“Oh, hey, how are you guys doing?” asked Taryn, the Alpha female, holding a huge box of baked goods.
“Fine,” replied Tate. He and Luke exchanged greetings with her mate, Trey, their Beta Dante, their Head Enforcer Tao, and Trey’s grandmother, Greta.
“I heard about all the chaos surrounding your woman,” Trey said to Tate. “We’ve been doing our best to locate Gideon York, but he’s proven to be pretty elusive.”
“How’s Havana?” asked Taryn.
“Good, all things considered,” Tate replied.
Giving him a wan smile, Greta patted his arm. “You have my utmost sympathy, boy.”
Tate’s brow creased. The antisocial, maladjusted woman generally wasn’t a person who felt compassion for anyone. “I do?”
Greta rested a hand on his shoulder. “Anyone who’s been lumbered with a devil shifter for a mate deserves sympathy.”
Trey rounded on her. “Greta.”
“Well, it’s true,” the old woman insisted. “They’re a bloodthirsty lot, and they seem to live by the motto that any day is a fine day to kill.”
Tate knew that. He also liked it, as did his cat. Which was the only reason he didn’t whack his brother over the head for nodding in agreement.
Taryn sighed. “Don’t take her bitchiness personally, Tate. She can’t be nice, she sold her soul to Satan himself long ago. I’m guessing she was granted eternal life in return, because we just can’t get her to die. She has the wrinkles, the scaly skin, the fuzzy gray hair, the rickety bones, the musty old lady smell … but her heart still beats.”
Greta scowled. “Oh, you wish me gone, do you?”
“Every time I blow out my birthday candles. Now let’s get going, Bride of Beelzebub.” Taryn herded her toward an SUV that was idling at the curb.
Trey sighed. “Yeah, this is my life. See you around.”
Tate inclined his head while Luke tipped his chin.
“I am not senile!” Greta shouted at Taryn.
“But you are fucking demented. Now get in the SUV, Wrinkles.” Taryn all but shoved the woman into the vehicle. “I did not push you, I was just trying to help.”
Exchanging a smile with his brother, Tate took another drink of his soda. Taryn was crazy enough to be a pallas cat.
It was as he and Luke began their drive to Taggart’s old address that Tate heard his phone beep again. It was a message from Deke: A guy called Dieter just showed up at the center to speak privately with your mate.
Tate felt his nostrils flare. Son of a motherfucker. “We’re making a pit-stop at the center,” he told Luke, glad they were only minutes away from the building.
“Why?” asked Luke. “Everything okay with Havana?”
“Depends just what her ex has to say to her.”
“Her ex? What ex?”
“Funny story.”
Havana was in the middle of straightening out the filing cabinet in Corbin’s office when someone knocked on the already open door. She glanced over her shoulder. Her devil narrowed her eyes.
Looking like a man who’d been kicked in the gut, Dieter slowly walked in, rubbing his nape. “Havana,” he greeted softly.
She closed the metal draw of the cabinet and turned to face him. “Hi,” she said, her voice just as low.
He cast the two enforcers leaning against the wall a brief look. “Can we talk alone?” he asked her.
She studied his expression. He didn’t look as though he’d come here to mouth off again. In fact, he had his metaphorical tail tucked between his legs. Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt, she looked at the enforcers. “It’s okay, guys.”
Deke and Isaiah left without a word, each shooting Dieter a hard look. They didn’t close the door behind them, and she knew they’d rush in if they thought it necessary.
“Your bodyguards, I presume,” said Dieter.
She folded her arms. “Yes.”
Sighing, he made his way toward her. “You’re probably super pissed at me. I don’t blame you. I was an asshole last time we spoke. It’s just … It was a shock. All of it. The drive-by, how you almost died, that you’d found your mate.” His shoulders drooped. “I’m sorry for being an ass. You didn’t deserve it.”
Havana stared at him. He’d said all the right things and looked appropriately repentant, but there was an off note to his tone. She couldn’t help but get the feeling that this was leading up to something. Something that she wasn’t going to like.
“I heard about the second drive-by,” he said. “I also heard that Devereaux saved the day.”
She squinted at the edge to his words. “Dieter, if you’re going to act like a shithead again—”
“I’m not, I …” He trailed off with a soft curse.
“Why are you here?”
“To apologize. To check that you’re okay.”
“Apology accepted.” Well, sort of. Her devil jutted out her chin, unmoved by his apparent remorse. “And I’m good.”
He swallowed. “I’m glad. I’ve been worried about you.” Licking his lips, he took a step closer. “I need to know something,” he added, looking more serious than she’d ever seen him. “If I’d offered you more than casual sex at some point in the past, would you have agreed to try it?”
Well that came out of left field. “You never would have offered me that, Dieter. You want to be part of a flock, and no lone shifter can give you that.”
“But if I’d shoved that shit aside and asked you to try something serious, would you have done it?”
“Does it really matter? I’m with Tate now.”
His face darkened. “It matters to me. Be honest with me, please.”
She sighed. “The truth? I’d have agreed to more. I wanted more. But you didn’t. We shared a bed off-and-on for a year. You never asked for exclusivity or stuck around long. You flitted from person to person, keeping things simple and shallow.”
“Because I was a fucking idiot,” he clipped. “I was obsessed with becoming part of a flock. I lost sight of what else was important to me. You.”
A snort bubbled up. “You never made me feel important.”
“I should’ve done, because you are.”
“Things often seem much more appealing when they’re out of our reach.”
“This is not me being drawn to forbidden fucking fruit. This is me realizing how badly I messed up. This is me wanting you back.”
She almost gaped. Oh, he could not be doing this. He could not be pulling this crap. Tate had been right about him, she realized. “You never had me to begin with. You kept me dangling on a string. You’d disappear for months at a time, return to throw scraps at my table so I’d find it hard to forget you, and then you’d be gone again.”
“I didn’t keep coming back to stop you from forgetting me. I did it because I couldn’t fucking help it.” He ground his teeth. “You say the pallas cat is your mate. But you’re still not bonded to him, so how do you know it for sure?”
“I just do.”
“Or maybe you want to believe it. Maybe you’re done being alone. Maybe you want to finally settle down. I can give you that, Havana.”