Gray Bishop (6 page)

Father had thought through every angle and planned ahead. Bishop couldn’t help envying Thomas McQueen’s ability to make leadership look so easy. He still had so much to learn.

Knight and Jillian were waiting for them on the front porch, both clearly agitated.

“What’s going on?” Jillian asked before they’d set foot on the steps.

Father explained while Bishop studied his brother. Knight’s face was a storm of emotions, shifting from shocked to horrified, to completely and utterly furious. His hands were tight fists, his face pale, coiled so tightly that Bishop wanted to shake him so he didn’t physically explode.

By the time Father finished, both Knight and Jillian were shaking mad. “They murdered another child,” she said, fury lacing her tone. “Goddamn them.”

Knight stalked across the porch and slammed his boot heel into a white wicker chair. It skidded into the wall with a dull crack. Apparently not satisfied with that, he did the same with the matching armchair. Before Bishop could move to stop Knight, Father clasped Knight’s shoulders and held his seething son still. “This is not your fault,” Father said, voice low and firm. “Do you hear me? Don’t take this onto your own shoulders, son. Please.”

Knight didn’t reply. He started trembling, his rage a living thing on the front porch. Father waved them away, and Bishop took the hint. He nudged Jillian indoors.

He trailed Jillian into the library and shut the door. She stopped at one of the windows and stared out into the morning light, one hand resting on her flat stomach, the other rubbing her forehead. His beast demanded he comfort her, that he do something to ease her distress. She didn’t look receptive to any attention. She looked ready to commit murder on behalf of the people killed this morning.

Then she whined, a plaintive sound that broke his heart a little bit, and he decided she could go ahead and hit him if it made her feel better. He strode across the room and pulled her into a hug. Arms around his waist, drawing him closer, fitting so perfectly against him. She pressed her nose into his neck, her whole body trembling in his arms. He held her as she worked through it, her body relaxing by degrees.

“That poor woman.” Jillian’s breath was hot against his neck. “Losing a child. There’s no worse pain for a parent.”

“I know.”

She made a noise that felt like a disagreement, and it irked him. Maybe he had no children of his own, so he didn’t
know
how it felt, but he could still empathize. Jillian had no children, either. She didn’t have the corner on empathy because she was a woman. He wasn’t interested in arguing with her, though. Holding her felt too damned good.

“Sometimes I wish they would simply attack us directly,” Jillian said after a few minutes of silence. “All of this waiting is driving me insane.”

“Me, too. A head-on attack is something we can deal with. All of these random potshots make me feel too damned helpless.” He realized what he’d said after it was out of his mouth. He hated admitting to weakness of any sort, and helplessness was one of the worst offenders.

Jillian surprised him by saying, “I feel helpless, too, and I hate it.”

He hugged her a bit tighter, then pulled back so he could see her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed and full of anger, but he also saw the truth of her fear. He saw past the barriers and the tough exterior to a woman who was genuinely hurting, and he wanted to fix it. He needed to fix it. To take away everything that was hurting her and to see her smile.

In that moment, nothing was more important.

***

Jillian was mesmerized by the sadness in Bishop’s eyes. Sadness and fear that he didn’t try to hide from her, and she didn’t know what that meant. She knew she liked being in his arms. Her raging beast had calmed in his embrace, and she’d managed to regain control of herself when she’d very nearly lost it.

She hated how she’d almost crumbled in front of Alpha McQueen. She hadn’t wanted Bishop to follow her, but she’d been too close to the edge to say so. Afraid one wrong move, one bad word, would set her off and her beast would tear loose. Forced shifts from emotional wreckage was as bad as a forced shift through starvation. The person lost control and the beast lashed out, even at those he or she loved.

Bishop’s ability to pull her back from the brink terrified her.

She inhaled his scent, letting it wash through her and caress her beast. The beast responded with a soft, content sound not unlike a cat’s purr. She stretched and nudged, wanting more. Wanting Bishop.

Bishop’s nostrils flared when he noticed the instinctive interest from her beast. She wanted to ask if his beast had woken from their contact like hers had. But words won’t going to work with him. Bishop responded to actions, so she pressed closer to his body, nudging a thigh between his legs to put pressure on his groin.

He growled, then slammed his mouth down on hers. She fought against the kiss, not because she didn’t want it, but because she wanted him to work for it. She wanted him to fight her. She needed to fight someone.

Bishop yanked her up by the waist, and then they were moving so fast she was dizzy before her back hit the wall. He crowded into her, his growing erection digging into her abdomen, hands tangling into her hair as his mouth fought for control of the kiss.

Jillian yanked at his shirt, getting her hands beneath to touch hot skin over taut muscles. He growled again, his tongue in her mouth, his taste exploding on her senses and sending a sharp pang of arousal through her belly. She growled back, thrusting her hips against his, enjoying the hard dance. He yanked her leg up. Angled his hips down. Pressed his erection into her, hard enough to put pressure on her clit. Jillian gasped. She grabbed his ass and held him there.

God, yes, this was good. So good.

She needed this. Needed the release. The relief. To be close to another person for a little while. She tore her mouth from his and licked along the hard ridge of his jaw, up to his ear. Grabbed his hair with one hand and held him still so she could say, “Fuck me. Now.”

The sound he made, the intense guttural snarl, made her body coil tight with arousal and need. She wouldn’t let him refuse, wouldn’t give him time to think. She captured his mouth in another punishing kiss, then shoved a hand between them to thumb open the button on his fly. Tugged down the zipper. Her knuckles brushed his erection, and the touch was like an on-switch.

Bishop let go of her leg and attacked her shorts, shoving them down to the floor, along with her underwear. She did the same to him, releasing the hard length of his cock, and she jerked him hard. He groaned, and she swallowed the sound. The scent of their joint arousal only heightened her need. No foreplay, no drawn out lovemaking. This was fast, furious release.

She kicked one leg free of her clothes, then raised it, her thigh sliding against his bare hip. Inviting him to take her. He pressed forward, the head of his cock sliding toward her entrance. He stopped there, his torso trembling with need.

“No condom,” he said, panting, strained.

She kind of loved that he was able to think about that right now. Loup garou didn’t have STDs like humans, but they got pregnant the same damned way. Fortunately, timing was on their side. “Don’t need it. My cycle ended three days ago.”

His eyebrows furrowed. She didn’t give him time to believe her or not. She angled her hips and pushed down, onto his waiting cock. He groaned and thrust up, hard, burying himself in her body in a single motion. She gasped at the sudden intrusion, the overwhelming fullness. He pushed harder, going impossibly deeper, then hitched her other leg up around his waist.

Oh yes, she liked this. With her back to the wall, arms around his neck, and his hands beneath her thighs, Bishop began to move. She kissed him again, needing contact everywhere she could find it. He fucked her with long, hard strokes of his cock that she tried to match with the trust of her tongue in his mouth. He growled, and she replied in kind, wanting everything he gave her.

Her beast whined in satisfaction, unafraid, pleased with her choice.

The orgasm blindsided her, exploding out of nowhere, her shout muffled by Bishop’s mouth. Pleasure coursed through her body, along with a sense of rightness that scared her. Bishop fucked her through it, each stroke taking him higher until he thrust in deep, hard, pinning her to the wall. She swallowed his groan as he emptied himself inside her.

He held her there for a long moment, breathing with her, forehead to forehead. And then he captured her mouth in a fierce kiss that said
Mine
in every thrust of his tongue and press of his lips. He stopped long before she wanted him to, then lowered her legs to the ground. She stood, a little shaky, not at all embarrassed at the moisture between her legs, or what glistened on his half-erect cock. Her beast gave an appreciative yip.

Some of her anger and grief had dissipated, but not even the world’s best orgasm could make it disappear completely. Three children were still dead. Hundreds of loup garou were dead, and they were no closer to finding the triplets, but all Jillian wanted to do was drag Bishop upstairs and into her bed for the rest of the night.

“Well, that certainly changes things.” Bishop’s rough voice was all the proof she needed that he’d felt at least some of what she’d felt. The impossible connection between them.

“Yes, it does.”

He tucked himself back into his clothes, and Jillian took the hint to dress, too. Someone could walk into the library at any minute, and even though they’d smell sex right away, they didn’t have to be standing there with the evidence hanging out.

“I wish that hadn’t been more than simple stress relief,” he said.

She blinked, unsure if she’d just been insulted or not—especially when she could still feel him inside of her, feel his hands on her thighs. “Why?”

He turned a smoldering stare onto her that made her heart jump. “Because working next to you every day is going to be torture. Every moment I’ll be remembering this and wanting to do it again.”

“Fond of sex against walls?”

“The wall, the floor, my bed, I don’t care.” He traced his finger down the line of her jaw, a sensual touch she leaned into. “I want you again, and that’s an impossible thing.”

“Sex isn’t impossible, Bishop, only marriage.”

“I don’t think I could have you again and then be able to give you up. To know one day we wouldn’t be together, and that some other man would be touching you. It would torture me every single day.”

“My beast has claimed you.”

“And mine you.”

The words made something in her chest trill with joy.

“But we’re beast and skin for a reason,” Bishop continued, “and skin has to be logical. Neither one of us can leave our run behind. We don’t have a future together, Jillian.”

The trill imploded, and her heart ached with the truth of his words. Words she’d known before allowing the encounter. She’d done nothing to stop them from indulging in their attraction, and now they would both suffer for it. “We can’t do this again.”

He flinched. “I know.”

Jillian wanted to rage at the unfairness of it all. Perhaps if Rook had chosen differently—had chosen a future as the Alpha instead of that half-breed Magus—then Bishop wouldn’t be tied to the Cornerstone run. He could have come with her to Springwell and been their Alpha with her as the Alpha Female. But that was a pipe dream. Rook was with Brynn, and he had deferred the position of Alpha to Bishop. Their futures were already written, and Jillian was not meant to be with Bishop. Her beast would have to learn to accept that.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Jillian said. She had to remove the scent of him from her skin or it would torture her all night. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he replied.

She didn’t look back at him as she left the library. She couldn’t. She was certain she would fly back into his arms if she did.

Knight didn’t know precisely how he’d gotten from the porch to his bedroom. All he knew was his father was holding him like he used to when he was little, and Knight was shaking in his arms with no shame at all in drawing on his father for control, because Knight’s was slipping.

Another innocent family had been destroyed because of him. More lives lost. More children murdered.

He seethed for their pain. He fumed at his own pain. He raged for the pain of every person in Cornerstone who lived in fear of the triplets attacking.

He hated that so many people had seen him come unglued on the porch, especially his brothers. More so he hated that his father had been reduced to keeping his grown son from pitching the world’s worst temper tantrum because his emotions were so disjointed. So many negative ones crowding out the positives.

Would he ever feel joy again?

He grabbed the frayed threads of his anger and hate and tugged them all close. Bundled them up in a fiery ball that he tucked down deep, into a place where it could burn without affecting others. A place that was slowly becoming overcrowded. A fragile place very close to shattering.

Early morning light cast a dim glow in the room from behind drawn curtains, the sun slowly rising on Knight’s exhaustion. They’d been standing for hours, and his feet were numb. Much of his rage had dimmed. He finally pulled back and out of his father’s arms, ashamed of his weakness. Of not being able to control himself when his entire existence was about balance and control.

“I love you,” Father said, his voice tight. “I probably don’t tell you boys that enough, but I love you all so much. You. Rook. Bishop. I don’t think I could survive losing any one of you. And I hate that you are in so much pain over this, son.”

Knight’s familiar refrain of “I’m just one man,” hung on the tip of his tongue. He held back. Father rarely got emotional like this. He was also a deliberate man. There was meaning in his words. A lot of meaning.

I will not lose any of you. I will not let you go to them. I will not let them take you.

Knight
could
leave, though. He could pack a bag and leave. He knew how to run without leaving a trail. Maybe move to another country, far from the reach of the triplets. Once he was gone, they’d leave his family alone. Spend the rest of their lives searching for him.

And Knight would never be able to come home again.

The scenario chilled him for its simplicity and its loneliness. The only other answer was removing himself from the equation completely at the business end of a hunting rifle, and he wasn’t quite ready to choose that option. Not yet.

“I hate that this is happening,” Knight said. “I hate that so many people have died.”

“We all hate it, but I know you. I know that you’re taking this personally, that you’re blaming yourself when it’s not your fault. You are not a prize to be ransomed for our safety, and as proud as I was of you the day you agreed to go with Fiona, I was so fucking angry, too.”

Knight startled. He’d never heard his father curse like that, and it drove the point home.

“You made an Alpha’s decision that day,” Father continued. “You chose the needs of the many over the needs of the one. I never could have made that decision.”

“But—”

“No. My sons are my fatal flaw. I could never willingly sacrifice one of you, not even to keep those monsters away from us for good. I can’t. It would be like watching you die, and no parent should ever outlive their child.”

The confession awed and humbled him. He’d never seen his father so raw, so exposed. So . . . average. He was a father who loved his children and would do anything for them. Would Knight be that sort of father one day?

A day that might come sooner than he expected.

“I understand,” Knight said. “And I promise, no more noble sacrifices. Dad.”

“Good. Because if I suspect you’re going to do something like that, I’ll lock you in the quarterly cage until the triplets are dealt with.”

He nodded, because he really did believe his father would do that.

“Please do me a favor?” Father asked. “Stay away from the boarding house while the Joneses are there.”

“Why?”

“They’re outsiders. We aren’t giving them the whole story, and I don’t want them to figure out it’s about you and then try to avenge their family.”

Oh. Well that made sense. Knight had visited the Potomac loup a few times to ensure their mental states. If they needed him, maybe they could meet somewhere in town. He doubted the Joneses would be wandering far from the boarding house for a while.

“I’ll keep my distance.”

“Good. I’ll see you downstairs for breakfast.” Father opened the bedroom door.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“I love you, too. Thank you.”

Father smiled and left.

Knight padded down the hall to the floor’s bathroom, intent on washing his face and looking somewhat put-together for breakfast. The rest of the house was stirring, and he swore he caught a waft of frying bacon from downstairs. The bathroom door was shut against the sound of running water.

He knocked once.

“It’s Bishop!”

Oh good. He went inside and shut the door on a cloud of steam. Even though the eight-bedroom house had four full-baths, one of them was in Father’s master suite, and the others on the third and first floors. Growing up, he and his brothers had never been shy about barging in on each other when they were too lazy to hit one of the other heads. He didn’t have to piss, but his toothbrush was in there.

The bathroom smelled like water and the unscented cleanser they all preferred—scented stuff made Knight’s nose twitch all damned day—and something else. Knight sniffed again, surprised to find the faint, lingering odor of sex.

“Do I even want to ask?”

“Ask what?” Bishop said behind the plastic curtain.

“Who you just banged your frustration out of?”

The curtain slid back and Bishop’s wet face was staring at him, eyes wide. “How the hell—?” He stopped when he spotted his dirty laundry on the floor by Knight’s feet. “Shit.”

Bishop actually looked embarrassed, which piqued the interest of the little boy inside who still liked to torment his big brother. “Should I say congratulations? Because you always go looking out of town for a reason.”

“No, it was a one-time thing, and we both knew that.” Something in Bishop’s expression said otherwise, but Knight wasn’t going to push. And Bishop was deliberately holding back his emotions.

“If you say so, brother.”

Bishop yanked the curtain back into place. “Venting your emotions through sex isn’t a bad thing, you know.”

Knight grunted and turned on the faucet so he could wash his face. He knew about Bishop’s occasional hunts for half-breeds who were into a nice, casual fuck. Bishop had even taken Knight out once for that exact purpose, when Knight was twenty-one. Unlike Bishop and Rook, Knight had opted out of going to college and the feminine opportunities it provided. The run couldn’t spare their White Wolf for so many months at a time, and Knight had disliked the idea of being around so many humans, so far from home.

From the time he’d hit puberty, girls had pursued him. Loup, human, and half-breeds, and the attention had been incredibly off-putting, even for a teenage boy with raging hormones. The emotional stress of dealing with seven hundred-plus other loup and their mental well-being had taken priority, and it had been a good distraction from his loneliness.

And then one day Bishop declared, “It’s time for you to pop your cherry, little brother,” and kidnapped him off to the city for the night. Bishop had meant well. He truly had.

The whole thing was a disaster. Knight was too nervous to get it up, the woman had no sympathy for him, and she banged Bishop instead while Knight waited in the car. He and Bishop hadn’t talked about it since. Knight was too embarrassed, but he hadn’t been jealous of his brother getting some release. In the four years since, Knight had never gone out looking again. He’d been content to stay a virgin until the right woman came into his life.

A flash of hate surged through him so strongly that he actually snarled at his own reflection. The curtain jangled. Bishop was standing next to him, dripping wet, leveling him with a concerned frown. Knight cut off the noise. He needed to stop reacting like that, making people look at him the way Bishop was looking at him.

Like Knight was slowly losing his mind and they didn’t know how to stop it.

“What was that?” Bishop asked.

He couldn’t lie and say it was nothing. Bishop knew better. “Thinking about Victoria.” He hated thinking her name, much less saying it. His skin crawled. He hated that name. He’d hate it for the rest of his life.

“Imagining creative ways to kill her?” Bishop’s tone was not entirely joking.

Knight shook his head. “I shouldn’t be thinking about her all. It only pisses me off. Finish your shower, dude, you’re dripping all over the place.”

Bishop tuned in to his surroundings, then jumped back into the shower. Knight washed his face and brushed his teeth. He put a towel down to soak up the excess water Bishop had bestowed upon the floor. Leave it to Bishop to leap out of a perfectly good shower at the first sign of distress. He’d always been that way.

Knight returned to his room to dress, and then made his way downstairs, following the rich aromas of bacon, coffee, and cinnamon into the kitchen. Mrs. Troost was bustling around, as usual, her typical sunny smile pinched. Knight reached out immediately and sensed her grief. Her outrage. Her fear.

She turned toward him with a platter of cinnamon rolls in her hands, eyes widening when she spotted him. “Good morning, my dear lad, how are you feeling?”

“Disjointed,” he replied, giving into honesty. Mrs. Troost had been the closest thing they’d had to a mother after theirs died. She had kids of her own, but she had always treated him like her son—up to and including bullying him to eat when he was stressed or upset.

“A hard morning for you and your father. That poor family, and those kids so young.”

“You saw them?”

“Your father asked me to bring them some clean clothes from the attic. I’ll take them a hot meal here in a bit, once you lot are fed.” She handed him a plate. “Load it up, young man.”

Knight took a cinnamon roll and two pieces of bacon. He wasn’t very hungry, his appetite shattered despite his metabolism. Mrs. Troost shoved more bacon and a second cinnamon roll onto his plate before sending him off with a glass of orange juice. He paused in the hall, his usual objective the dining room, where everyone else would be. He glanced to his left, out onto the relative quiet of the back patio.

Shay sat alone at the picnic table, toying with a piece of bacon, her profile grim.

He went to her, instead. She didn’t look up when he sat across from her. They ate in silence for a while, and Knight drew on the peace that settled in his soul when she was near. Her shoulders relaxed a bit, too, and she ate with more enthusiasm.

“I overheard Brynn and Rook talking,” Shay said. “They struck again.”

“Yeah.” Knight snapped a piece of bacon in half, then crumbled it with his fingertips. “A family of ten. Killed four of them, including a little girl.”

Lines of distress etched across her face, and she wilted. “And you blame yourself for their deaths.”

He dropped the bacon bits. His family drawing that conclusion didn’t surprise him, but how could Shay see right through him after such a brief acquaintance? “The triplets want me. As long as I’m withheld from them, everyone with loup blood is at risk. Rook has almost died twice protecting me. It’s not worth it.”

“That’s because you only see the situation from your own perspective.”

He looked up, into pale, flecked eyes as sad as they seemed . . . wise. A bit of life sparkled in them. “My own perspective is all I have, Shay.”

“For someone who is so empathic, you are frustratingly narrow-minded.”

“Excuse me?”

Her tone never rose above a near whisper, but the words had power in them nonetheless. The strength of her Black Wolf. “You can’t see it because you live it, but you are the beating heart of this town, Knight McQueen. Not only as the White Wolf, but also as the son of the Alpha. As a kind, generous man who genuinely cares about the people here. You are far more than just one man. You are a son. You are a brother. You are a friend. You are a protector. You deserve the same chance at happiness as any loup here. Please stop thinking that you’re expendable, or that lives will not be destroyed if you’re gone.”

Something sharp and painful stabbed him deep down, then took hold and twisted. So many emotions spilled out of that hole: grief, anger, fear, shame. So many negative things hidden away from the light of day to be dealt with in private. The things he focused on so often that they overwhelmed him and he lost sight of what was important. He saw right through the people who loved him, who fought so hard for him. He didn’t see the people who depended on him. People like Michelle Barnes with her difficult pregnancy.

People like Shay, who had nearly slipped away from them after her ordeal. She was getting better every single day, a degree at a time. He wanted to be there when she finally smiled. When she finally laughed. He wanted to be there to see her happy again. He wanted to stand up for Rook when he married Brynn. He wanted to see Bishop marry and take over as Alpha one day. He wanted to see his father retired, happy, a grandfather to his sons’ future children.

He may be a grandfather far sooner than anyone planned, but Knight didn’t want to think about that. Not in this perfect moment of clarity, where a happy future still seemed possible—for himself and for his family. He wanted so desperately to hold on to that moment. To keep it close, hidden and safe, so when fear and doubt assailed him, he could draw hope out and remember how it felt.

Warmth covered the top of his hand, allowing gentle pressure. He turned his hand by instinct and curled his fingers around Shay’s, her skin so pale against his. So fragile, yet so damn strong. And then the full force of the action hit him right in the chest.