Page 97 of Pack Rage
A whisper came from the far wall, where her gaze kept straying. “She’s so beautiful.” Finn’s face was etched with longing. I walked over, wondering why he couldn’t see what I did. Couldn’t feel it.
She needed him.
“She’s your mate, too,” I replied. “Go to her.” He shook his head, and I whispered as quietly as I could, “Finnick Dimitrivich. Don’t punish yourself any longer. She needs you. Needs to know you want her. Love her.”
He made a small, broken sound, but moved to the bed. He didn’t take off his clothing, still dressed in the business suit he’d changed into after the battle, but he settled on the edge of the bed, and Flor grabbed his hand with hers when he did.
“Finn? Do you want…”
“To kiss you while my brother makes you come again? While he gives you the beginning of the pleasure you deserve? Yeah, Wills. I want that.”
It was almost heartbreaking to watch Finn, who’d always seemed so cold and self-assured, especially around women, fumbling for the right place to put his hands, the right angle to kiss her. But he lowered his face to hers, and none of us mentioned the tears that fell onto her cheeks from his eyes.
Healing took time, and we all had a lot of healing to do.
Chapter 46
Future Plans
FLOR
If someone had told me I could live the rest of my life in that guest bedroom with my mates, I would’ve jumped on the chance faster than a duck on a June bug. All that was waiting outside that door was a shit ton of work, a buttload of butthurt shifters from all over the world, and a field piled high and wide with the dead who needed to be sent on to the moon.
I sat at a table in what Finn had called a “conservatory” but was really a fancy glassed-in porch, and ate my third sandwich of the afternoon. This one was a ham and pickle thing on some kind of bread I’d never tried. Not bad.
Of course, I’d eaten frogs and even rats before. Thinking of those days in the woods, I flicked my ear tag and listened to the others around me make the endless to-do list for the combined pack leaders.I’d never been gladder not to be an Alpha, relieved that my part of being in charge had ended with the fighting. But I admired my Alphas as they spoke.
Brand, Finn, Luke, and Glen had all gotten dressed in clean sweats. They sat with me, across from Sergeant and Margarette, the late afternoon sun warming our faces through the wallof glass windows. Finn had found me some clothes that fit somehow, even though it seemed like everyone in his pack was six feet tall. The red wool sweater and black trousers felt expensive, and had fancy French tags, but the new tactical belt that held my steak knife and sword at my waist was the best part of the outfit. The sun would go down soon, and we knew we had to figure some shit out before the moon rose again.
Sergeant was talking with Finn. “The other packs, the smaller ones and the foreign visitors, are demanding to be let go, and take their dead with them. For now, we’ve barricaded the gates?—”
“Why?” I butted in. Didn’t we want everyone to go home? “Why not let the door hit ‘em on the way out?”
Luke explained. “We don’t know which ones were colluding with Aidan, and which ones he was going to force into his new ‘alliance.’ If we let them go, they could come back to challenge us, even bring an army over to try to attack our Council’s member packs before we’ve recovered from this fight.”
Margarette scoffed. “Take their dead. Idiots. The funeral pyres are already being built. They’ll be given to the moon where they fell, not hauled in car trunks and body bags across the country.”
Sergeant nodded. “I tried to talk to their Alphas, but…” He wore dark shadows under his eyes, and his tattoos stood out on his arms and neck, some of them red and raw, like he’d been scratching at them. I wasn’t sure he’d slept at all since the battle.
Glen broke in. “But they see you as a rogue Alpha, and your pack?—”
“It’s not an official pack. No Council has named it. They won’t listen to me, and some of the smaller pack Alphas said outright that when both Bradley and Aidan died, their own allegiance to the North American Council died as well.”
I tapped my chin while they kept arguing, trying to figure out how they were going to sort out the good from the bad, and how to put a new Council Head in place, or even if they should.
Finn flat-out refused to put himself forward. “My pack won’t even come to the Mansion to help the wounded. I felt dozens of them leaving today, probably defecting to a pack overseas.”
Brand growled. “You’re their Alpha. You can command them to stay.”
“I don’t want them,” Finn stated baldly. “I’m letting them go. I don’t want shifters who learned the lessons my parents taught about what it means to be pack. I don’t want to force shifters who were traumatized and abused by their pack Enforcers and Alpha to stay when they finally have the chance to be free.” He finished in awhisper, “I don’t want to be Alpha.” My heart ached for him, but I understood.
Glen felt the same way, I could tell. He reached out and patted Finn’s shoulder, but didn’t say it out loud. His eyes went to his mom on his right.
Margarette shifted in her chair restlessly, staring at the food on her plate like it repulsed her, and she might jump away from the table and run screaming into the woods. Or grab a knife and run down to the lower levels to kill every one of the remaining Eastern Enforcers.
At some point in the night, she’d shaved her hair off entirely, and changed into a plain black shirt and pants. A maid’s uniform, it looked like. Somehow, she looked even more badass than usual, though it was impossible to meet her eyes without wanting to cry myself.
“They’ll become rogues. Shifters need an Alpha,” Margarette reminded Finn.
