“Are you going to reject me, Tanya?” he asked boldly. “Am I going to have to grovel at your feet in front of the entire pack? Because I will. I’ll do it for as long as it takes.”
She swallowed and gripped Lisa’s journal tighter in her hands. “Why would you do that? We’re still in the beginning stages of this whole thing.” Not that she had changed her mind. She’d meant what she told him. She wasn’t going to walk away without trying.
He chuckled, but it didn’t sound like he was amused. “I know you’ve survived living with a tyrannical dick and somehow managed to remain a tender, caring person. I know you’re gracious and kind because you’re talking to me right now instead of asking one of your pack mates or your father to kill me. I know you care deeply for those you’ve claimed as yours. I’ve felt the love you have for Lisa, and I will be a greedy bastard and tell you now that I want all your love focused on me. I want to be on the receiving end of that love. I know enough, Tanya, to know that the Great Luna gave me something precious when she gave me you. I will protect it and you with all that I am.”
“Damn.” Tanya breathed out.
“You okay, T?” Daniel asked from the driver’s seat.
She coughed and nearly dropped the journal, caught off guard by his voice. Then she cleared her throat. “Yep.” She nodded. “I’m good. Totally good. Nothing but good going on.”
“Okay, now you’re just being weird,” Trevor said.
She felt his gaze on her, but she didn’t acknowledge them. Instead, Tanya turned to look out the window, her eyes staring up at the sky, wondering if Dillon was looking at the same sky.
“Yes,” he said softly. “I’m laying outside. My wolf is restless now that he knows you’re on your way to us.”
“I’m on my way home,” she corrected, even though her stupid heart did a little flip at his possessive words. Female Canis lupus got stupidly hot by the possessiveness of their true mates. She’d seen it happen to the best of them. Tanya didn’t think she’d be one of those females. She inwardly rolled her eyes and sighed. “Idiot,” she muttered.
“Exactly,” Dillon continued. “You’re on your way to me. My home is you and vice versa. Always.”
Okay. She pressed a hand to her chest over her pounding heart. She could practically hear Lisa tell her to jump on that bronco and ride it into the sunset. She quickly shoved that thought aside, hoping Dillon hadn’t picked up on it. If he did, he didn’t let on—a fact for which she was grateful.
“Can I ask you a question?” she ventured, not really sure if she wanted to open this door now, but she felt like she needed to get this out before they met again, face to face. She didn’t want to start their mating with secrets, no matter how painful. It might be tough, but Tanya would have to keep reading Lisa’s journal over and over and remember the Great Luna’s words.
“Anything,” he said without hesitation. She felt his worry, but also his resolve.
“Are you worried I won’t compare to her?” As soon as she thought the words, Tanya wanted to take them back. How could she ask something to which she didn’t really want to know the answer? She closed her eyes as she felt fingertips run across her face.
“There is nothing to compare, Tanya,” he said firmly. “No matter what Lilly was, she’s not my true mate. She was not created for me and me alone. She will never complete me. She will never tame my wolf. She will not stop the darkness from spreading, and she will never have my devotion the way you do.” Tanya heard what sounded like air being blown out, and she could practically see him letting out a burst of air. “That probably sounds cruel regarding her, but I don’t mean it that way. I don’t know that words will ever be adequate, love. I will show you with my actions what you are to me and what you mean to me. That is all I can do. I pray it will be enough so that you never feel you’re lacking in any way.”
Tanya wiped away a tear as she felt the sincerity in his voice. The mate bond was a tremendous thing because it was nearly impossible to lie to one another. Lies had smells, tastes, and even felt wrong on the inside. Their wolves could pick up on deceit in one another. And Tanya’s beast would put their mate in his place if he did lie to them. Her heart did actually go out to Lilly. It couldn’t have been easy to be with a man that had made it clear that she would never have him, not fully. Why she would allow herself to endure that, Tanya couldn’t understand.
“Thank you,” she finally responded. “I’ll probably make you repeat all of that on a regular basis. You might want to memorize it.” She wasn’t joking. “How is everything with my father and the pack?”
“Odd.” She could feel frustration suddenly radiating in him. “Why does your father weaken his pack by not allowing them to be what they are? He won’t let them hunt properly. He’s not honest with them. He belittles them. And he treats Penelope like she’s a stain on the pack simply because she’s a dormant. I don’t understand him, Tanya. What kind of alpha acts that way?”
Tanya’s heart hurt at the description he painted. Not that it was incorrect. It was completely accurate, but she found that she was embarrassed for her mate to see what kind of pack she’d grown up in. And what kind of man her father was.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed,” he assured her. “I don’t hold your father’s deeds against you. Tanya, you’re not responsible for him. He’s a grown-ass man who knows better. How does your mother deal with him?”
Tanya’s lips turned up at the thought of her mother. “My mother is the complete opposite of my father. She has a ridiculous amount of grace and love for people, regardless of all their stupidity and poor choices.”
Dillon’s humor came through the bond. “So that’s where you get it from?”
“I don’t know about that.” Tanya shook her head. “I have a bit of my father’s temper.” That was one thing Tanya liked least about herself. At times, she let her emotions get the better of her. “But the older I’ve gotten, and the more I’ve learned about my father and the type of man he is, the less I want to be like him in every way.”
“I’ve asked some of the males why they don’t challenge him.”
Tanya sat up so abruptly that she nearly dropped the journal. She was suddenly very alert. “You have to be careful, Dillon,” she warned. “If it gets back to my father that you’ve said something so mutinous, he won’t hesitate to kill you. Even if you are my mate. He will see you as a threat.”
“He’s power hungry. It’s made him very dangerous and has made the Colorado pack unsafe. His warriors don’t know how to fight.”
“What?” She frowned. Tanya had sparred with some of the males, including the ones in the van with her currently. “They are good fighters.”
“No offense, love, but I could take multiples on at once and not break a sweat.” He didn’t sound like he was bragging, merely stating a fact. “He’s so afraid of one of his own being able to take him out that he purposefully keeps them weak. If this pack were attacked by vampires today, it would be destroyed.”
Tanya’s mind immediately jumped to the fight that Dillon had been in the other day. He and three others of her pack had been attacked by vampires on pack land. “Do you think that will happen?” She looked up at the back of Daniel’s head and spoke out loud. “Drive faster, Daniel.”
