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“Now get the fuck away from here,” Isaiah ordered. “And Zaire, don’t come back. If you do, I’ll take it as a challenge—you’ll walk away from that bloody and broken… if you walk away at all.”
Zaire hissed. “You son of a—”
“You heard Isaiah,” a new male voice cut in. Tate.
Isaiah had sensed both his Alphas step out onto their porch, so he didn’t start in surprise. Zaire did, though.
Go,” Tate bit off. “That or challenge my enforcer here and now. Though you’d then have a lot of explaining to do when you got home.”
The latter comment made Zaire’s eyes flicker. Yeah, Nazra wouldn’t like it much to hear he’d got into it with Quinley’s mate.
Rolling his shoulders, the black-foot pinned Isaiah with a resentful glare but backed away. He angrily stalked to his car and jerkily hopped inside, slamming the driver’s door behind him. Then, after flashing Isaiah one last hateful look in his rearview mirror, Zaire was speeding out of the cul-de-sac.
Deke rubbed at his nape. “I thought he imprinted on someone.”
“He did,” Isaiah confirmed.
“How can he care that much about what happened to Quinley? I mean, if I knew who my true mate was and heard she’d been shot, I sure wouldn’t like it. But I wouldn’t feel any need to track her down to look in on her. Bailey is my mate. The imprint bond exists where a true-mate bond might have been—it leaves no room for that kind of emotional response to anything happening to whoever was predestined for you.”
“But the imprinting process can reverse itself, can’t it?” said Tate, approaching with Havana at his side.
Isaiah glanced at him. “You think maybe that’s happening to him and the woman he claimed?” He’d been close enough to Zaire that he could have sensed if the bond was only partial, but he hadn’t thought to check.
“Possibly,” said Tate. “I don’t see how he’d otherwise have sensed that Quinley is his true mate. The imprint bond should have acted as a block between the realization and him.”
Havana nodded. “People who are imprinted generally don’t recognize their true mate.”
“Like with Mila and Joel,” said Tate, referring to Alex’s sister and her fated mate. “He’s protective of her, and he wanted to be near her sometimes until he realized they were predestined—then he knew it was best they keep their distance from each other. But anything he felt, and still might feel, toward Mila is totally platonic. His commitment to the female he imprinted on drowned out everything else.”
“Exactly,” said Havana. “But it isn’t drowning out everything for Zaire.”
Deke puffed out a breath and turned to Isaiah. “It was ballsy of him to come here. He had to know you weren’t going to step aside and let him talk to Quinley.”
“Actually, I think he did expect it,” said Isaiah. “Maybe he assumes she doesn’t mean anything to me, or maybe he thought she’d insist on talking to him and that I’d then back down.” Sighing, he gave Deke a nod. “Thanks for stopping him from coming to the door. If he’d gotten that close, it would have been hard for me not to kill him.”
“Wouldn’t have been a huge loss if you had,” muttered Deke.
Havana dipped her chin. “Fucking A.”
Isaiah backed toward his house, sweeping his gaze along each pride member. “Later.” When he entered, he found Quinley stood by the living room window, her arms folded.
“I’ll admit,” she began, “I cracked the window open just enough to overhear the conversation. I also overheard what you and the others were just discussing.”
Isaiah headed straight to her. “And what do you think?”
“I think it doesn’t matter whether he’s tightly bonded to Nazra or not—that’s for them to worry about. I’m only bothered about you. Are you okay?”
Fuck, that got to him. Like a fist of warmth punched into his chest. “Yeah.”
She sighed, her arms slipping to her sides. “I really didn’t think he’d come back.”
“Because it didn’t occur to you that the imprint bond might not be solid.”
“If it isn’t, it would explain the stuff that Nazra said to me.”
Isaiah felt his brows draw together. “What stuff? When did she talk to you?”
“She came to see me at my old cabin the night before you claimed me.”
