Chapter 27

Theo sauntered out the back door. Rafe stood on the edge of the forest at the back of Ruby’s yard. He should have left already. He should have left as soon as Theo showed up but he wanted to make sure Ruby was okay before he did. Which was idiotic because he was the one making her feel like shit.

Theo crossed the yard looking like the smug bastard that he was. Rafe should shift and run. He was positive he didn’t want to hear what his brother had to say anyway, but he was rooted to the spot.

Maybe Ruby kicked him out. Maybe she didn’t want Theo in her house. In that case Rafe couldn’t leave. For safety reasons. Not for “feeling like his heart was being torn out every time he tried to leave” reasons.

“You really are an asshole, aren’t you?” Theo asked, his smile growing wider.

Rafe growled in response.

“You have that pretty little thing waiting inside for you and you’re going to ditch her just like that?”

“I’m not ditching her.” Rafe’s jaw tightened. He was going to need extensive dental work after all this interacting with his brother.

“Oh really? She seemed to think so.”

Rafe ran a hand through his hair. Theo was trying to get a rise out of him and it was working. “I need to go.”

“Then go,” Theo said with a lazy smile. “I’ll keep the lovely Miss Ruby entertained while you’re gone.” The bastard winked. And Rafe saw red.

He shifted before he knew what he was doing, tearing right out of his clothes, like there was only one way to quell the blazing rage racing through his blood at the thought of Theo’s hands on Ruby. Theo rolled his eyes, but tugged off his own clothes and shifted into his wolf form.

They growled and circled each other. Good. This he could do. This he could handle. He lunged for Theo, fangs glinting in the sun. They rolled, clashing and clawing at each other. Rafe bit down hard on Theo’s leg and the metallic tang of blood filled his mouth. Theo growled low in warning and then he flipped them so he was on top, a wolfish grin on his face.

They fought until half the lawn was torn up and they were both bloodied and panting. Theo caved first, turning over on his back, belly up in submission.

“You win again, Rafe,” he panted as soon as he was back in human form. He lay sprawled out naked in the sun and blood trickled from a wound in his arm. How many days had ended like this back when they were young and full of wolfish energy?

Rafe lay next to him, trying to catch his breath, memories of all the other times they’d done this racing through his head. It wasn’t always bad. It wasn’t always some forced show for their father and the pack. For a long time, it had just been him and his brothers pouncing on each other in the tall grass, for fun, for petty victories, to settle their latest argument. But it hadn’t lasted. Their father wanted a winner.

“Keep your hands off Ruby,” he muttered.

Theo laughed. “For fuck’s sake, Rafe, you don’t own the girl. You won’t have her and you won’t let anyone else have her either?”

Rafe sat up and Theo did the same, his green eyes flashing merrily in the sun. Everything was always a joke to him. The youngest, the prettiest. He never had to care about anything. Until they were in the ring and their father wanted blood. But even then it was left to Rafe to make the hard decisions.

“Stay away from her.”

Theo’s eyebrows raised. “You’re serious? What are you going to do? Hang around here scaring off any guy that comes around?”

Rafe was ashamed to say the thought had definitely occurred to him. The idea of any man near Ruby sent his entire body on edge, every muscle coiled to pounce, every atom ready to act.

Theo saw it. He smelled it. The shift in Rafe’s body chemistry.

“Oh my God—”

“Don’t say it,” Rafe warned.

“She’s your—”

“Don’t fucking say another word.”

“Mate.”

Rafe closed his eyes at the word, like he could hide from it.

Theo stood, yanking on his shorts. “She’s your Mate! Holy shit.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“This is huge. What are you going to do?” Theo’s face was lit up like a pup with a bone.

“I’m going to leave, just like I said.” He had to leave. It was the only way to keep Ruby safe. Safe from him, safe from these other wolves, safe from whatever this damn Mate bond might mean for her.

Theo stopped in his tracks, staring down at where Rafe still sat in the flattened grass. “You’re going to abandon your Mate? What the hell are you thinking?”

Rafe ground his teeth together. “It’s for the best.”

“For the best?” Theo shouted. “How could this possibly be for the best? Can you even leave her? I mean, physically. I heard wolves that try to leave their Mates go mad.”

Rafe stood so they were nose to nose. He hadn’t heard that one, but he’d been feeling like he wanted to crawl out of his skin since he figured out what Ruby was to him. Every moment he wasn’t near her felt like being flayed alive, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Theo that. “She’s human. I won’t force her to be tied to me forever. She doesn’t need any more of this werewolf bullshit in her life.”

Theo blew out a long breath. “You didn’t even tell her, did you?”

Rafe flinched.

“Christ, Rafe! You didn’t even give her a chance to decide!”

“She’s not one of us. She wouldn’t understand.”

“So make her understand! She’s your Mate. That’s … that’s … amazing.” Something wistful crossed Theo’s face but Rafe ignored it.

“It’s not amazing. It’s impossible. I’m leaving.” He didn’t want her to understand. This couldn’t work; none of this made sense. He had to get out of here before he did something rash, before he really did go mad with the need to touch her.

“I’m coming with you.” They both swung around at the sound of Ruby’s voice. She strode down the back steps, a backpack slung over one shoulder. She’d changed from that absurdly small skirt into some shorts, but the tight red tank top remained to torture him.

How much had she heard?

“You can’t.” Rafe’s response was immediate and gruff, taking every ounce of strength he had left after his never-ending night of denying his response to her.

Ruby put her hand on one hip and stared him down. Theo huffed a laugh. “You are so screwed,” he whispered under his breath, but Rafe ignored him.

“I can and I will.”

“Ruby…” Rafe’s voice was nothing more than a growl.

“I have all the information now. The fighting with your brothers, the general terrorizing of humans, your… uh … past lady friend…”

Past lady friend?Rafe’s gaze whipped to Theo but the dickhead was already creeping toward the house.

“And I’m not worried about any of it,” Ruby went on. “What I am worried about is my sister’s health, so if your pack can help with that then I want to be a part of it.”

Rafe stood speechless, still trying to figure out what exactly Ruby knew about Scarlet.

“Lena doesn’t believe me about what you guys are, by the way,” she yelled to Theo before he snuck in the back door. “So good luck with that.”

Theo gave her an encouraging smile before he slipped inside. Ruby turned back to Rafe. “Let me come. Please.”

Bad idea, bad idea, bad idea. Everything about this was a bad idea and yet Rafe couldn’t seem to find the words to tell her that she couldn’t come. He was at war with himself. His plan to keep her at a distance battled with his primal urge to keep her close. In the end it wasn’t even a question. It hadn’t been a fair fight.

He swallowed hard. “Fine.”

It was her sister after all. Who was he to tell her that she couldn’t try to help her own family? He ignored how his heart rate slowed as soon as he knew he would be near her. Everything in his body settled into a gentle thrum at the knowledge that Ruby would be by his side for the next two days at least. He would keep her safe until they figured this out and then he would let her go. He had to.

Ruby grinned. “Great.” Her gaze flicked down and then back to his face. “So are you going to put some clothes on for this trip?”

Rafe’s face heated. Shit. He’d completely forgotten he’d ruined his clothes when he shifted. He covered himself with his hands, already half-hard under Ruby’s appraising stare.

“More than I got to see last night,” she muttered, the hurt still fresh in her voice. But he couldn’t have that conversation with her, especially not right now with him bare-assed in her backyard.

“I’ll go get some things and meet you back out here in five.”

“Aye aye, captain,” she said with a smirk. He strode past her and tried to pretend he couldn’t feel her gaze watching him walk away.

* * *

That ass, though. Ruby’s plan to stop sexually objectifying Rafe was not going well. She’d come out here intending to let all that shit go. She only wanted to help Lena. Well, and also get away from Lena, who had thoroughly pissed her off for not taking her seriously. Her sister was the one person in the world she would walk into danger for even while being totally aggravated with her.

Anyway, after the wolves were done with their little wrestling match, she’d thrown some supplies in a bag and marched out ready to go, only to find Rafe in all his naked splendor. Damn him.

She was a grown woman and she could take rejection like an adult. It didn’t mean she was just going to let Rafe pass her safety around from wolf to wolf without her say. He hadn’t exactly spoken highly of this pack he was ready to hand her off to. She wanted to meet them for herself. And maybe this Knox guy would know what to do about Lena.

She was going. She could be around Rafe without throwing herself at him. Probably. She was not going to be a bystander in her own life. Not to mention she was not about to miss out on the chance to meet a real freaking werewolf pack. Ridiculous she may be, but she’d basically prepared her entire life for this moment.

Rafe’s soft grumble let her know he was back and fully clothed.

“You need to work tonight?” he asked, coming up beside her.

“I called in.”

He nodded. “We can take Theo’s truck part way but then we’ll hike in. We’ll need to stay the night.”

Ruby ignored the way her skin prickled at the idea. Rafe had already been staying in her bedroom. A little campout wouldn’t be any different.

“Okay, great. Let’s go.”

Rafe let out a long-suffering sigh as they walked to the front of the house to Theo’s truck. The white Ford pickup sat waiting for them and with it the memory of Rafe suggesting they get each other out of their systems. The suggestion that had taken their tenuous friendship and thoroughly killed it.

She climbed up into the seat, willing the memory of Rafe’s head between her thighs from her mind. It didn’t want to go. He’d just been so damn enthusiastic. Like licking her was his entire purpose in life, like she was his new favorite flavor…

“Buckle up.”

Rafe’s gruff command broke through her reverie. Thank God.

“Do you even have a driver’s license?” she asked as they pulled away, the thought suddenly occurring to her.

“Of course.”

“Is it real?”

“Uh…” Rafe paused. “Real enough.”

Ruby laughed, putting her feet up on the dashboard. “All this concern for my safety and here I am driving with an unlicensed driver.”

“I know how to drive,” he grumbled. “I can’t exactly get official documents for that sort of shit.”

Right, the whole being hundreds of years old thing. It probably also explained why he was so grumpy all the time and how he got so good at oral. Damn it, Ruby. Head out of the gutter!

“What were you and Theo fighting about earlier?” Ruby watched Rafe’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. The muscle ticked in his jaw.

“We’re always fighting.”

“But what was it this time?” she pushed, remembering the tension radiating off Rafe when she walked into the yard. And the bewildered excitement coming from Theo. It was weird.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, what?” Rafe’s eyes cut to hers and then back to the road.

“It seemed like it did matter, that’s all.”

Rafe grunted in response so Ruby didn’t bother probing further. Instead she watched the towering pines whizz past as they drove out of town. The sky was summertime blue with cotton ball clouds. The type of day that was perfect for a backyard cookout, the type with watermelon and lots of grilled meats made by a dad in an apron. Or so she assumed. Aunt Millie wasn’t much for cooking out or cooking anything really. But she did make a mean cucumber sandwich, perfect for a picnic in the sunroom.

Ruby sighed. Sometimes the memories of what she did have and what she didn’t conspired to make her sad in two completely different ways. She missed the childhood she didn’t get to have, the one with her parents. The one where she wasn’t a freak. The one with her family intact. But she loved living with her aunt. She’d given her and Lena the best childhood she could in her own quirky way. And now that she was gone Ruby missed her too.

More memories flooded in, memories of odd things her aunt would say. She spoke about history as though she’d lived through it, as though she’d been there. And there was the box of old photos Ruby and Lena had discovered the summer Ruby turned thirteen. Ancient pictures of a woman who looked so much like their aunt, but if the dates on the back were correct it would make her nearly one hundred and fifty. When asked, she’d waved an old weathered hand at them. “Ancestors,” she’d said. Aunt Millie seemed to know so much, too much. Ruby was young; she thought her aunt was full of old person wisdom, but now she wondered—

“What are you thinking about?”

Ruby turned in her seat to stare at Rafe. He’d never initiated a conversation with her before. She’d assumed her chatter and constant questions were annoying.

“You want to know what I’m thinking about?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You got all quiet. And you keep sighing.” He shrugged again and Ruby bit her lip to keep from smiling. “Makes a guy wonder.”

“I was thinking about how I never got to have a proper cookout with my dad.” Her theories about Aunt Millie still seemed too absurd to admit, even to a werewolf. Maybe she was misremembering. She’d been so young.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. But then I was also thinking about my aunt’s funny little tea sandwiches she used to make and how we used to dress up to eat them. Like a fancy tea party.”

Rafe huffed a laugh. “I bet you were cute.”

“I was super cute. The cutest.” She smiled. “I used to set two extra spots for my parents. Lena hated it. She didn’t want to hear about ghosts. Or any of my other ridiculous ideas.”

“Ruby, I—”

“It’s fine.” She waved him away.

“It’s not fine. I shouldn’t have said that to you. I was being an asshole.”

“True.”

He huffed. “It’s a chronic problem.”

Ruby stifled a laugh. “Yeah, Theo mentioned.” She shifted in her seat, not sure if she should bring up the subject of Rafe’s former love, but also really, really wanting to. “He explained why you might be so … worried about me.”

Rafe let out a long sigh, his hands clenching and unclenching around the steering wheel.

“Do you want to tell me about her?” she asked. “It might help.”

He shook his head a little, strands of hair tumbling loose from their tie. In the quiet, Ruby thought he might not tell her anything. And she would just have to respect that. Not everyone was as keen on talking about their dead loved ones as she was.

“It was my fault she died,” he said finally. “I don’t want to repeat that mistake.”

God, the guilt this man had lived with for so long. Ruby swallowed the tears that had suddenly risen in her throat.

“What was she like?” she asked, steering the conversation from the woman’s death back to her life.

“She was sweet,” Rafe said, his voice hoarse with emotion. “She worked at the general store in town to support her and her father after her brothers enlisted in the war.”

“The war?”

“First World War.”

Ruby blew out a breath. “Shit, you are old.”

Rafe barked an unexpected laugh. “Yeah, I know.” He shook his head, but kept talking. Ruby let his low voice wash over her, the story of his lost love comforting even though she knew the ending. “She was in there working every time I’d make the trip into town for supplies. We didn’t need much back then, mostly lived off the land, but I started stopping in more often. Making more excuses to see her.

“She smelled like candy, like burnt sugar and sunshine. Her hair was dark like yours, but she had light eyes and she was always smiling. Seeing her … it was like for the first time I saw something outside of my own world. Something that wasn’t violent or cruel.” He paused, pushing his hair out of his face. Ruby didn’t dare move or speak, afraid he would stop talking and she would lose this glimpse of his life, of his heart.

“She looked at me like…” He swallowed hard. “She looked at me like I was something good. No one had ever looked at me like that before.”

He cleared his throat and Ruby swiped the tears from her eyes. “It didn’t matter, though. In the end. She stopped looking at me like that once she found out what I was. What I am.”

“Rafe, I’m sorry.” Ruby pried one of his hands from the steering wheel and held it in her own. She pressed kisses to the back and to the palm until Rafe’s body relaxed.

“I should have left her alone after that.” His voice was rough and quiet. Endless trees flew past the windows and the road curved in front of them. “But I was a selfish bastard. I led my father right to her. I should have never—”

“Don’t.” Ruby squeezed his hand and he tore his eyes from the road to glance at her. “What your father did is on his soul, not yours.”

His jaw clenched as he stared at the road ahead of them. “I’ve been stalking you for weeks, Ruby. I could have led that wolf right to your door.”

She shook her head even though he wasn’t looking at her. “No. You saved me from that wolf. I am nothing but glad you were there.”

“I can’t stay away from you.” His voice broke on the last word and Ruby brought his hand to her lips again.

“I don’t want you to. I want you with me.”

Rafe blew out a long shuddering breath.

“I thought I’d been pretty obvious about that,” she added with a smile.

“You’ve been stubborn, that’s for sure.”

Ruby laughed. “You should probably just give in.”

He brought her hand to his lips this time, his breath warm across her knuckles when he spoke. “I might have to.”