Chapter 11 - Beth

Out in the garden, Beth stopped to watch a turtle scramble onto a rock. The pond water left the stone slippery, and the turtle's legs worked and scratched as it tried to climb aboard.

"Should we help him?" She asked, leaning forward across the water. Lily pads in bloom floated lazily on the surface.

Devon gave her a look. She was getting familiar with that one, bemused like he was indulging her. "Let him work for it. He'll get there."

"He'll be exhausted by then." She frowned, watching the turtle swim around the other side of the rock to begin his attempts again.

"He'll be stronger for it." Devon insisted.

"Probably grumpier, though." Beth crept around the pond until she was close enough to grab hold of the turtle. She lifted him gently up onto the rock, and he settled in to bask in the sun.

Satisfied, she sat back on her heels, flashing a smile up at Devon. He rolled his eyes, holding his hand out to help her up.

"Grumpy, huh?" He held tight to her hand as they continued their walk around the garden.

She nudged him with her shoulder. "Don't even try to deny it."

He huffed. It was a rare, quiet morning with the rest of the pack still in bed. She could almost pretend they were the only two there, that their relationship was nothing more complicated than that, a moment of discussion over a turtle's struggle. The truth was so much more jagged than that.

Guilt plagued Beth's every step. She was lying to Devon, with her words, her smiles, and her hand clutching his. Letting him believe that she believed his promise.

She wished she could. But she knew better than to trust a White Winter, no matter how tenderly he held her or how badly she wanted to kiss him. So she'd play the part. Sink deeper into the pack until she knew everything there was to know, and then she'd use that to help the Rosewoods destroy them.

"Are you thinking of home?" He asked, surprising her.

They mostly avoided talking about the Rosewoods, the family and friends she'd left behind. Undoubtedly, it was easier for him to pretend that she was there by choice. Always, she wanted to reply.

"Just my friend, Adria." She looked away, across the line of trees, in the direction of the Rosewood territory. "My best friend. Maybe I could visit her sometime? Just a visit."

Devon clamped his jaw. But he didn't say no. "Maybe. In time."

"With a few White Winter guards at my elbows?" A shadow of pain crossed her face. She knew as well as he did that there was no chance of letting her visit home. They both knew that she'd never come back.

He pulled her to a stop there in the garden, in the shadow of a grand, old oak.

"It's not forever, Beth. It's just for now." Devon held his arms out to her, his back against the tree.

Just for now. Lies fell so easily from his tongue, but she went to him, pressed her head against his chest, and breathed in the scent of her mate as it mingled with the perfume of the garden. Her fingertips skimmed the day-old stubble on his chin. He was warm and solid, and her body melted against his, into the safety promised when held by something so strong. Surely it wasn't wrong, to live for just a moment in fantasy.

She worked her fingers lower, up under the hem of his shirt. Tracing the scars that crisscrossed his firm chest, his muscular back, she was pleased to hear his soft sigh of pleasure. Her touch grew bolder.

From the hollow of his throat, she drew her fingers down, down, to the button of his jeans. He caught her lips in a kiss as she worked blindly, unzipping his jeans to grab hold of him.

His head lolled back against the tree when she wrapped her fingers around his cock, finding it hard and warm and ready for her. She stroked him slowly, watching his eyelids flutter, and felt a sort of power she'd never felt before, watching this man come undone in her hands.

"Beth," he begged, when she kept that steady pace, not giving him a bit more than she wanted to. "Beth, please."

His hips bucked, pushing himself into her hands. She shook her head, denying him, and he growled in frustration. Suddenly, he was gripping her, his hands cupping her ass to spin them, pressing her back against the tree.

Now, she was his to torment. He held one hand on the back of her head to pillow her, and the other worked under her shirt, flicking lightly over her nipple until it hardened for him. She gasped when he pulled her shirt up, exposing her breasts to the cool air, but his mouth was there to cover them a heartbeat later. His tongue mimicked his finger's work, and soon she was arching against him, moaning into his ear.

She let her thumb drag over the head of his cock, catching the slick there. He wanted her so badly, it made her thrum with a responding ache. It was all she could do not to shove her own jeans down and take him inside her then and there.

Her short skirt had ridden up, exposing her panties. Devon touched her there, over them, feeling the soaked fabric. He let out a groan like a man dying of need, then slipped his fingers underneath.

Beth panted, gripping his shoulder to keep her legs from buckling. He dragged a finger up through her wetness, then rubbed it lightly over her clit, driving her closer and closer to the edge. She bit her lip to keep from crying out when he sunk first one, then a second finger inside her.

The feel of her around squeezing tight and hot around him undid him. His cum roped across her arm, her stomach, her hand.

"Fuck," he groaned, dropping to his knees, fingers still deep inside of her.

He pushed her panties to one side, and before she could protest, his tongue was there, lapping at her clit as his fingers worked in and out. Her fingers knotted in his hair, and it was her turn to buck against him, past the point of caring if it was too much. She couldn't keep in her cry when her orgasm hit, crashing over her in a wave that turned her legs to jelly.

Chest heaving, she pulled him to his feet and draped her arms around him, lazy and warm, tingling.

"Do you think anyone heard that?" She mumbled into his neck.

He laughed, low and throaty. "It could've been anything. A bird. A bear. No one will know."

She let out a whine of protest when he pulled away, planting kisses on the top of her head.

"I was basking there," she said, pouting.

Devon yanked his shirt off over his head and started to clean her up, wiping off the mess he'd made all over her. "If we don't clean this soon, it won't be the noise in the garden that gives us away."

Watching him like that, shirtless and caring, was starting another knot of heat at the base of her spine. She cleared her throat and looked up at the sunlight dappling the canopy above her. Had she really just done that? Outside? With the White Winter alpha? Every part of it made her head spin.

But there wasn't a hint of regret inside of her. Her desire for Devon, the physical part of it, was as natural as breathing. Uncomplicated. Inescapable. It was everything else about them that resembled a tangled web.

He tucked his shirt into his pocket and pulled her back in. She lingered there longer than she should have, listening to his heartbeat beneath her cheek. It didn't sound like a tainted, warped thing. It was steady, still quick with passion, and beating for her alone. If she could see it, peer into his chest, and study it there, would she spot a core of darkness? Or was it a single thread of black, veining through it, something she could excise with a snip?

She looped her arm through his, taking the long way back through the garden to the house. They passed the turtle, still on his rock, and she nudged Devon.

"Still happy," she said.

"All his success was handed to him," he replied. Then, to the turtle, "Shame on you."

"You're ridiculous." Impulsively, she asked what had been circling in her mind since their last conversation about the territories. "What is the next step? For the White Winters, I mean."

She expected his face to shutter as it always had before. This time, he frowned, but his eyes didn't darken in the way she'd grown used to. He was thoughtful, and it was a moment before he responded.

"The pack requires regular shows of strength. We've made progress, but that's the way it is for now, and if I don't perform well, Emma will be at my throat. A raid, a hunt, something like that. I need to push the territory boundary a little farther."

"Devon," Beth protested, squeezing his arm.

"It's not what I want, but your plan will take time. We need to make contact with the Rosewoods and get a message to their alpha for a meeting. In the meantime, if I let the pack get unruly and, let's face it, bloodthirsty, they'll be less receptive to negotiation as a means to acquiring this land. They might take matters into their own hands."

Beth shivered. It wasn't hard to imagine the White Winter pack doing exactly that. Hurting for sport. Running rampant through a town just to watch the people suffer.

That reminded her of something.

"Why do you let Caleb carry on a relationship with a human? I've heard him talk about a woman named Amy in town, and it's pretty obvious that Emma wants her dead. Aren't you worried things will get messy, given the nature of the two of them?"

He swallowed guiltily. "I hadn't really thought about it, to be honest with you. I was kind of glad that he was backing off of Em. For a while, I was worried it was going to get messy between the two of them and Jonah."

"I don't know what Jonah sees in her. He's too sweet for that." She knew, of course, what Jonah saw in Emma—she was gorgeous.

They left the shade of the garden and the illusion of peace with it. With the White Winter house looming over her like a constant reminder, there was no way for Beth to pretend that Devon was not her captor. She pulled her arm free and wrapped it around herself instead. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

"She wasn't always this bad, you know. Everyone here is more than their reputation, more than their worst days. I know it doesn't make sense to you, but people are driven to do desperate, awful things."

Beth looked past him, over his shoulder. It was easier to keep her anger hot when she wasn't looking into his eyes.

"Desperate people don't always do awful things. And look at this place," she said, waving her hand to the palatial house beside them, "maybe they were outcasts once, struggling to find their place. They're not anymore. There's no excuse."

"Sometimes, you spend so long in that dark place, doing whatever you have to, that you don't know how to find your way out again."

His voice was pained, frustrated. He was pulling away from her, like always when she pushed too much on this topic.

She didn't want to let it go this time.

"Then we drag them back kicking and screaming if we have to."

"All that work for this band of killers?" He cocked an eyebrow at her and started up the stairs to the house, leaving her trailing behind.

"If you don't ever believe they can be more," she continued, catching up to him and grabbing his arm, "then they won't be."

He towered over her, two steps above. "And if they don't believe it themselves? If they don't even want it?"

She had thought of it. Despite what Devon thought, she wasn't so naive as to think everyone was redeemable. Emma, probably, would never be able to overcome her nature. She seemed determined to be cruel in every possible way. But Jonah? Caleb? There were sparks in them.

"We just have to show them. We have to lead them." She watched her words land on him like he was shouldering a burden. Not for the first, she wondered why he had ever wanted to be alpha.

"Now you're talking like a luna," he said, with a quick flash of a grin. He bounded up the last few steps and pushed open the door.