Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 333(@200wpm)___ 266(@250wpm)___ 222(@300wpm)
“It’s not you, Sadie. He can’t be with anyone. He’s not relationship material.” He holds out his hand for Deke’s keys. I relinquish them, shoulders slumping as I do. My eyes burn with tears. The clink of metal is so final. It’s really over.
“I’m sorry, Sadie,” Rafe says softly, more gently than I’d believe he could sound. “It’s better this way.”
“Goodbye,” Adele snaps and shuts the door in his face. I wait, crying as silently as I can, until the rumbling from both vehicle’s engines recedes before falling into her arms.
Chapter 16
Rafe
“You know this is fucking jacked, right?” my brother demands.
“Excuse me?” I keep my face blank but toss the wrench I’m working with into the tool box. It’s been a week since I retrieved Deke’s Mercedes, but he hasn’t touched it, which isn’t like him. Normally this SUV is his baby. Lance and I changed the oil to see if we could tempt Deke back to normal, but no luck.
We haven’t had any missions to distract us. After we got made on the last one, Colonel Johnson put the recon on Gabriel Dieter on hold. We still haven’t figured out how he knew we were there.
Lance wipes his hands on the grease rag. “Something’s wrong with Deke. He’s fucked up. Way more than usual.”
Understatement. Since we retrieved Deke, he hasn’t eaten, has barely slept. Most of the time he’s in wolf form.
I shrug. I can’t disagree. “I’m doing all I can.”
“Bullshit.” Lance’s cheeks are bright. He holds my eyes bravely, but his swallow belies the innate difficulty of standing up to his alpha like this. “I thought like you. I acted on orders, I went to break Deke and Sadie up. But this isn’t some one-night stand. This woman’s really good for him.”
“Deke’s unstable. His wolf can’t be around humans long term. It’s not safe.”
“I’ve never seen him smile like he does with her. And he was after her from the first whiff of her scent he got. She’s obviously his mate.”
That stops me short. “His mate,” I repeat, testing the words. Mate. I never thought we’d get mates. It just didn’t cross my mind. “Deke has a mate.”
“Yep.” Lance sounds casual, but his shoulders relax. He got his message through.
Deke has a mate. Unbelievable. But my wolf confirms it’s true.
“Fuck,” I mutter. Keeping him from his mate will actually drive him straight to moon madness. He could be dead before the next moon. But what can we do? He can’t have a human. None of us can, but especially not Deke. He’s the most feral of all of us.
“This changes everything,” Lance says.
“No, it doesn’t. Brother. Think. Sadie’s a human. Even if Deke is bound to her, we can’t ask her to be shackled to him. He’s a monster.”
Lance is shaking his head. “He won’t hurt her.”
“You don’t know that—”
A roar cuts me off. I kick the toolbox in my haste to race outside. Lance follows at my back. On the lawn in front of our lodge, there’s a blur of white and brown, followed by a dark streak. Channing in wolf form, getting the shit kicked out of him by Deke’s midnight black wolf.
“Aww hell,” Lance says and starts stripping off his shirt. He sets his Rolex aside carefully before shucking off his khakis and striding, bare-assed, into the fray. He shifts, and his grey wolf joins the fight.
I sigh. Pack fights are fine, but Deke’s been picking fights nonstop for days. Right now, his black wolf is growling and snapping, ripping at Channing before rounding on Lance. Channing darts away, half his ear chewed off. He looks like he wants nothing more than to slink off, but he waits patiently on the sidelines for Lance to tire, so he can run at Deke again. The only way to get Deke to stop is to tire him out. Unless we want to escalate things.
I’ve stayed out of the fights. If Deke turns on me, my wolf will take it as a challenge. And a challenge is a fight to the death.
Across the lawn, Lance leads Deke on a merry chase. The grey wolf’s mouth hangs open, half laughing as it threads between our cars. Lance emerges from behind my Humvee, slowing to a trot. Deke is nowhere to be seen. But then—
“Look out,” I shout.
Lance turns just in time for the black wolf to sail over my Humvee and crash into him. The two wolves become a blur of speed and snarls and fur. Then a pained yelp, and I wince. Deke has Lance by the nose, his fangs sunk into his muzzle. A dangerous move, and an effective one. If Deke hangs on too long, Lance won’t be able to breathe.
Channing’s wolf flashes by me. He hits Deke’s flank and bites the black wolf’s rump. Deke’s head flies up, his body jackknifing in an attempt to reach Channing. Channing plants his paws and hangs on.