Page 29 of Never Tamed (Bad Wolves #3)

Noble

T orin keeps pouring, as if every finger of liquor will somehow drown out the exhaustion and the pleasure coming through the bond.

Ren is getting fucked deliciously well. I thought I’d be jealous because hell, it’s not my cock inside of her, but that’s the strange thing about having to make room for multiple mates. As long as she’s happy…that’s what matters.

Torin growls.

Amber colored liquid threatens to flow over the rim of the cup, but he’s not stopping, and I’m not stopping him. Only when the first drops slosh on my hand does he lift the bottle away and I take a long swig.

The liquor scalds a path down to the bottom of my stomach and warms the frigid chill taking root after the warehouse raid.

We’re both worn out from the day and from Ren’s nighttime sex-capades with Mathis.

Any discomfort at feeling everything so sharply, at knowing exactly what he’s doing and where he’s touching her, how she feels, fades.

Instead, the richness of the sensation of them together only deepens the love I feel for her. How fucked up is that?

I sip until the fire settles in my stomach, and the lovely trail down my throat settles. Finally, I set Torin with a look. He stares at me without blinking and I jolt.

This is the first time I’ve stopped to actually look at him since his mate bond clicked into place.

Feeling Torin, hearing him in my head as my alpha is natural for me.

He’s our leader and he’s been my friend for longer than he’s held the mantle.

We’ve weathered more storms in our years than most people do in a lifetime and here we are, standing together, linked until our death in a way no earthly force can accomplish.

His eyes soften and he lifts his own full glass. “Cheers, Noble.”

I didn’t wait for him but there’s always the second pour. My gut tells me I'll be in desperate need of a little drink.

Anything to wash away what we saw at the factory.

Torin sips quietly and his thoughts churn in my head. Luckily for him, we’re of the same mind this time.

“So,” I say when the silence is too much to handle. “Are you ready to apologize to me?”

Torin would have jumped down my throat for my questioning tone a few weeks ago. He’d threaten to bash my head in, as he has in the past. Now, he settles against the side of the chair, and I make myself comfortable.

The air thickens.

There’s no apology, but his throat works and his cheeks flush, jaw clenching.

He’s got something broiling up inside of him. I force myself to wait impatiently until he speaks.

“When the building burned down,” he starts, his fingers tapping wildly, “I thought we lost everything. I thought there was no way to bounce back from it.”

“Material things,” I try to say.

“No need to sound bitter. I’m talking metaphorically. I thought it was a blow I wouldn’t survive. The destruction of my father’s empire... where do we even go from there?”

I scoff and sip. “You want to talk about your father? Now?”

“I’m getting to my fucking point, if you’re done interrupting.” He glares at me and his eyes deepen with fire.

“And yet none of it sounds like an apology.” The bitterness tastes awful, familiar.

If this is our come to Jesus moment, then Torin is doing one hell of a job of making it about him. As always. He has the singular ability to turn everything around.

Yet there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for the man.

Now that we share the same mate?

A mate bond is a rare thing. To have our girl shared between the three of us is nothing short of a miracle. Or some kind of fucked up joke by the Moon Goddess.

I’m not sure which one I believe yet.

It forces me to reexamine not only myself and how I interact with the world, but my relationship with others.

“You were right, okay? About my feelings for her and the way I acted like a fool. All of it,” he says in a rush. Scoffing, he straightens. “You were right.”

My fingers clench along the side of the glass until cracks splinter across the delicate pattern. “You think this is what I want to hear? I know I was right. That isn’t…”

How do I even put it, so he’ll understand?

Torin’s brow furrows. “I’m trying—”

“We’ve been sitting on this for a lot longer than you think. I had things to say even before I left, before I came back.” I glance to the side.

Shit, okay. The liquor loosens my tongue, but the words have been beating at me for so long, I’ve forgotten what it feels like to live free of them.

Torin’s willingness to talk shows how much the mate bond has changed him. Rather than erupting, shoving his thoughts and feelings and control down my throat, he takes a sip of whiskey.

“Okay, Noble. Okay.”

I can’t say for sure he’ll listen to me, but the second the dam breaks, there’s no holding back anymore. The anger I’ve always tamped down finally bubbles up like an uncontrollable swell of acid. It devours everything in its path.

“I got out.” I surge to my feet and pace in front of the chairs in his office. Outside, a bitter wind blows. “You knew how much it meant to me to get out and to make a life for myself. And fuck you if you try to tell me it was never going to work. I made it work. Things were going well.”

My stomach twists.

I had an apartment. A human girlfriend. A career I’d built from the ground up that had nothing to do with who my parents or my friends were. My life had no association with my past. There was no lure of the moon and there was no pack responsibility.

There was only me and whatever the fuck I wanted.

“I came back because you asked me to, because you needed me and as my friend, I wasn’t about to let you go through the loss alone. Then you tell me you paid for my college. You were pulling the strings the entire time.” My voice cracks and I point a finger at him, still clutching the shot glass.

Torin, on any given day, would look unruffled and unbothered. Like that fucking meme where the dude is moisturized and living his best life. Not tonight.

Tonight, a muscle ticks near his temple, and his normally trim goatee has a few wild hairs. “I didn’t want you to flounder.”

“No, you didn’t think I could hack it on my own,” I argue.

And I suspect, although I’m not ready to say it yet, that he didn’t want me to make it without him. Because clearly he can’t make it without me. I’ve been the best beta possible for him and the Steel Claws, but the time has come for me to take a more equal position. We share a mate.

The hierarchy can’t work if we’re not able to respect each other.

“Ren was mine first. And I have no problem sharing her with you because goddess fucking knows mates are rare. But I tried to tell you and you threw it in my face. It doesn’t matter how many amends you make with her. This reckoning has to happen too,” I add gruffly.

“Do you think an apology is going to help you feel better? Or erase the past?” His tone makes it clear I’m dredging up things he wants to stay hidden. “It won’t. It’s only words.”

“Will it help? Maybe, maybe not, but you'll remember this: I warned you against diving head first into an agreement with the Briar Pack. You ignored me. As usual.”

Typical Torin behavior.

Mr. I-know-better-than-any-other-fucking-person-on-this-planet. I understand his motivation, I do. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.

The manic energy in me lights my veins and I drown myself in the last of the liquor before pacing. I stomp parallel lines back and forth in front of his desk, his mini empire in the camp.

“So what do you want to talk about? Ren or Catarina?” he asks.

“They’re both linked and you know it.”

Maybe he’ll take me around in circles until his point is the only one left. I have no way of knowing as Torin blocks himself from me mentally. It’s more to protect himself, I know, because we’re pretty shit at being vulnerable.

You okay over there? Torin has a wall up , Ren whispers through my mind. She yawns, sleepy and well-fucked, cradled in Mathis’s arms and wearing his scent.

I practically smell it from here.

My heart softens a little. We’re fine. Just talking to each other. It had to happen.

I feel her yawn a second time. You need backup ?

You enjoy your snuggles. You deserve them.

You two worry me. You have a lot of baggage.

It’s nothing we haven’t had coming for a long time, I whisper back.

He could use a good kick in the ass. Let me know if you change your mind.

She blows soft kisses down the bond. I gently pull the barrier up between us, hoping Torin does the same. Ren has no business in the air we’re clearing. She needs to stay untouched from the mountains of shit we'll dredge. I don’t want it touching her.

There’s no way for me to be the best mate possible unless we talk about this.

“What does she think I’m going to do to you?” Torin asks, his voice a lash of acid. “I felt her warning there but she kept me out.”

“She worries about you.” I pace to the bottle and pour out more whiskey. “She worries about me. That’s the price of having a mate we both share.”

“Please.” He sneers. “I don’t need to be reminded about it. I’m making the necessary changes to show her I’m serious.”

“I’m glad you are because she deserves a hell of a lot more than your trauma.”

“What do you really want me to say, Noble? Do you want me to apologize for paying for things? I wanted you to have what you wanted out of life. I tried to make it possible. I wasn’t about to let you hurt yourself even if you were far away.”

“You didn’t trust me to do it on my own,” I insist.

His face goes red. “Bullshit.”

“Or did you think you had to buy me to get me to care about you? Real friends can't be bribed.”

“So you’re telling me you came back for me because you wanted to? Not because you felt obligated?” He’s on his feet in an instant.

I stop then and work my jaw. “I came back because you needed me.”

And there was no one else. I’d been groomed as the perfect beta my entire life.

But it’s not what I chose for myself. In a world of my choosing, I’d have stayed in the city and gotten my degree, continued on with my human girlfriend, and stayed with the university until I got tenure. I wanted to teach. I wanted to create.

Things don’t always work out the way we want, or plan for. Those things were taken from me when Torin made the call to say his father died.

“I feel like you hold it over my head, even when you’re silent,” I finish.

The silence stretches out for a moment longer than comfortable.

“I could say the same thing for you. You still think I’m responsible for your sister’s death.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Get fucking serious.”

“I am serious.”

We’re getting off track. Or maybe we are exactly where we need to be and we’re not quite hearing each other. Or maybe we’re both so desperate to get our points across that we aren’t making progress.

Day after day, we’ve buried our heads in our respective holes and done our jobs, refusing to address the things we really need to address. And now that we have the chance, it’s uncomfortable and it’s awkward. It feels like I’m trying to tear off my skin.

“Look,” I say, my voice steady. “We have an opportunity here. A rare one. We can start fresh. We can put it all aside and be done with it for good.”

“You think I haven’t been considering it?” he asks.

I stare him down. “No, I think you’re choosing another hole to stick your head into.”

“What the hell are you talking about, holes?”

I grab the bottle and pour myself another half glass before topping his glass off.

Torin’s barely touched his drink. “I know what you were trying to do by connecting us with the Briar pack. You wanted the safety of their numbers and the security of having more wolves under you. But the Briars are lost. What we have is the Grey Valley. We have our mate. She’s not going anywhere. ”

“And everything I do is for her,” he insists hotly.

“Then use your damn head.”

The Briar Pack has been under Andras and his control the entire time. Torin played right into their hands.

“It’s time to work together, work smarter, not figure out a different solution. Especially the two of us. We can’t keep going on the way we’ve been.”

“No.” He drums his fingers on his own glass. “No, we can’t.”

“So, we start fresh. We agree to put it all behind us.” I need him to agree.

Ren’s silent resolve fills my head. She is the silken thread connecting us all together.

Unable to keep steady, I grab one of the spare chairs, dragging it in front of the desk and setting it down, throwing myself in the seat backward. I rest my arms across the stout rungs with the glass dangling in my fingers.

“I’m tired, Torin. I’m tired of feeling like I’m dragging all this emotional weight behind me. I’m tired of not knowing how to forgive you for our past. Worse. I don’t know how to forgive myself.”

“I feel the same fucking way, Noble. These endless circles…” he trails off.

I finally let the cup drop, still full of primo liquor.

Only the best for Torin. I’ve done a great job for him in whatever capacity he’s needed me over the years.

I’m the same as this liquor. Something for him to use when he needs it be, to take off the shelf and dust off, then replace. Neat. Orderly.

Understandable.

But real relationships are messy. We’ve been close, alpha and beta, now sharing a mate. We’re closer still. There can’t be any more awkward edges when we talk to each other. It’s only going to hurt the person we both love.

There can’t be any more hatred for ourselves.

It’s been a struggle for me to come to terms with, but I think I’ve finally stepped into a season where I like who I am. I appreciate my good points and the bad ones. Can Torin say the same? Or is he still catching up?

“I’m going to do better,” he assures me. “Trust me.”

His voice holds firm and beneath each word is the tenor I’m used to, his alpha tone.

“You have to do better. Because we’re barely managed to make it this far in tact. Now we’ve got the biggest threat of our life. Andras, the Blood Moons, and the Briar wolves. All wrapped up in one.”

Torin shakes his head. “I’m not sure it’s that neat.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Andras and his connections spread much further than we thought. I’m not sure this is going to be the end, even after our dazzling rescue.”

I blow out a breath. “Fucking fate. Our enemies are the only ones we can trust.”

“I know. It’s screwed up.” His face screws into a distasteful scowl. “Mathis.”

My stomach clenches when I say, “And Dax.”

“And in the middle of it?”

“Our beautiful girl.”

He lifts his glass to that and I grab mine, tapping them together again. Killing Andras will only be the beginning. The fallout from toppling the king of his empire will surely bring more issues along the road. But one step at a time. Otherwise we all break.