CHAPTER NINE

~MARCEL~

"YOU DON'T HAVE to keep on being mean to her," Bruce said as we walked on.

I gave my beta a look that said "drop it," and shook my head without responding. The thought had been bugging my mind as her due date drew closer.

After her pregnancy, what next?

I could see the impatience in the eyes of some of the elders, and I knew they were also counting down to when she gave birth so she could be executed accordingly, but...

"You can not kill her," my beast growled. "Not now. Not ever."

I chuffed and pushed him to the back of my head. This unreasonable bond he felt to her wolf...

Over the past five months, I avoided any contact with Elara Grogel, but I kept my eyes on her. I would watch her from a distance, watching how she moved, how her eyes crinkled at the edges when she smiled.

Once I stood behind a woodpile for twenty minutes while she sat on Jane’s porch and laughed at something my sister said, her head thrown back, one hand resting on the curve of her belly, and the whole gray afternoon seemed to lean toward her like a field toward the sun.

I had wished her face would light up like that for me. I hated myself for the wish.

"The men are working at a good pace," Bruce said, drawing me from my thoughts. "We should be almost done with the fiest set of cabins before winter, and that is good."

The air smelled of fresh-cut pine and resin. Hammers rang from every direction, and sawdust drifted through the cold like pale snow.

After moving about for two generations, I finally decided it was time for us to settle. None of the other packs knew we were alive— most of the other packs had supported Grogel's campaign in wiping us out.

This territory was still well up in the mountains but had enough fertile soil to grow crops and enough land for our monthly pack runs. Using a business corporation owned by an alias and money from my family's wealth, I purchased a very wide expanse of the land from the government and claimed it as home for my pack.

Then came the work of rebuilding.

"Came to watch us, Alpha?" One of the men called from the top of a cabin's framework.

I chuckled. "You are doing well, Chad." I replied. "Keep up the good work." They cheered, happy at my approval.

"None of them dwells on Elara's execution anymore," Bruce mindlinked to me. "Building keeps them too busy."

"Roderick and Tomas aren't building," I replied. "They have enough time and idleness to dwell on what my decision will be in a few months."

"Well, it's not like they can overthrow you," Bruce shrugged. "Who gives a rat's arse what they think?"

"I do," I replied. "I am their alpha, as much as I am your alpha. And their anger isn't ill-disposed."

Bruce scoffed. "After all these months, you are still pigheaded." He looked at me before continuing. "What of the bond? Do you still feel it?"

I clenched my jaw and nodded.

"You are not going to do anything about it?" He asked.

I rubbed the spiky hairs growing on my chin as we walked on. Children darted between the stacks of lumber, mixing work with play. Someone had hung laundry across an unfinished porch, and it snapped in the wind like flags.

"She is pregnant, Bruce." I said, as if that explained anything.

"So?"

"So... she could not have gotten pregnant on her own," I said. "She has a mate already, or a husband..."

"Tell me something, Marcel," Bruce kept his eyes on the road. "If your pregnant mate suddenly disappeared, is there anything you would not do to find and bring her back?"

I shook my head.

"And yet, there has been nobody asking questions or even trying to seek Elara out," Bruce said. "We stationed some scouts at the area we picked her from. There has been nobody coming to sniff around. It is like nobody knows she disappeared."

"Or nobody cares," I muttered. If her baby daddy noticed that she was missing, he simply did not care. My beast surged forward again, but I pushed him back. Again.

“Or someone wants her gone,” Bruce said quietly.

The words hung between us until I finally said, “That changes nothing,” I said.

“Does it not?” Bruce finally looked at me. “I will tell you what I think. I think you are looking for a reason to keep her alive. You have found several, and you are too stubborn to say that the real one is the bond.”

I did not answer. I bent and picked up a dropped nail from the dirt and turned it over in my fingers until the point drew blood. He was right. That was the problem with Bruce. He was always right, and he always said it where I could not hit him.

I was still mulling over his words when my phone began to buzz in my pocket. It buzzed, stopped, and started again within the same breath. I pulled it out and saw that there were nine missed calls. They were all from Jane.

My network had been down all morning—the mountains did that; they swallowed the signal and gave it back when they were good and ready. It must have come back just now.

"Something wrong?" Bruce asked.

I did not answer. I pressed the phone to my ear and listened.

Jane's voice came through the speaker, cracked and scratchy, half swallowed by static.

"Marcel. Elara is in labor. It is too early. The clinic can not handle this. I am taking her to the medical center. She is bleeding. It is bad…” The message cut off.

The nail slid off my fingers, and blood drained out of my face. Bruce had heard it, too. He had moved close enough to hear the scratchy voice from the speaker, and he was looking at me with alarm written all over his face.

"What—" He started.

"Where is the closest hospital?" I asked him.

"Twenty minutes. Maybe less. If we take the east road—"

"Then let's go." Without another word, we ran past the way we just came. There was a car parked at the edge of the construction site, one of the old ones the pack used for supply runs, and I was in the driver's seat before Bruce had even closed his door.

The engine caught. The tires spat gravel. We flew down the mountain road, and I did not slow for a single bend.

"Marcel," Bruce said after a moment. "You are going to get us killed."

"Then get out." My beast surged to the surface.

Bruce did not get out. He just braced one hand against the door and held on.

Deep in my chest, for the first time in months, my wolf spoke, "Drive Faster.""