CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Entering the cabin’s living area later on, Blair felt her brows lift. Kiesha and Mitch hadn’t done a half-assed job at packing. There were no open boxes lying around with things tossed haphazardly inside. All were taped shut, tidily stacked, and labelled with a red sharpie. The TV had been neatly swathed in bubble wrap, just like her large framed pictures and canvases.

None of the other furnishings had been gathered near the boxes, since she’d made it clear that she didn’t wish to take any. They didn’t hold any sentimental value to her, and the apartment she shared with Luke didn’t lack furniture so none were needed.

“Nice place,” said Isaiah. “Cozy.”

It really was. Even with the shelves, walls, and fire mantel now bare, the cabin still had a homey feel.

Nostalgia filled her as she glanced around. She had a lot of good memories of this place. Memories of movie nights with Kiesha, make-out sessions with Luke on the sofa, and the various mini gatherings she’d thrown.

She’d lived with her parents up until she turned eighteen, so she hadn’t resided at the cabin long enough for her or her inner female to develop a true attachment to it. Nonetheless, they’d both miss the place. Though not enough to ever regret having to leave it. For them, it had only ever been a temporary home.

“I say we transfer Blair’s things to the van before searching the cabin for marks,” suggested Deke. “It will make it easier for us to spot any—they’ll be hidden well.”

“If they are any here, we’ll find them.” Luke grabbed a box. “Let’s get started.”

Between the four of them, it didn’t take long to transfer her possessions to the vehicle parked outside. A few of her old pack mates observed from a distance, nosy as they were. They gave her either a too-quick smile or weak wave, likely annoyed that she suspected one of the pack was harassing her.

Whatever.

When she and the three male pallas cats were once more gathered in the living area, Blair said, “It’s best if we split up, we can search the place faster that way.” It wouldn’t take long to check out the entire cabin, since it was relatively small and only had one bedroom.

Luke dipped his chin. “Examine every nook and cranny. We need to be thorough.” At that, they headed off in various directions.

Blair did a slow, walk-through of the living area. She checked the walls, floorboards, furnishings, and doorways. The only claw marks she found were those left by Luke.

She raked a hand through her hair, frowning. She’d been sure she’d find at least one mark. It wouldn’t have been sensible for their boy to leave any, no, but he’d done a lot of unsensible things recently.

Deciding to give the room another once-over before moving to another, she moved even slower this time as she began to examine every inch of the living area, wanting to—

“Bedroom,” Luke called out.

Blair stalked through the cabin and into the aforementioned room, quickly followed by Deke and Isaiah. “What have you found?” she asked, eyeing the bed that was now tipped on its side.

His jaw hard, her mate pointed to a wooden slat. “Fucker marked the underneath of your bed.”

Crouching in front of the slat, she felt anger course through her at the sight of the five grooves there. They were so small and subtle they’d likely have gone unnoticed if someone hadn’t actually been searching for them. “Son of a bitch.” Her inner female snarled, equally furious.

“There’s no scent,” Luke told her, a slight growl to his voice. “Whoever did this clawed the wood, but they didn’t use their scent glands to solidify the claim they were making. Probably because they knew there was a chance—however slim—that you’d see the marks.”

She stood, balling up her hands, shoving aside her rage before it could cloud her thoughts. “This was definitely done by one of my kind. I can say that for certain.” She’d seen enough marks made by bush dogs to be sure.

“Let’s keep looking,” said Deke. “There might be more.”

It turned out that there was. The inside of a kitchen cupboard had also been clawed, as had the top of the tall bathroom cabinet. And during yet another examination of the living area, she discovered similar grooves behind the bookcase.

“Essentially, the bastard marked every room,” said Isaiah. “In his mind, she’s meant to be his and she knows it … so why not leave his scent behind?”

Luke folded his arms. “Most likely for the same reason he’s hiding in the shadows and doing things anonymously. Deep down somewhere inside, he knows that what he’s doing is wrong. More, he knows that no one would approve. Still, he will have rationalized his behavior by feeding himself an excuse.”

One hand on her hip, Blair dipped her chin. “I remember the stuff he wrote in the email. He chooses to believe that the reason I didn’t go to him is that I worry my mom would get in the way.”

“Yes,” said Luke. “He could have told himself that he didn’t leave his scent here because she would have come between the two of you if she heard of it.”

Blair couldn’t help but be impressed at just how calm Luke appeared right then. If she hadn’t been able to feel his fury through their bond, she might not have detected just how worked up he was. “Seeing all these marks, I have to wonder how many times he snuck in here. He probably did other messed-up crap too, didn’t he? Like rifle through my underwear or some such shit.”

Crossing to her, Luke gave her a pointed look. “Don’t.” He palmed her nape. “Don’t let him get in your head. It’s what he wants, remember?”

She sighed. “I know, I just … well, I’d like to rip out his spinal cord and shove it down his throat.”

Isaiah pursed his lips, his eyes lit with humor. “It won’t be easy, but we could give it a try.”

“We got company headed our way,” Deke announced, glancing out of the window.

Luke tensed. “Noelle?”

Deke shook his head. “Three males. They don’t seem pissed or anything. They’re strolling over here like they have all the time in the world.”

Soon Embry, Donal, and Antoine entered the cabin. Greetings and a few distrustful glances were exchanged. Well, bush dogs didn’t much trust pallas cats, and these particular pallas cats didn’t whatsoever trust the Sylvan bush dogs right now, so …

Embry gave Blair a shaky smile. “I heard you’d arrived and guessed you’d come to collect your things. I thought I’d come see how you’re doing. You look well. Albeit highly annoyed. Is everything all right?”

“No,” she said. “Not even a little.”

His protective instincts on fire, Luke used his hold on her nape to pull her closer. “Some asshole left territorial markings around the cabin.”

A shocked silence fell.

His inner cat wasn’t so quiet. No, the feline was a hissing, snarling, pacing mass of anger. Well, of course he was. Not only had some son of a bitch marked their mate’s previous home, they’d been inside her bedroom. And now she was not only pissed but freaked—something Luke sensed through their bond. He hated it, wished they hadn’t come.

“Jesus.” Embry scrubbed a hand down his face. “We should have taken the situation more seriously before now. I’m sorry, Blair.”

Luke felt his mouth flatten. That apology had come a little too late, in his opinion. His mate might hold the same view, because she didn’t seem mollified.

Squatting near the wall behind the bookcase, Donal studied the rake marks there. “They were definitely done by a bush dog.”

“I spoke with Gabriel,” Embry announced, his eyes on Luke. “He said he’d already had a conversation with you and one of your cats.”

“He did,” Luke confirmed, sliding his hand away from Blair’s nape as he slipped his arm around her shoulders. “He claimed to not be responsible for the recent goings-on concerning Blair.”

Embry planted his feet. “Yes, he made the same claim to us.” It was evident that the Alpha didn’t have much faith in that claim.

“I believe him,” Antoine piped up. “Not because he’s my cousin and I want him to be innocent, but because Blair’s important to him.”

“That’s why he’s an obvious suspect, considering whoever is doing these things is obsessed with her,” Donal pointed out, standing. “Look, Antoine, I’m not saying I one hundred percent believe that he’s guilty. But I find it difficult to accept that it could be one of our pack. Gabriel knows our land. Knows our people. Knows how to move around undetected.”

Antoine’s jaw tightened. “I still maintain that someone’s using him as a scapegoat.”

“That could well be the case,” Embry said to the Head Enforcer in an appeasing voice. “We’re having him watched,” the Alpha then told Luke. “I’d imagine you are also.”

“Of course I am.” Luke had assigned two enforcers to tail Gabriel wherever the guy went. So far, they’d reported nothing of concern.

“Be warned: he’s as slippery as a cat,” said Donal. “It won’t be easy to monitor his movements.”

“I got that impression from how effortlessly he trespasses on your territory,” said Luke.

Embry rubbed at his nape. “I’ve questioned every member of my pack. None stood out to me as potential suspects. But I’m not ruling out the possibility that one of them is in fact our culprit,” he hurried to add.

Antoine took a step toward Blair. “How’re you holding up?”

“Fine,” she replied. “I just want all this to end.”

“We all do.” Donal glanced from her to Luke. “Your bond is only partially formed. Surprising. I would have thought, given how long you’ve been in each other’s lives, that there’d be no emotional steps left for you to take in order for the bond to fully form.”

Both Luke and his cat bristled at the implication that he and Blair weren’t solid. But he felt absolutely no need to defend his own mating to this male or anyone else. Evidently, never did Blair, since she merely stared hard at the Beta until he looked away with a sigh.

Embry cleared his throat. “Mitch tells me that you seem to be settling in well with Luke’s pride, Blair.”

“It’s my pride now, too,” she pointed out, making Luke’s cat rumble a sound of approval.

A wan smile shaped Embry’s lips. “So it is. I’m still adjusting to that.”

“We have yet more company,” said Deke.

Luke stilled at the sound of muffled voices coming from outside. He recognized both. And they garnered a snarl out of his cat.

Silently cursing, Luke placed his mouth to Blair’s ear. “Need you to stay close, baby. My cat is seriously on edge right now. He still perceives your mother as a threat to our bond. You’re the only thing that will keep him calm.”

“Don’t think my female is much calmer,” Blair told him. “She’s not.”

Noelle regally strode inside with Les close behind her. She gave Blair a long look, her eyes briefly flashing with what might have been longing. She cleared her throat. “Came to collect the rest of your possessions, I see.”

“I said I would,” Blair reminded her, her tone even.

His eyes sad, Les offered his daughter a smile. “It’s good to see you, sweetheart.”

“You too,” was all Blair said.

Les gave Luke a stiff nod, who returned the greeting with an incline of his head.

Noelle sniffed at Luke. “I suppose you’re very pleased with yourself. You got what you always wanted.” A bitter smile curved her mouth. “Blair turned on me and left the pack behind.”

Luke didn’t bother pointing out that the situation wasn’t quite that dramatic. But there was one thing he’d like to highlight. “In truth, that’s what you feared she’d do. You projected that onto me; maintained it was my goal. It never was. All I wanted was to one day claim Blair. So, yes, I now have what I always wanted.”

Noelle’s eyes flared and then cut to Blair. “There’ll come a day when you realize you should have listened to me. A day when you regret mating so early in life. I want you to know that I’ll be there for you when that time comes. There will be no ‘I told you so’s.’ Only the support you’ll need to power through a difficult time.”

Luke tilted his head. “Do you truly believe that will one day happen, or do you just hope that if you plant the idea in her head it will eventually come to pass?”

Les put a hand on his mate’s arm. “Honey, can’t we just—”

“You should have given her more time,” Noelle told Luke. “You didn’t because you believed that the younger she was at the time she was claimed the easier she’d be for you to bring to heel.”

Confusion puckered his brow. “Bring to heel?” What in the hell?

“You want her under your control,” Noelle accused.

“You’re projecting again.”

“I never sought to dominate her life. Only to ensure that she knew she had choices; that she wouldn’t believe finding you so early meant that her future was already mapped out.”

“You communicated that well,” Blair cut in, her voice cold. “I heard you loud and clear. I simply didn’t wish to fight the future I saw coming.”

The corners of Noelle’s eyes tightened. “You were too blinded by him and all his pretty promises. Too overwhelmed by his level of dominance to develop a sense of self that wasn’t twined around his.”

Blair felt her body stiffen and her lips part. “You honestly tell yourself that I’m co-dependent on him? That I can’t think for myself and am firmly under his boot heel?” She shook her head. “Unreal.” It was stupid that Blair had hoped her mother would back down now that the claiming was done, wasn’t it? The woman was far too obstinate to wave a white flag so soon.

“It’s not what I tell myself, it’s what I know,” Noelle clipped.“You don’t see the reality of the situation because you’re too damn close to it.”

“What I see is that the only person who’s blind to the truth is you.” Blair sharply turned to Luke. “I’m ready to go home.”

He nodded. “Then we go home.”

Normally, it would have bothered her that Luke, Deke, and Isaiah protectively gathered around her to ensure the others didn’t get close as she headed for the door. Blair didn’t need to be shielded in such a way. But right then, she was so damn pissed she felt like she’d explode if someone so much as touched her. Which Luke must have sensed, because he didn’t take her hand or eat up her space.

Les caught her eye as she neared the door. “Sweetheart, I’ll … I’ll call you, okay?” He grabbed Noelle when she would have stepped forward. “No, just let them go. You’ve said enough.”

Blair kept her gaze firmly on the van as she exited the cabin, descended the porch steps, and headed to the vehicle. Settling on the front passenger seat, she clicked on her seatbelt, grinding her teeth as she wrestled back a snarl.

A wrestle she lost.

God, she was livid. So close to letting her anger fly that her skin felt raw. Still, she said not one word, knowing a hell of a rant would stream out of her if she opened her mouth.

Neither Luke nor the enforcers said anything as he drove away. She could sense his worry through their bond, but he did no more than occasionally give her thigh a brief rub or squeeze, giving her the space she needed.

Back in their complex, Luke had the two enforcers help cart her possessions up to the apartment. Again, the males gave her a wide berth and didn’t push her to talk. It wasn’t until she and Luke were alone, when she was halfway through unpacking, that he apparently decided he was done giving her space.

Hugging her tightly from behind, he nuzzled her neck. “Your mother doesn’t truly see you as weak, baby.”

Blair sniffed, opening yet another box. “But she does feel the need to keep implying it, and that hurts.”

“She sees your strength. It frightens her. Because it means you don’t need her and that she can’t hold you to her.”

Blair snatched a book out of the box and plonked it on the dining table. “I don’t know about that. She’s convinced herself that you have me under your thumb.”

“She needs to believe that, Blair. The alternative? She faces that she messed up and drove you away. So she tells herself that I’m making your decisions for you.”

There was some truth in that, yes, but … “It’s more than that. She feels that I chose you over her, she can’t accept that I’d do that, and so she has to believe that I’m not thinking clearly. Or, more accurately, that I simply can’t think for myself. Dammit, Luke, she wasn’t the only one whose world exploded when Marianna died.”

Luke began to gently rock her from side to side. “But you know yourself that we can be very self-focused in our grief. She might not still be in mourning, but she allows the pain of loss to rule her. Some do. As if to let it go would be to also let the person they lost go. I’m not excusing how Noelle acts—I’m the last person who’d ever defend her. I’m only ensuring you understand that your mother doesn’t want to hurt you. She just doesn’t know how to be close to you without also controlling you.”

Blair lifted another book out of the box. “Yeah, well, she can fuck right off with …” She trailed off on noticing a slip of paper tucked between two paperbacks. Blair pulled it out and unfolded it. Her stomach dropped and hardened. Oh, hell.

Sensing the change in his mate, Luke glanced at the sheet of paper she held. And his entire body went still. “The fuck?”

A letter. It was a letter. All neatly typed and printed, much like her email.

His cat growling, Luke skimmed through the letter, his blood boiling.

It read: This thing you’re doing with Devereaux—pretending to be his mate, pretending he’s who you want—needs to end now. There are other ways to get back at your mother. Ways that don’t involve you staying with another man.

Are you hoping to make me jealous? Is that it? If so, mission accomplished. But I thought you were more mature than that.

I’m trying so hard to be patient with you, I really am, but it isn’t easy. And don’t think I’m not upset that you hung up on me. That was uncalled for. I didn’t deserve that.

I don’t want to be angry with you. I hate that I am. Everything will be better once you’re home, I know it.

I miss you. I’m not used to being without you. I get why you left—you needed to make your point to Noelle. Well, you’ve done it. Now you can come back. I know you hate her, but it isn’t a reason to stay away. And it’s not like you can keep up this act with Devereaux forever anyway.

You don’t need to worry about Noelle; I’ll protect you from her. I’ll make sure you never forget that, unlike what she seems to believe, you deserve to be loved. You are loved. So come home.

Blair dropped the piece of paper, letting it flutter back into the box. “God, he’s insane. He is. I mean, what in the goddamn hell goes through his head?”

Breathing through his rage, Luke gave her shoulders a squeeze. “He must have broken into the cabin and stuffed the letter into the box.” The words were low. Flat. Guttural. “And since he printed it off a computer, we don’t even know what the shithead’s handwriting looks like.”

Pivoting, Blair rubbed at her arms. “He still firmly believes that I’m his. Not even you and me being mated has shaken that belief.”

Luke had thought it would, but maybe that had been naïve of him, considering … “If someone tried making me believe that you aren’t my mate, they’d never succeed. He evidently carries that same surety.”

“Because he’s a nutjob.” She blew out a hard breath. “God, I’m gonna ream his ass.”

Just then, Luke’s phone began to ring. Seeing his brother’s name flashing on the screen, Luke told her, “It’s Tate, I have to take this.”

“You do that. I’m just going to keep internally freaking out, if it’s all the same to you.”

Massaging her nape, Luke answered the phone, “Yeah?”

“I just got a call from PJ,” said Tate, referring to one of the enforcers. “Chester returned home.”

Luke felt his brows lift. “Do we think he’s given up on trying to snag Camden?”

“I don’t believe so,” replied Tate. “According to PJ, Chester didn’t return with luggage. He seemed intent on making a quick trip in and out of the house. PJ foiled that plan by nabbing him for us. He dumped the human in his trunk and is driving him to an isolated spot so we can have a chat with him.”

“What spot?” asked Luke.

“The abandoned theme park near Mercury Pack territory,” replied Tate. “I don’t want to take him to the spare room at Dad’s place because there’s a chance Chester’s friends are hanging around our street in the hope of grabbing Camden. I don’t want them to realize we have Chester. They could flee. Possibly even warn whoever hired them.”

“Blair and I will meet you at the theme park,” said Luke before ringing off. He turned to her. “I take it you heard all that. You can stay here if—”

“Not a chance. I want to see this situation through, and I need to get out of here and focus on something else anyway. That way, I’m less likely to start throwing shit.” She stalked to the door, and it took her a moment to notice he hadn’t followed. She planted her hands on her hips. “You coming or what?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to suggest that she remain behind and relax, but he knew she wouldn’t. He also knew that she’d not at all appreciate him fussing over her. And, well, he’d rather not suffer a kick to the balls so he simply replied, “Yeah, I’m coming.”