In response, I dropped my eyelashes, a gesture that had been second-nature two months ago but that now felt like tugging on a pair of damp jeans shrunken in the wash. “Chief Bellwether. To what do I owe this pleasure?”
“Call me William.” He gestured at the furniture he’d previously eschewed, waiting until I was seated before dragging another armchair a little too close then settling into it with his knees almost touching my knees. I forced myself not to twitch my legs away even when his nostrils flared and he murmured, “You smell delicious.”
“Excuse me?”
I could have kicked myself as soon as the words exited my lips. I wanted to smell delicious to Chief Bellwether. That had been the entire point of my preparations and the bone of contention between myself and Orion.
And yet, this alpha’s reaction made me itch to scrub the scent off my wrist then roll around in something vile the way wolves did before a hunt.
Luckily, Chief Bellwether didn’t take offense at my reaction. Instead, he poured each of us a glass of lemonade that we didn’t intend to drink, him because one of Orion’s pack mates had provided the refreshments and me because Chief Bellwether had been left alone in the room with the beverages. Under those circumstances, only an idiot would have imbibed.
Chief Bellwether covered up his avoidance of the lemonade by speaking. “You understand that your actions the other night were a punishable offense that falls under my jurisdiction. You understand that werewolves aren’t like the humans who raised you. We believe in an eye for an eye and a death for a death.”
Tipping my glass, the cool liquid of the drink I wasn’t actually going to let touch my mucous membranes lapped up against the outside of my lips. After returning the lemonade to the table, I embedded a fearful quiver into my voice. “I get it. You can do anything you want to a wolf without a pack. A wolf like me.”
This was one of the repercussions Vega had intended to protect me from. When I was still a member of her clan, she would have had every right to dive into my punishment if Chief Bellwether went too far, her protection turning the minor drama into an alpha battle. Since the man in front of me was still solidifying his new role, he presumably didn’t want that level of contest. Otherwise, why would he be here talking to me now?
So I fully expected him to smirk at the upper hand I’d just admitted he held. Instead, he rolled my name around his mouth yet again. “Elspeth. You were the catalyst for my pack’s decline, so it’s only fitting you should be our savior.”
I couldn’t really argue with his first point. I’d arrested the former Bellwether alpha at the Council’s behest, leading to a months-long imprisonment on the oil rig. And while Blade hadn’t been a good guy, it appeared taking him out of his clan had made matters worse there rather than better. No wonder the current Chief Bellwether had chosen blood magic to claim outpack territory and shore up his leadership. Still—
“You seem to be saving your pack quite capably on your own,” I murmured just as Bellwether spoke over me:
“I’ve decided. You’re my mate.”
Numb fingers lost their grip on the glass and cold lemonade spilled across my lap before splattering both armchairs. I’d like to say the deluge was a thought-out ploy to give me time to come up with an alternative, but it wasn’t. Instead, for one split second, I’d superimposed Orion’s face over Chief Bellwether’s and been granted a blinding flash of insight.
Bellwether was repulsive. But if Orion asked me the same question, I might now be ready to say yes.
Because, sure, when he and I first met in the desert, I hadn’t trusted the matebrand. I’d thought the magical force was manipulating me to make Orion appear more attractive. That what I felt wasn’t me but rather it.
More recently, though, we’d spent several weeks with only very overt and external matebrand intrusions. And, at the end of that time, Orion didn’t look any less appealing than he had previously. If anything, his presence had become more integral to my daily happiness.
It was true that we had our problems. Orion’s first urge was a lupine instinct to protect me, while my first urge was a human tendency to dive into danger solo. An empty hole inside me yearned to be filled, while Orion went to crazy extremes not to push me into commitment, extremes that spoke to his own inner scars.
Still, when it came right down to it, my life was better with Orion around than it ever would be without him. His tendency to act like a wolf balanced my tendency to act excessively human. His friendship over the last few days had made my life immeasurably richer. Plus, every time I was in his vicinity, I wanted nothing more than to run my hands across his skin.
So, why, exactly, had I insisted upon holding us apart?
A handful of napkins entered my field of vision while I was still coming to grips with a decision that felt both sudden and also inevitable. “I startled you,” Chief Bellwether observed.
This would have been a good time to act coy. Instead, I found wolf-like words leaving my lips. “I’ve already mated,” I countered, turning my forearm over to expose the fragments of remaining ink rather than accepting the napkins. It suddenly seemed far too intimate to risk my fingers brushing against Bellwether’s.
Meanwhile, his scent of peaches, now that he was so close to me, formed a very unpleasant skim on the inside of my mouth. I itched to open a nonexistent window to dilute the aroma. Actually, if there had been a window, I might have hopped through it in order to escape a meeting that hadn’t gone at all the way I’d planned.
The meeting continued to spiral off-script from there. “You were mated,” Chief Bellwether corrected, leaning in closer so he could dab at my knee with one of the napkins. The contact felt like worms crawling across my skin, but his words were worse. “That bond is now broken, but you’re still the bearer of the matebrand. You can choose another partner and share your power with him.”
At long last, my thoughts cleared as Chief Bellwether’s presence finally made sense. This was what he’d wanted when he demanded Vega offer me up for punishment. He hadn’t intended to beat me, just to threaten violence so that choosing him as my mate would seem like the easier option.
It definitely was the easier option. Mate bonds could be broken—Gabi had told me so and Orion had proven that point. And, yes, the pain afterwards had been excruciating. But I somehow didn’t think I’d experience the same agony after parting ways with the man before me now.
Meanwhile, there wasn’t much risk that Chief Bellwether would be able to use the matebrand to further his own interests. Last time around, outpack magic had obeyed me rather than Orion. So there would definitely be ways to twist what Chief Bellwether wanted to my advantage.
Still, when his rough hand cupped my chin, I shuddered at the contact. It felt like feedback from a microphone turned all the way up and channeled into high-class headphones. Overcoming all other sensations. Making it impossible to do anything other than react.
I had to be smart though. So I didn’t struggle against the restriction. Instead, I tried to come up with a better proposal than mating. I was still tossing around options in my head when Chief Bellwether dropped to his knees on the wet floor.
“My clan is more powerful than Orion’s,” he murmured, the reek of his breath reminding me of wasps hovering above rotten fruit, ready to sting the unwary. I could almost hear their hum as he continued speaking. “We don’t have to hide in canyons we wrongly assume no one else knows about. Half the outpack is ours, and we’ll soon win the rest of it. Together, you and I will become an unbeatable team.”
He didn’t wait for a reply. Instead, he tilted his head and kissed me, his grip preventing me from escaping the too-soft lips surrounded by too-rough stubble. The wet slug of his tongue tried to invade my mouth and I clenched my teeth together, fumbling for weapons that would have been accessible in their hidden pockets if I’d sat down carefully, the way I did during jobs.
But I hadn’t sat down carefully. I’d slumped into the chair unthinking and now our combined body weight pressed the knife that should have been easiest to come by into the damp upholstery.
Because Chief Bellwether had crawled up half on top of me, doubling the difficulty of avoiding his advances. To make matters worse, I couldn’t even tell him no. Not without risking opening my lips and letting him in.
For the first time in my life, I wasn’t emulating a damsel-in-distress. I very much felt like one.
Chapter 20
Then Orion was there, ripping us apart, shoving Bellwether out of the way before hugging me close to his body, ignoring the way sticky liquid rubbed off onto his clothes and skin. And I let him take over. Scrubbed my face against his shirt, unable to think of anything other than the aching need to replace the scent of peaches with the scent of cactus flowers.
“Get out,” Orion growled, his words vibrating through me like a balm. It gave me enough strength to turn around and face Bellwether as he answered.
“I would,” the older man said lightly, wiping his mouth as he straightened from where he’d been flung. He barely appeared affected by the moment that made me want to vomit.
And for a split second, I blamed myself. Had the perfume been too much? Had it sent the wrong signals?
Orion’s arm tightened around me, as if he could feel my thoughts and was denying them. His earlier words were what had planted the doubt in my head, but his touch now brought me back to reality.
