Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

I was lying in bed at dawn, wearing the same clothes as last night, staring at the ceiling, when Kicks walked in.

"I've been thinking about this all night. I think the best way to approach it is to hit it head-on, call everyone over, and just put it out there."

I sat up, not liking the sound of this at all. "Put what out there?"

"That we're looking into what happened. That you had no malice toward Zetti and that you aren't to be blamed for what happened. That's it. Beginning and end of story."

I stared at him, speechless. Could he be that na?ve to think this would work? He'd declare it so and that was it?

I finally found some words, and they weren't good for my case. "Except even you doubt whether I killed her or not."

"It looks bad, but you don't think you killed her. I believe you." He walked over to the window, looking as if he were trying to piece this together himself. "I believe, at least, that it wasn't intentional."

I hoped he wasn't planning on putting that last line into the speech. It didn't sound like a winner.

"These people don't know me enough to guess at my intentions or presume I didn't mean to murder her," I replied. "What they've heard is going to make them lean the other way. This won't work."

"They'll listen to me. They might not believe it, but they'll give you the benefit if I demand it, and I do."

I'd thought I was stubborn, but looking at the set of his brows, the line of his mouth, he wasn't going to budge. He was going to tell them what to think, and damn them if they didn't go along with it.

When I first got my mother's cancer diagnosis, I'd convinced myself I could fix her, that I'd find a way to heal her from the strength of my convictions alone. He looked as if he were having a similar moment, thinking he could force his will and make this right through sheer determination.

I'd been wrong. I was sure he was wrong as well. One of the things that held a pack together was safety and survival in numbers. If one of the numbers in the heart of the pack was diseased, the entire structure around it crumbled. Unfortunately, I was looking like that diseased limb that had to be cut off.

"I'm arranging to speak to them this morning. The sooner the better. I'll get Magnum to take Charlie up river a ways fishing, far enough away that he won't hear anything."

Charlie would hear the chatter soon enough anyway, but in case the meeting went bad, I'd spare him the worst of it if I could. Either way, there was no stopping Kicks. This was going to happen.

I watched Charlie sleep, and a frisson of panic set in when he stirred. He opened his eyes and smiled at me.

"Are we having more muffins for breakfast?" he asked.

"Sure. Kicks already picked some up." Was that his biggest concern? Did he know what had happened?

He slid off the bed, yawning and making his way to the kitchen table.

"Did you hear about anything that happened last night?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said, taking a bite of a muffin.

I poured him some water. "Are you upset about it? If you are, I want you to tell me, okay?"

"Sure," he said. "Do we have any chocolate milk?"

Did he know Zetti was dead? Did I push it further or let it go? Did I want to turn it into something for him if it wasn't? But what would happen if he didn't know and heard about it later?

"Someone looking for milk?" Kicks asked, walking in the door with a jug and one of those squeezy bottles of chocolate that had a shelf life of a decade.

"Yay! Thank you, Kicks," Charlie said.

Kicks brought the stuff over to the table. "Magnum wanted to take you fishing today at his favorite secret spot, so get dressed as soon as you're done eating."

"This is the best day ever," Charlie said, then gulped down his milk and took a muffin with him back to his room to get ready.

"Where's Charlie going to be, exactly? How far up the river?" I asked Kicks.

"A couple of miles, just out of earshot. Don't worry. Everything is going to be fine."

Yeah, there was that word again—fine. If he wanted to calm me, that wasn't the word to use.

"Don't forget you said that."

"Are you ready?" Kicks asked an hour later.

Ready? To see the pack who thought I was a murderer and probably wanted to hang me? Was there a way to get ready for that? "Sure."

The minute I walked out of the cabin, I could feel the tension in the air, the crowd that was forming nearby all turning their gazes to me. I took a deep breath, trying to not look as rattled as a pissed-off snake.

Kicks wrapped his hand around mine. It might've been to show his support in front of the pack, as more than a few sets of eyes went to our connection. He gave my hand a squeeze before stepping forward. The visual might've been for the pack, but that had been just for me. I walked beside him, feeling as if his hand were a lifeline, and we made our way to the head of the crowd.

The murmurs quieted as we stepped in front of what appeared to be the entire pack. The two hundred or so members felt more like two thousand as they stared at me with open suspicion. Kicks didn't let go of my hand once, not even as he started to speak.

"I want to open up by saying we're all hurting today. We're all mourning Zetti. She was the oldest of our pack, like a grandmother to most of us. Her presence was part of the foundation of this place and our people."

It made sense for him to open up like this. He had to acknowledge her death. It would be callous of him not to. Still, it made me want to crawl under a rock like the slug I was viewed as.

"By now, even if you weren't there last night, you've all heard the stories of what happened. In spite of what you might've heard, we don't know what caused Zetti's death. Whatever happened was not brought about by an intentional act. We are looking into what caused her death, but at most, it was an accident. There are things being said, suggestions being made, that will not be tolerated. I won't repeat them here because they're unworthy of being discussed.

"No one will be getting punished for it. No one will be targeted because of it. I will not stand for any acts of aggression in relation to it. That is my final word, and if you can't live with that, then you're free to leave this pack."

Kicks was standing in front of his shifters, giving them an ultimatum, while I stared over the crowd's heads, afraid to make eye contact. I'd seen their looks once, and I didn't want to see them again.

This wasn't the way I'd imagined this going down. I hadn't expected him to have my back to quite this degree when even he had his doubts. And yet here he was, telling them all they had to accept it or leave.

Part of me wanted to jump into his arms and thank him, maybe sob a bit as I did. The other part was speechless. He couldn't believe this was going to work, could he? I got it, he was their alpha, but there had to be limits even in this sort of setup, right? That part of me wanted to drop my face into my hands and groan.

"Any questions?" Kicks asked, his tone breaking through my thoughts.

No one said anything. They might have been too shocked to speak.

"Then that's all," he said as some still stared, gaping at him.

The crowd slowly broke away, little clumps of people at a time wandering off and looking as shocked as I was. I didn't wait for Kicks and wandered back to the cabin, although he was right behind me, feeling almost like a bodyguard at the moment.

This wasn't going to work, was it? I dropped to the couch, reeling even more than I had last night, if that were possible.

He was crazy. I was mated to a crazy man.

Kicks pulled out a bottle of what looked like whiskey from a cabinet in the kitchen. "Want a drink?"

I ignored his question. "You can't bully everyone into accepting me. If that's the plan, it's not going to work."

"Does that mean you want a drink or not?" he asked, then took out two glasses anyway.

"This won't work."

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, pouring two drinks. He carried one over to me and then took a healthy sip of his own.

He wouldn't need alcohol if he thought this was possible, but he was going to refuse to acknowledge the situation. I wanted to pull my hair out or bang my head against a wall. I wanted to bang his head against the wall until reality set in, and yet I was also having a hard time resisting the urge to wrap my arms around him. Not once in my life had another man stood up for me like that.

It was insane. His plan had no chance of working, might destabilize his very pack, and yet he'd told them in no uncertain terms they were going to accept me or get out. It was the exact opposite of what Duncan had done, and I could feel myself nearly melting over the whole situation, except for one issue: you couldn't make people accept others. Life didn't work like that, even for Kicks.

I nursed my drink, which I had assumed was whiskey, but now I doubted that as it burned like a blowtorch going down. Kicks sat in the chair, doing the same. I waited until he was halfway through his glass before I tried again, wondering if this foul drink might make him more open to reason.

"They aren't going to accept me."

He took another sip, as if stalling. "They'll get past it and move on. It'll take some time, is all."

Maybe, just maybe, he was right. Given long enough, some of them would eventually get over it, decide it hadn't been me, or whatever else they had to do to rationalize living in the same pack with me. But there was one gigantic problem still looming, and it was so bad I was afraid to utter it aloud even as my mind couldn't move off it. What about when it happened again? Then what? The way people were dying around me these days, it was more likely than not. They might turn and look away once, but they wouldn't do it again.

"If they don't?" I asked before sipping some more of the nuclear acid he'd served up.

"Where are you going with this?" His question was laced with enough suspicion that I could tell he already knew the answer.

"This might not be the right place for Charlie and me if things don't settle down." I broke eye contact halfway through, feeling like I was spitting on his efforts to help me. It wasn't like I had another place to go. This was all I had right now, but I wouldn't hang on for dear life like I did last time, waiting for things to work out when there was nowhere to go but down.

"If this doesn't work, then we go. I'm not letting you leave here with a child alone. You go, I go. That's what being mated means."

"You can't leave your pack. They'll fall apart without you. You're the alpha." He led instinctively and without effort. People reacted to him, wanted to follow him, and there were at least a couple hundred people here who looked at him like he was a god.

"They'll adjust. They'll choose a new alpha, the next strongest stepping up. Probably Evangeline or Crackers. Life will go on."

He couldn't be serious, and yet he sat there with a determined look on his face. Kicks didn't offer up empty promises. He did everything he said he would.

"I can't have you do that. Give up your home for me." I finished the rest of my drink in one gulp.

"It's my choice, same as yours." He continued to sip his, as if he'd already thought this out.

Maybe he wasn't as immune to reality as I feared. Still, this was not an option. I wouldn't ruin his life along with mine. He shouldn't be punished because he was loyal.

"I think you're taking this situation between us too far. You claimed me as your mate because you wanted a guide for your pack. I agreed because it was an easier way to transition. But your pack isn't going to want a guide bad enough to keep me, and we both know they aren't getting any benefit from me." As I said the words aloud, for the first time I truly began to feel the loss. We might not be truly mated in my mind, but I lived with him, I spoke to him every day, and I was going to miss him, maybe more than I'd imagined I could.

"I claimed you as my mate. I made a commitment and declared it to the world. Just because we haven't slept together doesn't change that. Nothing is going to change that." He put his glass down and walked out, as if he wouldn't even hear anything else on the subject.

I used to wonder what it would be like to have someone as loyal as Kicks at your back. Now I knew, and unfortunately for him, I was an albatross around his neck. I wouldn't destroy his life along with mine.