Chapter Twenty
Will shut his laptop and closed his eyes. After he’d been with Ellie last night in the truck, he’d been sated physically, but more disturbed, emotionally, than ever. He was here. He was attached to her, body and soul.
But when someone came to rip the territory from them, who would fight? How could he ensure Ellie’s survival? Hayley’s? Jackson’s? Their mates’?
And something was coming. The territory felt it, a rumbling beneath the surface, a tension in the air. He had felt it before the pride war four years ago, and he felt it again now. Threats.
Four years ago, just before he’d felt the misgivings, he and Ellie had been out at the lake. The water was freezing, but they’d waded in the shallows until they reached a large rock jutting into the water. He’d loved the way the light bounced from the surface of the lake and hit her hair, shining off those rich brown curls. Turning her face toward his, he’d kissed her.
She’d grinned into the kiss and untied the strap of her bikini top.
It had been only their second time making love. After they both finished, panting and leaning against the sun-warmed boulder, he’d asked her again. It was the question he’d asked before.
“Ellie McGowan,” he said, looking directly into her hazel eyes, “will you marry me?”
He didn’t know what he’d expected. That she’d laugh and splash him, maybe, or that she’d roll her eyes and joke about how he never gave up.
But instead, she’d looked back at him just as seriously and whispered, “Yes.”
It had signaled the point in their relationship when everything came together, finally. They’d always loved each other, but she hadn’t been able to trust in it. But at that moment, she’d finally learned how to trust in the power of what they had.
His heart felt so big, he’d whooped a shout of victory across the lake, listening to the sound carry into the sky. Ellie had laughed as he lifted her into his arms, cradling her against his chest like a bride going across the threshold.
Hours later, after more lovemaking, he’d dropped her off at the little cottage she was renting during the summer break before she started grad school. And as he’d driven home, he’d felt it, that tension and premonition of dark things. Danger. An insidious, shadowy feeling crossing the territory. A tightening in his gut, bracing him for the pain to come.
And when he’d returned home that night, there’d been no chance to tell his family about his engagement, because they had a week, maybe less, to prepare for the Clausen Pride’s arrival on their territory.
He’d kept his distance from Ellie the next few days, calling and texting but keeping their conversations short. His pride needed to fight off this threat and then he’d be free to start planning their wedding and celebrating with his family. He’d found his mate, but he’d be damned if her introduction to his life as a shapeshifter was going to start with blood and wars.
And then everything had gone so, so wrong. His parents dead, his leg messed up, and on the run with Hayley and Jackson.
He’d called Ellie and left her a message, telling her he was sorry and that he had to leave, and he didn’t know when he’d return. And then, after a day of driving with his siblings, he resolved to set Ellie free of this violent world. Before he changed his mind, he tossed his phone in a dumpster outside a gas station in southern Oregon.
He shook himself back to the present and opened his eyes. Was he only imagining this dark feeling, or was another group of shifters planning a move on his territory?
Since Thursday night, he and Ellie hadn’t spent a night apart. He was lucky she slept so soundly, because that tension in the air, in the earth, compelled him to get up each night and wander around in his mountain lion form. He’d go out the back door, strip out of his clothes, and stalk through the neighborhood, exciting more than one alert dog and pissing off the owners who couldn’t see or sense the large predator in the shadows.
But Will wasn’t the predator they needed to fear.
His phone buzzed with a text from Hayley. Stop acting like such a sourpuss. Why don’t you want us to go to the concert in Tacoma?
He didn’t want her to worry, but she’d asked, so he’d tell her. Instinct is telling me it’s a bad idea.
Hayley: Does your instinct tell you when it might be safe to go? Or are we all gonna be hunkering down in Huntwood for the foreseeable future?
Will rolled his eyes. It doesn’t work like that.
Hayley: How does it work, then? Impatient sisters need to know.
Will: I don’t know. But not like that.
Hayley: Well, we’ll just have to be careful, then. I don’t want to miss out on everything fun just because you’re worried.
She didn’t have to say it—it had been Will’s fears and worries that had kept them from returning to Huntwood for four years, long after the Clausen threat had passed. True, Jackson had been forced to contend with a Clausen pride member, but it had been the last one, and Jackson had handled the problem on his own. He and his siblings could have returned earlier, but Will had worried. As their alpha, it was sort of his job to worry.
He wouldn’t stop worrying. He couldn’t.