Page 9 of Broken Arranged Mate (Badlands Wolves #4)

When I turn right instead of left towards my father’s house, Ash doesn’t seem to notice. I’m quiet, following the turns of the road, and she sits quietly in the passenger seat.

I know I hurt her feelings by shutting down her suggestion. But it’s best for both of us if we steer clear of that—it’s bad enough having to do this, spend time with her, so the shifters in this pack see our courting. But working with her? Hearing her ideas and spending that time together?

It’s already torture, having her here. Walking her through this territory, knowing she can’t be free. She’s safe, because I would never let anyone hurt her, but she can’t walk freely, can’t travel without me for fear one of the dissidents might attack her, use her to go against me.

We can’t even go into the most beautiful parts of the city—not now, not today. I’m still dealing with shifters intent on destroying my position.

There are still some people who believe adamantly that Aidan should be our Alpha leader. There are some who claim I’m just like my father, evil and controlling, and cite the fact that I haven’t already managed to fix everything in under a year as evidence of that.

“Wow,” Ash says, sitting up in her seat, attention piqued when we pull through the gate and up the long drive. “What is this place?”

“This,” I say, clearing my throat and putting the truck in park outside the front door, “is our house.”

She turns to me so quickly her hair swings when she does, and I notice the moment as being decidedly Ash-like, pretty and understated. Excitement without flash, a genuine sort of enthusiasm that fills the cab like perfume.

“Our house,” she repeats, looking back to it, and I can’t stop myself from staring at her, trying to figure out what she’s thinking.

It sits perched at the top of a small rise, a little crest of sand that turned to sandstone outside the city, and offers a sweeping view of the land beyond with the skyline in the background.

The roof is flat with an overhang to provide shade, a typical adobe style with a bit more flare, faded mosaics, and stained glass from where my grandmother wanted to bring in some color.

Native shrubs, aloe, and resilient desert plants are even withering in the front yard, and the exterior is clearly weathered by the sand and wind.

It’s not much, and it’s going to take a lot of work, but I’d take anything over sleeping another night in that old house.

When the dust settled and everything calmed down, the house manager insisted I take my father’s old rooms—the grand suites, complete with hot tubs, luxury furniture, flat screen TVs, and sweeping views of the city.

I couldn’t sleep in there, and took to sleeping in Raegan’s old room, which at least still had the bed. My room was half crime scene, half storage room, the site of my father’s rage when he found out I’d left, then a forgotten hideaway for broken and unneeded items.

“Come on.” I turn off the ignition and hop out of the truck. I need to keep my body moving if I want to keep my mind blank, so that’s what I do, circling the Jeep and opening her door for her on the other side.

“It’s freaky, how fast you move,” she complains.

“I can’t tell if that’s a compliment or not.”

“That’s fine,” she says, flashing me a quick grin. It makes my chest inflate with that strange, open feeling, and I squash it again.

We walk into the house, and I hold my breath, watching her walk through the rooms and take everything in. I don’t know why it matters to me, what she thinks—this house is something of a family heirloom, coming from my grandmother’s side of the family. It shouldn’t matter what Ash says.

When we step through the sliding back door and onto the large porch, she sucks in a breath of the dry desert air and points to a spot in the yard straightaway.

It’s a gravel yard, because keeping any sort of grass out here is a nightmare. At first, I think she’s talking about the fact that it could use a good raking, but she shakes her head when I mention it.

“See that corner,” she tilts her head slightly, and it feels for all the world like she’s looking at something I just can’t see. “It’s…drooping. Sagging slightly.”

“It’s the desert,” I reply, unsure why there’s this bristling feeling inside me. “Sand shifts.”

She makes a sound deep in her throat, and when we’re walking back through the house, she points out the chipped baseboard, talks about replacing the doors, wanting soft-close cabinets.

The last thing I want to deal with is conducting a full-scale renovation, hiring a bunch of strangers to be in and out of my house. I clamp my mouth shut, and by the time we reach the front door again, it’s ticking with agitation.

I should have known this wouldn’t be good enough for an omega raised under the alpha leader of her pack. Of course, she wants something better than this mid-size house outside the city limits.

When I say nothing, she eventually says nothing, keeping all her opinions about the house to herself. We climb into the truck together, and I start it, taking us in the direction of the border.

“What’s that?” Ash asks, her voice ringing out so suddenly that it jolts me from thoughts of rationing, Amanzite, and whether or not that Reeyan should be added to the council.

“ Fuck , why do you do that?” I hiss, righting the truck and looking over at her. To my surprise, she’s laughing, then pointing and rolling down her window.

“Turn here!”

I surprise myself by obeying, yanking the wheel toward a little dirt path out into the middle of the path. When I look up, I realize what she was talking about.

“It’s an old watchtower,” I say, leaning forward to peer through the windshield at the old property. “Used for eyes on the border back before our Amanzite casting was good enough to communicate with one another. We’d use flashes and flares.”

Ash makes a noise low in her throat, and when I glance over at her, I realize she’s halfway out the window, hanging out to get a better look. I reach over and grab a handful of her shirt, which makes it ride up to her navel, which nearly makes me choke.

For fuck’s sake. It’s like I’m a gods-damned teenager.

“It looks just like the…what are they called? Up on the coast…lighthouses!”

“Get back inside.” I give her a little tug, and when I do, my thumb brushes against the warm skin of her stomach.

She was beautiful in that dress, during the party, but now she looks comfortable, worn-in, more herself. I like seeing her in these jean shorts, a simple T-shirt, and sneakers.

And I would like to see her out of them.

I push the errant thought out of the way, focusing on the matter at hand as I pull up in front of the structure, circling around and parking. The base is wide—nearly as big as four of my trucks. I’ve driven past this thing so often it blends in for me, but Ash is looking at it with wonder.

“You guys really like to build up here,” she mutters, then jumps out of the car.

I realize too late that she’s headed for the old, crumbling door.

“Ash.” Genuine fear leaps into my throat as she nears it, and I picture the whole fucking thing collapsing down on top of her. Leaping out of the lighthouse, I boom after her, “Ash, stop .”

Her body jerks, her chin tucking to her chest, her hand snapping to her side like a robot. I pause, confused, until moments later she raises her head, fury burning in her eyes, and I realize what I’ve done.

“Sorry,” I croak, meaning it. “I…I’m still getting the hang of that.”

She’s breathing hard, and there are tears at the corners of her eyes.

I stand there for a moment, wondering how this is going to go—I’ve just imposed the weight of the alpha leader on her, an omega.

Dorian has told me to use it sparingly, and in my fear, I accidentally whipped it out and exercised it on her.

“Ash, I’m sorry,” I repeat, taking a step closer to her. She eyes me warily, a flash of something startlingly close to fear moving over her expression.

“I want to go up,” she says, and though I’m worried about the structural integrity of the thing, I feel bad enough about what just happened to nod and try the handle. When it doesn’t work, I use a tiny bit of force to buckle in the door, so we can walk inside.

It’s dusty, and a critter skitters along the back wall, but thankfully, there are no shifters hiding out.

We climb the spiral staircase around the outside, higher and higher, until we finally reach a trap door.

Ash pushes against it with surprising strength, and when it pops open, it rains a shower of dust and grime down on us.

When that clears, bright light shines right through.

“Wow,” Ash breathes, pulling herself up through the hatch. I follow her to find a large room, something like a control room, circular and featuring floor-to-ceiling windows. Just outside the room is a large balcony encircling the entire space, with a tall metal railing.

It smells damp, dusky, old. I imagine Grayhide shifters up here, watching for enemies, flashing codes to their men on the ground.

“This is it,” Ash says, spinning around and looking at me definitively.

“This is…what?”

“Where we’re getting married,” she says, and for some reason, the sound of it coming from her mouth makes my stomach twist, so it takes me a second to catch back up.

When I do, I feel my brows drawing together. “I thought we were getting married in that warehouse.”

She’s shaking her head. “No—you can’t—it doesn’t matter. I want to do it here. Looking over both territories.”

I bite my tongue. It doesn’t make sense to me—in fact, I don’t understand why we didn’t go through with the ceremony right there during that council meeting.

Maybe I don’t understand it, but as I watch Ash meander around the perimeter, looking out at the land, I recognize the low, pitching feeling of something in my chest.

Satisfaction.

And I’m feeling it at the prospect of making her happy. Something I couldn’t do with the house.

“Fine,” I relent, and the smile that stretches over her face is enough to make up for everything else that’s happened today.