The Protector's Heart (Wilde Creek Three) (14 page)

“He cheated on you?” Malachi asked. His face
was blank, his features carefully controlled.

“On the full moons, but probably more
frequently than that.”

“And he never marked you?”

“No. I didn’t know anything about that until
Brynn told me.”

“The marking means that the man and the wolf
are claiming the woman. It’s a territorial thing, too. If another
wolf sees the mark, he’ll know she’s taken.”

“No one ever messed with me from his
pack.”

He leaned back in the chair and drummed his
fingers on the table. “Tomorrow, Acksel is going to tell Isaiah
that you are not truly mated to Damien, and that the legal marriage
is a hindrance to everyone involved.”

She wasn’t sure it would matter to Isaiah,
but maybe hearing the words from another alpha would tip the
situation in her favor.

* * * * *

Malachi left his home Monday morning with
Nila and Jack in the SUV and drove to Brynn’s house. At the moment,
nothing was changing about the guard situation with Brynn.
Originally he’d thought he could stop sitting at the clinic all
day, but since Damien had beaten up Nila’s friend, Malachi didn’t
trust that he’d stay away completely.

“Should I get in the back seat?” Nila asked
as he stopped the SUV in front of the house.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because she’s your alpha.”

“Mate trumps alpha.”

Her brows rose. “Does she know that?”

He chuckled. “Of course.”

Brynn and Acksel walked down the sidewalk
together and Brynn climbed in the back seat, greeting them all.
Malachi rolled Nila’s window down and said, “I’ll be back after I
get the girls settled.”

Acksel nodded. “We’ll be ready.”

He rolled the window up and pulled away from
the curb. Nila asked, “I thought it was just you and Acksel going
to see Isaiah? What did he mean by ‘we’?”

“Acksel knows Isaiah by reputation only;
they’ve never met. Alphas stick to their own territory, and Dorlan
is far enough away from Wilde Creek that their paths have never
crossed. If it was just me and Acksel that showed up to see Isaiah,
he might think that we were a weak pack or that we saw him as weak.
Either way, we might end up with him bringing his pack here and
causing trouble. Acksel is bringing Sam and a few other protectors,
along with his dad, Dade, and Hollis, one of the elders.”

Nila was quiet, chewing her bottom lip, which
was something he noticed she did when she was worried.

“What, sweetheart?”

“I’m putting a lot of people out.”

He glanced in the rearview and found Brynn
frowning. She said, “You’re important to Malachi, and that makes
you important to the pack.”

He reached for Nila’s hand and she took it,
lacing her fingers with his immediately. He wasn’t sure what else
to say, so he let the silence hang between them. He pulled into the
parking lot of the daycare first. Nila took Jack inside and dropped
him off, and then he drove to the clinic. Malachi escorted both
women into the clinic and followed Nila to the breakroom.

She leaned against the counter and he placed
his hands on the counter on either side of her body and looked down
at her. In a low voice, he said, “What’s bothering you?”

“I’m worried.”

“About your safety? Don’t. Two protectors are
already in place here, and they’ll make sure you’re safe while I’m
gone.”

“I’m worried about you.” She blinked her big
brown eyes at him, and he swallowed at the sudden lump in his
throat. She really cared about him.

He pressed his lips to hers, and she made a
soft, sad sound in her throat and wrapped her arms around him. He
pulled her close as they kissed, and then he lifted from her lush
mouth and cupped her face. “I’m going to set you free so I can work
on making you mine forever. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

“You’ll be careful?” She chewed on her bottom
lip and he gently pulled her lip from her teeth with his thumb.

“Of course. You’re not going to get rid of me
that easily.” He smiled, but she didn’t smile back.

Kissing her forehead, he hugged her and said,
“I need to go, they’re waiting for me. I’ll be back before the day
is over, and if there’s a problem, you can find Devin and Hayden
outside.”

He left her in the breakroom, took a few
minutes to scan the security footage from the night before, and
then he left. He was anxious to get to Dorlan and get the situation
settled.

When Malachi stopped in front of Acksel’s
home and programmed the GPS to head to Dorlan, he was aware of two
other vehicles pulling next to him. He glanced up and saw Sam and
two protectors in one SUV, and Dade’s truck with Hollis in the
passenger seat. Acksel walked down the sidewalk, opened the
passenger door of Malachi’s SUV and sat down.

“Nila said that there’s a gas station on the
edge of Dorlan that’s run by one of the pack members,” Malachi
said.

“We’ll stop there first and ask for a meeting
with Isaiah,” Acksel said.

Malachi nodded, put the SUV into gear and
pulled away from the curb. The drive to Dorlan took over an hour,
and Acksel and Malachi talked about the pack and Nila’s situation.
Acksel was not the most compassionate male on the planet, but he
didn’t approve of females being abused in any form, and believed
that it was an alpha’s responsibility to ensure that everyone
within the pack was safe. That included the mates and pups, whether
they were entirely wolf or not. Isaiah’s pack was all-wolf, the way
that the Wilde Creek pack had been not too long ago.

Acksel’s sister Eveny had been about to
choose to leave the pack in order to be with her human mate, Luke,
which was something that would have resulted in her banishment from
the pack. She would never have been allowed to set foot in Wilde
Creek again, under penalty of death, just because she loved a
human. Malachi had never given much thought to what would happen if
he were in a similar situation. If it weren’t for Acksel changing
pack law for Brynn so that she, and any other mates who were human
or other forms of shifters, were welcomed into the pack, Malachi
would be taking banishment for Nila, and he wouldn’t have
hesitated. Some other packs didn’t care what sort of mates their
people took, but most had wolf-only laws. He was glad that Wilde
Creek wasn’t one of them, but it wouldn’t have mattered in the long
run. Nila was his, and he’d do anything to make her his and keep
her safe.

Acksel grunted, and Malachi glanced over to
see him reading the divorce papers that Nila had given to Malachi.
“I wonder if Damien didn’t sign the papers because there’s also
this little thing here that says he waives parental rights to
Jack.” Acksel made a motion to one section of the papers.

“I wondered that myself. But if he really
cared for his pup, he wouldn’t be terrorizing Nila and withholding
support. According to her, when they were together she had to beg
him to give her money for diapers and clothes for him. When she
left, she had nothing at all, and if it weren’t for Diane she’d
have wound up on the street. I think that if he actually wanted
Jack, he wouldn’t just be terrorizing Nila but would be demanding
that Jack be returned to him.”

“He might see Jack as a means to an end. If
he keeps his parental rights, than Nila will never be free of him.
Sever that link, along with the divorce, and she can be free.”

That was what Malachi wanted for her. He
wanted her to be free of her past so she could make her own
choices. When he asked her to be his mate officially, he didn’t
want anything in the way of their happiness. He wanted to mark her
and marry her as soon as she was ready and willing to be his.

“Brynn will skin you alive if you get married
before we do.”

Malachi chuckled. “Get out of my head.”

* * * * *

Dorlan Auto was just about the filthiest
place Malachi had ever set foot in, and that included a fraternity
bathroom after a party. They waited for the owner of the shop to
bring word back from his alpha. The male reminded Malachi of a rat,
with a sharp nose and beady eyes.

“Alpha Isaiah is meeting you at the park
outside town. It’s neutral territory,” the male said after thirty
minutes. He handed Sam a slip of paper with an address scrawled on
it.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Acksel
said.

As they walked out of the shop and to the
vehicles, Sam said, “I feel like I need to take about a hundred
showers. That place was disgusting.”

“Me, too.” Acksel said, his nose wrinkling in
disgust.

Sam led the way and Malachi and Dade
followed, heading out of Dorlan and to a neutral-ground park. The
‘park’ as it turned out, was a grassy field with a rusted swing set
and some picnic tables that looked as if they were about thirty
years old. As they walked into the park, they found a small group
of males next to one of the decrepit picnic tables. One male sat at
the table, and the four other males with him stood in a row behind
him.

“Welcome to Dorlan,” the male who sat at the
table said. “My name is Isaiah Caruthers.”

Acksel extended his hand and introduced
himself as he sat down. He tried to hide his grimace, but Malachi
saw it. “Thank you for meeting with us.”

Isaiah was a thin male, but the sort of
thinness that came from a life of hard living. He was graying and
unkempt, his long hair pulled back in a ponytail and his beard long
enough, and dirty-looking enough, to make Malachi want to spray him
down with Lysol.

“I understand you wish to speak to me about
my son, Damien.”

Acksel folded his hands on the table top, and
although he appeared relaxed, Malachi knew that he wasn’t. “One of
my pack members has entered into a relationship with Nila
Caruthers. She is technically married to your son, and has been
separated from him for nine months. I would ask you to see that he
signs the divorce papers and releases Nila.”

Isaiah stared at Acksel in silence for a long
moment and then said, “I don’t see what my son’s affairs have to do
with me. Does your pack come to you with such inconsequential
things?” The distaste was clear in Isaiah’s voice.

Acksel’s head tilted just slightly. “Your son
is attacking the mate of one of my pack members. As alpha, I take
issue with that.”

Isaiah’s brow lifted. “She’s
human
.”

Malachi bit back a vicious snarl.

“Regardless,” Acksel said, “Nila is Malachi’s
mate and he wants her free from her past obligations so he can mate
her appropriately. Your son never mated her. Their marriage is by
human standards alone. As her true mate, Malachi is within his
rights to demand her freedom.”

Isaiah straightened slightly and eyed Malachi
as he stood behind Acksel. “My son didn’t want to really mate her
because he would have been kicked out of the pack. He didn’t want
to ruin his life because she was too stupid to remember birth
control.”

Malachi tensed, wanting to leap over Acksel
and punch Isaiah for the numerous insults to
his
woman.

“Regardless of your feelings on her humanity,
will you assist, or do you accept that my pack member will be doing
whatever is necessary to ensure he can mate Nila properly?”

Isaiah’s eyes narrowed. “Do not threaten my
son.”

“Release Nila.”

Isaiah threw up his hands with a growl, and
then he leveled a calculating gaze at Malachi. “We’ll settle this
in the
old way
. Tomorrow at sunset, you will bring the human
here to the park and she will watch you and my son fight for her.
The winner keeps her; the loser walks away forever.”

Malachi bared his teeth.

Acksel raised his hand and Malachi bit back
the growl in his throat. “I have some ground rules.”

Isaiah snorted. “You would.”

Acksel ignored the barb and said, “The fight
is limited to human form. If either shift, they forfeit. When
Malachi wins, Damien will sign the divorce papers within a week and
you will swear as his alpha that he will never bother her
again.”

“
If
your wolf wins, then I will agree
to those terms.” Isaiah said the words, but Malachi didn’t trust
him.

With the details set, Malachi and his pack
left. Acksel was quiet on the way back to Wilde Creek. Malachi
didn’t mind, because he needed the time to think as well. Nila was
not going to be happy about this. She was human and hadn’t spent
much time around wolves, so she wouldn’t understand this was the
way things needed to be so that he could set her free. Her human
marriage to Damien was like a tether around her neck. Malachi could
mate her, but he couldn’t make her his wife and Jack his son until
Damien was legally out of the way.

Malachi stopped in front of Acksel’s house
and shifted into park.

Acksel cleared his throat. “You need to mate
Nila tonight.”

“Uh, not that I don’t want to, but why
tonight?”

Acksel turned in his seat until he was facing
Malachi. “Aside from the fact that she’s your mate and you care
deeply for her, going to the fight tomorrow night with her already
marked will go a long way toward showing that she’s yours to
Isaiah’s pack.”

Nodding, Malachi’s mind raced as he thought
over how little time there was between now and when they needed to
leave tomorrow for the fight. He should be training, and not sexing
up his mate, but he couldn’t deny that officially mating her –
tonight – was extremely appealing.

“I’d like to take her to the altar and talk
for a bit tonight.”

“Of course. You can drop off Jack here before
you go, and tomorrow he can stay with Brynn while we’re gone.”

“Thanks, Acksel.”

His alpha smiled at him. “You’re one of my
oldest friends, and you’re also a pack member. That means a lot to
me. I want you to be happy, and if that means we have to take a
posse up to Dorlan so you can kick her ex’s ass, then that’s what
we’ll do.”