Page 51 of It’s You

The older man tittered once Jack’s claws were hidden.

He raised his voice to the crowd, every bit the showman.

“Very unusual. This is very, very unusual. We haven’t had a demand for a re-binding for as long as I can remember.

But you’re right, of course. Bindings should not, cannot, be hidden.

They are our most sacred honor on which our way of life depends.

If they are ever in question, we must all have a chance to feel the power of their singular energy.

” He looked up and down at Lela with a look somewhere between amused and admiring.

“A re-binding. You’re a clever girl when you want your way. ”

Tallis slammed her hands on the table in front of her. “This little bitch is disrespecting the council. She is a Reynard! An outrage!”

Saint Germain turned to Tallis with a hostile glare. “You will be seated and remain in order, Tallis Beauloup, or the CE will escort you outside.”

Tombeur stood opposite Tallis, his fiery eyes focused on Saint Germain.

“Sit down, Tombeur, or you’ll go with her.”

He turned his back on Tallis and faced Jack and Lela.

“A forced re-binding. Hmm. You say you can’t produce your mate in one month’s time, but how about two?

” Saint Germain looked back and forth between Lela and Jack, rubbing his chin.

“The council will vote immediately. All those in favor of the re-binding of Jacques Beauloup to his mysterious mate, stand.”

Jack watched in horror as various members of the council stood, raising their hands. One, two, three…twelve, thirteen, fourteen…Damn it, no! Twenty. Twenty of the forty council members stood around the table.

“Goodness gracious. We’re tied, which means the Council Elder gets a vote.” He looked at Jack and raised his eyebrows before turning to Lela and slowly, dramatically raising his hand.

The crowd erupted with stomping, clapping, and calling. Since the most exciting thing to happen at a Gathering in most of their lifetimes was to witness a live binding, this was unprecedented. Saint Germain quieted the crowd by waving his hands, then turned to Jack.

“You have until the summer solstice to produce your mate, Jacques Beauloup. That’s eight weeks.

If you cannot, not only will the binding be considered broken, but we shall have to investigate the circumstances of your…

phantom mate.” He smiled at Jack and winked at Lela, rubbing his hands together.

Then he turned slowly, addressing all the packs at once in a booming voice that ended the Gathering. “That is all. C’est fine !”

The crowd erupted yet again, stomping their feet on the bleachers and howling in approval. Jack looked at Tombeur, who shook his head and swallowed, looking down. He shifted his gaze to his mother, who winced and turned away.

Then he looked at Lela. Only Lela held his eyes. Lela, who smiled like Lynette the fox, had twisted his fate and put him in an impossible position.

Jack, Julien, Tallis, and Tombeur sat around the kitchen table while Delphine napped in the room she shared with her Tante Lela. Lela knew better than to come home after the scene she made at the Gathering.

“I’d like to kill her,” snarled, his fangs and claws kept in check, barely.

Julien shrugged. “No one’s ever met your mate, Jacques. She had the right to ask for?—”

“No!” screamed Tallis at her younger son. “You will not defend her for this. Not this time, Julien!”

“I’m just saying that any pack member can ask for a re-binding. The council voted.”

“Son…” Tombeur started, looking at Julien with thoughtful eyes. “No one’s saying she didn’t have a right. But she’s brought down a mess of trouble on this family. On your mama. On me. Most especially, on your brother.”

Julien turned to Jack. “Well, as long as we’re on the subject…why haven’t we ever met your mate? What pack is she from? Where do you live with her? Why are you gone for a year or two at a time, and you always come home without her?”

“Back down, Julien,” warned Tallis.

Jack’s eyes felt hot, and he knew they were burning with outrage.

“I’m not trying to start trouble. I’m trying to understand.”

Jack turned to Julien, blurting the answer out with a growl. “She’s human.”

Julien’s eyes widened to saucers, and he started to speak, but no words came out. He shook his head back and forth, searching Jack’s face.

“That’s impossible,” he finally murmured.

Jack nodded. “Yep.”

Julien turned to his mother and Tombeur. “You knew about this? You acknowledged it?”

Tallis’s eyes filled with tears, and she looked down at the table. Tombeur reached over and covered her hand with his.

Jack pulled his eyes away from them and turned to Julien beside him.

“It happened the summer we lived in the Southern Bloodlands. In Carlisle. I kissed her the summer before my eighteenth birthday. It bound me to her. It bound her to me. I came home for the acknowledgment and promised to stay away from her for a decade. I worked for the Council Enforcement. I lived here. But I never forgot her. When I was twenty-eight, I left. Tombeur helped me find a job working in private security for the humans. I earned money. I learned how to blend in. I renovated the cabin on the Southern Bloodlands into a lodge so I could live there with her. I had a vault built for me.”

“How do you hunt?”

“I don’t. I lock myself in a room with fresh dead. A deer or moose. Three days later, the door unlocks, and there’s almost nothing left of the carcass.”

“You’re satisfied?”

“Are you asking if I miss the hunt?”

Julien jerked his head up and down once.

Jack did. Sometimes.

“I don’t have a choice. I love her. I’m bound to her. I’m not going to hunt her kind.”

“You feed on animal flesh? Only?” Julien asked this thoughtfully, surprised.

Jack nodded. Julien shuddered, bunching up his face in disgust. Finally, he shrugged before speaking again.

“This is bad, Jacques. You can’t bring her here for the solstice. You can’t. They’d tear her apart. But if you bring anyone else, they’ll know immediately she’s not your mate. We can feel it…when the kiss is true.”

Jack looked at his brother and nodded grimly.

“You’ll have to turn her,” said Julien softly.

“Out of the question,” growled.

“You don’t have another move. She’s human.

You’re Roug. You’re bound to each other.

You can’t bring someone else for the solstice.

Every Roug in the Gathering Hall would know she was an impostor the second you kissed her.

You have to bring the human. But she can’t come as a human.

There’s no way you’d be able to protect her.

If you don’t bring her, they’ll declare you unbound.

Or, God forbid, they’ll convene an Inquisition and investigate.

You only have one move, Jacques. You have to turn?—”

“I won’t ?—”

Jack heard a door creak open and stopped short, turning his attention to little Delphine, who appeared at her bedroom door, rubbing her little hands in her eyes. “Where’d Tante Lela go?”

Julien got up from the table and walked over to his sleepy daughter, swinging her up on his hip and kissing her dark hair. “She didn’t come back from the Gathering yet, baby.”

“Yeah, she did. She was just here. She was goin’ tell me a story.”

“What are you talking about, baby?”

“I opened my eyes, and she was kneeling by my bed. She had her backpack on, and she said she might not see me for a while, but did I want a story before she left? And I said yeah. And she said, ‘Which one?’ And I said, ‘Tell me the legend of Darcy from Carlisle, who Grand’mère hates and Uncle Jacques loves.’”

Jack’s eyes shot open, and he stared in shock at his niece.

His mother gasped, then jumped up from the table, rushing to Julien and Delphine.

“Delphine, this is very, very important. What did Tante Lela say after you asked for your story?”

“Bad words.”

“What words?” demanded Jack, panic rising.

“ Tante Lela said, ‘Fucking Carlisle.’ And then she sort of growled, ‘I’m going hunting.’ And I felt worried, so she kissed my cheek, and she said I’d have a better story later when she came back.

Then she kissed my eyes and told me to go back to sleep.

But I didn’t go back to sleep. I peeked.

She went out the window.” Delphine looked over her father’s shoulder at the shocked faces of her uncle and Tombeur, then shook her little head.

“Where is she, Papa? I thought she was coming right back.”

Tallis spread out a map on the kitchen table.

“Away from the Bloodlands, she can’t shift until dark,” said Tallis. “I don’t know that she could make it all the way to Carlisle. Shifted, anyway. My guess is that she’s going to hitchhike. Either that or she could catch a bus in Quebec City.”

Julien shook his head. “I know her. She loves shifting, but she wouldn’t risk it alone. She’s hiding right now. She’ll head to QC with one of the packs leaving tomorrow morning, then she’ll hitch south. We can beat her there.”

Jack whipped his head up from the map to look at his younger brother. “We?”

“We.”

“Take care of her.” Julien shifted his daughter to his mother before leveling his eyes at Tallis. “When I come back with Lela, you’ll have to bury the hatchet, Maman .”

“And why would I do that?”

“Because I’ll be bound to her when I return,” said Julien.

Tallis gasped. “No! No! She’s your?—”

Julien narrowed his eyes, raised an eyebrow, and flicked his glance to Tombeur’s bowed head, his meaning clear.

Jack watched as his mother’s face segued from indignation to understanding to red with shame.

Julien pointed to his eyes, then to Delphine’s, then glanced back down at Tombeur, who was tracing Lela’s route with his finger.

Tallis looked down, nodding almost imperceptibly.

“Lela’s mine,” Julien said quietly. “The heart wants what the heart wants, Maman .”

Now Tombeur looked up at Julien, then back at Tallis.

“He’s got you there, Tal.” He put his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned back against him.

“Yes, he does,” she said softly, kissing Delphine’s head as Tombeur nuzzled hers.

Jack had no idea how Julien had figured it out, but he guessed the same way he did.

Tombeur, Julien, and Delphine had the exact same eyes, and they were so striking, there was no mistaking their meaning.

With the sort of time Tombeur was likely to spend with Tallis and Delphine, it was just a matter of days before he figured it out too.

“You going away, Papa?” Delphine asked.

“I’ve got to help Uncle Jacques bring back Tante Lela. You love Lela, right, baby?”

“I love her most of all after you and Grand’mère .” She looked at Jack and shrugged. “Sorry, Uncle Jacques.”

Jack grinned and put a hand on her head. “That’s okay.”

“Well,” said Tallis, “I guess you two better pack up.”

“We’ll miss the tribute, the funeral…”

Tallis shook her head. “You must go. Your father would understand.”

As Jack turned toward his bedroom, his mother grabbed his arm and mouthed Je suis désolée. I am sorry.

Jack patted her hand without meeting her eyes and turned away.

He was bound to a woman who didn’t want him, but the idea that Lela—that anyone —could harm Darcy twisted his gut into knots.

All of the anger and sadness he felt last night took a backseat to his need, his visceral need, to keep his mate safe.

He hadn’t meant to return to Carlisle so soon.

He’d meant to give her more time to process who he was. But time had abruptly run out.

“You ready?” he asked his brother.

“I’m ready, Jacques.”

Striding through the cabin door with Julien at his heels, he took a seat, started his car, and turned it south.

And even though the immediate threat of Lela and the long-term threat of the solstice should have made him heavy-hearted, for the first time in two days, he took a deep breath.

She would still be angry. She would probably still reject him.

But in all the earth, his heart only had one home.

The binding was messy, but it had held, after all.

Jack pressed down on the gas.

He was going home.