Inside, she guided him to the sofa. “Sit down.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
He frowned as she stomped upstairs, muttering to herself. Curious about where this was going—and hoping that just maybe it would involve the babydoll—he sank into the sofa and waited. Moments later, she was descending the stairs . . . fully dressed. That might have been disappointing if she weren’t carrying something that lifted his heart.
“You’re going to play for me, sweetheart?” he asked, surprised.
Violin in one hand and bow in the other, she said, “I don’t like giving private performances. It makes me self-conscious. But you’re rightfully upset and ready to snap. Maybe this will help you calm.”
Jesse watched as, like that time at the club, she stood with her feet shoulder width apart and her left foot slightly forward. Positioning the electric violin on her left collarbone, she propped the left side of her jaw on the chin rest. Bow in hand, she then began to play.
This tune was different from the one she played at the club, not rushed and hectic. In the beginning, the notes were soft. Mellow. Lilting. Almost ghostly. Soon, they became resonant, dark, and sensuous as they increased in power and intensity. One minute he was feeling calm, like he was floating; the next he was feeling invigorated, like the rhythm was recharging him.
The entire time, he was totally riveted and mesmerized by his mate, by her grace and confidence. Pride flooded every part of him. She was so damn talented. And she was his to dote on, care for, guard, and possess.
She moved fluidly from one note to the next, each one layered with emotion. There was so much soul and fire in her. Both drove her as she played, and the notes seemed to thunder toward the crescendo, becoming loud and vibrant. And then they began to wane and taper off, becoming once again soft and warm . . . until she stopped and looked up at him.
Throat thick, he swallowed. “Flawless.” His voice cracked with emotion. He patted his thighs. “Come here.” She carefully put down the violin and bow before coming to straddle him. Framing her face with his hands, he kissed her. “That really was amazing, baby. Thank you. If I didn’t already love you, I would have fallen hard for you right then.”
Feeling uncharacteristically shy, she said, “Stop being sweet.”
“Not being sweet. Just honest.”
“So you feel better now?”
“Much.” His limbs felt loose and his pulse was now steady. He kissed her again. “I’m sorry about my mother.” It was a surprise that he could mention the woman without wanting to explode. The rage had disintegrated like mist. Maybe it would be back. For now, he was free of it.
“She hurt you more than she hurt me.”
“And then you made her regret it. That was hot, by the way. My wolf likes it when you get all protective like that.” He smoothed his hands up and down her back. “My mother will respect your strength, even though she won’t want to.”
“She’ll never fully accept me, Jesse.” He needed to be prepared for that.
“She will if she wants grandkids.”
Harley cocked her head, surprised. “You want kids?” He’d never struck her as a fatherly person, though he was gentle with Willow and Cassidy.
“Sure, I want kids one day. Little girls with gold eyes.”
“Or little boys with dark eyes.”
“Whatever. I don’t care if they’re girls, boys, pups, or cubs as long as they’re happy and healthy.”
Well, he could change his mind on that. “Quick warning: margay cubs are totally demonic.” He laughed. “I’m serious. They climb before they can walk. You find them in the strangest places. Cabinets. Cupboards. On top of refrigerators. And they hide food everywhere.”
Smiling, he shrugged. “That’s okay.”
“They can also shift before puberty.”
“Really?” Theoretically, any shifter could do so. However, wolves generally didn’t shift until after puberty.
“Most shift for the first time at the age of six.”
“I don’t care what they are, when they can shift, or how much trouble they’ll be. I’ll love them, just like I love you. Just like you love me. Don’t you?”
“Yes. Can we stop acting like girls now?”
“You are a girl,” he chuckled. His girl. And yet . . . they still hadn’t fully imprinted.
“What’s wrong?”
He blinked. “What makes you think there’s anything wrong?”
“I sensed your mood plummet.”
Jesse twined a lock of her hair around his finger. “You often ask yourself why we haven’t bonded? I don’t get it, Harley. We’re totally open with one another. We don’t have any walls up. Our animals want the bond as much as we do.”
“I was told imprinting can sometimes be a slow process. It’ll happen. I can feel the potential of it. Have patience.”
“I don’t have patience when it comes to this. I want you bonded to me. I want our scents to mix; I want to feel what you’re feeling; I want to know I can bolster your strength if you need me to.”
“It’ll happen. Until then . . .” Her nose wrinkled. “I’m hungry.”
Sensing that she was trying to lighten his mood, he went with it. “Yeah, me too. Any Danishes?”
“Cinnamon buns okay for you?”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Hector made Nick wait three days before he would agree to speak with him. Like last time, Derren, Ally, and Eli accompanied Nick while Jesse, Roni, and Marcus remained hidden. Nick and Hector met in the same spot, and everyone was in the same position, including Hector’s guards. So, once more, Jesse was crouched near a thick oak as he watched a meeting between his Alpha and the half shifter.
His stance wide and confident, Hector gave Nick a smile that oozed smugness and superiority; it made Jesse’s wolf snarl. “Nick,” drawled Hector, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I have some things in my possession that I thought might interest you,” replied Nick.
Hector’s eyes narrowed. “What might they be?”
“After our last conversation,” began Nick, rubbing at his jaw, “I just couldn’t help wondering why you hated shifters so much. I don’t like unanswered questions, so I decided to look into it. I was surprised to find you were once part of a pack. I was even more surprised to find out you were once accused of taking part in gang-raping and killing a female juvenile from that pack.” Hector’s guards cast him sidelong glances; it was evident they hadn’t known about that.
Hector tightened his fists but then seemed to make a conscious effort to loosen them. “Accused. Not found guilty of.”
Derren tilted his head. “Is that why you hate shifters? They blamed you for something you never did? Personally, I can completely understand that kind of rage.”
“At first, we thought maybe that was it,” Nick told Hector. “But some things just didn’t add up. So we did a little more digging. I can’t say I was really all that surprised to find out that you were one of the boys who assaulted and killed that girl.”
There was a beat of silence as Hector went completely rigid. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m not. Of course, I’d have an easy time proving that if the wolf who blackmailed your family, leading to you losing all the things you believe you deserved, wasn’t dead. His testimony would have been very useful.”
Hector seemed surprised by the mention of the blackmail. “Is that what you have in your possession? Testimonies of people who once pointed fingers at me?” Hector scoffed. “Lots of boys were falsely accused.”
“Testimonies?” Nick shook his head. “I have something even better. I have photographic evidence.”
Hector did something Jesse would never have expected him to do: He burst out laughing. “Photographic evidence?”
“We have the photos Jerold used to blackmail your father,” claimed Nick. “If you back off and sign over that land behind you to me, these photos will never be shared with the world.”
Hec
tor shook his head. “No, Nick, you don’t have those photos. I know that, because I have them.”
The words were like a bomb.
“You killed Jerold,” said Ally.
Hector smiled at her. “Well, of course. I couldn’t trust that he wouldn’t use what he knew against me the way he did my father.”
“You killed the other boys in those photos too, didn’t you,” she added.
“I can’t have witnesses running around telling tales, can I?” Hector’s eyes sliced to Nick. “I will say you have a good poker face.”
Nick’s jaw tightened. “I can still share what I know. Even without evidence, those accusations could cause many problems for you. Do you really think your business associates will be okay with this kind of attention?”
Hector sighed, as if bored. “I’m on charity boards, I make donations to children’s hospitals, and I have a high standing in society. Do you really think those accusations would be believed? Of course they would bring me negative attention, but that’s better than no attention at all, isn’t it? I have an excellent PR team that could easily spin the whole thing.”
Breathing hard, Shaya said, “Maybe you’re now the one who’s bluffing.” Jesse didn’t believe he was, and he doubted his Alpha female truly believed it either.
“I expected that you wouldn’t fold to my demands easily,” continued Hector. “But I think you now realize you are out of options. I suggest you focus on making arrangements to leave instead of sending my employees to lie for you. The little kestrel paid for her disloyalty. Unlike you, Nick, she didn’t have a good poker face.”
“You killed her?” Something in Shaya seemed to snap, but Nick obviously sensed it because he grabbed her before she could launch herself at a laughing Hector. “You’re dead,” she hissed. “I’ll make sure of that, one way or the other.”
Hector glanced at his watch. “I have somewhere to be. And you have a lot of arrangements to make. Let’s declare this meeting over, shall we? We’ll see each other again soon.” He spun on his heel and walked to his BMW, whistling. His guards followed, weapons trained on the Alpha pair.
Jesse, Roni, and Marcus sidled up to the others, watching as the BMW disappeared.
“It never occurred to me that he’d have the photos,” Eli said, shoving a hand through his hair.
“He always seems to be several steps ahead of us,” Jesse ground out.
“Probably because he’s experienced with this kind of thing.” Ally leaned into her mate with a sad sigh. “I can’t believe the bastard killed Ellie. She was sixteen.”
Shaya’s lip trembled. “We told her to lie for us and now—”
“We’re not to blame, Shay.” Nick sharply twisted her to face him. “Hector is responsible. He would have killed her eventually anyway. He doesn’t like witnesses. As soon as she knew too much, he’d have got rid of her.”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Marcus asked, “So what do we do now?”
Everyone looked at Nick, who puffed out a breath. “I don’t know.”
Even before Jesse entered the main lodge, Harley knew something was wrong. His anger echoed through her, vibrating her bones. The moment he returned, he stalked straight to her and hooked an arm around her neck to pull her close. She rubbed his upper arms. “I take it things didn’t go well.”
Resting his forehead on hers, he sighed. “They went to shit.”
While Zander, Roni, and Marcus patrolled the border, Nick held a pack meeting in the living area of the main lodge and explained everything to the others. Some of the pack cried out for war on Hector. Harley didn’t believe that was the answer, but she didn’t comment. Hector didn’t have a pack, but he could hire more loners—many would do anything for a price. As such, a war would equal absolute mayhem.
Nick must have agreed with that, because he growled, “No. More. War. We’ll find another way to deal with this.”
“No disrespect, Nick,” began Eli, “but I’m not sure there is another way to deal with it. Unless you plan on giving up our territory, he’s going to send people here eventually to run us off. We’ll have no choice but to fight back. All we can do is prepare for the battle ahead.”
“How would a margay pride deal with it?” Kathy asked Harley.
The question took her by surprise. “One of us would sneak into his home and slit open his throat while he slept.”
There was total silence for a moment. Then Ally said, “You’re serious.”
Very. “Margays aren’t big on wars. We’ve never understood why wolves, hyenas, and jackals like it so much.”
“We don’t like war,” said Nick.
“Packs are constantly at war with each other,” Harley pointed out.
“Yeah,” allowed the Alpha, “but that doesn’t mean we want to be.”
Shaya leaned forward. “One of your pride would really sneak into an enemy’s home and kill them in their sleep?”
Harley nodded. “We believe it’s better to cut the cancer out of the situation than have a full-on war during which lots of people get hurt and even die.”
Everyone looked up as Zander entered, frowning.
“Everything okay?” Jesse asked him.
Zander sighed. “Something weird is going on.”
Jesse got to his feet. “Weird how?”
“There’s a van parked near the dirt road leading here. A reporter’s sitting in there, looking torn about whether or not to get out.”
“A reporter?” repeated Harley. “You mean Gabrielle Rowan?”
“Yeah,” said Zander. “Marcus is keeping an eye on her.”
Dubious, Harley asked, “You’re sure it’s Gabrielle Rowan?”
“I’ve seen her on TV a couple of times.” Zander turned to Nick. “Want me to chase her off?”
Shaya’s brows drew together. “Why would the reporter even dare to come here? She has to know she’s not in the least bit welcome.”
“I’m curious enough about that to want to talk to her,” said Nick. “Escort her through.”
Zander arched a brow. “If she resists?”
“Escort her through,” Nick repeated.
“All right.” Zander left the room.
Nick turned to Shaya. “We’ll talk to her outside; I don’t want her in here.”
“Neither do I,” said Shaya, following him outside. Harley, Jesse, Eli, Bracken, and the Beta pair went with them.
Standing on the porch, Harley spoke to Jesse. “What do you think she wants?”
He blew out a breath. “No idea.”
It wasn’t long before Harley was able to see Zander guiding a reluctant Gabrielle down the path. Her cat let loose a long, drawn-out growl and swiped her claws. When Gabrielle noticed them watching her, she lifted her chin and adopted a confident stride. Fair play to her for not showing any weakness. Eventually she came to a stop in the parking lot, looking for all the world like she’d been happily invited there.
“My enforcer tells me you were lingering outside our territory,” said Nick, his tone unwelcoming. “Why?”
“I can understand why you don’t like me much, but you’ll want to hear what I have to say,” Gabrielle told him. “Trust me on that.”
“Trust you?” echoed Jesse with a snort. He didn’t trust this female as far as he could throw her.
Gabrielle shot him a tired look. “Just hear me out.”
“Go on,” urged Nick, looking deceptively uninterested.
Gabrielle glanced at the door of the main lodge, confused. “You want to talk out here?”
“There are pups inside. I don’t have people around them who I believe could be a risk to their safety.”
“Fair enough.” Gabrielle cleared her throat. “I had a call from a she-wolf who claims to have read my article about Harley. She also claims to know you all very well.” The fox looked at Harley. “She doesn’t like you much. In fact, she was happy to share a lot about you—she didn’t even ask for anything in return.”
“What did she say?” Harle
y didn’t realize she was edging closer to the reporter until Jesse’s arm shot out, acting as a protective barrier.
“That you came here for sanctuary because extremists rigged your car with a bomb and some of your relatives are now hunting them.”
“Motherfucker,” Jesse bit out.
Gabrielle continued speaking to Harley. “She also said that, from the little you’ve spoken of Clive to the pack, you don’t appear to have any regard for him or to know if he heads The Movement. I must admit, I found that rather disappointing. She also stated that you’ll soon own the club you were performing at. I don’t know her name; she didn’t say.”
“Kim,” guessed Bracken, expression glum.
“It might not be her,” Shaya told the enforcer but didn’t appear convinced.
“She sounded young,” said Gabrielle. “And very bitter.”
Bracken nodded. “Kim.”
Harley felt bad for him. His sister had fed his pack’s business to a reporter, betraying all of them—including him. When he turned to Harley, his face apologetic, she clipped, “Don’t you dare apologize. You are not to blame for anything another person does or doesn’t do.”
“If it was made public that you’ll soon own that club, the extremists would probably wreck it out of spite,” he pointed out.
“I know,” she said. “But you are not to blame, so you have no need to apologize.”
Eli patted Bracken’s back. “She’s right.”
“Why come to us with this?” Nick asked Gabrielle, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.
Gabrielle tugged at her blouse. “I said I wouldn’t write anymore articles about Harley. I won’t. But I thought you might be interested to know that someone close to you has betrayed you, especially since she’ll probably go to another reporter if I don’t write an article.” She swallowed. “I didn’t have to come to you with news.”
“So you want something in return,” Jesse guessed.
“Only what I’ve always wanted: an exclusive from Harley.” Gabrielle turned to her. “Even if you don’t know whether or not your father is connected to The Movement, you can still tell me about him.”