| |
"What do you have for me?" Bronson's voice was gruff on the other end of the line. He didn't come right out and say he was pissed that Matt hadn't been answering his calls, but the tone was there, clear as a polished pint glass.
"Not much," Matt said, keeping his voice low. Luckily, the sounds of talking and laughter outside were more than enough to drown out his conversation. He was more interested in joining everyone for dinner than he was in talking to Bronson, but he couldn't put Bronson off anymore. Erena wasn't sitting out there with everyone else yet, but he hoped she'd join everyone tonight.
Bronson cleared his throat.
Right, Matt was on the phone. He shook his head clear of thoughts of Erena and continued, "There's one place of interest that Jameson mentioned, that waterfall past the Circle. Then there's the cairn, but I already pulled it apart and didn't see anything of note."
Bronson made a discontented noise. Matt wasn't sure what else to tell him.
"Really?” Bronson said. “Nothing at the cairn?"
"No." Matt frowned, still feeling guilty about messing with the rocks there. "It's the same as it was when we were here. Nothing magical about it, just a stack of rocks."
"What about that waterfall?"
"Same story. It's just a cool thing, nothing special about it. Just like when we lived here before."
Bronson sighed. "This is a waste of time and resources. I should have sent Rhiannon."
Matt had to agree, but he had no regrets about coming here. "Rhiannon wouldn't be able to lie."
"She can get around the truth well enough," Bronson said, admiration in his tone. Matt wondered if Bronson had yet convinced Rhiannon to sleep with him. "And if things go sour, she can just kill whoever's giving her trouble and teleport back."
Matt mouthed the words. Kill whoever's giving her trouble. This wasn't what they'd agreed on. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears. "You said we're not here to hurt anyone."
"You'll tell me if you find anything else?" Bronson asked.
Matt frowned. Bronson hadn't responded to the thing about not hurting people.
"Well?" Bronson said. "You'll tell me if you find something."
"Of course." And that was the beauty of Matt's ability. He could lie about anything, to anyone, and nobody would know. Not even Bronson.
Because at this point, he wasn't telling Bronson shit about the RCC. Not if Bronson was going to talk about killing people so casually. That wasn’t what Matt had signed up for.
Bronson ended the call without a goodbye. Matt sat back in his chair and took a sip of coffee. He wondered if Bronson could tell that he wasn't cooperating anymore.
Outside, Nolan was grilling meat, with Margot standing near him. A minute later, Kayla joined them, practically bouncing as she walked over, a fluorescent green beanie pulled down on her short hair. Margot greeted her with a hug. Over the past few days, Matt had found himself feeling jealous of Kayla, of the way she’d inserted herself back into life here without any drama, without any doubts.
Matt didn't have any doubts, either, but he had drama by the truckload.
How was he going to get out of this? Almost as soon as he'd set foot in the Rock Creek territory, he had known that coming here to spy was a mistake. First of all, Bronson didn't even know what the hell he was looking for. More importantly, coming back to Jameson and his crew reignited Matt's feelings of loyalty to the old grizzly shifter. And perhaps most importantly of all, Matt had met Erena. His mate. He knew it without a doubt.
He gazed out at the fire pit, where several of the clan members had gathered for dinner. For the most part, they all seemed really happy to be here. Although he had yet to see a smile on Erena's face, he knew she wanted to be here too.
Not long ago, he had been in a pride where not everyone was happy. In fact, no one had been happy. When he looked out now at the smiling faces of the Rock Creek Clan, he could squint and blur their faces a little bit, imagine a gathering of his old pride with the alpha who had been mean as the devil. Nobody would be smiling, though. Other than the alpha and a few shifters loyal to him, the members of the pride were often hungry. Poor. Scrambling to get by, but forbidden to hunt on the pride's territory.
Matt had hunted anyway. He had done it to feed himself and his younger siblings. Each time he went out was a risk. At first, he was caught nearly every time. Never caught in the act, but caught during the questioning afterward.
He could remember as clear as anything the way Charles, the alpha, would stare down at him. "You were out last night. Were you hunting?" And Matt would try to lie. Try, and fail. Charles would tear a chunk out of his hide. Matt would then stay out of the territory, stay away from hunting until his siblings got too hungry. Then he would have to do it again.
One time, Charles beat him so badly that Matt was laid up in bed for a week. During that time, Matt practiced lying. He didn't know if it was possible, but if it was, he would be the first person who could lie to other shifters. He worked on his tone of voice. He worked on regulating his breathing, his heartbeat. He worked on believing some of the things he said. And every day while he was stuck in bed, he tried out his lies on his siblings.
They had had no idea, of course. If they caught him lying, they would look at him funny. Shifters rarely lied to each other because they knew they couldn't get away with it. Suddenly their older brother was telling them the biggest whoppers he could concoct.
And soon, his siblings were believing them. It was working.
When he finally healed and was able to go out amongst the pride again, Matt had tried out small lies with the other pride members.
They didn't work at first, but he kept on trying. His parents were gone, and escaping the pride with two younger brothers, neither of whom could shift yet, wasn't an option. He had to stay, he had to keep them alive until they were old enough to leave. And that meant he had to poach on his alpha's favorite hunting grounds.
He remembered the first lie he had passed off to someone who wasn't his family. The alpha's wife, a skinny mountain lion shifter with a pinched face, had asked him point-blank what he thought of the alpha. And Matt, monitoring his voice and body carefully, had answered, "He's a good leader."
It had worked, but it didn't really change anything. Perhaps it reassured the alpha and his wife that they had Matt's allegiance, and that might've made things easier going forward. He didn't know, he just knew that things were still hard as hell.
After practicing a few more lies on some of his other pridemates, and even one on the alpha, he had ventured into the territory again. He caught and killed three rabbits, one for him and one for each of his brothers. And when Charles asked him about it afterward, Matt had been able to lie easily.
He practiced daily, convincing himself and others of untruths to the point that he didn't even know what was the truth anymore half the time. And when he and his brothers had finally fled Charles's pride, he had known he had a skill—a very valuable skill. So valuable, he'd kept it a secret until Bronson discovered it.
He grimaced, remembering. Bronson had caught him in a lie and exploited him ever since.
Matt looked again outside at the Rock Creek Clan assembled around the fire pit. He wondered whether Charles was still alive, ruling that old pride, thriving on tears and hunger and pain. All Matt knew was that he was glad to have gotten him and his brothers away, that Bronson was turning quickly into an asshole just like Charles had been, and Matt should consider himself lucky to be in the Rock Creek Clan right now.
But how could he sever ties with the Bitterroot Pack? It wasn't as easy as it had been when he was a teenager and could just leave. This time, Matt wanted to settle somewhere—here—permanently, and Bronson wouldn't take kindly to someone as valuable as Matt taking off and joining his rival shifter group.
Erena came out of her cabin and made her way to the fire pit. She sandwiched herself between Parker and Nolan, who had finished grilling. Matt felt a brief flare of jealousy before he realized she had probably put herself there because they were the two other shifters in the group who spoke the least. Her move to sit between them had been strategy, not affection. Then Nolan, who had obviously had too much to drink, or maybe didn't know what was good for him, reached over, grabbed Erena's wrist, and dragged her over to his lap.
Inside his cabin, Matt growled low in his throat.
Erena struggled for a moment in Nolan's lap before finally settling against him.
Matt couldn't stand for this. Everyone in the whole fucking clan knew that Matt wanted Erena—including Nolan. He had probably been the first to figure it out, maybe even before Matt had.
Before he knew what he was doing, Matt stalked out of his cabin and marched up to Nolan and Erena. Erena gave Matt a bewildered look, but Nolan smirked.
"That's twenty bucks," Nolan said over his shoulder.
Margot, a few feet away, laughed. She pulled a twenty out of her pocket and came over to hand it to Nolan.
"You can get up now," Nolan said to Erena. "That worked even better than I thought it would."
"Sure, as soon as you split the money with me," Erena said in her smooth, chocolate icing voice.
She folded her arms across her chest. It pushed up her breasts, putting them on display. Was she doing that for Nolan? A red haze filled Matt’s vision, and he clenched his fists.
"What the hell are you guys doing?" Matt growled.
Nolan chuckled, and Margot outright laughed.
Still without a smile on her face, Erena stood up. "They made some stupid bet. They promised me part of the cash if I would sit in Nolan's lap."
Matt dragged his hands through his hair, tugging on the ends. Well, he had walked right into that.
"I'm still waiting for my share of that money," Erena said to Nolan.
He reached for the back pocket of his jeans and dragged out a wallet, then found a bill in it and handed it to Erena. She stuffed the ten into her own pocket. Then she shot out a hand, grabbed Nolan's wallet, and took another ten.
"You guys are insane," Erena said. "Next time you want to bet, bet on something else." Marching over to Matt, she handed him the second ten.
Nolan looked like he might protest, but he kept his mouth closed.
Without another word, Erena turned around and walked back into her cabin.
"Aw, you scared her off," Parker said.
Matt shot him a dirty look. He wasn't sure if Parker was trying to be mean or not, but Matt didn't like the idea of Erena being the butt of any joke. Then again, Matt thought with a wry smile, she had come out of that ten dollars richer.