My first thought after following Kier into our cabin is that he’s been busy, and my second, after my stomach growls, is that I’m still hungry.
“Where did all the food come from?” I ask, eyeing the containers of food spread out on the middle of the bed.
Kier doesn’t respond, just tugs me over to the bed and points to one side. After kicking my boots off, I climb on one side of the bed while he seats himself on the other.
I’ve always loved a good brunch, and this one comes with all of my favorites.
There are eggs, pancakes, bacon, steak, and waffles, along with fresh fruit and coffee set on the bedside table that smells even better than the one Jaxon served up for breakfast.
When Kier hands me a plate, neither of us is shy about heaping our plates full.
For several minutes, we abandon conversation to eat in silence. Since both of us didn’t touch breakfast, it doesn’t take us long to eat our way through everything.
Once our plates are empty, Kier rises. After collecting all the dishes and containers, he takes them over to the kitchenette before speaking.
“I still have a couple of friends here,” he admits as he washes the dishes and leaves them to dry on the rack beside the sink, while I sit nursing my coffee.
“Friends? In this place?” There’s no hiding the disbelief in my voice.
Kier is smiling faintly as he rejoins me on the bed, sitting with his legs stretched out in front of him. “It seems impossible that there is even one decent person in this place, but there is. Somehow.”
I give him a long look. “More than one. You’re not too bad.”
He glances at me before retrieving his coffee from the nightstand and taking a sip. “You shouldn’t wander around here, Hallee. It’s not-”
“Safe. I know.” I shake my head. “I don’t think I believed you before.”
Although I lower my gaze to the mug I have resting on my crossed legs, I can feel Kier’s gaze on the side of my face. “Jaxon didn’t-”
Again I interrupt him. “No. No, he didn’t do anything. I think I met Jackson and Jeremy’s mom. Jaxon with an X’s too. She was… not pleasant.” As we drink our coffee, I spend the next few minutes filling him in on my brief encounter with her.
“There’s more bad than good in this pack.”
I lift my head so I can meet his eyes. “There’s no excuse for that level of coldness. She didn’t care that you were here to kill him or that you’d killed his brother. She didn’t care about anything. Is everyone here like that?”
“Not everyone. Most are worse. A lot worse.”
I frown. “But she’s their mother. How could she not care? I mean, if my child…” My voice trails off because if there’s ever anything a woman knows not to bring up when talking to a guy who’s already a commitment-phobe, it’s the subject of kids. “Uh, I meant if I had a dog, I would care if someone killed it or it… you know, ran off or something.” Hastily I lift my mug to my lips.
Kier raises his eyebrow, amusement stirring in his eyes. “A dog, huh?”
I nod vigorously. So vigorously that I splash coffee on my leg. “Anyway. What happened to her mate? The Stones don’t look enough like Jaxon, so I’m guessing they had different fathers?”
Kier shrugs. “Probably punished for some reason. The last alpha killed her first, I remember that. The second? Maybe he got into a fight and didn’t survive it. It happens a lot in this pack. At least it did when I was here.”
“But I’m sure Regan said the Stones forced Jeremy and Jackson out because they were alphas?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it was something else. Could’ve just been the alpha was pissed that day and didn’t want to deal with any kids. Their mother would’ve soon fallen in line and pushed them out.”
I stare at him. “So the alpha told her to get rid of her kids and she just agreed?”
Kier gazes at me for a long time. “Like I said, there’s more bad than good in this pack. A lot more.”
Shaking my head, I force myself to change the subject. “And how long ago were you last here?” I ask, before immediately holding my breath because, in all the time that Kier and I have known each other, I’ve tried to avoid asking questions about his past. After the second time he changed the subject, I guessed it was something he didn’t want to talk about.
He studies me over the rim of his mug for several seconds before shifting his gaze to the window. I try to stifle my disappointment that once again, he’s not letting me in.
“Four years,” he says, surprising the hell out of me.
“But you’ve only been in Hardin for three.”
He nods, his gaze still fixed on the window. “I had to decompress after leaving here.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, “I’d hit Vegas or Atlantic City and go crazy if it were me. The only thing that’d pass my lips would be booze. For a week.” I picture myself spending years sitting around in old pj’s watching crappy daytime TV with Jaxon as my alpha. “No, a month. At least.”
Kier barks out a laugh. “Yeah, something like that.”
After another moment of silence, Kier surprises me again by putting his mug aside and stretching out onto his back. “You done with your coffee?”
I take one look at his relaxed position and down the contents of my mug. “I am now.”
After placing it on the nightstand, I lie beside Kier with my head rested on his shoulder, and my arm wrapped around his waist. “Does this mean you’re glad I’m here?”
“What gave you that impression?” he growls as he hauls me even closer.
“No reason.”
When I feel his chest shaking, I guess he must be silently laughing at me.
In the quiet, feeling lazy after such a large meal, I yawn. “Kier?”
“Go to sleep. You sound tired.”
“I don’t sound tired,” I correct him as I stifle another yawn. “I could just find you boring.”
He snorts. “Sleep. It’s not like we have anything to do here until Jaxon works himself up to this challenge, that or finds some way out of it.”
“But why is he even going through with it? Why not just have Frankie and his heavies do away with us and then he can go back to playing despot.”
“If I’d challenged him quietly, he might have. But I’m sure the whole pack knows about it now since you made a big song and dance about it. If he doesn’t go through with it, everyone would know his failure to step up would be because of fear-which is how Jaxon holds this pack together. The moment the pack stops fearing him, his position is under serious threat. So, if he doesn’t offer up the cake, he will be served as cake.”
I choke back a laugh at Kier’s mention of cake. “Everyone loves cake as much as they love a good fight. It was a good metaphor.”
Kier nods. “Everyone does. So, while I doubt Jaxon has many friends in this pack, I’m sure he has more than a few enemies who wouldn’t turn down the chance to play alpha.”
“Play alpha?”
“No one has ever wanted to put the work in making this pack work. Anyone comes even close to fixing the many, many problems here, and we find their dead body the next morning.”
I’m silent for a beat. “And is that why you left? Because of what would happen if you tried to change things for the better?”
He sighs. “No, Hallee, I left because there’s no changing this pack. It has to be ripped apart. All of it. It has to be rebuilt from the bottom up and I don’t care-I’ve never cared-enough about it to be the one to put the work in.”
“But you challenged the old alpha, you-”
“The challenge had nothing to do with my desire to be alpha.”
It’s personal then. It has to be.
“And now? What happens now?” But this isn’t the question I want to know the answer to the most. I want to know what drove him to challenge the old alpha if not to lead.
“After the challenge between me and Jaxon?”
“Yeah.”
“It might not even happen.”
“But it might.” And he might find himself in the position he’s admitted he doesn’t want. To be alpha. That or face down a pack who won’t be happy with him once again killing the alpha and taking off instead of leading it. He’s admitted that Jaxon has friends, so there’d be no stopping them from coming after him in Hardin.
I feel him nod. “It might. Until it does, there’s little for us to do here.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” I drawl. “I’m sure I could think of one or two ways to pass the time.”
Kier sighs. “Sleep, Hallee.”
“Aren’t you even going to ask if I’m wearing panties?”
“Since you don’t have them drying in the bathroom, I’m going to take a stab in the dark that you are.”
“But don’t you want to know if they’re wet?” I ask innocently.
I feel him hardening against my thigh. “No, I don’t.”
“Are you sure because-”
Kier grips my chin and lifts my head before pressing his lips against mine.
Since kissing and talking are impossible to do together, I shut up and kiss him back. It’s a kiss that goes on long enough that I forget about my attempt to convince him to turn an afternoon nap into something a little more exciting.
Minutes later, he eases his head away. My eyes flutter open.
His eyes are full of amusement. “Stop trying to drive me crazy and sleep.”
I nod.
As if recognizing how much his kiss has messed with my ability to use my words, he smiles before tugging me close.
This time I don’t argue about not being tired. I close my eyes and take advantage of me and Kier sharing a bed.
Although it’s not the most comfortable bed in the world, it’s a bed, and he’s holding me, so I’m not going to complain about getting something I’ve wanted since I first met him.