He hadn’t felt Rafe move, and then the bastard was just there, putting his arms around him. He struggled, not ready to be touched again, not after all he’d done to his mate. “Easy, Monty. It’s okay. Just relax.” The soothing lull of the alpha’s power washed over him in a crushing wave of calm that had him relaxing for the first time in weeks. “Sophie loves you, and she needs you. Let go of your pride and find her before some other wolf snaps her up. No, not me.” He hugged Monty harder to stifle his elbows. Rafe chuckled. “I have a few female wolves looking after the ferals in the mountains. I keep track. Sophie’s still pack, and I’m still her alpha. I could be yours too,” he offered.
Monty didn’t know. He loved Burke and the guys. Sophie’s best friends lived on the ranch. But Burke hadn’t affected him like this, calming him. Rafe had some weird mojo Monty wasn’t sure he liked.
“It’s up to you. The offer’s there. Just…don’t tell Axel if you decide not to join. He’s already a pain in my ass,” Rafe muttered.
Monty laughed, and Rafe let him go.
Then Monty warned, “You say one word about that hug, I’ll deny it.”
The horror on Rafe’s face told him the secret would remain between them.
“Good.” When Rafe just looked at him, he swore. “Well, shit.”
“Well what?” Rafe waited.
“I want to see her, more than anything. But I don’t think she wants to see me.” And it hurt.
“You need to talk to her, man. Fear is keeping you apart. Fear of rejection. I get it. But it’s her fear you need to work on. Look at what it’s done to her wolf.”
Monty knew. Poor Sophie had spent so long repressing herself. After being reminded of Ted and his family again, he could only imagine what her life had been like growing up.
“Fine. I’ll go see her.”
Rafe pulled out a slip of paper with coordinates and slapped it against Monty’s chest. “Her den. But you didn’t get that from me, and you know nothing about my eyes in the forest. Then again, any tracker worth his salt could find her up there.” Rafe’s eyes narrowed.
“I know where she is. I just… I’ll go see her. Okay?”
Now eager, Monty wanted nothing more than to escape the office and run to his mate on four feet.
“Good. Go.”
Monty headed for the door. “I am. And stop telling me what to do.”
Rafe groaned. “Right. You’re never joining the order. I get it.”
Monty flashed him a grin and left. He had a mate to win.
It took him a few days to figure out how best to get her to talk to him. She hunkered down in that cave, and anytime he or anyone else ventured close, she lost it, snarling and snapping those teeth as if she meant to kill. Her eyes glowed like beacons from hell. He liked the thought of his pretty wolf so lethal.
He left her a set of earrings she ignored.
He tried a book, a painting and a few of his lady magazines. Still nothing.
Then, using his head, he retrieved a pretty red scarf from his truck, all soft and fuzzy to the touch. He waited for a few hours, thinking she’d reject it too, when she tiptoed out of her cave. She smelled him on it, obviously, but she took it into her den anyway.
Encouraged, he spent the next few days leaving her treats. A dead squirrel, a few packs of steak, because hell, he wanted her to eat right. But he refrained from rabbits, conscious of what her uncle had once done.
She took his offerings, and he watched from afar as she came out of the den to claim them. Her wolf was so pretty. Soft and gray, like her eyes, but patterned to blend in with the snow and dark trees all around them. The weather in the mountains reminded him that winter would reach them all too soon. October had already neared its end. Time passed too quickly for recriminations and what-ifs.
God, in just another seven months, he’d have a kid.
The wooing shit was great, but he had little patience for it. The next time he left her something, he waited close by, downwind. When she trotted out to grab it, he slid inside the den and hid, away from her neat little bed of blankets and his scarf. It felt much warmer, and safer, and he could see why she liked it in here.
She trotted in with a pack of chicken he hadn’t removed from the Styrofoam. When she saw him, she froze.
She looked so damn cute, her teeth wrapped around the meat, her thick fur bristling with warning. But those eyes, they looked bright and sad.
He shifted back, wanting to tell her out loud how he felt. “I’m sorry. And I love you.”
She didn’t move.
He shivered, no longer covered in fur, but he didn’t want to spook her. “I was an idiot for not coming sooner. But I was hurt you didn’t tell me about Ted.”
She blinked at him and dropped the food. But she didn’t leave, and she didn’t speak.
He continued, “But more than anything, I was mad at myself, because all of this was my fault.”
Sophie sat on her haunches and watched him, and he smelled their shared grief.
“I want to hug you, to hold you. I should have gone after Norris a long time ago.” He didn’t want to, but he needed to tell her the truth. “I was afraid,” he said softly, not meeting her gaze. “He messed me up. A lot. And I didn’t ever want to see him again. Then when I ran into him with Dean and Stacey, I felt that terror, and I shook with it. I was weak, and because of that weakness, you were almost killed.” God, it hurt to say. The shame nearly overwhelmed him.
And then he felt her nose against his shoulder, and she licked him. She was so close he couldn’t help but hug her, praying she could forgive him when he still couldn’t forgive himself.
“God, Sophie. He killed and hurt so many people I cared for. When I saw him with you, when he did that to your wrist, I wanted to kill him. And then you put yourself between him and me. You taunted him.” He grabbed her by the ruff of her neck and stared into her eyes, furious his were welling with tears. “He shot you.” Monty rubbed her belly, where the bullet had passed through, conscious his child now sat somewhere inside her there. “My mate. The one person I’d swore I’d never let come to harm. And he nearly killed you while I stood by. Helpless.”
A bright light sparkled, and he felt her fur recede as warmth trickled over his fingers. Then smooth flesh was under his hands, and he hugged her tight.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She kept apologizing while she sobbed and held on to him like her life depended on it. “It was all my fault. He was looking for me. He wanted to hurt me, and he got to you through me.”
“Honey, no.” Monty forced her to pull back. Her hair looked a little longer, her eyes impossibly gray. “You grew up with that bastard, but none of it was your fault. He killed your parents. Not you.” He understood what Rafe had been talking about when he noted her deep grief that continued to grow. “Hell, Sophie. You’re not that dumb.”
She blinked at him through tears. “What?”
“You can’t possibly think you’re the reason Ted Norris went apeshit? He killed your parents, his own kids, and more Ac-taw than I want to think about. The guy refused his wolf. You know what that can do to a person.”
She tentatively nodded. “My wolf used to make me so angry growing up. But Uncle—Ted—would force me to bury it. To be sweet and nice. A coward,” she whispered. More tears poured down her cheeks. “I could have saved your friends. Even you. But I didn’t.”
“So you knew I was down there, under that barn of his he used to brag about?”
“Well, no, but I—”
“And did you laugh and enjoy the pit fights? Did you name me Demon? Did you tell him when I tried to escape the first time?”