Page 44 of Legally Mated
Quin drove in to pick myself and Holland up and take us home. He stood at the head of my bed like a mountain on legs, not quite glowering, but he was big enough and gave off a military vibe strong enough to confuse the humans. It did seem to get us prompt attention, and we had my paperwork shortly after Quin arrived. The only thing left was a last meeting with thesurgeon.
Quin pulled a chair up next to the bed. “You’ll follow orders,” he told me matter-of-factly.
“I’m too tired to do anything else,” I assured him. “But I’ll be able to do research, evenfrombed.”
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Eva called. Mutch still wants to visit the enclave.” He grimaced. “I don’t like the idea of becoming disastertourism.”
“Long term, what will it mean?” I hated to push him toward something that made him uncomfortable, and I could read it in Holland’s posture that he felt thesameway.
Quin shook his head. “I know I don’t have a choice. I want to put him off until you’re well enough to walk aroundwithus.”
“Ah.” Interesting. I threw him a curious look and opened my mouth to ask him if that was really necessary, when Laine walked through the door and the tension in the room wentsky-high.
He nodded to Quin, smiled at Holland, and came over to drop a kiss on my forehead. “How are you feeling?” he asked in a lowvoice.
“Ready to get out of here.” I smiled up at him, all while keeping one eye on Quin.Don’t get into it here,please.
“Good. I thought you might be more comfortable in my car. Got the paperwork ready andeverything.”
His car had suspension that would let it run over almost anything with only the slightest of sway. It certainly would be more comfortable than the pack van, or the sedan that had replaced the car the Montana Border shifters had totaled. But my Alpha had come personally to take me home, I couldn’t say notothat.
“I think I’d better let Quin take me home,” I whispered. “I mean, you’ve been taking a lot of time off. And he took the morning to come get me. It’s a huge thing in the pack.” I should have explained more to him. I’d known he wanted to understand the pack better, but I wanted to be a lawyer when I was outside the enclave. Now I was regretting it, because he was giving off all the wrong signals to Quin, who was nearly vibrating with frustration on the other side ofmybed.
“I see.” Laine was hurt, I could hear it in the underlying tightness of hisvoice.
“It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with you,” I whispered. “It’spack.”
He smiled then, but it was a sharp, bitter curl of lip with no warmth in it. “No, I get it. Pack is family.” He stood up and moved away from the bed before I could stop him. As he passed Holland, I heard him say, “So that was a lie last night?” And then my heart jumped into my throat, because Quin reached out to grabLaine’sarm.
“Quin,” Holland said, but Quin shot him a look that made him shake his head and sigh. “Fine. Youdoyou.”
I caught Holland’s eye, but he just shook his head and shrugged one shoulder, as if to say,Let the alphas sort it outthemselves.
I didn’t want Quin to squash Laine. “Stop it, bothofyou.”
But dammit, Laine hated backing down from a fight, and he was just as good at in-your-face as he was at using the precise wording of the law to get where he wanted to be. The only problem was, he was facing off against my Alpha, which meant he was definitely fighting above his weightcategory.
So, of course hedidn’tstop.
“Do you have a problem, Alpha?” he asked, his voice gone velvet-deep, like the burgundy he’d made me try a couple of months ago that had made me so drunk. I could get drunk off his voice, and then I wondered if that thought was the pain-killers kicking in. But no, I’d had that thought before, listening to him talk in court, listening to him practice his closing arguments, watching him decimate his opponents while I wondered if there was a closet I could get him into so I could tear hisclothesoff.
Dammit, I was stoned. Or love-drunk, which I’d thought only happened in fairy tales. And they were still facing off like someone had cried challenge. “Laine, stop, okay?” I said. “It’s fine.” I figured I had a better chance of influencing him than Quin. And he was in the wrong here, though he couldn’tunderstandwhy.
Quin let go of him, slowly enough to show his reluctance. “You don’t think you’ve doneenough?”
I doubted Quin recognized the guilt in Laine’s reaction—he was good at hiding his emotion and he was wearing his court facerightnow.
“I am well aware that inviting Garrick outside walls created the opportunity for this to happen, and that it was my encouragement and insistence that he be accorded the right to use the skills he worked so hard to develop that put him in the bullet’s path. I recognize that the bullet was intended for me and that he willingly put himself in harm’s way to save my life.” He stepped in close and glared at Quin, eye to eye despite the three inches difference in height. “That does not mean I don’t have a right to care about him or hiscomfort.”
“Then let us take care of him. We are his family.” Quin drew himself up to his full height. “And all you’ve done is paint targets on his back for the past four years. Do you think we never heard about the way they treated him atyourfirm?”
“Quin, I never told him. Stop it!” I picked up the journal and considered throwing it, but at that moment, the doctor came through the door for my last examination before I was discharged. He paused and took in the scene, glanced at me, then at thenurses.
“Do we need to callsecurity?”
Quin and Laine turned their heads toward him and both of them snapped, “No!” at thesametime.
Then Laine dropped the bag in his hand on the foot of the bed. “I’ll go then. I brought you the latest law journals, thought you could catch up on your reading while you were still stuckinbed.”
