Feral Sins (36 page)

“
Well I was until you put Trey in a bad mood.”

“
I know you, Taryn. Beneath that hard exterior you’re not so different from your mom. You want kids and commitment and a happily ever after – he can’t give you that.”

“
If I was pining for the pitter patter of tiny little feet, I’d buy a kitten and put slippers on it. And what do you know about what Trey can or can’t give me? You don’t even know him.”

“
I know this mating isn’t real -”

“
Watch what you say,” she snapped. Her wolf growled inside her head, just as incensed as she was by those words. A much louder growl was coming from Trey.

“
You deserve better, you can have better – plenty of wolves would be happy to mate with you. Hell, there are wolves here who’d be happy to mate with you.”

Taryn wasn’t in the least bit surprised when Trey’s eyes flashed wolf and he made a move toward Don. Quickly she placed herself in front of him and wrapped both arms tightly around his waist. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she whispered. He halted but released a chilling growl.

Don was quieter as he said in a shaky voice, “He’s not good for you.”

“
If that’s how you feel then I guess we part here.”

“
Taryn -”

“
No. We’re leaving.” Rubbing her chin on Trey’s chest she said, “Come on, Flinstone, let’s go.” But his entire focus was on Don.

Don tried again. “Taryn, I -”

“
I said
no
. You insulted my mate. If you were anyone else, I’d go for your throat. Now back off.”

“
Let them be, Don,” ordered Nick who was walking up behind them. He nodded respectfully at Taryn and Trey.

“
Thank you for inviting us, Nick,” she said quietly. Pressing her body weight against Trey, she tried urging him to move. No effect, unsurprisingly. “Come on. Let’s go home.” The word ‘home’ seemed to penetrate his ‘Must kill Don’ haze because a little of the tension left his body and he gave her a very slight nod. Mute and Terminator-stiff, he walked her to the car and had them out of Nick’s territory in seconds.

When minutes later he showed no signs of calming or becoming less robotic, she was tempted to try to talk to him. However, she somehow sensed that, for whatever reason, Trey needed to be alone with his thoughts right now. Going with that instinct, she turned her focus to the view ahead and said nothing.

Trey had thought that the further he got from that other pack the more he would calm. That just wasn’t happening. Maybe it should have been Don’s claim that Trey wasn’t good for Taryn that was agitating him. Or maybe his claim that she wanted things that Trey couldn’t give her. Or maybe even Don’s suggestion that she stay with his pack and mate with another wolf. But no. As much as all that had seriously pissed him off, it wasn’t any of that that was responsible for his mood. What had him as annoyed as fuck right now was that Taryn had defended him.

No female other than his mother or Greta had ever defended him. Not only had Taryn done that, she had basically chosen him over her uncle. It pissed him off that it meant something to him when it shouldn’t have. What annoyed him more was that he couldn’t be sure if that had been real or she had just been sticking with their true mate act. He tried telling himself that it didn’t matter. Tried telling himself that it wasn’t relevant, but it goddamn was to him.

He was sick of her doing things that touched him like that and then left him sitting there wondering if he was looking too deep into things or if she was having the same inner struggle as him.

Like the way she snapped if anyone questioned their mating as she had with Brodie and her uncle. Was it because her sense of possessiveness now ran bone deep just as his did, or was it just her wolf? Like how she held back from marking him. Was that because she was already finding it hard to remain detached, or was it only her wolf finding it hard? And like how she had repeatedly tried so hard to help him form so many alliances when he had never asked that of her. Was it because she cared for him in some way and wanted to help him, or was it that she just wanted to help the pack as a whole?

He didn’t want to be going through this weird inner struggle on his own and, as idiotic as it was, he wanted her to care about him. Mostly because he was afraid that he just might care about her.

And so his bad mood remained with him throughout the long journey home and was still there hours later while he was sat on one of the chairs by the lake soaking up the midday sun. He knew Taryn wouldn’t let him brood in peace much longer so it wasn’t a surprise when he heard footsteps. Unfortunately it turned out that those footsteps didn’t belong to Taryn.

“
Hey,” called out Dante in his usual gruff voice.

“
What do you want?”

“
Yes I will have a seat, thank you, Alpha.”

“
No one likes a smart ass.”

He took the chair opposite Trey’s and straddled it. “I take it things didn’t go well with her uncle.”

Trey sighed. “Actually, he was happy to see her. All of them were pretty hospitable.”

“
Well I can understand why that might piss
you
off since – though you’ll never admit it – you don’t want her to leave, and nor do you seem ready to face just why that might be. But I don’t see why it would have Taryn all irritated.”

He chose to ignore the first half of what Dante had said. “Her uncle didn’t believe we were true mates, said the mating wasn’t real.”

Dante winced. “Ooh, yeah, that’ll do it. She might know this mating’s temporary, but she sure doesn’t like anyone saying it’s not real.”

“
He also said I was bad for her. Said I couldn’t give her those things a woman wants. Then he suggested she stay there and mate with another wolf.”

“
Prick.”

After a pause, Trey said, “She defended me, you know.”

“
Of course she did. You’re her mate. Mates don’t stand for that shit.”

“
Yeah. Her wolf wouldn’t want anyone insulting her mate, would she.”

Dante snickered. “You’re one blind bastard.”

“
Blind?”

“
Or maybe just dumb.” Shaking his head, he looked away and sighed. When he looked at Trey again there was a mischievous glint in his eyes. “Well…I don’t see what you’ve got to be pissed about. Her uncle’s an ass, but he’s right. You
are
bad for her. You
can’t
give her the things a female wants because the mating’s temporary. And, yeah, there’s a good chance she’ll go and mate with another wolf when she leaves.” When Trey growled warningly Dante’s face took on a superior, smug, know-it-all look. “You know, you could just ask her to stay for good.”

At that moment, Trey hated him. Hated him for seeing far more than he should. Hated him for making Trey see exactly how much he wanted that – which seriously scared the shit out of him. He hated his wolf too. Hated him for constantly fighting Trey over the idea of Taryn leaving, for being so unreasonably possessive of her. He also hated Tao for wanting Taryn, he hated the wolf she might one day mate with, and he hated her uncle for speaking the truth he’d been trying to ignore. Mostly, he hated his-fucking-self for caring about a female who didn’t even care enough to mark him. “Why would I do that?”

“
The two of you are good together. You actually laugh these days. You behave a lot like true mates do.”

“
Look, Dante, I’ll admit I like her – she’s fun to have around and she knows what she’s doing in the bedroom – but it wouldn’t have mattered if I hadn’t liked her or if she was someone else, we still would have mated and fucked. This is about a deal, that’s all.” Trey was aware that he’d sounded pretty harsh. He was also aware by the scent that suddenly flavored the air that Taryn had heard him.
Shit
.

Taryn had been following Trey’s scent, hoping to hunt him down and get him to stop brooding when she heard Dante’s words:
“You know, you could just ask her to stay for good.”
It was said that eavesdroppers tended to hear things they didn’t like. In this case, the saying had proven to be true. It wasn’t as though she’d thought things were any different than how Trey firmly stated to Dante, and it wasn’t as though she’d thought he cared for her. Yet the effect was still like a hot lance slicing through her. Why? For the same reason that a dull pain had struck her chest and her windpipe had begun to ache…She loved Trey Coleman. The realization punched the breath from her lungs.

God, how horrible was this. She loved a guy to whom she was basically a faceless fuck. She could be anyone to him. In other words, she was no one and nothing to him. Her wolf – who was already insecure in the mating due to not having marked Trey – was tempted to curl up and whine. Taryn was tempted to punch the ass right in the face. Overruling all that was an uncharacteristic urge to flee. To run far and fast. To get away from this person who had so much power over her. To find somewhere to be alone while she faced her pain.

As the conversation abruptly came to a halt and awkwardness filled the air, Taryn knew they had sensed her presence. There went the option of retreating as if she hadn’t overheard. Although the urge to lunge at Trey was great, Taryn had been dealing with asshole Alphas long enough to know that it was imperative that they didn’t believe they had the power to hurt you. They would stomp all over you if they spotted a weakness, just like her dad and Roscoe. She couldn’t afford for Trey to know that she felt anything for him.

Having pasted an easy smile on her face, she walked out of the trees and over to the patio table, examining Trey’s cautious expression as well as Dante’s apologetic one. “Hell, Dante, was it really necessary to needle him when he was already in a bad mood?” she said playfully.

“
I, um, we just -”

She rolled her eyes and waved away his attempt to explain himself. “I just came to see if Trey had stopped with the whole brooding thing, but I see he hasn’t so I’ll leave him to sulk some more.”

Feeling like absolute shit, Trey said, “Taryn, wait -”

“
I promised Shaya I’d call her so I’ll see you guys later.”

“
Taryn, wait.” He reached out and caged her wrist with his hand but when he tried tugging her to him she shook him off like he was a spider.

“
I said I’ll see you later.”

“
Look, what I said…” Words completely failed him because, as he’d told her before, he wasn’t good with apologies. He wasn’t good with words at all.

“
Trey, it doesn’t matter.”

“
Yes, it does.” It especially mattered because he could sense her hurt, could
feel
it.

“
You only said the truth. It wasn’t anything I didn’t already know.”

Trey growled, pissed at himself for saying dumb shit and pissed at her for walking away from him. “Taryn?” His call went unanswered.

Dante sighed. “You fucked that one up.”

For the rest of the day, Taryn kept herself thoroughly occupied. She called Shaya. She went shopping with Grace for groceries. She did a run around the border of pack territory. She showered. She did some laundry. She beat Trick’s ass at Mario Kart. Hell, she even watched a T.V. program about knitting with Greta during which they engaged in a battle of wills. Anything so that she didn’t have to think about Trey or what he’d said or, more importantly, the fact that she…cared about him. She wouldn’t say the L word. It was officially banned from her vocabulary.

She had tried real hard throughout the evening meal to appear normal, but she was pretty sure that no one had bought it because the guys had crowded around her supportively while shooting scowls at Trey. Still she had persisted with the act. When Trey had spoken to her, she had talked to him and when he had pulled her onto his lap, she had let him. There had been a sort of desperation in the way he held her so tightly yet gently. Like the way a person would try to hold a butterfly – careful because it was small and delicate but on-guard because it was flighty. None of his touches were seductive or teasing. All were soft and soothing, kind of apologetic. But it didn’t ease her hurt or make her relax. How could she be relaxed by the touch of a guy she…cared for when to him she could be anyone?

After the meal Taryn had done as she usually did – she lay down on what was, hands down, the most comfortable sofa in the world to watch some T.V. When it had reached the time when she normally went to bed, she hadn’t been able to move.