Chapter Eight
Parker
This has been one awkward moment after another with a few disasters thrown in to keep it spicy.
None of the women we've met or talked to have pricked Cross's interest. Every single one of them have been beautiful, intelligent, kind.
They aren't the problem and Cross's frustration with himself is already starting to weigh on us.
I hope the alpha run goes long. Cross is so wound up and there are only two things that help in this situation.
Neither of us have felt like fucking since we got here, so the only other option is a run.
Running on another pack's territory is tricky because we don't always know where we aren't allowed.
We'd need an escort and I doubt any of us would be comfortable in that situation.
Cross needs this run, his wolf needs it, and I hope he doesn't get back until this big ass bonfire is nothing more than cold ashes.
I've been wandering from group to group since I got here just talking and making connections.
We've been here for a few days and I haven't seen or smelled any sign of Eugenia, or Genie as everyone but Cross and I seem to call her.
Hopefully she's holed up in her cabin and so busy being courted that we won't see her the entire time we're here.
I don't know how it's going to work for her.
She can technically choose a beta as a mate.
It's happened before. But a pack won't follow a beta, even a strong one.
Eugenia is in the same rickety boat full of holes that Drew is.
Choose someone or be the reason the world ends.
The world might not end, but peace will.
Our two packs will bicker and fight and take offense until war breaks out between us, and then other packs will take sides.
Then the peace we have all lived in for generations will crumble around us.
And it will be because Cross rejected Eugenia because of me.
This is unbearable. The wait and anticipation of coming face to face with her is so heavy.
I still hope it's me that runs into her first. Cross would be blindsided.
He has no idea what to look for, and if he doesn't catch her scent before she's right in front of him, who knows how he'll react.
I can just imagine it. He could actually come onto her without realizing who she is.
It's unlikely, but not outside the realm of horrible possibilities.
The embarrassment he would endure would never dissipate if he tried to proposition the very female he rejected.
We really would have to leave. He'd never be able to show his face in any of the territories here again.
A group of people comes laughing into the firelight and I know she's with that group without seeing or smelling her.
I can feel her presence like a splinter.
A fiberglass splinter. They descend upon the fire and immediately start pulling out bags of marshmallows and bottles of whiskey.
My nose twitches and my lip draws up in a snarl.
Eugenia isn't even old enough to drink. At least I don't think she is.
She was seventeen. Seventeen... eighteen.
.. nineteen... twenty... twenty-one. No, she's old enough, but she shouldn't be drinking in a situation like this.
She's an un-mated, un-marked female heir.
She needs to be more respectful of … Well, she needs to be more responsible.
Just because she's technically old enough to do something doesn't mean she should be out here doing it.
Goddess, I can't believe I'm going to do what I'm about to do.
Eugenia Barrett is none of my business and Cross's rejection should make her none of my concern.
But he's the very reason I have to do it.
Anything could happen to her sober, but worse could and probably will happen to her if she's intoxicated.
She's the only female in that group, for fuck sake.
I pop my neck and start moving.
By the time I get to the group of males she's surrounded herself with, silence has fallen across the clearing. The very air seems electrified in the very worst way. One spark is all it would take for chaos to break out, and I'm about to brandish a blowtorch.
“What do you want, Merrit?” one of the males sneers.
I look around him and between the two males behind him to glare at Eugenia. “Come on. I'll escort you back to your family.”
She snorts.
“I'm serious,” I say flatly. “You shouldn't be in the position you're in. It's inappropriate and unacceptable.”
Her eyes narrow for a moment and then she laughs. It's more than a laugh. It's a cackle.
“Fuck off, Merrit,” a brave beta says. “You shouldn't even be here.”
“Eugenia,” I persist, stretching out a hand. “Let me take you back before something happens to you.”
“Leave me alone,” she says coldly. “Nothing will happen to me.”
My eyes move around the group from male to male, holding each gaze just long enough to get an idea of what their intentions might be. I might not want her anywhere near Cross, but I don't want anything a few of these guys have in mind to happen to her even more. I'm a dick, but not an ass.
“Does your father know you're the only female running with this group? Does he know you're unattended?”
“He knows exactly where she is,” another one says. I don't know who he is or what pack he's affiliated with, but the possessive way his hand snakes around Eugenia's waist tightens my throat with a low growl.
“I doubt that.” I stare into her eyes when I say it. She has to know the position she's put herself in.
She meets my gaze with a hard one of her own. She squares her shoulders, raising her chin. Then she leans into the male's body.
He smirks, and true irritation begins to pull at me.
“It's really none of your business what happens to her, is it?” the male says cooly.
“We all know what happened. Your boyfriend made sure of that.
Fuck off, Merrit. Nobody wants you here, and nobody wants Cross here.
If he does manage to find a female who will lower her standards enough to take him, we will all still know what he did.
He didn't deserve Genie in the first place. She needs a real man, a real alpha.”
I roll my eyes. “Like you?”
“Like any of us,” he says with a sloppy grin. “Or all of us. Now there's an idea.” He winks down at Eugenia. She blushes, then realization hits her and the color drains from her face. I watch her scent the air around her, searching for danger.
There it is.
The first sign of anxiety widens her eyes and she blinks quickly.
There are six of them. Six other males. At least one is an alpha. I am one singular Second to a pack on the outs.
My shoulders rise and fall with a sigh, and I reach a hand toward her again. Palm up. “Come on, Eugenia. I'll take you home.”
Her eyes flick around to the suddenly quiet males surrounding her.
I wave my fingers, beckoning her. “I'll get you back. I promise.”
She bites into her bottom lip and starts pulling away from the other male.
“You're not going anywhere,” he growls, nodding at a couple of the others. “We're going to have a nice night by the fire.”
“I need you to think very hard about this, you dumb shit. There are lots of other people here. Every one of them knows what happened four years ago. They all know who she is, and they all know who I am. But they are all watching you keep her from coming with me to safety. Think about that very hard.”
He glares at me, snarling, for a full minute before he reluctantly pulls his arm away from her. “Right. She can go whenever she wants. I don't know if her place will still be waiting for her when she decides to come running back, but she's free to make her own choice.”
I beckon her again. “Eugenia.”
She's going to gnaw her lip off.
Eugenia steps lightly through the males who refuse to move even an inch to give her space.
She slips her hand in mine and I pull her away from the group of glowering males.
I walk straight through the most crowded part of the bonfire circle, making sure everyone sees me leading her in the direction of her family's cabin.
She doesn't say anything until we're half way there, and I wish she'd kept her mouth shut.
“Why did he do it?”
Purposefully misunderstanding, I give a response in regard to the dick head alpha from the bonfire. “Because he's a territorial, horny asshole and you're fresh and free meat.”
“Not him,” she corrects. “Drew.”
I fucking hate the sound of his name in her mouth.
“Come on,” I say, tugging her down the path.
She plants her feet and jerks her hand away from me. “Why did he do it?”
I turn to face her. “You know why.”
Her lips tighten. “We could have – “
“We could have what?” I counter belligerently. “We could have what, Genie? Cross didn't want the life that he’d live with you.”
Not that he particularly likes the one he's currently living.
“And he wants the one he's got?” she spits, basically reading my mind. “I saw him today. He's not happy. Why isn't he happy?”
“Did he see you?”
She looks at the ground. “No.”
“Why do you care if he’s happy? He rejected you. Let it go. Move on.”
“Is he moving on?”
I rake my hands through my hair. “He's trying to.”
She smiles sadly. “No, he isn't. No female will take him. And no decent male will want me.”
I give her a cold smile. “Well, that's simply not true.
Females are in high demand anyway, but you?
You're an heir. Males of every designation are going to crawl all over themselves to eat out of the palm of your hand.
You'll have the best,” I look over my shoulder back toward the direction of the bonfire, “and the worst of all of them.
You just have to make the right choice. Cross's choices are significantly limited.”
“They don't have to be,” she says so softly that it might as well be a whisper.
“Stay away from him, Eugenia. You’ll just make it worse.
He doesn't want you.” The jealous lie is sour on my tongue.
He wants her every single time she goes into heat.
He needs her. But his heart isn't in it.
Cross shouldn't be doomed to live with a broken heart because his fate insists on claiming her.
Her eyes harden, and she straightens. “He made that abundantly clear.”
“He did.”
“I hope he's miserable,” she says, taking a step away from me. “I hope he's miserable and I hope he makes you miserable. You deserve each other.”
She can say whatever she wants as long as she turns her ass around and walks the rest of the way up the hill to her family's cabin. She doesn't need to know that we're both already miserable. She just needs to stay away.
I watch her until she's inside the cabin.
I promised I would get her back to her family safely, and I keep my promises.
I don't want to tell Cross about this. I don't want to tell him that I basically rejected her a second time on his behalf.
I don't want to watch him torture himself with the miserable knowledge that Eugenia would probably take him back if he sought after her.
I can't watch him wrestle with that again.
I should give him up. I should walk away and remove myself from his equation. He deserves better than this. Hell, she deserves better than this. If it wasn't for me, they'd both be better off.
That's what I'm going to do.
I've decided.
I'll tell him what happened at the fire tonight, and about the conversation I just had with Eugenia, and then I'm leaving him.
He will claim her as his Luna. He'll take another Second.
Everything will be alright again. A chance of a future is better than the destruction my presence will lead us down.