Terr4tory (5 page)

Chapter 8

Willa stood at the kitchen sink doing dishes as the sun finally nestled itself into the horizon.  Dinner had been an epic affair.  The pack had stayed out all day with Barron working on projects and fixing the multitude of things that had fallen into disrepair around the farm.  Unable to coax herself from the house, she’d propped all the doors open and spent the day baking and fuming.  When the pack had finally come in for dinner, it had been to one hell of a spread.  She’d baked two racks of ribs for several hours and complimented the meal with a macaroni salad, her prized cheesy creamed corn, homemade cornbread and chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

Still, the meal wasn’t the highlight of the night.  Nope, that honor went to Barron Kane…
again
, who’d--much to her relief and disappointment--come to dinner fully clothed.  The kids couldn’t ask him enough questions and, to her secret enjoyment, he answered all of them in turn.  It helped to learn a little something about him without having to do the dirty work herself.  Info collected:  He had just one brother, Evander, but considered the other three Alphas in his rogue pack his brethren.  He’d made the choice to snub typical pack life because he didn’t want to be forced into fitting some preconceived notion of what a pack was all about.  He learned his carpentry skills and ability to fix just about anything from his father before he’d disappeared into the wild.  Both parents deceased.  He was six years older than her at thirty-two.  And the final topic of discussion, before she’d chased them from the table so she could clean up the empty plates:  The scar on his face.  When Jase asked, she’d tensed and her eyes had shot to Barron.  Afraid he’d take offense and be angered, she’d tried to deflect with a, “That’s not polite, Jase.”

Barron dismissed her words by smiling and boasting proudly.  “The wound was the result of the great redeemer.  The gloriously fierce trial where all true heroes are forged.”

She wanted to laugh as each of her pack mates inched closer, waiting for the revelation.  She already knew, and blushed when in unison she and Barron both said—her with a deep sigh and Barron with triumphant pride--, “Battle”.

Barron’s gaze held hers then, his smile slipping as he studied her.  “You know of battle, Alpha Hutchinson?”

She could only hold his gaze a few moments before lowering her lashes and eyeing her water glass.  “Yes, Alpha Kane.”  She swallowed at the memory of the life she’d had before Garner had found her. “I do.”

His jaw ticked and his expression shifted until he looked downright furious.

Unsure what had changed his mood, she’d stood and shooed the pack from the table with a distracted, “Don’t you all have something to do?”

Jase was the first to bolt up from his seat.  “Barron, can we finish working on the gutter?”

Barron’s smile was back in a flash and he stood, about to follow the kids as they rushed from the house, before he stopped and eyed the table.  “You need help here?”

“No.”  Willa quickly shook her head and stood.  “I’ve got it.”  When he nodded and turned to leave she added, “You don’t have to do this, ya know.”

He turned back to her.  “What’s that?”

“Fix everything,” she supplied with a flush.  “I was going to get to those things.”  She lifted her chin, “I
am
going to get to those things.”

He shrugged negligently and sauntered to the door before stopping and turning to look at her.  “Consider my proposition, Willa.”   Then they were all gone, leaving her to clean up.

***

Now, standing at the sink up to her elbows in suds, Willa mimicked,
“Consider my proposition.”
  After dinner she’d grown irritable, and her irritation grew the more she thought of Barron’s “proposition”.  She did admit—if only to herself—that she was bothered by more than just that.  She was irked to hell and back that Barron had spent the day with her pack as if he had always been a part of it.  She was irked that Sarya took to him, she was irked that Becca and Keryn had fought over who’d fix him lunch, and she was mostly irked that he was right.  She did need him. 
They
needed him.  All day long she’d cast sidelong glances at him trying to determine if he’d be able to handle any and all challengers.  Her conclusion? 
Hell yes!
  Was there a problem with it? 
Hell yes!
  There were numerous problems with this scenario.  First, she didn’t believe a false claiming would work, which could very well get them all killed.  Second, she didn’t think her wolf could handle him being around much longer.  She was all achy in places she knew weren’t appropriate.

In the hours after they’d gone out to work, the pack slowly filtered back into the house looking worn as full night settled in.  She didn’t feel too bad.  Hard work built character, plus the chores needed to be done and she certainly didn’t know how to fix any of the things that Barron had repaired.

Keryn and Cortez settled in front of the TV, wrapped in each other’s arms.  After a quick hug, Sarya and Becca headed up to bed, while Arden and Jase found the plate of chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen and each grabbed a glass of milk before settling at the table for a snack, chatting excitedly about how much work they’d gotten done.

Willa took a glass of milk and plate of cookies and sauntered out onto the porch.  She found Barron seated on the top step, sans shirt, leaning against the house with one wrist propped casually on a raised knee.  Damn, if he didn’t look like he belonged there.

“Hard day?”

He looked up and she handed him the glass and plate.

“Thanks.”  He smiled and it made her insides melt.  He drank down half the contents of the glass in one swallow.  “Day wasn’t too rough.  We got a lot done.”

“Thanks for that.”  She paced to the far end of the porch, needing to keep distance between them.  “But you didn’t have to.”

He spoke around a bite of cookie.  “You keep saying that.”

“And I keep meaning it.”

He didn’t respond and she turned to find him licking chocolate from the tip of one finger.

Fuuuuck!
  Her womb clenched and she couldn’t keep from licking her lips.

Barron stilled, his finger just out of his mouth.  “Keep looking at me like that, Alpha Hutchinson and I’ll…”

She didn’t let him finish.  Snapping her eyes away she jerked herself out of her reverie and turned away from him.  “You’re welcome to stay a few days in the guest house.  We’ll talk tomorrow about what’ll happen after that.”

“I came to help.”

She gave him a conciliatory smile over her shoulder.  “I’m sure you think you did.”

He finished his glass of milk, set the empty plate aside, and slowly got to his feet.  As he paced slowly to her, she could only watch, mesmerized by his lithe grace.  When he got near enough, he turned her to face him and wrapped his arms around her.

“Can I help you?” Her head titled back so she could keep eye contact, and she knew her authoritative tone failed.

One of his hands lifted to gather her long hair at the nape of her neck.  “Oh, I know you can.” He smiled, his eyes challenging her to back down.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d take your hands off me.”  She said the words, but they came out husky, practically a plea for him to do the opposite.  Why had she given him cookies?  Christ, now he smelled like chocolate and sin!

“You sure?” His thumb skimmed over his mark on her neck.  “Because I really, and I mean
fucking really
, enjoy touching you.”

She liked it too.  Willa shuddered at the glancing touch to where his bite was still healing.  Mate marks were notoriously sensitive, and alarmingly erogenous.  Her breathing hitched.

“You know, this mark,” his thumb glided over it again, and her pussy creamed at the touch.  “It...”  He didn’t get to finish.

Willa wanted to scream when Jase came sauntering out to the porch.  “Willa?”  His voice sounded sleepy.  “Arden went to bed and I’m…” Jase swallowed as his eyes fell on Barron and she could tell he was debating his next words.  “It’s too dark for me to go down alone.”

She smiled softly.  Jase was still afraid of the dark and the monsters he often believed lurked there.  When she went to pull away, Barron held her firm and offered quietly, “I’ll take him down.”  Then he turned to Jase.  “Let’s go, buddy.  We can’t have you falling down the stairs in the dark.”

Jase smiled proudly at the fact that Barron hadn’t recognized, or commented on, his fear of the dark.  “No.”  He shook his head.  “I don’t wanna fall.”

Willa’s heart squeezed when Barron grabbed the boy and hoisted him up onto his shoulders with a, “Mind your head.”

She watched them go and wondered at the day.  The ease with which her pack accepted Barron was more than startling.  It was terrifying. 
What if they get attached?
  The fear was a real one.  Hell, even ornery Arden and leery Sarya had dropped their defenses already and it’d only been one day.  Willa shivered.  They were all still dealing with the loss of Garner, she didn’t want the kids getting attached to Barron only to wind up disappointed and hurt in the end.  Things could be bad if he stuck around for too long, and as she entered the house she concluded that Barron needed to leave. But she couldn’t make that happen.  He was willing to help, and she needed help.

She didn’t wait for him to come up from the basement.  She didn’t want to see him, because she knew he’d touch her, and for some reason she lost all logic when he did that.

Up in her room, she left her door open to listen intently for his departure.  A few short minutes later she heard the unmistakable creak of the downstairs floorboards.  Stilling, she waited, staring at her bedroom wall, ear turned toward the door.  Then there were booted feet coming up the stairs.  Her insides fluttered even as her heart started a panicky gallop.  Unable to move, Barron entered her quarters to find her standing frozen in the middle of the room.  Slowly, she turned to face him.  “Alpha Kane?”

“Alpha Hutchinson.” He smirked at her formality.

“What are you doing up here?”

Wide shoulders practically brushed the doorframe as he entered.  Willa’s mouth went dry and her hands started to tremble with excitement.

“Protecting your virtue.”

She reacted to his nearness.  Her wolf was bouncing up and down, begging Willa to let them play with the virile male in their room.  She sucked in a breath as Barron slowly stalked closer and closer.  With each step, Willa’s head tilted back as she kept eye contact.  When he was just a step away, towering over her, she inhaled and raw lust shot through her, sending her into dizzying heights before plummeting wildly.

Barron stepped around her with that cocky smirk and crossed to her window.  He pulled the curtains back and lowered the window until it was shut, then stood and faced her.  “If I have to smell your creaming pussy one more night, I’m going to kick your front door in and do something we’d both regret.”

She could feel blood flood her cheeks as humiliation seared her.  No, humiliation was too weak a term. 
Mortified.
  She was wholly fucking mortified.  Worse, her blush told him that she knew
exactly
what he was talking about.

Barron brushed past her and left the room, his heavy footsteps on the wooden stairs mocking her with his departure.  Relief and disappointment flooded her in equal measure when she heard a deep sigh precede the sound of the front door closing.

Oh!  My!  God!
She dropped to her knees in the middle of the room and buried her head in her hands.
That did
not
just happen!

Chapter 9

The following day was a near replica of the one before.  Willa woke sexually frustrated to the sounds of the pack and Barron hammering away and chatting happily.  She’d barely slept as she replayed Barron’s words over and over in her mind. ‘Something we’d both regret’.  What would be so regrettable about sharing a bed with her?

She’d forgone the luxury of pleasuring herself in the shower, just washed up and then dressed in a light T-shirt and shorts before trudging down to the kitchen.  Again, she spent the better part of the morning tidying up and basically hiding out.  The day was a scorcher, and she secretly hoped one of the kids would ask Barron to look at the central air unit that had stopped working the previous year.  She’d been tinkering with it on and off, but couldn’t seem to get it running.  Alas, every time she crossed by the door, Barron had been just outside.  She’d avoided eye contact at all costs, scurrying to whichever room she was headed, ignoring his smiles and interested stares.

When the pack and Barron finally came in for lunch, she was still avoiding eye contact.  Every time she even glanced in his general direction, her blush would rush back full force. 
Humiliating!

Luckily, all through lunch, she had the distraction of the kids inundating Barron with questions.  After lunch, the kids—too hot and worn out to keep working—lingered at the table, their questions still flowing freely.  She assumed their exhaustion was what kept them from leaving to trek down to the lake for a cool swim.  She wished she could go.  The temperature and company had her feeling flushed and anxious.

Refilling everyone’s lemonade, she set the pitcher on the table and started clearing dishes.  The questions shot at Barron were so rapidly fired, he barely got the chance to offer to help with the dishes—which Willa declined—before the questions began firing again.

“Maybe Alpha Kane is tired.”  Willa offered by way of rescue once the table was cleared.  “We should let him rest.”  She turned to finally face him, glad that her exertion and the heat had suffused her cheeks and hid her discomfort.  “You’re welcome to take a shower first.  Cortez can show you where it is.”  She plucked at her clingy T-shirt, longing to slink down to the lake for a cool dip.

“I don’t think I can rest just now.” He smiled, his eyes tracking Willa as she tore her eyes from his and paced to the furthest end of the table.  “My wolf’s edgy.  He needs…”  He tilted his head as he studied Willa.  “
Something
.”

Keryn choked on her lemonade, and Cortez patted her on the back as he smiled at Barron and mumbled,  “My wolf knows the feeling.”

Willa shot Cortez a scathing look as her cheeks—despite the heat—once again set to flaming.

“What?”  Jase asked with a child’s curiosity.  “What does your wolf need,” he prodded Barron, who had the decency to look repentant.

Keryn, who’d recovered from her coughing fit, was smiling knowingly at Willa.

Eyeing the girl, Willa shook her head once, all too familiar with the look Keryn got when she was up to something.

“Who wants to watch the footage from last year’s Iditarod?” Keryn asked excitedly, scooting back from the table.

Becca, who’d been slumping at the table, suddenly sat up straight.  “Are you kidding?”

“No,” Keryn smiled.  “I ordered the Blu-ray online.  It got here today.”

The table was cleared in a second.

The kids loved the Iditarod.  Most shifters did.  Touted as a nine hundred and eighty-seven mile dog-sled race from Nome to Fairbanks, the event was held in Alaska each March.  To shifters the event was much more than a dog-sled race.  The fastest and strongest shifters throughout the world gathered to test their skill.  Alphas were lead dogs, because they were the smartest. Beta’s took the swing position to help the Alpha set the pace, and were followed by the rest of their pack.  Because of their strength, Enforcers typically took wheel-dog positions and familiars or humans who knew of shifters were always mushers.  It kept the race fair to have a human musher; the race could be solely judged on the shifters doing all the work.

For years, Becca had begged Garner to take them to Alaska to compete.  Willa knew it’d never happen.  First, their pack was too small.  At the very least, eleven dogs were needed and their pack was only eight.  Plus, with four teenagers and one ailing Alpha, they’d have never been a match for the shifter world’s greatest runners.  Still, as a pack they enjoyed watching the race every year when they could finally get their hands on some footage.  The farm didn’t have cable, and there was no Wi-Fi.  The kids were relegated to making trips to town to link up at the lone Computer Café where laptops were provided free for use as long as you ordered drinks from the café and kept your searches to the PG rating.

Alone in the kitchen, Willa quickly busied herself clearing everyone’s glasses.  “I can show you to the shower if you’d like?”

“How about a walk?”  He stood and crossed to her.  Before she could think of an excuse Barron caught her wrist and was tugging her toward the door.  He stopped just before exiting and barked, “Cortez!”

Cortez hurried into the room. “Yea, Alpha?”

“We’re going for a walk.  Keep an eye on the pack.”  Barron’s authority whipped through the room with the command.  He wasn’t asking, he was telling Cortez to do a good job.  The weight of his power licked over Willa, and her eyes closed briefly as she savored it.  It was nice to have someone else in charge.

“Will do!”  Cortez nodded with a look of seriousness that Willa had rarely seen.

Wordlessly, Barron tugged her out the door and into the bright summer light.

They walked in silence for a long time.  It took several attempts to pull her wrist free before Barron finally allowed it.

He led her to the woods behind the house and she allowed it.  The shade would be preferable to the direct sun on her fair skin.

They walked in silence for a while, Willa feeling sweat beading on her nose.  She stopped to pull a hair tie from her pocket then lifted her long mane, pulling her hair together to secure it into a ponytail.  Barron stopped to watch her.

His eyes dipped down to where her tummy was exposed when her shirt hiked up.  She tried to work quickly so she could drop her arms.

“How did you get here, Willa?  How did you get saddled with these kids?”

Her hands stilled in their task and her eyes suddenly hardened.  “I’m not
saddled
with them,” she bit back defensively, jerking her hair through the tie and dropping her arms to yank her shirt down.  “They’re my family.  I choose to be here.”

“Alright.”   He threw up his hands in mock surrender.  “Wrong choice of words.”  His hands slowly lowered.  “Allow me to rephrase.”  He tilted his head. “How did you end up here?”

She eyed him warily, trying to determine if there was an ulterior motive behind the query.

“I just want to know.  We’re just talking,” he offered, as if reading her mind.

With a reluctant sigh, Willa dropped her defensive stance and started walking again, leaving him to follow.  “Garner found me.  He found all of us.  It’s what he does.”  Her shoulders slumped as she amended, “It’s what he did.”

“Found you?”

“He’s got friends in a lot of shelters, foster homes, churches.  He finds those of us who are out there, just floating, and he brings us here.  He brings us
home
.”

“So you’re all…”

“Castoffs,” she finished for him with a shrug.  “Rejected.  Unwanted.”

He didn’t like the terms, and he didn’t agree with them. 
Unwanted?
  Tell it to his wolf.  The damn beast was hanging on her every move and every word.  Straightening, he fought to hide his anger at the thought of anyone rejecting her.  “How old were you?”

She stopped walking.  “When I came here?” she asked, her voice too thin.  “Thirteen.”

“Thirteen?”  He couldn’t hide the incredulity in his tone.  Thirteen would have been a hideous age for any child to be “out there just floating” as she’d called it, but a female shifter!  He shook his head.  “Your parents?”

“Never knew my real parents.  I grew up in foster care.  The last family I was with,” her eyes took on a far-off look as if she were remembering.  “They were great.  Had me from the time I was eight until I was thirteen.  They were…
great.
”  Her wistful look faded.

“What happened at thirteen, Willa?”

She peered up at him. “I started to change.  The shift was coming over me.”

Barron’s eyes widened.  “You hadn’t learned before that?”

“Nah,” she shook her head.  “I had no one to teach me.  I had no idea what was wrong with me, but I knew something was.”

His hands curled into fists.  He and Evander had had their parents, their pack, to nurture and support them.  He couldn’t imagine having grown up without support, and the thought of a young Willa out there alone and vulnerable tore at him.  “Nothing was
wrong
with you!”

She smiled sadly.  “Tell that to non-shifters trying to raise a shifter child alongside their own.  They had their own kids, they didn’t need the weird foster kid making things creepy.”

“So?”

She shrugged.  “So, I ran.  It was a favor to us all.”

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, almost afraid to ask.  “How long?”

“I was on the street for almost seven months when Garner found me.  Took me in.  Brought me here.”

Hearing the smile return to her voice, he swallowed down his rage at the thought of a thirteen-year-old Willa out on the streets, and dropped his head to study her.  “And then?”

“Then, I lived,” she smiled brightly.  “He taught me to shift.  Raised me as his own.  There were only three of us then.  The other two were way older than me and moved out soon after I came to stay, but Garner taught me well, and soon I was helping him track down others like me.  Kids nobody wanted. 
Shifters
nobody wanted.”

Barron turned to glance toward the farmhouse, guilt at his earlier words biting hard.  “I’m sorry for what I said.”  His voice was barely a whisper.

Willa smirked.  “Don’t be.  It’s not the first time someone has written us off.  We’re very content to be,” she lifted her hands to curl her fingers into air quotes, laughing at him, “‘saddled’ with each other.”

He winced, keeping the expression in place when he asked, “So, what’s your plan?”  He hurried to add, “If you don’t mind me asking.”

Willa stood in silence for a few moments before sighing and looking up at the trees.  “My first order of business is placing my girls.  Sarya and Becca will need strong males, who will be able to protect them.”

Inexplicably, Barron’s anger seared to life.  “That’s your plan?  Pawn off the females of your pack?”

Willa’s green eyes flashed angrily as she turned away from him, storming back toward the farmhouse. “I’m protecting them.”

“Protecting them.” He snorted, knowing the conversation was one they needed to have.  “You’re pimping them out!”