shook her head, a frown pinching her forehead. “We wouldn’t...” her voice trailed off. Actually, knowing Rafe, he probably would. His impetuous actions were what had gotten them into this mess in the first place. But to break parley, to violate discussions under truce—that was an act of dishonor. She couldn’t accept that her pack would behave like that. “No...” she said, shaking her head.
He nodded. “Yes. And you know what that means, don’t you, Tracker?”
She swallowed. It meant pack war. It meant that borders would not be respected. It meant attacks and assaults, until one pack submitted to the other. It meant many lives were at risk.
He’d already managed to halt their supplies, and winter was coming. How long would they be able to hold out? They would grow hungry, they would weaken, but her pack would fight to the death before they surrendered. Rafe would see to it.
“You can stop this,” she said, striving for calm in the face of his brutal intention. “We are the same tribe. We have young, we have old—just like Alpine. What you have planned... This will ruin our pack, and it could ruin yours. Is that what you want? To kill families?”
Something flickered in his gaze, something dark, pained and sad, but then it was gone as he blinked. He shook his head as he leaned closer. “You’ve brought this upon yourselves.”
He was so big he loomed over her, crowding her. All glorious golden skin and brittle eyes. But she was a former Scion, damn it. The daughter of an alpha prime. She would not be cowed. She shoved at him, with the result of him moving not at all. She didn’t think her effort even registered with him. She tilted her head back against the rough bark of the tree.
“What happened to your alpha prime—I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “It wasn’t—nice.” No. It wasn’t nice at all. Jared Gray’s murder in a dentist’s chair had sent shock waves throughout the tribes, for a leader to be killed that way. But the dentist had maintained his innocence, and it wasn’t until her own alpha prime had coordinated the abduction of the dentist and his half-blood vampire lawyer from Nightwing territory that she and most of her pack learned of their involvement in the event.
Matthias’s eyes rounded. “Not nice? Well, that’s one way of putting it. Not nice.” He shook his head, then tugged on her belt and hauled her close to him. “Your pack wounded mine. Your pack killed my alpha prime, and now your pack will pay for it.”
She tried to wriggle away from him, but he started to unbuckle her belt. Panic shot through her, and she shook her head. “No,” she gasped, trying to halt his efforts. He was so big, so strong, and she could feel the anger roiling beneath him, as though all it would take was the faintest spark to unleash the fire of his fury. “Please, no.” She tried to escape, but he pulled her back. She felt the tug on her belt, then the release as the clasp was undone, and the leather slid out of the loops of her jeans. Her heart hammered in her chest.
“Rape won’t solve anything,” she gasped as he grabbed her wrists.
He froze, then lifted his gaze from where he clasped her, the surprise in his face dissolving into an exasperation tinged with hurt.
“I’m not— I wouldn’t—” He snapped his lips shut for a moment, his eyebrows golden slashes pulling into the center of his forehead. She could see he’d taken offense to her words. She gaped at him. Was that...was that a blush?
“I don’t force myself onto women,” he said with a quiet dignity. He wrapped the belt around her left wrist, his pec muscles rippling with the movement, then looped it around his right wrist, securing it so that they were belted together. He held their bound wrists up between them. “But I will do whatever it takes to make Woodland pay for what they did to us, and you’re going to help.”
He tugged her farther into the forest. If they didn’t have Jax, she would have fought. As it was, the thought of the young boy had her reluctantly following him.
Matthias looked to the opposite side of the fire, watching the tracker offer the boy some cooked rabbit. She’d followed him without resistance, but he didn’t fool himself. The reason she’d been so cooperative was currently sitting right beside her, her arm curled protectively around him.
The firelight glimmered against the copper strands in her hair, bathing her features in a soft glow as she said something that made the boy laugh. She smiled, but her smile didn’t reach her eyes, and she glanced about the campsite, her gaze assessing. For a brief moment their eyes met, and then she looked away. He frowned. He was still stunned, and slightly abashed, that she’d thought he’d force himself on her. That had hurt. That and the fact that she now tried to shield the boy from him and his lycans. The young pup shot him a curious glance, and he winked. He was rewarded with a tentative smile.
He knew what she thought, what she feared, and was willing to use it to his advantage. But there was no way he would ever hurt a pup. Nor would he hurt a woman. Sure, his physical reaction to her was...intense, but he’d never physically force a woman to submit to him. Hell, he hadn’t been remotely interested in a woman since—well, not in a long time. Something about this tracker, though, made him forget his control, forget his own rules, forget that which drove him hardest. He glanced around the campsite, at the lycans who had accepted him into their den, into their pack, and who now looked to him for leadership. When Jared had adopted him into Alpine Pack, nobody could have guessed he would one day become their guardian prime, but in the three years he’d lived with them, he had. He’d earned their trust and loyalty. He wouldn’t let them down. Not again.
Night had fallen, and he and his lycans had gathered at the meeting point. They were still in Woodland territory, but very close to the Nightwing border, and there was little chance of the Woodland shifters tracking them here, tonight. Woodland would have to tend to their injured and ensure their home den was secure before setting out to hunt for the Alpine guardians. He’d planned for a scattered retreat, and he and his guardians had laid plenty of false trails before finally descending upon their rendezvous point. He eyed the woman across the campsite. Holding the Woodland Tracker Prime would restrict their enemy’s ability to locate them—at least for a while.
Smokey rabbit and pine scented the air, along with the stringent scent of medicinal body rubs and antiseptic creams as the Alpine lycans tended to their injured. Fortunately that nose-burning smell masked the hypnotic fragrance of the woman who even now he couldn’t dislodge from his thoughts. She was delectable. He could lose himself in her scent, in her body—and that made him equal parts angry and scared as a day-old pup caught in a summer storm.
A movement caught his eye, and he looked up. Zane was trying to catch his attention. He walked around to his second-in-command, stopping to chat with some of the injured guardians. Fortunately there were no deaths in today’s skirmish—but it wasn’t for lack of trying on Woodland’s part. Today, Alpine had retreated. His lips pressed into a firm line. His expectations for the outcome of talks hadn’t been high, but damn, things had gone haywire. He didn’t think highly of Rafe Woodland, yet had still been surprised when the alpha prime had attacked under parley. He smiled. He didn’t mind. They now had just cause to launch attack after attack on the enemy pack.
Zane beckoned him over to the pickup truck parked a short distance away from the camp. Matthias caught the eye of Kai, one of his guardians, and gestured toward the tracker. He didn’t want her to think this was an opportunity to escape. Kai nodded and casually strolled to take up a position behind Trinity and the boy.
“What’s up?” he asked Zane as he met him and Nate Baxter, another first-tier guardian
