Due North by Kelsey Gamble
Tasha
Someone is either courting me or stalking me. And either way, it’s making my stomach turn.
Lydia’s smile wanes as she realizes I’m not reaching for the flowers she’s holding out. “They’re pretty,” she offers, wiggling them slightly as if that will somehow make them more enticing.
“Yeah.” They are pretty… in a very troubling way.
I can’t stop staring at the colorful Dahlias that the rest of the bouquet is centered around. They’re beautiful flowers, but I can’t help but wonder why someone would pick them. They’re not exactly popular around here. Not to mention the negative connotations. I’m not comfortable having someone mysteriously sending me flowers that just so happen to make most people think of a mutilated dead woman.
I shiver slightly.
“Why don’t you take them to the pack house? I don’t really have the extra space here to set a vase out properly.” It’s the truth. The small house that is my temporary accommodation barely has room for anything besides my bed and a desk—which is currently already covered in aging shifter books.
“Are you sure?” She looks wistfully at the colorful bouquet, clearly wanting to take them. “We don’t get a lot of flowers like this around here. Everything we have is usually grown on the property.”
Which also begs the question, how did someone even manage to deliver flowers to this place? But instead of questioning her, I smile and nod. I don’t need to worry her when I’m already alarmed enough for the both of us. “Yes, let’s definitely put them out where everyone can enjoy them.”
And hopefully when Waverly gets back today, she’ll ask all the questions I’m dying to and get to the bottom of why the hell I keep receiving mysterious gifts that seem to come from out of nowhere. I want my life post-Jimmy to be quiet and unassuming to help me heal. I don’t like the attention that these mysterious gifts brings.
I’ve gotten chocolates, a stuffed wolf, a framed picture of a family photo that I thought went missing years ago, and now the flowers.
Lydia swears the gifts are probably just in celebration of the announcement that I’ll be the next Luna Sovereign, but I’m not convinced. The fact that someone would track down a family photo feels more than a little threatening.
It also means I’m desperate to check on both of my siblings. The urge to worry about them is ingrained in me, and I don’t feel comfortable with how long it’s been since I talked to either of them. It’s my own fault, Lydia offered a couple weeks ago to let me start making calls but I wasn’t ready yet. Now, I know it’s time. I have to face all of the guilt I feel from going this long without talking to my sister and not letting her know where I’ve been.
“Hey, Lydia?” I catch her as she turns to leave. “I’m ready to make some phone calls now.”
“Oh, great! That’s great. Let’s put these in water and find a quiet place for you, that way you’ll have some privacy for your calls.”
“Actually, could I take the phone and make my calls out in the garden? I like the fresh air.” And I feel naturally suspicious enough to think the pack house could be bugged. I’m not actually sure if shifters do that kind of thing, but if anyone does, it would be this pack. There’s just something… off about the Sovereign Pack. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but this place doesn’t have the nurturing vibe I would expect from a pack meant to be my support system. There’s a standoffishness I would never have expected.
“Yeah, of course. We all love what you’ve managed to do with that back garden. Let me go grab one of the cell phones, and I’ll bring it out to you.” She might as well be skipping as she heads toward the pack house with the flowers in tow.
I can’t help shaking my head as I pull the door shut behind me and start toward the garden I’ve come to claim as my own.
Lydia seems too naive to me to be part of this place. I know outsiders think of the Sovereign Pack as some kind of protective utopia, but I’ve seen behind the curtain now.
Waverly rules this pack with an iron fist. Most of the shifters in this pack won’t even look me in the eyes even when they’re speaking directly to me.
In theory, this pack should exist to protect and guide me. In reality, I feel like every step I’ve made has been navigating a minefield that I’m ill-equipped for. I grew up around tension; the North Summit Pack wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy place to grow up as a Jarreau. But even that had nothing on the tension I’ve felt here.
If anything else in my life gave me hope of fulfillment, I wouldn’t be here. This is definitively not the place I would have chosen to grieve in.
The only thing I’m thinking of as I reach the garden is Jimmy. Memories flicker through my mind. Moving to live with him and his pack. The kind way he handled my heartbroken eighteen-year-old sister showing up. His kindness was everything, really. Jimmy always made me want to be better too.
That dark shadow my parents cast over my childhood, Jimmy never judged me for it. He taught me to be better than them. To be kind and forgiving and to find comfort in the stability they never gave me.
I’m distracted thinking about all the things I miss about my mate. Maybe that’s how I miss the massive man waiting for me as I stumble over the dirt at the edge of the garden I’ve been tending.
“You can’t be here,” I somehow manage to choke out, my heart racing.
My breath catches as he turns toward me. I didn’t get as good of a look at him last time.
His mouth is set in a flat line, but it doesn’t hide his full lips. His almond-shaped eyes are black, made all the more threatening with the way his sculpted jaw seems to be set in a hard line. Short black hair covers his head and jaw, making him look almost militant. My eyes drop to take in the rest of him.
He’s tattooed. I can’t remember ever seeing a shifter tattooed like this before. Not just a small one either, but a whole load of black ink peeks out against his dark skin from the sleeves of his t-shirt.
Considering what the rest of him looks like, I’m surprised his plain shirt and dark jeans look so neat and unassuming. Everything else about him screams danger.
“Tasha.” His voice comes out barely above a whisper.
The overly familiar way he says my name sends me reeling back a step. I wasn’t comfortable with him when he stood on the other side of the property line. I’m sure as hell not comfortable with him now that he’s decided to cross it.
“What do you want?” My voice isn’t much louder than his.
His eyes drop to stare at my bare feet as I retreat another step. I haven’t been bothering with shoes here; I like the feel of my toes sinking into the grass. It makes me feel one with nature and grounds me.
“I’m wooing you.” He grunts, and I jerk my chin higher and narrow my eyes at him.
“You’re the one sending me the creepy gifts?” Of course he is. I haven’t even taken my place in the Luna Sovereign house, and I’ve already managed to land myself some kind of shifter stalker. It’s absurd.
“Creepy?” His well-defined jaw drops slightly. “It’s not fucking creepy. It’s thoughtful.”
This guy is clearly unhinged. I take another couple steps back. Surely Lydia should be right behind me? How long does it really take to put some flowers in a vase? Though, now I’m thinking maybe we should trash the flowers just to be safe.
“I sent you flowers and chocolate. Something personal. Something cutesy. I covered all my bases because I wasn’t sure which kind of gift you preferred.” He grows increasingly agitated as he talks, stepping forward to erase the distance I added between us.
“Okay, thank you.” I try to force a pleasant tone. I’m pretty sure I heard once to never argue with a crazy person. “It was very… thoughtful. I have to go make some calls now, someone is waiting for me at the pack house.”
I keep my eyes on him as I take several more steps backward. I’m too nervous to turn my back on him. I don’t know what this shifter is planning or what he’s capable of.
“Stop.” A growl practically tears out of his throat.
I freeze, my hands shaking slightly until I clasp them together to steady myself. As Luna Sovereign, I need to be more composed. Fake it until you make it, I guess.
“You don’t like my gifts.” It’s not a question. His mouth forms a flat line that gives away his displeasure. He’s apparently sane enough to tell he’s making me nervous. He turns and paces a few steps further away, giving me more space, before facing me again.
“The gifts were creepy,” I tell him again. Maybe honesty is the best policy. He could easily outrun me if he wanted, but he seems like he’s trying to seem nonthreatening. Or at least as nonthreatening as a male over six-foot tall with muscles for days can hope to be.
“They weren’t supposed to be.” He drops his eyes to the ground and shakes his head, muttering to himself too low for me to hear. He seems genuinely upset that I haven’t enjoyed his gifts.
A twinge of something plucks at my heart. Guilt. It has to be guilt. I’m not used to hurting anyone’s feelings. Not even a big guy with tattoos and eyes so dark I think they might actually be black.
“I’m running out of options, Tasha.” A hint of anger flashes through his eyes as his hands form fists by his sides. It throws me off kilter to see his mood change so quickly.
His words suck all the air out of my lungs.
I was right the first time. This shifter is creepy and dangerous and clearly has some kind of expectation about how these little meetings are supposed to go.
“Tasha!” Lydia’s voice calls out cheerfully for me, interrupting the uncomfortable confrontation.
I turn my head automatically toward her voice, then realize my mistake in taking my eyes off my visitor. I whip my head around as fast as I can, but an empty garden greets me.
Hmph.My wolf, who’s grown more and more distant since losing Jimmy, decides to make an appearance. I wait for her to give me some kind of warning. My instincts were always so sharp before I lost my mate.
I can feel her interest piqued, but that huff is all she gives me. I glance further away at the woods behind my garden and wonder if my stalker is watching me.
I have to suppress a shiver as Lydia reaches me, panting as she holds out an outdated phone. “Sorry.” She sucks in a deep breath. “There was a situation near the south boundary. A rogue got a little too close for comfort, but it seems he just got turned around.”
Surely she doesn’t mean the shifter I just spoke to. He couldn’t have been there and here at the same time. Knowing multiple rogues are nearby only makes me more uneasy. What do they want?
I know without a doubt my stalker must be a rogue. This kind of thing would never be tolerated within a pack. Not coming onto another pack’s land without permission. And definitely not stalking. It’s just not the kind of thing that’s done.
Hmm.My wolf again. Feeling her barely stir hurts me down to my core. But at least she’s participating. Sometimes, a shifter’s wolf never stirs again after losing their mate.
I’m… one of the lucky ones.
I choke back a sob as I realize this might be all I ever get from my wolf again. My relationship to that half of me might be fractured for the rest of my life thanks to losing Jimmy.
Lydia’s eyes widen. “Oh my Goddess, are you okay?”
“I’m sorry.” I need to pull myself together and somehow make sure my moment of weakness doesn’t get back to Waverly. There’s no need to give her any more reason to think I can’t handle my position. “I’m just worried about my sister and looking forward to talking to her. We don’t usually go this long without speaking.” I force a smile onto my face and hope it passes as genuine.
“You don’t have to explain. There’s nothing wrong with missing the people you love.” She sounds almost rueful, as if she knows from experience, but I don’t want to pry by asking her about it. She pushes the phone into my hands since I still haven’t taken it. I wrap my fingers around it and keep a smile plastered on my face.
It must be good enough for Lydia—who has shown me far more kindness than Waverly—because she returns my smile and bounds off back toward the pack house.
I move my gaze from her to the woods. I’m not sure if I’m better off moving to safety, even if it means eavesdroppers, or if I should take my chances out here. At least my stalker was clear enough about his intentions. Everyone acts like they have my best interests at heart, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be convinced of that. Not when I perpetually feel like the outsider here.
Decision made, I move toward the stone bench at the edge of the garden and sit. Only then do I stare at the keypad and realize I can’t actually call my sister. We’re used to memorizing other shifters’ numbers since we don’t usually carry phones in wolf form and never know when an emergency could pop up. But my sister left her phone when she ran and found herself with Dominic. I haven’t had enough time to learn his number.
I bite my lip and move to the contacts in the phone, hoping maybe the Alphas are programmed in. Of course I’m not that lucky. A fresh wave of guilt makes my chest ache. I should know how to reach my sister. I know beating myself up won’t change anything, but I feel close to tears anyway.
And as if my dismay summons him, my stalker reappears.
I slap a hand over my chest as if I can will my heart to stop beating so erratically. “How do you move like that?” The words leave my mouth before I get the chance to think them through. I really shouldn’t keep engaging him. The last thing I want to do is encourage him to stick around long enough for him to potentially hurt me or anyone else.
“I’m fast.” His explanation is flat.
I’m used to my sister being so fast she outruns almost anyone, but her speed doesn’t extend to her human form. I can only imagine how fast this guy must run if he’s moving this fast in his slower form.
“You want to talk to your sister?” He nods at the phone with knowing eyes.
“Yeah.” There I go again, engaging him in spite of my better sense. It helps that I’m keen to know why he brought my sister up. Exactly how much does my stalker know about my family?
“You don’t have to look so suspicious. It’s just an easy guess. When I’m alone, my sister is the first one I want to talk to too.” He walks straight for me. Before I can react, he drops down to balance on his heels and gestures to the phone. “Can I?”
“No, I—“
My mouth snaps shut as he ignores my answer, tugging the phone from my hand. My whole body suddenly feels frozen. My instincts tell me to move, to get away from the stranger who is openly stalking me.
Play nice.My wolf’s tone drops low and teasing. What in the world is wrong with my wolf? Doesn’t she sense that this man is a danger?
It’s enough of a distraction that I don’t realize he dialed a number until my stalker turns the phone on speaker and balances it on the edge of my knee. I start to reach out to take it, but he shakes his head to stop me. And I’ve clearly passed up fight or flight and gone straight to freeze because I let my hand simply fall to my lap.
The phone rings a few times before the line clicks over. “Hello?”
“Dominic?” Hearing a familiar voice sends a rush of relief through me. Waverly’s given me so little information about my family since they summoned me here that I started to think something bad might have happened on the outside. “I want to talk to my sister.”
There’s rustling and then, “Tasha? Are you okay?”
She doesn’t give me a chance to answer, but I don’t care. I’m so unbelievably relieved to hear her voice.
“Tasha, there’s something you need to know. There’s a rogue, Paxton Glass, he thinks—“
“I’m here,” my stalker interrupts, scowling.
The line goes silent for so long I’m worried we lost them before Tess speaks again. “Paxton?” she asks before she whispers something unintelligible, presumably to Dominic. “The two of you are together? Whose phone is this?”
I tear my eyes away from the phone screen and force myself to make eye contact with the stranger. Paxton. Paxton who might actually be stalking me.
As my sister continues to ramble rapid-fire questions, Paxton and I lock into some kind of staring contest. He studies me openly, so I do the same to him. I catalogue the fact that his eyes are actually a dark brown and not a solid black. For some reason that makes him feel slightly less threatening than true black eyes would, even though that has everything to do with genetics and nothing at all to do with whether he’s dangerous or not.
I let my eyes drop to Paxton’s jawline even though I feel like I’m playing with fire looking him over so openly. His facial hair is short but growing a little wild at the edges as if he hasn’t properly trimmed it in a few days. His jaw looks like it could have been cut from marble by a proper artist. He’s a dark-skinned Adonis.
Why is an attractive man stalking me?
The only possible answer is that he’s currently attempting to lull me into a false sense of security. Losing my mate has made me wary of rogues—no matter how good looking he is. I can only assume he’s planning to harm me in some way, otherwise why would he have someone else leading me to him in the dark? Or be breaking all kinds of shifter conduct by being here with me now?
I’m not safe.
“Tess.” My voice shakes as I say my sister’s name, and it’s enough to quiet her instantly.
Paxton must see it, the moment my fear really kicks in. He’s faster than me. He snatches the phone off my knee and ends the call as my sister’s voice calls out to me. A moment ago, I thought he looked handsome. Now all I see is that he looks dangerous.
And angry. Really, really angry.
“I just can’t win with you,” he grinds out. “This is fucking exhausting.”
He chucks the phone over my shoulder, and I wince as I hear it thump too far away to realistically think I can be fast enough to get ahold of it again before he stops me. All the effort he seemed to be putting into acting nonthreatening fades away. I watch in horror as his muscles start to tense. I shouldn’t have let my guard down even for a second, I realize as true fear spears my chest, my heart rate skyrocketing.
Before he can reach for me, I launch myself off the bench. He’s close enough that my movement knocks him off balance. Desperation claws at my throat as I throw myself into my only remaining option.
I shift.
“Dammit, Tasha!” He yells loudly enough that I know someone in the pack has to have heard it. Guards will be on their way here already, but I know there’s no way they’ll come fast enough.
I move as fast as my legs will carry me, relieved when I don’t immediately hear him coming up behind me. In fact, it’s so quiet that when the mind link kicks in, I’m startled enough to stumble over my own paws.
Stop running from me.
I barely have time to right myself again before he’s hovering over me. He’s big, even in wolf form. I tense up to run again, but he launches himself at me. I close my eyes in preparation of hitting the ground hard, but he manages to roll me carefully onto my back without nearly as much violence as I anticipated.
I know you can hear me, Tasha.
He’s right, and that is scarier than anything else he’s done so far. Because the last time I mind linked with anyone outside my own pack, that wolf was Jimmy.
My mate.