Authors: Susan Bliler
Territory (28 page)
“What about your father?”
Kya’s hand stilled on the bread and she asked defensively, “What about him?”
Briggs looked up, “Did he make a great lasagna?”
Kya dropped the bread and put her hands in her lap, steeling herself for the fight, “As a matter of fact he did. He did a lot of things very well.” She lowered her head, “Why are you bringing him up?”
Briggs dropped his fork on and pushed his plate away, wiping his mouth with a napkin as he fell back against the booth cushion. “I’m sorry. I was…” He thought for a moment before he straightened, resting both forearms against the tabletop; he dipped his head trying to get Kya to look at him. It worked.
“I can’t tell you how frustrated I feel. Wanting something I can’t have. Having you know everything there is to know about me and my family and knowing essentially nothing about you. I feel…powerless. I’m not used to it. The only way I know to regain control is by force, by fight. I don’t…” Briggs turned his head to look out the window. “I don’t know how to approach you to get what I want.”
“What do you want?”
“Answers.”
“Ask,” Kya whispered.
Briggs turned from the window, “Why did you run?”
“I couldn’t stay.”
“Why?”
“We weren’t meant to be together Briggs.” Kya implored him with glistening eyes.
“Explain.” He commanded.
“We just stumbled onto each other and were forced into something neither of us wanted. You didn’t want me and I didn’t want you, but Dell, Josephine, Mama, and Chloe all wanted it to work. Nobody asked us what we wanted.
Then Theron came and as much as I tried to tell myself that I didn’t
want
you, I
needed
you. And you protected me. All of you protected me.
Then I started thinking that maybe we could work, but I knew you still didn’t want me. So I wondered if maybe it was appreciation or infatuation that I was feeling instead of... Well, I’ve never been in love so I didn’t know if what I was feeling was real. But you knew.”
Briggs frowned. “Knew what?”
“You were born of a pack. You have pack ties. You know what mates are supposed to be. I couldn’t trust what I was feeling. I’m too…naïve. But you knew you didn’t want me, you knew we wouldn’t work. So I followed your lead because you’re more experienced with wolves and mates.
I felt guilty for imbedding myself in your lives and bringing trouble to your door. I felt sorry for your family and the trouble I caused, but mostly I felt sorry for you.” Kya dropped her head, resting it in her hand, “You must have been so mortified that everyone was associating you with me. I’m more trouble than I’m worth. Then…”
“What?” Briggs demanded.
Kya licked her lips and looked at him debating whether she should go on.
“What?” Briggs demanded again his scowl deepening.
“After Isaac was saved, after we were back. I knew I didn’t want to be without you.”
“And I forced you away.” Briggs finished for her.
“It was then that I realized that maybe we could have worked, but clearly you weren’t interested. I decided that no matter what happened, as soon as I got my chance to free you of your obligation I’d take it.”
“And our night together?”
Kya bowed her head in an attempt to hide the flush that crept up her cheeks. Briggs still noticed.
“It was the least I could do…after all you’d done for me.”
“So you didn’t enjoy it?”
Kya heard the warning in his question and whispered her response. “You know I did.”
“But still you chose to leave.”
“As I said, I’d made up my mind.”
“And now?” Briggs pressed.
Kya picked up her fork and began prodding her now half-eaten cold brick of lasagna around the plate. “I don’t know. I didn’t plan for…this.”
The conversation ended with the approach of the waitress. “Any dessert?”
Briggs was silent so Kya answered for them without looking up from her lasagna. “No.”
“Go box?”
“No.”
“Anything else for you two lovebirds?”
“No.” Briggs answered gruffly as he frowned up at the waitress, his eyes sliding down to her nametag. “Thank you, Teri, just the bill.”
Chapter
36
Back on the highway, Kya scanned the skyline trying to decipher from the landscape just where exactly they were. The temperate weather of North Carolina was gone, now snow gently fell across a vast prairie.
“Looks like Montana.”
“It is. Almost home, we just passed Cut Bank.”
“I don’t know where that is.”
“We’ll be home in a few hours.” Briggs flipped on the wipers to swipe away the accumulation of flakes on the windshield, then he turned a control on the dash and heat and silence slowly seeped into the cabin.
After several minutes, Briggs expelled a harsh breath. “Where did you sleep?”
Kya’s brows rose in question.
“In North Carolina. Where did you sleep?” He demanded harshly.
“In the woods.” Kya answered plainly.
“Hmmph.” Briggs snorted turning his face away.
“What is
that
supposed to mean?”
“It means that I doubt someone,” he turned to slide his eyes up and down her frame, “like
you
actually spent your nights alone in the woods.”
“And where else would I spend them?” Kya asked indignantly.
“I’m sure you know how to use your,” his eyes slid to her breasts, “charm.”
Insulted, Kya crossed her arms over her chest and sat straighter, “I don’t know what your implying Briggs, but you’re wrong.”
“You didn’t give yourself to anyone?” He demanded through clenched teeth, the steering wheel creaking under his hands.
“Give myself…! Is that what you think of me? I’m some whore who’ll just sell myself for room and board? You’re an asshole.”
Briggs shook his head resignedly, “I’m sorry. That’s not what I think of you. It just drove me crazy wondering where you’d spent your nights.”
Kya ignored him and they rode in silence for several miles before Kya demanded, “Pull over, I need to go pee.”
Briggs eyed her cautiously, “We’ll stop in Browning. It’s about thirty minutes. You can wait.”
Kya sighed heavily eyeing the road ahead. “I can’t.”
Briggs slanted her a glance then forced his eyes back to the road. “You want me to pull over?”
“Yes.” Kya ground out, “If you trust me to be alone in the bushes without seducing the squirrels.”
Briggs waited until he found a cropping of trees then pulled his truck to the side of the road.
Before the truck was completely halted Kya opened her door. “Be right back,” she snapped before jumping down from the truck and disappearing into the trees.
Briggs was waiting in the truck when he felt a warm sensation tingling in the pit of his belly. He didn’t recognize it at first. He was rolling it around in his mind trying to decipher what it was when it hit him.
Shit!
He was out of the truck in a flash, crashing through the trees Kya had disappeared through. He commanded through their pack ties,
Don’t you dare run!
It was too late. The stand of trees was empty.
“
KYA!”
Briggs growled. Shifting, he picked up Kya’s scent in an instant and gave chase.
Kya knew her attempt at projecting her exhaustion on Briggs had failed when she’d heard him warn her not to run, but she had to give it one last chance. In wolf form, she flew out of the trees and across the prairie like a bolt. Quickly eyeing the area there was nothing but rolling plains for miles in every direction. Chancing a glance behind her, she saw Briggs’ massive form gaining on her fast. She eyed a coulee just up ahead and dashed down into the draw sucking in fast breaths.
Damn it!
She didn’t pause, just darted down the steep incline and raced through the bottom of the draw nearly losing her footing on some snow-dusted ice.
In the bottom of the coulee, Kya lost a little of her edge as the draw was full of ice. She couldn’t run as fast as she needed to, and when she came to the end of the draw facing three sheer walls on every side, she turned to back track but was halted as Briggs cut off her escape.
Kya backed up as she eyed the walls searching for a break. When her back hit the end of the coulee, she knew she’d lost. Shifting, she curled into a tight ball pulling her legs under her and covering herself as best she could with her arms. Her breath came out in fast white puffs.
Briggs shifted too, his clothes regenerating with the change.
“Put this on,” he commanded, pulling off his shirt and handing it to her.
Kya slid into the garment and tucked her knees under her, wrapping her arms around her still shivering body.
Briggs took a deep calming breath, “You can’t influence me with your exhaustion if you’re not exhausted.”
Kya didn’t respond, just buried her face deeper in his shirt.
“Kya, we can’t go on like this.” He shoved both hands into his hair and turned his back on her. “Problem is I don’t know how to let you go.”
Still Kya didn’t respond.
Angry at her lack of participation Briggs spun on her and growled, “Just tell me why you don’t want to be around me.”
Her words came out on the breathiest of whispers. “Because I’m in love with you.”
Briggs stood motionless for several moments before he dropped to a knee beside her, hauling her trembling frame into the warmth of his arms.
“I’m sorry for what I said in the truck.” Briggs sighed resignedly. “I knew what I wanted to say to you, I’d rehearsed it a hundred times, but when I finally found you in North Carolina …I lost my composure. When I thought of all the danger you’d put yourself in I just couldn’t control myself. I lashed out at you and I shouldn’t have. For that I apologize.”
Briggs mouth twisted into a wry grin as he peered down at Kya. “I suppose I should also apologize for kidnapping you and dragging you back here. I just wanted you home so badly that I didn’t know how to make you see how much I needed you. I knew you’d changed your mind about us, and I didn’t know how to make you change it back.”
Kya bit her bottom lip to keep it from trembling.
“When you left me at the cabin and you said you wished I were yours and how you wished I’d change my mind and want a mate…it’s funny I didn’t realize until that moment that I hadn’t told you how I felt about us, about you. I hadn’t told you that I’d already changed my mind and that I didn’t claim you out of obligation but out of desire to have you for myself.”
Briggs brushed his knuckles over Kya’s cheek. “I thought I’d have time. You were finally safe and I thought I’d have time, but you ran. Once you were gone, I lay on the floor replaying everything in my mind. From the second I met you up until the second you left me, and I realized that I’d never given you any indication or reason to even hope that there could be a future for us. I just assumed you’d known, that you’d felt it too.”
“I did feel it, but I thought I was the only one who did. You made it clear that you didn’t want a mate and everything you said led me to believe that you’d only claimed me out of obligation. I felt horrible for having put you in that position and I didn’t want to keep you bound to me in that way.”
Briggs hand slid into Kya’s hair, pulling her closer he kissed the top of her head. “It’s my fault. I should have told you.”
Safe in the warmth of his arms, Kya took a deep steadying breath, inhaling the scent that was only his. She swallowed down her emotion and whispered, “You can tell me now.”
She felt his arms tighten possessively around her. “I love you Kya. I have since the moment I laid eyes on you and you dropped me to my knees.”
Kya smiled to herself, as her own possessiveness enveloped her. “I…love you too.”
Briggs didn’t respond, only crushed her tighter to him.
Moments later Kya whispered, “Can we go home now?”
Briggs pulled back to grin down at her. “We’d better. There’s a lot to do. Mama and Chloe have been planning for weeks.”
Kya’s finely shaped brows knitted in confusion, “Planning? Planning what?”
Briggs lips split in a smile. “Our wedding.”
Kya dropped a hand and clamped it to her belly in an effort to control the butterflies that fluttered within. “Wedding?” The memory of the dream came rushing back to her. I
t was real!
Briggs dipped his head to nuzzle Kya’s neck before nibbling on her ear, “No, but it will be. You didn’t think I’d come all this way to take you back home without making it official. I intend to have you bound to me in every way wolfly and humanely possible.”