Page 19 of Never Submit (Bad Wolves #2)

Chapter 19

Ren

I ’m sore in all the right places.

Between my legs, my backside… The only place that should feel good but doesn’t is my heart. It’s full of things too painful for me to examine and there’s only one name echoing in my mind: Carrigan. Carrigan .

Noble assures me she’ll be fine, but what if she’s not?

What if Torin puts his foot down and Mathis agrees? From what I understand, they’re alphas, so their word is law. They’re not going to let little ol’ me, or Noble as a beta, sway them. Will they?

I only know she’s safe and somewhere in this building, if the deltas are to be believed.

I don’t trust any of them.

But this delicious stew Flora prepared for everyone is going a long way toward mending all those cracks.

“This is delicious.” I spoon another heaping helping up to my lips and smile through my slurp.

I’ve never really understood why people say food can heal a heart, but a few more meals from Flora, and I may start. The woman knows her stuff .

Flora preens, practically glowing from the compliment. “Thank you. It was one of my grandmother’s favorite recipes to share with us. We used to make it together.”

Torin prods the bowl with his spoon, his face sour. “This is venison?”

He says it as though the little omega is trying to force-feed him elephant ass.

Both alphas and betas are gathered in the penthouse dining room, on opposite sides of a massive table designed to give them enough space for their egos, too. But hell if it does. The last time they'd all been together this way, they’d hovered over me like overprotective hens on our trek up a mountain.

Now, the circumstances are still dire, but at least we’ve got a stew that might be the best damn thing I’ve ever eaten.

“Yes, it’s venison, and it’s fresh from our territory. I had Owen bring it in,” Flora answered, nodding at Mathis as though seeking his approval. “One of your men helped me, Torin. Henrickson?”

Torin grunts out something unintelligible and finally dives for the stew the same way I do.

If Flora keeps this up, it will be my favorite food, too, and I’ll weigh about seven hundred pounds because I won’t stop eating it.

“Flora, you're a godsend,” I say in the wake of Torin’s disapproval.

At my side, Noble squeezes my knee, a flicker of appreciation flowing down our bond.

“It’s not her kitchen.” Torin straightens. He’s still wearing his suit vest and tie, buttoned up to his chin in a stranglehold. “I have professional chefs on payroll for a reason. Surely they don’t appreciate having someone come in and boss them around. ”

“What’s the matter?” Mathis asks through a mouthful of food. “Afraid they’ll never be able to keep up with her?”

Torin growls. “The pup doesn’t belong in my kitchen.”

Flora flitters around the table ladling out extra helpings to anyone who asks. “I haven’t been a pup in years.” Yet she smiles, turning the chastisement into a compliment.

She didn’t stop at the stew, either. There are several platters of roasted vegetables and a fresh salad with bright green lettuce and equally green dressing.

She also performed magic on some kind of apple and pear tart for dessert. I wouldn’t be surprised if she churned her own ice cream, if given the opportunity.

“This is really good,” I insist. “Can we keep her?”

“Absolutely not. If you want Flora to cook, you’ll have to come home with me.” Mathis winks at me. “There’s always room for you.”

I warm to the proposition. “It wouldn’t be such a terrible thing to see where you live. Well, to see it properly.” Since the last time I was there I had to sneak around and steal the Moonstone.

Noble squeezes my knee again but his emotions aren’t clear. And I like to think I’ve gotten much better at figuring him out through this mate thing.

Torin huffs. “Terrible, indeed.”

Dax leers at Torin, food stuck in his beard. “You say that like it’s a bad thing. Better than counting your dollar bills in your safe.”

“Like Scrooge McDuck,” I agree with a grin.

If the four of them would focus on the food rather than old wounds and antagonizing each other, they might actually be able to work together. They really aren’t so different. If only there was a way to make them see it.

You have me convinced, baby , Noble purrs in my head .

I hide my giggle in another bite. It’s called a sex haze. You’d agree to anything right now .

Not anything. But you certainly have me in a generous mood. Look. I’m sitting at a table across from Dax and I’m not trying to drown him in the stew .

I suppose you want points for that?

I catch a glimpse of his smile in my head. Maybe props, not points.

It’s a tiny sliver of normality in the middle of the chaos. Once they’re done eating, they’ll go back to wherever it is they’re keeping Andras’s man and interrogate him further. But for now, this is what we’ve got.

This stalemate. This pause button someone pressed that allows us to have this moment.

Flora gasps, a small yeeping sound, before she covers her mouth. “I forgot about my cheese souffle.”

I groan. “The woman makes souffles too? Be still my heart.”

“She can do anything and everything. She is an asset to my pack. Which is part of the reason why we’re trying so hard to stop the Blood Moons from taking any more of our women.” Mathis says it with a loaded look.

Like Torin’s females will be the next ones targeted.

Torin sniffs, pushing aside the bowl of venison stew and focusing on the roasted honey carrots and salad. “Say what you want, but our protections are much stronger here than whatever rope and stone booby traps you have set up around your territory lines. I know how to keep my people safe.”

Much to my surprise, Mathis barks out a laugh, with only a hint of disgust in the sound. Mathis’s dark eyes meet mine, and he smiles, his expression neutral but the appreciation in his gaze is just for me. “You’ll see exactly what I mean once Andras targets you as well, Torin. He’ll spare no one in his war. He’s like a plague of locusts.”

Dax cracks his knuckles. “Which is why we’ll break his man.” He pushes away from the table abruptly, jerking his head toward the door. “Anyone else care for a little torture rather than dessert?” He licks his lips.

The pressure on my knee increases, Noble clasping me harder.

Mathis slowly rises and takes the bowl with him. “I’ll be right down,” he replies. He towers over the table, his large frame looking slightly out of place with the minimalistic decor that Torin no doubt let someone else choose.

His haughty arrogance matches it, though.

Mathis is a man molded to give the orders rather than take them. The hair on the sides and the back of his head is growing out longer, not so closely buzzed, showing more of his oak-brown hair, making him appear almost too wild for four walls anymore.

Mathis takes off with a wink. Torin waits until they’re both out of the room before he slowly deflates. “Why,” he grinds out, “is it such a bad thing to want to enjoy the food my personal chefs prepare rather than this rustic…” He trails off.

Noble shakes his head. “Don’t even say it. Flora did us a favor by cooking tonight. And it is really tasty.”

“I don't understand why Mathis allows his omega more liberties than most. The rest of the Grey Valleys are at least keeping to their assigned lower floors.” But Torin glances toward the door, his lips pursed.

“I’m going to let you boys have some time to decompress without me.” I pat Noble’s knee in return and stand. “I think I might see if Flora needs help in the kitchen.

“I should go see if the Grey Valleys need anything.” Noble smiles and moves to leave, but Torin is still imposing, still a sullen asshole.

“What’s the matter? The mention of violence has soured your stomach, Ms. Wexler?”

“Maybe I just prefer her company to yours. Watch out. Women are going to take over your place whether you want them to or not.”

And once I’ve got myself under control, I’ll be paying Mr. Steel a visit to discuss his plans for Carrigan. Rest assured.

I leave them behind to speak in low tones, with Torin probably thinking of a thousand different insults for me.

He’ll find out soon enough, once he gets married, how women react to being called names.

Ugh . Just thinking about it makes me a little queasy.

Why in the world would he want to get married? He’s not the kind who flourishes in a relationship.

The idea of Torin being with another woman, of trying to play the part of a doting husband…it doesn’t sit well with me. When I glance down, my nails are carving crescents into the palms of my hands and my skin is red. The flush travels all the way up my neck and the sides of my face.

I’ve got to calm down.

There’s no reason to get upset this way, and my reaction is borderline irrational.

I walk into the kitchen only to find Flora with a ladle in one hand, addressing a line of personal chefs. A general in front of her troops as she preps them for battle.

“Food is about heart. It’s about soul. It’s about filling the bellies of your cherished ones so that they know, with every bite, you care,” she says. “It doesn’t involve foam and dry ice or whatever else you’re trying to do to make it fancy. What the hell is molecular gastronomy anyway? ”

She sniffs, disgusted.

I hide my laughter at the vision of her barking out orders this way. Torin’s chefs have no idea what they’re up against. Even I can see that the pregnant woman is in full control of whatever space she occupies. She’s a warrior but on a completely different front than any of the others.

I clear my throat to announce myself, but Flora has already turned around, her grin lighting her eyes. “Did they send you to check on me?” she asks.

I make myself at home and jump up on the island, scooting backward until I’m comfortable. There isn’t a lot of space with so many people running around the different stations so it’s better to get out of their way.

Aspen and Carrigan and I used to chill in the kitchen this way. Of course, the space was about one quarter of this castle-huge room, but whenever the three of us were together, we always had fun.

The chefs eye me with thinly veiled distaste, but none of them tell me to get down. Not as Noble’s mate.

“Nah, I just wanted to chat,” I tell Flora.

“Then why don’t you help me.” Before I say anything, she thrusts a bowl into my lap and holds out a whisk. “Fresh whipped cream.”

“Don’t they have mixers for these types of things?”

“Yes, they do, but like I was explaining to Torin’s team of idiots over there, the only way to cook with love is to actually cook. Rather than spending all your time trying to make peas into foam and then freezing the foam and shaping it like peas.” She blinks, her attention probably on said pea foam, and makes a face.

Not given to standing around and taking insults any longer, they return to their stations, doing whatever they want, or prepping for breakfast. I’m not sure .

I adjust the bowl and start beating the cream and sugar mixture. “Do you do all the cooking for the pack at home?” I ask her.

Flora nods decisively. “I do. Not alone, though, thankfully. Several other omegas help. Or they did, before they were taken. But it’s one of the most important jobs in the pack, and I won’t let anyone else tell me differently. I even have my kids with me to help out. They love joining me in the kitchen.”

“How many kids do you have? Who’s watching them?”

“They’re with my husband right now. I’ve got triplets, if you can believe it.” Flora runs her hands down her front. “I am very fertile. My husband just has to look at me sideways and poof, babies. Multiple births run in my line.”

The easy way she offers up the information, and the teasing circles on her belly, has me laughing again. “You definitely have a mothering kind of energy about you, Flora.”

So different from my own mom, who always did her best and I give her credit. She and my father were courageous enough to seek out a Moon Goddess with their stillborn baby. To beg for divine intervention to give me a chance at life.

But Mom’s worry for me made it difficult for her to lean into the open, free way Flora lives her life. She’s got the momma-bear vibe, but also the vibe assuring that her kids are always given the space to be themselves.

I like it. A lot.

Maybe that’s why I’m sitting on the counter beating whipped cream by hand.

“My family means everything to me,” Flora continues, bustling around the kitchen with a pair of thick oven mitts over her hands. “I’d do anything for them, and they know it. Just like I’d do anything for Mathis.”

I watch her bend to take the cheese souffle out of the oven. “You respect your alpha.”

“Of course I do. He’s a good man. A strong leader. It’s not his fault things have been going so wrong for our pack. We’ve been targeted.”

If she has any sort of reservations about being in the home of a rival pack, Flora shows none of it. She’s easy and confident.

I should take a page out of her book.

“He’s worried about you, though,” she adds.

I sit up a little straighter, my heart thrumming. “He doesn’t need to be.” Then I pause. “He’s worried more about the Moonstone I’ve got inside of me.”

Surely if Flora is one of the only people to stand up to Mathis, she knows about my predicament. I search her face for any kind of surprise or reaction out of the ordinary, but she only sighs.

“It’s a great honor to be chosen by the Goddess.” Her voice is reverent as she sets the souffle down on top of a spotless stove top. “She is myth and legend, but she is also the lifeblood of any pack who adheres to the old ways.” Flora looks up, her gaze equally soft. “And also of some who are doing their best to distance themselves from the old ways.”

“You’re talking about Torin.”

She bobs her head. “He has embraced the modern world and all its changes and delights, but he knows the importance of the Goddess.”

I met the Goddess once, in a dream. Not meet so much as she called me to her and gave me a verbal beat-down. But the Goddess herself, the way she speaks in an ancient language I somehow still understood, and the power rolling off of her, the strange way I felt tethered to her in such a manner that it wasn’t a curse but a gift…

I want to please her.

I want to find my way back to her.

“Why is she so important? To you guys, I mean.”

“She is the embodiment of the moon, which as you know is central to werewolves. We feel her changes like they are the blood in our bodies. We move with her moods, through the changing seasons, the new to the full and back again. The Goddess gifted wolves, her children before any other, with her two most precious artifacts—the Moonstone and her weapon that we’ve always believed to be a sword,” Flora explains.

I stop, letting the whisk drop, and place my hand over my heart.

“The stone is her heart and the sword is her arm, two halves of the same whole. You need the hard with the soft, the dark with the light. Do you understand?” Flora finishes.

I’m not sure I do, or if I ever will, on every level.

But I face Flora solemnly. “I don’t know what it makes me.”

Her smile is luminous. “It makes you special in a way that no one else is special.”

“The Goddess saved my life. She told my parents that I had twenty-five years before I’d die and return to her, but the Moonstone sank inside of me.” It’s easier to talk to Flora when we’re alone, and I glance up sharply as if only now fully realizing that the other chefs have left the room and it’s just us. “I think…it gives me more time.”

“Like I said,” she repeats, “you’re special. And I believe your shifting is one of the first ways we’re seeing it. Just think how much more there is to you now, and how exciting it will be to see the extent of it.”

For a brief moment, the world is soft and easy, and it’s only us two girls sharing a moment where I’m actually excited for the future.

Then Mathis shatters the moment when he struts into the kitchen and heads directly toward the sink, throwing on the tap and sticking his head beneath it. Rivulets of crimson pour down the drain.

“Well, that’s one way to make an entrance,” I mutter, my stomach roiling uncomfortably.

When he stands up, his dark hair is plastered to his skin and blood trickles down his neck. His shirt is stained and torn in places and his knuckles are raw, covered in the same stuff.

“Don’t bring your violence in here,” Flora admonishes. “You know better.”

Mathis grins. “Torin had a problem with me tracking blood through his penthouse but the fucker doesn’t have a washroom in his torture chamber.”

I jolt hearing him say it out loud.

I mean, it makes sense that even a skyscraper like this would have a place to hold criminals. Especially considering Torin’s aversion to the woods and the place where I’d first seen Mathis and Dax in action.

But hearing him say it so offhandedly is a different story.

“I can’t wait to get cleaned up and head the fuck out of here. This place is creepy and much too clean.”

Mathis looks ready to splatter blood on the countertops just to be an asshole, but a warning click of Flora’s tongue stops him in his tracks. His gaze settles on me.

“If the kitchen makes you that uncomfortable, then leave,” I tell him with mock seriousness .

“It’s not the kitchen,” he explains. “It’s this building. I’m not sure how much more I can take. If I’m reacting this way, there’s no telling how the others are feeling.”

“Your people are fine here. It’s a big building. There’s plenty of space on the lower floors. Or if they want a better view, we can always have some of them up in the penthouse with us,” I suggest.

“Absolutely the fuck not,” Torin interrupts hotly as he enters. He's the pristine opposite to Mathis’s blood-speckled shirt, and for a second I’m struck by the polarity of these two powerhouses. One fair and blond, one dark and powerful.

“He’s afraid I’ll taint his wolves,” Mathis says casually. He sticks his head underneath the faucet again.

“How is the interrogation going?” Torin asks.

“It would be better if I had another alpha there to share the load.”

“Seems to me you’ve managed well enough before now. You shouldn’t need my assistance, outside of the room I’ve lent you.”

Mathis presses his hand to his chest mockingly. “Be still my fucking heart, such generosity.”

He’s exhausted, I can tell. He hides it well, but there’s always been a connection between me and the dark-haired alpha, strange as it is. From the first night he walked into Rudy’s to get me out of trouble, I felt something.

The lines around his eyes are deeper, the brown irises darker, and his face haggard.

“It’s not going well, is it?” I ask softly.

Mathis shakes his head a single time. “Andras has his men trained well. They are like traps with steel teeth waiting to clamp down on me if I make a wrong move.”

Torin leans back against the island countertop, his arms crossed over his chest. “So it’s a good thing you’ve got your puppy on a leash with you.” Heat rolls off of him in waves.

I grab the whisk again. “What’s to stop Andras from coming here to get this dude back?”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“You’d better watch how you boast,” Mathis warns Torin. “You never know what could happen.”

Torin bristles at being questioned. “Look, a delta isn’t worth much. I’m sorry.” He says that for me although he’s not looking in my direction. “Andras sent out his grunts to track Ren. He’s not going to miss them.”

“You don’t know that because you don’t speak for him. Andras is sneaky,” Mathis argues.

“A man who is bound with silver while your beta systematically tears him apart may not be willing to part with the full truth. He’ll tell you what you want to hear,” Torin offers the comment as he checks his cufflinks. “I see everything that goes on in this place. The delta is managed. End of discussion.”

“Watching us through your security feeds, then?” Mathis mimics Torin’s posture, crossing his arms with a smirk. “Hopefully I’ve put on a good show for you and taught you a little something about how things are done.”

“Enough.” I sigh, bending over the bowl. “Enough, guys. This is ridiculous.”

“Sweetheart, this is foreplay,” Mathis says casually. “Surely you understand that by now.”

Torin waves a hand flippantly at Mathis’s blood-stained shirt. “It’s friendly banter,” he explains with a snide grin.

Mathis chuckles. “Right. It means nothing.”

Something like awareness prickles along my spine and pulls me up short. “Maybe it’s not nothing.”

Is it about the two of them? Is it something going on in this kitchen that has me setting the bowl aside and sliding onto my feet? Glancing around like the kitchen isn’t safe anymore?

My stomach dips, my head whirring. I glance at Flora but she only shrugs and turns back to her souffle.

“What’s wrong?” Mathis is on instant alert. “Ren?”

I shake my head, a splinter of pain starting at the base of my spine. “I’m not sure. But something is happening.”

Torin is gruff and unyielding as he reaches for something in his back pocket. “Nothing is going on. I’d know.” He whips out his cell, unlocking the screen. “See?”

His security feed is grainy black-and-white and every shade of gray in between, and it shows Noble and Dax with the blond delta.

Torin quickly changes the screen to a different feed, this one the living room, then the empty dining room, our supper forgotten.

“There’s nothing.” He’s insistent.

A flash of movement on one of the feeds has me grabbing his wrist and stopping him from pocketing the cell phone. “Torin!”

There’s enough alarm in my tone for him to take me seriously, and he stops, turning back to the cell screen. Several unknown figures in black flash across the security feed in the parking garage.

Torin sucks in a breath. “ Fuck .”

“We were wrong.” Mathis seems to grow taller. “They’re already here.”