20. Chapter 20
Chapter 20
Gage
“It was supposed to be the last time,” I said over the hum of the car as we started our descent from the cabin.
Abby crossed her legs in the passenger seat, waiting for me to continue.
I couldn’t. The words were lodged in my throat.
I couldn’t tell her this. No one knew the full story. Not my alpha in Alaska, not the elders, no one except the guys.
We didn’t talk about it. Not a single word since we landed back in Alaska five years ago.
“Gage?” Her voice was painfully gentle, as if she could sense how close I was to breaking.
“There was a weapon. We weren’t told what it was, only that we needed to retrieve it. If retrieval wasn’t an option, we were supposed to destroy it.” I should have asked more questions. Done more digging. It was obvious we weren’t given the full picture.
“Intel suggested the weapon was in the hands of a criminal organization in Sicily. We were already in the warehouse where the weapon was hidden when we realized that wasn’t true. They were shifters, and they were prepared for us.
“I never identified which pack was there, but I would bet money it was Manchini. We started taking fire almost immediately. We were cornered.” I gripped the wheel until my hands turned white. “Dallas was hit. We had to leave him.”
“But he’s alive,” she reassured me, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I couldn’t fully believe it until I saw it.
“We never found the weapon. There was research, thousands and thousands of documents, but I couldn’t tell you what the hell they were researching. Something biological. I scanned what I could before the explosion.”
“Explosion?”
“They blew up the warehouse with us in it. I still don’t know how the fuck we survived.”
My fingers found the scars below my collar bone, where shards of metal sat in my skin for days.
Abby had her hand over her mouth. Why was I telling her this?
“Someone pulled us out, but they weren’t there to help us. They took us to a facility. A prison. We were held there for five months. They wouldn’t tell us what they wanted or even where we were. They—" I exhaled. Might as well get it all out there. “They were torturing us—dissecting us.”
“How did you get out?” Her voice quavered, and when I looked from the corner of my eye, I saw tears gathering on her bottom lids.
“We didn’t. They sedated us, then the next thing we knew we were on a plane as it landed in Alaska. They sent us back to our pack like nothing happened.”
“And you don’t know who ‘they’ were?”
“I scoured the earth for those bastards for the last five years. Used every contact, every resource at my disposal. There was nothing. And worse,” I hit my fist on the center console, “they erased us. No history of us in the military. No history of us, period. If our alpha hadn’t kept a copy of our birth certificates and socials, we might not even have proof we were US citizens.”
“God,” Abby whispered. “That is so—so—"
“Fucked up?” I offered.
“That is so fucked up!” She shouted, rising onto her knees and adjusting her seatbelt so she could face me. “That happened to you, and you’ve just been going about your life this whole time?”
“Put your fucking seatbelt back on,” I said. “But yes. What else can you do?”
“Cry?” She suggested, voice cracking. “Lie in bed for five years and eat your feelings? Run away into the wilderness forever?"
“You didn’t do any of that when shit got hard.”
“That’s not true at all. I cried a lot. Constantly, for weeks. I also ate my feelings until chocolate became an expensive luxury. And technically, I did run away to the wilderness.” She plopped back into her seat, slapping her seatbelt back over her chest. “But I wasn’t imprisoned and tortured!”
I shrugged, hiding a smile. I thought telling her would be the worst torture yet. Instead, I felt better. Lighter. It was easier hearing her outrage over her sympathy.
I didn’t want to feel bad about it. I wanted to get even.
“And all of a sudden, Joseph Cargill appears with a bunch of shifter extremists trying to kill him,” she said, more to herself than me. “How many shifter extremists are there?”
“Very few. Even fewer that have successfully organized entire packs.”
“Joseph Cargill was privy to classified military operations.”
“Yes.”
“These extremists want him for that classified information."
“Uh- huh.”
“And the mission you were on was classified.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” she nodded. “I see what you see.”
Abby was the only reason I made it to Seattle. It was a three-and-a-half-hour drive back from the cabin and with every passing mile, my tension mounted. I would have been a wolf in the driver’s seat long before we hit city limits if not for the human anxiety reducer yawning in the passenger seat.
I don’t know what I was expecting when I dragged her up to the cabin with me. Was she helpful? In more ways than one.
It would be easy to blame the bond on her confident presence. That was the nature of it. Loyalty was guaranteed. Then again, wasn’t that the whole reason I was blocking it? From her end, nothing was guaranteed. She was human. She couldn’t feel the bond flowing like warm, pearlescent water between us.
There was no way to know for certain what she felt without confronting her with the truth. After my talk with Arlo, I knew it would have to happen sooner rather than later.
I had to finish this with Cargill, then I would worry about Abby.
For now, she was by my side. Standing with me. Risking more than she probably realized.
It was me that was the selfish one here. She was totally oblivious, and far, far too forgiving. The squabbling between my wolf and me was giving me multiple personalities, and she’d been subjected to all of them.
Every time the car slowed, I glanced at her, taking in her tired eyes under the yellow highway lights. She was most beautiful like this. Without the gloss of makeup and that carefully professional smile. A wrinkled t-shirt, tight jeans, her pin-straight hair braided to the side to reveal that pale neck.
My wolf chuffed irritably, noting the bare spot where my mark should be. He didn’t understand anything except that his mate was only a foot away and I wasn’t even touching her.
Last night I’d been inches away from her and I hadn’t bitten her then, either.
Inevitable. I played with the word in my head, picturing it without panic for the first time.
What would inevitable look like with Abby?
She leaned back against the headrest, feet tucked under her, and I could see it. Her just like this, curled up in my truck after a long weekend at the cabin. My mark would contrast beautifully against her skin. I could tuck my hand around the curve of her thigh, notice the smile form on her lips at my touch.
The image made my skin itch. I’d gone so long without happiness that I was allergic to it.
I didn’t know much about mating, but I knew it wasn’t supposed to feel like that.
I wasn’t supposed to want her closer to me and to want her gone all at once.
This was too intense. Every day it got worse, more painful, more consuming, and I didn’t have time for this. Didn’t God or the universe or the Moon Mother or whatever the fuck the elders believed in know that I wasn’t ready?
That I might never be?
That felt like a lie too. All I did anymore was lie. To my brother, to Abby, to myself. Even I didn’t know what the truth was.
The bond pulsed unhappily because that was another lie.
The truth was that I’d been alone for too long, and I ached for the easy companionship I found with Abby. My brothers and I returned to Alaska, but we never really made it home. In a room full of my closest friends, I felt lonely. Empty. Bereft of the vibrancy that made me the man that I was.
The truth was that I thought of my dad often, and how he used to make my mom laugh. How he brought her back from the pits of grief when her chosen mate died days after Levi turned three.
I thought of the way she watched out the window for him every evening when he went for his lone wolf walkabouts. A fated mate was the rarest, most precious gift, and most of my kind would go their lives without ever experiencing that kind of pairing.
The truth was that I wanted a mate, badly enough that my fears were beginning to feel unfounded. So, what if she couldn’t feel the bond? I could feel it.
And if I could feel it, I would know when she decided she wasn’t going to stay. I could change her mind. Peel oranges until my fingers bled. Learn to cook her favorite foods. I would build her a nice house and find ways to make her laugh just like my father did with his mate, and she would have to stay.
I wanted her to stay.
Admitting it ignited the bond, increasing the pull of it tenfold. My hands burned with the need to touch her, the compulsion stronger and more violent than that damn tone that always accompanied my worst days.
Then I realized with an audible inhale—it was gone. That tone, that awful, constant buzzing that drove me to the brink of madness, that seemed to be an inescapable effect of my pain, was gone.
Not just muted but completely missing.
My foot slammed the brake as I swerved off the road. A horn blared from a passing car. I ignored them.
I ignored everything except Abby, who was staring wide-eyed, scanning the road for whatever obstacle caused our sudden stop.
It started the day we arrived back in Alaska. This awful, high-pitched tone that only I was able to hear. It sent both me and my wolf into a rage, blindly attacking anyone and everyone. Including my brother, my mom—my alphas.
It took over a year to gain enough control of myself that I could be trusted around the pack again.
Levi trusted me. I didn’t trust myself. That was why I agreed to his proposal to start the firm in Seattle. I wasn’t safe to be around anyone I cared for.
I thought it was a response to what we went through—PTSD, everyone said. I accepted that explanation. What else could it be?
But it was slowly driving me mad, pushing my wolf closer and closer to an edge he couldn’t back away from. Every time the tone started it was like an injection of adrenaline and testosterone. I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t sit still.
I needed to break something, to make someone bleed.
It was worse when I was under pressure. Any physical or emotional stress sent me spiraling, willing to do whatever it took to make it stop. Even attack my own pack brothers.
And now?
Now I couldn’t hear it, not even the faintest hum.
“What happened?” Abby sat upright in her seat, pulse thrumming. “Gage, what’s going on?”
She was scared.
I needed to make her not scared. I needed to tell her that I was her mate, and it was my job to protect her, and she never had to be afraid of anything again.
I had to tell her that this was fate, divined by forces I couldn’t understand.
But I’d spent the last two months being an absolute dick to her. At best, she would think I was insane. At worst, she would flat out reject me.
This required strategy. A human mate who couldn’t feel the bond would need to be wooed. We couldn’t just complete the bond and carry on with our lives as we would if we were both shifters.
Even if we were both shifters, we couldn’t complete the bond. Newly mated pairs had to spend days, sometimes weeks, isolated from their pack until the bond was solid. Otherwise, my wolf would go apeshit.
My wolf was already going apeshit, writhing to get out and do what I wouldn’t. The bond was tittering excitedly, like a flock of small birds hopping around my chest. It was so vibrant I could almost see it, reaching for her, begging to be made whole.
It physically hurt not to touch her. Fire burned through my fingertips, only easing when I snatched her hand into mine.
“Gage?” Abby was blinking up at me, waving with her free hand. “Are you okay?”
No, I wasn’t because I had this once in a lifetime chance in front of me and I fucked it up. I was so caught up in my past that I was stomping on my own future.
If I had only told her earlier.
I couldn’t now. We didn’t have the luxury of disappearing into the bliss of a new bond until Thanksgiving. Not with Cargill causing chaos for my pack. Not with Dallas alive and stalking the city to find my mate.
My mate.
He approached her on the street. She was alone.
She was alone because of me.
I wouldn’t let that happen again. I wouldn’t drop my guard for a single moment. This was my chance to redeem myself and I was going to come out like a fucking superhero on the other side.
And then Abby would forgive me for being the world’s biggest dickhole, and all would be right in the world.
My wolf and I let out a relieved breath. He understood my logic, and we both felt secure with a plan of action.
Pulverize Cargill until he gives us answers.
Find Dallas and save him from whatever mind control torture those scientist fucks must have done to him.
Spend the next six weeks feeding and fucking my mate until she never wants to leave my side.
“Gage!” Abby was on her knees now, seatbelt undone, touching my forehead like I might be feverish.
I blinked out of my trance, looking from her hand to her lips. How was I going to explain this to her?
I couldn’t tell her yet. Not until she didn’t hate me.
“My wolf,” I mumbled, trying to piece together any coherent thought with her cool fingers on my face. “I need you to keep touching me.”
Those lips parted, and she swallowed. She was attracted to me. At least I had that part down.
“Keep touching you?”
“Yes,” I breathed, “please.”
Great, I went from deranged asshole to deranged idiot.
“My wolf is riled up. He gets like this when we break a case. Touch helps to settle him.”
She nodded half-heartedly, brow knit with suspicion. “ My touch?"
“Yes, yours,” I said, fumbling to add, “because you’re pack. Touch from pack helps.”
The wrinkles in her forehead released as she raised her eyebrows. “I’m not pack.”
“You are.” I closed my eyes, clinging to the feel of her fingertips on my temple.
I gave myself ten more seconds. Ten seconds of euphoria. Now that I wasn’t fighting the bond, swimming upstream to avoid it, there was this overwhelming and delirious high.
I’d never felt anything like it.
But I was going to have to compartmentalize. I carefully removed her hands from me, placing them in her lap, and buckling her seatbelt across her chest.
Abby was still staring at me like I was a lunatic. I felt like a lunatic as I put the car into drive and merged back onto the road.
We were only ten minutes from my building, which was also where Ezra and Mason were guarding Cargill. Just enough time to get myself back in the zone.
All thoughts of bonds and Abby came to a screeching stop with the car when I parked it against the curb. My focus was singular as I shifted into work mode. There was a mission, and I would accomplish it, whether I made it out alive or not.
Except, this startling tug instantly broke that focus, reminding me to slow my pace and shorten my stride. When Abby didn’t immediately catch up with me, I circled back, grabbing her hand and wrenching her from the sidewalk. She gasped as I dragged her into the building and past the reception desk where two women greeted us with, “Welcome home, Mr. And Mrs. Griffin!”
“That’s the second time they’ve called me Mrs. Griffin,” Abby said, puzzled.
“Must’ve been a misunderstanding when I set up your security clearance the other day.” Not that I was going to change it.
I hurried her past the elevators, and straight up a dozen flights of stairs.
By the fifth floor she was panting. By the eighth she was tugging at my iron grip, her free hand grasping the railing as she stomped up the stairs. That frustrating tug drew me back again, and I slowed to a stop, letting her catch up with me.
I was supposed to be showing her that I wasn’t a total asshole, and I was already failing.
I forced myself to ease up. It wouldn’t make a difference if I ran up the stairs or walked. Cargill wasn’t going anywhere.
The adrenaline coursing through my legs and urging them onward didn’t agree. I had to tap my foot erratically, clenching and unclenching my fingers around her hand. Abby tried to move faster, her cheeks pinking with the effort of keeping up with my long legs.
“Either you need to get over your beef with elevators, or I need to do more cardio,” she gasped.
“There’s a StairMaster in the gym downstairs.”
Abby pursed her lips.
Okay, wrong answer. Fine. I would carry her up the stairs next time.
Finally, we opened the door to the twelfth floor and were immediately met with a mass of muscle, his meaty hand propped on the firearm concealed at his back. Ezra stilled in his approach, eyes wide as he read the tension in my gait.
“Gage? What the hell is—”
“Don’t freak out. Everything’s fine,” Abby said, using some kind of Jedi mind trick. Ezra relaxed instantly, nodding at her.
Nodding in deference .
Because she was the Beta female of our pack. No wonder the guys were so quick to obey her, always bending over backwards when she asked for anything. They didn’t just have a soft spot for her. They deferred to her because she was my mate.
I really was that fucking obvious, huh?
“So, you already called Levi?” I interrupted his questioning with a loud bang, my fists leaving fissures in the door as I knocked.
“Cargill!” I bellowed.
The door flew open to reveal Mason, gun drawn. He dropped his gun arm, angling his head to look around the hall behind us.
“What the fuck’s happening?”
Abby answered for me, still using that soothing telephone voice that worked on our more entitled clients. “We need to speak to Mister Cargill. Now.”
Mason glared at me. He knew me well enough to see past my stoic expression. I was here to fuck shit up.
“At two in the Goddamn morning? Where’s Levi?”
Three floors down, sleeping especially soundly if I was lucky.
“Let them in,” came an order from inside.
Mason bristled, turning his glare on Cargill before slowly stepping aside to let us in.
The unit was identical to mine, right down to the black leather couches. The glass wall at the far end of the living room showed nothing but starlight reflecting off the Puget Sound. Levi wanted our wealthy clients to feel at home in the event they needed to be moved to a safe house.
Cargill stood in the living room, wearing blue flannel pajamas, with a fine dusting of grey hair along his jaw. He looked old in the pale light from the hallway. Old and fragile.
Until he smiled and I saw the snake for what he was.
Abby’s hand was still in mine, and I took her with me, rushing past Mason to loom over Cargill.
“Dallas fucking Garcia,” I snarled.
“Yes, have you found him?” Cargill asked with feigned surprise.
“He’s supposed to be dead.”
“Well, that can’t be true.” He tucked his hands into the pockets of his pants. “I saw him three weeks ago.”