Tangle of Need

Not now.

Not when he didn’t know the words to say to convince her of a love that had come to define him, a love that bore the name of his prickly, generous, beautiful Adria.

“Fuck.” He slammed his fist into the stone wall of the den, scraping the skin and leaving a streak of blood behind. It barely registered. Instead of howling with possessive fury, he grit his teeth, reined in his wolf—who clawed at him in a confusion of rage and pain—and strode out the same door Adria had used.

He needed to think, to plan. Because no way in hell was he letting her go. She was his, had given herself to him. He wasn’t a generous man when it came to his empress, wouldn’t return her heart. It goddamned belonged to him and he was keeping it.

Fighting his most primal instincts, he ran in the opposite direction from the one she’d taken, pushing himself so hard that his powerful changeling chest hurt with the force of his breaths. Still he ran. Until he was in the thinner air of the higher elevations, the sky riotous with the fiery dance of sunset, and his body forced him to stop. Bracing himself with his palms on his thighs, he gasped in the crisp, clean air, his heart pumping hot and rapid.

It wasn’t as much of a surprise as it should’ve been to see a huge silver-gold wolf materialize out of the trees. Hawke wasn’t alpha simply because he was stronger and faster than the other wolves in the den—he was alpha because he knew his people. Shoving a hand through his sweat-damp hair, Riaz jogged over to the edge of a stream fed by the mountain snows, and threw water onto his face. The chill of it shocked.

When Hawke shifted beside him, he didn’t look at his alpha. It wasn’t the fact the other man was nude—such nakedness after a shift was an accepted part of a changeling’s life, nothing to be remarked upon—but because he had no desire to talk to anyone. “I need to be alone.” It was only Adria he’d allow close to him whenever she wanted. Everyone else could get out and stay there.

Hawke’s response was resolute. “Nell saw you smash your hand into the wall—she thought you probably broke a bone and never noticed. What the hell happened?”

His rage simmered, needing an outlet. “I said, leave me alone.” Deciding to make his point explicit, he shifted into wolf form, lips peeled back to flash his canines.

Hawke changed between one heartbeat and the next, his eyes staring Riaz down. Except Riaz was in no mood for a dominance display. Snarling, he launched his body toward Hawke’s, claws out.

They met in a clash of fur and blood and fury.





Chapter 62


TEN MINUTES LATER, he threw water on his face again, winced. The cut over his eye had bled plenty, and his cheekbone felt as if it was crushed, though it was probably just a heavy bruise. The only consolation was that Hawke hadn’t come out of it unscathed—though he had managed to slam Riaz to the ground at the end, sink his teeth into the scruff of Riaz’s neck.

“You were fighting angry,” the alpha now said. “Made you sloppy.”

Blowing out a breath, Riaz flexed his hand. “Nell was wrong by the way. Nothing broken.” Though his hand was red and raw, his knuckles scraped.

“You ready to talk now?”

“You usually beat your lieutenants to get them to talk?”

Hawke’s bark of laughter was genuine. “Ask Riley sometime.” Running his hand over the fur of one of the wild wolves who had come to stand guard while they fought, the alpha met Riaz’s gaze. “Adria?”

Riaz wasn’t a lone wolf just because he liked solitude. He didn’t trust many people with his innermost thoughts, was happier keeping his silence. Except this time, he knew he needed his alpha’s help. Taking a quiet breath, he began to speak.

“Shit, Riaz,” Hawke said when he finished. “Hell of a mess.”

“Tell me you have the answer.” Hawke was the sole person in the den who might. “You’re the only wolf I know who found his mate twice.”

“Have you?”

Riaz sucked in a breath, the pain in his chest stabbing deeper. “Adria is mine.” He would not budge on that, not now, not ever. She’d just have to get used to that fact. “But the mating tug, it’s towards Lisette.” Though it was no longer a feral, possessive rush, but a gentle knowing at the back of his mind, in itself a strange thing, given that he was a predatory changeling male—then again, nothing about this situation was “normal” in any way.

Hawke’s hair caught the light as the other man shook his head. “If I told you I had the answer, I’d be a liar.”

“Yeah.” There was a single critical difference between his situation and Hawke’s—the child Hawke believed would have been his mate, had died when Hawke had been a boy. “If Rissa had lived…”