Pretty Poison (21 page)

“See?” They’re cooperating.” Lydia glanced over her shoulder, at Wade. “He isn’t terribly injured. I’ve seen him do worse to himself jumping ramps in his wheelchair.” She glared at Dad. “Don’t be stupid. Don’t make your children watch you die.”

“It’s only been two weeks. You can’t love him,” Noah’s father said, fingers biting into Noah’s shoulders. He kneeled on the ground, bracing Noah in his arms. Wetness spiked his eyes when he stared at Noah. “I just wanted you to be safe.”

“By poisoning him?” His body taut with aggression, Wade glowered.

Shrugging, Dad gave a hopeless laugh. “It worked before.”

“But it doesn’t anymore.” Noah wriggled a hand up, blanketing his dad’s on his shoulder. “And you’re right. I
may not
love him. I don’t know that yet.” He smiled at his mate. “But I want to love him.”

The fiery red in Wade’s stare flickered. “I want to love you, too.”

“Haven’t you always told us love wasn’t just a fuzzy emotion? That loving someone was also a deliberate and conscious action, a choice? That’s what you said you had with Mom—commitment mixed with longing and caring for each other.” Noah curved his lips to a smile, proud when it hardly wobbled. “Don’t ruin this for me, Dad. Please.”

“Before your mother died, I swore to her that I would never fail you, but when he came for you, I didn’t protect you. I abandoned you to the pack, to him.” When Dad swallowed, his Adams apple bobbed. “I heard...things. We did.” Mikael and Geoffrey both bobbed their heads in agreement. “That you weren’t happy, but you put on a show to trick your sister, to protect us. I couldn’t abandon you again.”

“Then, don’t. You can see that he’s exactly where he wants to be.” Lydia snorted and threw her hands in the air. “Join the pack. Be with him.”

“I darted him, missy. I tried to take away their alpha mate.” Shuddering, Dad released Noah and scrubbed a palm over his face. “They won’t want me or your brothers in their pack anymore.”

Noah sat up, despite the pain in his hips and aching legs. “I do.” He stared at Wade who watched Noah as if Noah was the most fascinating and precious creature to ever populate his world. Probably because Noah was. “As the alpha mate, I can do whatever I want.”

“Technically, we haven’t completed the mating ritual.” Wade grimaced. “Trudy,” he shouted. “And where in the hell is Fletcher?”

The beta arrived with Noah’s brace and crutches. Trudy sent one of the pack members to the clearing to bring arnica ointment and when Noah’s sore knee throbbed, too swollen for the brace, that shifter returned again for a splint. Arnica provided instant if not total relief. Wade pushed Noah’s dad to the side, supporting Noah while Trudy worked on him, but Noah didn’t let his father wander far, tethered to Noah by the hand Noah squeezed when his leg hurt, just like when Noah was small. Wade didn’t like it, but he didn’t force Noah’s dad away, either. A hard glare at Fletcher was all that was required to prod the beta to stick close to Mikael and Geoffrey, though. With her arms crossed and her foot tapping, Lydia wasn’t too eager to let her brothers out of her sight, either.

“He really does care for you,” Dad said, voice wondering, when Wade held Noah and comforted him through the teeth-grinding pain of immobilizing his bad knee in the splint.

When Noah could catch his breath, he tipped his head up to meet his mate’s gaze. “Wade?”

“They poisoned you again. Hurt you. Disrupted our mating.” Wade glared at Noah’s father’s hand, clasped tightly in Noah’s. “You ask too much.”

“It isn’t disrupted.” William, Noah’s youngest brother, eased through the crowd. A freshly skinned rabbit dangled from his fist, the animal’s blood spattered on his chin and throat. He offered the game to Wade. “Feed him and the mating’s done.”

Wade shook his head. “We need to have sex to finish the ritual and he’s in no condition—”

“Who says sex is a requirement? Tradition? The same tradition that says my daughter can’t become a physicist, if she wants?” A stocky shifter whose name Noah couldn’t remember raised his chin.

“The tradition that forbade the old alpha from letting our healer consult with an oncologist that might have saved him?” another shifter in the rear of the pack bellowed.

“And forced your mate’s poor family away from us to start with?”

“Screwing on pack grounds under the full moon to seal a mating bond isn’t comfortable,” a woman said, arching an eyebrow at Noah and Wade both. “It really isn’t.” She pointed at Lydia. “If she didn’t have to do that to be mated to her human, I shouldn’t have to. Or you.”

“God knows you’ve been going at it constantly at the pack house. Not like anybody could mistake your desire for each other.” Finished with Noah’s leg, Trudy sat back on her heels and shrugged. “Traditions aren’t pack law. Just traditions. If ours aren’t working for us anymore, shouldn’t we change them?”

Wade’s arms around Noah crushed him. He skated a kiss on Noah’s temple. “Yes. We should.”

“So feed him.” William pushed the fresh rabbit toward Wade. “Then, we can take Noah to town to patch him up and Dad as well as my idiot brothers can start learning how to earn their way back into your good graces. And Noah’s.”

Grudgingly, Wade accepted the game. He stared at Noah’s dad. Geoffrey and Mikael, too. “You realize I can’t and won’t let you near him again without strict supervision. My personal supervision.”

Dad reluctantly nodded.

“We’ll sit down with all of you and with our pack healer, Trudy. Dr. Phares, too, so you can trust that Noah’s improvement is legit and convince you of the effectiveness of new shifter therapies,” Wade said. “But if you ever poison him again...”

“They won’t,” Noah said.

“We only care about what’s best for Noah,” Mikael said.

“And what keeps him happy.” Geoffrey nodded. “We won’t screw that up for him.”

“The night you came to the farm, you didn’t just leave with my son. You tore my heart out and took it with you,” Dad said. “I was wrong about you. Looks like you’re taking good care of my heart, after all.” He smiled at Noah. “Love him as much as I loved his mother and you’ll get no more trouble from me. Whatever rules you want to set, I’ll follow and make sure my boys obey them, too.”

Lydia narrowed her eyes. “What about me?”

Dad snorted. “You haven’t listened to me since you were two.”

When Lydia squawked in mock outrage, Wade lifted his hand, palm up, to silence them. “Noah loves his family, and he wants you all in the pack so we’ll negotiate an arrangement of some kind until you’ve proven you can be trusted,” Wade said, “but I have a final demand, at least for tonight.”

Noah’s dad tipped his head in assent. “Name it.”

“Are you willing to name the shifters in the pack who lied to you and encouraged you to try to take Noah away?” Wade caressed Noah’s arm. “I heard you tell him a couple of pack members had hidden four-wheelers for your escape.”

“I talked to them, not Dad. They provided the tranq gun for Noah’s aconitum shot, too,” Mikael said. “Sure, I’ll tell you who they are. Since I saved their texts, I can show you as soon as I get my phone from the truck.” He craned his neck. “I don’t see those two here, though. They’re probably long gone.”

“Probably.” Wade blew out a stuttered breath. “Thank you. Your cooperation makes me feel less inclined to beat you into the dirt for poisoning my mate.”

Mikael choked off an abrupt laugh.

“That isn’t funny,” Noah said, frowning. “What?”

“Your alpha’s so mad about the aconitum. He and the other city shifters called it poison instead of medicine several times.” He stared at Wade. “When we believed what you really wanted was to get rid of my brother, almost as much as we wanted him home, we thought the injection would sedate Noah’s wolf. Maybe enough to lessen the connection so he could be free of a mating he regretted. And you, too. To us, it isn’t a poison and never was. Just a tool.” Mikael shrugged. “But that’s what the two who helped us called Noah: poison. They said he was a poison infecting the pack.”

“He
is
infecting us, though.” Becca, fingers twined with Dylan’s, edged through the shifters surround Noah and Wade. “With something good.”

“A better future,” Dylan said and ducked his head, a smile bowing his mouth.

“They’re right,” Fletcher said, and in the warmth in the beta’s stare, Noah knew Fletcher must be thinking of his children, of Mia.

“Then, let’s finish this,” Wade said and lifted the raw chunk of dead rabbit.

Bloody, raw rabbit.

Disgusting rabbit.

“Wade,” Noah said, stomach churning. “You know they gave me a shot, right?”

His mate arched an eyebrow. “Yes.”

“My wolf’s...uh...not awake.” Noah wrinkled his nose at the freshly killed prey. “That’s revolting.”

Snickering, Wade reached around the barrel of Noah’s chest and tore a strip of sinew from the bunny corpse’s meaty haunch. “Just a taste.”

Gulping down sour bile, Noah shook his head. “I don’t think I can.”

“For me,” Wade said, using his teeth to rip an even smaller morsel about the size of a quarter free. He lifted his fingers to remove it from his mouth and offered the meat to Noah. “C’mon, little wolf. I don’t want to wait another month to begin our life together. I chose you from the start.” Wade brushed the meat across Noah’s bottom lip. “This time, choose me.”

Noah’s stomach pitched at the salty taste, but he, bravely, didn’t flinch away. “You really want to love me?” he asked instead.

“I do.” His mate smiled. “And will.”

“Okay.” Over the pack’s celebratory whoops and under Wade’s affectionate gaze, Noah opened his mouth. “But only for you.”

Epilogue

A few months later...

The harvest was over. Farmers had stripped grains and other crops from the fields surrounding the city. The nights were cooler, but autumn’s grip hadn’t clenched to a fist yet. One or two sunny Saturdays remained before the pack house pool would be drained and covered, forcing Noah to Vanguard’s indoor facilities for his physical therapy. Looking out, at the milling shifters who crowded the crystal clear water as well as the expansive patio surrounding the pool, Noah guessed he should stop thinking of the laps he swam as physical therapy. Trudy had been wrong. Oh, his brace was gone. Both the pack healer and Dr. Phares had agreed to toss that away after a few full moon shifts, but her hopes and Noah’s to rid him of his forearm crutches had faded. He’d tried walking with a cane, but his joints remained too unstable. He supposed they always would be.

None of the shifters gathered around the pool cared.

Mia’s dark pigtails bobbed from the deep end of the blue water, then vanished as she dove to the bottom. Standing in the shade of the dining area closest to the house, Noah smiled. Wade’s niece didn’t trust him. Foam darts had been temporarily banned from the pack house once Fletcher’s reunited family had moved in. Noah lifted a hand from the grip of one crutch to return Grace’s wave as she sat with her mate on a lounger at the pool’s edge, Mia’s new prosthetic wrapped in a protective towel and tucked against his sister-in-law’s stomach. Mustn’t risk splashed chlorine and other pool chemicals rusting the medical devices Grace, Fletcher, Bast, and Wade had sacrificed so much to obtain. The girl’s forearm crutches, miniature versions of the supports that steadied Noah, leaned against a nearby chaise, the shiny metal of those shorter crutches glinting in the sunlight.

Noah would never walk without that extra help, but Mia would. She still couldn’t speak, but Bast said they may not even have to wait for the little girl’s first shift at puberty to graduate from her crutches. She’d adapted so gracefully to her prosthetic leg, she’d soon transition to the cane that was too challenging for Noah, out of his reach.

He grunted at an elbow jabbing into his side. “You’re sulking again,” Lydia said with a smile, her other arm curled around Scott’s waist.

A human. At the pack house. Noah had never believed he’d see the day, but when the pack had voted to allow his family to rejoin them, they’d welcomed Lydia’s human mate, too. Far more readily than they’d accepted Noah at first, truth be told. “Not sulking.” He shook his head at his grinning sister and his physical therapist both. “Just...appreciating.”

Dad snuck up behind him, the warm weight of his father’s hand resting on Noah’s shoulder. “Appreciate from the hot tub then. You’re blocking traffic and your alpha wants you.”

When Noah glanced at the Jacuzzi, sure enough, Wade had cleared it of other shifters. The water foamed with bubbles, warm and inviting. “He’s your alpha, too.” His heart flipped when Wade lifted a hand to beckon to him.

Lydia, Scott, and Dad laughed. “I don’t think it’s me he wants to share the water with,” his father said.

Noah grinned. No, probably not.

Of course, Wade wanted Noah in the Jacuzzi. Wade wanted him everywhere, in their bed, in the garden. The stone bench where they’d first fully mated had become a favorite trysting spot. But his mate especially liked Noah naked and wet. Heat bloomed in Noah’s cheeks at memories of what Wade enjoyed doing to him under the cover of foamy water, Wade’s busy hand at his groin. He was alpha. The heavy burdens and obligations that would crush every other pack member was lightened by virtue of an alpha’s magnified sex drive. That Wade couldn’t keep his hands off Noah, even in public spaces, was a testimony to the strength of their leader’s wolf and city shifters indulged him, pretending to look the other way. The two who had betrayed Wade and the pack’s trust by tricking his father and brothers into attempting a “rescue” had lit out of Loganville so fast and had run so far. Denied justice, Wade’s wolf had reacted by pure instinct, showing his dominance and care for his mate by bedding Noah even more frequently.

To Noah, the sometimes public displays Wade made of pleasuring him and of pleasuring them both were embarrassing.

Arousing as hell.

But embarrassing.

“You’d better go to him,” Scott said, nudging Noah from the shade of the pool’s eating area. “Before he stalks over here and drags you into the hot tub himself again.”

That rocketed Noah forward. Lips curving at his family’s snickers over his haste, Noah wove between shifters talking around wrought iron tables and chairs. Before propelling the rubber tip of his crutches from darker flagstones cooled by the shade to cement warmed by the sun, he hesitated, but only for a moment. Today was a pool party, a final hurrah for the pack to bid goodbye to summer as fall set in. Noah had dressed for the occasion in swimming trunks. No shirt. The sprinkles of bloody crimson hair on his chest niggled him, even though the hair crowning his head had finally grown long enough for his mate to anchor his fingers for a better grip when they fucked. Wade loved the color, swore the red made Noah unique. Exotic. Wade wouldn’t be satisfied until Noah had grown it past his shoulders like the others, a wild mane of fire to contrast every other shifter’s forbidding darkness. Noah tried not to let his coloring and the white scars mapping his knees bother him. The others didn’t stare or judge him as inherently less for being different. He struggled with those lingering insecurities, though.