Chapter 13
Ella
I’d forgotten how loud this house could get when everyone was home and the oven was full. Two rowdy brothers would do that.
Mom was in the kitchen, humming along to a holiday playlist streaming from her phone while she pulled another tray of cookies from the oven.
The Bluetooth speaker kept glitching, but she didn’t seem to care.
She had flour on her cheek, her hair was in the world’s messiest bun, and her apron looked like it had survived a powdered sugar explosion. But she was completely in her zone.
Dad was halfway up the stairs, stringing lights around the banister and muttering under his breath about knots and whoever packed the decorations last year. That would’ve been me, and I wasn’t about to tell him that.
My brothers and I were sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, exactly the way we had as children, making popcorn garlands for the tree.
It was a tradition we’d kept since we were kids, even though Kyle always ate more than he strung, and Pete’s garlands looked a bit ragged.
The two kept fighting over the “best” pieces in the bowl, even though they all looked the same to me.
Kyle had already eaten half his popcorn strand, and Pete had a pile of popcorn crumbs on the carpet in front of him. Mine were neat and perfect as always.
Earlier, Mom had asked about the ranger who’d rescued me from certain frozen doom. She’d tried to keep her voice casual, but I’d seen the look in her eyes. She was hoping I’d fall for someone nearby and move back home. Or at least somewhere closer.
I kept my answers short and sweet, avoiding giving away too much information. She let it go, for now. But at least they hadn’t really mentioned anything about Blake. To be honest, I’d much rather talk about Axel.
And while Mom had let it go, my brothers weren’t so easily satisfied.
“So,” Pete said, threading a piece of popcorn with exaggerated care, but still managing to get a small piece onto the carpet, “who’s this lumberjack that you stayed with?”
Pete didn’t even try to be subtle. “We don’t have to beat him up, do we?”
I snorted. “First, he’s a ranger, not a lumberjack. And second, you’d probably lose. And third, it’s none of your beeswax.”
“He isn’t another one of those shifters, is he?” Pete asked. “The pack lives out that way.”
“No,” I said. “But even if he were, what’s wrong with wolves? Just because Blake’s an ass doesn’t mean they all are.”
Mom cleared her throat. We hadn’t even realized she was standing there, hands on her hips.
“Nothing is wrong with wolves. Levi is a wolf, and he told us you were safe. He started coming by a few years ago, every time it stormed, to make sure we were good.” Her eyes landed on the pile of popcorn crumbs on the carpet. “Pete! My carpet!”
“I’ll clean it up,” Pete said.
“You'd better. Now, can one of you boys bring me in more potatoes from the root cellar?”
“I’ll do it,” Kyle said, already standing.
“Take your coat,” Mom called.
He pretended not to hear. He opened the side door and the cold air rushed in, making me shiver, before the door clicked shut behind him.
We kept chugging along with our bowl of popcorn. I tied off my string and reached for another roll.
Minutes passed, but Kyle never came back. The cellar wasn’t that far, just on the side of the house.
“Where is he?” Mom asked, a hint of worry showing on her brow.
Dad looked up from the banister, the string of lights still tangled in his hands. “He’s probably dragging his feet. I’ll go find him.”
He’d just slipped one arm into his coat when the side door slammed open hard enough to rattle the frame.
Blake stood in the doorway, wild-eyed, with a gun pressed to Kyle’s temple. His grip was tight, his knuckles pale, and his veins strained against the skin of his neck.
Everything stopped, and all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears.
I couldn’t move. My legs felt rooted to the floor, my fingers frozen around the piece of popcorn. Pete was already on his feet, stepping in front of me. Dad dropped the coat and reached for his phone.
“Don’t,” Blake barked. “Nobody calls anyone, or he gets it.”
Dad put his hands up.
Blake turned his focus on me. “You. You made me do this. I was willing to forgive you. I told you we could ignore what the judge said and go back to the way we were.”
The way we were. Yeah, right. But he looked trigger-happy right now, and I needed to calm him, even if I had to lie. Then I had to separate him from Kyle. This was my problem, and I wasn’t going to let my family get hurt.
“If you let him go,” I said, “we can still do that.”
“No. We can’t. It’s too late. You ruined everything.” His whole body shook with rage. “Everything!”
I didn’t know what to say. I mean, what the hell did one say to a crazy, gun-wielding werewolf shifter ex?
It didn’t matter though, because he continued his rant. “I would’ve forgiven you. Taken you back. And we could be together again. I even came here and risked facing the pack. All for you! But you. You had to go play house with a fucking squatch.”
“My car broke down. I was just waiting out the blizzard with him. Nothing happened.”
Fuck. I sure hoped he couldn’t detect my lies.
Blake’s grip on Kyle didn’t loosen, and the gun stayed pressed to my brother’s temple. “He fought for you!”
I kept my tone soft. “He’s a ranger. That’s his job.” I didn’t know if that was true, but it sounded believable enough. “I didn’t even know what he was until you did.” That part was a lie, but I needed him to believe it.
That seemed to have him thinking.
“Let’s leave Kyle out of this,” I said. “You came for me. So let’s talk. Alone.”
Dad shifted, trying to block my path. “Ella, you—”
“It’s okay. We’re just going to talk outside.” I angled my body so Blake couldn’t see my face, then moved my eyes down to the phone in Dad’s pocket, then back up to his face, hoping that he caught my drift.
If I distracted Blake, they could call for help.
“You step outside first,” Blake said. “Walk to the car. Then I’ll release him.”
So he did drive here. He must’ve parked in Darlington and changed to wolf form to hunt me down earlier in the forest.
I turned, grabbed my coat, slipped on my boots, then shoved my trembling hands into my pockets before Blake could see them.
The walk to the car felt like an eternity. He didn’t release Kyle until I stood next to it. I sighed when he finally let him go, and the door closed. But I knew it was only a matter of time now until he got to me. I had to survive as long as I could and keep him here until help could arrive.
One thing was for sure: I wasn’t going to get in his car unless I absolutely had to.
Blake moved toward me, his face a twisted version of someone I once loved. “Get in the car.”
Shit. I’d known that was coming, but I didn’t know how to delay the inevitable without angering him even more. He was still armed, and I needed to diffuse the situation.
“You came all this way. Can we talk first? And all my things are still inside the house.”
“Get in the car.” This time, the words were said through gritted teeth.
“Okay, okay, I will. But please answer me one thing.”
“Fine. Ask.”
“What happened between you and the wolf pack here? You owe me at least that much. And I owe it to you to hear your side of things.” I didn’t actually give a flying fuck what happened, but I knew that if I made it sound like they’d told me their version of the events, Blake might be compelled to defend himself.
He’d always been like that. Always had to be right.
It worked.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he gritted.
“I’m not saying it was,” I assured him, slowly backing up to put some space between us. “I just want to know the truth, from you.”
Not! I just wanted to stall for time. I spared a quick glance over his shoulder and back to the house. Mom was by the window, waving her phone. Did that mean they’d already gotten the call out? And to whom?
“My alpha compelled me to kidnap her. I was doing it for the pack.”
“Okay. Then tell me. Tell me everything from the beginning.”
But now he was looking around, suddenly on high alert.
His face twisted up into a snarl. He moved fast, faster than I could see, grabbing me and hauling me to him.
Arms that were much thinner and lankier than I remembered held me to his equally gaunt chest. I hadn’t noticed how much weight he’d lost through his clothes and fur.
But the feel of the gun against my head had me worried about other things. Like how was I supposed to get out of this?
“You set me up,” he snarled.
“What? No. I didn’t even know you were coming.”
“She’s mine,” he snarled into the trees.
I squinted, but I couldn’t see anything. Neither could he apparently, because he kept turning us, peering this way and that.
I was suddenly knocked out of his arms by a huge, white furry mass, the snowbank softening my fall. The loud clap of a gunshot echoed through the crisp late afternoon air and sent snow tumbling down from the branches overhanging the farmhouse’s long driveway.
There was an angry snarl, and I found Axel and Blake in a ball of fists and boots, the gun lying in the snow some distance away.
“Do! Not! Touch! MY! MATE!” Axel roared.
My heart pounded at his words. His mate? I knew what mates were. I’d looked into it after I found out about Blake, and had been disappointed to come to the conclusion that I was not, in fact, his mate.
Could I really be Axel’s? Was that why we’d gotten along so well since the beginning? And why he hadn’t wanted to leave my side?
Axel was on Blake now, smashing his face in with his giant fists. It seemed a wolf shifter really was no match for a yeti.
A black SUV skidded to a stop right in front of the action. Levi stepped out, and behind him was a tall, stately woman. Was this the other wolf from earlier?
It took the two of them pulling Axel off Blake to make him stop pounding his face into mush. I could barely recognize him from the rearranging Axel had done to his features.
The moment Blake saw the others, he shifted, fur tearing through his skin. He scrambled out of his clothes, but instead of trying to fight, it was very clear that he was trying to flee in his wolf form. But it was too late.
Between Axel, the two wolves, and Dad, who’d grabbed the shotgun from the rack over the mantel, there was nowhere for him to run. Desperation had him shifting back to human form.
Levi stepped up, holding a pair of manacles that looked straight out of a medieval dungeon. “You’re going away for a long-ass time for the kidnapping and attempted murder of the alpha’s mate.”
Then he was dragging a very naked Blake to the SUV.
“Attempted murder?” I asked, shocked.
The woman spoke. “Since you’re his ex-wife, you really should know.”
I raised my brow. “How did you know? And how did you guys get here so quickly?”
“Your mother called us the moment he stepped into your house. And we’ve been monitoring Blake for years; we knew who you were.”
Mom had been behind the counter in the kitchen. Blake never noticed. I hadn’t either.
“I’ll make it quick. The short story is that our old alpha Hagan was a misogynist with a superiority complex. His daughter had a true mate bond with a wolf from another pack, but he wanted to marry her off to one of his old geezer friends. So he locked her up. Wes, her mate, challenged him and won.
“Most of us welcomed the change,” the woman continued.
“Hagan was old-school. Females weren’t allowed to vote on pack politics or work outside of the pack.
It was ass-backwards. Blake was part of a plan to drown the new alpha’s mate in the lake and make it look like an accident to distract Wes so Hagan could win his leadership back. ”
“Hagan’s own daughter?”
“That’s right. That was how little Hagan really cared about her. And in exchange for confessing and throwing his co-conspirators under the bus, Blake was to never step foot on pack territory again. Your family home is technically just outside of it.”
“And Darlington?” I asked, everything sliding into place.
“Just part of the suburbs. But the rest of the city is owned by Wes’s father, and Blake’s not welcome there either.”
“Jacklyn, you came! Thank you! Thank you!” Mom came barreling down the driveway, and the shifter went to greet her.
I turned in Axel’s arms and looked up into his mesmerizing silver-blue eyes. “You’re here.”
“I am,” he said, his arms tightening around me. “I followed you. I’m sorry. I couldn’t leave you. I tried.”
I leaned into his warmth. “Because I’m your mate?”
“Yes. You are. You are mine. And I’m yours. I know you’re not ready, but—”
I didn’t let him finish. I reached up, pulled him down, and kissed him.