allowed him to feed me a raspberry, and I made sure to flick my tongue over his fingers. His eyes darkened.
This sweet, kind Cade had me off-balance, but horny Cade I knew well. It felt like much safer territory.
“I think we should go see if we can make Luca mad,” he growled, his other hand sliding lower on my back.
“You’re terrible,” I said, trying to keep the smile out of my voice. His hand trailed lower, skimming my waistband and slipping under. “We’re eating, Cade.”
He arched an eyebrow.
Luca and the twins reemerged from the hall, talking quietly. I straightened, expecting Cade to remove his hand from my ass, but he stubbornly didn’t.
Luca plopped into the seat beside me, leaning forward with his arms crossed on the table. “What’d I miss?”
Lana and Lux grabbed plates of food and slid into seats on the other side of the table.
“Well, I don’t think he stuck his dick in her while we were gone,” Lana quipped.
Cade scowled, his eyes narrowing as he glared at her.
“Hey, we like her,” I said, bumping his chest with my shoulder. His hand squeezed my ass cheek, and I jumped.
“Yeah, Cade, what’s your problem?” Lana asked, smirking.
Brows furrowed, Cade studied me. Was he being standoffish with Lana because he thought she was mean to me? Well, she was, but then she wasn’t.
“She saved my life and she’s pretty cool,” I said quietly. Louder, I addressed the twins. “So are you guys going back home soon or going to stick around and help us kick these vampire’s asses?”
Lux pursed her lips. “Our father needs to return home, but we were thinking of joining your pack. You’ve got room for us after all.”
Grinning, Luca shifted in his seat, his arm going to the back of my chair. “That would be fantastic. We’d love to have you. Right, Cade?”
“People are going to start wondering who is in charge here,” he grumbled.
Smiling, I slid my hand onto his thigh, skimming upward until his abdomen tensed. “Don’t worry, we’re all family here. I promise we’ll be better behaved in front of everyone else.”
“Probably,” Luca said with his signature grin.
“Maybe,” I echoed, trailing my fingers on the outline of his dick in his pants.
“That’s it. Upstairs, now,” Cade growled.
From the matching smirk on Luca’s face, we had gotten exactly what we wanted.