Page 84 of Bearly Hanging On

Mack

They didn’t get it.

Kieran was about to walk out the door, Tor emerging from the bedroom with his phone to his ear, Harper coming out not long afterwards. She was wearing Tor’s shirt as a nightgown, and some primal part of me wanted to tear it off and replace it with my own. Not yet, I told the wolf, trying to keep him down. Walking away from Harper last night took everything I had. Only the very vivid memories of what my family was capable of had him moving.

“I’ve gotta go,” Kieran told Harper, which was exactly the wrong thing to say. “The dads… Our work site…” He shot me a sidelong look, then focussed back on our mate. “Looks like Mack’s brother hit it, destroying a lot of the work we’d done.”

Of course, that had everyone looking at me, no doubt wondering how the fuck I was related to such a dickhead. Just lucky, I wanted to tell them.

“I’ll be back,” Kieran started to say.

“Don’t.” Now everyone was looking at me again. Probably because I was the one who said that. I shook my head, stroking the gun strap that rested diagonally across my chest. “Kieran, let your dads sort this out. We need to stay here.”

“Kieran’s dads might have apprentices that can deal with the mess.” Tor’s frown deepened. “But my parents don’t.”

“Something happened to them?” Harper rushed forward. “Are your parents OK?”

“Shaken up.” Tor’s shoulders drooped. “The restaurant has been vandalised. No major damage.” Turns out even Dax was wary of fucking with a whole extended family of tiger shifters. Unlike us wolves or the bears, the females took fur too and could be the most vicious if cornered. “But I need to get over there.”

No, he didn’t.

“This is what he wants.”

I didn’t want to say anything. Let them leave, let them find out exactly what my brother is capable of, I thought, even as I knew I could never let that happen. Part of what made our pack work was the fact they had no idea the brutality Harris males could stoop to. Harper didn’t need three battle scarred mates with intimacy issues.

It was bad enough she had to deal with one.

I shook my head and forged on.

“Divide and conquer,” I told the lot of them. “Pretty standard tactics, and that’s what Dax is doing right now. I know it's hard?—”

“Hard?” Tor stared at me. “Hard knowing someone came around to my fucking parents’ place and staged an attack? Are you fucking with me right now? Bloody hell, what if he’s gone after some of my other family members?”

He wasn’t listening. Instead, he scrolled through his contacts, shooting off texts, then calling one of his sisters.

“I have to go and make this right with the dads,” Kieran insisted. No, he really did not. “They’re mad as hell about all this.” He leant down and pressed a soft kiss to Harper’s forehead. “I’ll be back before you know it. Just sit tight with Mack.”

Don’t go, I wanted to snap. Get you fucking arse back here and help me defend our territory, but of course, I kept my mouth shut. The wolf was too close to the surface, his growl rattling in my ears as he threatened to take matters into his own hands. I hadn’t slept a damn wink last night, and that meant the barrier between us was thinner than ever.

“Nanna…” Harper grabbed her own phone and made a call. “Hey.” My ears strained to hear the conversation. “Yeah, it's me, Harper. Um… about that. Dinner isn’t going to happen tonight. There’s some drama going down. Yes, I promise to bring them around as soon as things settle, just… Stay safe. Don’t go outside the retirement home. Yep, I know you don’t often. Look, I can’t give you too many details?—”

“We’ll be back.” Tor came to stand in front of me. “Once the community hears about this, they’ll get a working bee going to sort out the worst of the mess. I just need to check in with everyone, let them know about the threat.”

So ring them, I wanted to insist. Don’t go anywhere. Just call them. But the two of them headed for the door despite my silent pleas. The sound of the security system beeping, registering their presence, then the clunk of the deadbolts shifting had me moving towards the front door.

“Get back here as soon as you can,” I said, not even able to look the two guys in the eye. This was exactly the wrong thing to do. They were falling into the same trap everyone did with Dax. They assumed my brother made sense, operated on some kind of logic, when really, all that motivated him was hate and pain.

“You got it.”

I locked the door behind them, tweaked the security system settings before striding back into the living room. Harper was there, staring at her phone.

“I need to ring Mum,” she insisted. “Shit, and Daria!”

I plucked the phone from her grip, then shoved it into my pocket.

“Grab some food,” I said. “Something to drink as well.” Moving towards the pantry, I started stripping the shelves of things she might like. “Because I’m going to show you another part of the house.”

“What?”

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