Page 5 of War Games (Jacky Leon #11)

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CHAPTER FOUR

I got back, shoving the door open so hard, its collision with the wall could be heard through the entire house. My anger at Landon didn’t abate on the long walk back but rather grew into full fury. I waited for the door to close, and with a snarl, I realized I’d sent the doorknob into the wall. I yanked it out as multiple sets of footsteps moved toward me. I knew one was Dirk, another Heath. One I couldn’t feel with magic, but only one human would approach me in a mood, and that meant it was Carey. I got the front door closed, ignoring that it was Heath coming up the steps to catch me and figure out what was wrong. Dirk was right behind him. Carey was coming from her bedroom, having gotten home from her classes.

“Not right now. I’m angry with your brother,” I told her as I dropped the medical bag. She froze on the spot, nodded, and turned around, heading back to her room. I reached out to yank Landon’s smelly shoes out of the bag, then his socks, tossing the shoes to the door as Heath was opening it, then the socks onto the kitchen floor for someone to put them in the laundry.

“Jacky…”

“Landon may be limping tomorrow. He ran until he fucked up his feet,” I growled. “Then he left me with his damn shoes and socks. He’s walking home with his feet bleeding but bandaged.”

“I see,” Heath said softly. “Dirk, get those socks. You can shove them in a gym bag from the closet and wash them at home with your laundry. Take the shoes, too, though Landon may want to toss them. He’s really ruined them.”

“Yes, sir,” Dirk said, jumping into action at his Alpha’s direction. When Dirk got to the shoes, he made a face, and I knew he was smelling the things I had put out of my mind. I had seen Landon’s feet, so I knew the cause. The blood and other nasty smells in those shoes told a story of their own, and I hadn’t considered how others would react.

“He messed himself up, huh?” Dirk said, swallowing as he put them in the bag.

“Yup,” I said curtly, turning to go into the living room. Heath meekly followed me, a thing I never thought I would think about the man I intended to marry. He was many things, but meek wasn’t one of them. When I turned on him, he was making a clear effort to seem smaller, gentle, and quiet.

Non-threatening.

“Stop that,” I growled, waving a hand at him. “We both know it doesn’t suit you, and it’s not real.”

He didn’t change much. His shoulders straightened, his chin went higher, and it was fixed. He was a confident man, Heath Everson. He ruled over other werewolves. He was willing to challenge those far above him, fight for what he believed in, and wasn’t afraid of much anything, certainly not me.

“What happened between you and Landon?” he asked, his tone deceptively neutral. He would fool anyone who didn’t know him. Anyone close to him, me included, knew that neutrality was him restraining so he could listen to others without them being swayed by his own emotions.

“He’s just being an asshole,” I said with a huff. “He went and ran himself into the ground over what he said about me and you, but he’s still adamant about Dirk not training.”

Heath’s eyes narrowed fractionally, but I noticed.

“How bad is he?” Heath asked in a whisper, and I wondered what I was missing that he understood.

“He’s saying that Dirk isn’t allowed to fight. He doesn’t even want you or me to accidentally put him in the position of fighting. He can’t risk Dirk getting hurt or, worse, dying. It’s borderline irrational because… he’s a werewolf. Dirk’s going to get into fights, eventually. Right?” I questioned, knowing I was on the outside looking in. It didn’t matter how long I lived with the werewolves, there were still times I remembered I didn’t know everything. I was really beginning to wonder if this was one of those moments.

“I see,” Heath said softly, nodding as he turned away, looking out the window.

“He stormed off,” I finished lamely. “I could barely get a word in when Dirk was the topic.”

“Thank you for trying,” Heath said quickly. “I’ll figure this out.”

“What about Dirk? This could?—”

“I am right here,” Dirk said suddenly, and I winced. He was in my house, and I actually forgot he was in the doorway, able to see us in the living room.

“Sorry,” I said, sighing as I looked beyond Heath at the werewolf standing awkwardly as he watched us, the gym bag in hand. “Put that outside to take when you leave.”

“What about me? Are you worried about Landon and me?”

“No!” I looked desperately at Heath for him to step in. I tried my best not to meddle in their relationship, to the point that half the time, I never knew what Dirk and Landon were even doing on most days or if they even went on dates at all. I knew they went fishing sometimes, but that hadn’t happened in some time.

“Landon is the problem.” Heath’s look at me as he spoke told me he caught the lie, and I had better hope that Dirk was too far away to smell it clearly. “We spoke earlier. You are a strong individual, and you need to use that to stand on an equal playing field with Landon. Tell him what you want, make it clear, and don’t let him push back for whatever reason. You’ve got a mate bond. He won’t risk hurting you… however, if he tries using his pack position to counter me, please tell me.”

“Yeah…” Dirk nodded, his eyes on me, not Heath.

Damn, he caught the lie.

I looked away, unable to face that.

I should have kept my mouth shut.

“Why don’t you meet him at home? I know I asked you to stay for dinner, but if he’s hurt himself… Don’t pamper him, just be there. Don’t let him stew alone anymore.” Heath waved Dirk out, and Dirk took the chance like someone let him out of a prison cell and he hadn’t seen the sun in a decade. He was in Landon’s truck and gone in less than two minutes.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, rubbing my face in dismay. “I didn’t know it would be a lie until it was coming out of my mouth.”

“You’re right,” Heath said softly. That made my hand fall again as I looked at him in surprise. “There’s a reason to worry if Dirk can’t talk Landon down.”

“Oh…”

“Keep an eye on them with me.” Heath sank onto the couch. “If Landon doesn’t back off, he’s going to damage their relationship by trying to keep Dirk in bubble wrap. Dirk is intelligent, rivaling Davor when he’s challenged to prove it or it’s a situation where failure isn’t an option. He’s also physically capable, thanks to his father. He’s going to be a formidable werewolf one day, whether Landon or I help him or not. In any other pack, he would have already continued to push the line and fought up in rank without anyone wondering why. He’s smart enough not to get into fatal fights. He’d climb fast in a large pack to a middle-of-the-pack rank if he didn’t start there. He’d be in someone’s inner circle before he was fifty. Probably not a number two, but a solid four or five.”

“You’ve taken some time to really assess him, have you?” I could see it, this Dirk he imagined. The tough young man who showed up on my doorstep, anger in his eyes, a challenge to authority that wasn’t outright against all authority, but a challenge that wanted me to prove mine. He’d had a chip on his shoulder at the time, one we had done our best to repair.

“Absolutely. And all of those things make Dirk the person Landon fell in love with.”

“And Landon is about to smother it.”

“Yes,” Heath whispered, looking away finally. “Idiot son of mine.”

“Is it a werewolf thing, this switch flipped in Landon with Dirk? They were fine before I went to Alaska.”

“It could be, but Landon isn’t a typical werewolf. We get urges, thanks to the curse rewiring us, just like werecats, yeah?”

“Yeah, we get rewired, too… We need more space and to be alone, even extroverts find themselves turning more introverted or into an ambivert. We can’t help it. It takes work to keep doing public things with multiple people. Too many werecats just detach from society as a whole and only keep very small circles of people they almost never see. It can be exhausting to deal with too many people too often.”

“With werewolves, we crave more pack, but Landon is…” Heath pulled me down to the couch. “Why don’t we just turn on a movie and let Dirk try to handle it? It’s their relationship, not ours.”

I gave no resistance to him pulling me in and kissing my cheek as we properly snuggled.

“Jacky, are you calmed down now?” Carey asked, her voice distant enough to be from her bedroom door, which she didn’t bother to open. She spoke through the door, knowing we would hear it. “I wanted to get a snack while I did homework.”

“Yeah, I’m fine now,” I said, shaking my head as a smile took over my face. I pulled gently away from Heath, whose long-suffering expression stayed as Carey came out, passing us to the kitchen. She got her snack and stopped behind the couch as I tried to find a movie to watch with Heath.

“I don’t have class tomorrow. Are you going to watch anything good? I could use the break from homework,” she said, hopeful she could join us.

Heath waved her to sit down as he sighed. All I could do was laugh as all the thoughts of what he would do just with me left his head, lost to spending time with his mortal, human daughter, who was growing up too fast for him.

“So, Landon was being an asshole. I mean, we all know he had it in him,” Carey said as she fell onto the couch on the other side of her father.

“Language,” Heath muttered. I shifted around to put my feet on his lap and laughed harder as Carey did the same from the other side. He gestured at our feet, looking between us. “I am an Alpha werewolf reduced to an ottoman.”

“Well, Dad… she’s a werecat, and I’m a human, so… I don’t know why we need to care about you being an Alpha werewolf,” Carey teased, grinning as she spoke.

I needed to slap a hand over my mouth to stop from hooting. Heath slowly turned to his daughter one more time, and I didn’t have it in me to warn her. Heath grabbed her ankle, holding her leg before she thought to pull both her feet away. She screamed in laughter as he tickled her. Her free leg kicked, and her bowl of popcorn was tossed in an attempt to protect herself, though it was an ineffective defense.

I watched, trying to turn my laughter into giggles, so he didn’t turn on me, too. As the movie started, Heath cleaned up popcorn while Carey and I leaned on each other. I fixed her hair, pushing it from her laughter-flushed face, her cheeks warm, her smile endless. Heath tried to wedge himself back in the middle, and we eventually let him.

The next time Landon crossed my mind, I wasn’t angry.

I understood him.

Beyond that, I hated that I was wondering if he was right about me when he stormed off.