“Jason.” I leaned into him needing his warmth to bring me out of the cold I had encountered everywhere I’d gone. “Please don’t do this.”
It took a lot for me to utter those words. I tried so hard to not be needy and it drove Jason slightly crazy. Still, I would do anything to make him not leave, even expose my wounded soul to him, which I never did because I didn’t want to be vulnerable, not even to him.
“You know I have to.” He stroked the back of my hair, his head pressed down on mine. “But it’s only temporary, and then I’ll be back.”
The scene in front of me seemed so final. I still didn’t know where they were going or why they had to leave so suddenly. I hadn’t asked because I suspected if I questioned Jason the replies would be: Dad hasn’t told us, and because Dad said so. I really couldn’t stand those kinds of replies. It basically made me want to hurl a heavy object at his head.
“There’s nothing temporary about this. If you leave, this will be all that we have. You coming and going. Always saying goodbye.”
He nodded. Jason was an optimist but not a fool. He had to know what I said was true. “Unless—”
I interrupted. “There is no unless. I cannot live with your father, ever. So even if I leave here and never come back, I won’t be with him.”
He sighed, kissing my head. “Then I guess we’ll get really good at saying goodbye. But, I’d rather have a bit of Rachel than no Rachel.”
I closed my eyes to stop the tears. Not that the action would fool Jason. He’d probably smelled them before I even knew they were coming.
“None of that.” He kissed my hair again.
I opened my lids and took a step away from him. “If we were sleeping together, would you stay? Would you find a way then?”
The real question was if he said yes, would I give in to the almost constant temptation just to make him remain? I didn’t know the answer to that, and I didn’t like myself for not knowing. A person should always know just how low they are capable of going. If there is no bottom to my moral scale, I needed to understand that about myself.
“No.” He shook his head. “That’s got nothing to do with this. Are you worried about that? Do you think I’m leaving because you’re not ready yet?”
“No.” Because Jason would always be a better person than me. Even if he was a wolf, and I was a human.
“Jason.” Andon’s voice made me jump. I shouldn’t be surprised to see him. Maybe I’d been in denial, thinking I wouldn’t have to speak to him. “Can I have a word with Rachel?”
I groaned loudly. “I think the person to ask that question to would be me, don’t you think?”
Andon didn’t acknowledge my remark but kept his gaze firmly on Jason. His son had the audacity to nod his permission. I pulled completely away from him, wanting to scream but somehow holding on to the small amount of composure I had left.
“Jason doesn’t decide whom I speak to. You both need to grasp that.”
My boyfriend’s eyes implored me to behave. “I know that. I love you. Don’t you think I know that? But things are different with my father.”
I held up my hand to stop him. “What do you want, Andon?”
Perhaps I should have called him Dr. Kenwood to put more distance between us. Or maybe I’d been perfect in using his first name to be really rude.
“I’d like to speak to you alone.”
“There’s nothing you can say to me that I won’t repeat to Jason. You might as well say it in front of him.”
A muscle clenched in his jaw. “All right. If that’s what you would prefer. I have two things to say.”
“Then you’d better get started.” Most of the time I kept my snide remarks to myself. Snarky was not a description most people would use when they spoke of me. With Andon all bets were off as to what I would and would not utter aloud.
“Rachel.” Jason spoke through clenched teeth, and I ignored him.
“First, I would like to say that I know you believe I am moving the pack as a means to punish you. That is not true.”
I shook my head. “I don’t require reassurances from you.”
He ignored my words. “I am moving the pack because I sense danger, and it is my duty as Alpha to keep us all safe. You’d be welcome to come with us.”
“See? I told you that.” Jason looked as if he’d been given the best gift on the planet.
“Thanks for the invitation, but as I’m sure you are aware I have no interest in being in your presence.”
“If you and Jason are to stay together, we must find a way to get along.”
“I see what you’re doing.” Part of me wanted to poke him in the chest with my index finger. The other part wanted to run away. So I stood still. “You’re being so kind, so easygoing, and I end up looking like the difficult one. You needn’t bother. Jason already thinks the sun rises and sets with you, whereas he sees all of my flaws. And points them out, too.”
Jason thought me goodness and light, which was part of the problem since he did tend to be confused when I acted in a not nice way. He took a step toward me but I took a step away. I didn’t want him near me right now.
Andon snarled. “I am not your enemy.”
“Yes, you are.” Tears streamed down my face because I knew I had to say what was on my mind. It might tear Jason and me apart for good if I spoke my thoughts, but it was past time. “And you always will be. No matter how much other people wish it were different.”
Silence swept around us on the cool breeze that threatened to become frigid as the sun set on our evening. No one spoke. If I had to guess, it was because I’d shocked Jason and because Andon plotted his next move.
I had enough scheming going on in my life to play games around Jason. Sometimes I wasn’t nice. Sometimes I wasn’t fair. I’m difficult, stubborn, and nasty. He claimed to love me, and I never knew why. I wasn’t even pretty.
Even if I hated all those terrible things about myself, I knew that they were part of me.
I didn’t want Andon Kenwood in my life, which left us all really, really screwed.
Or maybe it just left me that way.
“The second thing I wanted to ask you….”
I threw my hands in the air. “Are you going to pretend I didn’t just say what I did?”
He kept talking. “Is that if you see Jason’s mother in your travels down below, I’d like you to be braver than I was and end her suffering as a vampire. When given the chance, I didn’t.”
My heart may have stopped beating for a second.
He knew what we did in the vampire lairs. I raised my hand to protect my neck, like he’d struck me there. My world whirled. Luna, Autumn, or one of the other wolves that helped us might have told Andon. Anyone, really.
Except that I knew in my core who had told Andon Kenwood. I needed only to look at him to confirm it. My eyes felt as if they wouldn’t work. I couldn’t turn my gaze to him. Because if Jason had done what I knew he had done, then our relationship changed profoundly in a matter of mere seconds.
I’d thought I geared up to fight Andon; I didn’t realize I’d stepped into the moment where everything I believed about Jason changed so profoundly, so fast. Oh well, I should have known. I’d lost Chad this fast, too.
“It’s like a death.”
“Rachel….”
I finally managed to stare at Jason, and I saw there what I expected to—culpability but no guilt. Jason didn’t feel a bit of remorse for what he’d done.
“Why?” Even I felt shocked by the ice contained in my voice.
“He’s our Alpha. He has the right to know what his wolves are doing. We had his permission to help you, and he has not betrayed us.”
I shook my head. How did he believe that nonsense? Right at that second, Jason seemed completely different to me, as if his physical self had changed because of his actions. For the first time, I looked at him and didn’t wonder how someone so physically perfect existed on the earth. His betrayal had placed a gulf between us that I didn’t know I could cross, ever.
He thought his father hadn’t told on us? Nothing I said would convince him otherwise. Images of the Turtle swam before my eyes. Well, at least I knew how the Turtle knew. And the problems with Micah’s bomb? Had that been Andon as well?
I needed space to think, a continent’s worth of space. Maybe Andon would take them all to the West Coast.
My feet moved of their own volition, and I was glad for their intervention. I had to leave before I combusted. I knew it would be painful…later.
“Rachel.” The desperation in Jason’s voice stopped me short. I turned around slowly. “I’m not a human, Rachel. I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it to understand me. I’m a wolf. There are certain truths. Obedience to my Alpha is one of them. I know that once, for a little while, I thought I’d leave the pack. But I can’t. Not yet, maybe never. I need my Alpha if I’m ever to be Alpha.”
I threw my hands in the air. “Why do you need to be Alpha, Jason? Why?”
“My wolf-side needs it. I’m an Alpha.” He looked at me as if I had two heads.
“Two things,” I told Jason, deliberately imitating his father who still watched us with a detached look on his face, as if he didn’t care about the argument we had. “Number one, maybe you should ask yourself why your father—your Alpha—picked now to tell me this big piece of news. I don’t think it was because he wanted me to kill your mother. I think it’s because he wanted to wedge this pain between us right before you left.”
Finally, Andon spoke. “And why would you assume that?”
“Because I wouldn’t know your wife, Jason’s mother, if I fell on her. I’ve never met her. I don’t even know her name. Even if I’d identified her as a human from a picture—which I doubt—as a vampire it’s an impossibility. Your request, as you knew, is ridiculous.”
I’d stunned them speechless. I decided to finish my train of thought before I collapsed on the ground. Minutes earlier I’d been showing Jason my soft underbelly. What had I been thinking? His fault or not, I’d once sobbed in the snow thanks to him, and I’d promised myself I would never do so again. Not over him.
If I broke a million promises, none of them should be to myself.
“I’ll tell you what, though. I’ll kill every vampire I encounter. Maybe one of them will be your wife.” I looked at Jason. I’d wanted his warmth and regretted his leaving. Now, I just wanted him gone. “Don’t hurry back.”
I didn’t walk or run so much as stomp my way back to the Warrior tents. No tears. I wouldn’t waste any more tears on Jason.
“Rachel.” His voice stopped me again. I refused to turn around. “Won’t you look at me, pixie-girl?”
“No.” I shook my head. “When I look at you things get confused, and I want to keep my head about this. You hurt me. You betrayed me. I’m angry, and I’m entitled to be.”
“I can smell your anger. But I can also smell the hurt that you’re pretending you aren’t feeling.”
I had nothing to say. Jason knew everything I felt and sometimes what I was thinking before I did. Still, he had betrayed me on the most basic level. He’d told his father a sacred secret.
“I think it’s a good thing that you’re leaving for a while.” I practically choked on the words. “I think I need time to sit with what happened. Right now I’m too raw.”
I heard him suck in his breath. “I don’t understand why this is such a problem for you. Nothing has changed. My father did nothing to damage your missions. He was asking you for help.”
“Keep believing that, if you like. I have every reason to think otherwise.”
“Why is that?”
“My reasons are my own. Go away now. I’ll see you when you get back, if you come back. If you don’t….”
“I’m coming back, Rachel.” He grabbed my shoulder and whirled me around. I didn’t try to fight him. “Look at me.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Rachel.”
I closed my eyes. “No.”
Jason cursed. “When I get back in a week or so, we’re going to talk about this. I really don’t understand.”
It was his last statement that made me lift my lids and regard him. For once, I did not feel like losing myself in him, like drifting into the goodness that always radiated from him like a beacon of hope in my life of grey dilemmas.
“I know you don’t.” It was like we spoke two different languages. “You grew up around humans and you still don’t get it, which tells me you never will.”
“I….”
Placing my hand on his lips, I stopped him. “Don’t interrupt me right now. Say goodbye to Luna, Autumn, and the others for me. Take care of yourself.”
“You’re my mate.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Am I?”
“What does that mean?”
“Have you ever heard of a wolf being able to leave their mate like you are leaving me?”
“These are extenuating circumstances. Things are bound to be a little bit different.”
“Fine.” I nodded. “Just think about it. Okay?”
“When I come back, all will be well between us again. You’ll see. I love you.”
I smiled but I didn’t say it back. Things would be different. I stepped back.
“Go Jason. Your pack is waiting.”
He nodded, his posture less sure than it had been earlier. Leaning down, he kissed me on my forehead and when he would have moved to caress my mouth, I stopped him. His sigh moved over me until I shivered.
“One week from now you’ll want me to kiss you.”
I wanted him to kiss me now. I just wouldn’t let him. He touched the tip of my nose with his index finger before he took off running.
I stood as the sunlight disappeared around me. I should have been at the Warrior fire waiting for the night’s patrol. I never missed a night, which meant not showing up tonight wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Everyone got to take a break when they needed one.
I rubbed at my burning eyes. I hadn’t cried.
Jason had been right. He would never understand because he believed in his father as only a wolf can to their Alpha.
I bit down on my lip. Did I want to be Jason’s mate? Not at all.