Chapter 8 Ridge

• Ridge
• It takes a lot of fucking willpower to leave that door open.
• What I really want to do is slam it shut and barricade it closed so that the woman in my bedroom can’t leave. Just because I told her she was free to go doesn’t mean I want her to. I want to keep her right here with me, where I know some jackass isn’t putting out cigarettes on her perfect skin.
• What the fuck is wrong with me?
• The front door slams shut behind me as I step out of the cabin, and I shove my hands in my pockets as I stride down the front walk to the packed-dirt road. I don’t know why I want so fucking much for Sable to stay with me. She’s nobody to me. Some chick I found half-dead in a ravine, and to hear my brother bitch about it, I should have left her there.
• But as I walk away from my cabin, the thought that she might actually leave while I’m gone makes me sick to my stomach.
• For now, though, this council meeting is a lot more pressing than keeping Sable in my bed. If Lawson caught a whiff of me putting a woman before my duties to the pack, he’d use it as a reason to wrest the pack out from under my control.
• Not that he’d need a lot of reason to want to try.
• Since I won out over him in the fight for alpha status, he’s been waiting for his chance to prove he’s smarter, stronger, and better. To prove that my winning was some kind of fluke.
• The escalation of witch violence in recent weeks has left all three packs in a constant state of vigilance and worry. Just last week, the East Pack lost three wolves in a coordinated attack that decimated a couple acres of their territory and left them nothing to bury but pieces. It’s more imperative than ever that we band together to defeat the witch threat, which means I’ve got to get my head in the game and forget about Sable. For the next hour, at least.
• Beyond that? I’m not sure it’ll be possible.
• I hear a crunch of feet behind me before Grady O’Connell steps into view beside me, falling into step with my long strides. Grady reminds me of Mr. Clean, with a bald head that reflects the sunlight and deeply tanned skin. He’s as big as the cleaning mascot, too, six-foot-four at least with muscles that are at odds with his beer habit. He has one hand up to shield his eyes from the sun, and the other wrapped around a Coors Light that’s condensing in the late morning warmth.
• “Ridge.” He grins at me, a knowing smirk that lets me know he probably saw the entire fucking debacle with Sable earlier. “You wanna talk about it?”
• “Fuck off,” I growl, but I smile anyway. Grady’s a nice guy—two decades older than me and once a good friend of my father’s. He’s a little on the eccentric side, but he’s a good man who’s never once questioned my authority since I won alpha status after my father’s death five years ago.
• “Never figured you for the kinda man who’d have to drag a woman home. She’s cute though,” Grady goes on, clucking his teeth as if to punctuate his statement. “Nice ass.”
• I shoot a glare in his direction, my head turning toward him sharply. I know he’s kidding. He’s a happily mated man, and he’s more interested in giving me shit than in checking out a girl’s ass.
• Still, it doesn’t change the warning in my tone. “Keep your paws off her.”
• He laughs. “Oh, I plan to. You know we’ve got some eligible bachelorettes of our own though, right? You don’t have to go pickin’ up strange women and bringin’ them back—”
• I pause and kick a cloud of dirt in his direction, earning a laugh in return. “Thought I told you to fuck off?”
• “All right, all right,” he says, holding up both hands in surrender. Then his smile fades. “But in all seriousness, I wanted to let you know I found evidence of campfires out on the Rim this morning during patrol.”
• “Shit.” I stop, gravel shifting beneath my boots as I turn to face him. “New?”
• “Fresh,” Grady says grimly. “Still smoking.”
• “They’re getting braver.”
• “Or stupider,” he points out.
• “Either way, that’s the closest they’ve come on our lands in a while.” I stare off at the trees, at the sun riding high over the mountains. What would my father have done if he’d lived long enough to see the witches grow this bold in their war on us? “What are our options here?” I say under my breath, avoiding Grady’s concerned gaze. “We’re fighting an entire race of supernatural beings that wants to eradicate us because we’re ‘aberrations’ of magic.”
• “In their opinion,” the older man grumbles.
• “In their opinion alone,” I agree. “So what do we do? Wipe them out before they can wipe us out? Try to bridge the gap? Prove to them that the fact we use magic to shift doesn’t make us anything less than them?”
• Grady knocks back a swig of his Coors before he says, “You can’t use logic with people who’re talking genocide. The only thing you can do is fight fire with fire.”
• “Magic with magic.” I sigh and look back at the old man. “Nice talk. Now fuck off.”
• “You’ve always been so eloquent. You didn’t get that from your dad,” Grady chuckles. Then he gives me a clap on the shoulder and heads off toward home.
• The council meets in the largest building in town—a long, low, corrugated metal barn that’s blisteringly hot in summer and icy in winter.
• Several members of the East Pack are milling around outside the barn with a few of my own wolves, and they all greet me with brief nods before continuing their conversations. Each of the packs send their alpha plus a handful of council members to each meeting, and they’re typically familiar faces—like Archer, the quiet golden boy of the East Pack who’s been standing in for his ailing father, the alpha. Our gazes meet, and I acknowledge him with a polite nod but keep walking.
• I’m barely through the door into the dim interior before Amora appears from the shadows and latches on to my arm, dragging me right back outside. You wouldn’t know it by looking at her long, lean figure, but the woman’s got a grip like a fucking vise.
• The sunlight reflects off a hard glint in her vivid green eyes as she releases me and hisses quietly, “All right, what the fuck is going on? Lawson damn near busted down your door, and now he’s telling anybody who’ll listen that you have a witch holed up in your house.”
• Amora’s been my closest friend and confidante since we were kids, and even more so since I took over the pack. She balances the rage inside of me, dishing out her no-nonsense logic wh en I need it most.
• I shake my arm free of her clutches and snort. “A witch? Really?”
• Her long, dark ponytail swishes as she shrugs. “That’s what he’s saying. Most of us don’t believe him, but you know he has his fanboys.”
• “She’s not a witch.” A growl rumbles in my chest, my gaze darting around the lawn as if Lawson might be standing close enough for me to shove my fist through his face. “We’d smell it.”
• “Would we?” Amora asks simply. “We don’t really have a precedent for that, do we? If we could scent the magic in them, it would make defending against them a hell of a lot easier.”
• “She’s not,” I insist.
• Amora crosses her arms and peers down her nose at me in a look so reminiscent of our childhood it almost makes me laugh. “How about you just tell me where she came from, and we’ll go from there?”
• “I found her at the bottom of Devil’s Ditch. Unconscious.”
• Her eyebrows shoot up. “What’s her story?”
• “I don’t know!” I snap, throwing my hands in the air. “I can’t get a fucking moment alone with her to ask!”
• Some of the East Pack members are staring at me, their attention drawn by my outburst. Amora glances at them, then latches on to my elbow and drags me around the edge of the barn, out of sight. She lets me go with a little shove of irritation. “Would you chill? You’re acting like a crazy person.”
• I open my mouth, ready to go on the defensive, then snap my jaws shut with an audible click of my teeth and rub away the bruising she’s left on my arm. Amora’s right. And to be honest, I feel like a fucking crazy person too. Ever since I dragged Sable home, I don’t know what’s been going on with me. Maybe I’m hiding it well from everyone else—even from myself—but I’ve never been able to hide anything from Amora.
• “Ridge, listen to me.” My friend steeples her fingers in front of her face as if she’s praying and waits until I’ve given her my undivided attention. “You’re violating the packs’ treaty by allowing an unsanctioned being to reside in your house.”
• I clench my jaw at the unwelcome reminder and nod once. I’m lucky Grady’s an easygoing old fart, or he would’ve been on my ass for letting in an outsider instead of just giving me shit about my skills with women.
• “Our treaty declares that all three packs have agreed to close ourselves off from newcomers,” Amora goes on.
• “Like I don’t fucking know?” I grunt.
• “Well, clearly, you don’t.” Amora arches a brow, pointing in the direction of my cabin. “Because there’s an unsanctioned female on your couch.”
• I almost correct her with, In my bed, actually, but that seems like it would open a whole new can of fucking worms. I’ve had enough drama in the last twenty-four hours to last me for the rest of my damn life.
• “Trust is in short supply lately,” Amora says, oblivious to my inner thoughts. Thank God. “Half the pack already thinks you’ve gone off the deep end and put us in danger. What happens when the other packs find out? You think Trystan is gonna stand for this? Or even Archer?”
• I know she’s right, but the reminder is frustrating as fuck. Treaty be damned. I can’t just kick Sable out of my house. Not in the state she’s in. But even more than that—I have no fucking clue why, but I can’t let her go.
• “I just… need a minute,” I growl in a low voice. “A day, some time to figure out why she was abandoned, beat to shit, in the middle of our territory.”
• “Maybe because she’s a plant?” Amora suggests. “Put there by the witches to infiltrate our pack?”
• My jaw clenches, and so do my fists.
• “She’s not. We don’t have time to stand here and argue. We have a meeting.”
• I stalk away before Amora can say anything else. I hate how often our conversations end in me walking away because I don’t like what her logic has to say. She’s never sugarcoated her opinions for me or been anything but blunt and honest—and the truth is, I’m a better man because of the times I listened to her.
• But this…
• What if she’s right?
• Yes, Sable has clearly been the victim of abuse. Nobody can fake all those scars that look as if they span at least a decade’s worth of time. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t chosen explicitly by the witches to infiltrate our pack. My gut knows it’s not true—I can look in the girl’s haunted gray-blue eyes and know there’s no malice there, and there’s definitely no magic.
• Regardless, Amora has planted a worry I wish I didn’t have to carry.
• Then again, maybe it won’t even have a chance to be an issue. I told the golden-haired angel she wasn’t my prisoner. That she was free to leave if she chose.
• As I walk into the dark interior of the council building, I rub the ache in my chest and wonder if Sable’s already gone.