He wove between trees, and then between old vehicles and appliances. As he passed Jase's workshop, Jase stepped out.
"Stetson,” the alpha said.
“Yeah." Stetson halted and turned to face Jase fully.
"Blythe says you know our newcomer."
Stetson shrugged and decided to downplay her importance. She shouldn't be here. He had told her he didn't want to meet. Letters only. And she hadn't listened.
"She's my librarian," Stetson finally said. Inwardly, he winced at the word my. She wasn't his librarian, she was a librarian.
"You don't have any claim on her?" Jase asked.
"Nope." It wasn't a lie, but Stetson wished it was.
"Okay," Jase said, his dual-colored eyes—one green, one yellow—staring into the distance. "It's obvious what needs to happen here. We need to get her out of the Junkyard."
"Are the witches talking to you yet?" Stetson asked.
Jase had tried to set up meetings with the coven responsible for forming the wall. Every attempt so far had been rebuffed.
“Not yet," Jase said, but he didn't sound concerned.
Stetson waited. Jase seemed to have some grand idea in mind, and other than grabbing some clean clothes and a couple of books from his den, Stetson had nowhere to be. So he adjusted his hat and looked at his alpha.
"We need to find her a mate," Jase finally said.
Stetson was grateful his hat was pulled low on his head to hide his eyes. Harder to hide was the growl bubbling up from his gut, but he managed to contain it. He was a professional at concealing his reactions. Right now, that meant not picturing the way he wanted to shove Jase into the freezing lake for the mere suggestion of finding a mate for Dew.
Oblivious to Stetson's inner turmoil, Jase continued, “We'll start with the guys here. That's assuming she likes guys. Do you know her orientation?"
Her orientation? Beautiful. Perfect. Mine. That was her orientation, as far as Stetson knew.
Stetson shook his head.
"I guess the first step is we find that out," Jase said. “Then we either start with our guys here or find some local women to meet with her at the boundary..."
Jase went on, but Stetson had stopped listening.
“Stetson?" Jase said after blathering on for a few moments longer. "You okay, man?"
"No," Stetson growled. “This is ridiculous."
"It makes a lot of sense, actually," Jase said.
"You’re acting like some kind of Regency aunt trying to sell her niece on the marriage market," Stetson said.
Jase stared at him for a full ten seconds, then threw back his head and laughed.
Not knowing what to do with that reaction, Stetson turned around and walked toward his den.
"Where do you think you’re going?" Jase called after him.
"Need a clean shirt and some books.”
"But what about Dew?" Jase said, laughter in his voice.
"What about her?" Stetson tried to keep his voice even, although his inner jaguar was ripping him apart from the inside.
“Do you have any better ideas for helping her get out of the Junkyard?" Jase asked.
“You know I don't," Stetson said.
There was laughter in Jase’s voice as he said, "Noah Ephraimson, Fred Barnum, Damien Buenevista, Ronan Markowicz, Luca Araujo, Konrad Vezirov, Beau Mollin, Dallas Cruthers, Weston Cruthers—"
“What?" Stetson said.
"And you, of course," Jase said.
"Don't." Stetson didn't know what else to say.
“I think Dew and Buenevista would make a cute couple," Jase mused. "Imagine their adorable babies—”
The growl tore through Stetson's throat before he could stop it.
Jase didn't look surprised by Stetson's reaction, only coolly calculating, which told Stetson one thing: Jase had been taunting him on purpose.
"Why?" Stetson said.
“Trying to make you pull your head out of your ass and admit you want this woman," Jase said. “Blythe told me you know her from the library, and she's the one you've been writing to."
Stetson was breathing hard. Jase hadn't once mentioned the poem that he and Blythe had found on the ground a few months ago. He'd simply handed it to Stetson, asked if Stetson needed to talk, and when Stetson had said no, Jase had walked away. Easy.
This, however, was not easy. This was a pain in Stetson's ass.
“I'm not admitting I want anyone, " Stetson said. "Now mind your own damned business and stop trying to matchmake me like a spinster aunt."
Jase frowned and squinted hard at Stetson. Then he relaxed, shrugged, and said, “Fine. I guess we'll do this the hard way, then."
Stetson didn't know what that meant, but he couldn't show that he cared.
"See ya, Stetson," Jase said, giving him a grim, determined smile before turning and walking away.
Stetson worried about that smile on Jase's face all through reading the second half of The Godfather.
He had just set down Mario Puzo and was about to pick up another giant tome—Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake—when footsteps interrupted his solitude. He'd chosen to sit in the remote northwestern area of the Junkyard, near the pond, so he wouldn't have to talk to anyone.
And yet, here someone came, again. He scented mountain lion, but it wasn't Jase. There were notes of hazelnut added to the scent. That meant Grant. Stetson stood up off his warm log bench and faced Grant as he emerged from the shadows.
"You have more news for me." Stetson said.
"Yeah.” Grant’s expression was solemn. “Do you want to tell me what it means? Your pal Jamal Kingston called me this time, left me a voicemail. No idea how he got my number, which isn’t even listed. He wanted me to tell you that Hall is dead, too. Murdered, he said. Like the others, it looks to have happened a week ago. He sounded worried."
Stetson didn't say anything, simply allowing a fierce pleasure to wash through him. Hall had been even worse than Golena and Major.
"You in some kind of trouble?" Grant asked.
"Nope." Stetson was here, hidden away in the Junkyard, keeping up pretenses. He was far away from his old life. No one would follow him here.
“Okay, if you say so.”
“Thanks for passing on the message,” Stetson said.
“No problem.”
Grant walked off and Stetson slumped back onto his log. Hall was one of the guys who would seduce the women. Buy them drinks. He didn’t merely enjoy tricking them into the stables where Cunningham kept them—he liked making them fall in love with him first.
The euphoria of passion followed by the crushing blow of captivity.
Disgusting.
Stetson could deny his role in any of it until his dying breath, but nothing could make him forget the abject despair on those women’s faces.
The death of Hall was good news. Great news. Stetson told himself that was the only reason Kingston was sharing it.
And he almost believed that.
9
Dew sat in the cold winter sunlight, trying to thaw not only her frozen fingers, but her frozen heart. She’d only imagined everything in S’s letters, was that it? How did that even work? She'd memorized many of those letters and poems, and they'd spoken of love and passion. But now she was here and she'd met him in person and—