Love Bites (Bitten Book 4) (13 page)

I didn’t necessarily like the sound of that. “What about me? How will they treat me since I’m your mate? You’re second-in-command, right?”

“Yes, I’m the beta. When Lach steps down or if he dies while alpha, I’ll take over.” He reached out and cradled my hands between his. “And I’ll always protect you and care for you.”

His evasion of my question caused my suspicion to grow. “Oh my God, are they going to try to hurt me?”

He shook his head. “No way. They know I would kill anyone who harmed you,” he answered.

“But?”

“There have been wolves here every day to meet with me or to take me to Lachlan,” he stated cryptically.

“Okay……what does that have to do with me?”

He rubbed his thumbs over the backs of my hands. “Have you seen another shifter since we arrived? Except from afar?”

It was then that I realized what he was telling me. “Are you saying that they’re avoiding us? I mean, me?” I asked, my voice rising. “Why?”

I tried to yank my hands out of his grip, but he held on firmly. “It’s their way of expressing their disapproval,” he answered grimly.

“But I thought you couldn’t choose your mate? I thought that this was fate, or whatever you want to call it.” My throat was tight with anxiety. Dear God, did the entire pack hate me? They didn’t even know me!

“Our mates are like another part of our soul,” Calder answered. “We don’t choose them. But, even if I could choose, I would have still picked you. You’re everything I could want or need.”

If anyone else had said that to me, I would have rolled my eyes, but Calder wasn’t the type to spit out flowery words. He cared for me, I could tell by his actions, but he rarely spoke tenderly. He might look at me and touch me as though he treasured me, yet he didn’t say sweet things. I supposed that’s why I found myself trusting him despite my misgivings.

“How difficult is this going to be?” I watched his face shift and leaned forward. “Do not even think about sugarcoating it. Tell me the whole truth.”

Calder sighed. “It’s going to be extremely difficult, Ricki. The males will be a bit more understanding since they’re more likely to mate with human women, plus they know I’ll break their face if they treat you with anything other than respect. The she-wolves will likely give you hell for a while.”

I grunted. “What, you won’t break their face just because they’re female?”

Calder shook his head. “I despise harming a female and they know that, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be retribution. It will just take a bit longer for them to get the message.”

“Will I have any way to defend myself? I mean, werewolves are stronger and faster than me. Are you going to turn me?” The words began tripping off my tongue more quickly as I spoke. “Will it hurt? Will I have to wax my back or something crazy like that?”

He cupped my face. “Shh. Calm down, darlin’. I’m sorry to spring this on you. I was hoping that we would be having this conversation after I’d had time to build your trust a bit more. I know it’s hard for you to do, Ricki, but please, please trust me. I won’t let any harm come to you and I will kill anyone who tries.”

I forced myself to take a deep breath and tried to control the crazy pounding of my heart. Calder was right about one thing. If I trusted him completely, this entire situation would be a lot less frightening.

I started to speak, but a sharp knock on the door interrupted me. We were sitting on the couch in the living room. Since the house was so huge, we hadn’t heard anyone come in the front door of the mansion.

“Come in!” he bellowed. “This better be good.”

The door opened and a tall, slender, blonde woman entered. I recognized her immediately. It was Chloe, who had supposedly returned to Austin over a week ago after that shitty lunch at Finn’s house. The woman that Calder assured me he rarely saw more than once or twice a year. Yet, here she was at Conner’s house less than a month after their last meeting. She was followed by Lachlan, the pack alpha.

Calder rose to his feet and I followed his lead.

Lach nodded at both of us. “Atwood.” His eyes softened somewhat when he looked at me. “Ricki.”

“Hi,” I answered.

Lach smiled slightly in response.

The woman to his left smiled broadly at me. “Hi, Ricki. It’s great to see you again.” She came forward, holding out her hand.

I shook her hand, trying to keep some semblance of a smile on my face in return. I had a feeling it looked more like I was gritting my teeth, which I was. “Nice to see you too, Chloe,” I responded, removing my hand from her grip as soon as possible according to the rules of politeness.

Calder went still beside me, as though he sensed the storm brewing inside me. “Hi, Chloe. How was your trip up from Austin?”

She shrugged. “The usual, though this is the last time I’ll be making it for a while. That’s definitely a relief.”

I tried to get a grip. Just because she was here didn’t mean Calder lied to me. He said that she was the enforcer for the pack in Austin, that she wasn’t part of his pack. He couldn’t control how often she had to come to Dallas because he wasn’t her boss. Even if he saw her more often than that, I was his mate, the only woman he wanted. Right?

Lachlan smashed all my attempts at thinking rationally to smithereens. “You’re looking at the new pack enforcer,” he stated proudly. “Since you and I approved Chloe’s petition to join the pack last week, she’s already challenged and beaten Clint.”

Calder laughed. “Clint was only enforcer because no one else wanted the headaches that go along with the job.” He shook Chloe’s hand. “Congratulations. Do I need to worry about my position as beta?”

She shook her head. “Nope. I’m happy with exactly what I’ve got.”

I felt like an outsider. I had no idea what they were talking about except the fact that Chloe was now a part of the pack. She’d been a part of the pack for a week, and Calder said nothing about it. He’d said he never saw her, yet hadn’t bothered to tell me that the situation had changed.

The taste of betrayal was bitter on my tongue. It was clear that my feelings didn’t matter to him. If they had, he would have at least warned me I would be seeing her again. Surely he understood that my memories of the first time I’d seen this woman weren’t pleasant and that I would need time to get used to the idea that she would be around more. It wasn’t her fault I assumed the worst the first time I saw her, I knew that, but my wildly careening emotions made it difficult to think logically. My first impression of her had been that she was the other woman.

Watching them talk now, I didn’t see any sexual overtones to their behavior. They seemed more like buddies than anything else. But that didn’t change the fact that Calder had omitted to tell me a lot of things. Chloe joining the pack was only one of them. How the pack in general would receive me was another.

Calder had pursued me with single-minded intensity, only caring that he got what he wanted and never once considering what that might mean for me in the future. It was the same sort of selfishness my father possessed, focusing only on himself and his needs, never once considering the wreckage he left in his wake. Sweet actions and considerate behavior were merely tools in the gain of whatever toy he wanted, not sincere efforts to please someone he cared for.

Suddenly, all the wonderful things I’d experienced with Calder the last four days were tainted. The tender touches and gentle kisses no longer seemed special. Instead, they felt dirty and deceitful.

The hope I’d allowed to grow in my heart withered and died without a whisper of sound.

Calder

R
icki was quiet
after Chloe and Lach left. In fact, she was beyond quiet. She was deathly silent and didn’t speak to me at all.

As soon as the door closed behind my alpha and the new pack enforcer, she wandered into the kitchen without even looking at me. I started to follow her, but my cell phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Atwood, it’s Finn.” He sounded frustrated.

“Hey, man, what’s up?”

“Can you bring Ricki for lunch in a few days?” he asked baldly. “Kerry and Belinda are killing themselves researching this prophecy and they need a break. It also wouldn’t hurt for all of us to talk about our strategy again. Since we don’t know what information the Faction possesses, or what the prophecy even means, we need to figure out what our next step will be.”

“I agree. Have you talked to Lachlan about this plan?”

“He’s my next call,” Finn stated.

“I think it will do the females good to see each other. The isolation is taking its toll on Ricki and I’m sure she’d like to see her other friends again.”

“I’ll call you as soon as Lachlan, Conner and I can arrange a day and time.”

I disconnected the call and went in search of my mate. I found her in the kitchen, a glass of Coke in her hand. Even from across the room, I could smell the rum she’d put in it. That wasn’t like her. Ricki rarely drank hard liquor, especially before dinner. She preferred beer or wine, usually with our evening meal or after while we hung out in the living room. I’d never seen her drink before five, and it was only two in the afternoon.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

My concern morphed to trepidation when she laughed harshly. “Okay? No, Calder, I wouldn’t say I’m okay.”

Now was the time to tread carefully. I knew that she would probably be upset when she found out about the pack’s attitude toward human mates. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. I just wanted a chance for you to see what kind of male I am before we had to deal with the pack.”

My heart stopped at the expression on Ricki’s face when she turned toward me. “You mean you wanted more time to lull me into compliance before you told me that your pack would hate me? Or before you said,
Hey, you know that woman you saw me with the first night we fucked? Well, you’ll be seeing her a lot more because she’s part of the pack now
?”

I scowled. “What does Chloe have to do with this? I told you, there’s nothing between us.”

Ricki’s face grew colder. “Oh, I know. I could see that this afternoon.”

Anger pricked my skin. “Then what’s the problem, Ricki? If you believe that, why are you so pissed off?”

She slammed the glass on the counter, the drink splattering across the countertop. “Because you lied to me! Again!” At the blank look that was surely on my face, she continued, “You told me she wasn’t a member of the pack, that you only saw her a couple of times a year. Two weeks later, here she is a member of your fucking pack, third in command no less. Yet you don’t bother to give me any warning. It wasn’t important enough for you to tell me. Don’t you realize how uncomfortable that meeting was for me? She was the reason I ran from you, because I didn’t understand what I was seeing.”

I lifted my hands. “Look, Ricki, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you would be so upset. It didn’t occur to me that you’d want me to tell you.”

“It seems there are a lot of things it didn’t occur to you to tell me,” she scoffed. “That Chloe was joining your pack, that your pack would probably hate me and treat me like shit. Of course, why would you tell me things like that when it meant that you wouldn’t get what you wanted? That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? I’m your mate, you wanted me, and you were willing to do or say whatever it took to attain that goal. The fact that you put me in danger in the process didn’t even matter to you because YOU are the only one that matters!”

To my horror, tears welled in her eyes. “You know, you told me that werewolves didn’t lie. Like a fool, I believed you. I thought that maybe I could trust you, that you wouldn’t hurt me the way every man I’ve ever cared about has. But I was so damned wrong. You’ve hurt me the worst of them all, because you made me believe in you, Calder. I never even realized there were strings attached until it was too late.”

Wiping her eyes, Ricki ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs. The small black streak of her cat, Pepper, followed her. A few moments later, the door to the guest room slammed, but I could still hear the muffled sounds of her sobs as though she were standing right next to me.

Frustration filled me. She was right about one thing; I had kept things from her, but not why she suspected. I hadn’t done it out of selfishness. I wanted to keep her safe and protected for as long as I could. I didn’t want her to face other pack members until she was confident in my love for her and she understood that I would always have her back.

As with all roads paved with good intentions, that one led straight to Hell.

I hadn’t mentioned Chloe to her because I hadn’t realized that she would care. I told her that Chloe was nothing to me, she said she believed me, why should I tell her that Chloe was joining the pack? If she truly thought I was being honest, Chloe’s new status in the pack shouldn’t bother her.

The sound of Ricki crying made me ache to hold her, but I knew she wouldn’t welcome it right now. Though I didn’t understand human women at all, I was beginning to understand Ricki. When she was this upset, she needed a little time to calm down before we spoke again.

I probably did too. While I wasn’t angry with her, I was frustrated beyond belief. Every time I made headway with her, she found a reason to retreat. As I was beginning to understand her better, I suspected it had more to do with her childhood than it did with anything I’d said or done. She was destroying her future because she was looking at it with the blinders of her past. When things became intense, she ran away because it was the only response she knew.