The first thing I notice when I return to mine and Marshall’s cabin is that he hasn’t moved.
But he’s breathing, which means he’s alive, and that’s all that matters.
After depositing the stuffed hiking bag beside the door and the nearly overflowing pot of water I filled from a stream alongside it, I go back outside and spend a few minutes beating the dust from the mattress. Several explosive sneezing fits later, I drag the mattress back inside and hesitate for a second about returning it to the bed frame.
It’s not so much an issue of strength, because I’m strong enough to both return it to the wooden pallet and help Marshall on it, but about whether that’s the best place to set him up.
My eyes go to the space in front of the empty fireplace. It would be better to have Marshall in front of the fire, especially now that I know how cold and draughty this cabin can get at night.
Decision made, I drag the mattress where I want it and go back for the borrowed bedding so I can get to work making Marshall more comfortable.
Hours later, and I’m trying to decide if Marshall would prefer spam or baked beans, when I feel his gaze on my face.
I lower the two cans and turn to him, laying on his back on the mattress in front of a cheery fire with his wounds carefully cleaned and bandaged.
“Hey, jellybean.”
I move from the kitchen and drop to my knees beside him. “Hey, how are you feeling?”
For a long moment he doesn’t speak, just studies me quietly, then he lifts a hand to smooth back flyaway strands of hair from my face. “You look exhausted.”
I feel it.
I shrug. “I’m okay. Are you hungry?”
His eyes go to the fireplace, and then the blanket covering his lower body, purposely leaving his chest exposed so I can check his wounds, and then they return to me. “I remember a dusty cabin with nothing in it, but you crying. I remember lying on the floor, and now I wake up to this and I don’t know how it happened. Did you do all this?”
Again, I shrug as if it didn’t take every bit of strength I possessed and some that I didn’t think I had to get through the last few hours. If he had any idea how long it took me to figure out how to start a fire, he’d laugh and wouldn’t stop.
I thought all I’d have to do was stack some firewood in the grate and toss a match in. But the only thing that kept happening was the matches going out. That’s when I realized there must be a science to it.
Half a box of matches later, I was both grateful I still had a few more left in the box in case the fire goes out, but also ridiculously proud at the tiny fire I’d gotten started which had taken a few slivers of the firewood that I kept adding larger and larger pieces until I had a fire. An actual fire.
After all the cleaning, the worst of which was dealing with the rat droppings, I’d thought starting the fire would be the easiest thing I had to do. I’d never expected it to be the hardest.
“It was nothing. Should I get you some water?” I start to stand, but Marshall’s hand doesn’t move from my face.
“You cleaned this cabin, got a fire started, found food, water, blankets, and bandaged my wounds. That’s the very opposite of nothing.”
I look away. “I raided a hiker’s cabin. That’s all.”
My eyes go to his chest. While his throat is mostly healed, the gaping wound in his belly still has some way to go. I’ve cleaned it and had to re-bandage it several times, but it continues to bleed.
“Jellybean…”
I shake my head. “I have to get some bandages, it’s bleeding again.”
To my relief, Marshall lets me go, though I feel his gaze tracking me as I get back to my feet so I can retrieve the small first aid kit from the kitchen counter.
Although I’m relieved to have the kit in the first place, I’m regretting not looking inside it before I grabbed it. The contents are better suited for a few minor injuries you’d get hiking or cutting your finger while cooking, not nearly having a wolf rip out your guts or try and tear out your throat.
I’m glad I picked up a couple of sheets because it’s looking like I’m going to have to rip the spare and use it for new bandages if Marshall continues to bleed this heavily, but that’s a later in the afternoon problem, I guess. If I can figure out what time afternoon is, though.
It’s no longer morning, that much I know from the brightness of the sun peeping in through the newly polished window. But other than that? I have no idea of the time. Only, it’s probably time I heat some food for us since neither of us has eaten for a while. Marshall since breakfast the other morning, probably, and me… I don’t remember. A long time.
I return with a fresh bandage and a damp towel. I used one of the three towels to clean the cabin as best I could, saved one for us to use as an actual towel when I gave both myself and Marshall a sponge bath from the water I heated over the fire, and the last to clean his wounds.
After dropping to my knees, I keep my eyes on Marshall’s chest, conscious he’s still studying me.
For several seconds, I concentrate on my task, finding it a little easier than before. At first, I was so afraid of hurting Marshall and so conscious that I didn’t know what I was doing that I had to keep going outside for regular cry breaks before I could get a handle on myself.
It’s been a while since I’ve needed to go outside and cry, so I’m glad to have gotten all my tears under control before Marshall woke. Now, I might even look like I know what I’m doing.
“You said something earlier.” Marshall’s voice is a low rumble of sound tinged with the pain that I doubt has left him since he fought off the shifters.
I continue sponging the fresh blood from his belly, relieved there’s a lot less of it, which means he’s healing. Slowly. But he’s healing. “Hmmm?”
“When you brought me here,” Marshall says, “just before I passed out. Something about me deserving better.”
For a second, I freeze because I refuse to believe he heard me say the absolute last thing I wanted him to hear. But then I shake my head and force a smile on my face. “You must have been hearing things. I didn’t-”
“Jenna?” Marshall softly interrupts, sounding more serious than he ever has before.
I stop talking and dart a glance in his face. “Yeah?”
“I wasn’t hearing things. When you speak, I always listen, and I always remember what you say. You know that.”
I do.
I look away from his probing stare. Not because it’s uncomfortable to meet his gaze because he’s a dominant wolf and I’m a submissive, but because I was lying, and he just called me out on it.
Whenever I’ve spoken, no matter what Marshall is doing, he’s always stopped and turned to me. If we were at his garage in town and he was working, if he couldn’t turn, he’d always tilt his head a little to show he was listening.
I don’t know why he always acts like what I have to say is so important, but he does. He always has.
“Your wound is looking a lot better,” I say instead, going for distraction since I should’ve known lying wouldn’t work. “I just need to rinse out this towel.” I rise, but almost immediately, Marshall circles his hand around my wrist and tugs me back.
“Jellybean. No lying, no running, no avoidance. Talk to me.”
I stare at the bloodstained towel in my hand. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I disagree.”
“Just let me clean this, I’ll be right-” My next attempt at rising is met with instant failure.
“I don’t care about the towel. The only thing I care about is you and me. You said something yesterday, something that I think it’s important we talk about.”
Hearing how determined Marshall sounds has me sighing because when he gets like this, he’s like a dog with a bone. Impossible to distract.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say in a low voice. “I think we should just concentrate on getting you better so we can leave before those shifters find us.”
“They can wait. Everything else can wait. Right now, I want to know why you think I deserve a different kind of mate, and why you think you’re not enough for me.”
I continue staring at his chest-it still needs to be bandaged-and don’t say a word.
The silence extends for a couple of minutes, and then Marshall sighs. “I’ve never understood how someone can be so hard-headed on the outside, but so soft on the inside.”
His words confuse me so much that I lift my head to meet his eyes as I try to figure out what he means. “What?”
“Yes, you’re a submissive with a nature that means dominant shifters should find it easy to get you to do what they want, but you’re stubborn when you make your mind to be. Hard-headed. But beneath that exterior, you’re soft. Sweet.”
I stare at him as something suddenly becomes clear. “Like a jellybean.”
He nods soberly.
I can’t stop my bark of laughter. “You idiot.”
He growls, “I am no idiot. Come here.”
When Marshall tugs at my hand, I resist him. “Your wound, I have to bandage it.”
“Then bandage it already, but come here. I want you lying beside me.”
I grab the last bandage, using the last of the tape from the first aid kit to stick it down since I’ve been avoiding moving him. “There’s not enough room, and I have to get you food and water,” I tell him as I finish applying the bandage.
“This isn’t Titanic. I’m happy to share what little space there is, and food and water can come later. Now come here.”
Despite his ridiculous comment about Titanic making me smile, I shake my head. “I need to check on the fire.”
“As I said, hard-headed. Come here, jellybean. I need to hold you.”
After returning the towel to the sink and the first aid box to the counter, I check the fire before lying down beside Marshall with my head pillowed on his shoulder. “You know, you could’ve led with that. I think I would have agreed sooner.”
Marshall wraps his arm around my waist and kisses my brow. “Did I say difficult? Because you can be that too.”
“I’m not any of those things. And anyway, Kier said-” I stop talking at the sudden tension stiffening Marshall’s body. “Marshall?”
“Yes?” His voice is so carefully neutral that I don’t believe his calm façade for a second.
“If this is you being jealous, you don’t need to be. I think I know where Hallee’s been disappearing to when she says she’s going into town, and no one can find her.”
His arm around me loosens, and his tension falls away. Still, for several seconds, neither of us speaks. “I think Talis knew that too.”
“Talis?”
“Why do you think she asked you to go to see Kier during pack breakfast when she could’ve pulled you aside and spoken to you quietly? And I wouldn’t be surprised if you were to tell me he wasn’t expecting you at all.”
“No, he wasn’t. You think this was her playing matchmaker?”
“I think she tried to kill two birds with one stone. Now, what happened? Why weren’t you in the truck?”
So, with my head nestled against Marshall’s shoulder, I tell him about getting lost, chatting briefly with Kier, though not what we spoke about, Dayne’s truck running out of gas, and finally my run-in with the shifters.
Even though I can’t see Marshall’s face, I’m sure I feel him frowning. “That tank shouldn’t have been near empty. I know because I refilled it when we got back from Dawley.”
I take a few minutes to think about Talis’ matchmaking scheme. But maybe not only hers. I have a sudden flashback to her and Regan with their heads bent together back in Dawley. “Talis emptied it, and then sent me to Kier, hinted at romance in a cabin during a storm, and then what?”
“She distracted me with pointless task after pointless task, already knowing I’d go after you the second I could. She was probably expecting that we’d end up holed up together in some cabin.”
I swallow hard as I think about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t come after me. “Did you run here? Or if you drove, maybe we could…” My voice trails off when I feel Marshall shaking his head.
“Ran. I know Dayne’s going to chew me out about it later, but I had a feeling you needed me, and I wasn’t in the mood to play games with Talis about getting directions when I already had some idea about where Savage lived.”
“Savage?”
“Kier Savage. Dayne told me about their arrangement so if I ever caught his scent, I wouldn’t treat him as a lone wolf threat. I think most of the others already know, but he keeps to himself, has for years.”
I frown. “But why didn’t I know?”
“Because jellybean, you live in a bubble in your cottage or you’re at the pack house. Since you never mentioned him, I guess Dayne thought you didn’t need to know.”
When he falls silent, I wait for the conversation to turn to the unknown shifters and what we’re going to do about them, but Marshall surprises me.
“Now, jellybean. About what you said. Why do I have a feeling it plays a big part in your decision to leave Hardin and me?”
Since Marshall has always been able to tell when I’m lying, it means evasion is my best chance of dodging this conversation I don’t want to be having.
But then the memory of Kier’s words intrudes. Start small he said, tell one person and see what happens.
Telling other people about how I’m feeling is something I’ve gotten very good at not doing. It’s always been easier to smile and shrug and act like everything is fine. Right up until it’s not.
I never told anyone about how I felt when Talis’ uncle kidnapped her, and Dayne forced Marshall to stay behind to guard me even though, as third, Marshall should’ve gone on the rescue. Maybe it’s time I started talking, and who better to tell than Marshall, who has always listened.
“I’m always going to be the one who needs saving,” I say quietly.
“Jellybean?”
“And while you’re saving me, you’re never going to be free to save anyone else.”
Marshall is still for several seconds, and then he rolls so he’s braced over me.
I gasp and grab his shoulders. “Oh my God, Marshall, what the hell are you doing? Your wound. Get off me. Oh my God.”
He doesn’t move, and my attempt at shoving him off me does nothing either.
“I think that’s the first time you’ve ever ordered me to do anything before,” Marshall says, with a faint smile curving his lips, despite the pain I see in his eyes.
“I don’t care. Get off me before you hurt yourself even more.” I try to peer down his body so I can tell if he’s bleeding more in his position. “Are you bleeding? Can you feel if you’re bleeding? Marshall, please can-”
I stop talking when Marshall lowers his head and kisses me, silencing me.
At first, I try to pull away because I know we shouldn’t be doing this with him being this injured, but instead of breaking the kiss, he angles his head and deepens it.
Eventually, my hands stop shoving at him and instead slide around his shoulders as I give up fighting and instead moan and sink into it.
For several long minutes, Marshall and I kiss with increasing heat until he reluctantly lifts his head.
My eyes flutter open, and I find his eyes fixed on my face. He lifts a hand and curves it around my jaw. “Jenna, I-”
“No,” I tell him firmly, looking him right in the eye.
Marshall blinks at me. “What?”
“I refuse to talk to you until you get on your back and I know you aren’t bleeding.”
“Jenna…”
“I mean it, Marshall. I haven’t been bandaging you all this time for you to die because you decided to kiss me. And also, we have no more bandages, so get off me.”
His eyes sparkle with amusement. “Only if you get on top.”
“Fine.”
Again, he blinks in surprise. “What?”
“I said, okay, whatever it takes for you to stop being so stupid.”
“Idiot and now stupid. Wow. If I wasn’t so sure you loved me, I’d be concerned,” Marshall says, but to my relief, he shifts to lie on his back again with a wince of pain.
I spend the next couple of minutes checking he hasn’t made things worse, but finding he’s not back to bleeding heavily, I sigh in relief. Then, to Marshall’s obvious surprise, I throw one leg over him and sit astride him.
“You know, jellybean,” Marshall says, his voice gruff. “This position is giving me ideas.”
Since I can feel what’s growing between my legs, I know all too well what those ideas are. “You’re hurt and you said we have to talk,” I say quickly because this pose is giving me ideas as well. So, the sooner we have our talk and I get off him, the sooner I can squash these rising urges that are happy to remind me that it’s been far too long since Marshall and I made love.
Marshall heaves a heavy sigh before lifting his hands to stroke my hips in an altogether distracting way. “Are you sure we can’t talk later?”
After shifting my gaze to his chin, it’s my turn to sigh. “I don’t really want to talk now, never mind later.”
“Eyes up here,” Marshall orders.
I jerk my gaze back to his. “You know I can’t, you know it makes me-”
“Uncomfortable. Yes. But it shouldn’t. With Talis and Dayne, I get it because they’re alphas, but I’m not. And you didn’t do it this often before.”
I frown at him. “Yes, I have. I’ve always-”
“No. You haven’t. You started doing it more when the situation with Owen started getting fucked up enough that none of us were comfortable with you staying at the pack house anymore.”
I open my mouth to tell him he’s wrong, but it seems Marshall isn’t finished yet.
He glares up at me-no, not at me, at the memory of our last alpha, I guess. “You started hiding your gaze from everyone then. Even me. I didn’t pick up how bad things got at first because I was trying to get control of my wolf and I thought that was making you look away. Now I know I was wrong, and I should’ve said something long before it got this bad.”
As the urge to look away increases, I lower my head, but Marshall lifts a hand to my chin and brings my gaze right back to his.
“What does it feel like,” he murmurs, “to meet my eyes for a long time? Not just mine, but the others in the pack as well. Not Talis or Dayne.”
I consider his question because what he’s saying isn’t completely out of the realm of possibility. “Uncomfortable.”
He nods for me to continue.
I think about the way I’m feeling now, and how I always feel when meeting someone’s eyes for too long. “Exposed. Like they-like you can see parts of me I don’t want you to see.”
“That’s being human, jellybean.”
I shake my head. “No. It’s more than that. It has to be more than that.”
“And it is. You hide too much, Jenna. You were always at the back of the room while everyone was talking. You were always the quiet one, always sketching, and then drawing on your tablet, and then busy with work. You stayed up for two nights packing orders instead of telling us you needed help, and even then, we had to push you into letting us help you. You hide from the world. Yes, the situation with Owen made it worse, but you’ve always been that way and I think we should’ve-I should’ve challenged you on it.”
I feel annoyance rise as I once again try and fail to break our gaze. “You’re making a lot of assumptions about me.”
His hand slides up my back and tangles in my hair before he draws me down for a kiss that, despite my intention not to return, I can’t stop myself doing just that.
After several long seconds, he breaks the kiss and meets my eyes. “I don’t have to make assumptions. I know you. I always have. Now, let’s talk about your assumptions about me.”
I frown at him. “What assumptions?”
He raises an eyebrow. “That I’m some hero who would want to save someone else.”
“Marshall, you’re third, of course you’d want-”
“No. You’re wrong. I don’t have any interest in saving anyone but you.” He breaks our gaze to glance at the fireplace. “Not that you need as much saving as you think you do.”
“But… Talis. You wanted to save her. You were angry when you had to stay.”
“Dayne, Luka, and the others had everything well in hand. They didn’t need me. What I was, was fucking furious at Dayne’s stupidity at having me send some pointless note to Glynn Merrick that would only set him off, which was the last thing that needed to happen when he had Talis in his grasp.”
I stare at him in silence for several seconds. “What?”
His frustration smooths away from his face and his voice gentles. “Is that what you thought, jellybean? That you were keeping me from saving Talis, and that I didn’t want to be with you?”
My eyes burn with the threat of tears, and I shift my gaze away. Marshall stops me. “Jenna?”
“Please stop doing that now. You might have a point about the eye contact, but I think we’ve been staring at each other for altogether too long for it to be natural. For anyone.”
Marshall barks out a laugh and releases my chin to draw me down for another kiss. “You’re probably right.”
Instead of rising, I rest my head on his shoulder, trying to be careful of his injury. When he wraps his arms around me with a contented sigh, I relax a little, knowing I can’t be hurting him by lying this way.
“What if Hallee or Regan needs help?” I ask in a quiet voice several minutes later.
“Then we will all pull together and save them.”
“Not me. I’ll be here and you’ll have to stay and watch me. As always.”
“Baby, you say that like you don’t have a voice.”
“Dayne would say no. I remember what he said to Luka about going after Glynn Merrick. He wouldn’t want me anywhere near any danger.”
“Jenna, sit up for a second, I want to look you in the eye for this.”
I sit up.
He gazes up at me steadily. “Which part of the submissive manual does it say you have to do everything an alpha or any dominant wolf says without ever complaining?”
“There isn’t one.”
“So quit acting like there is, jellybean. You have thoughts and opinions like everyone. You will disagree with some decisions others make, and that’s okay. You’re allowed to do that. I mean, you’ve heard some of the arguments I’ve gotten in with Dayne, and he hasn’t killed me for it, has he?”
I shake my head because, while their fights have never descended into actual physical violence, it’s gotten heated enough that Luka has sometimes had to intervene.
“Being submissive just makes you the least aggressive and argumentative wolf in the pack.” He pauses. “Though, I’m not so convinced about that last one.”
A reluctant smile surfaces. “You’re lucky I love you so much, Marshall.”
“I know,” he agrees happily. “Now. Have I convinced you not to leave?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? And here I thought I was at my charming best.”
“You were, but I’m hungry now,” I admit, “so maybe I’ll agree after we’ve eaten.”
He releases me so quickly that I can’t help but laugh. “Then what are you waiting for? Get that spam. If you don’t want to heat it up, that’s cool. I can handle cold spam if you can.”
Smiling, I get up so I can heat the spam, baked beans, and whatever is in the other cans for lunch or dinner. If I can ever work out what time it is.