It was as Trey was showering that he thought back to how he had felt when, forced to be nothing but an observer, he saw Taryn tentatively trying to gain his wolf’s attention. The anger, the frustration and the anxiety rushed back. There had been something else in that cocktail of emotions. Fear. Trey had actually felt fear.
It wasn’t that he hadn’t experienced that emotion before. Of course he had. Having an underdeveloped conscience and an explosive temper didn’t mean he didn’t know fear. What was bothering him right now was that he had felt such fear for Taryn, had feared she would be seriously hurt and feared she would be taken from him just like that – and at his own hands. He couldn’t even say it was his wolf’s fear. His wolf had been going through his own shit right then. No, that had been all Trey.
It had to have been a direct consequence of the natural crazy-possessiveness and crazy-protectiveness that came with mating. It was obviously age-old instincts pushing to the forefront, taking over. Trey understood that the mating would be temporary, but his instincts to protect his mate were obviously going to override his thoughts. Obviously. Just like his instinct to mark his mate and make her submit to him had overridden his true indifference to those things.
Yeah, that was all it was, all it could be. Obviously. That didn’t improve his mood any because there was another issue that was bothering him. Taryn shouldn’t have been able to calm his wolf.
When a wolf shifter went into feral mode they behaved a lot like a rabid animal. They attacked senselessly, they felt no emotional attachments, they lost all sense of reason and logic. And yet her scent and voice had reached his wolf even through that fog.
Trey had felt how quickly his wolf had recognised her as his mate, how quickly he had switched from wanting to kill to wanting to protect. The only reason his wolf had been reluctant to leave the carcass was because he still hadn’t been stable enough to understand that the sandy wolf was dead and no longer a danger to Taryn.
If his wolf was this attached to Taryn now, what would he be like in three months? What would happen when she left? Trey’s wolf growled his objection, confirming Trey’s suspicion that his eventual separation from her could be more problematic and uncomfortable than he had anticipated even though they hadn’t imprinted.
Unlike with true mates, a relationship between imprinted mates could wither over time. For an unhappy imprinted couple it wasn’t simple for them to shake hands and go their separate ways because of the metaphysical bond that existed between them. The pain of that kind of separation was on a psychic level just as much as a physical one.
For most wolves, it meant constant migraines, a lingering sense of emptiness, and slipping in and out of depressive states for a few years, if not longer. Some wolves even retreated within their human half completely, unable to function without their mate. The worst case scenario for any wolf separated from their mate was that they turned rogue, remaining in wolf form and turning completely feral, attacking anyone they came into contact with – like his mother had.
After his dad had banished him, his mom – who had been a submissive wolf – had for the first time in her life rebelled against his dad’s authority. When he refused to reconsider his banishment, she had left with Trey and the others, believing that she would cope with the separation because her bond with his father had been through imprinting as opposed to them being true mates. However the separation had proven too difficult for her, most likely because she had been a submissive wolf. Within six months she had turned rogue…and Trey had been the one to kill her.
There was no way that he was prepared to go through something like that again. As long as he and Taryn didn’t imprint, there was no risk of either of them suffering any of those effects when they separated, but it was obvious that his wolf was already becoming attached to her. And that spooked the hell out of Trey. So instead of going straight to Taryn to check on her like he wanted to, he shut himself in his office.
Another thing that spooked him was the knowledge that if she hadn’t been with him in that Mediation meeting, if she hadn’t kept him calm with her touch, he would have most definitely lost it and went for Darryl’s throat. Never had he been able to truly rely on another person. Never had there been someone for him to draw strength from. But that had been okay because he hadn’t wanted to need anyone. He hadn’t been the type of kid who craved physical affection – which had been a damn good thing since he’d never gotten it.
He had always prided himself on not having that weakness of needing anyone or anything. Having a mate, having a connection that came with mating, was fucking with that. Not that he believed for even one minute that the mating connection could override the way he functioned and had always functioned, but he didn’t have any interest in encouraging the cravings for his mate by feeding them.
Maybe if he distanced himself from her, spent little time with her, didn’t touch her, it would ease the matter and ease his wolf’s attachment to her. He needed to ignore these urges he had to be with her, to touch her, to mark her entire body, to ensure his scent was all over her. Those urges had nothing to do with Taryn as a person and everything to do with the fact that she was who he had mated. If she had been someone else, things would still have been the same.
Would they really though? a voice in his head questioned, a part of him who thought he was talking out of his ass.
Of course it would. That wasn’t to say that he didn’t like Taryn. He did. And he respected her which said a lot. And yeah, okay, there was that weird thing between them, that primal hunger. And she made him laugh, and she was refreshing because she wasn’t afraid of him or to speak her mind in front of him, and she –
Dammit, no! No, the attraction was mostly just due to their mating. It was just his instincts driving him, not his regard for Taryn. Trey wasn’t at the mercy of those instincts or his wolf. He had a mind of his own and that mind was going to rule how he behaved from here on out.
Unless the situation required him to touch her – like when they were posing as mates – he would resist doing so. It would probably be best not to have sex with her again given that he could never resist the urge to mark her whenever he was inside her, but he couldn’t guarantee that sex wouldn’t happen because if she made advances he very much doubted he’d be able to ignore them.
To satisfy his overprotectiveness he would allocate her a bodyguard. No his wolf wouldn’t like her spending large amounts of time with another male, but his wolf would just have to deal with it because Trey was going to get a handle on this situation and he was going to start now.
Taryn jerked awake at the sound of laughing. Three heads that had been leaning against her legs swerved around.
“Oh sorry,” said Tao, “it’s just that this episode of Friends is hilarious.”
“They’re all hilarious,” she mumbled as she sat upright. Trick and Tao each scooted over a little so that she had room to stretch her legs out.
“How are you feeling?” asked a voice to her right as a finger trailed down her cheek.
She looked up to see Grace. “Fine, thanks.” It was only then that she realized that they were all gathered around her. She understood what this meant. Not only had they been offering her comfort, they accepted her as a member of the pack. Temporary member of the pack, she reminded herself.
“You look better,” said Tao.
“How long was I out?” she asked no one in particular as she stretched her arms which were a little stiff from her fetal position.
“About an hour,” replied Dante.
“You should have woke me, I didn’t need to sleep that long.”
Tao, who was rubbing his jaw against her knee, asked, “Do you always need sleep after you use your gift?”
She shook her head. “I was just tired because Trey had so many injuries, even though they weren’t fatal. Where is Flinstone anyway?”
Dante suddenly seemed a little uncomfortable. “He went to have a shower and um…he’s probably making some calls or something in
his office.”
In other words, he hadn’t reappeared to check on her. Why should he though?
“You need anything?” asked Grace. “Coffee or something?”
Taryn waved her hand. “I can get it, I’m fine.”
“No,” they all said in unison before Grace rushed from the room.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m not an invalid.”
“No,” agreed Lydia, “but you’re our Alpha female which means we look out for you.”
“Come on, you know it’s only temporary, you don’t need to take things so far.”
“Then let us just do it temporarily.”
“Is there anything else you want?” asked Grace as she handed her a huge mug of coffee.
Taryn took the mug gratefully and sipped from it. “Actually, I was wondering if any of you have a computer I could use once I’ve had a shower.”
“I do,” said Rhett. “It’s in my room.”
“Then let’s go.” Seeing that they were all ready to object to her moving just yet, she held up her hand. “I said I’m fine. As much as I appreciate the concern, I’m going to need you all to stop fussing.” Wearing petulant expressions, they gave her space to rise and leave.
A shower and a change of clothes later she was in Rhett’s bedroom. It was smaller than Trey’s and had quite a geeky feel to it. He led her to his ‘IT Corner’ and introduced her to his amazingly hi tech contraption. He had almost every program she could think of, thousands of games, access to all kinds of confidential shit and a mind that worked just as fast as that piece of technology. She didn’t know whether to be impressed or freaked out. “So, in short, you’re a hacker. I can just about manage e-mailing.”
“Hacking’s not as hard as you might think. It’s pretty much like sex – you want to get in and out leaving little trace of you ever having been there. So, what do you need?”
“I just need access to the internet. I’ve probably been disconnected from my old pack web so I’ll need to join yours.”
“Your what?”
“You don’t have a pack web?” Taryn was surprised considering he seemed to have everything else.
He shook his head. “What is it?”
“It’s kind of like a social network but it’s exclusive to whoever is in your pack.”
“A little like Facebook and Twitter.”
“Exactly, only it’s not so much to encourage social interaction as it is to showcase your pack. Let me show you.”
After typing in the http address, Taryn took them to the homepage of USA Pack Webs. Entering her name and password, she was then immediately transferred to a visual of what was termed the Onyx pack web – her old pack. It was a little like looking at an image of the solar system, only instead of the sun being in the center it was a photo of the Alpha, her dad. And instead of planets being dotted around the eight surrounding circles of the sun, individual photos of each pack member were randomly dotted around the circles. Her own photo was set aside as if free floating in space. Oh yeah she’d been disconnected alright.
“Because we’re not part of the pack, we don’t have access to this web which means we can’t see the public blog and add to it, but watch this.” Using the mouse, she moved the arrow to point on one of the photos and instantly the photo enlarged and a little personal information on that pack member came up; it was like looking at a baseball card, only it was referred to as an information card.
Rhett read it aloud. “Full Name: Shaya Critchley. Gender: Female. Age: Twenty-three. Status: Unmated. Rank: Subordinate. Challenges: Four. Challenges Won: Two.”
“That’s all you can know unless you were to gain permission from the Alpha to browse through the pack web.”
He turned to look at her. “Every pack has one?”
She shook her head. “Not every pack. They’re a good thing to have, because not only is it a good way for all pack members to socially interact no matter where they are, but it means that other packs can get a vague idea of how powerful yours is. Look at this.” Taryn pointed the cursor at Lance and instantly a photo popped up with a small amount of personal information underneath.
Again Rhett read it aloud. “Full Name: Lance Kai Warner. Gender: Male. Age: Forty-three. Status: Mate Deceased. Rank: Pack Alpha. Challenges: Twelve. Challenges Won: Twelve. Number of Alliances: Thirty-two. Total Number of Wolves: Twenty-six.” He seemed lost in thought for a moment before turning his attention back to Taryn. “So we could create our own web?”
She nodded. “Easy. You just need to sign up first to USA Pack Webs. You know, this would be a good way to form alliances. Other Alphas now have a way of getting in touch with Trey without risking turning up only to get their head chewed off.”
“How could they contact him?”
“See the option on the top right of the information card, Send Message. The same option is on everybody’s information card. Speaking of which, let me just check to see if I have any.” She double-clicked on her own card and saw a notice that she had fifty-seven messages.
“Fifty-seven?”
“It’ll just be people wanting to know if the mating’s kosher and all that. All I’m interested in is whether Shaya and Caleb have been in touch.” It turned out that they had both been in touch. Again they both expressed concern about her safety and tried convincing her that she was wrong about Trey being her true mate, asking to meet up with her so they could all talk. “I think that’s exactly what I’m going to have to do.”
“What?”
“Meet up with them. They’re not buying that the mating is real. If they hear it from my mouth, if I can convince them that I’m fine and Trey doesn’t intend to hurt me, then maybe they’ll accept it. They’re both tenacious bastards, they won’t let this go.”
Rhett sighed. “I doubt Trey will let you leave the property.”
Let her leave? Snort. She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “Actually I was thinking that if they see me here in this setting it might be more believable for them.”
“You’re probably right there. Okay, you got time to help me with this before you go ask Trey?”
“Sure.”
Trey looked up from an old photograph of his dead mother when he heard the knock on his office door. “Come in.” As he expected, Tao strolled inside. He had also anticipated Dante tagging along since he was a nosy bastard. Both wolves took the seats in front of Trey’s thick oak desk. Shoving the photo underneath the slip of papers beside it, he focused his attention on Tao.
“I’m electing you as Taryn’s personal bodyguard.” The Head Enforcer nodded agreeably, which sort of stunned Trey. “You know what this means, don’t you? I’ll need to pull you away from your usual duties because your main priority will be Taryn’s safety.”
“Someone else will become Head Enforcer, I know,” said Tao with a nod.
“I was sort of expecting a protest.”
Tao shrugged. “I considered it an honor when I was made Head Enforcer and I enjoy that position, but it will be just as much an honor to be my Alpha female’s bodyguard. Besides, Taryn’s interesting to be around,” he added with a smile.
Trey arched a brow. “I hope that’s all you find her to be.”
“Isn’t it going to be a bad idea for you to have someone else looking out for her?” Dante asked rhetorically.
“Why would it be?”
He sighed. “Because it’s your job as her mate to be her protector and it will nettle your protective instincts – not to mention your wolf – if you ignore that.”
“I’m not ignoring it. I’m assigning someone to watch over her which means I’m addressing the issue of her safety. Protective instinct covered.” Trey had kept his tone aloof and cool, but the way Dante narrowed his eyes told him that he was seeing more than Trey wanted him to.
“Speaking of Taryn, you might want to come see what her and Rhett set up.”
“Set up?”
“On the computer. Come see.”
Minutes later many of th
e pack were crowded into Rhett’s bedroom as he showed them their pack web and explained everything about how it worked and how it would benefit the pack. He then showed the others how to use it and introduced them to the public blog for their pack.
“Well, what do you think?” asked Rhett.
“This was your idea?” Trey asked Taryn, impressed.
“And Rhett’s. It was a joint project.”
“I had no idea other packs had this kind of stuff,” said Dante, sounding a little awed. “How long ago did your dad set his web up?”
Taryn jiggled her head as she thought on it. “Five years ago, maybe?”