Chapter 8 - Hunter
I’ve made harder calls than this. I’ve endured worse in situations with much higher stakes.
I tell myself that asI’m standing at the kitchen counter at six in the morning, while my coffee goes cold in my hand, and I listen to the silence from the hallway, which means Tessa is either still asleep or awake and refusing to make a sound.
She’s been doing that lately… moving through the house like she wants to deny me even the knowledge of her presence. As if I wouldn’t know she’s here, as if I haven’t known, on some frequency I don’t have a name for, exactly where she is in every room since the moment I brought her here.
I’m more attuned to her than she could imagine, and it isn’t going away just because she doesn’t want it. I spent long enough avoiding this thing that wants to grow between us to know that it won’t just fade. After all these years, it still hasn’t, and part of me is tired of pretending.
With her safety on the line, that fact has ballooned tenfold, and as much as I don’t want to force this on her, I’ll risk her despising me even longer if it means knowing she’s protected.
Pouring the coffee down the sink, I exhale and try to wrap my head around everything, which makes me restless.
I’m annoyed with myself after yesterday, when I handed her an ultimatum instead of something that might’ve gone down easier. The look of pure shock on her face when I said it, only for it to go cold and hard when I pushed further, isn’t something I’m particularly proud of.
After spending a long time working through situations that required me to be precise and deliberate, I wasn’t either in that moment. I was a man at the end of his rope, informing her of exactly what was going to happen, hoping the authority in my voice would fill the gaps that patience should have.
My patience ran out far sooner than it should have, and now, Tessa’s furious with me. Maybe even that’s an understatement.
I call the meeting for noon, despite how these things would normally wait until later, when the humans are tucked away for the night and less likely to stumble upon pack business. But right now, I can’t wait.
It goes out through the usual channels, and by quarter-to, the clearing behind the main community building fills up with pack members arriving in clusters.
They keep their voices low, with what I can only assume is current speculation from people who know something significant is looming, and they want to figure out what.
I watch from the tree line for a few minutes before I walk in, and I see the moment the energy shifts when I emerge. Conversations taper off as bodies orient themselves to seem more attentive, and they look at me with the reverence every alpha hopes for.
This is the part I’ve never had trouble with. The authority and the silence that follows me in… I was made for this, and later trained to know exactly how to handle it.
My father used to say the pack doesn’t follow the title, but it follows the weight and conviction behind the one given it. Later on, Cole proved it to me, too.
Taking my place at the head of the clearing, I let them settle before getting into it.
Tessa is at the edge of the group, wearing that look of absolute reluctance.
I told her she needed to be here and left her no room to argue. Luckily, I didn’t have to carry her here, either. Still, she’s standing there with her jaw set, arms crossed, and slightly apart from the others, like she always used to. The way she’s always been made to.
“I’ll keep this short,” I eventually begin, noting how the clearing goes completely quiet as my eyes scan over them. “I’m taking a mate, and the ceremony will be happening tomorrow.”
A beat of silence hangs through the space as shock sets in, then the murmuring begins. It moves through the crowd like it normally does, flitting between surprise, confusion, and then undeniable curiosity.
“Tessa Collins will be your luna.”
The murmur becomes louder, and as expected, several pairs of eyes slide in her direction, and I can sense her discomfort from here.
One of the younger wolves looks at me, and her brows go up in disbelief. “Tessa Collins… you’re serious.”
“I didn’t call everyone here to be funny.”
Reid, one of our patrols standing on the left side of the group, clears his throat, and his voice carries through the clearing. “With respect, you know what her name means to this pack.”
Of course I do… how could I not?
“I know, perhaps better than anyone,” I return, which causes several of them to drop their gazes under the pressure of my insinuation. Everyone knows, regardless of how long it has been since that night. “I’m aware of what happened, but that doesn’t change my decision.”
The clearing stays quiet longer than I expect it to, but I don’t try to force it away.
I can feel Tessa without looking at her, along with the particular stillness that comes over her when she’s trying to hold herself together. It’s likely killing her to be here, yet I’m forcing her to be. Once again, not my ideal solution.
“Then you know what her parents cost us, and what they cost you, more importantly,” Reid continues, looking like he can’t understand my thinking. “She’s been living out in that cabin for years, and you’re asking us to accept—”
“I’m not asking.”
Reid stops, and his expression falls slowly, as if he knows he has pushed too far.
“I’m informing you,” I tell them frankly, finding that I don’t have the patience to coddle anyone.
Scanning the crowd, I make deliberate eye contact so each person feels it.
“Tessa was still a child when her parents made their choice. She had no part in it, yet she carried its weight in this pack her entire life. It’s something I’m aware of and should have addressed by now.
I didn’t, and that’s on me. But it ends here. ”
“The pack won’t—” another begins, only for me to cut them off.
“The pack will adjust, as they always must, and because I’m telling every one of you to.”
It’s blunt and likely harsher than I need to be, but there’s a sort of clarity that comes from making a decision I’ve been avoiding for years.
Regardless of what it might mean moving forward, I’m done working around this, and I’m done pretending I can outmaneuver something biological and completely immune to reason.
A decade of deliberate distance has only made it worse.
My inner wolf clings to her, as it always has, and I have the feeling time will help me see why on a deeper level.
More voices rise, and I let them.
Not looking away from the crowd, I’m still aware of Tessa in my periphery. I see the set of her spine and the stiffness of her shoulders. She’s bracing herself like someone waiting to be hit, and the sight of it turns my stomach.
She has heard her parents’ names be weaponized for most of her life. What they did has been used to explain why she doesn’t deserve the ordinary things and everyday common decency ever since it happened. She’s hearing it again right now, in front of everyone, and she’s still standing there.
I find her eyes briefly, and while her expression moves subtly, it shuts down too fast for me to read it.
When they realize this isn’t up for debate, the meeting ends the way most meetings do. There isn’t exactly a definitive agreement, but my plans have been acknowledged, even with some resentment.
I expected friction, and in all honesty, I can’t be bothered to care. Not when I want her, and I want this, regardless of the unknowns hovering above me.
That thought surprises me even as I have it. Want.
I’ve been framing this in terms of duty and protection, but beneath it all lies the simpler and more unsettling truth… I want her.
It’s almost carnal in a way that has nothing to do with unseen mystical forces and everything to do with the fact that she looked at me in my living room and didn’t fawn over me even when it would’ve been easier. She shook with anger, said no, and held her chin up.
It caused something inside me that had been dormant for years to rise all over again, and that part still unnerves me more than I’d like to admit.
That urge to truly get to know her doesn’t make sense to me in a way, but whether it’s just normal attraction or some force bigger than myself, it doesn’t matter. I’m done going to every length just to block it out.
We both deserve better than that, even if she hates me. She might want to reject me, but I know even she can’t ignore that pull, regardless of how stubborn she is.
Tessa is already heading for the house with rigid shoulders when Mom finds me before I can make it to the tree line.
She cuts in front of me with the particular efficiency of a woman who raised an unpredictable child and has never once been deterred by inconvenience.
“A word, Hunter,” she says, keeping her voice low while the others move around us.
Her usual warmth and doting nature seem to vanish at once, and that’s exactly how I know this isn’t a request. alpha or not, I’m still her child regardless of my age.
With a nod, I walk with her as I already know where this is going. The community hall fades behind us, and the voices of the pack disperse into the trees.
Mom is small, just like she always has been, but she has a presence that fills whatever space she occupies, and it’s usually best to make sure it’s for more positive reasons. Right now, it feels deeply uncomfortable to stand next to her.
“I’m not going to say I didn’t see this coming, since you’ve always had a knack for making your own way, but Hunter,” She begins, halting her steps to look up at me with her hands folded in front of herself.
She’s wearing the expression she gets right before saying something she believes is for my own good. “Think about what you’re doing.”
“I have. Extensively,” I say, forcing myself not to bend just because she’s my mom.
“Have you thought about her parents and what they did to your father? To me?”
“Yes, I have.” The words come out a bit bitter still, but I take a breath and force that usual stinging reminder aside. “It’s not exactly easy to forget.”
“And it doesn’t… give you pause? That you would choose the daughter of the people who got Daniel killed when you could have your pick of anyone else?”
The sound of his name hits the way it always does, even after all this time. Still, I absorb it without flinching.
“Tessa isn’t her parents, and she never has been. I don’t see why she should be punished for it,” I tell her, unwavering in my decision. “And this isn’t about choosing. It’s a feeling I haven’t been able to shake for a long time. This has hardly been cut and dry for me.”
At that, her expression just barely softens at the implication, but she immediately wars with herself. She gives a small shake of her head. “She carries their blood regardless.”
“And I carry my father’s, but that doesn’t make me him.” I keep my voice measured, but I try to smooth the edges for her sake. “I know how much pain their decision put you in, and I’m not asking you to forget it.”
Emotion reaches her eyes despite the sharp focus still in them. “Then what are you asking me to do?”
“Not to take it out on her anymore,” I say simply, certain that I’m only making the wound worse for her. “To see Tessa as her own person, and to give her a chance.”
The subtle tears in her eyes slip into the kind of quiet anger I rarely see from her. “You’re asking a lot of me, and I don’t think that’s fair.”
“It isn’t. None of it has been fair,” I agree, still able to feel the weight of everything we’ve been through together after Dad died. “Not to you, me, or a girl who’s been paying for something she didn’t do since she was a child.”
Mom is quiet for a long moment while the trees move around us, slow and melodic, while the afternoon gradually stretches. Then, she takes a small breath.
“You’ve been carrying this for a while,” she says, and it sounds more like an accusation than a statement.
I don’t answer immediately, since this is a door I’ve kept mostly closed; opening it requires the kind of vulnerability I’ve spent years, professionally and personally, trying to avoid. But for as hard as I tried, I can’t push it away forever.
“I know what I feel,” I say instead, “and I know that I’ve been running from it longer than I should have. It didn’t help either of us.”
She looks at me for a long moment, more like the way she used to when I was young and she was trying to decide whether I was just being stubborn or if she could trust my judgment.
“She hates you,” she says, not unkindly, but with certainty. “And this is going to be complicated.”
“I know,” I concede. “Most things worth doing are.”
Mom makes a sound caught somewhere between a laugh and a long-suffering sigh, then she reaches up and touches my jaw once, as she used to when I was a boy. It’s brief and caring, like a silent reminder that she’ll always back me regardless, and then she drops her hand.
“Try not to make it worse than it has to be,” she says quietly.
I think of Tessa’s face when I gave her the ultimatum, and how the shock had dissolved into fury. Even if that kind of emotion isn’t ideal, it was the most honest thing I’d seen from her yet.
“That,” I begin with quiet resignation, “might already be out of my hands.”