It was peaceful, and I was ready to rest. I remembered floating and then sinking slowly down into a cool, soothing deep, a well of comforting blackness, hearing, I thought, my mother calling my name. That was odd, because I’d lost both her and my father years before, but I could have sworn—
“Tucker Flynn!”
It was like being dropped from a great height into a pool of freezing water. There was no swaddling softness, only sharp, wrenching, convulsing pain, like I was being turned inside out, twisted and bent, bones broken, muscles torn, blood spilled, and fire running through my veins.
I prayed for death.
My name came a second time, roared as though carried by a driving, shrieking wind. The sound lanced through my brain, an ice pick driven between my eyes, sharp, excruciating, consuming and obliterating, and I howled in raw agony as I was dragged into the bright, bright light, floundering and twitching, shivering in the cold.
It took a second to realize that the horrific screams were being wrung from my own throat. I was making the high-pitched, screeching wail, no one else.
When I sat up, as though rising from the deep, violently breaking the surface of the water, my eyes flying open, shaking violently, Quade put his big, strong hands on my face and exhaled deeply, clearly relieved.
His touch was the only thing that grounded me, soothed the fissures in my sanity, and kept me from flying into a million pieces.
“I need you,” he told me. “There’s nowhere you can go that I can’t follow.”
I tried really hard to breathe.
“I know you were content in the darkness, but I’m not ready to be parted.”
“You should have let me go,” I whined through chattering teeth, humiliated by how weak I felt and sounded. My body was shredded and torn; I was in pieces. It was selfish to bring me back. “The kindness was to give up,” I told him, “not make me suffer.”
“Tough shit,” he growled at me before he stood up from where he’d been sitting next to my bed in Renau’s home. “Pack his clothes; he’s coming with me to L’Ange so I can make sure he gets better and learns his value.”
Whatever the hell that meant.
A week later, in my private suite near his on the third floor in the house—château, as Roman preferred it called—I asked to see him.
“Alpha,” I said, instead of Quade, when he came to my room.
We’d been friends in high school, me a freshman when he was a senior, and things had always been good between us. I, of course, responded to the pull of the alpha, as well as to his dark blue eyes and beautiful body. More than that, though, I had wanted to serve him, to protect him and stand at his side as his champion. The need was hardwired deep, and when he’d finally returned, he’d known it, recognized the desire in me, and had named me, along with Garrett, anpu, his protectors. I wasn’t the biggest or strongest, but he knew I would give my life to keep him and his mate safe. At the moment, since I was hoping to get him to change his mind and let me return to Phoenix from the icebox that was Maine in January, I used the title when I addressed him.
“What?” he asked, his voice gruff and low, which wasn’t good. The scowl I received was no better and made me despair my chances of going home.
I cleared my throat. “I really think, now that I’m up, I––”
“You’re staying right here with me,” he replied flatly.
“Yeah, but––”
“That’s it, Tucker. I’ve made my decision.”
“But you’re supposed to be in Phoenix right now anyway. Six months here, six months there, and your six months there was supposed to start on New Year’s Day.”
His eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me what to do?”
“You know I’m not; I’m just reminding you that––”
“We both know I’ve been traveling between the two places more often, and not spending the full six months in either location.”
“Yes, but––”
“And since you’re still mending, I’m good here.”
Shit. “But my family and––”
“Your cousins and aunts and uncles can have you back in February or March. Right now, you remain with me. Period.”
“Yeah, but I have a job there and––”
“You’re a web designer. You Skype, you call, I’m not seeing the issue.”
“I have a boyfriend.”
Glower then, full-on judgment. “Justin is not your boyfriend,” he assured me, his voice having gone icy. “You have an open relationship with a guy who I’ve seen out with other people more than I’ve ever seen him with you. He treats you like a doormat, and you allow that behavior because, for whatever reason, you’ve come to believe that’s all you deserve.”
“What? No,” I argued, even though he had hit the nail directly on the head.
Justin Cole was gorgeous and successful, an attorney and a new member of our pack who had moved from Manhattan to Phoenix a year ago. I’d been thrilled when he looked my way, surprised that he’d be interested in me. I understood why soon enough. He wanted not only a submissive partner, which I was, but also one who would take what little Justin was willing to give. I was a booty call, that was it, and worse, now he wanted me to do other things for him, like allow myself to be passed around. There were things a lot of shifters enjoyed, blood play for example, where only partners were accepted, for safety. He was pressing me to take part, and that’s when I realized there were limits to what I would do for him. I wanted to be loved, and I allowed him to treat me like a piece of meat because I was certain, one day, he’d have that romantic epiphany and truly see me. It was not going to happen, and the last time I’d seen him, before the event that put me in the hospital, I realized how pathetic I was.
Years before, I’d given Arman de Soto hell for not being straight with me, but that wasn’t who I was anymore. My ability to stick up for myself, to demand I be treated better, had been trampled under a slew of bad relationships that all ended the same way, with me alone. No one my age wanted a quiet man who craved a hearth and home, at least none that I had come across. Being a hopeless romantic had set me up for one disappointment after another, and finally, I was tapped out. The man who would cherish me had never shown up, and a fated mate was not something I’d ever even imagined. A mate was something alphas found, not lowly pack members. Even when Quade made me more, gave me external value in the pack to the eyes of those around me, I remained the same—pathetic Tucker who jumped at the chance to be loved, and never would be.
“You’re my guardian, Tucker, and I didn’t choose you because I felt sorry for you, or because you’d keep me safe by sacrificing your life for mine.”
“Alpha––”
“I chose you because you’re strong, inside and out, heart and soul.”
He was deluded. “I promise I won’t go back to Justin if you––”
“No,” he agreed, “you won’t. I had everything you own packed and put in storage, and so until I allow it, you will remain here, at my side.”
The animal in me was basking in the attention of my alpha. Having him want me with him, his insistence on having me at his side, was a rush, and my heart swelled with joy.