Page 46 of Pack Rage (The Splintered Bond #4)

Chapter 45

Hurting and Healing

LUKE

F lor was pretending. I’d watched her for far too long not to know the difference between a real smile and one she plastered on to cover up what was really going on inside. She was doing a good job, and I knew why she felt like she needed to. If the Eastern girls and women hadn’t felt safe before their Alpha and his witch wife died, they felt even less so now. They didn’t know who was safe, who to trust with their injuries, or who might be every bit as bad as the Eastern Enforcers we’d locked in the lower levels, until we could sort them all out.

Flor needed to rest. We all did, but I could feel how close she was to the edge of collapsing. I could see her hands trembling as she barked out orders to make sure everyone got food, water, medical help, and a place to sleep inside.

“They don’t want to sleep in the Mansion,” a young woman explained, indicating a group of girls who were huddled together, sharing some blankets that had been taken out of the house. “It’s full of strange males, and… we’ve been locked up in there for so long.”

“Of course not, Vanya,” Flor said, pasting the smile back on after it slipped. “How about in the forest?”

She shook her head. “Maybe in the garage…”

“The laundry room?” Flor suggested. “Turn on a dryer?”

Vanya smiled for some reason. “Too small. Twenty of us are still alive.”

“Only twenty?” Flor’s smile trembled. “Okay, lemme think.”

The woman waited, looking to my mate for the answers. She was the only one they would listen to, the one they felt comfortable with, which didn’t surprise me. She’d wiped herself clean, more or less, and her wounds from the battle had healed, leaving some new silver scars on her arms and one on her face. She still wore her mother’s sword and her steak knife, now tucked into the belt of a new pair of clean black jeans, her hair tied up with a length of string. Her ear tag glimmered in the light of the torches some of Brand’s shifters had relit so we could see who needed help.

That tag drew every eye, from the smaller pack shifters to the Eastern unranked servants, to the wounded foreign visitors, its existence turning everything they’d thought they knew on its head. But it was the shifter who wore the tag that no one could look away from.

She’d left the Mansion powerful, but the battle had transformed her. The balance of witchcraft and moon magic she’d achieved made it feel like she had her own gravity, pulling others to her. She was by far the most powerful female shifter on the continent, and her strength radiated around her like a force field. Not one shifter could meet her gaze and hold it, except her mates.

But maybe… I had an idea, and broke away from the group of Enforcers I’d been assisting to look for the one who might be able to help. Some of the smaller pack Alphas were making calls home, letting them know what had happened, and asking for supplies. We couldn’t use human medical help, and Eastern’s supplies were already running low. Finn had called on his pack members—the ones who didn’t reside in the Mansion or on the grounds—to bring what they could from their homes, and to make their pledge to him, though I was almost certain he wanted nothing to do with his pack.

But none of them had shown up yet. A few stacks of blankets and bags of food had been dropped at the gates, but not one shifter who lived outside the Mansion had tried to enter. Finn was inside, making a video call to the Alpha of Novosibirsk, with Brand and Grigor both there to make sure the Alpha knew exactly who he would be dealing with if he decided to try and retaliate for “losing” Tana, or for the deaths of the Russians who’d allied with the McDonnells. We were fairly certain they were connected, some possibly even members of that Alpha’s pack, but even if they weren’t, he had to be put in his place.

The Mountain pack was so angry at what had been done to their own Alpha, they were ready to travel across the world to take revenge. Brand had been calm about the possibility when Dean had suggested it. “The only one who might need killing at some point in the future—but not until we take care of our own messes—is their Alpha. He’s a very bad man,” he’d said, then winked at Grigor.

Grigor had smiled like it was his birthday, but stayed silent.

The shifter I was looking for now was staying quiet, too, but I knew just where to find her.A grassy place behind the Mansion, as far from the battlefield as you could get without leaving the fenced area, was where the bodies of the fallen had been moved. The enemies had been stacked and covered with large tarps on one side, but the ones I walked toward were our own. Each one, whether they’d died in wolf or human form, was covered with a clean tablecloth or blanket, placed in lines with enough space to walk between them. The moon had almost set, and a few grieving wolves paced the edges of the area, but allowed me to pass.

“Margarette?” A blanket in the center shifted at my voice. I approached slowly and saw her lying under the cream-colored fabric, her arms wrapped around her dead mate, her head resting on his chest as she wept. I kneeled next to her. “Margarette, we need you.”

She stared blankly up at me, and I almost dropped my gaze. Glen’s mother was in excruciating pain, and there was no one to fight now, no place to find her revenge. All that was left was the emptiness of missing her true mate. I had a feeling her wolf would follow Bradley to the moon, if she didn’t see a reason to live.

I tried again. “Margarette, the girls of Eastern are scared to death. They won’t go back into the Mansion; it’s the place where they were tortured. They don’t feel safe in the woods. Some of them are too young to shift, others are too weak to even walk that far. They want to sleep outside, but there are too many strangers, too many males.”

“Flor,” she whispered after a long moment. “Flor can help.”

“She’s breaking, Margarette. She’s strong, but she’s only one shifter, and she lost her mother tonight as well. Can you help, just for one night? So Flor can sleep a little. So the girls can.”

“Get someone else.”

“There’s no one they trust. No female strong enough to protect them if they’re attacked again. They watched you kill the ones who hurt them. They know you would die for them.”

Her voice cracked. “I want to die, Luke. I want to die, and be with my mate. My Alpha.”

“I know.” I waited quietly, slightly queasy at what I was about to say. Every shifter knew how painful a true mate’s death was. Even if the pain itself didn’t kill the survivor, it was nearly impossible to entice the wolf side to stay alive. If Flor died… I shook the thought away. I was doing this for her. “It would be easier to die, to let go. To not have to protect the pack anymore.”

Margarette growled slightly, her wolf offended.

That was good. I could work with anger. “But you’ve never taken the easy way, have you?”

Silence.

“I remember when you picked Flor up off the ground at Southern, and promised to protect her. Promised to be her mother. You broke that promise.” She gasped and raised her head, but I went on, my voice rising with each word. “You broke that promise, and if you don’t help her now, you’re breaking it again. You and Bradley both owe her for any honor your pack has left. She saved your lives in battle at Southern. She showed you the error of your ways at Northern. She broke into the lower levels here to save you. She gave Bradley, moon be with him, a chance to die with honor instead of being executed like a criminal.

“And now, she’s heartsick and exhausted, and the only female with enough power to protect the others. Do you think this is what penance looks like, Margarette Hillier?” My voice was a shout.

She jumped to her feet, her face a mask of rage and pain. “It hurts!”

I yelled back, “I know! You’re still breaking your promise, Margarette.”

“You don’t know shit! How can you be so cruel?”

“I had excellent teachers,” I answered quietly. “And years of watching my true mate being beaten and starved, tortured and hunted and hurt, but I wasn’t able to protect her then. I made a promise, too, you know. I promised to do everything I could to protect her from now on. To say anything, to be as cruel or as kind as I need to, to make up for all the times I couldn’t save her.”

“You wretched little shit,” she croaked. “I want to die.”

“I know what that feels like as well. You think I didn’t want a way out? But the only way out of this kind of pain is through. You get up, and you do your damned best to fight for the pack, for the weak and the scared, the children and the unranked. You get the fuck up and you move, even when it feels like surviving one more day will kill you. You stand up and you spend every breath making this world a place safe enough for your children to bring new pups into it, Margarette.”

“Flor…?”

I shook my head. Flor hadn’t once spoken about children, and I knew it could be many years before she would be ready for that conversation. There was no rush on my part. “You have two sons, and from what I hear, they’ve both found their true mates. You have reasons to live that haven’t even been born. Come back to the pack. Help the girls.”

I went quiet, watching as her whole body trembled. I thought she was quivering with rage, but when she took a few steps away from Bradley and shook like a leaf, I wasn’t sure.

Would she fall? Of course not. Still, I walked behind her all the way back to the Mansion, where the girls were gathered by a torch, still peppering Flor with questions. Sergeant and the Tenebris boys were watching from the edge of the pines, closer to the back gate.

One of the women was in the middle of a panic attack, her head hanging between her knees as she tried to breathe, while another held onto Flor’s arm. “They might not have caught all the Russians, you know. They’ve been taking calls from them for years, Flor, I heard them talking when I was in the bastard’s room?—”

“Enough!” Margarette stopped at the back of the group. Every single female fell silent and turned to her, mouths hanging open as she plowed through them and laid a hand between the panicking girl’s shoulder blades. “Breathe,” she ordered, and counted a few breaths with the girl, who relaxed slightly. “Now, listen. We’re sleeping in the woods. I’m going with you. Take fur if you can.” She narrowed her eyes at the group. “Some of these girls can’t shift yet. What do you have for bedding, Sergeant?”

He stepped up. “It’s a clear night, no rain. We have blankets in the van, plenty for the girls. My pack can patrol and sleep in the trees. I’ll set some boys to digging a pit latrine.”

A few boys broke off with yips of, “Yes, Alpha,” at that, and ran toward the back gate.

“Thank you, Sergeant.” They exchanged a long, pain-filled look, before Margarette faced the girls again, who were grumbling about strangers.“Do you believe that I would put you in harm’s way?” she asked one of the girls, just as two more women came out of the Mansion, pushing a cart loaded with food. Margarette lifted her face and let them all take her in. She was nothing like the woman I’d first met, years before. Her face was scarred, her hair short. New lines of pain and fatigue etched her cheeks, and her eyes had gone dull. But her voice had all the power it ever did, and when she pulled a dagger out of her belt and held it up, no one could look away.

“I have left the body of my true mate, your rightful Council Head, to lie alone under the moon, so that I could come and live out the promise we made to the pack. I will protect you with every breath I have, every drop of my blood. I have sacrificed for you, because it is my duty and my privilege. I will keep you safe. Now, follow me.”She turned on one shaky foot and strode to the gate. The girls all followed her instantly, mesmerized by the web of comfort and power she’d spun. The women with the food thanked Flor, then followed as well.

Flor blinked up at me, swaying a little on her feet. “Luke?”

“Time for sleep, little one,” I murmured, lifting her into my arms. “Forest, or bed? I had a guest room with a down?—”

She almost sobbed out the word. “Bed.”

“Bed,” I agreed, carrying her into the Mansion. She was asleep long before we reached the room.

“Good morning.” I opened my eyes to find Flor sitting up beside me, drinking a cup of what smelled like hot mint tea, and wearing chocolate cookie crumbs on her face. She’d showered at some point, and changed into a roomy t-shirt, her hair still damp. She screwed up her nose, and I smiled. She looked far too young to have defeated the world’s wickedest witch on her own. “Well, I suppose it’s technically good afternoon.”

I sat up. “I slept all day?”

She grinned. “Yeah. Finn snuck in around seven and brought me fresh clothes and towels. Brand came in around nine and brought breakfast.” She waved at the bedside table, where a tray sat piled with cookies and carafes of juice, water, and a pot of tea. “Then Glen showed up a half hour ago and caught me up on all the latest. You snored straight through.” She put her teacup down.

I couldn’t believe it. “How…?”

“Brand said it was because you were with me and felt protected.” She fluttered her eyelashes.

“Protected? Who’ll protect you from me, though?” I laughed and grabbed her around the waist, tickling her and nibbling the cookie crumbs from her face and chest, until she begged me to stop.

“I’ll pee!”

I kissed the tip of her nose. “Whatever you’re into, little mate.”

“Ewwww!” She threw herself off the bed and ran to the bathroom. I was debating whether to follow her for a quick shower—there were a million things to do today, and I needed to help the others—when she walked back out, nude.

My mouth went dry, and suddenly, I needed a glass of water more than I needed anything else. Except, perhaps, my mate’s body under me.

“By the moon, you’re perfect. No, don’t roll your eyes at me.”She had more scars than before, all of them made by silver weapons the night before, but they looked years old. She climbed back up on the high, soft bed and lay beside me, so I could trace them all with my fingers. “You’ll have as many as I do if you don’t slow down.”

“I’m done with silver,” she said, stretching her arms over her head. “If I could get rid of it entirely—like, make every pack swear not to use it—I would.”

“If you were the Council Head? Is that all you’d do?”

“First thing, maybe,” she mused, then swiveled her head to me when I hummed. “Don’t even think it.”

I just shrugged. “You’d be great.”

“Are you nuts?” She flipped over so she was straddling me, and held my hands over my head, pressed down on the pillow. She kissed me thoroughly, intently, as if she were trying to memorize my mouth, pulling my taste and my scent into her own. Breathless, she pulled away at last. “Council Alpha. I’d be an absolute despot. Mad with power. I’d force you to lie still while I licked every inch of your body…”

She started doing just that, moving her clever hands and mouth down my neck and chest, toying with my nipples, pressing soft kisses along my own fresh scars and making her way down to my cock. I’d never been so glad to have taken my own shower and stripped down the night before, as when she closed her lips around the tip and sucked firmly. But gently.

Too fucking gently. I bucked my hips up, and she pulled off. “Nuh-uh-uh, you have to hold still. I’m the Alpha, remember?”

I wasn’t sure if she realized what I did: that there wasn’t even the slightest scent of a lie in the air when she stated that. But if she did, she let it go, and let me slide into her mouth again. Her lips and tongue moved slowly, soft as satin and maddeningly tantalizing.

“You’re torturing me, aren’t you?”

She gave a muffled giggle.One of her hands slid down under my balls, cupping them while she tasted me, a small finger dropping even lower. I pushed her away slightly then, the sensation of her soft, slow mouth with her naughty finger pressing against my ass apparently being the magic combination to unlock an instant orgasm. I didn’t want to come yet, though the idea of her swallowing me down as I filled her mouth…

I reached one hand to her hair and gently pulled her off, my breath sawing in and out like I’d run a marathon.

“You don’t like it?” she asked, her lower lip jutting out.

“I think he likes it a little too much, princess,” Glen said from the doorway, then sauntered inside. He wasn’t alone. Finn stood right behind him, holding a basket full of what looked like women’s clothing.

“Ah, I’ll just drop this here—” Finn began, but when Flor made a disappointed sound—her mouth around my cock once more, but one hand rising to make a come in gesture—Glen reached back, grabbed him by the shoulder, and shoved him into the room.

“Don’t make the lady beg.” Glen approached the bed and stripped his own shirt off. “Luke, do you mind?”

“I’m not the Alpha in charge here. She is,” I told him, grinning as Glen’s mouth formed a little o of surprise.

Flor still didn’t notice, or at least I didn’t think she did. She was concentrating too hard on making me come faster than I wanted to, though her cheeks had gone red at the appearance of an audience.

“Little one,” I groaned, grasping the headboard in an effort not to reach down and twist my fingers through her hair, and fuck her mouth until I spilled.

“Hey, Dream Girl.” Glen was standing at the end of the bed, his clothes shed. “Can I join you?” She nodded her head, never letting go of my cock. He crawled onto the bed and ducked his head, burying his face in between her thighs.She squealed, then moaned around me. Glen echoed her sound, and went to work.

Whatever he was doing made her own movements more jerky, taking me deeper into her mouth, until I cried out. “Yes… Flor, yes!”

I hadn’t even finished coming when she was shuddering, pulling her mouth away, and screaming out her own climax. She went boneless, slumping down on top of me, her head turned to one side and her face on my abdomen. With a happy sigh, she licked the scar she’d made there with her knife, back at Southern. “So good.”

“Gonna get even better, princess,” Glen said, crawling up over us both. My eyes flew wide, but he winked, and flipped her off of me, onto the mattress. She tried to push him away, her blush so deep, it matched her hair.

“Glen, Luke’s right here .”

“He is, isn’t he? I mean, how bad would that be, for me to fuck you right next to him, while he watches? No, maybe he should do more than watch. Hold her hands up here, brother?” he asked, as he lifted them both over her head.

“I’d love to.” I turned onto my side, rearranging myself so I could pin her hands over her head, like he’d asked me to do. She chewed at her lip, and I whispered, “This okay?” She nodded once, a jolt of excitement zipping through our bond, and Glen chuckled darkly.

“I think it’s more than okay. I think she likes it. Our princess likes getting dirty and doing dirty things with her mates.” When she sputtered something unintelligible, he kissed her thoroughly, then notched his cock at her entrance. “Luke’s going to hold those hands up there. All you need to do is lie back and feel it.” He surged forward, plunging all the way into her with one long thrust. “Lie there and take your mate’s cock.” He pulled out and thrust again, then started a slow, steady rhythm.

I’d only been with Flor once, and that had been back at Southern. I wasn’t sure if she was blushing harder, or me, as Glen narrated his fucking like some sort of porn star.

“Luke, when she comes, she gets so tight it’s almost hard to fuck her at first. She’s gripping my cock like a glove, it’s—ah! It’s the best feeling I’ve ever known. And look at her, those perfect nipples. Luke, I can’t stop, but I need to see those nipples getting sucked. Would you lean down and… ah yeah, like that. Suck a little harder, make her arch her back.” Flor whimpered as I bent forward and followed his instructions. “Shit, she just clamped down on me like a vise. Are you sucking hard? Yeah, pinch the other one.”

He slid a hand down between her parted thighs and rubbed her clit, thrusting more gently as he did, his voice a low rasp. “Come for us, princess. Come with my cock stretching out your pussy, and his mouth on your sweet nipples.”

My cock was hard even before she did as he asked, arching her back and crying out as she tumbled over the edge. At that very moment, I felt Grigor and Brand in my mind, heard Grigor’s laughter and Brand’s consternation.

I wanted to laugh, too, when I realized what had happened. Both of you?

Shut up, Brand thought back.

At least I’m not the only one to come so damned fast, I replied.

Well, I tried to direct my thoughts their way, but Flor giggled, too, and Glen coughed. Maybe everyone had heard? I didn’t care.

“Looks like you’re ready again,” she murmured, then squealed as Glen started fucking her harder. I rolled off the bed to give him room to move, and watched from the side. The expressions of pleasure, natural and pure, that painted her face were the most glorious thing I could imagine. Every once in a while, though, she would open her eyes and glance across the room.

A whisper came from the far wall, where her gaze kept straying. “She’s so beautiful.” Finn’s face was etched with longing. I walked over, wondering why he couldn’t see what I did. Couldn’t feel it.

She needed him.

“She’s your mate, too,” I replied. “Go to her.” He shook his head, and I whispered as quietly as I could, “Finnick Dimitrivich. Don’t punish yourself any longer. She needs you. Needs to know you want her. Love her.”

He made a small, broken sound, but moved to the bed. He didn’t take off his clothing, still dressed in the business suit he’d changed into after the battle, but he settled on the edge of the bed, and Flor grabbed his hand with hers when he did.

“Finn? Do you want…”

“To kiss you while my brother makes you come again? While he gives you the beginning of the pleasure you deserve? Yeah, Wills. I want that.”

It was almost heartbreaking to watch Finn, who’d always seemed so cold and self-assured, especially around women, fumbling for the right place to put his hands, the right angle to kiss her. But he lowered his face to hers, and none of us mentioned the tears that fell onto her cheeks from his eyes.

Healing took time, and we all had a lot of healing to do.