“Why do you always fucking run?” he snapped. “Come inside, talk this out. Tell Rob to get fucked. But stop bloody running.”
“I’m not running. I don’t want to be here, I don’t want…this,” I said, waving my hand vaguely. “Not the job, not Rob, not you.”
Jai jerked back as if slapped. “What…?”
“You told me to watch you, wait to see if you’re for real. Well, I did Jai. The flowers, the…” My fingers went to my lips when I felt the ghost of his kisses. “It was all bullshit. Why now? Why all of a sudden?” My smile twisted hard. “You need an inside man. That’s why you reached out, started…whatever this is. Fuck, Jai, you’re playing me all over again.”
“No, no, no, Shan,” Jai said edging towards me, but I wasn’t having that. I backed up, turned, ready to walk the whole damn way home if that’s what it took, but his hand slapped down over my wrist and he yanked me close. “The old fellas, they didn’t want you for me. They don’t like it when the pack take outsiders for mates, you know that, and your Uncle Rob? He’s got his own ideas for you.”
“He’s not my fucking uncle.” I spat the words out but felt an automatic fear that came with them. It was that feeling of hubris, of declaring yourself equal to the gods or something. You might want to say it, but doing it felt wrong somehow. “He’s a family friend.”
“Well, that’s not how it works for us,” Jai snapped. “You’re in or you're out. One of us or an outsider.”
“So?”
“So, we don’t follow the old ways like we should, but everything here, in HG, we see how it fits in with the pack, including you. Your nan, she made a connection with us when she came here, and Uncle Rob was the custodian of that. The old fellas, they see the strength you women have. They see that and want it with us, not turned against us. Your Mum, she was supposed to marry Rob.”
“What?”
“She wouldn’t have it. She was wilder than you, they say. Found her own mate and then had you.” He lifted a hand to my cheek, stroking a thumb across it before I yanked it away. “They had ideas for me, for you, for all of the younger ones. A way to keep the pack strong.” He drew his hand away, but he didn’t look happy about it. “You weren’t for me, they told me, after graduation. We’d had our little moment and…”
He shook his head, staring at the ground, seeing something I couldn’t see there.
“Then this place was built. The alphas don’t like it. They hear strange howls on the wind, animals that don’t belong here, maybe don’t belong anywhere. They send us in, and we fail. Have to run on home with our tails between our legs. But then I tell them about you.”
“And how do you know about me?”
“Small town, everyone talks, and anyone who knows me knows that information about Shannon falls on a friendly ear. They tell me about the animals you help, the people you see.” His eyes flicked up, hardening for a moment. “The men you go out with.”
I frowned, backing up but unable to look away from those golden-brown eyes.
“They tell me about Stuart and his problems and the men who are offering him everything he needs, men in that place on the ridge. I tell the alphas about it, let them weigh it all up, those plans they have for me or you, and then…” The same Jai smirk reasserts itself, but just for a moment. “Then they become plans for me and you. I’m not lying to you, not playing. With the pack, I had to work the long game, but I’ve been on this for years, Shannon. Wolves are patient, waiting, ready to strike when the moment comes.” I watched his eyes shine in the low light. “That’s how I got them to make that connection between me and you.”
He moved in closer, slowly, like the predator he is, taking my wrists in gentler hands now, rubbing his thumbs across the soft inner skin, daring me to pull away.
“They can’t take it back now, so if you don’t want to go into that place again, I’ll fight every damn one of them to make sure that doesn’t happen.” His hand stroked through my hair, and damn if I didn’t want to rest my cheek