Chapter 22 - Hunter
The young mother’s name is Brooke, and her kids, Maggie, Eli, and Violet, have been sitting around the fire to keep warm. Eli has been attached to Tessa’s side for the last forty minutes with the certainty of a small child who has identified a safe person and fully intends to cling to them.
Either way, they’ve had time to calm down and dry out, and the house seems to have settled in general.
I watch from across the room while Brooke tells me what happened.
“They came through the back,” she says with her hands wrapped around her mug like she needs the warmth of it to keep talking.
“There was no warning, and they didn’t give a reason.
They just broke in through the back door, and I had maybe thirty seconds to get the kids out the front before they were on us. ”
“I’m assuming that means they didn’t give you a reason.”
She nods a bit solemnly. “I don’t know what they wanted. They didn’t say anything. It’s not like we had much for them to take.”
“They likely just wanted to cause some fear,” I tell her, keeping my voice level. “But you got your kids out as you should have.”
Brooke takes another deep breath and glances over at the kids. A small smile settles on her lips even though she’s still shaking a little under the blanket Dominic put around her shoulders.
She’s part of the pack along the middle portion, where most families are best protected. Historically, the outermost houses are the most vulnerable, but even then, the border is usually secure enough not to raise any issues.
That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore, and I know what Hayes is doing.
This wasn’t random, and it wasn’t even primarily about Brooke or her children. It was a demonstration, and Hayes’ opportunity to prove something important:
I can reach inside your territory, knock on any door, and remind you at any time that your defenses are more vulnerable than you think they are.
He’s escalating the provocations, and each one is designed to create a direct response from me. He wants me to be reactive instead of strategic.
I make a note to myself to avoid being exactly that, but when I look across the room, I immediately feel reactive.
Dominic leans against the wall near the kitchen entrance, and Tessa is a few steps away, and they’re talking with the ease of two people who have found an unexpected frequency.
I can see in her body language how her shoulders loosen slightly, and she doesn’t look as guarded as she tends to be with me.
He mentions something about her acting quickly, and while the praise is subtle, she looks a bit bashful.
She says something that makes Dom laugh, and it hits him suddenly before he says something back that makes Tessa shake her head in disbelief, but there’s a beginning of a smile on her lips.
There’s nothing directly offensive or inappropriate about the interaction, but my end of the bond reacts anyway.
While I want her to get along well with the people in my life, there’s something about how simple and almost natural it seems between them now, and I don’t know how to feel about it.
Before I can get ahead of myself, I redirect my attention to Brooke and the follow-up questions I have. I take note of everything useful while the other thing sits in my chest and makes itself difficult to ignore.
It’s not rational, and I’m aware of that. Dom is one of my closest friends, and I know he’s incapable of betraying me in that way. He’s being friendly and kind to her, and that’s it.
He’s open and personable with most people he knows, which makes him easy to befriend and even easier to open up with. And Tessa is responding to it the way anyone would when they need a friend like him.
Which tells me more about my own deficiencies than about Dom’s or his intentions.
Despite knowing all of this, it doesn’t reduce the temperature of the fire burning in my chest by a single degree.
She laughs now, quietly like she doesn’t want to disturb the rest of the house, and Dominic grins.
***
By ten, Brooke and the children are settled in the guest room. Dominic has taken the couch again despite there being more rooms, and the house goes quiet once more.
Tessa moves through the upstairs hall while I follow, and the door of our room closes behind us.
After just barely managing to keep my irrational thoughts at bay, the pressure has been compounding in my head, and it finally feels like I can catch my breath again.
Tessa goes to the closet and finds something to change into. She does so deliberately, whether she’s aware of the less-than-ideal atmosphere following me through the room right now.
“I need to talk to you about tonight,” I start, keeping enough distance between us to not make her feel like I’m ambushing her.
“Okay,” she says, more to the dresser than me.
“You went outside,” I murmur, fighting to get through how ridiculous it sounds to say outlaid. “After I specifically—”
“Said to stay inside,” she cuts in as she turns around. Her voice is even, but there’s something more volatile underneath. “I heard you.”
“Then explain to me what happened between hearing me and walking out into the storm toward two Wraith Peak wolves.”
“I was inside, like you said, then I saw children running through the storm alone. The person trying to protect them was being cornered and couldn’t help them, so I did.”
“Which is exactly the kind of situation I didn’t want you getting involved in.”
“Did you really expect me to do nothing? To sit inside where it was warm and dry while a family might’ve been ripped apart right in front of me?”
What she’s saying isn’t necessarily wrong, and she was brave to do exactly that, but it was a disaster waiting to happen.
“That is exactly the kind of situation Hayes would engineer specifically to draw you out,” I tell her, unable to stop my voice from rising as that previously concealed anger returns all over again. “Do you understand that? He knows you’re here, and he knows who you are to me.”
“He wasn’t engineering anything. He had his wolves break into their home and chase them out into a storm.” She returns with more of an edge now, and the careful tone is virtually gone. “I wasn’t drawn out by a strategy. I saw children running, and I went.”
“You didn’t even think, did you?”
“I thought plenty.” She takes a step forward, eyes harder now.
“I thought about defenseless children, their terrified mother with nobody else to help her, and two wolves standing between them and safety. That’s what I thought.
And then I remembered who I’m supposed to be.
How the alpha’s mate isn’t supposed to back down.
But I’m sorry that didn’t fit within your approved actions I can take. ”
“I’m not asking for approved—”
“You’re angry because I acted,” she fires back at me, not even letting me finish.
“You were angry with me when I didn’t fight back against Hayes, so much so that you forced me into this situation.
Now, you’re furious that I decided not to be small anymore.
So what exactly do you want from me? It seems like the answer keeps changing, and the only constant is that whatever I do is wrong. ”
Her claims hit me square in the chest, and I open my mouth to speak, but nothing comes out.
She keeps going.
“And while we’re talking about tonight, don’t assume I didn’t feel whatever that was from you when I was talking to Dominic.
Harmlessly, might I add,” Tessa mutters, more disbelieving now.
“I spent years feeling invisible because of you and everyone else, and after being claimed and put in the middle of everything after the fact, I finally meet people who don’t have preconceived notions of me.
I’m trying to do the thing you want me to do, and when I get there, it still isn’t enough for you!
I don’t know what you want from me, Hunter. ”
Rain continues to pelt down against the roof, muffling the sounds of our raised voices, but once she’s done and looking more raw than ever before, the room sounds deafeningly quiet.
I don’t defend myself because there’s nothing to defend. She’s right, and the accuracy of it all cuts through any anger I planned on unleashing here and now. Instead, it feels pointless.
With a long breath, I sit on the edge of the bed and look at the floor while I gather my thoughts and force myself to think rationally.
Tessa doesn’t fill the silence this time, apparently having gotten the worst of it off her chest.
“You’re right,” I murmur, absently rubbing the back of my neck before I glance at her.
“I was irritated by you and Dominic, but neither of you did anything wrong. I’ve been unfair to you, in more ways than one.
I watched you get along so easily with him, and it seemed so different from how you are with me, and that piled on top of everything else tonight… it got to me.”
Tessa watches me with a complicated expression, like she’s trying to navigate how to handle this in real time.
“I didn’t have any right to be jealous, and maybe I don’t have any right to be angry that you helped innocent lives tonight, but I just want to keep you safe, even if it makes me sound crazy,” I murmur.
“I can’t help what my instincts tell me to do when it comes to you, but maybe I can stand to try a bit harder. ”
“Maybe you should,” Tessa murmurs, sounding less angry, too.
The stiff tension gradually melts as Tessa moves closer to the window and crosses her arms, watching the dark shapes outside shift with every gust.
“I’m tired,” she murmurs, holding herself like it’s the only comfort she has right now. “And I’m not talking about tonight. I’m tired of all of it… this period of my life where anything I do is insufficient for whoever is standing in front of me at the time.”
Catching the vulnerability coming out in her words, I don’t say anything and let her continue.
“I spent most of my life in this pack not being enough, being too much, or being the wrong thing. I was the thing people didn’t want to look at or tolerate, so I learned to be small because that was the only me that didn’t cause a reaction. It passed as safe for long enough. Then you came back.”
My stomach drops a bit, well aware of what she’s going to say.
“You started something that made me the opposite of small. I understand that there’s a bond, and I feel it too, but you stood in front of the pack and announced me like I was a decision you made because it was strategic, not because you actually wanted me,” she continues, eyes looking more distant now.
“It felt no different from before, just the other side of the same coin.”
“Tessa.” I find myself murmuring as something loosens in my chest, and I try to swallow back the lump in my throat.
“I know you regret it. I can see that you do, but regret means nothing if you don’t change. I don’t know if you truly have, or if you’ve just gotten old enough to feel bad about it. Those are two very different things.”
“They are.”
“Then tell me which one it is for you,” Tessa quietly demands, seeming more like she’s standing on the precipice of something wildly important to her, and it is.
For longer than I mean to, I sit there and focus on the storm outside, and the sound of her heart beating wildly across the room. All the while, the connection between us is patiently waiting.
“I knew it when we were kids,” I begin, full of resolve now as I watch her face.
“I felt the bond earlier than I should have, earlier than what made any sense, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.
I was sixteen, and I knew I was going to be the alpha one day, and I was goddamn afraid of it.
Of what it meant, what it would cost, and if I was capable of being what it required.
So I left. The military was about distance as much as it was ambition.
I left because you were here, and so was the bond. I didn’t know what to do about either.”
Tessa goes very still as my every word sinks in at once, and she blinks back at me now. Her voice comes out smaller than before. “You knew?”
“Yes.”
“All that time,” she murmurs, more caught between disbelief and slight irritation now. “You knew, yet you stayed away.”
“I handled what I was feeling by not handling it at all, and you paid the price because of it. That’s the truth of it,” I tell her, being more honest with her than I ever have been.
“I was a coward about it, and I can’t take any of it back now.
If I could, I would in a heartbeat. I never would’ve let you feel unwanted or like you were any kind of burden. You’re so much more than that, Tessa.”
At that, more complicated emotions move through her eyes, and she takes a slow, shaky breath.
It doesn’t register until now that I’m on my feet, and the distance between us has started to shrink.
Maybe I should take this slow and give her time to come to terms with everything I’ve said to her. But the longing in my chest is burning so hot now that I can’t do anything but let it guide me.
All I’ve ever done is ignore these instincts concerning Tessa, and I can’t anymore.
I don’t know who moves first, but before my mind can catch up, she’s in front of me, and then she’s close enough for my hands to find her face with the gentleness I’ve reserved only for her.
She doesn’t pull back this time.
Instead, Tessa kisses me like she has finally reached the same point I’ve been at for some time now, and I kiss her back like I’m starving.