It took two days to get to the coterie. She barely knew how to drive, and became terribly lost. Then she ran the truck out of gas and had to wait for a helpful human to come along and explain what happened, and give her enough fuel to get to the nearest gas station.
The storm raged that entire first day, sapping what little strength she had. By dusk, she could barely keep her eyes open, so she finally pulled over and spent the night in a motel.
The next day was still overcast, but the storm had relented overnight, and the day was marginally brighter than the one before. After consulting a map at a rest stop, Carley finally determined the correct direction to the coterie and headed on her way. She arrived at nightfall. Luckily, the guard on duty recognized her and allowed her through the wards. Otherwise, she had no idea what she would have done.
She guided the truck up to the pole barn, left it parked there, and dragged herself wearily up to the front door of the beach house. She pushed the doorbell, and Tanner opened the door, greeting her with a stony look. Why in the world was he angry with her?
“Hello, Tanner,” she said hesitantly. “I—I’ve come back. I need—” What did she need? She needed Reid, but she doubted Tanner would understand. Nor would he be able to help in that endeavor. She sagged against the doorframe.
Tanner pursed his lips and scooped her into his arms and carried her inside. Ignoring her protests, he carried her upstairs and deposited her in the same guest room she’d used last week.
“You’re exhausted,” he said. “Sleep. You can explain in the morning. Nearly everyone else is asleep anyway. The storm has left everyone fairly weak. Good-night.” He turned and left the room, closing the door behind him. Carley kicked off her shoes, climbed under the covers and did just what he said: she fell instantly asleep.
*
Reid didn’t act on his initial thought, the urge to return to Wyoming to try to claim the right of pack master. Nor did he tell his brother about that idea. Finn would probably kick his ass on principal. Besides, now that he’d put distance between himself and Carley, the need to fight, the kamikaze attitude had dissipated.
Now, all he wanted to do was find Miguel, to punish him for what he did to Carley. He was still angry with her for lying to him, wasn’t sure he could ever forgive her, yet he still felt a burning need to be her champion, to take care of her problems for her. Otherwise, she would live in fear for the rest of her life, and no one deserved that.
He, Finn, and Jake had spent the day searching for Miguel. While they didn’t find the lightbearer, it hadn’t taken long to find his hiding place, in the woods, not two hundred yards from the beach house. Jake helpfully explained that the reason they hadn’t found it until now was because Miguel had warded it against detection. But the wards had to be renewed regularly, and he hadn’t done so recently.
Which meant he had no intention of returning. Reid wondered if that meant he had run away for good this time. What else could it mean?
Tanner had gone into a rage, furious with the guards for allowing such a dangerous being to live so close to his mate and her family for so many months.
But everyone had assumed the Chosen One’s followers either left the coterie or came groveling to the king for forgiveness. It never occurred to anyone that one of them would simply hide out in the woods for all these months.
“What was he waiting for?” Tanner wondered, after he’d gotten over his tirade.
“Carley,” Reid replied with absolute conviction.
“They’re mated, after all.”
It was like a damned song, stuck on repeat in his head. He couldn’t stop thinking about the words Mica had uttered.
After they’d returned from searching for Miguel, he admitted to Tanner and Finn that he knew Carley was mated. Finn blustered an apology, which made Reid angry all over again. Everyone knew except him. Fates, he felt like ten times a fool. He should sign off women for good. They were nothing but trouble. Miserable, terrible, horrible trouble. It wasn’t even worth the mind-blowing sex.
Was it?
“I didn’t know her that well,” Finn explained. “She’s distantly related to Cecilia, but they weren’t close. Cecilia’s family’s pretty fucked-up. Not exactly friendly with one another.”
Cecilia explained further. “Her parents are just like mine were. Miserable people who always view the world as a glass that’s half-empty. I don’t think they ever intended to have children, and Carley was an unwanted surprise. I was too young to comprehend it at the time. At least my parents always dumped me off on my other aunt and uncle, the king and queen, so I had that love to sustain me. But Carley had no one.”
Reid fought the natural inclination to feel sorry for a woman who grew up in a loveless household. “She had her mate,” he ground out through gritted teeth.
Cecilia gave him a thoughtful look. “Sometimes, things happen here in the coterie. They aren’t exactly right, but it happens nonetheless.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Hers wasn’t a love match. Far from it. In fact, if the rumors hold even a grain of truth, Carley’s parents paid a substantial debt for Miguel, in exchange for him taking her to mate.”
She’d glanced at Tanner at that point, and then explained further, for Reid’s benefit. “Olivia was once betrothed to Dane, not because she wanted to be, but because her parents thought he would give her healthy babes, an heir to the kingdom. We don’t always get to make the choice, if our parents determine they know better than we do.”
“She didn’t have a say? Not at all?”
Cecilia shook her head and looked thoughtful. Then she leaped up and declared she needed to run an errand. Finn automatically stood as well, and insisted on going with her. Reid was left alone with Tanner, who up to that point had sat quietly, not contributing, but listening to the conversation.
“I’m sorry for what my father did to you,” he said after they left. “I suspect if he’d never…abused you, your perspective would be different right now.”
Reid turned away from the sympathy and guilt in that shifter’s eyes. “Does it matter? She’s still mated to another.”
* * * *
When Cecilia returned later that evening, she was fairly bursting with news. “I was right. They paid him to take her,” she announced unceremoniously. This announcement was made over dinner, with Reid, Tanner, Olivia, and Finn present. The king and queen had taken dinner down to the village, to Nona, who was still laid up in bed, recovering from her most recent fall. Tanner’s mother had taken dinner in the nursery, happy to babysit her grandpup while his parents enjoyed their quiet meal.
“Carley’s parents,” Cecilia explained patiently. “Miguel was heavily in debt and looking for a fast way out. Except it gets worse. Carley’s parents were also followers of the Chosen One, er, Cedric. They were apparently frustrated with her unwillingness to go to meetings, to believe like they did.”
“Just like your parents,” Finn interjected.
“I have such a screwed-up family. Anyway, Miguel needed money, fast, and they were tired of battling with Carley. So they paid his debt, he mated to their daughter, and she became his problem, instead of theirs.”
Reid felt his resolve to hate her weaken. She had suffered so much abuse, both mental and physical for, he suspected, most, if not her entire life. He hated even thinking this way, but he could almost see why she hadn’t told him about Miguel. Initially, she probably simply tried to pretend her past was gone, behind her, never to be thought of again. And when that past caught up with her, it was too late. She and Reid had been heavily involved in an affair. A serious affair.
A love affair.
Love. She probably never even believed in the emotion. She sure as hell wouldn’t have expected it to happen to her. He thought about how timid she’d been in the beginning, how long it took him to coax her into his bed. He felt guilty, but at the same time, a sense of pride that he’d shown her what she’d experienced was not the way it was supposed to be.
Sex. Love. They were meant to be enjoyed, shared with someone else. Someone you loved back.
Did she love him? Did it matter anymore? He couldn’t have her, not entirely, not fully. And here he’d been hesitant to ask her to mate because of his own issues. Shit, those scars on his back were hardly worth concerning himself over, given all she’d gone through.
* * * *
Later that evening, when most of the coterie was tucked away in their beds, Reid sat in an armchair in the living room of the cottage Finn and Cecilia shared. His brother sat on the couch perpendicular to him. They both had a glass in their hands, each half-full of amber liquid. Cecilia had retired to bed a short time ago, leaving the brothers alone to enjoy their bourbon.
“What do you plan to do after we find Miguel?” Finn asked as he sipped from his glass.
Reid shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe I’ll head to Tennessee, crash with mom and dad for a while, until I figure it out.”
“Is that what you really want?”
What he really wanted was Carley. Despite it all, he still wanted her. But she was mated to another, so he couldn’t very well have her, could he?
“What else is there?”
“You could stay here.”
Reid shook his head.
“What the hell happened, Reid?” he asked quietly. “When Quentin…you know…”
“Whipped me?” Reid said bitterly. Whether it was the bourbon or the circumstances, Reid was finally sick and tired of keeping it inside.
“Her name was Ginger. Young. Incredibly hot. Sexy as hell.” He remembered it all. The way she pranced around the house as if she owned the place, wearing skimpy clothing that showed off her young, honed body. Teasing every male in sight and then prancing up to Quentin’s bedroom whenever he summoned. She had been a female in heat, and they had been a pack of horny dogs. And she had been absolutely, unconditionally off-limits.
She had enjoyed it, for a time. The attention, the thrill of being the pack master’s latest lay. But she was less than half Quentin’s age, with twice the stamina, and the fact that she too could look but not touch had quickly gotten old.
“Quentin wasn’t doing it for her, she told me. She flirted constantly, sometimes with him in the room even. It was a dangerous game, for both of us. One day, we were alone in the house. She came on to me. Even then, I resisted.” He closed his eyes, remembering.
“But she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Started rubbing herself on me, grabbing my ass, my dick. Then she fucking hops up onto his pool table and spreads her legs and she’s not wearing a damn thing underneath. Begging me to fuck her, telling me I’m so much younger, so much bigger than Quentin.”
He stared into his glass, remembering. The excitement. The desire. In retrospect, it all paled compared to what he felt for Carley, and yet he’d still be unable to resist. The thought did not sit well.
“What single guy could resist something like that?” Finn mused out loud.
Reid shook his head. “A single guy who knew what his pack master was capable of. Shit, Finn, he treated us like dogs. How the hell could I have forgotten that?”
“Don’t beat yourself up, just because Quentin was a prick. He shouldn’t have been screwing with her in the first place. He was mated, remember?”
They both fell silent for a while. Eventually Finn asked, “How did he find out?”
“I was fucking her on the pool table when he got home.”
Finn let out a low whistle.
Reid’s smile was brittle. “We were both so lost in the moment that we didn’t even hear him come inside. Didn’t know he was there until he grabbed me by the collar and punched me in the face.” He touched his slightly crooked nose and took a healthy swig from his drink.
“He made me lay down on the table on my stomach. Had two of his guard dogs hold me there. Flogged me with my own goddamned belt,” he whispered. “Whipped me until I passed out from the pain. I woke once and saw him taking Ginger from behind, right in front of me. She was crying. I’m pretty sure he beat on her some before screwing her. I know he did, at some point, because she was in pretty bad shape for a long time afterward. The next thing I remember was waking up at Mom and Dad’s house.”
“I can’t believe you kept working for him after that.”
“I didn’t exactly have a choice, did I? He barely gave me a week to recover before demanding I come back to work. He never said a word about it, either. It sure as hell seemed like I was always having to stand guard outside the door while he was getting laid after that, though,” he said bitterly. “I think that was his way of reminding me. Which was hardly necessary. I didn’t touch another woman for a year after that, and then it was never a shifter from our pack. I sure as hell wasn’t taking that chance again.”
“Carley didn’t have a choice either,” Finn pointed out.
“Maybe not. But she sure as hell had a choice when I hit on her, didn’t she? She could have told me right off the bat. But she didn’t. That was her choice,” he said bitterly.
“You can be pretty damn persuasive when you want to be,” Finn pointed out. “Maybe she didn’t feel like she had a choice.”
Reid glared into his nearly empty glass. Was Finn right? He’d said the words to Carley himself.
“It is not acceptable that you have no room in your life for me.”
Even he hadn’t given her a choice. The poor woman had never been able to make her own decisions throughout the duration of her life.
He downed the rest of his bourbon and pushed out of the chair, telling Finn he was heading to bed. Finn had graciously offered him the spare bedroom in his cottage, and Reid had taken him up on the offer. It was lonely without Carley, but what else was he supposed to do?
“They’re mated, after all.”