Chapter 14
CADE
I held a pack council meeting the next day at my place, inviting the members of the small group I’d appointed to advise me early on. The existence of an advisory council was not mandatory—my father had not had one—but it had seemed like a good idea.
Jake showed up early, and we hung out for a while. We agreed that we should consult the group about the thug who’d been killed by a shifter wolf. So far, there’d been no developments in that case.
The rest of the crew arrived shortly.
Grizzly Pete, so named because his wolf had once defeated not one but two grizzly bears, was arguing with Lorna, my mother, about the future selling price of bison on the pack’s largest cattle ranch.
I didn’t think that Pete knew all that much about the economy of bison herds, although he was a damn fine wrangler. My mother, on the other hand, had been instrumental in acquiring and growing the herd at a time when buffalo and bison ranching was still rare. She knew far more about the enterprise than Pete did, but Pete was an old school wolf who’d never accepted that a female could play a strong role in the pack.
I disagreed.
I’d always been close to my mother. Not in a sentimental way, but with acceptance and mutual respect. During the years when I’d been in one kind of trouble after another, she’d never given up on me. “Let the boy sow his wild oats,” I had once overheard her saying to my angry father. “He’ll learn a lesson or two and come around in time.”
Her support hadn’t saved me from a whipping on that particular occasion, but my father had backed off in the succeeding months. And I had come around, although it had taken more than oat-sowing to knock some sense into my head. It had taken my brother’s death and my father’s fatal illness.
My mother dealt with Pete in her usual calm, informed manner, and he finally backed down without me interfering. Good. I preferred it when they settled their own disputes.
When Jake reported on the mauling death, the tension in the room shot back up again. Hector Campbell, who’d been a trusted advisor of my father, questioned Jake closely. Jake shared what he’d told me the other night at the hospital. His information was even more solid now. The results of the autopsy had confirmed that a shifted wolf had killed the motorcycle club thug.
Marta, our Council member who was also on the Whittier police force, chimed in, “We have filed it as a wild animal attack. The force suspects a sick or hungry wolf.”
“How can you tell it was a shifter wolf as opposed to an ordinary wolf?” Brandon asked.
Jake was evasive, probably because the process involved DNA shit or something.
“Surely no one in our pack would be capable of an attack on a human,” said Suzanne.
I hadn't wanted Suzanne on the Council, but Brandon had made it a condition of his own membership. He could have made trouble for me if he’d declined to accept my leadership. When he’d run against me, he’d had a lot of support.
I shrugged. “Folks are capable of pretty much anything, in my experience.”
Brandon nodded thoughtfully. At one point after Aaron’s death, Brandon might have even been my father’s choice for the role I held now, although I was sure he had never been my mother’s. “I don’t trust that man,” Ma had told me more than once. “He smiles too much.”
I didn’t trust him, either, but Brandon was smart and he always had something sensible to say. He didn’t seem to resent not having won the election, and he hadn’t tried to enforce his own dominance among other members of the pack.
He and Suzanne now seemed to be a permanent thing. Supposedly, their mating had been a true one, complete with the sevmelle, the mystical fire that confirmed a fated mating.
I had my doubts about the sevmelle nonsense. I’d never seen it during any of my own erotic encounters. Thank God. I’d always dreaded some female moaning out in the heat of the moment, “Oh Cade! I see the light! You’re my forever mate…you have to marry me.”
Yeah, well.
I’d been trapped into marriage by another method entirely.
“Any recent trouble with MC members?” Hector asked. He was a big man, strong, with graying hair and well-defined muscles. There had been a time when I’d wondered whether Heck might challenge me for pack leadership upon my father’s death. If he’d been a bit younger, he’d have made a fine leader.
“Nope. But you know how it is with the youngsters. Like me, not so long ago. The clubs have a certain forbidden allure. And they’re the local drug pipelines. Even if none of the kids are riding with the gang, they might be buying drugs off ‘em, and the dead guy was a dealer. If he pissed someone off, or tried to cheat him, not knowing what he was dealing with, well...” I let my voice trail off.
Back in the day, there’d been a few guys in the MCs I’d come to blows with myself. Fortunately, I’d had the sense to do so in my human form. I’m stronger than any human; just about all shifters are. There’s no need to go wolfish for a fight.
I’d been hoping to keep my personal life quiet, but Brandon brought it up toward the end of the meeting. He’d always sniffed around for news and rumors about people and he was damn good at nailing these correctly. Bastard.
“I was talking to the justice of the peace in Whittier this afternoon. He tells me you’re getting married tomorrow, Cade? Who’s the lucky woman? I presume you’re planning to hold a pack mating ceremony?”
My mother’s head turned sharply; I could read the shock in her expression. “You’re getting married and you didn’t tell me?”
“It’s not really pack business. The marriage is a formality.”
“A formality?” That was Suzanne. “You found a mate and you’re calling it a formality?”
“Who is she?” my mother demanded.
I looked around the conference table. All eyes were on me. Expressions ranged from amusement to bald curiosity. In the case of my mother, I couldn’t decipher what she was thinking, but it didn't look good.
“Tom MacLeish’s granddaughter Jess. But it’s not a real marriage. Well, it’s real enough, I guess, but it’s not permanent. It’s a small matter of Tom’s will.”
And then of course I had to explain. Upon hearing the whole story, Jake, my closest friend, could barely suppress his laughter. Dick. My mother seemed doubtful and concerned. Brandon looked thoughtful. Suzanne looked annoyed. Grizzly Pete was the only congratulatory one of the bunch.
“Well now, boy, look at it this way—most folks get hitched thinking it’s permanent, but it turns out to be temporary. You’re getting hitched thinking it’s temporary, so, no pressure. Who knows, your mating might end up permanent after all. And that Jess, I’ve seen her. She’s hot. I’d rather have me a woman like that for six months than my own wife for the rest of my life.” Looking worried, he added, “But don’t tell her that.”
Jake lost it and started to laugh.
My mother, however, was not amused. “You can’t get married, no matter how informally, without a pack ceremony.”
It was true that on the rare occasions when I’d envisioned myself marrying, I’d figured it would be a pack ceremony, with a big celebration afterwards. But that was for marrying one’s acknowledged mate. It was special. My marriage to Jess wasn’t happening for any of the usual reasons. It was a technicality.
Hopefully I’d get some good sexing out of it, at least.
My mother looked as if she was winding up for a debate. She could be a powerhouse once she got running. Time to assert my nature and make damn sure she didn’t spring into action.
“No pack ceremony,” I said in my alpha voice. “This is no wedding, not by our standards. It’s a marriage of convenience, and it’ll be dissolved at the end of six months. If and when I ever get married for real, you can have your fun, Ma, doing all sorts of ceremonious shit. But not this time. Jess just lost her grandfather and she’s not in any mood for celebrating. Besides, I’m not having her think this is something special. Because it’s not.”
Looks were exchanged, but nobody argued.
I wasn’t sure what I’d done with my gavel, so I rapped my fist on the tabletop. “If there’s no other business, meeting’s over.”
* * *
My mother stopped me after the meeting and insisted on taking me aside. Uh-oh. I loved my mom and I respected her, but I really wasn’t in the mood for any discussion about the wedding.
Mom had recently turned fifty, but she didn’t look it. I noticed absently that her dark brown hair had turned considerably grayer since my father’s death. But her face was still unlined and her blue eyes were as sharp as ever.
Dad had been ten years older. He’d died young, especially when you considered that shifters usually outlived humans. My mom had only recently begun to smile again, but I was pretty sure she would never get over James Derringer’s death.
“What’s all this about a marriage, Cade?” she demanded once she had me in private. “Are you telling me that this girl, Tom’s granddaughter, is your mate? Have you slept with her? Did you see the sevmelle?”
“Shit, Ma, privacy invasion much?” She had never questioned me about my sex life. Much less about the sevmelle.
She didn’t back down. She rarely did. “You’re the alpha now. You can’t trivialize your mating. The rest of the pack will be watching everything you do.”
And you still haven’t proved yourself, was the underlying message.
“It’s not a real mating. Tom left me all the lands of the ranch, and you know we need those lands, those field, those streams, the grazing, the woodlands, the resources for the pack. But he left the ranch buildings to Jess and demanded we marry to keep the two together. If it ends in divorce—which it will—we’re free to settle it amicably.”
“Shit,” my mother said. Whoa. She rarely cursed. “Tom MacLeish,” she said, rolling her eyes. “That man always had the oddest ways of behaving.”
“Yeah, well, he was my friend. I miss him.”
Her expression softened. “I know you do. I miss him, too. But we don’t know the granddaughter at all. That is, I remember her when she was a child, but that was a long time ago. Her father was a good man, but he died young. Her mother, on the other hand…” her voice trailed off.
“I don’t remember anything about the mother.”
“And Jess hasn’t told you about her?”
“Jess hasn’t told me much about anything. The woman is grieving.”
“Is it true that she was recently living in Scotland with her mother?”
I shrugged. “I guess. Why? So what?”
“If I remember correctly, Fiona comes from a powerful family of Highland shifters.”
“Yeah, well, we all come from somewhere.” I wondered what she was hinting at.
“Have you ever seen her wolf?”
I had a flash of the night of the accident. Jess had flown—no, that was impossible—she must have leapt out of the SUV as it rolled over into the ditch. The fog had cloaked her, but soon afterwards, I’d seen the gold-glowing eyes of her wolf close to the ground, moving, sniffing for her grandfather, whining. Then she’d shifted to her naked human self.
My cock stirred at that memory. Her lush and beautiful nude human self.
“Yeah, I’ve seen her. She’s sable-colored with gold eyes. Magnificent.”
My mother seemed to relax a bit. “Well. That’s good then. And you’re attracted to her?”
“Look, Ma, enough. I’m marrying the girl and that’s the end of it. Six months from now, I’ll get divorced and the whole thing’ll be done. Let’s not make a bigger deal of it than it is.”
“Fine, Cade. I just wanted to make sure you’d thought this thing through. You don’t always act sensibly where women are concerned.”
That was an understatement.