Chapter Twenty-Three

Inside the bedroom, I brushed my hair nervously. I’d packed a bag and tossed it out the window early enough to ensure Tora had been the one to grab it and hide it with hers. Tomorrow, we’d be leaving this place and escaping the mountain before the first heavy snow hit it, which was forecasted for tomorrow night. I intended to leave before nightfall which excited and terrified me.

I’d never been off the mountain. Harold had forbidden it, which was why my mother hadn’t fled this place to bring help to free the pack. Maybe if she hadn’t been pregnant with my sister or had me, she would have been bold and run from this place.

Fear was daunting, and the idea of leaving the only home I’d ever known was terrifying. Under the guise of being Saint’s mate, living my life here with no power or control was one thing. Living here while he and someone else raised our children? Fuck that noise. I wouldn’t be that girl any longer, the one who allowed her life to be controlled by a dictator.

I’d lived that life to protect the pack from Harold’s hatred and resentment toward them for not respecting him or his position. The pack had remained here for my mother and then me. Leif had confirmed what I’d suspected. Fenrir would protect the land because my mother’s soul had been freed here, and her body placed into the ground. I wasn’t the only thing keeping this place blessed by the wolf god.

My father and his devoted followers had lied about it. Little about my father shocked or surprised me. He was a monster, and he’d forced his claim on my mother. He’d seduced her, and then when she refused him, he’d raped her. She had lost the man who had been her soul mate before they’d finished the claiming. Then my dad stepped into the picture.

I wouldn’t have been shocked if it had been by Harold’s design that the young mate to my mother had met an untimely death before he’d been old enough to finish the claiming ceremony. Our people were often either too early or too late to claim their mate. Being immortal, it happened a lot more than it should have.

Toralei had arranged our escape, but to see it through, we’d have to take down my babysitter, whoever the unlucky prick may be on duty tomorrow. I’d packed clothing and a few other essentials that wouldn’t be missed in the morning. I was leaving behind this life, along with everything I had built for myself, to start fresh in a new town, in a new country.

The door to the room opened, and I shifted my attention as Saint entered. His eyes searched me out, his scent reaching me before he did. Standing behind me, he watched me brush through my dark hair. He lowered his lips, placing a soft kiss on the top of my head before he smiled.

“I won’t have anyone other than us raise our babies, Brat. I’d never allow that to happen.” He moved into the bathroom when I didn’t respond. “Come shower with me.”

“I’m ready for bed,” I returned, slowly walking toward the bathroom.

He stripped out of his clothes, tossing them into the basket that sat beside the shower. My attention roamed over his body, memorizing every sinful curve of it. I latched onto every tattoo and every rippling cord of muscle that covered him. The scent that was uniquely his held me prisoner. My throat tightened, knowing that to escape him, I’d have to ignore the emotion his presence and scent caused within me.

How ironic was it that the one person I’d prayed to return was the one I was now fleeing?

Saint had come home, but it wasn’t because he’d wanted me. It was because he’d wanted to remove me from power along with my father. He’d placed me into the same category of a monster as Harold, even though he had no proof.

I’d wanted him to come back and believe that I wasn’t involved in what happened to him. How hard was it to look at my deeds and see me for who I was? I got that Saint had been hurt, but I’d suffered longer and harder than any of the others. I’d lived through my father’s torture until a year ago when I’d been freed from him. It had been a bloody showdown, and the only reason Harold had stopped was because of who had shown up to defend me.

Since then, I’d been on borrowed time, and every day I waited for my father to murder me or to send me away. I’d planned to take the pack from him, but Saint and his people had shown up, ruining it all. I’d been so close to freedom and bringing down Carlson and my father that I’d tasted it. Carlson wouldn’t have left our mating tent alive, and the pack would have backed my plan the moment all hell broke loose.

I didn’t even know where half the people had ended up, who were supposed to have helped me by storming the ceremony. I had sent the other half down the mountain to follow the trail of a child who had gone missing. That left the rest of us with our new warlords, hell-bent on saving those we’d already started protecting. Had I known he’d sold them? No, because I’d been too busy trying to survive my father, not knowing that his sickness went beyond what he’d done to me.

Maybe I was guilty of not seeing beyond my pain. I’d done the best I could do, and it hadn’t been enough. I understood why the pack turned on me, and I couldn’t blame them. Our people had gone missing, and I’d believed they’d run away. I’d made excuses, sending people out to search for them. I hadn’t looked deeper because it had been women, and they often couldn’t handle living away from people. Teenagers ran away; it happened. I’d always assumed they’d just left, never dreaming they’d been sold into slavery.

“You look lost tonight, Brat,” Saint said, running the towel over his wet body.

“Just tired,” I lied, turning to escape his presence.

“Did you stop by the infirmary?” he asked, following me into the room. “Jacob said with the full moon coming, you should be fertile and in heat naturally. I’m game to let nature take its course without the drugs.”

“Okay,” I said, shuffling out of the lace robe to get into bed.

Saint paused, tilting his head to watch me sliding beneath the covers. “What’s wrong with you, Brat? Your scent is off, and you seem—beaten.”

“My scent is off because my hormones are screwing with it. The same goes for my mood. You can’t mess with a woman’s balance and then wonder why she’s moody, Saint. That’s pretty much common sense.”

“Okay.” He studied me closely as he shook his wet hair, his attention sliding over the covers and to the wall of pillows I’d placed in the center of the bed. “This shit again?”

“You dictated the rules, and I’m following them. Am I not? You get to use me, and then you can do whatever you want alone, afterward. I prefer the great wall of pillows to waking up tangled in your arms.”

Mostly, I hated waking up in his arms because for a moment before my mind had fully processed what was happening, it felt right. The entire world would settle into place, and his scent would soothe me, offering comfort. But the moment we fully woke, it all went to shit.

Saint climbed into bed, naked. He didn’t move the pillows, choosing to slide beneath the covers. Before I could guess what Saint intended, he’d yanked on the blanket, lifting it, sending all the pillows shooting into the air, raining down around the bed. He pounced, capturing my wrists above my head, smiling down at me.

“No more walls, woman. You and me, we have to figure out a balance so that we can live together. I know you’re struggling because I can feel your turmoil through the link. I can feel your need to run, to escape me, and that isn’t happening. I know you, Brae. I know you because you live within in me, inside my fucking soul.”

“If you really knew me, Saint, you’d know I would never be involved in anything that would hurt this pack,” I whispered, struggling to get out from beneath him.

He allowed me to wiggle from his grip as he settled in beside me. His attention moved over my face before he softly exhaled. “At night, when they’d put us back into our cells. I dreamed of you, about how you would feel pressed against me. I would catch your scent, and for a moment, my world wasn’t so dark.”

My heart clenched with his words, and my throat tightened with unshed tears. “I would have come for you had I known you were being hurt. I thought you were free and out there in the world, living.”

“I never made it off the mountain. Your father had people waiting for us. At first, we assumed they were there to take us away from this place. When it became apparent that something was wrong, we fought, but they were ready for it. We woke up naked, chained to a wall while a woman explained what was happening.” He paused, running his fingers over my stomach, causing slight friction as his eyes grew distant. “I promised to escape and slaughter her entire entourage of sick fucks. I killed innocent people to survive captivity. They would put women into a room, feed them drugs to numb the pain, and then force the men to rape them brutally. They murdered those who refused, using them for entertainment in varying ways at first. That’s how I met Xavier. He raided the compound and freed us. He gave us a choice: Go back to where we’d been taken, which, for me, wasn’t an option. Or, we could join them and help hunt down those who victimized others like us.”

“And you couldn’t come back here because of me,” I stated, holding his gaze. “I’d banished you from the pack which meant you couldn’t come back to me. I did that to prevent you from being hurt, and you ended up hurt, anyway. I don’t blame you for hating me, Saint.”

“I don’t hate you, Brat. I hate that even though you rejected me, you were the one thing I couldn’t hate. I wanted revenge, and I can’t trust you. That doesn’t change how much I want you and crave you. You’re still the most gorgeous creature I’ve ever known, but I can’t prove you weren’t a part of what your father was doing. I can’t trust you enough to just take your word for it. Prove it, Braelyn. Prove to me that you weren’t involved in the trafficking of your own people.”

“I can’t,” I swallowed thickly. “There lies the problem, Saint. I can’t prove it, and you can’t prove that I was. Everyone who could back me up is dead. You killed them when you got here. Those were my father’s men you fought.”

He snorted, watching me with narrowing eyes. He moved onto his side, yanking me closer. Lifting my leg, he placed a soft kiss on my forehead as his hand shifted my panties aside. His cock slid through the arousal he discovered there, but he didn’t push into my body.

“Regardless of the part you played, you will be the mother of my children, Brae. You are protected because of what you are to me. You won’t escape me, even though you need and want to run from me. There’s nowhere that you can go, that I won’t find you. I craved this with you. I considered what it would be like returning here, finding you with someone else. I’d planned to murder them and claim you. I am pleased that you remained untouched and that you burn hot for me.” He pushed into my core, which tightened around him as pleasure rushed through me. “We will find a way to make this work because I can’t live without you again.”

“You’ll figure it out,” I announced, placing my leg over his hip while rolling him onto his back. I didn’t undress or pretend not to enjoy what he made me feel together, like this. “I wish I could make you see I am not a monster. I don’t think that would be enough, though, not when you’re hurt because I rejected you. I didn’t do it because I wanted to hurt you. I did it because my father was a sick, twisted monster who always won. I couldn’t imagine a world without you in it and chose to protect you. It was what I had the power to control, Saint.” I leaned over, nipping at his bottom lip as he growled.

“I wish I could believe that, Brat. But I went through hell while you remained here pampered in your palace,” he flipped me onto my back, grinding against me as my stomach coiled with the pleasure he was driving deep into my body. “Now, I will spend the rest of my life reminding you of what you did to me. You won’t escape me, and we will find a way to compromise and live together.”

I exploded around him, wrapping my legs around his muscular waist as he went from gentle to hard, fucking me like a possessed man trying to fuck his demons out of his system. I didn’t believe him for one moment that he wouldn’t lock me away or murder me once I’d given him an heir to my line.

“Saint,” I moaned, gasping as he nuzzled my shoulder, reinforcing his claim as I trembled beneath him, coming undone again.

“You’re mine now, Brat. Always and forever, which is what you promised me the moment you discovered we were true soul mates.”