Page 15 of Wolf’s Providence (The Shadowridge Peak #3)

FOURTEEN

Caleb

She was avoiding looking at me, and I wanted to rip Cannon’s flapping tongue from his body. Willow didn’t need this kind of shit in her head right now. We had other problems, bigger problems. Problems that were actually problems, not this.

Willow was mine, and I didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought of that.

“Look at me,” I said gently, willing her to lift her eyes from where she had them trained on the floor. “Willow, look at me.”

Slowly her gaze lifted, and I saw the confusion and the hurt there. She needed reassurance, something to ground her. I could give her that. “You’re stuck with me,” I teased her gently, hoping to see a hint of a smile. “We’re linked, Willow. You and I, we’re bound together. Luna put us together for a reason. Luna doesn’t care that you’re human, and neither do I.”

Willow bit the corner of her bottom lip, her eyes darting to Cannon. “What if it was only to help each other, not sleep with each other?”

“Are you ready for the ‘until death do us part’ step?” I asked her bluntly. Her eyes widened in alarm at the very thought of it, which I tried not to take as an insult. “Exactly, it’s too soon for this to even be a concern for you. You take it one day at a time. If this is your ever after, then this is your ever after. Okay?”

Hesitantly, she nodded, and I gave her one more brief kiss before I stood and turned to Cannon. The look I gave him told him to shut his mouth, and wisely, he heeded my unspoken request.

“We’re leaving,” I told him bluntly. “Heading back to Whispering Pines. I’ve reached out to an old…friend.” I ignored the quirk of his eyebrow. “I will find out who’s targeting her and why.” His face gave away nothing, but I sensed something off about him. “You know something?” I asked. “What is it?”

Willow was looking up at him with a look of curiosity and confusion. “Do you?”

Cannon sucked his teeth and then gave a half-hearted shrug. “It might be nothing.”

“It might be something,” I countered. “What?”

He glanced at Willow but chose to continue. “You told Willow you thought someone, or someones, were trying to get you off Shadowridge Peak. To give up your claim to the mountain.”

I hadn’t really wanted her to share that information, but after what I did to her, why would she hold my confidences? “And?”

Cannon gave me a flat stare. “I don’t want your packlands; I have my own,” he said with a slight reprimand. “But…it’s possible there are packs, or a pack, that would want you to give up the claim.”

“Who?” I demanded.

“I don’t know.” He held up his hand. “Don’t start on me, Caleb. I’m telling you the truth, I don’t know. But I am looking into it.”

“Then I’ll look into it with you.”

“And Willow does what? Stays on a mountain peak for the whole of winter?” he asked me, and I could see he was losing his patience.

I was losing my patience.

“They targeted Willow,” I told him through clenched teeth.

“I know, and they will pay. We do not hurt humans.” Cannon looked at her, noting how quiet she was. “I will do everything I can to ensure you are safe, Willow.”

She nodded, but I wasn’t sure she was really listening. “How would they know I was even connected to her?” I asked him. “The drawings? The visions she has? They wouldn’t know about them. Unless someone told them.” I knew I was borderline accusing him and was rewarded with an angry glare.

“I didn’t fucking tell anyone,” Cannon said through gritted teeth. “I won’t tell you again.”

“Then how do they know about her?” I asked, equally pissed off.

“You.”

We both looked at her. She was sitting almost curled in a ball, her arms wrapped around herself, her gaze on the window.

“You kept coming back to Whispering Pines,” she said. “Coming back to me . Perhaps they thought they could target someone you cared about—or they thought you cared about—to get your attention. They wouldn’t need to know the reason was nothing like that?—”

“Then.” I looked down at her with a challenge in my eye when I cut her off. “They wouldn’t know our relationship wasn’t this then .”

Cannon’s gaze was steady. “So, this is about you.” He looked at Willow with a hint of sadness. “I think you’re right,” he told her. “It was never about what you could paint, not to them.”

“The two may not be connected,” I corrected him, “but they’re still two things we need answered. Who are they, and what did they hope to achieve?”

Cannon was thoughtful, his gaze directed on the door. “New pack? It’s a good packlands, secluded, and a nightmare to get to in winter. Plenty of game.”

“Haunted by the dead,” I added drily.

“Only for you,” he quipped back. “It makes sense.”

It did. I hadn’t been mad with the darkness, I’d been right. Someone was trying to take over Shadowridge Peak and was using Willow as collateral damage.

“I want her back in Whispering Pines,” I told Cannon. “Agreed?”

He nodded. “Surrounded by humans is the safest place for her right now.”

“I want to stay and help,” Willow protested. “I can do sketches of the ones I saw.”

“I’ll need those,” I told Cannon. “I may know them,” I added, and I saw his agreement. Turning to Willow, I held out my hand. “You’re going home. I’m coming too,” I assured her. “I won’t leave you alone.”

She slipped her hand into mine, and I pulled her gently to her feet. Willow still looked scared, and when she asked if she could use the bathroom, Cannon showed her where it was.

When he came back, he left the study door open and stood close to me, his voice low so she would never hear him.

“When you told her that if this was her ever after, you placed a lot of emphasis on the if .”

“So?”

“No so . I just found it interesting that you didn’t mention this was already yours.”

Observant bastard. “And?”

“Your choice is your choice, Caleb.” He watched the hall for Willow. “But if a human is who you choose to stay with, she will never give you an alpha. She will never birth a shifter.”

“Your point?”

“Why are you fighting for packlands if you don’t plan on having a pack? Or children who will carry on your alpha line?”

“They’re mine. Both of them,” I told him, my voice a low growl, my shoulders set with determination. “I’m the alpha of Shadowridge Peak. If they want to challenge me for the right to be alpha, then they challenge me . They do not target my woman.”

Cannon grinned. “Well, thank fuck you’ve finally said something sensible. You suddenly sound like an alpha. Welcome back.”

Alpha Cannon of the Blackridge Peak Pack was a dick.

He had gone to “fetch” something, and while he was gone, some of his pack just happened to be passing by.

I waited patiently in the corner of his hallway as Willow said her goodbyes to his betas and Doc, who claimed he was her physician. He was part shifter, and because of that, he smelled wrong. I also didn’t like the way his eyes lingered on my girl with more than clinical assessment, and I wondered if he would heal if I plucked his eyeballs from their sockets.

I didn’t like him.

You don’t like anyone.

My inner voice sounded suspiciously like someone I missed listening to. My mother.

I hadn’t felt her presence on Shadowridge Peak when I returned, and I hoped that meant she was at peace. My father’s presence had also been missing, and I was sure the Goddess Luna had called her alpha and his mate home. The ones I had felt, the ones I had sent to the afterlife, I was sure Luna wouldn’t want them in death to join the eternal hunt anyway.

“The Jeep’s ready to take you,” Cannon told me, coming to stand beside me. “It’s got a tracker. My brother has already disabled it.” He saw my look. Wordlessly he handed over the plastic casing. “As I said, my brother disabled it.”

That made me grin, and I heard his huff of amusement beside me. “You’re even pricklier than I am,” he mused under his breath. His attention was fixed on Willow, who was smiling at something Ned said. “She’s good for you.”

“You approve?” I heard my sarcasm and didn’t blanch when he gave me a dirty look at the attitude.

“She can’t be your mate, we know that,” he told me, dropping his voice even lower. “But Luna has chosen her, and I don’t argue with the Will of the Goddess.”

“She has chosen her,” I agreed. “If Luna decides she hasn’t chosen her for me ”—I shared a look with him—“then I have no problem arguing, Goddess or not.”

“She’s still human,” Cannon cautioned. “You’re going to meet some resistance among some packs.”

“Yours?”

He shrugged. “My pack’s one of the more open-minded.” I remembered some of his pack staring at Willow and me outside. I wouldn’t bet my next meal on the open-mindedness of his pack. “And…you can still always meet your mate.”

Seeing Willow looking over at me, I knew she was eager to start the return journey. “I’ve been an alpha for ten years,” I told him, keeping my eyes on the woman who held my attention most of the time. “Luna wanted my attention, she got it.” I turned to look at Cannon. “With Willow.”

He didn’t look like he agreed, but he didn’t argue.

What could he say that I hadn’t already considered? She wasn’t a shifter, so why would the Goddess send me to her? Humans and shifters weren’t meant to mix. They couldn’t reproduce. No shifter was born from a human mother. Half- breeds like Doc showed us that. The shaman had said the goddess was worried about my bloodline. Willow wasn’t the answer to that problem. She never could be.

Maybe they meant my father’s legacy would be besmirched if I were the last of his bloodline and I went rogue, letting the darkness consume me. Even so, Willow, the human , saving me had no endgame that I could see.

Did I think she was my mate? No. I knew better. Did that mean she wasn’t mine? No. Willow Harper belonged to me, and I wasn’t going to let her go.

I watched her say her goodbyes and then walk over to me. Her smile held a hint of sadness, but her eyes were filled with the excitement of returning home. “I’m ready.” Her smile dimmed a little when she looked at Cannon, and I knew the alpha beside me unsettled her. “Thank you, for everything.”

“I’m sure we’ll see you again,” Cannon said smoothly. “You are always welcome on Blackridge Peak.”

She didn’t hide her surprise, and I didn’t think I did either. Helping her at the Will of the Goddess was one thing; offering her to return if she wanted to, was more than I expected.

“Um…thank you.” Her eyes flicked to mine nervously, and I reached out and took her hand, which she gripped readily. “But I think my hiking days are done,” she added with a nervous laugh. “Mountain living is too off grid for me.”

Cannon felt me stiffen beside him, and when he turned to look at me, I could hear his unspoken told you so .

Saying nothing except goodbye , I led Willow out of the house and down to the Jeep that had been provided for us by the alpha. The terrain was steep, not as steep as my own peak, but it meant that vehicles struggled to get close to the town.

Willow stayed close to me as we walked to the parked Jeep. She didn’t lift her head to look around, keeping her eyes on the ground in front of her. I knew if I asked, she would tell me she was watching her footing. I knew it was bullshit. She didn’t want to see any frowns from pack who didn’t like her holding the hand of a shifter.

For that reason, I looked at every pack member we passed until they dropped their stare.

This was Cannon’s pack, but I was still an alpha, and I would be shown respect. If I wanted to hold my woman’s hand, I would.

“Are you intending to melt the snow by glare alone?” I teased her as we walked further from the town.

“Will it work?” she asked, forcing lightness into her voice, but she failed to hide the bitterness from me.

“No.” Pulling her closer, I looked down at her. “You can never please everyone,” I told her gently. “You’re letting other people’s prejudices rule you.”

“I know why shifters would want to keep quiet,” she spoke quietly, keeping her voice deliberately low to avoid shifters’ hearing. “But, having met a few of you, I didn’t think that I would be considered the threat.”

“Mm-hmm, you’re definitely scary, especially without your morning pot of tea.”

That earned me an elbow to the ribs. Which, as usual, was ineffective.

“Do you think they really are after you, and I was nothing more than bait?” She was already frowning as she thought about it. “It makes no sense. It’s so random to pick me to target.”

It did seem random. Until you thought about it and realized there was no one left that I cared about.

But I cared about Willow.

Even those first few weeks, I hadn’t been able to stay away. The drawings mattered and were the reason I was in Whispering Pines, but the reason I kept returning? It didn’t take a genius to work out it was because of the woman beside me.

I hadn’t wanted to admit it then. Hell, I’d fought it with every part of myself. But now? With the way her scent was wrapped around me like a drug I couldn’t quit, the truth was inescapable. Willow was more than a human woman I should have stayed away from.

She was the reason I couldn’t leave.

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye, watching her as she picked her way through the snow. She was trying to keep up with me, not knowing I was moving at a fraction of the speed I would normally walk over this snow. Her careful steps, the look of concentration on her face, the shadows under her eyes as her body still healed from her wounds, even with all that, she still made the world around me seem…softer. Less harsh. And for a while, I’d been so sure of myself that I could keep her untouched by everything in my world. That I could keep her safe by keeping her in the dark.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I’d dragged her into this, and whether I liked it or not, she was part of my world now. My enemies knew it. And they would use her to get to me; they already had used her.

The trashing of her home and store lured me off Shadowridge Peak. Running her off the road and putting her in the hospital brought me out of the shadows.

They used her to get my attention, and that’s why I wouldn’t—that’s why I couldn’t —walk away from her again.

The very thought of her being hurt again…of losing her…twisted something deep in my chest. I already carried the guilt and shame of what I had done to her. My claws covered in her blood would haunt me for my lifetime. I knew that. I accepted it.

I’d suffered loss, more than I should have, but losing Willow? When I felt like this for her…it terrified me in a way that nothing else had.

“You okay?”

Her soft voice brought me out of my thoughts, I looked down, seeing the concern in her eyes. “Yeah, just thinking.”

“Looked painful,” she quipped.

Her squeal of laughter as I chased her with a handful of snow made me laugh.

I saw the Jeep, and soon we were both in. Willow immediately adjusted the heater after I started the engine. I knew I couldn’t get lost in my head. Right now, I needed to focus on keeping her safe. There were still too many unknowns, too many threats to her.

But later, when the dust settled…when the danger was over…what then? I knew there was no future where I could just walk away from her. The joy of being with her outweighed everything else.

Surely this was what the Goddess wanted.

Right?