Saving Briar

Briar gasped as Torin reached down and scooped her up into his arms, carrying her across the threshold of the four bedroom house he’d rented for them to stay in for three days before they headed back to Alaska. Only three hours had passed since Torin had walked into the master bedroom of the suite that they were staying in and realized that Briar was free, but in that time he had seemed determined to do whatever he could to solve each and every problem in her life.

After a short discussion, he had called a few friends and asked that they help move Briar’s mother and sister to his house. It wasn’t going to be a permanent move, but both he and Briar wanted them out of that pack as soon as possible. He’d told the four men who had agreed to make the trip with a moving truck that he would call them back after Briar had spoken to her mother, but he had wanted to make sure that everything was set up and ready to go before he made that call.

He’d also insisted that they move out of the suite they had been in, inside the Rose Industries hotel, and had moved to a house that he had rented a few miles away. Briar had happily agreed, glad to put as much distance as she could between herself and her former mate. He was clearly crushed by the severing of their tie, and while Briar knew that she didn’t have anything to feel guilty about, every time she was forced to walk by Theon, who sat, trying to figure out how to help Harlow, she felt a creeping guilt that he was in pain, and that her sister’s sacrifice compounded his suffering. And Harlow’s future, which she’d now learned about through Oaklyn, was not something that she was okay with at all.

Briar wasn’t sure why she hadn’t been affected the same way Theon had been. She’d expected to be entirely crushed, body and soul, when the rejection was finally complete. Instead it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She had never felt better in her entire life, and having discovered that she’d already met her second chance mate, and that he was everything she’d imagined a mate should be, was the icing on the cake.

Briar had tried to call her mom and sister from Torin’s phone, finally settling on leaving a message on the machine at their house. Her mom had had a cell phone when her dad had been alive, but it had stopped working after a particularly bad fall a year after he passed away, and they hadn’t been able to replace it. After that the family had relied entirely on the old land line in the living room, with its large clunky buttons and a built-in answering machine. As Briar left a message she found herself thankful that the thing still worked. It wasn’t as if they got many, or really any, calls on it, since neither Briar, nor her sister, and especially not her mother, had never really managed to have any sort of a social life as the pack’s lowest ranking members.

Torin carried Briar into the luxurious living room and went to set her down before changing his mind.

“Can I take you up to the bedroom?” It was the first time that Torin had sounded nervous since she’d met him, and she tilted her head back so that she could easily smile up at him and see his eyes.

“Yes.” Her voice was soft and sweet, just like the beautiful smile that she aimed his way. “I would love that.”

“They said that the master bedroom is upstairs.” He walked easily up the stairs, acting as if she weighed nothing at all as he held her easily against his chest.

“Why did you get a place with four bedrooms? It’s just us?” Her voice was muffled as she nestled her head against his shoulder, feeling more content than she ever had at any time in her entire life.

“Because this was the most beautiful house on the rental site that I found, and I wanted the next few days to be special. Memorable.”

“I think we can pretty much guarantee that they will be.” She said the words and then felt her cheeks grow warm as the edges of his lips curved upward into a smile.

“I won’t pressure you, Wolfling. We can take this at your pace. I know that you’ve been through a lot. And yes, obviously I want you. I wanted you back at the cabin, but I couldn’t believe that I would be good for you. And now that we truly know how right we are for each other and it has been confirmed by that Goddess of yours, I still want to wait until you’re entirely sure that this is what you want to do.”

He pushed open a door and walked into an enormous bedroom. The bed in the center of the room must have been custom made, because it was the largest bed Briar had ever seen. Everything was soft and white and Briar felt a giggle escape her lips when the first thought that popped into her head was that she was glad that she wasn’t the one who had to clean this place. Torin glanced down at her and it was obvious that he thought the giggle was from nerves rather than the random thoughts that were going through her head.

“We don’t have-”

“You already said that.” He sat down with her on the bed, finally settling her next to him. Instead of sitting up though, Briar stretched out, feeling completely relaxed and safe with Torin by her side. “And I know that you would wait. But I don’t want to. You’re it for me. The man I didn’t know I’d ever find. I didn’t think my story was going to have any sort of happy ending and even if it did, I couldn’t have imagined that it would be this perfect, ending up with my handsome rescuer, the man who saved my life not once but twice now.”

“You would have survived back there. It would have killed me knowing where you were after I didn’t go after you the night that you left, but you would have made it. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, Briar.” She wasn’t sure why, but hearing her name on his lips was one of the sexiest things she’d ever heard.

“Maybe my body would have made it, but I don’t know if my soul would have. I mean, Brielle tried to make it sound like it would be amazing, but I was only doing it so that I could get my sister and mother out of that pack. And now you’re giving me that too. I’ve never felt safe before, the way I feel when I’m with you. Even when my dad was alive. I felt safer, but not entirely safe. Because our pack always felt...” her voice trailed off for a second, before she took a deep breath and continued. “It never felt right.”

Briar had looked down at her hands as she spoke, but now she looked up at Torin and saw that his forehead was furrowed, a frown turning down the corners of his mouth.

“I’m so sorry, Love. In the middle of seeing you and realizing what you are to me, I forgot to tell you something that could hurt you.”

“Nothing could change what we are, Torin. You’re mine.” Briar’s voice was surprisingly fierce and he almost smiled, before he remembered what it was that he had to tell her.

“I know you know some of what happened with my first mate. That she was killed. I never knew exactly what pack did it. Honestly, I didn’t have much experience with wolf packs. I can tell you that when I came upon the hunting party, Aria was alive, but barely. I went half mad. But I know that I killed at least a couple men, if not more. I knew for certain on that day that I had killed the Alpha and at least one other man who tried to save him.”

Briar’s forehead wrinkled and she bit her lower lip, not quite understanding what it was that Torin was trying to tell her. She knew that his mate’s death had been horrible. But she wasn’t sure how that could hurt her, apart from the fact that it hurt her to know that he had endured so much pain.

“It was your pack. Theon was the one who figured it out. I killed your former Alpha. And that also means-” he took a deep breath, and tried to force himself to say the words, but he felt as if they were stuck in his throat.

Torin knew though, even before she said anything, the second that Briar realized what it was that he was trying to say. Of course she would know that her father had died on the same camping trip as her former Alpha. But it didn’t soften the pain that slashed through his heart when she opened her mouth and finished what it was he had wanted to say.

“You killed my father.”

He could only nod and wait to see if she would be able to forgive him for what he had done long before they had ever met.