20. Orion
CHAPTER 20
Orion
L ittle Fox: I miss you, big grumpy wolf. And I’m sorry. Please forgive me.
I stared at the text and sighed, running a hand over my face and back through my hair. Now that my temper had subsided, and I saw things more clearly, I missed her, too. But the fact that she’d kept it from me for so long still bruised my pride, and when I clicked my phone shut without answering her, I told myself it was because I had pack business to handle. I had to get through this meeting without being expelled, or worse. Her words echoed through my head again.
“I’ll never be good enough for you, will I? I’ll never be good enough for anyone. I’m not his mate. He doesn’t want me.”
That wasn’t true. I wanted her then, and I wanted her now, and I would always want her, no matter what she did. I’d reply as soon as it was over and tell her I forgave her. I’d ask for her forgiveness, too. This wasn’t the end, it was just a blip, a lover’s spat, one of the many more we’d have as a mated couple.
“Welcome home, brother,” Moose said, clapping me on the shoulder. As sergeant at arms and third in the pack, it was his responsibility to make sure all these fuckers stayed in line. Should the pack decide I deserved to be punished, it would be him who carried out the sentence. He’d been given the nickname because he was over six foot six with long floppy brown hair that he kept chin length. Aside from me and Kodiak, there was no one that could outman him or best him in a fight.
“Thank you,” I said, glancing at Lycan and Poe standing in the corner, talking to a few of the other pack mates. “How were things while I was gone?”
He shrugged. “The Scorpions are up to something. I can feel it.”
Yeah, and I knew what they were planning. They thought they’d have an alliance with the Vanderbilts. They thought they’d finally get a bigger piece of the action. They were sorely mistaken, especially since the little fox wouldn’t be marrying that fucking vampire piece of shit after all—I’d kill him first. Of course, I feared retaliation from the Scorpions. They wouldn’t take the slight lying down, so the sooner I got this done and brought her into the pack, the better.
I hovered my hand over my phone again, my wolf begging me to reach back out to her, to at least tell her I was sorry, too. My knee jerk reaction had done neither of us any good. Kodiak’s words shot through my mind like a bullet, over and over again. “If your wolf has accepted her, then you need to make your peace with it. Or the beast will go rabid without her. The damage is already done.”
My inner monster was already bucking at his cage, howling and whining at the separation. If we didn’t reconcile soon, he’d take over for me. He’d hunt her down and claim her in the worst way. Kodiak, unfortunately, had been right.
“They’re always up to something.” I took my seat at the council’s table and nodded as Serpent and Ruby, the pack’s enforcers, sat across from us. Vermillion, our tech guru and head of the cleanup crew, crossed his arms and narrowed his gaze at me while he sat next to Larentia, Lycan’s twin sister, before Lycan himself came to sit on the other side. When Talon, our treasurer, took her spot next to Moose, Kodiak banged his knuckles on the table to get everyone else’s attention.
“Council, pack members, brothers and sisters,” Kodiak said, glancing around as the rest of the pack quieted down to pay attention. “Thank you for joining us for this special session.”
We’d come down from the mountain shortly after reinforcements took over for us, and though my animal side wanted to make things right with Isolde and take her back up there, I had to face the pack for what I’d done.
The Vanderbilts were our enemies. They’d killed members of our family, and though Isolde had never done anything to harm us, I’d been told not to touch her. I didn’t listen.
“Some of you have perhaps felt the presence of a new pack member,” Kodiak explained, and I tried not to shift in my seat. I could handle anything they threw at me, even if it was the gauntlet or time spent in seclusion. “Our beloved VP and my second in command has finally found his mate.” Kodiak clapped, causing everyone else to join in with loud cheers and hoops of enjoyment.
“Where are they?” Ruby asked.
“When can we meet them?” Larentia added. “Did you bring them home from Fiver Cabin?”
Kodiak held his hands up, asking for quiet before he continued. “It’s Isolde Vanderbilt.”
That got everyone’s attention, and a hush fell over my fellow pack members. I sensed their apprehension through the bonds, the sickly sweet scent of fear, confusion, and anxiety permeating through the room.
“What?” Moose spat from next to me, raising his eyebrows as he turned in my direction.
“Explain,” Larentia continued, her eyes turning a dark shade of navy blue as her wolf prowled closer to the surface.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I said as I stood, glancing at my fellow officers before sweeping over the room. “She went into transition while we were there.”
“What was she doing at Fiver Cabin to begin with?” Ruby asked, crossing her arms. Like her brother, Kodiak, she had bright brown eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
I told them the story, making sure to reiterate that I (mostly) didn’t touch her until she went into transition, even after Lycan suspected that she might be latent. I explained everything, including her engagement to Marx and how she planned to end it.
“I smelled it on her nearly as soon as she arrived,” Lycan added. “You know I have an intuition about these things.”
“And she was engaged to Marx?” Ruby asked.
“Yeah, but I didn’t know it at the time,” I said. “She didn’t tell me until after the moon, and after that…” Shame coated my insides, but I wasn’t sure what for: that I’d mated her, that she’d been able to keep a secret from me for so long, that I’d pushed her away when she needed me. Maybe all of it. I adjusted my hips as the discomfort of that reality sat in my stomach like rotten acid.
“That complicates things,” Serpent said. “It’s not just the Vanderbilts. The Scorpions won’t take this lying down. If she backs out of the deal, Marx will come for her.”
“I’ll tear his fucking hands off if he touches her.” The words flew out of my mouth on a growl.
“There’s been a stalemate for twenty years,” Kodiak said. “This could end that and reignite the war.”
“Good,” Vermillion said. “I’ve been waiting to tear into some Scorpion throats.”
Some of the others clapped and hollered in agreement, but I coughed and ran a hand through my hair. Like Kodiak said, I didn’t want any more Bastard blood spilled.
“The Vanderbilts blame us for the death of Priscilla Vanderbilt,” Larentia said. “They believe she came on our territory twenty years ago and our previous alpha, Kerrick, tore her apart.”
“Did he?” Ruby asked, shifting her gaze to Kodiak.
“Of course not,” he answered. “If Priscilla Vanderbilt was a shifter, it’s news to me.”
“That’s…not entirely true,” one of our elders said. He’d gone by the name Polar when he’d been on the road, but now that he was well into his seventies, he only left pack territory when he had to and stayed on the sidelines when it came to fights. “She did come to us once, shortly before her disappearance. She claimed to be a shifter and needed help. I smelled it on her. But Kerrick wanted nothing to do with Vanderbilts, especially Uther’s wife. He turned her away, unwilling to escalate a war with him. We didn’t know if it was a trap or worse.”
Shocked, I widened my eyes, the crowd going as quiet as I felt. The Vanderbilt matriarch had been a shifter? How did we not know about this? How had it been kept quiet this long? Why didn’t one of the elders speak out sooner?
“What happened to her?” Kodiak asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
Polar shrugged. “I don’t know. But it was after the birth of her last child. It’s possible she ran off and never came back. Maybe she found another pack.”
I narrowed my gaze at the old man and took a deep breath, swearing that I would tell Isolde about this as soon as I could—as soon as I made up with her.
“Regardless of what happened to Priscilla,” I continued, “I must ask the pack’s forgiveness. Kodiak ordered me not to touch Isolde, and the closer I got to her, the more difficult that proved to be.” I cleared my throat and met the eyes of some of the fiercest motherfuckers I knew, some compassionate, others skeptical.
“He tried,” Poe added, giving me a sympathetic glance. “I know he tried.”
“And he kept us from doing anything scandalous, as much as I might have wanted to,” Lycan added, running his tongue over his canine when a low, threatening grumble erupted out of my chest. “What? She’s hot.”
“Watch your mouth, Lycan,” I snarled, “especially when you talk about my mate.”
“All right, enough,” Kodiak said. “The only thing that negates an order from the alpha is when a shifter’s mate is on the line, so I am inclined to forgive Orion. But that doesn’t stop the pack from holding it against him or demanding restitution.”
The entire room seemed to hold their breath.
“He might have single-handedly restarted the war with the Scorpions,” Ruby said. “If we lose pack because of this, it’ll be on his hands.”
My chest ached at the thought of that, true as it may be.
“The war was always going to restart,” Lycan said. “It was only going to take one spark to reignite the whole damn thing.”
“Still,” she argued, raising an eyebrow at me. “How forgiving can we be not understanding the fallout?”
I’d known Ruby as long as I’d known Kodiak, and she’d always been civil toward me. She’d gotten her road name because of how red her eyes were in her wolf form, even more crimson and bloodthirsty than Kodiak’s, but that moniker also referred to her tough outer shell. Like the jewel, she’d been formed under the pressure of her youth, molded and shaped by the violence of the war between our families. She didn’t let much get past her, which was why she held such a high seat on the council and why she’d been made the enforcer as soon as she transitioned.
“And where is this mate?” Larentia added. “Will she become part of the pack?”
I pursed my lips, debating the best way to tell them that I’d gotten pissed at her keeping her engagement from me, something I planned to rectify as soon as I could.
“He threw a temper tantrum and growled at her,” Lycan answered for me. “She growled back, but Kodiak sent her home. I’m guessing they haven’t kissed and made up yet.”
I bared a canine at him in a poor excuse for a retort, but he only shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“If she kept this secret from him,” Ruby continued, “what else is she hiding? Can we trust her?”
“Once lover boy seals the mating bond, he’ll know if she’s hiding anything else,” Moose said with a laugh.
“I doubt she is,” Lycan continued with a wink directed at me. “She seemed really torn up about it. She’s a good person, not like her scumbag father. She helped us at the Fiver. She wanted us to like her.”
“Yeah, so you didn’t kill her when you found out she was engaged to the bloodsuckers,” Ruby argued.
“No,” Poe cut in. “I was cautious at first, too. She has a good heart, and she stood up to Orion. Which…let’s face it, only Kodiak and those with a death wish can do that.”
A few snickers came from all around us; even Ruby had to smile at that one.
“I’m not on the council,” Poe said. “But you all were wary about me when I first wandered in off the streets. As a lone wolf from Baltimore, who could trust me? But you gave me a shot. I think we could do the same to Isolde.”
Moose sighed and shook his head. “If she managed to get the broodiest motherfucker I know to mate, I might be willing to let her into the pack. Even if she is a Vanderbilt.”
“It could be the start of a new era,” Serpent said, his hunter green eyes glancing at me. “What if we never had to worry about fighting the Vanderbilts again?”
“Uther is gone,” Vermillion said, crossing his arms. “Kerrick and his council are gone. No one is left from that time that even remembers why the feud started.”
“They took our land. They killed our family,” Kodiak added. “But this could be a way to heal old wounds.”
“It won’t be easy,” Talon said, tapping her fingers on the table in front of her, “but Orion and Isolde could be the pieces that put us back together.”
“I move to allow the mating,” Moose continued, clapping me on the shoulder. “Perform the ritual. Bring her into the pack. As for Orion’s indiscretion”— he cleared his throat and curled his lips into a lopsided grin—“I believe Lycan and Poe when they say Orion held out as long as he could. The girl went into transition and he helped her. Her fox belongs to his wolf. No one can resist the mating call. He acted the way a Bastard should, the way pack should.”
“It’s hard to resist a shifter going through transition, especially if you’re supposed to be the one that helps them,” Vermillion said. “Sometimes, that’s more fated than the mating call.”
His seemingly nervous stance made me wonder what the hell could make him take that position, especially because the quiet, stoic brother had gotten his road name because of the way his temper went from zero to explosive so quickly. He called it seeing red, but I reckoned his animal side lived really close to the surface.
“We’ve all been there,” Serpent said. “She was lucky to have you.”
“Especially since the alternative was this wily son of a bitch,” Talon said, nodding to Lycan.
“Hey!” He narrowed his gaze at our treasurer and gave her the finger. “Don’t talk about my mother like that.”
“Yeah,” Poe joined in. “Any shifter would be lucky to have Lycan help them through their transition.”
“I second Moose’s decision to forgive and forget,” Lycan continued even as his cheeks turned a bright shade of blush at Poe’s compliment. “I was there the whole time. He fought it as hard as he could.”
“Thank you,” I said, remembering when it had almost come to blows between us. He’d been so sure in his assessment of who and what she was, and now I understood that I’d dismissed it as a way to protect myself. If I had given in, if I’d chosen to believe him, I would have crossed a line much earlier than I did.
“Any disagree?” Kodiak asked, glancing around at the gathered pack members. I took a deep breath and waited for someone to speak up, but Ruby only pursed her lips and shook her head. Larentia gave me a noncommittal shrug and followed suit. If there were any others that believed I should be punished, they remained silent.
Kodiak nodded and glanced at me. “All forgiven, brother.”
“But we won’t forget,” Ruby said. “If she puts a toe out of line, if I catch even a whiff that she’s hiding something else, she’s gone.”
Which meant I’d have a hell of a time maintaining my position in the pack. I held Ruby’s glare with a threatening one of my own. If she came after my mate for any reason, she’d have to come through me first.
“Congratulations,” Kodiak continued. “Bring your girl around so the pack can check her out.”
I swallowed against my parched throat and nodded, grabbing my phone with trepidation boiling in my gut. Sure, I could do that, but first I had to make things right with her. I had to decide whether I could trust her, whether I believed her when she said she was sorry.
“Good luck with the pack princesses,” Moose cut in. “You might have a harder time with them.”
I shook my head and grimaced, knowing he had a point. The females were the most vicious part of any pack for a reason. They protected their own.
“It’ll be fine,” Larentia said, flashing me the same grin as her brother before giving me a big hug. “I’m just surprised someone would put up with your grumpy ass.”
“All right, that’s all I’ve got for tonight,” Kodiak said, banging his rings on the table to announce the end of the session. “Everyone, go have fun.”
It was late, but it wasn’t too late for me to have a drink with the rest of them, especially after they’d let me off so easily. But before I could walk out front, Kodiak called my name and nodded for me to stay put.
“I need to have a word,” he said. I hung back, and he waited until everyone else had left the space before raising an eyebrow at me and shaking his head. “You got off easy.”
“You’re not mated yet,” I said. “The call is irresistible.”
“That’s what they say.” He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck and grinned, and I worried for whatever shifter caught his eye. He wasn’t an easy man, even worse than me, and whoever attempted to mate with him would have their fucking work cut out for them. “Since the pack agreed to let it go, I’ll perform the ritual at the next new moon. Assuming you patch things up with her.”
“Fuck, I don’t think I’ll be able to stay away from her.” My heart thumped and dropped into my gut, anticipation coiling through me at the thought of mating Isolde for real, in every way that mattered to a shifter. “My wolf is already bucking against me.”
“I fucking told you that,” he said.
I sighed and rubbed at my tired eyes. It had been rough trying to sleep without her these last few days. “I didn’t want to mate her. I didn’t want to mate anyone.”
Kodiak snorted. “My father used to say you don’t get a choice. If we did, no one would do it. You saw what happened to Kerrick. Losing a mate is worse than death. Don’t let your pride ruin a good thing, Orion.”
“I’m grateful to the pack for understanding, but Kodiak—I’m sorry this happened.”
He narrowed his dark gaze at me and leaned in to grab my shoulder. “Don’t be, brother. This is a good thing. Having a strong mated pair at the top of the pack will keep the younger ones levelheaded. Kai’s got the scent of an alpha, and he’s on the verge of his transition.”
I nodded and eyed the younger pack member out front where he mingled with some of the pack princesses around his age, Kodiak’s daughter Henny included. She laughed and threw an arm over his shoulder, clinking her beer against his as he said something that made the others crack up.
“He’ll start showing signs soon,” Kodiak said, tilting his head to the side to crack his neck. “I’m happy you’re settling down. It’ll make the rest of us more stable.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Do you think you’ll ever find it? Do you think you’ll ever be able to love another?”
“Nah, man,” he said, seemingly remembering his wife, Kendra. “There’s no one else for me.”
“Yeah, but you all weren’t mated, not really.” They’d been married, sure, but his wolf had never accepted her as his true match, not in the way mine had with Isolde. There was a difference, some kind of preternatural connection that could only be formed by the bonds of magic. While he and Kendra had been happy enough, and they truly loved each other, it wasn’t nearly as intimate or as powerful as it could have been.
“That doesn’t matter,” he said, taking a deep breath. “If she had lived, we would have, and my wolf won’t accept anyone else.”
I winced, but didn’t argue with him.
Kodiak took a deep breath and patted me on the back. “Go on, Ry. Have a good night. We’ll deal with the rest in the morning.”
I stood, grabbed my phone from the table, and walked toward the front of the clubhouse, scrolling over her text as Kodiak’s advice rumbled around in my head.
“ Don’t let your pride ruin a good thing.”
Was that what I was doing? I had always had trouble letting people get close, and most of the time, I preferred my solitude to others. Sure, the pack was family, but I only needed so much time with them to hit my social battery limit. With Isolde, things were different. I’d gladly spend every waking moment with her if I could.
“ Put yourself in her shoes,” Kodiak had said. Up against three men she perceived to be enemies, could I really blame her? Why had I reacted so angrily in the first place?
You were scared, my wolf said.
Scared of what, I didn’t know. Losing her, perhaps. Loving her too much only to have the pack or the Scorpions rip her from me the same way my parents had been.
Aww, fuck.
Taking a deep breath and letting it out on a frustrated sigh, I responded to her message.
Me: Little Fox, I’m sorry, too. I miss you. I forgive you. Please forgive me. We have to talk. Call me when you can.