Hard As Steele (A BBW Paranormal Romance) (Timber Valley Pack) (19 page)

             
She saw the man that Jordan referred to as the Chief Elder, Jordan Fleetfoot, looking at Steele from across the room.  He was talking to a group of Wardens and several of the Elders as he stared at them, and abruptly he began walking towards Steele and Roxanne.             

             
Sven Gund, a group of his family members, and Mayor Bertelsen saw them moving towards Steele, and they quickly walked over to stand by Steele’s side. Katherine and Edvin hurried over, quickly.

             
“We need to talk to you alone,” Jordan said to Steele, shooting an annoyed look at the Gunds.  Roxanne tensed, and Flint began whimpering and clung to her.

             
“You can talk to me right here,” Steele said evenly, with just a hint of a low growl.

             
“Fine. Your relationship with a human, and your taking her out of our territory before her memory was properly erased, constitutes treason.” Jordan and the other Elders were grim-faced, their eyes glowing with anger. 

             
“He saved Roxanne’s child, and Axel Gund’s life,” Mayor Bertelsen said. “If you attempt to take him, you’ll have to go through us.”

             
“All of us,” Sven Gund added.

             
Jordan looked around the big room. There were hundreds of shifters there, but there were also hundreds of human townspeople. The situation was out of his control, and he clearly didn’t like it.

             
He scowled, and turned back to Sven. “You may think our ways are harsh, but you have seen what happens when people discover the existence of our kind,” he said to him.

             
“We’re not proposing that you announce to the world that werewolves, I mean shifters, exist,” Mayor Bertelsen said. “Steele’s meeting up with Roxanne was a special set of circumstances, and you know it.”

             
“We do not bend our rules or make exceptions. Ever.” Jordan’s tone was harsh, and the other Elders agreed with him with a chorus of low growls. “He is no longer one of us. I would be within my rights to order him put to death on the spot.”

             
Roxanne gasped, and the Gunds let out angry growls and snarls. 

             
“I suggest that you don’t try it,” Mayor Bertelsen said, with a hint of anger in his voice.  “He is the father of Roxanne’s child, and we consider him one of us now.”

He looked at Steele. “We happen to have a job opening for a police chief.  I understand you have some experience in that area.”

              “Oh, my God. That would be so perfect!” Roxanne’s face lit up, and she felt a weight fall away from her. She’d been privately wondering what they would do, where they would go. She knew that the community of Timber Valley would never welcome her, and that Steele’s people would never forgive him for being with her.

             
“You would hire a shifter to work for you?” Jordan asked skeptically.

             
“You just heard me offer him the job,” Mayor Bertelsen said. “We’re not all prejudiced.” He shot Jordan a look, and Jordan let out a displeased growl at the disrespect.

             
Jordan glanced at the other Elders and the Wardens, and they nodded grimly. He turned to Steele Battle.

“In light of what happened here, and the fact that this human is the mother of your child, who is also a shifter, we wi
ll amend the Death Order.   As long as you stay out of our territory, we will not seek you out.  However, you have turned your back on your own kind, and made it clear that your allegiance is to humans, not to us. For your betrayal, you are forbidden from entering pack territory, or participating in pack affairs. You may not return to Colorado, and you may not visit any pack anywhere in the country.  If you enter our territory, you will be killed. You will not contact your friends or family again.”

             
“I accept those conditions.  This is my family now,” Steele said, nodding his head at Roxanne and Flint.

             
“We are your family too,” Sven said. “Now that our secret is out, I think that we can come in to town more often, maybe even start sending our children to school there.”

             
Roxanne saw Edvin and Katherine exchange glances with each other. It would be much easier for them to date now that the Gunds could feel safe coming into town. 

             
Jordan turned to go, but then paused to rake Steele with a final, disapproving look.  “Is it really worth it?” he asked, his lip curling. “Giving up your entire life?”

             
“Of course it is,” Steele said. “I love her, and I love my son. And I haven’t given up anything. I’ve gained a new family and a new community who will accept me no matter what species I am.”

             
Jordan and the Wardens and Elders walked away, muttering amongst themselves. Roxanne felt as if she could breathe again. For a minute there, she’d been afraid that they would try to take Steele away.

             
Steele turned to Roxanne, raising his voice so it carried loud enough for half the room to hear. “I can finally say it, out in the open, and know that you’ll remember it. Roxanne, I love you, and I want you to marry me. Say you’ll be my bride.”

             
He went down on one knee.

             
“Oh, my goodness.” Tears filled her eyes, and she felt her throat closing.  Her heart pounded in her chest. This was really happening. She, Roxanne Weldon, the chubby girl who’d sat on the sidelines at prom and never been asked out on a date, was being proposed to by the handsomest man she’d ever seen, a man so handsome she still wanted to pinch herself to see if she was dreaming.  Not only that, he was the man who had risked his life to save their son, and who was willing to give up everything in his life to be with her.

             
“This is the part where you say yes,” Katherine called out to her.

             
Suddenly the people in the hall were chanting.

             
“Say yes! Say yes! Say yes!”

             
Roxanne saw Jordan and the other Elders and Wardens walk out of the hall, shooting disgusted looks behind them.

             
“All right! Be quiet, everyone!” Roxanne yelled, and instantly everyone shut up.  She could have heard a pin drop.

             
She took a deep breath, shifted Flint in her arms, and smiled through her tears.

             
“Yes, Steele Battle, I will marry you.”

THE END

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