CHAPTER THREE
Blake
A look from Cade pulled me out of my pity party. As much as I wanted to push my problem away because I didn’t want to deal with it, I was the beta of the combined packs and I needed to put that first.
“Fine,” I said before I shrugged his hand off my shoulder.
“We need to discuss the terms of Keri’s release,” Cade said as he walked around to the other side of the desk and sat down.
“You know after everything that’s happened we can’t trust her,” I reminded him tersely.
There was no way we would be able to trust her and take her word that she would follow the terms that we agreed for her release. For all we knew she would agree to everything and once she got back to her pack she could change her mind.
“I know that,” he said. “But we don’t really have a choice at the moment so we’re going to have to trust her.”
“So how are we going to ensure she follows the agreement?” I asked. It was hard to talk about her without feeling a slight ache in my chest.
“We’ll need someone to watch her until we’re sure she won’t screw us over,” he said.
“Who?”
“It has to be an alpha. I think sending someone less than that into an unstable situation would be a mistake on our part,” he advised.
He was right. He was an alpha but there was no way he would leave Scarlett. Scarlett had alpha blood in her but she was in no state to go anywhere. That left me.
“I can’t,” I replied hastily as I stood up. There was no way I would be able to be around her day in and day out until we were sure she was going to hold up her end of the deal. For all I knew it could take months.
“I wasn’t suggesting you,” my friend assured me. “After everything that has happened I understand that you wouldn’t want to be around her.”
There was only one other person who was an alpha.
“Kyle?” I asked.
“Yes. I’ve spoken to him and as long as we keep an eye on his pack he is prepared to go with Keri back to her pack to keep an eye on her. His beta will be there to run the pack and his uncle Nate will also be able to keep an eye on things.”
I felt a slight pang of guilt at the fact that I refused to do the job, but Kyle, who was Scarlett’s brother—whose parents were murdered by her father—was prepared to push that aside and do what needed to be done. As much as I didn’t want to be around her or even see her, I wasn’t sure why I was suddenly feeling anxious about the fact that Kyle would be spending time with her. I pushed the unwanted feeling away, not liking how it made me feel.
“Sounds good,” I said, trying to get back into my easy-going persona, but I wasn’t fooling anyone.
“I’ll sort out the finer details with him,” Cade added.
For a moment he studied me. He was my best friend, so there was no point in trying to pretend I was okay. He knew I wasn’t.
“I know this whole thing has been tough on you and I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes, but… I feel I need to warn you.”
I could tell by his expression and tone that whatever he was going to tell me wasn’t going to be good. I felt a sense of nervous dread in the pit of my stomach.
“Keri is a female alpha,” he began and I nodded my head as I listened. “Being unable to shift is going to leave her vulnerable to attacks by other packs and that will leave us at the mercy of another alpha that might not want peace.”
I inhaled sharply as the realization of what he was getting at set in.
Fuck!
There was no way I was going to be able to do that. I stood up, already shaking my head, my mind already made up. What he was asking me to do was unbelievable!
“Just listen,” Cade said, trying to get me to calm down.
“How could you even think that I would be able to contemplate something like that?” I yelled, feeling my anger smother the dread that I’d felt before.
Logically he was right but I didn’t want to accept that. I stood back and fisted my hands against my sides as I tried to rein in my temper.
“Look, I know you’ve been handed a pretty crappy deal but you have to look at the bigger picture.”
He ran an agitated hand through his hair.
“We could all be at risk if Keri is unable to defend her role as the alpha.”
I didn’t want to hear it but I remained still.
“If another pack’s alpha sees her as weak then it will only be a matter of time before someone steps up to challenge her, and she will lose.”
Keri was the only blood relative of Victor, which meant that if she were killed by another alpha then they would be able to take her pack and combine it with theirs. I felt a sharp pain in my chest. As much as I hated her at the moment, I felt a physical pain at the thought of something happening to her. I hated how she made me feel even though I didn’t want to.
“If another alpha like Victor gets her pack, we will be in serious trouble.”
I began to pace up and down. Cade was right. There was no disputing it. I could feel mad, upset, betrayed, but none of that mattered if another alpha took over her pack. Her pack combined with another would be too powerful for us to defend against. I felt the weight of responsibility settle on my shoulders. As much as I hated the idea and didn’t want to do it, there was no alternative. Stopping, I turned to face my friend. He watched me closely while I pulled myself together. There was no point in whining about the unfairness of it all. I had no choice.
“Fine,” I said firmly. I didn’t how I was going to do it but I would to protect the people that I loved irrespective of how I felt about her.
“I’m sorry,” Cade said. His tone was filled with sympathy.
“Yeah, it sucks, but there is nothing we can do about it,” I replied, knowing that if there was another way he wouldn’t be asking me to do this. Sometimes in life we had to do things we didn’t want to.
“How sure are you that Keri will go with it?” I asked. It would take both of us to ensure the safety of our packs.
From the time I’d found out she was my mate I hadn’t once thought about how everything was affecting her. I’d only thought about my own hurt.
“Honestly, I don’t know.”
He looked as worried as I felt. There was that chance that she would refuse and there was nothing we would be able to do about it. We couldn’t let that happen.
“She has to go along with it,” Cade said.
But what if she didn’t? There was only one way I could think of to ensure she would mate with me.
“She will only go along with it if she thinks that I’ve forgiven her and accepted her as my mate,” I stated, rubbing my forehead. He didn’t look surprised. He’d probably come to the same conclusion.
It was easier said than done. I would have to push my real feelings down and pretend that I cared for her. It wasn’t something I was sure I could do. Another thing that occurred to me was I hadn’t touched her yet. When mates touched, the connection was formed and I wasn’t sure how I would be able to deal with that. And once we mated and she could shift, it would be harder for me to walk away.
“I need time though,” I told him. The sooner I did it the sooner everyone would be safe, but I needed a little time, even if it was just a week.
“Sure,” he replied.
A few moments of silence settled between us.
“Just don’t take too long,” he reminded me.
“I won’t,” I assured him. Just when I didn’t think things could get worse, they had.
“So when are we going to release her?” I asked, sounding calm but my emotions were swirling inside of me.
"Tomorrow."
I'd been expecting it to be soon, just not that soon. I wasn’t sure if I was ready for any of this.
"Why the hurry?" I asked.
"The longer we keep her a prisoner the more agitated her pack is going to become," he explained with a crease in his forehead.
He was right to look at me with concern. As an alpha who had already run a pack, I would know this stuff.
"I'm sorry. I'm not thinking straight at the moment," I explained before I rubbed my hands over my face.
The truth was since I'd found out Keri was my mate, I'd been a mess. My volatile emotions clouded my logical thinking. I couldn't make decisions concerning her without my emotions taking over. It was a good thing that Cade was the alpha because I wasn't so sure I'd be able to do the job at the moment.
"How long do you need?" he asked.
I stood up and began to pace. I wasn't sure how much time would help me accept the reality of my situation.
"A few days," I answered, rubbing the back of my neck. The tension in my body was tightening my muscles.
"Fine," he agreed before he pushed the chair back. He stood up and walked around the desk to stand beside me.
"Thanks, man," I said, feeling relief at putting off the inevitable for a few days.
"Sure, no problem," he assured me. “Before you leave, Scarlett wants to talk to you."
"Where’s she?" I asked, wanting to talk to her as quickly as possible so as to be able to put some space between Keri and myself.
"Upstairs resting.”
I could tell from the annoyance in his voice that it had probably been a battle of wills to get her to take it easy. A smile spread across my face at the thought of Scarlett. She was strong and willful, which made her a perfect match for my hotheaded best friend.
“I’ll speak to you again soon,” I said to him before I walked to the door of the study.
“Sure,” he said.
He sat back down at the desk and opened up his laptop as I left the study. I climbed the stairs to the first floor of the house and walked down the hallway to the end. I knocked on the double doors.
“Come in,” I heard Scarlett say through the door.
She was lying in the bed with her arms crossed over her chest when I entered the room. Her eyes brightened at the sight of me. Bruises still marred her face. She’d been beaten pretty badly by Victor. Being a werewolf had it perks and one of them was faster healing, so in a day or two the bruises would be gone.
It was still hard to believe that she’d killed one of the most powerful alphas. The fact that she hadn’t grown up in a pack and until a few weeks ago didn’t even know that she was a werewolf made me respect her more. She’d worked and trained hard to get up to speed with werewolves who’d trained their whole lives.
“Cade said you wanted to talk to me,” I said, walking to the bed. I pulled a chair up and sat down beside her.
I had no idea what she wanted to talk to me about.
“Yes, I did,” she said as she dropped her hands into her lap. Scarlett rarely looked nervous but there was no mistaking it. Whatever she wanted to talk to me about she was unsure of.
“I’m here, so talk,” I said, waiting for her to tell me what was on her mind. I had a lot of respect and affection for her. We’d come a long way since the first time I’d met her. In the beginning she hadn’t been able to stand the sight of Cade or me but now we’d risks our lives for each other.
“It’s about Keri,” she said, her sharp eyes watching me for a reaction.
I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone about Keri. It was only because I really cared about Scarlett that I gave her a chance to finish what she was going to say.
“I spoke to her earlier,” she began to say.
I pressed my lips to keep myself from snapping at her. It was hard enough trying to figure out where to go from here but now I had to listen to what she had to say about Keri. At my visible agitation she reached out and placed her hand over mine.
“I know you’re angry. We’re all pissed at what happened,” she said. “But I was the only one that was there to see Keri with her father.”
I wasn’t sure how this was going to change anything for me but I continued to listen to her.
“At first when I found out she’d betrayed me—us—I was angry. But I saw how scared she was of Victor. He didn’t treat her like a daughter. He treated her like a pack member to do his bidding.”
She paused for a moment.
“I had two loving parents and I couldn’t imagine how horrible it would have been to only have a father like Victor. She’s never been loved.”
Her words made my chest hurt. I rubbed my forehead with my free hand.
“She was scared of her father,” she told me. “Not just a little scared, she was petrified. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I would feel like the rest of you do. But I saw it.”
I let out a sigh.
“The thing that I can’t understand is if she was so scared, why did she stay with the pack?” I asked softly. I wanted to believe that there was some good in Keri but from my point of view I couldn’t see any. “Why stay if it was so bad? Nothing was keeping her there so why would she endure that day in day out? What if, despite everything you’ve said, she is the power-hungry villain that her father was?”
She bit her lip and remained silent. She knew I was right.
“I don’t want her to be the villain,” I added as I held her gaze. “But she is.”
I closed my eyes briefly and took a deep breath. Scarlett’s hand squeezed mine.
“You don’t know how badly I want to believe that she isn’t a replica of her father…” Talking about it was making the pain in my chest worse and I rubbed it with my hand. “…that the evil inside him lives in her.”
I let go of Scarlett’s hand and stood up.
“I know how badly you want to believe that there’s good in her but I think you’re setting yourself up for more disappointment,” I said, finishing my argument. “She’s hurt all of us and you’d be naive to think she won’t again.”
“There are things that don’t add up but I saw the fear in her eyes,” she said, standing firm on the fact that she didn’t believe Keri was the evil that her father had been.
She probably had no idea what Cade and I had just agreed to do to keep our pack safe. I wondered how Cade was going to tell her because there was no doubt about it, she was on Keri’s side. I would have to start pretending that I was able to forgive Keri but for today, I didn’t have to. Today, I could feel the anger and betrayal of being mated to someone I couldn’t stand the sight of.
“I have to go,” I said to Scarlett. I needed to get out of there and I didn’t want to waste any of the time I’d been given to get myself together.
“Okay,” she said, sounding a little defeated. I wasn’t sure what she had hoped to achieve by having this conversation with me but it hadn’t worked. I still hated Keri and nothing anyone said was going to change that.
“Take it easy and I’ll see you soon,” I said as I bent down to give her a slight hug.
“I will.”
I left as fast as I could. Time was what I needed to get my head around what I had to do. It wasn’t going to be easy. I wasn’t a deceitful person but I had to be good to be able to fool Keri. I didn’t want to think about what would happen if I failed. When you touched your mate, a connection was formed. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to turn my back on her and leave once that happened.
That was what scared me the most. What if my head was clouded by the emotions that joined us and I couldn’t leave her? Would the destiny that joined us together be stronger than my sense of what was right and wrong?