Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GARRETT
Aclap of thunder jerks me awake. It takes me a second to realize I’m in my own bed, safe from the WSSO, from anyone and anything that could harm me. After nearly a week away, and the stress of returning home with Angel, I want nothing more than to sleep.
Tomorrow, a short run for my wolf, then I’ll sit by the fire and…
I don’t know how to finish the thought. I trust that one day will melt into the next seamlessly, like always.
Now that I’ve reported in to Damien and gotten Angel settled, the pack will leave me alone until I’m needed for the next retrieval.
I hope that’s not for a week or two. The warmth of my bed makes the idea of getting up rather distasteful. I haven’t slept this soundly since… fuck, since that night in the cabin, with my body curled around Angel. She’d settled me, me and my wolf.
As my eyes close, a hand slides over my abdomen. I jump and pin the intruder to my bed.
Before my eyes adjust to the faint moonlight streaming through the windows, I scent the air. Sweet and familiar. Definitely female.
“What are you doing in my bed, Angel?”
My eyes adjust finally, and I find myself staring down at one beautiful female, dressed in a sweater and jeans, and definitely beneath my covers.
With my legs straddling her mid-section and my hands pinning her wrists above her head, she’s a vision, one I never expected here. Dreamed about, yes, but didn’t expect.
Her breathing picks up. Fast, short breaths make those lovely breasts move with a rhythm that goes straight to my cock.
“I was sleeping, until you woke me, Garrett. Is this how you prefer me? Pinned and vulnerable?”
Fuck. I release her immediately. “Pinned? Hell, yes. Vulnerable? Never.”
I hop off the bed and wrap the top blanket around my lower half before she sees how hard I am just thinking about her.
“What are you doing here? And how the fuck did you get in my bed without me noticing?”
“You noticed. Pulled me in against your side.”
I raise a brow, because I don’t know her to lie about anything. On the other hand, I would have noticed her getting into my cabin… my fucking bed… Unless my fucking wolf didn’t bother waking me. Sneaky bastard.
“Guess I was more tired than I thought.”
“That doesn’t explain you pulling me to curl up beside you,” she teases.
“It’s not always easy calming down after a mission.” I storm to my kitchen, pour a glass of water and down it. The cold won’t calm me, but it buys me time to think.
Mere hours have passed since I saw her, and yet it’s felt like days. And yet I can’t keep her.
“Let me get dressed,” I say when I return to foot of my bed. “I’ll walk you back to your cabin.”
“Or I can stay here.”
God, her smile and sass, not to mention that enticing scent of lilies mixed with feminine musk, tempts me to say yes. Despite the fact that she’s the most gorgeous female I’ve ever seen, her scent pulls me in so fucking easily. No doubt that’s why the WSSO targeted her.
“You’re going back. To the women’s cabin.”
“I can earn my keep. Cook, clean, do whatever you need. And I promise, hands off in bed. I’ll sleep in my clothes, like tonight.”
“You have no reason to be here.”
“And you know that how, precisely? Are you inside my head suddenly?”
I roll my eyes. “Fine, let’s start again. Why are you here, Angel?”
“Because I want to be.”
“I gathered that much.” My wolf’s hackles rise at the same time my hand clenches the glass. “Someone threatening you? Hassling you?”
She shakes her head. “They’ve all been fine. Perfectly distant. Detached. Fine.”
“It’s only been…” I glance at the clock on the nightstand. “… ten hours.”
“Oh, that assessment is from the first hour. You know, the one after you abandoned me with a bunch of shifters I don’t know.”
“Kiera said she’d get you settled and show you around. She’s nice. Reliable.”
“She did, despite her personal beef with you. I got the grand tour, clothes, a place to sleep, introductions. All very… complete.”
“I didn’t think she’d take out her hatred of me on you.”
“She didn’t. The point, Garrett, is that she is a stranger. They all are.”
“Give it time.”
“Doesn’t matter. They aren’t you.”
I scoff. “You have a crush on me because I rescued you. That too will fade with time, along with your insecurities about a pack you don’t yet know.”
She gets onto her knees and moves to the end of the bed until she’s level with me. “I’m not some na?ve teen. I’m twenty-nine. Not as old as you, perhaps, but old enough, to know how things work. To know myself.”
“Just how old do you think I am?”
“Ancient. Forty. Fifty.”
“Fifty?”
Soft hands glide over my pecs as she tangles her fingers in my chest hairs and playfully tugs a hair. “Silver.”
“I’m a silver wolf.”
“Your wolf had black fur with white highlights. No silver.”
“I’m thirty-five, smart ass.”
“Definitely ancient.”
I smack her ass, which despite giving me a thrill, makes me realize how she’s reeling me in like fish.
Fabulous scent of a young female aside, her playfulness, wit, and the seductive way she lifts those clear blue eyes with just the hint of a smile makes resisting her damn near impossible.
I can see how she lured shifters into that mountain pass.
That thought sickens me. Not because what she did, but because I would even for a moment consider that’s what she’s doing to me.
“Leave, Angel. While you can.”
“Meaning?”
Meaning I’d like nothing more than to strip her bare and pin her to my bed, where I’d take her hard and fast. Once I got this crazy need to claim her out of my system, I’d take her again, slow and gentle. Over and over.
She drags a hand down my bare chest, waking every part of me. “I didn’t come here to seduce you, if that’s what you’re thinking, Garrett. Though it wouldn’t take much to convince me to do just that. Sleeping next to you in that bed felt right. Natural. Like back in that cabin.”
I hold my ground, praying she doesn’t go lower. If she does, I’m not sure what I’ll do. “We shared body warmth, nothing more.”
“And it felt good, didn’t it? Damn good.”
I run my thumb over her lips. What I wouldn’t give to see them wrapped around my cock, taking me inch by inch, while those pure blue eyes watch me with nothing but innocence and desire.
The second her hand moves, I grab hold of her wrists and raise them where she can’t tempt me. “We are not a couple. Nor will we be.” I release her hands and step away from the bed.
“Couple?” Her laugh comes across forced, which confuses me. She confuses me. “Have you ever considered I might just want a friend?”
“Kiera will introduce you to anyone you want. And Tess seemed to like you.”
“You, Garrett. Even if there’s nothing more than friendship between us, I don’t want to lose you. Dumping me in the middle of that camp…” She shakes her head. “That was shitty of you. You don’t just walk out on a friend like that.”
“I killed the last friend I had.”
She doesn’t shake, doesn’t even blink. “Kiera had a lot to say about that, and about you.”
“I bet none of it good.”
“No, but that doesn’t mean I believe it either.”
“Believe it.”
“Why? Because you want to punish yourself? Sorry, this is one time I’m not taking your word.
I’ll get the facts, judge for myself. But I’m warning you now, Garrett.
I don’t care how damning your past is, how egregious your mistakes were.
I see the shifter you are now, and that’s all that matters to me. ”
I don’t blink, not with how she’s looking at me as if she can see through to my soul.
“You’d be better off—safer—keeping your distance. Listening to what Kiera said to you.”
Her eyes narrow. “Have you been spying on us?”
“No need. I know Kiera. She doesn’t mince words, and she definitely blames me for Marla’s death. She only agreed to show you around because she was in camp when we arrived. By now, the entire pack knows what you’ve been through—”
Her face scrunches. She’s finally connecting the pieces. “That entire display was more than you convincing your alpha that I needed help. You wanted everyone to think I mean nothing for you beyond being just another shifter you rescued.”
The corners of my mouth lift, but I don’t confirm or deny her theory.
“You sneaky bastard.”
“You’re just another shifter I rescued, Angel.”
She scoots back on the bed, putting distance between us finally. “You’re saying I mean nothing to you?”
“You mean as much as any other shifter here. I’m not a guard, but I’d still put my life on the line to protect you as I would anyone in this pack.”
She falls silent, which both hurts and makes me crazy wondering if I’ve finally convinced her to forget about me.
“So I’m nothing more than a job…”
“I can’t get involved with shifters I rescue.”
“Not even as a friend?”
“I don’t have friends. And there’s a reason for that.”
“What reason?”
“That’s the thing about not being friends… I don’t need to explain myself to you. We’re strangers to one another, Angel. And that’s how it’s going to stay. For both of our sakes.”
“Fuck you, Garrett.” She scurries off the bed and grabs a pillow, holding it up like a weapon, like she wants to hit something.
Probably me. “We spent too much time running from the WSSO to be strangers.” She starts scrutinizing my cabin in all its bare glory.
The stack of books on a shelf. A fully stocked kitchen so I don’t have to join the rest of the pack for meals in the cookhouse, the bed, fireplace, bathroom.
The barebones necessities I need to be comfortable.
Except a female. A partner to talk with. Someone to make the days less long, and the nights less… lonely.
“That’s why you’re out here, avoiding being with the rest of the pack,” she says, her voice getting higher, agitated. “Like Kiera, they all think you killed Marla, that you’re responsible because that’s what you think.”
“I am responsible. Which is exactly why you shouldn’t be here.”
“Even if you were responsible—”
“I am. No one’s disputing the facts.”
“…that’s not a reason to push me away.”
“Angel, you’re new here. There are hundreds of shifters in this pack who need to get to know you, to trust you, and you them. That’s not going to happen if you’re hanging out with me.”
She hugs the pillow to her. “Trust? They think I work for the WSSO. That I lured those shifters willingly.”
“No one thinks that. Damien and Hayden debriefed me while you were getting to know Tess.”
“That was a debriefing too, wasn’t it? Send in the woman my age, similar background, let her gauge if I’m telling the truth or pulling everyone into some grand deception.”
“No one thinks that. And Tess isn’t the type to assume the worst about a shifter, but I wasn’t there. Did it feel like you were being interrogated?”
“Not exactly.”
“Tess doesn’t get involved in ops, but she and Damien are mates. You have to assume anything you tell her will get back to Damien. That doesn’t mean she had a hidden agenda.”
Angel starts shaking. Something I said triggered my angel, which is making it harder to push her away. Fuck, all I want to do is wrap my arms around her and hold her. She’s not a stranger, not in the least.
“Look, Angel, I told Damien everything I know, from what I saw at that WSSO facility and what you told me. He believed me. He has no reason not to. He knows you’re an innocent, that anything you did while prisoner is on them, not you.
My standing with the pack won’t taint you, if you keep your distance from me. ”
“I’m not going to do any such thing. I know who you are, Garrett…”
“Black. The last name is the same as Damien’s. But you didn’t know that. Just shows you don’t know much about me.”
She pokes her finger in my chest. “Maybe I didn’t know your last name, but I know you. And you, Garrett Black, are a stubborn male, one who thinks he’s in charge.”
“Damien’s in charge.”
“I’m not talking about the alpha. Talking about us.”
“There is no us.”
His words, the neutrality of his voice, cut deep but he’ll dig in deeper if I let him see how he affects me. “And that just proves you don’t know me, shifter. I don’t give up.”
“You looked like you’d given up in that cage.”
She winces, but she stopped shaking, the moment she got riled up. My wolf’s sure protesting though. I finally figured out why, too. He likes her, more than he likes me.
But he doesn’t understand what’s happening here. The damn animal is thinking like an alpha trying to protect his female, which is exactly what I’m trying to do, but in a way that will give her the freedom she needs, not keep her locked up in my cabin, tucked away from the world.
“You think throwing my captivity in my face is going to change anything?”
She’s stubborn when she wants to be. Or maybe resilient is the word. All I know is she has some idea in her head about us which I need to destroy. Fast.
“Go back to the compound, Angel. Start a new life. In the women’s cabin or elsewhere, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s nowhere near me.”
“What if I choose here, with you?”
I laugh, hard and obnoxious, as I toss her over my shoulder and carry her outside the cabin. She’s not seeing the best side of me, which is precisely the point. I’ll drag her down, just like I did Marla.
“Put me down, Garrett!”
I drop her flat on her ass, harder than I intended, but she bolts to her feet.
“I can’t believe you just did that.”
“Do you want me to escort you back or not? It wouldn’t be the first time I helped a lost wolf back to camp, though usually they’re five or six years old.”
She reaches out to slap me, but I catch her hand. “You don’t want to be anywhere near me, Angel. I’m toxic.” I let go, then go inside and shut the door in her face.
Her words pierce the door. “I will start a new life, but I’ll do it on my terms where and with whom I want.”
That spit-fire determination of hers stirs me, as much as every other part of her, but there’s little choice here. I press my forehead against the door. “There’s nothing between us, Angel. Not now, not ever.”
I lean against the door for several minutes, listening, but she doesn’t reply. I don’t dare open the door for fear that one look at her and I’ll cave.
My wolf’s whimpers finally break the silence. He’s laying down, moping. I take his lead, and crawl beneath the covers, drawing in the last of my angel’s scent from the bed, where I tell myself this is best for my Angel… and she’s all that matters.