Primal Bonds

Dylan kept staring at her. The alpha stare, the dominant in him telling her to look away, back down, admit she had no right to tell him what to do.

“This is my house, Dylan,” she made herself say. “Please leave it.”

He continued looking at her with his hard assessment. “You really want that?”

“No.” Glory’s throat worked, almost choking her words. “What I want is for you to tell me that you love me, that you want us to be mated, that you want to stay forever. That’s what I want. But I’ve finally made myself realize it’s not what I’m going to get. So I’d rather you go, instead of having my heart torn out every time I look at you.”

“Glory.”

Damn him, he couldn’t stop being the alpha. He wouldn’t look upset or uneasy, couldn’t show any sign of conceding.

“What?” she snapped.

“Things are difficult for me at the moment. My whole world has changed, and I don’t know where I fit into it anymore.”

His words tugged at Glory’s heart, but he wasn’t getting off that easy. “What has that to do with choosing a mate?”

“I chose a mate once upon a time. She died.”

“I know that. I’m sorry. Really, I am. I lost my mate too, you know I did.”

That had been a hundred years ago. Glory’s pack and her mate’s had lived rough in the heart of the Rockies, but they’d been happy. Glory was robust even for a Shifter female, but fecundity had been low in both packs, and she’d never conceived. Within a year of her mate blessing, her mate’s pack had been attacked by ferals, and they’d been wiped out, down to the last wolf. Her mate had hidden her beforehand so that she’d be safe, a decision Glory had fought like fury, but she realized now that if she hadn’t obeyed him, she’d be dead too. The ferals would have taken her, used her, and let her die.

Her parents’ pack had found her days later, lying in shock among the dead. The Guardian had sent the souls of the entire pack to the afterlife, and Glory had been taken back to her family. She’d never wanted to mate again.

That is, until her pack had been relocated to this Shiftertown twenty years ago, and she’d moved in next door to Dylan. Life went on, she’d learned, even after horror.

“I know,” Dylan said. Glory had told him the entire story, which he would have heard anyway from Wade, her pack leader, even if she hadn’t. No one kept secrets from Dylan.

Glory drew a breath. “I’m not trying to tell you to get over Niamh. I’m saying I want more than an on-again, off-again affair with you. There is happiness in the world, Dylan, in spite of everything, and I want it. If you can’t give it to me, then I don’t want you here.” She wet her lips. “I don’t want you tearing me apart.”

Dylan moved to Glory slowly, as he might toward a hurt cub. His hands on her shoulders nearly undid her. “You are so strong.” He caressed her skin below her Collar. “So strong that I never knew you were hurting.”

“I guess I hide it well.”

“You do, that.” Dylan leaned closer and nuzzled her. “I’m sorry, my girl,” he whispered. “I’m so sorry I can’t be what you want.”

The tears slid out before Glory could blink them back. “Then you understand why I need you to leave?”

Dylan nodded. He nuzzled her again, and his lips grazed her cheek. When he backed away, she thought she would die of grief.

Not the same, her common sense told her. He’s not dying; he’s just leaving. But right now, her heart couldn’t tell the difference. Gone was gone.

“You’ll want your things,” she said in a strangled voice. Not that he’d brought much into her house; the entirety would fit into an overnight bag.

“Throw them away. Or leave them outside the door and I’ll have Liam fetch them later. Your choice.”

Possessions meant so little to a Shifter, especially this Shifter. “What will you do?” she asked.

Dylan shrugged, gave her a little smile. “Who knows? But I’m good at taking care of myself. Didn’t I have to raise three sons on my own?”

Glory nodded, unable to speak anymore. Dylan wiped a tear from her cheek and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. “Be well, love.”

And then he left her, walking out the door and back down the porch steps in the same even stride he’d used to mount them. Without stopping, looking back, or even glancing at his own house, he got into his pickup, started it, and pulled smoothly away.

Glory waited until the sound of the truck had faded into the distance, then she walked upstairs, entered her bedroom that still smelled of him, and pulled down the shades. Only then did she let herself fall across the bed and weep until she had no tears left.

“So what did you think of my dad?” Andrea asked as Sean drove rapidly down Thirty-Fifth. “My stepdad, I mean.”

Sean glanced at her, his eyes still holding the fires they had last night and this morning, and again when he came to tell her that Liam wanted them to go back to the bar in north Austin. The throbbing of the bond hadn’t gone away. She felt it wrapping around her heart, squeezing tight.

“I liked him,” Sean was saying. “You said he was a good man, and he is, I could see that.”

“I miss him.” Andrea sighed.

“I can try to have him transferred here, if you want. And if he’d be wanting that. It would mean leaving his pack.”