Chapter 13
CICELY
I don’t like the emotions I’m experiencing at the sight of Ronnie Young on her knees in front of him, leaning back to look up at his face. She reaches out to put her palms on his shoulders.
No, I don’t like the look of this. In fact, I’ve got the urge to grab her by her mane of glossy, dark curls and smash her head off the stone wall. My heart is beating too fast. I hear a growl. It takes a second to realize it came from me.
“Easy…” Grey reads me and leans back to tug my ponytail, playfully, light in his eyes.
Jared’s eyes cut from Ronnie to Grey, and he grinds his molars so hard I think we all, even the witches without supernatural hearing, hear them squeak.
Interesting. He’s feeling proprietary, too.
Grey’s body language changes and he says, “Sorry. Reflex.”
This right here is why shifters are left alone when they first mate.
I watch the swallow work down Jared’s throat as his eyes hit mine, emotion rippling there, hitting me square in the feels where there’s already pain. Mine. His. But so much of his.
How can he think I’d ever walk away when he looks at me like this? He needs me.
As Ronnie’s hands touch down, Vivi and Erica behind her, his body tenses and his mouth contorts like he doesn’t want anything to do with it. His eyes stay focused on my face. It feels like there’s static in my veins as I hold myself still and will my heartrate to normalize.
It’s not working. It works even less when her relaxed posture changes, and her back straightens. It’s probably only four or five seconds that feel like as many minutes before her palms slide to the floor as her body bucks and she releases a horrible choking sound before bursting into tears.
Jared stares down at her, forehead crinkled, pouty mouth looking even sadder. Like he feels bad for what she feels.
And I’m angry. Angrier. Because she sees it all and it shouldn’t be hers to have. Even more than that, it shouldn’t be his to feel, whatever it is. I don’t know why his wolf is broken, but I somehow know he doesn’t deserve this.
Vivi and Erica wrap arms around their sister and help her to her feet.
Ronnie’s eyes hit me, overflowing with tears.
“What is it?” I demand, unable to sound remotely friendly or gentle.
“I… n-need a minute,” she rasps, walking past with her sisters. “S-sorry…”
Grey follows them outside leaving just Jared and me.
His eyes have gone stone cold. He stares into space for a minute before his eyes flit up to my face again. “Request they end it.”
Before I’m able to ask, he clarifies, “A mate bond severing.” He almost immediately says, “Forget it. I will.”
“You…no,” I whisper. “You’d better not!” Tears fill my eyes, and I refuse to blink, refuse to let them fall. He sees them. He has the decency to look contrite, but not enough, not enough that I know he doesn’t mean what he just said. I think he does mean it.
He thinks it’s what I need. What he needs so he can forget about me, ignoring that he deserves more than a lonely and bleak existence where he doesn’t let anyone get close.
Voices along with my own heartbeat fill my head like static to the degree I don’t comprehend words, but I see Riley, Linc, and Grey in a huddle outside with the three Young sisters.
Tyson and Mase move in. All council members are here except Jase and Joel.
Grey suddenly moves back in toward us, squatting in front of Jared.
“I’m gonna channel Ronnie’s gift. She’s having trouble talking and wants my help. Yeah?”
Jared’s mouth contorts but he gives Grey a swift nod and Grey closes his eyes and puts one hand on Jared’s shoulder. Erica and Vivi come back in and flank him. A few red sparks dance briefly around Grey’s head and then burn brighter for a heartbeat or two before disintegrating.
Crazy. I’m in absolute awe of this magic stuff Grey is learning to channel. Of course I know we’re all made with magic, but witchcraft isn’t something I’m accustomed to seeing right in front of me.
New scents hit my nose, and I realize we have an even larger audience standing just outside the door.
Cat Savage is one. My father is another. Dad’s concerned eyes are on me.
Grey lets go of Jared and his eyes flit to my face. “Can you give us a minute, Sis?”
“No,” I say simply.
Jared has the nerve to roll his eyes.
Grey fails to fight a smirk. “I’ll close the door then.”
I lift one shoulder in a shrug.
Grey closes both doors and looks at Jared. “You left your pack soon after your mother and sister died, yeah?”
“Immediately after the monster in me killed them, yes,” Jared forces out, staring at the floor.
Fuck, that’s hard to hear. I can’t imagine how hard it is to live with. To say aloud.
“You ever dig in to find out more? Find out what happened there after?”
Jared’s eyes narrow. “Left and kept moving. Why? What did you see?”
“If you haven’t dug, we need to. I saw that night, only the aftermath. Saw the abuse from your alpha and his betas. You were young?”
“Yeah.”
“How young?” I ask. “What kind of abuse?”
“Got the shit kicked out of me often when I was a kid,” Jared says.
Grey continues. “You’ve buried shit, shit I can’t dig out on my own. But I think there are more answers there than what me and Ronnie can decode. Nothing from your wolf. All you. I should sense both you and your animal, but I don’t sense your animal at all.”
“I haven’t set foot within three hundred miles of the place since then. I buried them and left.”
“In all your years of doing private eye work, you never crossed paths with anyone from your old pack?”
“Thankfully, no.”
“Can you share many memories of what happened just before you left?”
“My pack wasn’t a great place to be. Not like Silver Hills, though. The abuse came at me specifically. And my mother and sister after Dad died.”
“Linc said your father was a private eye. Was he alpha?”
“Beta. Alpha’s younger brother. Could’ve challenged the alpha and likely won; he was strong. Died when I was a kid. Couple years before I… before I… first shifted.” Jared lets that hang.
“Your uncle treat you bad before he died too?”
Jared scoffs. “You could say that. He had no kids, no mate. After Dad died, he took us in. Treated Mom and my sister as housekeepers. Treated my mother like she was his whore. I think he saw me hitting maturity as a threat to his position, to the shit he was getting away with, so he was sure to do whatever he could to put fear into me before I matured.”
“How old were you when you first shifted?”
“Thirteen.”
“That’s early.”
“Yup.”
It is. Most alphas, other than our council alphas, don’t shift until sixteen or seventeen.
“And you were connected to your wolf then?” Grey asks him.
“No. The first time I shifted was when I killed my family.”
Damn.
“And where was that?” Grey asks.
There’s a beat where it looks like Jared is considering whether he wants to answer the question.
“Utah,” he finally says. “Not far from the Colorado and Wyoming borders. Closer to Colorado.”
“All that abuse,” Grey says. “I think it fucked up your wolf.”
He shrugs. “A lot of shifter kids deal with that. Don’t know any of them that have a wolf like the one I’ve got.”
“You’ve dug into that? Looked for similar cases?”
“As much as I could without digging into my old pack.”
“I have some of the picture but want more. Wanna put my head together with Linc and Joel. Joel’s picking Jase up from the airport.”
Jared stares at him.
“Show some trust, Jared? We’ll do some digging and keep you updated.”
Jared lifts his chin. “Get everyone outta here in the meantime?”
“You got it,” Grey says.
“You or Linc for updates. Don’t really want to talk to anyone else.”
“You’re heard.”
“Get rid of her, too,” Jared grumbles.
I gasp.
He doesn’t look at me; just flexes those jaw muscles.
“Not a chance,” I state, inflexibly.
“Can you arrange a mate bond severing, Greyson?” Jared has the nerve to ask, acting like I’m not even here.
And my blood is immediately boiling.
“He’d better not. I’ll fight you, Grey. And I will fight you,” I warn Jared. “I’ll fight you and your wolf before I let you do that.”
Jared’s lip curls, “Fuck,” he mutters, looking away.
“One step at a time. Yeah?” Grey says.
Before Jared answers, Grey goes to the door and raps on it, calling out, “Open up!”
Someone immediately opens the door for him. Grey winks at me on his way out.
He approves. Not that I care, but I… okay, I do care. And I’m glad he cut off the severing conversation.
I follow Grey out, not looking at Jared on my way. I hear his sigh and feel a minute amount of relief from him. He’s done with all the visitors. I can’t blame him for that, especially given the fact he’s chained up and stressed out. Yeah, I’ll give him his alone time.
I walk into my father’s embrace. Dad doesn’t speak.
He doesn’t need to. He’s offering me exactly what I need right now.
Support. Comfort. He kisses my forehead.
I give Cat a nod. She’s in a huddle with Grey and the Young sisters but has her phone to her ear.
Her eyes hit mine and they’re full of affection and concern.
She makes her way over and wraps me up in a warm hug.
Cat is like an auntie to me. She was very close to my mom and there every day at the end with me, Dad, and my sisters as Mom slipped away, doing her best to ease Mom’s suffering. She wept with us. And she made sure to be a strong, maternal fixture in our lives from then on.
They’re all getting ready to go. Ronnie Young is sitting in her sister’s car, staring off, looking haunted.
“One sec, Dad, Cat.”
I approach the car Ronnie sits in. She rolls down the window.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “It’s just… a lot. Feeling someone’s deepest pain, seeing the things that haunt them. And he’s feeling a lot right now, too. A lot.”
I lean into the window. “I’m sorry it seems like it’s affecting you so much.”
“It’s not always easy. Sometimes it’s really not. Like today. With him…” She blows out a big breath. “This is a hard one to feel. I’m feeling what he feels and it’s… a lot.”