Chapter 8 #2
“Yes. No. No, I was not married. I was engaged. No, he wasn’t a cop when I knew him. And no, the fuck it’s not. Now if you don’t have anything else to growl at me about, kindly get the fuck out.”
That was exactly the wrong thing to say, because Monster’s wolf flashed in his eyes. Carys flinched back.
In a softer voice than she expected, Monster asked, “Why did you go home with me? Surely, I wasn’t the ideal mark to set up my club. Was I just the only one desperate enough to—”
Carys refused to let him finish that statement. But looking at the fire dancing in his eyes, she understood slapping him was the wrong way to shut him up.
His arm shot out before she could step back, and he had her throat cradled in his gentle grasp. It was loose and not at all like he’d held her there earlier.
“That wasn’t wise, Pixie. Ulf is bashing against my insides, begging to come out.”
He licked her cheek. It seemed an odd thing to do, but he looked calmer, so she wouldn’t question it.
“My club is family. You betrayed my family, so what should I do with you?”
“Listen,” she gasped.
“What could you possibly say to change things? I heard it with my own ears, Pixie. Your father said you slept with me for information on my club. Once we realized it was Samual, the why was clear. He’s had a hard-on for Kansas for years, but why would you help him? He clearly didn’t care for you.”
“Are you actually going to listen or just lob more accusations as I try to answer?”
Monster’s nostrils flared and his eyes flashed. She reached up and laid a hand on his cheek.
While the hand at her throat didn’t have the same appeal as when he was plowing into her, it was still a call for submission, but it was coming from Ulf more so than the man. She realized the man was the one who was measuring the strength of it.
“Ulf.”
One word but spoken to the wolf simmering below the surface of Monster’s skin. She infused his name with as much affection and submission as she could muster. It was dawning on her that it was Ulf’s confusion and hurt fueling Monster’s anger, not the other way around.
“I didn’t betray you, but I am guilty of intention.”
Monster’s fingers twitched at her words, but he didn’t interrupt her, and she took that as I sign to go on.
“I was sent into the bar to get close to Kansas. My father hated him. He’d told me that Kansas had not only ruined his life, but the club took his money.”
“Bullshit,” he bit out, but let her go and started pacing while tapping on his phone.
After pocketing it, he spoke again. “The club didn’t do shit to him but loan him money that he asked for, and Kansas?
” He stabbed his finger toward the still-closed office.
“You heard him, it was that fucker who ruined Kansas’s life. ”
The growl that escaped him then was more wolf than man.
“I know—”
Monster turned and was in her face. His finger almost touching her as he pointed angrily.
“And that’s why I can’t just … can’t …”
“Why you can’t what, Arden?” Using the name he’d given the officers.
“Can’t have you.” His voice got lower the longer he spoke. Defeated.
As much as his words pierced her heart, she understood. There was too much between them, too much against them. Her parentage, her part in Kansas’s death, hell, the drug her father injected her with.
Who knows if that had tricked her into thinking he was hers. The connection she felt had hit her fast and hard.
Not to mention, she should be soaking in every second she could with her mother.
“Arden?” She waited until he turned to her.
The pain in his eyes tore at her heart. The heart that believed he was her mate, even if it were drug induced.
“I’ll never speak of what happened, you have my word.
I will take what happened today to my grave.
Forget about me. Just leave and don’t look back. ”
Words didn’t answer her, but a howl did. One that started human but ended as anything but.
Carys found herself face to face with a monstrously large wolf.
An extremely sad one. She could feel it coming from him in waves.
Tentatively, she reached a hand out to touch his muzzle. Ulf closed his eyes and turned into her touch much as Monster had.
The wolf looked confused, hurt, angry, and … young. While he was huge, his eyes looked juvenile. He also looked on the verge of bolting.
“Ulf.” With her hand in his fur, she seemed to get disjointed images that flew at her in flashes. Like someone clicking through a slideshow at an accelerated rate.
There was what she could only describe as Arden as a boy of ten or eleven, blood, a lot of blood, her on her knees in the parking lot of the bar, Monster holding her note with the silver cuff at his feet.
“Sorry, I didn’t notice,” she murmured more to herself. More images flew at her. Ulf trying to hold on but never allowed to occupy the same space as his other half when Arden was in the fore and longing to do so. Ulf not understanding that while he’s running free, Arden slept.
More confusion.
Then, finally, an image of Ulf starting to blend with Arden as he’d longed to do for years.
“Oh, Ulf. He’s yours now, and you’re his, as it was always meant to be.” Without thinking, Carys leaned forward and kissed his wet nose. “I’m happy for you both.”
Ulf whimpered at her words. One of frustration. They weren’t bonded so she couldn’t really feel him or communicate with him as she’d heard some mates could, but for some reason, when she was touching him, Ulf was projecting.
“I don’t understand. I’m sorry. If you want to talk to me—”
A knock on the door interrupted her.
“Shit,” Carys stood. “Wait here, Ulf. And please, be quiet, okay?” Ulf felt so much younger than Monster.
The man knew the consequences of exposure, but she didn’t know if the beast did.
From the images he showed her, he hadn’t had much time with Monster, so she couldn’t say what his social maturity level was.
She looked through the peephole, half expecting to see Todd standing there. Instead, it was some of the members of the Kings.
Opening the door, she beckoned them in.
“Where’s … shit.” The man she recognized as Bulldog said. “Where’s his cuff? Check his clothes, see if he had it in his pocket.”
“Um, I think he took it off this morning,” she said, remembering what Ulf had shown her. From those images, she realized Monster had to remove the cuff before Ulf took hold, and he always put it back on the instant he was back in charge.
“Hey, Chef, we may …” His words trailed off as Monster reclaimed the body he shared with Ulf.
The situation was anything but funny, not with all the loss and death they’d experienced, but a laugh left her, and the men filing into the room.
Monster stood before them on top of a pile of ruined clothes, save for a singular sock, clinging for life to his foot.
“Brother?” Bulldog said with an upward inflection, making the word a question. He now stood in front of Monster with a hand on his shoulder. Carys watched a silent exchange between them. One she wasn’t privy to. Monster gave his club brother a curt nod.
In a moment, another member strode past her and handed a pair of sweats and a tee shirt to Monster.
Carys was busy just processing what was happening when Monster grabbed her by the bicep.
“You’re coming with me.”
“What?”
“Keys?”
“Wait. Monster you’re hurting me.” She tried to stop their forward motion as he practically dragged her toward the door.
Monster muttered a curse followed by an apology and loosened his grip. He looked torn between wanting to shove her away and pull her in if she were reading it correctly.
He grabbed her purse, rifled through it until he retrieved her keys.
“Let’s go.”
As Monster led her through the door, she heard Bulldog shout, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, brother. Believe me, I know honey.”
Monster grunted and led her to her Jeep. He even opened the passenger’s side door and strapped her in. But there was reluctance on his face.
Once he settled into the driver’s seat, she finally found her tongue.
“What was that all about?” She indicated back toward the house and her person in general.
“That? He’s a bear.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” To say she was confused would’ve been a vast understatement. Confused left town on the five o’clock bus and was already two states away.
“His honey statement. Bear. Honey. Get it?” Monster wouldn’t meet her eyes, and he was talking nonsense.
“That’s the one thing that happened in there that you think I’m asking about?” Clearly, he’d taken a blow to the head, or he was deflecting.
“I mean, everything. For starters, Ulf showing me your life. Or the fact that you still haven’t let me explain, yet you won’t leave me and just go back to your life. I already said I wouldn’t talk and as soon as things are, um, cleaned up there’s nothing that will tie us together.”
Not that Carys wanted to let him go, but she needed to. She needed to start healing from, well, everything.
“I didn’t know he could do that.” Monster turned a sheepish look on her as he backed out of the drive.
Again, he was cherry-picking what to address.
She was emotionally and physically exhausted, so maybe she wasn’t thinking straight. If her vow of silence wasn’t enough, did that mean the Kings meant to silence her in another way?
Since he wasn’t talking, she would.
“I did it or agreed to do it for my mother, okay.” And then the tears started.
“What?” Monster whipped his head toward her and swerved.
“My mother. I told you she was sick. Shortly after, my father—who’d never wanted fuck all to do with me—found me through social media.
He acted surprised she was sick, but after meeting with him, he said he had the cure to save her.
If I’d do just a small favor and gather some information for him, he’d give it to me. ”
She heard herself sniffle hard as old wounds, which had been reopened, pained her.
“I hung out in the parking lot of the bar a few nights, giving Samual an account of who went in and out and what time. That was it. Then one night, he injected me with something. At the time he said it was a scent blocker in case I ran into shifters, which, surprise, he knew I would but didn’t tell me.
I learned today that’s not what it was, but that’s neither here nor there.
” She wiped her eyes on her sleeve and turned to look at Monster’s profile.
“I was supposed to go inside, get close to Kansas, and then he’d finally give me the cure.
That simple, but with dead old fuck face, nothing was ever simple.
Once inside the bar, I knew somewhere deep down that something wasn’t right.
Then I looked at you and I felt like something was.
For the first time in my life, something was right.
The moment our eyes met, I knew I wouldn’t betray you, not even to save my mother.
I tried to convince myself I could, but somewhere in my soul, I knew it was a lie.
I …” This was the part she didn’t want to admit, but she would.
Put everything on the table now, so you won’t regret not saying something later. That’s what her mother had told her growing up.
“I felt a connection to you. I thought you might be mine. Then, when you kissed me, my blood sang.”
She turned to look out the window. Staring at his clenched jaw just made things harder to say.
“I was wrong.”
Monster didn’t speak. Carys stared at nothing until they came to a stop. Looking up, she saw the gate to their compound opening.
Carys didn’t bother getting out. Monster would likely order her to where he wanted her to go anyway.
If she’d thought she was broken before, she was utterly defeated now. She’d laid out her heart, raw and bare to him, and he didn’t say a word for the agonizingly long car ride.
When he wrenched her door open and unbuckled her, she asked, “What is your club going to do with me?”
She’d read enough books and watched enough documentaries to know that the odds weren’t in her favor.
“My club?” Monster pulled her from the car with a hand to her throat and held her against the side of her vehicle. He seemed to like that a lot, Carys thought. “Pixie, I’d be more concerned with what I’m going to do with you.”
His words caused a flutter in her stomach, even though they were laced with an edge of danger.