Chapter One #2
Numbness crept through Delta’s body. “Why is Decker calling you?” Delta asked.
“And before you lie and say it’s another Decker, please remember I’m not stupid.
” Her breath hitched on the last word. She never spoke boldly like this to him, or to anyone.
Her submissiveness prevented it, but right now, the numbness enabled her to speak her mind.
She wasn’t stupid. She was a watcher, and now she knew it to be true. If her ex was calling her current mate, something was very wrong.
“I’ll explain it all later,” he rumbled, and now the wolf was in his voice.
She swung her gaze to him, and oh, she knew what her face would look like right now. The angles of her jawline and cheekbones would be sharper, her canines would be elongated by millimeters, and her eyes would be blazing that neon green that made people uncomfortable looking at her.
“We have a long drive. Explain it now.” They could both have the wolf in their voices now.
He flashed a frown at her. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I feel like you are betraying me.”
“I’m not.”
“Lie!” she whispered in horror. “I can hear it, Nate. I am a werewolf too—” A gasp took her throat as she saw the truck passing them.
It wasn’t just any truck. It was one of a kind. It was a black 1972 Chevrolet K20 with custom white flames down the side of it that turned light blue in the right sunlight. She knew it because she’d grown up working on that truck with her dad.
“Stop,” she uttered as an awful feeling consumed her.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said, tracking her dad’s truck.
“I want to talk to my dad,” she whispered.
“But—”
“Nate, this is the second thing I have ever asked for. It’s not a lot. I want to talk to my dad. He’s here. He will give me a straight answer on what’s going on.”
“Fuck,” Nate gritted out. “Delta…” He couldn’t seem to finish his thought though. Not with her, and not out loud.
“Pull. Over,” she said in a shaking voice.
Why hadn’t her dad told her he was headed to meet them?
She’d just talked to him on the phone two days ago and he hadn’t mentioned anything.
He’d been his normal chipper self, but now as she looked in the side view mirror, she could see Dad pull his truck around in traffic and settle into the same lane behind them, and she could see it plain as day.
Her ex, Decker, was in the passenger seat.
She didn’t know what was happening, but already, it felt as if her heart was breaking.
“Pull into there,” she said, pointing to a grocery store parking lot to the right.
Nate kept looking over at her, but she was the one who was not meeting his eyes now. Her wolf was at the surface, and she felt like she could Change right here and shred him.
She didn’t know what was happening, but she did know one thing—this was about to be one of those moments she would remember all of her life.
She lifted her phone and opened the text thread with Nory. Wish I was with the Pack already. Send.
Her eyes were rimmed with moisture and she blinked hard. Nory’s response was immediate. I’m so excited. Come home! Let’s do girl’s night this week.
A sad smile stretched her lips, and she put a heart response on it, then set her phone into the cup holder.
She was acutely aware of everything right now.
The shade of yellow the streetlights cast the parking lot into as Nate parked in the back.
The loose gravel that sprinkled the asphalt, like a truck had spilled a little bit of his load.
The snow that had been piled up on the edges of the parking lot.
The throaty rumble of her dad’s truck as he backed in two empty spaces over.
The crunch sound her dad’s boot made on the loose gravel as he stepped out of his truck. The cold wind on her bare arms as she slid out of Nate’s truck.
The way her mate whispered that he was, “Sorry,” and, “It’s for your own good,” as she closed the door behind her.
The way her heart felt as if it was in her throat.
The warmth of her dad’s hug, and the grit in his voice as he said, “Hey, peanut.” It had been her nickname since she was a cub.
The light blue in Decker’s eyes as he came around the front of the truck. She’d loved him once.
“What are you doing here?” she murmured as she eased back out of her dad’s hug.
Her dad’s lightened green eyes drifted to something behind her—Nate—and back as he squeezed her shoulders gently. “We’ve come to pick you up. Didn’t Nate tell you?”
She shook her head, too chicken to look back at her mate in this moment. “He didn’t tell me anything.”
“Seriously?” Decker asked. He huffed a laugh and looked pissed. To Delta he said, “He’s giving you back to me.”
“What?” she asked, horrified. “Giving me back…I’m not some pawn in a game. It’s my choice.”
“It was your choice until you entered into Arrangement negotiations,” Decker gritted out. His anger was always right there at the surface. It was one of the things she’d grown to hate about him.
“Okay, let’s sort this out,” her dad said, holding his hands out to Decker. “Delta, you went to Nate’s Pack because he was the best option at the time, but that Pack has been dissolved by the Elders, and you are now a Rogue.”
“We are figuring all of that out.”
“There’s nothing to figure out,” Dad said. “The only reason I agreed to an Arrangement for you was because it was to a Donn wolf, who was Second of a Pack.”
“He is my mate!”
“You haven’t consummated the pairing yet,” Decker said low.
Every argument she had building up escaped her mind in a moment.
“Hey, man,” Nate said, finally breaking his silence. “That isn’t for open discussion.”
“Clearly it is,” she whispered, turning to look at him. “You told my ex that?”
Nate frowned. “Your ex?”
She jammed a finger at Decker. “It was you or him. I chose you.”
Nate shook his head slightly, his gold eyes drifting between Decker, her father, and her. “I was negotiating your release with him, because he’s just taken Alpha of the Heritage Place Pack.”
Well, that was news to her, but also not that surprising. Garrison, their last Alpha, was getting older and had been talking about stepping down.
“We didn’t have any trouble consummating our pairing,” Decker said, eyes on Nate. “She fucked me easily.”
A snarl rippled from him, and he clenched his jaw, and looked at the ground, then up at her. His expression was unreadable, but the hairs on the back of her neck lifted with the intensity in those off-putting gold eyes of his. “You were paired, and you fucked him?”
“We were dating,” she whispered angrily. “I broke it off, and now you’re giving me back to him like some gift you don’t want.”
“Go on, get in the truck,” Decker told her, and there it was—an Alpha’s order in his tone. He really had taken the Pack. Already the urge to obey him felt like a weight tugging her legs forward.
Her breath hitched as she fought like hell to hold back her emotions. Delta clenched her hands at her sides. “I have a mate.”
“You didn’t fuck him.”
“Hey,” Nate gritted out. “Say it again and I’ll lay you the fuck out.”
Decker straightened his spine and closed some of the distance between him and Nate. “She wouldn’t fuck you.”
But that’s not how it had been. It had been the opposite.
“Wrong,” she squeaked out, feeling a great weight on her lungs.
“I wanted him. He was the one who didn’t want me.
” The tears that had been building in her eyes spilled to her cheeks.
She felt so betrayed. So hurt. So…disposable.
“I’m not going back. Nate is clearly canceling the Arrangement, and I will accept it.
I don’t want someone who doesn’t want me, but I have a Pack. ”
“Coeur d’Alene Lake Pack has been dissolved,” Decker growled.
“We’re figuring it out as a Pack.”
“But you aren’t a Pack!” he barked, rushing her. He stood over her and parted his lips to say more, and when she closed her eyes, she expected him to explode on her. His wolf had a high prey-drive, and he’d always seen her as prey. He liked to yell.
But nothing happened. There was a thud sound and then a scuffle, and when she opened her eyes, Nate and Decker were beating the absolute shit out of each other, in human form.
Her dad rushed to them, yelling for them to stop. Decker Changed first. His enormous white wolf ripped out of him in two seconds flat, and Nate Changed right after into his charcoal gray wolf. They went after each other’s throats in an instant, and she was supposed to protect her mate? Right?
But she stood here confused, and her wolf was quiet, because at this moment she realized she didn’t have a mate at all. Not like she’d thought.
“Get in the truck, Delta,” her father barked before his wolf tore out of him to try and separate the fight.
Maybe Decker would die. Nate’s wolf was bigger, and he was fighting with vengeance she didn’t understand. It was pointless. He didn’t want her anyway, so what was the point of this pissing contest? Whose wolf was bigger? Who cared?
She turned, feeling completely numb, and made her way to Nate’s truck. She got in and stared straight ahead, her hands clenched in her lap as she stared blankly ahead.
The fight was loud, and travelled to the snowbanks, farther away from the trucks.
Submissives attracted dominants with desire for power. It’s just how it was. It was explained to her that way since the day she’d had her first Change, and the Heritage Place Pack had realized what she was. Weak.
Female werewolves were rare, and submissives were even rarer, and she was, unfortunately, both. Lucky her. Dominants were attracted to her because they could control her. Even if they didn’t mean to, eventually they grew to love that power. Decker had.
Two more tears streaked to her cheeks, and she dashed them away with the back of her hand. Weak, weak, weak.
She grabbed her cell phone from the cupholder and opened the text thread with Nory. Can I stay with you when we get there? Send.
Outside the wolves were snarling and bleeding each other, but inside the cab of Nate’s truck, there was a sense of calm acceptance as her heart broke.
He’d really tried to give her back.
She was nothing to him.
Nory messaged back. Sure. Everything okay?
She replaced the phone in the cupholder. She wasn’t ready to talk about any of this. She was too ashamed. Too embarrassed. Too destroyed.
The truck jolted to the side and Nate ripped his driver’s side door open and got in.
He was naked, his clothes in shreds in the parking lot from his Change. He smelled heavily of blood, and when Delta looked over at him, his skin was marred with deep injuries. He winced as he held his hand over his bleeding abdomen.
“You lost a pointless fight,” she whispered.
“Who said I lost?” he gritted out.
And when Delta looked over to the snowbank, her father was there helping Decker to stand up. His face was contorted with pain and staggered as her dad helped him to the truck.
Delta rolled down her window. “I’m going back to Coeur d’Alene,” she told them.
“No, you’re not,” Dad snapped. “Get in my truck.”
She shook her head. “I’ll call you soon. I love you, Dad.”
“Delta,” he called. “Delta, come back! You can’t be Rogue! You can’t do that to our name!”
But Nate was pulling out of the parking lot, and she was rolling up the window, and blinking back more tears. Everything had gone so wrong.
“What have you done?” she asked on a shaking breath.
“What I thought was best for you.”
“We’re supposed to be paired, Nate. You aren’t supposed to keep big stuff from me,” she told him, repeating his words from earlier.
“I was giving you an out—”
“You threw me away!” she corrected him. “Say it like it is.”
“Delta—”
“Enough talking now,” she cut him off, and damn the hurt in her voice. She reached for her earbuds in her purse and began to put them in so she could drown out the sound of his voice. “Give me a ride to Coeur d’Alene, and then you’re free.”