Chapter 40
Chapter Forty
I t had been a long and lonely year since Rafe had left his pack.
He didn’t think he’d missed it. The posturing, the fighting, the bullshit with his father.
But now that he was here, all the rest of it came back too.
The companionship, the loyalty, the feeling that someone else understood who and what you were. Maybe he had missed it. A little.
They walked toward the encampment; Ruby tucked close to his side.
The weight of his people’s gaze on him was heavy enough to slow his footsteps.
What if they turned him away? He swallowed hard, half expecting his father to emerge from the shadows.
If anyone was going to come back as a vindictive ghost, it would be him.
The camp looked the same as when he left it, clusters of tents around fire pits, a few trailers for the colder months.
Nothing was permanent. The pack had been here for years now, but they still lived as though they might have to leave at any moment.
Rafe remembered the times they’d had to leave in a hurry, usually after too many confrontations with local humans.
Eventually, their neighbors fought back, and the wolves became the ones being hunted.
Rafe recognized the faces, wolf and human, peering at him as he and Ruby walked into the camp. He watched as their expressions went from shocked to questioning. No one looked outright hostile, which helped ease the tension in his muscles.
The old man is dead, he reminded himself, letting out a long breath. He grabbed Ruby’s hand and she hung on for dear life. He was an idiot for bringing her here, but there was no turning back now.
One of the older women of the pack approached them first. Dina had known him longer than most. Her tan face was creased with age.
“You’re back,” she said simply, assessing Rafe with her gaze.
“I am.”
Her dark eyes flicked to Ruby. “You brought a human.”
“She’s a friend.” If Dina sensed Ruby was anything more than that, she didn’t say it. She nodded once but stayed in the way of the path.
“Did you come to bring trouble, Rafe?”
Shame flashed hot in his gut. This is what his pack thought of him even after all this time. That he’d come to resurrect old battles.
“No, ma’am.” He cleared his throat again, his words sticking.
Ruby squeezed his fingers. He took a deep lungful of her scent and reminded himself why he was here.
“Just came to talk to my brother.” Dina’s gray brows rose, but Rafe put up a hand in surrender.
“Talk, Dina. That’s it. I didn’t come to stir things up.
” This was what his relationship with his brothers had become.
No one believed he would have any motive other than picking a fight.
Why would they? He hadn’t had a civil conversation with Knox in years.
She studied him a moment longer, and Rafe’s skin prickled under her gaze. Wolves weren’t like humans. They didn’t bother with being polite. They stared and sniffed and took you in completely. You couldn’t lie or pretend around a wolf. They knew you too well.
Other wolves had gathered around them as they spoke, several still in wolf form.
They sniffed around Ruby, and she pressed closer to his side.
He suddenly felt exposed, flayed open in front of everyone.
Could they all see it? Did they all know she was his Mate?
Theo had sensed it. And Theo didn’t sense most things.
This thing that he’d never believed in was suddenly more real to him than anything else. He felt like the word was stamped across Ruby’s forehead. He should have told her this morning.
He glanced back at Dina to find a begrudging smile on her face. “It’s been a while, Rafe.”
“I thought it was best.”
She shrugged her small shoulders. “You may have thought wrong.”
He didn’t have a chance to untangle that comment before more wolves and people were gathering to see what the commotion was about. It wasn’t easy to do anything around here without the whole pack knowing.
Rafe sifted through the familiar faces, some with hesitant smiles, some with furrowed brows. Faces of the people he grew up with. The people who did nothing to stop his father’s abuse. His brother wasn’t amongst them yet.
“You back for good?” Ryder, a friend from a lifetime ago, patted him hard on the shoulder, daring to approach now that Dina had given her approval.
“No, just a visit.” Rafe’s answer barely made it past his lips.
Sights and smells closed in on him from all sides, memories chasing them all.
Home. The word, the feeling, struck him hard in the chest. Fur and pine and wood smoke mingled in the air.
Faces he hadn’t seen anywhere but in his dreams lined the path in front of him.
“Rafe?” A woman’s voice broke through the din of the growing crowd. Everyone else fell away. She looked the same as the day he left, except this time there were no tears streaming down her cheeks. Her olive skin and light eyes still made her strikingly beautiful, just like her son.
She approached slowly, blinking like she couldn’t trust herself. “It’s you,” she said with a smile and then threw her arms around his neck.
Rafe held her tight, breathing in her familiar scent of lavender and strong tea. “Ma,” he breathed. Her long curls tickled his arms as she hugged him.
Ruby cleared her throat, startling him out of a million memories of this woman caring for him, loving him when no one else did. She had been his soft place to land. The only one in a childhood filled with harsh lessons and even harsher punishments.
He put her feet back on the ground, and she beamed up at him.
“Ruby, this is my?… uh?… stepmother, I guess you would call her. Ma, this is Ruby.”
The only mother he ever knew, Nell, flicked her shrewd gaze to Ruby. A frown wrinkled her brow.
“Nice to meet you,” Ruby said, and Rafe realized it was the first she’d spoken since they got here. Nell didn’t speak right away, her gaze steady on Ruby.
More words tumbled out of Ruby in a nervous rush. “I met your son. Uh?… I mean your other son?… I mean Theo. He’s very nice. So charming. He looks just like you.”
Nell’s lips tipped into a smile at the mention of Theo. “He’s a good boy.” She glanced over Rafe’s shoulder. “Is he here?”
“Not this time. Sorry, Ma.”
Her beautiful face fell in disappointment, but she quickly recovered. “Well, I’m happy you’re back, Rafe.”
“Not back.”
She flinched at his clipped answer, and he softened his tone.
“Not back, just here to talk to Knox. It’s important.”
She studied him a moment longer before nodding once and gesturing for him to follow. She spoke over her shoulder as they followed her through the camp and the whispering groups of wolves.
“Knox will be surprised to see you.”
An understatement, but his stepmother was always one to downplay whatever issues her Alpha’s sons were having.
“He’s been busy since your father died. He has big plans for the pack.”
“I’m sure he does,” Rafe muttered.
Nell turned sharply to face him. “Your brother is the Alpha, Rafe. If you’ve come to challenge that, you should leave right now.”
Rafe ground his back teeth.
“He’s here on my behalf, not his own.”
Nell’s eyes snapped to Ruby. “Oh?”
Ruby rolled her shoulders back and faced the female werewolf. “Rafe is only here to help me and my sister. I was attacked by a wolf.”
“Not one of ours.” Nell’s response was defensive.
“No. But we hope Knox might have some answers.”
Nell studied them both, her earlier smiles gone. It had always been this way with his adoptive mother. The pack came above all else. Even her sons.
“Please. We just want to talk to him.” Ruby’s voice was steady even as Rafe could smell the fear vibrating beneath her skin. He wanted to grab her and run. Far away from here.
They stopped in front of a big green army tent in the center of the camp.
Tarps were hung over the outdoor kitchen space, and various mismatched chairs were gathered around the fire pit.
The pack lived most of the year out here until the weather turned too cold.
Then they moved into the trailers, or some left to rent places in town for the winter.
They were squatters at best, drifters at worst.
Rafe’s cabin was a luxury compared to this. Whatever Knox’s big plans were, they didn’t seem to include housing upgrades, at least not yet. Not that he could do much if the pack didn’t own the land they lived on. But Rafe wasn’t here about any of that.
Nell waved a hand toward the chairs. “Knox is out hunting, but you’re welcome to stay and wait.” Her expression softened, and she laid a hand on Rafe’s arm. “I am happy to see you.”
“Me too.”
She raised up on her toes to give him another quick hug. “Be careful with that human,” she whispered.
Rafe’s heart stopped and stuttered frantically back to life.
Nell gave him a knowing smile as she pulled away. “Good luck, Rafe. Don’t stay away so long next time.”
He stared at her as she walked away, leaving him and Ruby alone at Knox’s campsite. Or as alone as they could be with wolves and people still wandering past to get a look at the former Alpha’s disgraced son.
“Well,” Ruby breathed. “That was?… a lot.”
Rafe laughed despite the emotions roiling in his gut. “Sorry. I should have prepared you better. They can be very intense.”
“Which is surprising since you are so laid back,” she quipped, sinking into the closest chair.
He shook his head, wanting to scoop her up and hold her close, wanting to return to this morning when he had held her in his arms. But not here. Not with everyone watching them.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her gaze following him as he paced in front of her.
“Fine.”
“Rafe.” Her voice was soft, imploring. “Sit.”
He obeyed, lowering into the chair next to Ruby’s. “I wasn’t expecting to feel so?… conflicted.”
Ruby took his hand and traced the lines of his palm with her finger. The touch sent tingles through his whole body. “Going home is always hard.”
“I thought I hated all of this and all of them.” He lowered his voice even though he was sure everyone’s ears were perked up and listening. He didn’t give a shit what they heard. “But being back here is more complicated than that.”
“I get it.”
He turned to look at her, and the sight of Ruby at his old home added to his tangled emotions. “You do?”
“Sure. Maybe not to the same extent, but right before we left, Lena basically told me she thinks I’m a ridiculous person who makes up scary stories to get off, and yet here I am, trying to save her ass. So, yeah. I get how families are complicated.”
Rafe brought their entwined hands to his mouth and ran his lips over her knuckles. “It was a stupid idea to bring you, but I’m glad I did.”
A realization settled in his gut as Ruby smiled at him. He wanted her to want him, not because of some fated paranormal bullshit reason, but because she actually just wanted him. For him.
It was as simple and complicated as that.
“Ruby, there’s something you need to know.”
She leaned toward him, giving him her full attention, but he didn’t get to tell her everything that was on his mind. It would have to wait.
Knox was back.