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His shoulders stiffly rose and fell. “I heard Harlan mention the cul-de-sac. I knew there was one near the stores run by your pride. I drove here, noticed Quinley’s car, figured out this is your place.”
“Our place,” Isaiah corrected. “Mine and Quinley’s.”
The black-foot ground his teeth. “I want to see her.”
“I’m unsure why you’d think I care what you want,” said Isaiah, keeping his tone bored.
The corners of Zaire’s eyes tightened. He opened his mouth but didn’t speak, either intent on choosing his words carefully or struggling to find the right ones. Finally, he settled on asking, “Did she talk to you about me?”
“You were mentioned.”
“So you know who I am to her.”
Anger pricked at Isaiah and wrenched a growl out of his cat. “You’re no one to her. The woman you imprinted on? She’s yours. Not Quinley.”
Zaire’s nostrils flared. He drew in an impatient breath and then exhaled slow and heavily. “If you don’t want to let me in your house, fine,” he clipped. “Just call her out here. Five minutes is all I need.” Authority vibrated through his voice, thick and oppressive.
“Throwing your Alpha weight around isn’t going to work here. You’re not my Alpha, or hers.”
Zaire swore. “You can’t stop people from seeing her.”
“I don’t keep people away from her. I’m just keeping you away from her.”
A taunting brow hiked up. “Why, worried I’ll lure her from you?”
“Not at all.” It was the truth. “Even if you weren’t mated, neither she nor her cat would ever accept you.”
Zaire’s flinch was minor, but Isaiah saw it.
Taking a slow yet aggressive step forward, Isaiah felt his face harden. “That being said, I’m really not fucking okay with you showing up to see Quinley whenever you feel like it. That’s never going to be something I’ll tolerate, or something she’d want even if I okayed it.”
The black-foot’s face scrunched up, his cheeks reddening. But then his expression smoothed out as all emotion washed away from his face. “I looked into you.”
“Did you now?”
“You had nothing to gain from entering an arranged mating. And you’re not so far ahead in life that you’re running out of time to start a family. That tells me you did this because you found your true mate but can’t have her.”
Isaiah didn’t allow his expression to change, giving the cat nothing.
“Put yourself in my position for a minute. Let’s say you heard she got shot and pursued by a pack of fucking wolves. Would you not want to know she’s all right?”
In truth, yes. But Isaiah wouldn’t seek Lucinda out; wouldn’t try to check on her even from afar. To do so would shit on the promises he’d made to Quinley. Worse, it would not only disrespect this female he’d come to care for, it would hurt her. That wasn’t something that Isaiah would ever intentionally do.
“You already know that Quinley’s fine,” Isaiah pointed out. “And as it happens, no, I wouldn’t be stood where you are right now if our situations were reversed. You shouldn’t be here at all. I get that it can’t be easy to keep your distance from Quinley now that you’ve faced reality. But it’s too late for you to do shit about it. Focus on the woman you chose to mate. She needs you. Quinley doesn’t.”
“You’re really gonna stand in the way of me seeing her for two fucking minutes?”
“I wouldn’t care if you only wanted to see her for two fucking seconds. The answer would still be no. You’re not getting near her. Not now, not ever again.”
“You have no right to—”
“I have every fucking right,” Isaiah asserted, a growl edging his voice. “You look at me, and you see someone who has no real claim to her. But it’s actually the other way around. You gave up what you could have had. You hear me? You had a right to her soul, but you gave it up. And I then took it. Claimed it. Wrote my fucking name on it. She is mine.”
“Won’t make you her true mate,” Zaire sniped. “That’ll always be me.”
Which bothered Isaiah on one level, yes, but… “That doesn’t mean anything, really. I take care of her, not you. I come inside her, not you. I wear her brand, not you. And she wears mine, always will. You’re just a walking, talking road her life might have gone down but didn’t.”
Zaire’s face turned so red it gave a whole new meaning to the term, “Crimson Pride Alpha.”
