Hidden Destiny (Redwood Pack) (3 page)

“I guess that makes sense.” It did. Though since she’d been shunned from her own Pack because of the actions of others, she still didn’t quite believe it. Oh, she desperately wanted to, but she couldn’t.

Not anymore.

“It damn well should,” Cailin grumbled. “My Pack is in pain because of those assholes, and I’ll be fucking pissed if we win and lose ourselves. We’re Pack and family first, warriors second. That’s what we need to be in order to stay who we are. I was wrong once when I asked my dad if we could go dark to win. Fucking wrong. I’m not going to do that again. We’re going to beat those fucking bastards, and we’re going to do it all the while blowing out candles on birthday cakes and making babies.”

Lexi blinked at Cailin’s impassioned speech.

Well then.

A blush crept over Cailin’s cheeks, and she ducked her head. The look suited her and made her look her age, rather than the image of the sex goddess she usually presented without trying.

“Sorry. I get a little worked up thinking about all the shit my family has been through.”

“And the fact that you haven’t been able to help,” Lexi whispered, knowing they had begun to attract the attention of the others. A few Jamensons glanced their way, but it was mostly the others not of the family that looked out of the corner of their eye or blatantly stared at them. Those had their normal sneer on their faces whenever they were near.

Lucky her.

Cailin’s head shot up, and she blinked. “I
hate
it.” She looked over her shoulder at her family, who had no doubt quieted to hear her words. Werewolves, after all, had exceptional hearing. “We can talk about it later.”

Lexi nodded then watched the young woman, who looked so sure of herself but clearly wasn’t, walk toward the pile of pups and start to play.

“I’m glad she talks to you when she won’t talk to anyone else,” a voice said from behind her, and she froze.

Hell, he was freaking quiet when he wanted to be.

North slid to her side but didn’t look at her. Not that she was looking at him—oh no, she couldn’t do that and breathe nowadays—but she could see him out of the corner of her eye.

Lexi swallowed hard and tried to regain the cool, collected composure she used when she had no earthly idea what else to do.

“She doesn’t talk to the rest of you?” She found that hard to believe, considering Cailin had wonderful parents, six big brothers, a brother-in-law, and five sisters-in-law.

North shrugged. She felt the touch of his overheated skin against her arm, and she held back a shiver.

She would
not
show the man how he affected her.

Ever.

“She’s so much younger than the rest of us. Yes, she’s the same age as a few of my brothers’ mates, but it’s different. They’re family now but still new. Cailin’s never felt comfortable about showing who she is to outsiders, and it’s even worse really within the family. She’s great with that façade of hers—the bitchy, twenty-something power attitude—but she doesn’t break down with us. Not since she was a little girl.”

Lexi’s heart ached for Cailin and even more so for the man she felt a connection to, despite all the reasons she shouldn’t.  It wasn’t as though Cailin was any different than the rest of them, but she was so much younger than her brothers, and there were things the woman might not even
want
to share.

“I’ll do what I can. I like her.” Lexi had no idea why she’d said that first part. She couldn’t even take care of her own crap, let alone another person’s. Okay, she could take care of Parker and Logan, but they were…hers.

North moved so he blocked her view of the pups again, and she sucked in a breath.

Gods, he was beautiful.  Tanned skin created by genetics and touched by the sun covered a hard body that she’d seen naked only because of his shifts, not for anything more. And damn, she wanted to have that be for something more. He had those Jamenson jade-green eyes, framed by light lashes, that Lexi knew she could fall into if she didn’t watch herself. Unlike most of his brothers, he and his twin Maddox had inherited their mother’s hair, a dark blond, unruly mass that looked damn good on him.

She
really
needed to stop looking at him that way.

“Thank you for taking care of my sister,” he whispered, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

She didn’t dare breathe. She knew once she caught a whiff of that spicy scent, latent or not, her wolf—or what she thought of as her wolf—would want to hunt.

That wouldn’t be happening.

Ever.

His fingers lingered on her cheek, and her body shuddered.

Traitor
.

She pulled back, the loss of his touch like a deep abyss she knew she’d never be able to cross.

“I need to go.”

She didn’t even bother to lie. Not this time. She turned tail and ran back to her home. No, not her home, the place where her family slept.

Her name carried across the wind as North called her back, but she ignored it.

Ignored him.

She kicked the door closed, then turned, bracing her back against it. Her legs gave out, and she slid to the floor, the sobs wracking through her body as memories flooded and attacked her.

The darkness of his eyes tearing into her.

The feel of those callous fingers digging into her when she screamed.

She shut her eyes against the nightmares and banged her fists against her temples.

“Get out! Stop!” she screamed into the empty room, tears rolling down her cheeks.

She had to get it under control. The others couldn’t know what had happened, or her baby boy’s life would be forfeit.

It was a dangerous game living with the Redwoods as it was. It would be even more dangerous to get close to the one man who could break her.

Even though her body told her, just as his was no doubt doing to him, that they could be mates, she knew that would never happen.

The wolf in her dreams begged for the man—at least that was what she thought since she couldn’t actually hear her wolf—she could feel the man’s touch on her cheek and knew it was useless to dream.

To hope.

There would be no future with North Jamenson.

She was already mated.

“You seem to be doing okay with the prosthesis,” North Jamenson said, his words on one thing, his mind on another.

His brother, Adam, sat on the exam table, his one leg touching the floor, his other leg—amputated at the knee—resting while North finished up the examination. Adam shrugged, tension still clearly riding him, though North knew the leg was completely healed.

“I don’t really feel like it’s on anymore, you know? It’s just…there.”

North gripped Adam’s shoulder and squeezed. Adam had come a long way since the demon Caym had taken his leg in battle, but North knew his brother still had days where he missed his leg. It was only natural. Thankfully, Adam had his mate, Bay, and baby boy, Micah, to make things better.

Seriously, Adam had come a long way.

“You’re good to go then,” North said as he stepped back so Adam could put his prosthesis back on. In the past, North might have stepped in to help, but his older brother knew what he was doing by now and put it on with a practised ease.

Adam walked out of the clinic, leaving North to his thoughts, which frankly, he didn’t need. He didn’t want to think about the fear and shame that had hit him like a train when Lexi ran away from him. He didn’t want to see the sorrow in her gaze when she looked at him with those wide hazel eyes.

He didn’t want to picture the look of confusion on Parker’s face when he watched his mom run away. Or the way the little boy had shied away from him when Lexi ran—as if Parker knew it was North’s fault his mom had fled.

North sucked in a breath at a sharp, lancing pain arching across his palm and cursed. He’d clenched his fist and forgotten he’d been holding a fountain pen. Out of control, and with his werewolf strength, he’d smashed the damn thing and had even stabbed himself with the pointed edge.

Great.

Just fucking great.

He threw the pen in the trash and washed his hands. Sure, wolves couldn’t get normal diseases like humans, but getting ink in a wound didn’t seem like the best idea.

He didn’t bother bandaging it because it was healing on its own, and in within the next twenty minutes, he’d be good as new again.

Fuck. He couldn’t believe he’d lost control like that.

Again.

North was considered the calm one, the brother who was there to help the others but never on the front lines, never making waves. And he was good at it.

He
had
to be that person.

If he wasn’t, the others might find out exactly what he was.

He’d hidden it from them for so long he knew he had to keep it buried.

If his family found out exactly what he was and what he could do, they’d… Well, he didn’t know what they’d do.

He didn’t want to know.

He put away the equipment he’d been using on Adam, then cleaned up his exam room. His clinic was three rooms—an exam room, an operating room, and his office—attached to his home. It used to be that he spent more time in his clinic than his home. However, since Hannah, one of his brother Reed’s mates, had joined the Pack, he’d been relegated to glorified nurse.

Hannah was the Healer, the one who Healed the Pack and took care of their physical hurts. His twin Maddox, the Omega, took care of the Pack’s emotional needs.

North, on the other hand, was on standby with a cold compress and bandage.

He let out a sigh.

Okay, it wasn’t that bad. He still had to deal with things that Hannah couldn’t deal with because of her energy levels. She relied on the Pack’s bonds to Heal her patients. Sometimes, especially when she’d been pregnant, it was better for North to administer first aid or preform a procedure after Hannah had done all she could.

It still made him inferior.

He’d been a doctor for decades, learning new techniques and brushing up on modern medicine under false aliases within the human schools.

Now he figured he might need something else to focus on.

He’d
thought
that would be Lexi and Parker, but considering the woman refused to be alone with North for any extended period of time, North wasn’t sure anymore.

He
knew
he and Lexi were potential mates. His wolf knew it and rode him hard to complete the mating, or at least initiate the mating dance.

All wolves had certain people out in the world they could mate with over time. Fate had decreed it, and usually, the human halves involved jumped in headfirst. To find one’s mate was an amazing experience—or so North had heard.

North also knew that Lexi had been mated before. After all, she had Parker. Wolves couldn’t have children without the mating bond in place. There was no doubt, considering the little boy looked just like his Uncle Logan with a little Lexi thrown in, that he was a product of Lexi and her late mate.

And that’s how it had to be according to fate and what he’d known for so long. Lexi’s previous mate must have died. Once a wolf completed the mating bond, no matter how many other potential mates a wolf met in the future, neither party would feel that new pull. It would be a cruel twist of fate to allow a wolf to bond their mate only to find out they had another half elsewhere.

There was no way fate was that sadistic.

He figured she’d lost her mate when she’d been kicked out of the Talons.

North growled and fisted his hands again at that thought. That fucking Pack was next on his list after the Centrals. Those bastards had hurt his mate and would have to pay. Though it hurt to think that Lexi had loved someone before him and had completed that mating, he’d take her as she was.

Not that there was anything wrong with her.

Far from it.

He loved her strength, the way she protected her family though she was much smaller than her brother. He loved those fierce eyes, that athletic body, and that silky blonde hair of hers.

He knew it was silky because he’d felt it when he’d tucked it behind her ear.

And the day he’d almost died.

That, though, wasn’t something he wanted to dwell on at the moment.

If ever.

Someone made a rustling sound at the door, and he turned to find Patrick there—a lower-ranked wolf who pissed him off to no end. The wolf thought he was more badass than he was and had once tried to kill Ellie’s mate because of circumstantial evidence.

The idiot was lucky North didn’t tear his throat out right there.

“What can I do for you, Patrick?”

The other man lifted his chin. “Need to restock my first aid kit,” he grunted.

North could almost taste the lie but showed the other man where he could get the things anyway. As the only doctor in the Pack, he routinely helped stock those things since wolves were always getting in scrapes. Though if North didn’t know any better, it was almost as if the other man was casing the joint or just trying to get in his space.

Okay, North admitted he might be getting a little paranoid.

“Is that all?” North asked as he packed up Patrick’s things.

“Yep. Thanks. Good to know you take care of all of us, not just your family.”

North growled but held his wolf in check.

“You’re done. Get the fuck out.”

“Gladly.”

Patrick stomped out, and North was left there confused. Okay, so the bastard was either going crazy, or North’s family would have to deal with a wolf on the edge at some point. There was something else going on with Patrick, something North might not have seen today, but North couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling. He’d have to talk to his father about it soon.

He ran his hand over his face and hoped there wouldn’t be any more surprises for the night.

North scented the pup before he heard him and smiled.

He loved that little-boy smell—the bare hint of wolf and forest mixed with spice.

The acidic smell of fear and pain that slid under that little-boy smell caused North’s hackles to rise. He turned toward Parker, who stood in the doorway, tear tracks running down his cheeks, but his lips were in a firm line as if the boy didn’t want others to know how much pain he was in.