“But I’m not your parents,” Tate protested. “I actually care about Megan and want what’s best for her.”
“I get that, but think back on how you were when you were eighteen years old and anyone tried to tell you what to do. That’s an age when you think you know it all, and it’s only time and painful experience that teaches you otherwise. She may end up having to get her heart broken to find out you’re right. At which point, you most definitely should not say I told you so. You should act surprised and supportive.”
“And then rip his heart out with my fangs.”
“Er, maybe not that.”
Tate’s grim smile was not particularly reassuring, but then again, if Frank Sinclair was fool enough to mess around with the teenaged sister of an Alpha after he’d been warned off, then he should be prepared to face the consequences.
The truck glided to a stop in front of a small, logcabin-style house set among swaying pines. The sun dipped towards the horizon, painting the clouds in watercolor shades of red and orange and yellow.
The pizza arrived just as they were pulling up. Tate tipped the driver generously, unlocked the door, and followed Lainey into the house.
The cabin was small and cozy and definitely had belonged to a bachelor. There were deer heads on the wall, moose antlers and big bass mounted on plaques. The kitchen table was an old barn door set on a sanded swirl of tree branches.
They carried the pizza out to the back porch, where they sat side by side on the porch swing and watched the ruby glimmers of the lowering sun as it plunged below the distant pine tree tops.
The pizza was delicious, the tomato sauce tart and tangy and a perfect counterpoint to the golden ooze of the melted cheese. Normally, Lainey was a girl who savored her food and lingered over it, but she couldn’t stop thinking about what was to come. She still wasn’t at the point where she felt comfortable getting naked in front of a man. Not even Tate, who, she was coming to realize, she truly trusted.
Nervous, she set down the crust of her pizza and patted at her mouth with her napkin. “That was delicious, thank you,” she said. Ugh. She sounded like she was reading from an etiquette book.
Tate didn’t seem to mind. “There’s plenty more where that came from,” he said, with a sensual glint in his eye.
Her heart caught in her throat.
She wanted him so much it scared her. She was afraid of how much she was falling for him in such a short time, afraid he’d break her heart, afraid he’d change his mind.
She willed her mouth to move.
“So, is yours a big pack?” she asked in a bright voice.
I’m stalling, she thought to herself. I want to rip his clothes off with my teeth and lick him from head to toe, but I can’t get past my fear.
“No, it’s pretty small, like the county we live in. It’s my family and a couple of other families in the pack. There’s also a panther tribe out there, and a pride of mountain lions. No bobcats, though…yet.”
He paused, then his gaze drifted into the distance, and the good humor drained from his face. “I became the Alpha a lot sooner than I expected, or wanted. My father was killed by a rogue Alpha trying to take our territory.”
Lainey drew in her breath sharply.
“I’m so sorry.”
His nodded curtly, his face set in grim lines now. “He issued a Death Challenge. Of course, my father had to take it, or leave the territory and our family, never to return.”
“A Death Challenge…my God. It’s very different in the city,” Lainey said. “I don’t know the last time someone’s issued a Death Challenge in Philly. Several decades, at least.”
“I know. It is very different here in the parts of the country where we still hold on to the old ways. It can be brutal and unfair, although no more brutal and unfair than it is in the city, with shifters acting just like humans, climbing to the top by destroying each other financially, making a fortunate at the expense of others, putting money and blind ambition before family, all while trying to deny their true natures.”
“That’s very true. My parents are living examples of that.”
“This was a crazy rogue who had been driven from his own pack. My father should have stepped down as Alpha and let me take the challenge instead, but he refused. Stubborn pride. That’s an Alpha for you. After he died, I challenged the rogue, and killed him.” His face was grim, lines of pain etched in it.