Chapter Twelve
Dax
A storm of relief mixed with apprehension swirls through me as I look back and forth from Ethel and Violet.
My mate is safe.
My mate is also furious.
Never in my life did I expect to be faced down by two females who, together, take up maybe forty percent of my entire mass.
It is very unfair. I prefer opponents who I am allowed to maim.
“I am very sorry. I never wanted to keep secrets from you. I was following the orders of my Alpha. Violet and I will return to pack lands now.”
Violet glances at Ethel. Ethel scowls at me.
I wait, but nothing happens. Violet isn’t moving.
I take a deep breath. “I am going to go make a phone call,” I inform them, and I walk out of the diner, feeling their gaze burning into my back.
I need counsel. I don’t know how female, civilian types think. I call the only person that I can think who may have answers.
She answers on the second ring. They are still in Kentucky, returning next week. "Rowan family.”
"Mother. It's Dax."
"I'm aware. Your designation appears on the screen." A pause. "It's 4:15. I was preparing dinner. Is someone dead?"
"No."
"Are you in extreme danger and in need of reinforcements?”
"No."
"Then this is…a personal matter?”
"There's a female," I say. "She's angry with me. I need her to come with me and she won't."
"Is she a hostile?"
"No. She's a protectee."
"Then secure her and transport her. The objective is her survival, not her good opinion of you."
"I can't just throw her over my shoulder."
A silence comes down the line that could strip bark off a pine. "Why not? Are you physically unable? Are you injured beyond healing? We can hire a healer from the Frostbane pack if necessary, although with your superior healing abilities I simply do not understand why-”
“No! I can’t do it because she is my fated mate. And don’t ask me if she has child-bearing hips!”
“Does she, though?”
I groan aloud. “Mother! I need help with a complicated situation!”
“What about Saoirse? She comes with 2800 acres of timber.”
I answer with a growl.
She lets out a sigh of exasperation. "Mating is not complicated. I selected your father from four candidates based on territory, political advantage, temperament, and dental records. We have raised three sons and never once raised our voices to each other.”
So very not helpful. “What did my father say to woo you?”
“There was no wooing. Why would there be wooing? He did tell me I had mostly symmetrical features and our offspring would be genetically acceptable.”
If I told Violet that, she would shove an entire ice cream sundae up my ass. And I’d deserve it.
“You will inform your mate that she needs to accompany you wherever you need to go. Those are facts. Facts can not be argued with. I need to go,” my mother says. “Your protectee is Violet Carmichael, correct? I need to research their pack in terms of suitability for-”
I hang up.
I stand there a moment. In matters of romance, I should have known better than to consult my mother. However, she has accidentally handed me the solution.
State the facts.
I walk back into the diner.
Ethel folds her arms the second the bell chimes. Violet lifts her chin and tries, again, to scowl at me. It is the worst scowl I have ever witnessed. Her eyebrows aren't even committed.
"You're right," I say.
That stops her. The fake scowl falls off her face. "I'm what?"
"You're right. Someone is trying to kill you."
Ethel sets down the coffee pot.
I tell her. The silver in the oatmeal that was never an accident.
The arrow that missed her stepmother by inches and buried itself in a tree.
The silver mixed into her perfume. Her father sent her here so that we could keep her breathing, and my Alpha ordered me not to tell her, and I followed that order, but that was before our fated mate bond deepened to the point where lying to my mate became unthinkable.
"I lied to you," I say. "I won't do it again. That's a fact."
Violet looks at me for a long moment. Whatever she finds in my face, she seems to decide it's the truth.
"Just for the record, I am still angry at you. I am miffed. Ticked off. Deeply disgruntled.” She slides off the stool. She turns to Ethel and manages a wry smile. "Thank you for the pie. And the company.”
Then she pauses. “Oh, wait. I can’t leave with you,” she says to me. “I left my wallet back at pack headquarters and now I can’t pay for my pie. I’m pretty sure I’m headed for the hoosegaw. Is that how they say it? I hope they have goats there.”
Ethel gives her a puzzled look. Violet’s mind is unusual and so are the things that she says. That is one of the many things I love about her. Life with her will never be boring or predictable.
“I am your mate. I will pay, of course.” I pull out my wallet and toss a twenty on the counter.
Ethel narrows her eyes at me. “She’s a sweet girl. Telling lies? I expected better from someone from the Moonstone pack. I’ve got my eye on you.”
If Violet weren’t here, I would growl at Ethel. Then again, Ethel is one of the few shifters I know who’d growl back at me.
I keep my tone civil, for my mate’s sake. “I can not discuss pack matters with you. However, I assure you, my only concern is her safety and happiness.”
Violet makes a huffing noise of disbelief and I follow her out of the diner.
“Would you like to go pet a goat? Or an Alpaca?” I ask.
Violet frowns at me. “Normally, yes. Right now, I am going to sulk.”
“That is acceptable. As long as you sulk by my side.” I open her car door for her and she climbs in. She seems a little less furious now.
* * *
I am going to stay mad at him.
I have decided. It's on my list now, right under practice frowning and right above find out if alpacas can swim. Stay mad at Dax.
The trouble is that I'm bad at it. I sit in the passenger seat of his enormous truck with my arms crossed and my chin up and I stare out the window at the pines going by, and I deploy my best technique. I imagine that Dax kicked a goat. A small one. A baby goat, even, with little knobby legs.
It doesn't work. It worked great an hour ago. Now every time I get the goat halfway into my mind, it dissolves, because a man who kicks goats does not walk back into a diner and tell you the truth when telling you the truth could get him in trouble with his Alpha.
I sneak a look at him. His jaw is tight. His enormous hands are perfectly steady on the wheel.
"I'm still mad at you," I announce.
"Understandable,” he says. "Stay mad. You've earned it."
That's the second time he's told me I'm allowed to be upset, and it is extremely unfair, because it makes it almost impossible to keep doing.
The goat trots back into my mind and lies down, curling up happily. Even my imaginary goat can’t stay mad.
We pull up to his cabin as the light goes long and gold through the trees. Dax turns off the engine and sits there a second, both hands still on the wheel.
Neither of us moves. It’s the kind of silence where you can hear your own heartbeat, where everything outside the truck cab might as well be a thousand miles away.
Finally, he exhales. Reaches over and kills the headlights.
The world goes soft and amber through the windshield—just the trees now, just us.
"Come on," he says, and his voice is rough.
We don't talk on the walk to the door. Don't talk while he's fumbling with the key, while we're stepping inside to the smell of pine and leather and something that's just his. The door closes behind us. The outside world is officially gone.
She reaches for me first, fingers curling into the front of my shirt.
I'm already half-hard, and her touch makes it a full problem. I grab her waist—not gentle, not even trying—and back her toward the nearest wall. She doesn't resist. There's a second where our eyes lock, and I feel a thrill straight down to my soul.
I kiss her like I've been starving. Because I have been.
Her mouth opens under mine and fuck, the taste of her—I'm done for.
My hands are already under her shirt, dragging the fabric up and over her head.
She breaks the kiss to help, and the second that top is off I'm burying my face in her neck, her collarbone, the curve where her shoulder meets that soft hollow.
She's already working on my shirt buttons. Her hands are shaking. "Take it off," she says, and it's not a request.
I shrug out of it, watch her eyes track over my chest. Then she's kissing me again, hands flat against my ribs, and we're stumbling backward toward the bedroom.
The mattress hits the back of my knees and I'm pulling her down with me, getting her bra off between kisses and somehow managing not to tear it. She's straddling my thighs and the feeling of her—bare skin, the heat between her legs pressed against me through fabric—makes me buck up involuntarily.
"You’re killing me,” I growl.
“Serves you right, Sexy Murder Man.”
She undoes my jeans and I help her, shoving them down as she frees my cock and takes it in her hands.
She strokes me once. Twice. I'm not going to last long enough for a medal at this rate.
She positions herself over me and I grip her hips because if I don't have something to hold on to I'm going to lose my mind.
The second she sinks down onto me everything in my body goes rigid.
For a second neither of us moves. I'm buried in her, she's got her eyes closed, and it's the closest I've ever come to a religious experience.
Then she starts moving.
It's not slow or sweet—there's nothing careful about any of this. She's riding me hard, and I'm right there with her, matching her rhythm, probably leaving marks on her hips. She's making sounds—small gasps and soft moans that I want to drown in.
I sit up, wrap one arm around her back to pull her closer, use the leverage to thrust up into her harder.
She locks her arms around my neck and her face is buried in my shoulder and I'm completely fucking undone.
The angle is better like this. Deeper. She's clenching around me and whimpering and I can't think about anything except making her come.
I shift my weight, get a hand between us, find her clit. She jerks against me, gasps something incoherent. I keep at it—steady, firm pressure—while she rides me harder, faster, her breath coming in pants against my neck.
"Come on," I say into her hair. "Come for me."
She does. Suddenly, without warning. Her whole body goes tight and she's trembling against me, gasping my name, and that's enough to push me over the edge. I bury myself deep and hold there while I finish, while she's still spasming around me, while everything else in the world stops mattering.
For a long moment afterward, we just stay like that. Her forehead against mine. Both of us breathing hard. My hands stroking slowly down her spine.
"Hi," she says eventually, and there's a smile in her voice.
I can't help it. I laugh. Actually laugh while we're still connected, while sweat is cooling on both our skin.
"Hi yourself," I say, and kiss her softly this time, because apparently I'm capable of that too.
Much later—when my heart has finally slowed and Violet is tucked against my side, warm and drowsy—my phone buzzes on the table. I ignore it once. Twice.
On the third time, duty rears its ugly head.
I glance at the text on the screen and sigh.
“It’s your father,” I say.
She opens one eye. “Is he mad?”
“He’s coming to take the hiker into custody.”
She considers that. “I hope he isn’t too mean to him.”
“What if the hiker was trying to kill you?”
“But…he’s a hiker. He loves nature. He loves trees and flowers. That doesn’t sound like someone who’s a killer, does it?”
I stifle a groan. Why does Violet not realize that the world is full of bad things and bad people?
Because she’s Violet. Because she sees beauty and sweetness where I see shadows and danger…and sometimes, when I’m with her, I see the world through her eyes and it’s full of wonders I never dreamed of.