He wondered if she had been able to sense just how much he wished he could give her those words she wanted. It amazed him how there could be so much power in three little words. To him, they didn’t have any true meaning or hold the same power because they had never been part of his vocabulary. It wouldn’t have been any different than someone reciting an unfamiliar Japanese phrase and expecting him to not only repeat it but to also understand what it meant. His mom had been a good mother, but she hadn’t been what anyone might call tender or ‘loving’. His dad had been far from it. Even Greta, the person who had played the most part in his upbringing, had never used those words though he believed she cared for him.
Trey knew though that even if he had heard it every day of his life there was still a possibility he couldn’t have repeated it to Taryn. Considering the things he had done in his life and how fucked up his conscience was, it was possible that ‘love’ wasn’t something a person like him could feel, that it was reserved for good people like Taryn. It made him wish that he was a better person. There was no denying that Taryn deserved a better mate. Even with that in mind, though, he couldn’t give her up. Wouldn’t.
He hadn’t thought of his life as something that was dark or empty until she came here and suddenly lit it up and filled it. Even when he had been doing his level best to avoid her he had been simultaneously drinking in her presence in his life. It pained both him and his wolf that he couldn’t give her – his mate – what she needed. What he did know was that if it was possible for someone like him to experience an emotion so strong, then Trey would feel it for Taryn.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“So…who do we think the informant is?”
Everyone at the patio table looked at Dante, but no one answered him. No one wanted to actually face the fact that one of their own had betrayed them. Trey had secretly arranged for he, Taryn, Dante, and his enforcers to meet at the lake this morning to discuss the issue in private. As sad as it was, he felt that these were the only members of his pack he could truly trust. Well, them and Greta. However, he didn’t trust Greta to keep the issue of the informant to herself. She would most likely begin confronting and interrogating everyone, and he didn’t want the informant to know that they were aware of his betrayal yet. Taryn very much doubted that Darryl’s two thugs would own up to him that they’d told her about the informant, so if Trey played dumb they might just get to the bottom of the matter before anything else happened.
“Personally, I don’t think it’s a stretch to conclude that it’s the same person who vandalized Taryn’s car, killed the bird, and left her with that bump a few weeks back.” Tao shrugged.
“Then we need to look at people who aren’t particularly happy about her being here,” said Trick around a mouth of chewing gum.
“Most of us weren’t happy at the beginning, including me,” admitted Dominic before offering her an apologetic smile – a smile that quickly turned impish, warning her of what was to come. “Of course I love you now. If I had a star for every time you brightened my day, I’d have a galaxy in my hand.” As usual, some groaned, some chuckled, and Trey hit him.
Taryn shook her head. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Dominic winked.
“Getting back to the shitty subject at hand…The obvious suspects would be Selma and Hope,” said Trey, massaging Taryn’s nape. “Although I think Hope would have only been involved if Selma was.”
Tao cocked his head. “What about Kirk? He’s sure pissed about her being here.”
“I don’t get why he’s so hateful about it though,” said Taryn. “I mean, I know he doesn’t like me, but if he is responsible for all this then it seems a bit of an overreaction to disliking me.”
“Kirk’s always been hateful. He has issues. Mommy issues.”
“Care to elaborate?”
It was Marcus who explained. “His mom was human. She wasn’t Brock’s true mate. Apparently Brock found his true mate but she was already shacked up with another guy. He got involved with this human female – not telling her he was a shifter. When she realized what Brock was and that their son was half-shifter, she freaked and deserted them both. Kirk had only been a toddler at the time.”
Taryn couldn’t help feeling a pang of sympathy for both Kirk and Brock. “There’s always the senile old crone,” she said with a smile.
“Greta might call you every name under the blue moon, baby, but I know for sure she likes you in her own way,” Trey assured her.
She snorted. “If you say so. Maybe it’s not about someone liking or disliking me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if we’re assuming that the informant has been in contact with Darryl from the beginning, we have to assume that they told him our mating was all about a deal so that you had plenty of alliances. Darryl wouldn’t have liked that, so he would have wanted me out of the equation. A good way to do that would be by trying make me feel unwelcome, damaging my car, killing my raven.”
Marcus nodded a few times. “If you think about it, it wasn’t until you both discovered that you were true mates that anyone tried to actually hurt you.”
“It would make sense for him to want you hurt, as is evident from last night,” said Ryan. “A shifter whose mate is hurting isn’t in the best frame of mind, and it would make you, Trey, more easily provoked into breaking the agreement of a twelve week gap between anyone making good on the challenge from Darryl.”
Trey wanted to punch something. The betrayal cut deeper than he would have thought possible. Apparently he wasn’t as guarded as he’d always thought himself to be, or maybe his mating with Taryn had changed that. “Why would someone help Darryl? What could they possibly gain from it? If they weren’t happy here and wanted to join his pack, they could have left. I wouldn’t have stopped them. What they’ve done is punishable by death.”
“Then the question is,” began Trick, “who would be prepared to take that risk?”
After a long silence, Trey sighed and got to his feet. “I need to go for a run. My wolf’s restless and pissed, and I can’t think straight when he’s fighting for supremacy so hard.”
Tao shrugged. “Then let’s all go for a run together.”