Deeply moved, he reached for Shay, only to find himself shoved down onto the mattress. Shay slapped both hands on his chest and got into his face again. “Now enough with the mushy. Commence with the fucking!”
He couldn’t help but laugh at the shit-eating grin she gave him. “Your wish is my command.”
Shay pursed her lips. “Can I get that in writing?”
“Hell no!” he stated as he deftly rolled them so that she lay under him.
Rory made love—he savored the word—to his mate. He couldn’t keep his wolf totally out of it. Strong emotions brought out the beast, and what he felt for Shay was extreme. Still, her sighs, moans, gasps—and at the end, screams—made his restraint worth the effort. The claw marks on his back along with the teeth marks on his shoulders satisfied his beast.
Later they lay entangled on the bed. Shay blanketed his body, her head pillowed on his chest. Rory leisurely stroked her spine, wallowing in the aroma of their lovemaking.
“Tell me about the pack.”
“Hmm…?” he murmured, still floating in the peaceful aftermath.
“The Sparrowhawks. Tell me about them.”
Rory sighed. The pack was the last thing on his mind right now. Just the thought of them was enough to give him a headache, but she’d a right to know what she was getting into.
“The Sparrowhawks are jacked up beyond all measure. For the most part their mentality is straight out of the Dark Ages. More wolves than men. The strong rule. The weak are held in contempt. Women are for fucking and breeding.”
Shay propped up on an elbow and looked at him. “Sounds like redneck bigotry shit. The kind that’s passed from father to son. How’d you escape?”
Annoyed, he stiffened and glared at her. “I’ve eyes and ears, haven’t I? A mind to reason? Some glimmer of intelligence?”
When she only grinned, he calmed enough to acknowledge, “Take away the beer guzzling and rebel flag and you’ve the right of it.”
Still grinning, she wagged her eyebrows. “Without those elements you’re just a bunch of hillbillies with fangs.”
He laughed, as she’d obviously intended, then sobered. “My father, he liked the fear, the intimidation. Being the biggest, the baddest. Justice—his justice—was swift and merciless and, in the past, maybe necessary. But times change and he didn’t. We’re no longer as insulated as we once were. Exposure is more of a concern. Our safety depends on our ability to blend with society. To be more human than wolf.
“Also, our species as a whole is dying. We don’t need to speed the process fighting among ourselves,” he finished wryly.
“So you’re trying to modernize the pack.”
“And having a bloody hard time of it,” he stated with disgust. “I can’t really blame them. Most of them have never been outside of these mountains. One good thing Da did was insist I go roaming. He told the council it was so I could find a mate since none of the women in the pack interested me enough. The real reason was that even then my wolf was rebelling against being under his rule. He was afraid I’d challenge him and win, and he wasn’t ready to give up his position as alpha.”
“Where’d you go?” Her eyes lit up, and Rory remembered all the traveling she did.
“My grandfather talked so much about Ireland, I had to see it for myself. I spent my last year of college studying abroad in Ireland. Then after graduation I spent another six months backpacking, absorbing the language and culture while working my way across the country before being summoned home.” Rory paused as his mind went back to that time. “For the first time in my life I was free—from the pack, Da, and the expectations of me being the next alpha. I still worried about what was happening at home in my absence, but I could breathe. I ran across other packs. Saw how they operated. Realized how outdated we were.”
He sighed. “Once I became alpha, I tried to put into practice all I’d learned. I’m still trying, without much success.”
Shay nodded and patted his chest in sympathy. “I’ll bet. People don’t like change. In fact, they fight against it. ‘If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’”
“Because it is broke. More, it’s wrong. Treating omegas like slaves, or worse, as though they’re less than human? Survival of the strongest, the fittest, and the most cunning, and screw the rest? Treating women like chattel and whores instead of valuing them as the precious beings they are?” He couldn’t disguise the disgust he felt with his pack and the old ways most, if not all, were clinging to with all their strength. It was a far cry from the shifter values and tenets Conor had mentioned during the reception. His pack really were the throwbacks many accused them of being.
“And yet you’re more than human. You’re shifters,” Shay reasoned. “You can’t totally disregard the wolf and its animalistic nature.”
“Being shifters doesn’t mean we have to live or function like animals.”
“Rory, underneath these civilized veneers humans wear, all men are animals. Shifters simply have an added dimension.”
He eased Shay to the side and sat up, running a hand through his hair. “What are you saying, Shay? Since we’re nothing but animals, we might as well act like ones?”
“No!” She placed her hand on his shoulder blade. “That’s not what I’m saying at all. I don’t like you being so…disheartened, I guess, that they’re not evolving as fast as you’d like. You’re doing a good thing. The Sparrowhawks have been operating the old way for how long?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Generations. Long before my great-grandfather left Ireland for these fair shores, bringing his pack with him.”
“So we’re talking your father, and his father and his father before him. Several lifetimes. You thought to break that, change that in how short a period?”
Rory turned, leaned down and pressed a slow, lingering kiss on her mouth. “Thank you.”
She ran her tongue around her lips before pressing gently on his chest. Once he reclined again, Shay snuggled close, facing him. “So you’re alpha, and I’m your mate. That makes me…?”
“Mine.”
She punched him in the stomach. “No. In the eyes of the pack?”
“Still mine,” he said with a grin.
Shay rolled her eyes. “What’s my title?”
“Alpha-fem,” he answered, still smirking.
“Right. Shannon said something about that. But what role do I play in the pack? I assume everyone has one.”
He spoke slowly, feeling his way. “You’ll rule the females, unquestionably. There may be some friction at first. Some testing to see what you’re made of. Some resentment. Because you’re an outsider, human—take your pick.”
She frowned. “Only the females? With the Ravens, Kiesha leads by Alex’s side.”
“The Ravens are more progressive than the Sparrowhawks, and even at that, I’m sure Alex eased her into it. There would have been a period of adjustment, for both Kiesha and the Ravens. One step, one change at a time. Isn’t that what you meant before?”
Shrugging, she asked, “What about the males? What reaction do you expect from them?”
He held her gaze, waiting to see her reaction. “They’ll sniff at you. Testing of a different sort.”
“To see if they can get to you through me?”
“That’s part of it. Shay, you’re a very beautiful woman. One any male would desire. On top of that, I chose you. That makes you the prize—a highly desirable one. You’re strong, intelligent, sexy, everything a male shifter looks for in a mate. If they can steal you away from me…” He left Shay to connect the dots.