As she approached them, Taylor smiled stiffly. “Where’s Fenix?”

  “Otherwise occupied,” was Holly’s cryptic response.

  Lark said, “I was going to show Tulip our quail coop, if that’s okay.”

  Lacking any substantive reason to say no, Taylor nodded. “Sure thing.”

  The walk back to the cabin was awkward, due to a combination of Holly refusing to speak and Taylor not wanting to speak. After a few moments of being utterly standoffish, Taylor recognized how ridiculous she was being.

  Being angry at Tulip was unfair. Hale would inevitably get bored with Taylor and with their arrangement. When he did, he’d probably sleep with anyone, be it Tulip, Beka, or even Holly. There was no reason for Taylor to resent Tulip, not when Hale, and Taylor’s own inability to simply be happy with Alder alone, were the root problems.

  Taylor heard Lark ask, “So what happened? Why did they let you go?”

  “Silas isn’t like his father,” Tulip replied. “He’s strict, but he would never kill his own. Even a traitor like me.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong,” Lark said, patting Tulip on the back. “I would have done the same thing.”

  “What did you do?” Taylor asked, both curious and making an effort to join the conversation.

  “I smuggled food into Whiteriver for a couple years,” Tulip said.

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Taylor.

  “I think Silas knew, and turned a blind eye to it for the good of the pack,” Tulip said. “But then I showed Hale how to get into the den.”

  Taylor could tell from the grave look on Tulip’s face that this was a serious offense. “Oh. How come?”

  “To deface Silas’s property and force him to declare war.”

  Alder had mentioned something like that last night, though Taylor hadn’t asked him for the details.

  “Why force Silas to declare war?” Taylor asked. “Isn’t Halcyon a really tough pack? If Hale wanted to go to war, why didn’t he just declare it himself, or launch a surprise attack or something?”

  It almost seemed silly to Taylor, talking about pack wars. While pack politics were interesting and she recognized that these things could affect her, Taylor still felt separate from it all. Her own issues with Alder, Hale, and the whole mating-whatever seemed like a much more important concern than war.

  “It’s difficult to explain,” Tulip said, looking to Lark for assistance. Lark only shrugged in response.

  From behind them, Holly let out a heavy sigh. “It’s simple. If we declare war over something trivial—or worse, nothing at all—it makes us look like warmongers. Believe it or not, there are other packs that could rival us and may be inclined to do so if they thought we were interested in acquiring more real estate.”

  Taylor tilted her head. “So, Hale is forcing Whiteriver to declare war so that Halcyon doesn’t look bad?”

  “Bingo.”

  Tulip added, “But it’s more than that. Hale doesn’t actually want war with Whiteriver. If Silas declares war, a lot of Whiteriver wolves are going to defect to Halcyon. They aren’t going to put their lives on the line to defend his honor.”

  “So Hale insulted Silas so that Silas would declare war on Halcyon so that Whiteriver would defect to Halcyon?” Taylor asked, scratching her chin.

  “Sounds about right,” Holly said.

  The whole thing seemed awfully convoluted, but then again, Taylor didn’t understand much about pack politics. At times, she forgot that the shifters weren’t human. Other times, they seemed to be ruled by their animal instincts.

  Tulip said, “You’re so fortunate to have a strong and compassionate alpha like Hale.”

  Taylor wondered how Tulip had known Hale for so long, but somehow hadn’t caught on to the fact that he was an asshole.

  “Are you and Hale close?” Taylor asked.

  Tulip’s eyes practically sparkled. “We are. He’s been acting strangely since I arrived, but I imagine he must be under a lot of pressure. I have high hopes.”

  “Well, maybe you’ll be the woman who can finally tie him down,” Taylor heard herself say.

  Tulip’s brows rose. “Have there been a lot of women?”

  Holly snorted loudly. Before Taylor could say anything, Lark cleared her throat.

  “The quail coop is over here,” Lark said, taking the distressed blonde by the arm. Lark cast Taylor a look of disappointment before dragging Tulip away.

  “That was mean of me,” Taylor mumbled.

  Holly grinned, patting Taylor on the back a little too hard. “I believe I am starting to like you, human.”

  ***

  “The hunters are waiting for you,” Alder said.

  Alder stood at the foot of Hale’s bed, staring down at him. Hale took in his brother’s calm demeanor and relaxed stance.

  He gave a curt reply. “Fine.”

  “What are you even doing down here?” Alder asked, glancing around the room with an arched brow.

  “I was trying to come,” Hale said bluntly.

  Upon Alder’s arrival, Hale had thrown a pelt over his hips, covering up the current bane of his existence. Since Taylor had left him, he’d been sporting a massive erection.

  When it hadn’t gone away on its own, Hale had retreated to his room, intent on bringing himself to a quick climax before approaching his brother. Instead, he’d spent the better part of an hour angrily jerking what he now concluded was a broken cock.

  There was no better way to describe it. No matter how hard or for how long he stroked himself, he couldn’t wrench so much as a drop of pre-cum from his cock. Even fantasizing about Taylor wasn’t working. If anything, thoughts of being with her made him ache even more.

  “Trying to come?”

  Alder looked amused by his predicament and Hale had the urge to slap the smirk off his face.

  “Will you just fuck off?” Hale said irritably. “Tell the hunters I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  Alder made a sound of acknowledgement before turning to leave. It was only once his brother was descending towards the doorway that Hale remembered his promise to Taylor.

  “Wait,” Hale called out. He muttered a few choice curses under his breath as he stood and knotted a deerskin around his hips. “I need to talk to you about Taylor.”

  Alder leaned against the stone frame of the doorway. “All right.”

  “She doesn’t think she’s ready to have pups yet. You should probably talk to her about it.”

  Done, Hale thought, mentally checking the conversation off his to-do list.

  “She told you this?” Alder asked, folding his arms across his chest.

  “More or less,” Hale remarked, as he considered what to do about his cock. He couldn’t approach the hunters in this state and he definitely wasn’t going to shift. Shifting with a hard-on was already painful. The last thing he was going to do was attempt the shift with the mother of all erections jutting out from between his thighs.

  “Which was it, more or less?” Alder’s clipped tone drew Hale’s attention. “What did she say, exactly?”

  Hale scratched the back of his neck. “Exactly?”

  He thought back, trying to remember what she’d said. He could recall her scent and the way her nipples had been stiff and poking against the fabric of her dress. There was something else too, her hand. She had placed it over his.

  ‘Please.’

  Taylor had sounded so vulnerable. She had been scared and apprehensive and she had come to him for help.

  Him.

  Not Alder.

  Hale stared at Alder and for just an instant, he wasn’t staring at his brother, his twin, or his closest friend. He was staring at the competition. Taylor had come to him, not Alder. The realization settled within him as pride bubbled up, making his chest swell.

  “Are you going to answer me?” Alder asked. Irritation marred his expression, making him look older than he was.

  “You need to wait until she’s ready,” Hale found himself saying. “We both do.”

  “She’s nervous,” Alder said. “It’s normal. But she’ll adjust and she’ll be a great mother.”

  Hale frowned. “She’s not going to be a great mother if she resents her children. We both know that.”

  “If our mother resented anything, it was our father,” Alder shot back.

  Hale sighed. He didn’t know which side he was on anymore.

  The selfish part of him wanted to mate with Taylor tonight and the selfless part of him knew that after everything he’d been through, Alder deserved a family of his own.

  The selfless part of him wanted Taylor to be happy and the selfish part of him hoped that he never had to see Alder become a father to a pup that could very well be Hale’s.

  What had seemed so simple a few nights ago was becoming increasingly convoluted.

  Hale said, “Look, you should really talk to her about this. I’ll go along with whatever you decide.”

  Alder gave the barest of nods.

  “Do you mind leading up the hunt?” Hale asked. “I need some time to think.”

  “Fine.”

  Alder left without another word.

  Hale was never one to brood, but he knew that Alder was. Alder would head up the hunt, all the while ruminating over how he would handle the situation with Taylor. In the meantime, Hale was going to deal with his erection. Once that was handled, perhaps he’d be able to think straight.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Smile and nod, Taylor reminded herself for at least the fifteenth time since she’d been saddled with Tulip.

  After giving Tulip the grand tour of Taylor’s property, Lark had announced that she was going to build a hammock. She disappeared ten minutes back, heading off in the direction of the cavern where Glenn had stored her junk. Taylor suspected that Lark was intentionally trying to give Taylor and Tulip time to get to know one another.

  The friction between them was palpable, though it was all originating from Taylor. Despite Taylor’s self-admission that Tulip had done nothing to deserve her anger, it was impossible to shake the feelings of animosity she felt towards Tulip.

  Maybe, just maybe, this had something to do with how Tulip was constantly talking about Hale. How brave he was, how kind he was, and how caring he could be. Taylor wasn’t sure if Tulip was talking about an entirely different Hale, or if Hale was only a jerk to Taylor and her friends.

  Taylor sat on the steps of her porch, chin resting on her hands and forcing a smile as her blood simmered within her veins. In her peripherals, she could see Holly in her fox form, curled up beneath a tree, sleeping.

  “Are you nervous?” Tulip asked. It was the first time she’d asked something Taylor couldn’t simply nod or shake her head at.

  “About what?”

  Tulip wet her lips. “The mating thrall.”

  Taylor didn’t care to explain that there would be no mating thrall, so she replied, “Nope. Not at all.”

  Tulip smiled. Her smiles were so pretty and genuine. They made Taylor dislike her even more.

  “I wouldn’t be, either. I admit, I don’t know Alder well, but if he’s anything like his brother, he’ll take such good care of you. And it’s so good that Hale is willing to share his territory with the both of you.”

  Taylor turned her head away, feigning interest in the quail coop to hide the irrepressible look of incredulity that had overtaken her face. She didn’t know whether she should despise Tulip or pity her. The woman was absolutely clueless.

  “Um, yeah, Alder’s great.”

  “The two of you will have such beautiful pups.”

  Taylor cringed. The fact that she didn’t disagree was one of the numerous problems plaguing her existence.

  Motherhood had always been chief on her list of things she wanted to avoid, landing somewhere between heroin and dark alleyways at midnight. Having a child was an incredible responsibility, and even before she became a fugitive, Taylor had recognized that she wasn’t strong enough to be anyone’s mother. She had no idea who she was or what she wanted out of life.

  It could have been her desire to make Alder happy, or maybe it was because a naïve part of her believed everything was going to work out for her, but Taylor could see herself having Alder’s children someday.

  “We’ve known each other for less than a month,” Taylor said, more to herself than to Tulip.

  “That’s the way it is with most alphas and their mates,” Tulip said. “You’ll get to know Alder while you’re carrying his pup. It’s a beautiful experience.”

  That sounds like the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.

  Tulip went off on a tangent, recounting the story of her parents and how they fell in love. The story wasn’t half-bad, Taylor had to admit. Tulip hadn’t been born to Whiteriver, but rather, she was the daughter of a lone beta wolf and his human mate. They had raised her on the outskirts of a fringe town. When she was eighteen, she’d left home, hoping to live amongst her own kind. She’d joined Whiteriver shortly after they split from Halcyon.

  “It was tough living out in the wilderness, especially with how rough things were for Whiteriver,” she told Taylor.

  “Why did you stay?”

  “Silas,” Tulip said with a wan smile. “He was always trying to be strong for the sake of the pack, but I saw a different side of him. I wanted to be strong for him and I did everything I could to help him. But I suppose I wasn’t enough.”

  “What do you mean, you weren’t enough?”

  Tulip shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. I have Hale now.”

  Taylor wanted badly to pity her. She wanted to feel anything besides the hot coals of jealousy and resentment that burned in her stomach. Taylor knew that it wasn’t fair for her to cling to Hale when she had Alder, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  “How about you?” Tulip asked. “How did you come to live here?”

  “It’s a pretty long story,” Taylor said.

  “She’s an assassin on the run from the government.”

  Taylor twitched at the sudden appearance of Lark. By now, Taylor was almost immune to being startled, even when it came to the raccoon shifter, who was by far the sneakiest of all the shifters she’d encountered.

  “An assassin?” Tulip repeated, her mouth hanging open.

  “Like I said, it’s a long story.”

  “Alder rescued Taylor from her people.” Lark squeezed herself between the two of them. “You should tell Tulip the story of how you met him. It’s so romantic.”

  Taylor thought back to the night she met Alder and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. There had been very little romance, though she did remember lots of terror.

  Before Taylor could be pressured into recounting the awful night, her companions turned their heads towards the lake, where Hale was walking up the path. He was wearing a pair of his brother’s jeans, but Taylor recognized the predatory gleam in his eyes. Eyes that were focused solely on her.

  “Hello, Alder,” Tulip said in greeting.

  Hale didn’t correct her. He flashed her a smile that was so close to Alder’s that it gave Taylor pause. Was it Alder after all?

  He stopped in front of the porch, his gaze moving around the area. “Where’s Holly?”

  Taylor pointed to the ball of orange fur that was curled up near the quail coop.

  A muscle ticked in his jaw, but he turned back to regard Lark and Tulip without comment. “Why don’t the two of you take Holly and go back to the den? Taylor and I need to talk about a few things.”

  Taylor immediately tensed. It was Alder and he was probably angry. It had been cowardly of her to make Hale tell him that she didn’t want to go through with the mating thrall.

  The two females complied, Lark leaving with obvious reluctance. Taylor gave her an encouraging smile, one that faded as soon as her gaze fell on Alder. His face hardened with blatant displeasure as he stared at her. Once the others were gone, he offered her a stiff hand.

  Taylor let him help her up but kept her eyes down. Unsure what to say, she busied herself with brushing invisible dirt from her dress.

  “Let’s go inside,” Alder said, walking past her.

  Taylor took a deep breath and then followed him inside, bracing herself for the worst. She was going to be honest with him, like she should have been from the beginning.

  She shut the door behind her, leaving only the dim glow from the closed curtains to light the room. No sooner did she turn to face Alder, he was on her. His large body pinned her against the wall and she could feel his hard cock jutting against her stomach.

  He brought his mouth to ear and spoke, his voice thick. “You have no idea how badly I want to fuck you right now.”

  Hale. Definitely Hale.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For Hale, there was no better position than having a female pinned against a wall. It excited him to know that she was caged between his flesh and at his mercy. It made him feel in control—something that he desperately needed to feel when it came to the human.

  Now, more than ever, she made him feel powerless—powerless to stop thinking about her, powerless to stop craving her, and almost powerless to stop himself from fucking her.

  She pressed her hands against his chest. “Hale, we—”

  “If you tell me to stop, I think I’m going to lose my mind.”

  To Hale’s amazement, she reached down between his legs and grasped his cock. The denim of his jeans separated her hand from his turgid organ, but he groaned all the same, sensing that relief was imminent.

  He needed to come.

  Her free hand stroked the back of his neck. It was an intimate gesture he would not typically accept from a female, but today, Hale found himself arching his head back into her touch.

  She whispered, “I was going to say that we can do other things.”

  “Other things?” he asked.

  Her pink tongue flicked over her lips. “Other things.”

  As realization dawned on Hale, Taylor stood on the tips of her toes to press her lips to the side of his neck. Slowly, she trailed her mouth down, sucking at his flesh as she went. His hands fisted as her tongue moved from the hollow of his neck and down between his pectoral muscles.