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“And you have the scars on your back,” Jessie said. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“I do,” he agreed. “I fought with my wolf, and I won the right to keep them. To remember that the worst damage often comes from your own side. That even they can’t be trusted to have your back.”
He’d said more than he’d intended. But once he started, he had a hard time stopping, and Jessie was intent, a good listener. In all the times he’d heard the story, he had never claimed it as his own. Oh, his father had recognized it, and Maggie. Maybe there were others. But Jake was the first person he’d ever admitted it to — he was the soldier from Mosul.
And now, here he was, telling a woman he’d known for less than a week, the story.
Mate, his wolf said.
Stop that, Ryder ordered in exasperation.
“That was the hardest thing,” Jessie said quietly. “The friendly fire, as you call it.”
He just waited, and mimicked her own strokes —long, gentle strokes down her back. Letting her take her time.
“No one fought for me,” she said. “I’m still not completely sure what I heard that was so important. Or maybe it was just that I was listening at all. I like to listen.”
Ryder grinned. “I’ve seen that,” he said, laughing.
She slapped his chest lightly.
“No, it’s a great skill to have,” he insisted. “Look at that brother of mine. He listens too.”
“He does,” she agreed. “So I was in and out of the pack house a lot this last year. I was graduating from college, engaged to be married. I was very happy. My Dad was the son of the pack Second, so he worked for the pack. My Mom taught in the pack school. We had a house on the grounds, and I’d always had free run. And I heard the Alpha talking about how he was going to be the most powerful shifter in the world. That there would be no more of this modern pack nonsense. That when he had his hands on the dònglì diànchí....” She stumbled a bit over the Chinese word, and then continued, “Then they’d see. He said it to a lot of people, and in particular, he talked about it in Chinese to someone on the phone. The Chinese Alpha.”
She paused, and then she shook her head. “It was interesting, you know? And so I found opportunities to listen more. My grandfather, the pack Second, caught me. He called a family meeting with mine and Bjorn’s. The Alpha was there, too. My grandfather ordered that we break off the engagement. People argued, but really, he was pack Second, right? And the Alpha was there too. Grandfather said obviously I was out of control, and that the Alpha would bring me back into pack discipline. And he gave me to the Alpha —not as a wife, but as a fourth woman in his household. A slave, really.”
“Didn’t your parents stop this?” he asked, trying to keep outrage out of his voice. Probably failing, but really? They just let the pack Second hand her over to the Alpha?
“I fought it,” she said. “And....” She trailed off and took a deep breath. “It got ugly. I don’t know what was said in other meetings. Bjorn’s mother told me it was my fault that he was banished from Vancouver. That I should have been more submissive to her son, and to my grandfather. My parents told me that I should just do my best to get through it, that time solved a lot of problems.”
Her tone was bitter at that. “But I fought the Alpha. He finally took me to a rewards ceremony. Some of his recruits had done something well, and they were to be rewarded for it. And a woman — one of the once-human women, although I didn’t know about that part then — was defiant. Her punishment and their reward.” She swallowed. “They called it teaching a woman to heel.”
She sighed. “I’ve listened to the women talk this last week. And they said that the rapes themselves weren’t the worst part. That what broke them was when the Alpha commanded them to ask each man how she might please him, and then to thank him for it. Dominance.”
Jessie swallowed again, and Ryder wished he had some water for her. But she took a deep breath and went on. “He made me watch. And then he told me if I didn’t submit, he would put my mother through this, and if that wasn’t enough, he would use my sister.”
She said the last so softly he could barely hear her: “She’s 14.”
Ryder was almost blind with rage. He’s already dead, he reminded himself. So was her grandfather. He wondered about her family. Maybe he could kill them. It would be a pleasure.
“So I submitted,” she said. “For four months, I did as I was told. I wore what he ordered. I did all the menial chores his wife ordered me to do. And I learned to please him in bed. Well, rarely in an actual bed. He preferred to fuck me in public places. In a hallway where anyone might come by. Call me to his office....”
Ryder put his finger gently over her mouth, stopping the bitter outpouring, that she couldn’t seem to stop herself. He knew. She stilled. Then she nodded.
“But then things got chaotic,” she continued softly. “At first he was really excited. One of his teams had managed to kidnap the dònglì diànchí and bring her back. He would be powerful, he kept saying. More powerful than Tanaka or ‘that bitch from Hat Island’ could ever dream of being. He yelled a lot about ‘that bitch from Hat Island.’” She snorted. “Well that bitch put him down. Oh, they say it was the new Alpha, and I guess it had to be, or he wouldn’t be Alpha, right? But the rumor among the women was that Abby walked into that gym, and she and one of the once-human wolves walked out. And everyone else died.”
She ran out of words finally. Ryder didn’t attempt to understand all of it. He just filed it away to think about later.
“So I walked out. I’d had a plan, I just needed the opportunity. I took it. I walked out through the national forest and ended up at Simon Frasier where I went to school. I had nothing but the clothes on my back, and a name, Margarite. The word among the women in the packs was — is, I guess — if you need to run, go to Margarite in Delta. So I did. I got there in time to help them plan the rescue of Abby and the other women. And then I just stayed on. Helped with the women. Then the caravan. And now I’m here.”
She was silent. He waited. “And I’m a mess,” she said finally. “I was determined to find Bjorn, to see what I could salvage of my life, and that’s blown up too. You might not want anything to do with me, and I wouldn’t blame you.”
Ryder snorted. “Move your leg an inch, and you’ll see that’s not the case.” He was hard, and he wanted her very much, he admitted. But he would roll away and let her be if she said the word. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself otherwise.
He could feel her startled reaction, and then she moved her leg. She laughed a bit. “OK, then,” she said, and she sounded a bit easier about all that she’d shared. “I wasn’t sure I would ever feel anything for anyone again. And then you kissed me on that hillside.”
She added shyly, “And I liked it.”
