Terr5tory (10 page)

Chapter 18

Two weeks later, Eleanor’s leg was practically fully healed.  No other attacks had occurred and things had seemed to transition rather smoothly under Delano’s command.  Sure, Bose still acted up and May and June were repeatedly sneaking into town, but everything else was…
good!

The pack performed their duties as assigned without question and they gathered for each meal that was blessed with prayer by their Alpha. 

Much to her aggravation, Eleanor found herself drawn more and more to Delano each day.  She had to fight hard to avoid acting the fangirl or giving any hint at her interest.  He’d already declared there’d be nothing between them and she’d respect that, regardless of how disappointing it was.

Settled in her room with Riss, Shade, May and June, they were rifling through the bags of items they’d picked up at the mall earlier.   It had been the first time in the past two weeks that Delano had permitted the females to leave the compound.  They were escorted of course, but still, it’d been nice to go to town and cut loose.

“Look at this,” Riss exclaimed, holding up a blouse. “Doesn’t it go great with my eyes?”

“Sure,” Shade responded, not looking up from her new book.

May and June were too excited going through their own bags to care.

Eleanor reclined back against her pillows, crossing her arms behind her head.  “Looks great, Riss.”

The heavy thud of footsteps had Eleanor sitting up, even as the rest of the girls were oblivious.  They simply carried on rifling through their goods and chattering excitedly.

Delano stepped into the doorway.  “EVERYONE OUT,” he barked.

Eleanor smiled at his favored expression, but didn’t bother standing.  Every time he bellowed the command he seemed to mean everyone but her.  When he turned to her she smiled and asked, “Me too?”

“No.”  His brows shot down as if he realized she was poking fun at him.  “Why didn’t you buy yourself anything today?”

Really?
That’s what he came up to ask?  “Didn’t need anything.”

“Is it about money?”

“No!” Her indignation flared.  “I’ve got money, I just didn’t need anything.”

“What about
want
?”

“What?”

“Sometimes you have to pamper yourself, El.  You can’t tell me there wasn’t something in that whole damn mall that you wanted.”

She stood up from the bed.  “How do you even know I didn’t buy anything?”  She tucked her hair behind her ear as she contemplated squeezing past him to get out of her own room.  It was disquieting having his large frame in her small space.  It made her wolf all…
stupid!

“Anders and Warren said the girls all bought crap except for you.  They said you never buy yourself anything.”

“I had a latte.”  She lifted her chin haughtily.  “It was fabulous.”

“The latte you asked Riss to buy you?”

“What?”  Okay, now she was seriously getting pissed.  Was he having Anders and Warren spy on her? 

“Calm down,” he held up his hands.  “They boys didn’t snitch you out.  They just mentioned how pissed they were.  Said that when you were waiting for the girls at the fountain you asked Riss to bring you back a latte from the coffee shop they were going to.”  He planted hands on lean hips and lifted his chin to study her.  “What was her response?”

Angry color flooded Eleanor’s cheeks, both at the memory and at being called out on it.  “If you heard the story, you know what her response was.”

“I want to hear it from you.”

Eleanor worked her jaw a few moments before responding.  “She said that’s what I have Shade for.”

“So, this same sister of yours, the one who a few weeks back had you bring her a milk shake all the way from town when you were going grocery shopping, couldn’t manage to grab you a coffee from the coffee shop that she was already going to?”

Well, when he put it like that it pissed her off even more.  “Apparently not.”

“And then,” he continued, “you paid for each of the girls to go and buy themselves something nice, but didn’t even get anything for yourself?”

“Are you going somewhere with this?”  She turned to hide her sudden uneasiness.  “Am I in trouble for being…
generous
?”

“Funny how one can be surrounded by pack and still feel so alone.”

His words rang through her with a truth she didn’t know anyone else could recognize, and had her turning and then backing up a step when, without invitation, he stepped further into her room, gently closing the door behind him.  Suddenly, her room seemed too small as the scent of him flooded the space.  God he smelled good.  He smelled like a midnight run under the full moon.  He smelled like Earth and heat and wild.  He smelled like a shifter, but not just any shifter.  He smelled like an Alpha.  Power had its own scent, and right now that scent was the headiest in the universe.  It had heat pooling low in Eleanor’s belly as desire swirled.

Leaning against the door with his hands behind him, Delano studied her before offering, “You’ve had people around you, pack around you, yet you haven’t had anyone you can communicate with or rely on.”

Good God!  Sexy as fuck and understanding to boot!
  Eleanor was in trouble.

“We tend to only discuss those things we hold the most important with like-minded individuals who share the ability to understand.”  He jerked his head toward the window.  “I doubt you’ve found any understanding among them, and it has nothing to do with the fact that they’ve made you their leader.”

“Being Alpha isn’t the easiest job.”  She straightened her spine, “But heavy is the head…”

“Bullshit!” Delano cut her off.  “I’ve always hated that saying.  Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” he mumbled.  “It implies that we are bowed by the weight of our duty and that doesn’t have to be the truth.  Being Alpha doesn’t have to be dirty, difficult, or daunting.  If done properly, being Alpha should come as easily as breathing.”

Delicate brows shot up as indignation flared.  “Oh, wise and perfect Alpha, do share your secret.”

“Nobody’s perfect, lovely.  Not even you.  I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but so have you.”  He shook his head, but she didn’t let him finish.  “I’m just saying…”

“No shit!”  She rose from the bed and spun away from him as anger swelled.  If he wanted to discuss her short comings all he had to do was ask.  No need to come to her under the guise chastising her for babying the girls.  Head shaking as she crossed to the window, she pulled back the sheer white curtain to look down out at the grounds.  “You think I don’t know that I’m not perfect?  I am fully aware of my shortcomings and flat-out failings.”

Curious, he prodded her.  “Really?  The ever-vigilant, ever-patient, ever-loving Alphina admits her shortcomings?”

“Oh, I’ve been a terrible leader, rest assured.  But don’t lose sleep.  I’ve hated myself enough for everyone, and…”  She looked over her shoulder at him, reading him. 

He could tell she was deciding if she wanted to say her next words.  “Go on,” he challenged.

“I’m despicable enough to admit that I actually hated
them
for it.”  She looked away and he could sense she was on the verge of breaking.  “Do you have any idea how it feels to spend your life doing for everyone else?  I’ve been so unhappy!  I…”  She looked straight at him.  “I hated my life.  And nobody knew it but me.  Nobody cared.”  She was shaking now.  “I put their needs, their wants, their lives ahead of my own.  Even when I thought they’d give me a second to enjoy some peace, they snatched it away greedily.  I just…”  She shook her head as tears fell.  “Just once I’d like to enjoy a meal without someone snatching food off my plate like I owe it to them.  I’d like any one of them to have one fucking second for me.  I’d like to sleep through a fucking night without being woken with the heart-stopping worry that something has happened to one of them because they don’t have the fucking decency to respect the fact that while I’m there for them all day, I
need
rest because they’ll be back at me by dawn.  I just want peace.”  Her brows caved in misery.  “Just some fucking peace, but peace isn’t meant for Alphas.  Is it?”

God how he yearned to tell her that it was, that if she could divide her time equally and learn to be more inaccessible to them that leading them could be easy.

“Then on top of it all, in the greatest contradiction of contradictions, I worry if I’ve loved them enough.  Did I
show
it enough?”  She turned to hide the tears that flooded her eyes with the source of her one true agony.  Swallowing down the emotion that clogged her throat, she continued.  “I can’t tell you how many nights I lay awake wondering if I’ve been the leader they needed.  The leader they deserved.  I tried…  I tried to be righteous and just, but I…  I don’t know if there was a time when I wasn’t harsh, meaner than I should have been.  They came to me for solace and warmth and I was afraid to give it to them because I didn’t want them to be weakened by it.  I wanted them hard. 
Strong!
  So many times,” she shook her head and her voice broke.  “So many times I could have been more compassionate. 
Should
have been.  I should have been kind, but I didn’t know how.  I don’t think they’ll ever know how much I love and admire them all.  How much I sacrificed to…”

“To be what they needed.”  He finished for her.

“I-I don’t know why I’m like this.  I try to change.  I try to be better for them
.”

“You’re like this because you’re kind, and kindness can hurt when it’s taken advantage of.  You’re empathetic, lovely.  You feel everything they feel, which makes you feel responsible for their happiness.  It’s not about being harder, El.  It’s letting them make their own mistakes and learn from them.”

He quieted and when she didn’t continue he asked, “You said you
hated
your life.  That nobody
knew
it.”  He stepped closer.  “Past tense.  What’s changed?” 

She didn’t hesitate.  “You.  You make it easier.  Carrying the burden of authority is lighter when you have help.”  She smiled up at him through her tears.  “It’s kinda nice to not always have to be the bad guy.”

He smiled back. “I have zero problem being the bad guy, but you were never that.”  He reached down and grabbed her hand.  “You know what your real problem is?  That you don’t understand the fact that you can’t learn life for them.  No one can.  You’re a great General, El, but you can’t lead and be in the trenches doing all the work too.  You have to give them sound guidance and instruction and pray that they follow it.  Period.  You’ve got to learn to set down the weight of responsibility for them or you’ll be crushed by it.”

“I’m not trying to take anything away from them.  I want them to learn, I just…I just don’t want them to struggle.”

“No.” He shook his head sadly.  “You don’t want them to have to struggle as
you’ve
had to struggle.  And the sad fact, lovely, is that it is a disservice to them.  You’re trying to protect them.  You’re sheltering them from all the horrible things out in the big bad world.”  Unable to stop himself, he lifted a hand to cup her cheek when she looked up at him with dejected eyes.  His thumb gently stroked over satiny skin.  “Your job isn’t to protect them from the cruel world, it’s to show them by example how to live life without contributing to a cruel world or succumbing to it.  You show them, just by being you, how to cast light into the darkness.  Your presence in their lives shows them that good will win.  You teach them to fight monsters without becoming monsters, El.”

Her eyes again flooded with tears and she jerked away from his touch.  She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t bear his understanding.  “Last year, Parker brought a paper home from school.  It was Mothers Day and they’d each had to write a paper on their mothers.  He wrote about me.  It said that I wasn’t lovey-dovey, but that I was like a mom in most other ways.”  She shook her head sadly.  “Fuck!  Do you think they could ever see that I was hard on them because I love them?”  She lifted a fist to her mouth to stifle a sob.  Turning tormented eyes to him she whispered, “I never said the words, but…  I always thought I showed them.  Maybe I didn’t do enough.  I didn’t show them enough.”

Delano pulled her hard into his body and simply held her as she cried.  Leaning down he brushed his lips against her hair.  “The mere fact that you even question it is proof enough that you were the best you could be for them and to them.”

“And now?” she scoffed pulling away from him as she swiped at the tears on her cheeks.  She couldn’t be near him and the comfort he offered because it would break her.  Missing his warmth, she folded her arms around herself.  “What do I do now?”  She shook her head sadly.  “They don’t need me, they have you.  I’m not sure I know what to do if it doesn’t involve taking care of someone else.”

You’ll take care of me, just as I’ll care for you. 
He didn’t speak the words though, because it wasn’t his declaration to make. 

Shaking her head with a somber laugh, Eleanor swiped at her cheeks.  “God, sorry.”  She dried her hands on the thighs of her jeans.  “How did we even get on that topic?  You were chewing my ass for spoiling the girls and then were going to teach me a lesson in being a good Alpha.  We got way off track.”