AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Desperately turning this way and that, searching for a way out and knowing she had none, she finally gave up. It seemed they had won their peace offering whether she liked it or not. She sank to her human knees and hung her head.
“Fine!” she screamed in frustration. “You can have me! Happy now?”
Graham and Jude approached her carefully with confused looks on their now human faces. “What… are you talking about?” Jude asked.
“The peace offering! It’s me! But you knew that.” Jude’s face transformed into a perfect mask of bewilderment as Graham looked back and forth between him and Delilah, stunned. Examining both of their reactions, it was clear to her that they had not, in fact, known that she was the object of their trade with Deacon Claw.
Jude was the first to find his voice. “Wait, so you’re from Deacon Claw? I thought you were just a rejected mate.”
Delilah shook her head, tears and hair flying. “No, you don’t get it. Iwasa rejected mate. But I was going to stay with the pack.” She looked between them frantically, pleading with them to understand. “A breakup wasn’t enough for me to leave my family. When it became clear that things weren’t working out with Clark, I was happy to stick around and make a life. But they… he…”
A sudden, grim set had hardened Graham’s jaw, but when he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Tell us. Tell us what happened. It’s okay.”
She turned on him unexpectedly. “Nothing is okay!” she screamed. “You were going tobuyme from my own family! You were purchasing a mate from a rival pack as a treaty! How sick is that?”
Graham’s hazel eyes took on a stormy hue and his tense jaw set even more firmly. He stepped toward her as if for confrontation, but Jude placed a hand on his arm. Something he saw in Jude’s face must have restrained his temper because he held back.
“It’s easy to misunderstand why someone would do something kind for you if all you’ve ever experienced from those closest to you is betrayal and heartache,” Jude said.
“What?Kind?How could you possibly think you were doing somethingkind?” Delilah shot back.
Jude stepped between Graham and Delilah, holding out his hands in a conciliatory stance. “Whoa, whoa, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. We’re just fighting in the dark. Delilah, calm down and tell us what happened. Please.”
Delilah took a deep breath, remembering that Jude may not be a part of this at all and the least she could do was give him the benefit of the doubt. “Okay. So, my relationship with Clark hit the rocks and we both knew it, so we split. I was fine to stay and let Clark choose whoever he wanted, no hard feelings, but then I got a not-so-optional summons to see the alpha.”
Graham’s face had gotten hard again, almost as if he knew where she was going with this. Delilah continued. “They told me I was their next shot at a peace offering with a rival pack, that they were basically selling me to be some alpha’s mate, and they locked me in a room to wait for my ‘big day.’” She rolled her eyes. “Like I would just go willingly, no questions asked.”
Graham nodded, his jaw working. “That sounds about right,” he said. Just as Delilah’s temper flared, he added, “Deacon Claw is notorious for that sort of thing.”
Deacon Claw?
“Wait, so they lied?” Delilah was incredulous, but almost immediately wondered why she should be. It was totally in keeping with their past actions.
Jude nodded. “Yeah, we do stuff like this all the time—offer to take in rejected members of other packs, I mean. It’s how Miranda came in six or seven years ago. Hell, that’s kind of how I got here.”
“But there was never a rivalry or a weird marriage contract or any of that,” Graham asserted. “I knew the female we were taking in had been the mate of Jonah’s heir, and that was about it. Because of Deacon Claw’s reputation and what they do to their females, I didn’t need to know anything else. Nobody deserves that.”
“Oh.” Delilah scuffed her foot in the mud, feeling suddenly tired and ashamed. “I’m… I’m sorry I… jumped to conclusions.” She looked at the ground and sighed. “It’s just…”
Jude wrapped her in a sudden embrace. “You don’t have to explain anything. Like I said, it’s easy to assume the worst when the worst is all you’ve ever gotten.” Delilah melted into his arms, feeling the anger and tension drain from her body.
She had never felt this warm and safe before.
Chapter 24
Jude
RelieffloodedJude'ssystemand he welcomed it with open arms. The last thing he wanted was to lose her now. Just when he thought he’d found the woman he could imagine himself with, she had discovered the agreement with her old pack.
It was almost as if fate was playing some very cruel game with them. But he wasn’t ready to give up on it yet. It had delivered her to them after all. Now she was looking at them both like she might actually believe they weren’t the bad guys she assumed they were.
He couldn’t blame her, not after what she’d been through with the Deacon Claw pack. Those guys really were the biggest bunch of assholes, especially when it came to women. He was just glad they’d managed to salvage this situation. And from the way she was looking at them, that was definitely the case.
“So, I was hoping maybe we could stick around here for a bit longer,” she said as she took in both of their forms. Her lips parted slightly as she lightly brushed her top one with her tongue.
Jude took in a deep inhale, already smelling her intentions. She wanted them—both of them—and no way was she going to take no for an answer. “I think that could be arranged,” he said, stepping closer to her. The scent of arousal that belonged to the three of them was now pungent.
“Definitely,” replied Graham, his voice low and deep.
