Trixie’s lipstick was smeared all over her mouth, but to her surprise, she didn’t care. It felt like a public sign of how she’d submitted herself to him, a declaration of her devotion, and from the fiery appreciative look in his eyes, Malcolm fucking loved it.
When they’d finished in the garage, they’d both righted themselves and their clothes. Malcolm had hesitated only for a moment before covering Bo’s refurbished chopper with the sheet again. It hadn’t taken much to close up shop after that. As they’d made their exit, before they’d locked the door, Trixie had taken his face in both her hands and made him promise he’d take the bike out for its virgin ride come spring, though she wished she could be there to enjoy it with him.
The truth—that she wouldn’t be—filled her with regret.
But he’d sworn he would and she knew he’d never lie to her.
She watched Malcolm’s wolf eyes dart over the planes of her face, grumbling in heated approval as he took in the mess of red lipstick around her mouth. With a small smile, she gripped hold of his hand and squeezed. The winter winds whipped around them as they walked back toward the bunkhouse, though she was far from cold. He kept her warm.
I love you, his eyes seemed to say through the silence, heating her. Over and over again.
They didn’t need to share words to understand each other. She’d always known that. When they were alone like this, she didn’t need to put on a show for him or anyone else, didn’t need to guard herself or her heart, and in return, he didn’t need to try to be anything he wasn’t—didn’t need to hide his grief or his pain or every soft, tender part of himself he kept hidden behind a hardened exterior, all for fear of being hurt.
She’d already done him worse than he’d likely ever imagined, yet he still loved her.
For now. In this moment.
Trixie watched a rustle of movement somewhere in the forest trees, certain it was from another wolf, one of his packmates. If she was honest with herself, she’d known where she and Malcolm were headed from that night he’d kissed her outside the Coyote, the night she’d first started to fall in love with him, slowly, painfully, yet the years since had gone by in the blink of an eye.
Love couldn’t stop time, but it sure could make it pass quickly.
Even though she’d tried to resist it.
They walked near the tree line, sheltered from the wind in part by the trees’ branches. Their steps left imprints in the snow. The pines shivered. But she felt the reassuring heat of Malcolm’s presence beside her, keeping her warm. She glanced in his direction and caught him looking at her mouth again. She’d made certain he’d see the red streaks of her lipstick on him long after she left. Those would be for his eyes only.
She bit her lip. Her heart dropped at the thought. Despite the sated afterglow in her muscles, she was trying not to think of her impending departure, trying to enjoy the last minutes she had with him. If she focused on him hard enough, she could ignore what she’d said—or hadn’t—to Stan and what the consequences of her actions would prove to be. For both of them. The future held little hope, but right now, the present was all that mattered.
“What do you want from life, Trixie?” Malcolm asked, surprising her with the sudden question. “What’s your I’m-gettin-the-hell-outta-here fund for?” he asked.
Trixie wasn’t certain any man she’d been with had ever asked her what she wanted before, had ever cared to know her hopes and dreams. “I want to be free,” she answered. “From here, from Boss. And I want to own my own bar, like the Coyote but all mine, and none of the gambling, none of the secrets. Drinks and food only.”
She’d never told anyone that before.
Malcolm smiled, squeezing her hand. “Then I hope that happens for you.”
Something in how he said it sounded far too much like goodbye.
Up ahead, the bunkhouse sat not far in the distance. As they approached, a few wolves darted from the trees, circling, but it wasn’t the sight of them shifted into their true form that concerned her. It was the sight of their packmaster standing outside the bunkhouse in human form with several of the pack’s elite warriors beside him. Maverick reached down and brushed his hands through each of the circling wolves’ fur. The beasts nuzzled against his palm, eager to be marked with their alpha’s scent and touch. But his eyes never left Trixie’s as she and Malcolm approached. The unmitigated fury there sent a chill down her spine.
She didn’t need to ask what was wrong to know.
Their time was up.
As they drew closer, Malcolm swept her behind him, placing himself between her and his packmaster like a shield. He sensed the pack’s tension, too—by her guess, more keenly than she ever could. He was one with them in a way that couldn’t be replicated, even during the moments he was inside her. She’d never know him like that, on the base predatory level his packmates did, and for a brief moment, she understood why he’d once said she might as well be human. No matter what she was to him, she wasn’t a shifter, wasn’t pack.
She never would be.
For the first time ever, she resented her magic, how it kept her separate from him, put them at arm’s distance from each other.
Malcolm didn’t say anything, simply watched Maverick and waited. Wes and Blaze flanked the packmaster along with the other circling wolves. The look on Blaze’s face was so unlike him, so serious and distant that it unsettled Trixie, and from how Wes stared at her, wolf eyes unblinking, the former Wild Eight who’d once been her friend would tear into her the moment his packmaster gave the word. She knew that look.
Maverick nodded toward Blaze. He was holding his phone, which she wasn’t surprised to see had access to the pack’s security systems and, more importantly, what she presumed was a satellite they used to monitor all private telecommunications on the ranch. She should have known the pack would use technology like that, particularly now that the ranch was full of all the other warriors of the Seven Range Pact. The Grey Wolves trusted their allies, but they also weren’t foolish enough to think that allies couldn’t become enemies with the right incentive.
Like she had.
Of course they’d monitored her calls, though Blaze’s monitoring had likely been delayed by a few days thanks to her assistance at the Blood Rose. They’d used her for what they needed from her and let the pieces fall where they may. She shouldn’t be surprised. Pack shifters held privacy in little importance. They shared everything. They were one after all. They would have been remiss, blindly trusting, not to have that option available to them, should they need it.
And she wasn’t one of the pack. They’d never trusted her to begin with. That pack mentality was what had helped the Grey Wolves and so many other species like them survive for so long, proliferate like so many other supernatural species hadn’t.
Blaze pressed a button, and a moment later, her voice—or a garbled, recorded rendition of it, from the first conversation she’d had with Stan—cut through the silence and the wind. When the recording finished, Blaze cleared his throat. “Our enemies are on their way.”
From where Trixie stood behind him, she saw Malcolm’s shoulders tense beneath his leather. His hand fell from where it’d been on her arm moments ago and she flinched. But he didn’t turn toward her, didn’t move from where he stood between her and his packmaster.
She couldn’t bear to see the look of betrayal in his eyes.
Maverick’s gaze fell on her. She felt the wave of power behind the packmaster’s words as if he himself had magic, though she knew he didn’t. His power lay in the wolves now circling her, in Malcolm, the loyalty of his people, his friends and family. That was something she’d never have.
“A life for a life,” Maverick growled. He gave a brief nod toward Wes to indicate exactly which life she’d once saved. “That’s the only reason you’re still standing.”
Trixie swallowed. She wanted to reach out and take Malcolm’s hand for reassurance, but she feared he’d only pull away from her again. She couldn’t face his rejection. Not without falling apart when she desperately needed to stay together, to survive this. She was back where she’d started, cold and alone. She had no one but herself to rely on, and this time, it’d been her own doing. She should have trusted Malcolm from the start.
Trixie opened her mouth, struggling to know what to say, but Blaze’s next words stopped her short.
“An alliance gift for the updated agreement,” he said before pressing the next recording again. “From the Execution Underground.”
Again, the voice was familiar, but not hers. On the recording, Boss rattled off her address to Stan, outing her before launching into renegotiating terms. He didn’t even sound like he regretted it.
The pain in Trixie’s chest intensified, making it hard for her to breathe. Boss had sold her out. Like she suspected, but worse, he’d not only brokered the deal between the vampires and the Triple S but also orchestrated it. He’d been the catalyst for its creation, pushing the groups together, though she still didn’t understand to what end, which meant the pack had killed Cillian for nothing. Sure, they’d wanted him dead, but doing so wouldn’t stop the vampire’s alliance with the Triple S or spook the South Side Shifter Outfit into pulling out of their end of the deal. It’d only set them up for hasty retaliation—by all involved parties.
She hadn’t needed to betray the Grey Wolves, to give any information to Stan.
Boss had already done it for her.
This’ll be the last time I clean up your mess, cher.
She’d known what that meant, and yet she hadn’t expected him to sell her out like that. But that was what she’d always been to him, wasn’t it? The spoils of a debt he needed paid. A pawn for his use. Exactly what she’d been to Tony.
Slowly, Malcolm turned toward her. The hurt in his eyes tore her in two.
“Is it true?”
Trixie drew in a shuddered breath, then nodded.
His next question hurt even worse. “Were you coerced?”
Deep down, some part of him still trusted her, still wanted to believe in her.
She didn’t deserve it.
“Y-yes,” she managed to sputter out. Tears coated her cheeks. “I didn’t tell them anything, I swear it. Boss and Stan made me enter into another binding spell. They said—”
“Binding spells don’t work at Wolf Pack Run,” Maverick snarled. His wolf eyes blazed. “It’s one of the pack’s many secrets. Secrets you deemed yourself privileged to. You think I’d be foolish enough to allow any of our pack to enter into that bastard’s agreements if they held true?”
Trixie gaped at the packmaster. Her eyes darted to Malcolm’s right hand, the one he’d used to make a deal with Boss the night of the brawl at the Coyote. For the first time, she noticed the binding magic there had faded. The inky black tendrils had vanished from the olive tone of his skin, the time-faded tattoos still there, though she knew the pack’s deal with the Rock City MC Wolves was far from over. She and Malcolm had heard the roar of a dozen of their motorcycles arriving at the ranch late last night. Her eyes turned to her own palms. The deals written there were also decidedly absent, but she always used a small portion of her magic to keep them hidden.
She willed the magic away, trying to see the onyx markings, but they refused to appear. Trixie loosed a startled breath. She’d been free this whole time, able to make her own choices as soon as she’d set foot into the sanctuary the pack had created here. But she’d been too terrified of trusting anyone but herself to tell Malcolm the truth.
Somehow, that only made what she’d done worse.
She reached for Malcolm. “I–I didn’t know. S-Stan said he’d kill me, kill Jackie and his siblings and you, too, if I didn’t. Malcolm, I’m so sorry. I—”
Malcolm lifted a single hand to silence her.
Trixie trembled beneath the weight of his gaze. He’d made his decision. Whatever it was, he didn’t need to hear anything further from her. He knew what it was like to be manipulated, used for a dark deed he’d never have done without provocation. But she’d lied to him. Just like his manipulative mother. She’d broken the one rule he’d given her.
“Don’t ever lie to me.” His eyes had been cold, harsh, cruel. “That’s my one rule. You do and we’re through. I want honesty or I don’t want it.”
He was through with her. They were through. She saw it in the tightness of his shoulders, the flex of his hand she’d held only moments earlier. He didn’t need to say it for her to know.
Malcolm looked over his shoulder toward Maverick, his face calm, resigned. He was silent fury. “I’ll make it right, Packmaster,” he reassured Maverick.
Without warning, he drew Bo’s blade from his hip.
Trixie shook from head to toe, but she didn’t shy away from him. He wouldn’t hurt her. Not if he’d still had a choice. Better this than a life spent running, constantly looking over her shoulder, better death at the hands of a man who’d once loved her enough to fight his way through the darkness of his grief in order to claim her. Anything was better than what Stan held in store for her. Malcolm would show her mercy, make her death swift and painless.
He clutched Bo’s dagger in his hand. His eyes held hers. “Did you mean what you said? That’d you’d stay if you could?” he asked. The unmitigated hope seeded there ripped her to shreds.
“In a heartbeat,” she breathed.
Malcolm nodded, solemn yet pained. “I trusted you.”
“I know you did.” Trixie pressed her lips into a thin line as she closed her eyes. Tears streaked her face. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” Malcolm drew her hand into his. His palm was warm, comforting against hers. “I’m sorry I can’t give you a choice in this.”
Trixie braced herself. For death. For the end of it all.
Pain sliced through her palm instead, her blood pooling hot. In her hand. Only her hand.
Trixie’s eyes shot open. She was still standing, still breathing though she trembled from head to toe. She watched as Malcolm lifted his own palm and repeated the same action. Blood dripped from his hand. It speckled the gleaming white snow beneath their feet with a shocking crimson.
He gripped his hand in hers, their blood mixing together. Turning to face his packmates, he leveled a harsh, challenging gaze at Maverick. “I claim her as my mate,” he said, eyes unfaltering. “Her punishment is my own.” His eyes turned back toward her, but instead of anger, all she saw was his forgiveness, forgiveness she hadn’t earned.
Trixie struggled to speak. “I–I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” Malcolm shook his head. I love you, his dark eyes seemed to whisper.
“You’re my pack, Trixie,” he said. “One mistake won’t change that.”