23. Chapter 23
Chapter 23
Gage
I was in bed with my mate, and I was naked.
Under different circumstances, I would be happy about this development. That would be if I remembered getting in bed with her, and if she actually wanted me here.
I wasn’t clear on either and that was alarming.
I was sprawled out in the middle of the bed, the sheets barely covering my lower half. Abby was curled into my side, her leg—her bare leg—stretched across my hips.
Shit. It would take a bomb squad to safely remove me.
I didn’t have time for a careful extraction. The scent of her created an intoxicating cloud around me, confusing my thoughts, and sending every pint of blood in my body downstream. My fingers clenched in her hair, fisting a handful of brown tangles.
There was sex and then there was mating.
I needed the latter. Literally needed, the same as I needed food and water. Inside me the bond had become a dozen sharp points, spearing outward in a final attempt to connect to its other half. The muscles in my hips ached, my skin tightening, sweat soaking me.
I gulped down air, trying and failing to count out my exhales.
I gave up with a gasp, wriggling awkwardly until her leg dropped onto the mattress. I kept moving sideways across the bed, hitting the edge, and falling painfully onto the floor. That pain was the shock I needed to clear my head, scrambling away from where Abby was still sleeping peacefully.
My hands shook as I rifled through my dresser, grabbing a random assortment of clothes and praying at least one piece was pants. Then I ran, through the open bedroom door, across the living room where late morning light was spilling onto the floor, and straight into the second bathroom.
Panting and shivering, I leaned my back against the cool door. I’d taken a bullet three different times and the pain from those injuries didn’t come close to the throb between my legs.
I gripped my cock with a growl. Even that simple touch sent sparks of white agony up my middle. I stroked anyway, furiously trying to relieve this pressure so I could breathe again.
But this wasn’t the need for carnal pleasure.
It wasn’t physical, it was spiritual. The urge to experience completeness. To be one.
Arlo warned me about the mating frenzy, and I ignored her. I wasn’t worried about being extra horny. I thought I could handle it.
I was wrong. I couldn’t handle it.
Being away from Abby—a single room away—was making me physically ill. I couldn’t decide if I was going to bust a nut or throw up.
I released the stranglehold on my cock, planting both hands on the wall. Flecks of green paint showered down on my bare feet. Fissures formed in the wall.
With a shove I propelled myself into the shower, flipping the water on as hot as it went. Teeth gritting, eyes closed, I forced myself to be absolutely still as the water scalded my back.
I had to have her. I had to.
And I wouldn’t. Not ever, if I gave in to this frenzy.
Abby couldn’t feel the bond. She knew nothing about it. She wouldn’t understand what was happening to me.
I could hurt her. In this state, I would hurt her.
That thought was colder than the absence of hot water as I cranked the shower off. So cold that the constant quivering energy of the bond froze, in complete stillness as it registered this potential.
Bonds were supposed to be protective, not destructive.
The bedroom door was closed by the time I made it back into the main room. I could hear the shower going in the master bathroom, and I had to stick my head in the fridge to keep from imagining Abby in there.
Strategy was quickly going out the window, and I needed to regroup.
Food. She would want food. She was always skipping meals.
I would fix that, and it would prove my worth as a mate. Males were supposed to feed their mates. My wolf agreed, satisfied with my reformed strategy.
Step one: Acquire food.
There was less in my fridge at home than I had at the cabin. Maybe I was skipping too many meals too. No wonder my wolf was running rampant while I slept.
Humans forgot to eat, and they got hangry. Shifters forgot to eat, and their animal took matters into their own hands. It was the most basic survival instinct.
Except in my case, my wolf got a little distracted by another base instinct.
I glanced over the kitchen counter into the open living room, realizing my mangled clothes from the night before were scattered across the floor. I collected them as I typed single-handed on my phone, tossing the clothes in the garbage, and pressing the green button to place my order.
I was piling takeout containers onto the kitchen bar as the bedroom door opened, my hand still sticky from peeling the pound of oranges I ordered with grocery delivery.
My jaw nearly hit the granite counter.
Abby was always carefully put together at work. Her hair coiled into a neat bun, her figure hidden beneath a loose-fitting blouse and a flowing skirt. It was a boundary, the professional version of Abby that I was allowed access to.
Now her brown hair was damp and wavy, her face clean of makeup. Her legs were clad in a tight, tight pair of leggings that let me see every little movement of her hips and thighs as she walked. The sweater she swore was oversized, sliding off one shoulder to reveal her collarbone and neck.
Fuck, did women not realize how vulgar that was?
I couldn’t stop staring at her. At the place where she should wear my mark.
Her brown eyes were shifting from me to the counter, the walls, looking anywhere but directly at my face.
Did she wake up while I was leaving this morning?
Did she know how fucking insane I was going?
Was she trying to plan her escape?
Make her stay. Make her want to stay.
“Good morning,” she said softly.
“Morning,” I grunted.
Not good enough. I had to be friendlier.
“Looks like our vacation has been extended indefinitely.”
“ Our vacation?” Her face fell. “I’m fired, aren’t I?”
“No. I won’t let Levi fire you.”
“Then what’s going on?”
I shrugged. “Levi will let us know when he’s ready.”
Abby chewed her lip, leaning her arms onto the opposite side of the bar. She was holding back.
“Ask.”
“How are you just okay with that?” she blurted. “With Levi telling you what to do, or not telling you, in this case.”
“Levi is my alpha.”
“I don’t get that.” She waved her hand at me. “You’re an alpha too, aren’t you? That’s why Levi takes it as a challenge when you go against his authority. How does that work anyway? How did you decide that Levi gets to be alpha?”
“Levi didn’t explain pack hierarchy to you?”
“I mean, kind of. He said he was the alpha, you were his second, and everyone followed his rules.”
“What a dickhead,” I muttered, popping open the takeout containers and turning them to face Abby. “Fill your plate.”
She wrinkled her nose, and my heart dropped. “Sushi for breakfast?”
“It’s almost lunch time,” I explained. “I thought it would be…exciting.”
Her lips quirked. “You set the bar for excitement pretty high last night.”
I swallowed. Did she mean last night with Cargill, or last night when I crawled into bed with her like a creep?
Abby saved me from my own stumbling thoughts. “Is it wrong to have coffee with sushi? I need caffeine.”
I exhaled, turning to the coffee maker, and pouring her a fresh cup. She added cream and sugar, and six California rolls to her plate.
“Thanks.” She sipped from her mug, eyes softening.
I offered her the bowl of peeled oranges and she stilled. Shit, what did I do wrong now?
“Gage.” She pressed her lips together. Was she laughing? “Can I confess something to you?”
She took a few slices from the bowl and set them on her plate.
“Yes.”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way. It’s really sweet that you keep peeling me oranges.”
“But you don’t like them.”
“They’re good. But I don’t like them enough to eat that many.”
“Then why do you always bring oranges to work?”
Her cheeks flushed, and she busied her hands stirring her coffee. “They’re the healthiest and most affordable breakfast at the truck stop where I shower every morning.”
Well, that bullshit wasn’t happening anymore.
“Welcome to Hotel Gage,” I told her. “You’ll find our breakfast menu is far superior to truck stop produce.”
Abby smiled at me, and it was like the sun was rising all over again. “I was going to tell you that you don’t have to feed me, but I think you owe me at least one good meal.”
“I owe you a lot,” I said quietly.
She made a swift change of subject. “You were going to tell me about pack hierarchies.”
“The head of the pack is the alpha. Then there’s his second. Some packs call them betas. After the second, most alphas have a chain of command. The more dominant a shifter is, the higher up he ranks in the chain.”
“So, you don’t get the job because you’re good at it. You get it because you’re a tough guy.”
“I am good at it,” I said, stuffing a sushi roll into my mouth. “Mostly.”
“And these pack bonds,” her eyes narrowed, “are like mate bonds? I thought those were unbreakable .” It wasn’t quite a sneer, but it was clear Abby didn’t understand the reverence with which we held mate bonds.
Hell, until a few weeks ago, I didn’t either.
“Similar but not the same. An alpha can feel the general location and wellbeing of all pack members. If he tunes into a specific member, he can read their more intense emotions, but it takes time to hone that skill.” On instinct I rested my palm against my sternum. “A mate bond is deeper. When it forms you can feel and experience everything your mate feels. You’re connected to them in a way that goes beyond the physical. Unlike pack bonds, it’s a permanent choice, one that can only be undone if your mate dies.”
“How do you know?” Her hand was on her chest too, cradling the place she would feel a bond if she was a shifter.
I clenched my teeth, searching for the right answer. The truth was that I didn’t know, beyond the tiniest flutters I felt of our bond. At the same time, I did know. Instinctively, the way the wolf knew all things.
I understood exactly what it was to find a mate, and now that I was open to it, I had this collective pack memory of mate and bond .
How did I explain that to her without telling her the full truth? I needed it to sound appealing to be on the other half of that bond, even if she couldn’t feel it.
“Sorry, that’s actually none of my business.” Abby swatted her question out of the air before I could respond. “If you’re second who comes after you at Silver Bullet?” She tapped a chopstick on the table. “No, you don’t have to tell me. It’s Ezra.”
“Yup. Ezra, then Mason, and Kai.”
“No wonder Kai is always poking at you. Sucks to be on the bottom of the food chain.”
“It’s not like that in a pack,” I explained. “Or it’s not supposed to be. Less dominant doesn’t mean lesser. In fact, it’s our duty as the most dominant to protect them. But you’ve seen how loosely some alphas interpret that.
“That’s why the Wildlings chose to come out to humans. There was no safe or easy way to move packs, and even if you did, there was no guarantee the next alpha was any better. It was especially bad for females.”
“You can’t just leave a pack if you don’t like it?”
“It’s not that simple. When you join a pack, you form a bond with the alpha. That connects you to every member within the pack. Breaking that bond requires both parties to consent, or for the shifter breaking free from the alpha to be highly dominant. If you leave without breaking the bond, your alpha can find you anywhere.”
Abby paled. “So, when Amelia Patelle said her alpha would find her, he’s using their pack bond to do it?”
I grimaced. “Yes.”
“I didn’t realize life was so hard for shifters.” She glanced around my luxury apartment. “Relatively speaking.”
“Humans don’t usually concern themselves with our problems.” It came out too bitter, and Abby visibly flinched.
“To be fair, shifters don’t talk about their problems. It’s impossible to find accurate information about you online. I didn’t even know about Jameson’s law until—" She snapped her mouth shut, lifting a napkin and pretending to be busy wiping nonexistent crumbs from her lips.
“Until your divorce?” I asked.
After our encounter in the woods, when I discovered Abby was living out of her car, I did more digging into her past. When I completed her original background check, I didn’t care why she filed for bankruptcy or why she got divorced.
I viewed it as typical human behavior. She was just unreliable, like the rest of her kind.
But I hadn’t realized that Abby wasn’t the one to initiate her divorce, or that she lost more than a good credit score because of her ex-husband. By the time they made it to court he was mated to a hyena shifter from a local pack. His lawyer enacted Jameson’s law, using a legal loophole to rob Abby of all rights to their shared assets.
That part of the law was intended to protect mated pairs from losing their personal property if one of them was a member of a pack and the other wasn’t—packs of a certain size were only allowed to own property in zoned areas—but the language allowed room for abuse.
Abby rested her hands in her lap, nodding. “How much do you know about my divorce?”
I scratched the back of my neck, debating with myself. There was a professional background check and then there was snooping. “Only that your husband initiated when he mated a shifter, and that you lost ownership of your house because of the mating.”
“I lost everything,” she whispered. “By the time I was allowed supervised entry of the house— my house—to get my stuff, it was mostly destroyed or missing.”
My hands fisted on the countertop, and I nearly choked on my bite of food. “When you say everything…”
“I mean everything . He came home from a business trip with her, and she literally chased me out of the house. I didn’t have time to pack. I only kept my purse, and the clothes she threw out of the bedroom window onto the front lawn.”
“He brought her home while you were there?” The question was too calm. Every muscle in my body was poised to attack an unseen enemy.
“Yes.” Abby swallowed. “Is that violation of more shifter etiquette?”
“It’s fucking dangerous, is what it is!” I gave her my back, forcing myself to inhale. There was the faintest buzz in my neck. It made the muscles in my left cheek jump. All I had to do was turn and look at those big brown eyes, wide with l alarm, and the tone ceased.
Incredible. She was so incredible.
“When shifters mate, there’s a period of time where the bond is newly formed and needs to be strengthened.”
Her expression turned skeptical. “How do you strengthen a bond?”
Blood burned down my veins in anticipation. I could show her right now.
“Uh, connection.”
“Sex,” she said bluntly.
“Not just sex.” I rubbed the back of my neck again. “But yes, that’s a big part of it.”
“I don’t see how that’s dangerous.”
“Newly mated pairs are extremely possessive over their bonded. It’s not uncommon for both males and females to attack perceived threats to their bond.”
“Oh,” Abby said, lifting her chopsticks and prodding absently at a piece of sushi. “I guess I’m lucky she only threw my clothes in the trash.”
“Yeah,” I said seriously, “you are.”
The silence pressed in on us and I could feel the sadness and betrayal forming a haze around her. I wanted to rewind, to keep telling her about bonds and mates and all the good parts of being in a pack.
“How much do you know about Jameson’s Law?”
“Basically, mates get special treatment because they can’t stand to be apart from each other.” Now she was the bitter one.
“Mates can’t be apart from each other. Not for extended periods of time.”
Abby raised her eyebrows. “Oh really? My ex-husband made the same claim.”
“Really. Shifters become physically ill when they’re away from their mate for too long. Some shifters die without their mate.”
“They’re mates, not internal organs.”
“It’s the bond. It becomes like a new organ.” My hand found the center of my chest again. “Eric Jameson was a member of my pack. Levi’s father was the one to advocate for him and have Jameson’s law put into place.
“Jameson was found guilty of assault, and he was going to be incarcerated. Levi’s father hired a team of lawyers and convinced lawmakers to allow Jameson to bring his mate with him,” I said. “He's the reason that shifter prisons allow visitors. He’s the reason mated pairs get special privileges in unique circumstances.”
“But that punishes her too. Why should she pay for his crime?”
I considered that. Jameson’s mate was human. Why would she willingly go to one of those hell holes with him?
“She had a choice. She chose to stay with her mate. He might have died without her.”
“I suppose that’s romantic.”
“Jameson was the first shifter to openly take a human mate. They were fated mates.” I let those last words hang in the air, waiting to see her response.
Abby didn’t seem to believe in mates, and I couldn’t blame her. I hadn’t been especially attached to the idea either.
But I couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility that this was it for me. I would never find joy or satisfaction in another relationship. If things didn’t work out with Abby…
I hadn’t taken it seriously before. It hadn’t even occurred to me that there would be no way to remove the bond and Abby might reject me and then I would be stuck forever in this desperate state.
The stakes were high.
“He made the mistake of believing people would be happy for them. Jameson didn’t even wait three weeks before announcing their mating. His mate’s ex-boyfriend tried to ‘rescue’ her from the savage animal that left a mark on her neck.” I pushed my plate away. “You can imagine what happened.”
She was quiet, contemplating the story as she kept playing with her food.
“That’s why most shifters leave the city if they find their mate. For a dominant shifter—any shifter—a mate can be a weakness that humans use against us.”
“So, if Levi found his mate, he would abandon the firm and go back to Alaska?”
“Yes. But Alaska is inevitable. We’re all going back sooner or later.”
She jerked her head up. “What?”
“Our alpha back in Alaska is my mom. As her oldest son, Levi is next in line to take her place. The firm—and his work on The Initiative—is his way of avoiding responsibility. Responsibly.”
“I—I didn’t know that.” Her pitch rose. “How long?”
“Hard to say. A few years, at least.”
“What if he finds a mate before that?”
I shrugged. “That’s his call. Having a mate in a city like this, with an inheritance like his, makes him vulnerable.”
It made me vulnerable too. Another problem I hadn’t considered.
“Forget the Cargill case for a minute. Who would want to hurt Levi’s mate? Why would someone do that?”
“The Alaska pack is the most powerful pack in the northern hemisphere. It’s the largest, with the most connections, and high-profile allies. Our parents worked hard to make sure of that.” I pushed a breath through my lips. “It also means we have some formidable enemies.”
“It’s sad that you have to make those kinds of preparations.”
“It’s always been this way.”
“Gage?” The sound of my name on her lips sent goosebumps up my arms. “What would you do if you found your mate?”
“Anything and everything I had to do to protect her. I would go back to Alaska if I had to. I’d go to the fucking moon if that’s what it took to give her a good life.”
Her eyes found mine across the kitchen island, searching. I met her gaze, dropping my walls and letting her see how much I meant those words.
If I was in, I was all in. I wouldn’t fuck this up again.
Her breath hitched. So did mine, stalling as the bond jumped between us like fire catching gas fumes. I reached for it, trying to reel it back in. We were beyond dangerous territory now and I was seconds away from blurting everything and claiming her on the kitchen counter—
There was a knock at the door.