Chapter 16 - Hunter
Tessa’s crumbling under the pressure of change, and it feels like the solution is just out of my reach.
When I get up, she’s still asleep, but the rigidity in her spine hasn’t left her at all. If anything, she looks even more tense, and there’s nothing I can do to soothe it. If anything, all of my attempts to help her only seem to make it worse.
It’s getting under my skin more and more. Not being able to take her pain away despite trying so hard to make her life easier makes me feel useless in a way I’ve never known before.
She isn’t adapting well to this arrangement, and I know it. Still, all I can do right now is hope that enough time and distance will help her see that I’m not trying to ruin her life. That I want to protect her, and I want this to be more than resentment and reluctance.
I’m sitting on the back deck when my phone buzzes on the arm of my chair, and I see Dominic’s name pop up on the screen. With a slow breath, I reach for it and answer.
“Yeah?”
“Have you been living off-grid recently or what?”
“Or what,” I murmur, expression flat despite being alone. “I’ve been busy learning how to be an alpha and keep my head above water, not that you’d know much about that.”
In the usual Dominic way, he chuckles. “Guilty. The freedom’s nice, but I will say, I’m getting a bit jealous of all this alpha dominance going around. Congrats, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I say, leaning back a bit more. “Did you call to kiss ass, or does this conversation come with a point?”
“You’re all the same now… but yes, I’m getting there,” he tells me, sighing before his tone switches to something more serious. “We’ve been tracking Hayes since he breached your territory, and Zane spotted a few of his men near Delmont late last night. They weren’t being subtle.”
My brows furrow. “Do you think they were watching for Naia again?”
“It’s hard to say; they split off the moment they caught Zane’s scent, and they’ve been taking random routes around the island. If I were to guess, I’d say Hayes is firing blind and hoping he hits something.”
“That seems likely. His ego has been bruised more than once, and he needs a way to prove he has things under control,” I say, absently rubbing at my jaw. “It won’t be long before his pack starts challenging him as they did with Dawson.”
“He’s doing a shit job of it from what I can tell. Losing to two alphas is a low blow. I bet he’s hurting.”
“Maybe a third time will get the point across.”
Dominic scoffs, and I can hear his smirk through the phone. “Doubt it, but I’d like to see that.”
“What’s the next move then?” I ask.
“Caleb has a unit on rotation along his northern border, and Luke is monitoring everyone moving in and out of Coldreach. Zane and I are tracking inland,” he replies with a measured sigh. “For now, we’re gathering as much information as we can until Hayes decides how he wants to dig his grave.”
I nod to myself before murmuring, “I have a few scouts along our border shared with Wraith Peak, but I’ll send a few out to help inland. I’m keeping watch for him here just in case he comes back.”
“How’s the wolf he attacked?”
My jaw clenches at the mention of Tessa and what happened. “She’s fine. I need to know now if she’s still a target.”
It’s not a lie, yet it isn’t the full truth. I’m not in the mood to share the finer details of what followed, even if I’ll have to tell them eventually.
Dominic hums. “You never know with Hayes. Let me know if you see more of him.”
“And let me know about any updates you guys have.”
“Will do.”
When we say our goodbyes, I hang up and stay outside a little while longer, eyes on the territory spreading out below the hill. I think about Hayes and what he wants. For someone who has the power he surely always wanted, it apparently isn’t enough.
Of course, my mind takes me back to that night, and the sight of Hayes with his firm grasp on Tessa. How terrified yet resigned she looked.
The phone sits next to me for no more than twenty minutes before Mom’s contact pops up next, and when I answer, she asks if I’ll come for lunch. The fact that she has this planned out tells me everything I need to know in advance.
When I do eventually get there, I see she made soup, and a place is already waiting for me at the table.
This is how difficult conversations are approached in my mother’s house. She feeds you first, puts up a front of domestic normalcy, and then lets it all drop once she cuts to the chase.
I’ve known this pattern since I was a teenager, yet it has never once made the conversations easier.
With it being just the two of us, she asks about the territory and everything that’s been going on over the last few weeks.
I give her the version that doesn’t include anything too troubling about Hayes or the conversation I had with Dominic.
She asks about the house, and I tell her it’s fine, like usual.
Finally, she puts down her spoon and looks at me with the expression that tells me we’ve finally arrived at the real reason she called me over.
“I’ve been thinking about the girl,” she begins.
“Tessa,” I tell her before she can continue. “Her name is Tessa.”
A flicker of recognition that I’ve drawn a line moves through her eyes, and she takes a small breath before continuing. “I’ve been thinking about Tessa, and what you’re asking the pack to accommodate. What you’re asking me to accommodate.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything except treat her decently. I don’t see why that requires further discussion.”
“It’s her parents, Hunter,” she says, forcing the words out quietly, yet they still carry the weight of something that’s been compressed for far too long without closure.
“Her parents withheld information that got your father killed. That got Daniel—” Her voice tightens before she smooths it out, taking her time before trying again.
“He was out there that night to protect the pack, and he died doing exactly that. Now you want me to sit across from their daughter and pretend like it doesn’t ache to think about… ”
“Mom,” I start, keeping my voice level. “Tessa was still a child.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?” I question, finding it harder to continue this same discussion again and again.
“Because the way the pack talks about it, the way you’re talking about it right now, it sounds like everything related to her name gets attached to her, regardless of who was at fault.
She lost her parents that night, just like I lost one of mine.
You can hardly blame a child for the things her parents didn’t say. ”
Mom goes quiet, and her expression stays unreadable while I continue.
“Her parents died in that ambush. They paid for their decision directly, just as my father did. Tessa has spent years in this pack paying for choices that weren’t hers and ones made before she was old enough to have any say in them.
And I haven’t been innocent in that either,” I say, fighting through the tightness in my throat now.
“I let it go on among our peers even when I had enough authority to interrupt it. But I didn’t, all because I was avoiding something I didn’t want to deal with.
That’s on me, and now I’m fighting to make up for it. ”
As the quiet settles between us, she looks at the table while many things move in her face at once. As much as she wants to maintain whatever this stance of hers is, she isn’t heartless. She’s aware there was a hurt child beneath it all.
“I know she lost them. I know that,” she murmurs, swallowing harshly now. “But I lost my mate that night. He was more than just your father and more than an important figure in the pack. He was mine first.”
Hearing that from her makes something complicated form in my chest.
I get where she’s coming from, since I know something would break in me if something were to happen to Tessa, regardless of the uncertainty between us. That connection is so profound in any mated pair that losing one feels like losing half your soul.
While my mom certainly experienced that, Tessa has been enduring blame that was never meant for her ever since.
She never had the chance to heal, and given how intense her emotions can be through our bond, it’s like she’s losing pieces of herself every day.
She’s still carrying that pain, and if these issues continue to linger, it will only get worse.
“I know…” I tell her, pulling in a breath as I sit back. “It wasn’t fair how it happened, but holding this grudge against Tessa won’t bring Dad back. Please, I’m just asking you to make room for her loss, since it’s just as real as ours. Give her a chance.”
The silence between us is different from how it was at the beginning of the conversation. It shifts as some of the pressure releases, and my mother looks older in a way she usually doesn’t let herself look.
Regardless of how easy it is for her to cling to this long-standing belief, I can see the consideration in her face. How she can acknowledge flaws in her logic, all while managing the hurt simultaneously.
She doesn’t say she’s convinced, but she doesn’t argue further.
***
While that conversation could’ve gone worse, I’m still irritated when I get back to the house.
The remainder of my visit felt a bit colder than usual, given how neither of us reached the conclusion we wanted, leaving the frustration to simmer in my chest even as I walk through the door to find Tessa in the chair by the window.
The sight of her eases something just enough for me to notice, and a flicker of hope starts up in me when she looks in my direction.
“Hey,” I say, hoping something simple might coax her into more.
“Hey.”
I stand in the entryway for a moment and take stock of what I’m working with.
The bond is more insistent, warm, and pulling me toward her in the way it tends to when we’re closer, like our inner wolves are trying so hard to reach one another despite the nuances of our circumstances.
But for all my reaching, her body language is an impenetrable wall.
The chance I’m given to keep her attention fades quickly, feeling more like it’s slipping through my fingers as she stares out the window again. She’s here with me, yet she’s so far away at the same time.
When the sight of her detachment becomes too heavy for me to bear without losing my mind, I turn and go to the kitchen despite not needing to. I try to let the irritation from my mother’s house discharge somewhere that isn’t around Tessa, but it doesn’t let go.
I’m standing in my own kitchen, mated for the first time in my life, with the bond finally settled into what it’s supposed to be, and I have spent more years than I can account for avoiding this exact thing because it required a vulnerability I couldn’t afford.
I spent years learning to shut down the non-operational parts of myself on command, to be useful and effective, and not to need anything that complicated the mission. I came back to the territory and took the alpha role, but now I’m left to try and unlock those repressed parts of myself.
Regardless of how long that takes, I’m here, the bond is open, and the very person I ran from is just in the other room.
She won’t look at me, and I know why.
I understand her resistance, the history that formed it, and every way I contributed to it. Patience is my only chance of making this work, and all of this is obvious. Yet it doesn’t make standing in this kitchen, with the bond pulling between us, any easier to swallow.
Be patient, I tell myself.
When I look at her profile silhouetted by the light coming in, and the stillness coming from her that looks like peace but is far from it, I know that none of this will be simple or easy, but if I can somehow make this easier for her to bear, then I’ll do whatever it takes.
Be patient.