Tangling with the Tiger: Lone Pine Pride, Book 5 (26 page)

His head snapped around so quickly it had to hurt his neck. “What?”

“I drowned,” she admitted. “An EMT revived me, but I was dead for nearly two minutes. My mother calls it the worst day of her life. It’s strange how much a little thing like that can change everything.”

“That isn’t a little thing,” Dominec growled.

“Well, it wouldn’t have been if I’d died, but I lived, didn’t I? And then I wanted to
live
, you know? I wanted my life to mean something. I wanted it to be
big
, because we never know how long it’s going to last.”

“A natural reaction.”

“I guess. My parents reacted with a baby boom. Important to have a spare on hand. And even though I know it’s ridiculous to be bothered by that, it always felt like my parents decided they needed to replace me when I proved to be mortal.” Hence Grace’s need to be irreplaceable. “I adore my siblings, but my parents never understood the wild need that came into me after that day. How I wanted to live as big as possible and have it
mean
something. I wanted to leave a mark and they just wanted me to be safe. I
hate
safe.” She stopped, turning to the dark man at her side. “Don’t ask me to be safe, Dominec.”

He cupped her jaw. “I like you wild, but I will never stop trying to keep you safe.”

Her heart fluttered. This man. He said the most ridiculously romantic things without even meaning to. Always sounding mildly grumpy about his feelings.

“Deal,” she whispered.

He sealed the deal with a kiss.

When he lifted his head, they were both breathing hard, puffing white clouds into the cold air. “My place?”

He nodded, taking her hand again. They were almost to her steps when he murmured, “Even if they don’t always understand you, don’t waste a second with your family. I don’t want you to have my regrets.”

She squeezed his hand, remembering what he’d said before about not having any mementos from his family. Not even a photo. All he had were jumbled memories and regrets. She would not disrespect him by failing to appreciate what she had. “I won’t,” she promised.

No more than she would waste a second with him.

Chapter Forty-Four

Dominec watched in the shadows as the Black Lake wolves loaded up the sedan they were borrowing for the drive north. Maeve Marie stood apart, her wizened face raised as if to catch the breeze on her skin. It was a perfectly clear afternoon, the sky almost white it was so pale.

He hadn’t seen the Archive much since their arrival at Lone Pine and hadn’t had a chance to speak with her. Not that he had needed one. It was only now that she was leaving that a question burned in his mind, begging to be answered.

The Archive turned pale glittering eyes to the shadows where he stood. He knew the darkness hid him, he hadn’t made a sound and he was downwind—but in spite of all that, her clear gaze seemed to find him.

She shuffled toward him with her slow, oddly graceful step and he could hear her humming softly to herself as she grew closer. The twins packed on, seemingly oblivious.

“
Bon jour, tigre
,” she murmured, pausing beyond the shield of his shadows.

He nodded a greeting. “You’re leaving.”

She hummed agreeably. “We have done what we can. Now we must prepare with our own.” Her pale gaze easily penetrated the darkness around him. “You have a question for me.”

Instinct urged him to deny, to fade away and retreat, but he forced himself to hold steady beneath her calm stare. “How do you control the memories? How do you hold onto the good ones and keep the bad ones from destroying you?” Because he finally had good memories he wanted to keep and he wasn’t sure he remembered how.

Maeve hummed, nodding to herself, as if his question was a reminder of something they’d often discussed. “Memories are stories we tell ourselves,” she murmured. “You tell yourself the story of how you felt and what you smelled and what you saw. You build the story until the words are so familiar they lose their meaning and become only words, only stories that hold memories locked within. That is when you forget to feel the horror—but also the joy. If you want to remember the joy, you must allow yourself to listen to the story you tell yourself, the story you have built to keep the memory safe inside.”

“My memories aren’t stories,” he argued. They were shards of broken glass that bled him when he least expected it.

“No. Because you are afraid to tell them, even to yourself. You leave them raw and unprotected by the walls of words, so they fly wild and unfettered through your soul.” Wise eyes gleamed up at him. “But there is someone who would listen to your stories, if you would tell them. Someone who would help you find the words.”

Grace. He had wanted to carve his name on her so she would remember for him—but perhaps she could also help him remember himself.

The twins slammed the trunk on the sedan, calling out to Maeve who raised a hand in reply, though she continued to face Dominec in the shadows.

The Archive smiled. “Sometimes when we can’t build stories for ourselves, we must build them for others.
Bon chance, tigre.
”

“
Making a list, checking it twice
…”

“Somehow I don’t think this is what Santa had in mind.”

Grace looked up to find Patch standing in the conference room doorway, smiling slightly at the Christmas ditty Grace had just been singing to herself. She was the last one there, giving the various rosters and schedules one last look before calling it a night.

“I don’t know,” Grace argued. “We have naughty—” She held up the Organization site list. “And nice.” She waved to the various lists of shifter fighting volunteers and non-combatants who were being moved to safe houses around the country. “And on Christmas Eve hopefully the naughty little children will be buried under a ton of coal.”

“Cute. Roman asked me to pick up the latest lists for him,” Patch said, coming all the way into the conference room and letting the door fall silently shut. “And then I’m supposed to order you to go home and sleep.”

“I’m almost done,” Grace said. “Just ours left to look over.” She held up the sheaf of papers that represented all the Lone Pine volunteers and their assignments.

Patch tossed herself onto one of the empty chairs around the conference table. Her head turned toward the window, watching the snow falling once again. It had been an impressively snowy winter so far, even for Montana. “Five days until Christmas,” she murmured.

Grace hummed agreement. Everyone was counting down.

Five days until Christmas. Four days until the strike.

The shifter alliance had agreed to move on the Organization on Christmas Eve, with the hope that their security would be in a holiday mood and less vigilant than normal. Non-lethal personnel were already being moved to their safe havens.

Grace had said goodbye to her parents and siblings two days ago. Her mother had squeezed her for a long time, sniffling and pleading with her to be safe. Her father had mumbled that they weren’t going to try to talk her out of doing her job, but begged her not to take unnecessary risks. Grace had bitten back the urge to be defensive, to remind them that she was quite qualified for her job, and promised to be careful instead, Dominec’s advice about leaving them on good terms in the forefront of her mind.

Some of the volunteers were impatient, wanting to move faster against the Organization, but Christmas Eve had been settled on as a compromise between those who wanted to strike before the Organization had time to prepare for them and those who wished to take time to plan every detail and eventuality—and get the others to safety.

Patch collected the lists Grace had already reviewed and began flipping through them. Zoe and Tyler had gone back south to fight alongside the other lions from Three Rocks and the creeper twins had returned the Archive to Black Lake before joining the Canadian strike force that would be targeting the Organization facilities north of the border. The Colorado wolves were in, as well as the main pack from the Cascades—who had brought an impressive array of weapons to the equation, proving the vague rumors about the gun-running wolves weren’t entirely fabricated.

Most of the packs and prides had come on board, along with a surprising number of the nomads they’d been able to contact. The Alpha of the Florida lions wanted nothing to do with the fight, but half of his pride had rebelled and joined the volunteers without his blessing.

Organization targets had been assigned for each group and schematics sent out. The sites in the west were considered the most dangerous—the ones the Organization knew Rachel Russell had visited, where they would be expecting attacks and could be relocating prisoners or setting traps. Lone Pine fighters would take four of those. Kye and Adrian would lead two of the teams, while Hugo lead a third and Grace spearheaded the fourth.

Grace’s target—a massive shifter prison, from the looks of the schematics—was the largest and held the most shifter captives. Which might help keep Dominec focused on rescue rather than revenge. But he wasn’t the only one with a personal vendetta. Patch had tried to add herself to Kye’s team when she discovered he would be attacking the facility believed to hold her mother. Roman had reacted by replacing her name with his own—which had led to some rather explosive arguments in the Alpha’s mansion. Both between Patch and Roman about which of them should be allowed to risk their life and between Roman and the former Alpha Greg on the appropriateness of the head of the new shifter alliance leading the battle from the front lines, as he seemed determined to do.

Roman had responded by naming Greg as his official delegate to the alliance. At last count, the Alpha was still on Kye’s roster, and Patch had finally agreed to stay back and coordinate from Mateo’s bunker.

Grace was just glad the couple was back on speaking terms.

“How’s our fearless leader tonight?” Grace asked as she scanned the last page of the list.

“Frustrated,” Patch said, glancing up from her own lists. “We’re no closer to a consensus on the prisoner debate.”

Grace grimaced.

Getting the shifters to volunteer to tear the Organization to shreds had been easy. Getting them to agree about what should be done with any surviving Organization personnel was another matter entirely. Most of the packs and prides wanted to simply kill them all—no witnesses, no loose ends. A handful of others were in favor of imprisoning the survivors, as Lone Pine had attempted to do, and keeping them, at least until their usefulness could be determined.

Everyone agreed that even the lowliest Organization workers knew too much about the shifters to be allowed to go free. Kelly was working on a plan for coming out to the humans—leading a group planning a public relations attack even as the actual attack was being arranged by the fighters—but most shifters in the alliance were still violently opposed to outing themselves.

Secrecy was the name of the game.

But whether they kept the Organization staff as prisoners or killed them all, they now had to consider how that decision would look to the rest of the humans when they eventually decided to come out. Though there were those who argued that if they just killed all the Organization personnel who had ever heard of them, they wouldn’t have to worry about their secret ever coming out.

The prides and packs were mixed on the issue and it had turned into the biggest clusterfuck of the entire attack—and Roman’s personal headache.

“Since it looks like everyone is going to do whatever they damn well please anyway on the prisoner front, he’s trying to keep everyone focused on the attack—clear that hurdle first.” Patch shrugged. “We’ll see. The Virginia pack has suggested we keep one of the big Organization prisons open and fill the cells with all the Organization staff who have kept our people imprisoned for years.”

Grace handed over the last list. “I’ve heard of worse ideas.”

“True. But I don’t want to be the one explaining why we’re running a human prison when we finally come out.”

“Do you think we really will?” Grace leaned back in her chair, rubbing at a kink in her neck.

Patch sighed. “I think it’s a miracle we’ve stayed hidden as long as we have.” She scanned the list, a frown pulling at her lips as she tapped one name. “Is this right? Rajan?”

The pride’s only other male tiger, Rajan, always projected an air of pacifism, his dark eyes gentle even in his feline form. But he’d approached Grace a couple of days ago through Whiskey.

“He volunteered to be part of the attacks, as long as we can guarantee the safety of his sisters while he’s away.”

“I know he’s a tiger,” Patch said, “but can he even fight?”

“I know, I wondered the same thing. So I ran him through his paces on the training field and turns out he’s a fucking ninja.”

“Seriously? And we had no idea?”

“After he schooled Kye and nearly put me on the mat twice, he explained that he didn’t like to draw attention to himself.”

Patch snorted.

“Yeah. But as long as he doesn’t mind kicking ass for us on Christmas Eve, he can be as shy as he likes about his badassery every other day of the year.”

Everyone was doing their part to defend the pride. Many of those who were too old or too young to fight but didn’t want to go into hiding would be helping the medical staff or manning the perimeter around Lone Pine. Even Kelly and Whiskey, who were hardly warriors, would be joining Hugo’s team.

“Speaking of ninja tigers…” Patch tapped the page next to Dominec’s name. “You sure about him? I know he’s seemed like more of a team player lately, but we don’t need any wild cards on the big day.”

For a moment Grace’s tired brain thought Patch was questioning their relationship, but then she realized the Alpha’s mate was only worried about whether or not he would have another psychotic break while on the mission.

“One hundred percent,” Grace promised.

Many couples were being separated for the battle—not just Patch and Roman. Moira and Rachel would be here, manning the infirmary with Brandt and defending Lone Pine if necessary, while Hugo and Adrian were in harm’s way. It was a relief that Grace wouldn’t have to wonder about Dominec. He would always be at her side.

The memory of Dominec telling her that his role as her backup was non-negotiable replayed in her mind…along with vivid recollections of the erotic night that had followed.

“I take it from the besotted look on your face that things are going well with our one-man wrecking crew.”

“I’m not besotted,” she protested.

“If you say so.” Patch grinned. “But things are good? I never really pictured Dominec as part of a functional couple.”

“Yeah. Things are good.” She could have left it at that. But girl talk was in short supply with all the preparations for the upcoming attacks, so Grace blurted, “He met my parents.”

Patch’s eyes rounded. “Wow. That’s big. How’d it go?”

“No one came to blows, so I’m taking it as a win,” Grace snarked, but Patch gave her a look and she admitted, “My mom said something about him making me dark.”

“Does he?”

“I don’t know. Yes. I guess. He changes me. Or I change me when I’m with him. If that’s any different. He said I’m changing him and when I said it went both ways, he asked me if I liked who being with him made me.”

“And do you?” Patch prompted when she fell silent.

“I lose my sense of humor when I’m with him.”

“Ouch. That’s terrible.”

“No,” Grace said, shaking her head. “I’m explaining it wrong. I’m not flippant with him. I’m not being snarky and making light of everything because things aren’t light with him. They’re
real
. I’m still a snarky brat when I’m with others, but there’s this other side with him. I feel like that’s why Kelly never seemed like enough. He doesn’t bring out that side of me. The real me, for lack of a better word. But Dominec has always seen it. Even when I was trying to hide behind the snark. You should hear some of the things he says to me, Patch. He isn’t even trying to be romantic. He’ll grumble like he’s airing complaints even as he’s telling me I make the world go away.”

Patch blinked. “Wow. So this thing is the real deal. Grace-inec.”

“Shut up.” Grace chucked a pencil at her.

“Have you told him you love him yet?”