Page 67 of Run Free

“I’m fine. He just makes me so mad sometimes. So freaking stubborn!” I mumbled.

“I’m stubborn?” Gage asked. “That’s rich coming from you. You’re a control freak, Clara, and all I want to do is protect you.”

To his benefit, I knew I was stressing him out, yet he didn’t back down or run away this time. I liked things my way and wasn’t good at compromising. Hadn’t I made a conscious decision to work on that?

“Do you two fight like this often?” Ruby asked.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Gage said at the same time.

“When was the last time you two had sex?” Lily asked. Ruby punched her in the arm and shot her a look. Normally Ruby would have been all over that jumping in to instigate things, so I knew she was really worried about me. “What? I’m just saying. That much passion between two people needs an outlet.”

Ruby snorted. “You call that passion?”

Gage now stood behind me as I faced down my sisters. He rubbed his hands up and down my arms, causing familiar goosebumps. I knew Lily had some validity to her point, but I wasn’t going to concede to that either.

“I’ve never seen you like this before, Clara. Your cheeks are flushed. You’re yelling. You’re always so quiet. I’m worried about you,” Ruby continued.

I sighed. “Ruby, I’m fine. You just walked in at a bad time,” I tried to assure her.

The truth was, I liked fighting with Gage. I loved it even. I had always bit my tongue and stayed quiet around my family, never wanting to cause problems. It wasn’t until I started working for Jacob that I began to overcome that.

I was passionate about my patients and when I needed something or got pushback, I stood firmly. It had empowered me in so many ways to champion on the behalf of others, where I would never have stood up for myself. Now, I was passionate about my mate and I couldn’t seem to turn that emotional switch off. It made me do and say things to him that I would never dare with anyone else.

It felt good to yell and voice my frustrations. I did understand his concerns, but I felt righteous in my firm stance against what he was asking me to do. I could not just sit by or leave now that I knew Thomas was in trouble. As much as Gage wanted to protect me from anything bad that was going to happen, I wanted to protect Thomas as much as I could with my medical knowledge. It left us at a stubborn standstill, which Lily and Ruby had unfortunately just walked in on.

There was an awkward silence between us and hanging over the room.

“Um, what are you guys doing here?” I finally asked.

“She knows,” Lily sighed, flopping down on the couch. “It’s like she has a sixth sense for trouble and Peyton cracked under pressure and told her everything.”

“I can’t believe any of you would hide this from me. This is big,” Ruby said.

“And Thomas got a call from Elizabeth this morning. Luke Larken got in touch with her to warn her of an attack on Thomas’s life. He said the details were flimsy at best, but they were going to strike at night after the Pack meeting this Wednesday night,” Lily filled us in.

“That’s a trap for this Luke guy,” Gage said. “I warned Thomas about that, but it seems really odd it would come after the actual attempt.”

“That’s what I said,” Lily agreed.

Gage went stiff beside me. “We have to have it wrong. It can’t be Tuesday then, it has to be Thursday night for the real attack.”

“We definitely need a few contingency plans in place, but this does seem weird,” I agreed.

“How did we even get this information?” Ruby asked. “That wasn’t really clear when they were filling me in.

“I overheard them while out on a run,” Gage said.

“And you’re certain they didn’t see you and feed you misinformation?” Ruby questioned.

“I don’t think that was possible, but if Clara’s insistent on staying in town and helping, then we need multiple contingency plans. I will not lose my mate over this. I’m sorry, Lily. Thomas is a great Alpha, I like him immensely, but my first priority is protecting Clara.”

I started to protest, but he put up a hand to stop me.

“We can continue to argue till we’re blue in the face, but I will not back down about this, angel. I will not let you get caught up in the middle of an assassination attempt. I can’t lose you,” he said, sounding so vulnerable, my stubborn armor cracked.

I hugged him. “Fine, we’ll do it your way. . . for the most part. But I will be here helping. Thomas needs me and I can’t abandon him, hoping it will all work out. That’s not who I am, and you know it.”

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