Page 56 of A Prime's Passion (The Pretern Wars 1)

Chapter Sixteen

“I’m just trying tofigure out how we should handle the next few days,” he said and it wasn’t a lie, but the specific truth wasn’t one he wanted to share. Yet. “But I can’t figure out what to say unless I know if you’re planning to stay or leave.”

Stay or leave. It seemed like such a simple choice when it came down to that.

“This isn’t my home, Niko. It never has been.”

There was a sting along her senses that told her he didn’t like her words, but she had no idea if it was Niko responding... or the Prime.

What does it matter? She couldn’t help but wonder, then she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d even give her a hint that would let her figure out the answer.

To her surprise, he did.

“It was meant to be.” His blue eyes glowed with a shocking level of intensity.

For a moment, all she could do was stare. Then, with a humorless laugh, she looked away. “A lot of things were supposedly meant to be, but they never came to pass.”

From the corner of her eye, she saw his hand open then close into a tight fist but when he spoke, he sounded calm.

“I made a number of mistakes, Zee. I can’t undo them. I’m well aware of what a fucking mess I’ve made of things.” He glanced into the rearview and side mirrors, not bothering to use the car's onboard system—he’d never been one to trust the automated sensors and controls all vehicles came equipped with. Seeing he had a clear path, he whipped the car onto the road. “I’m doing what I can to make the situation tenable for you while you’re here. But operating blindly won’t make it any easier.”

* * * * *

HER COOL WORDS, I’ll make that decision after the mourning ceremony, still rankled twenty minutes later when he pulled the car in front of the big house. The rain had finally stopped, but the clouds remained, leaving the sky murky and gray as they climbed from the car.

He’d sent word ahead that he wouldn’t address any pack matters outside of dire emergencies for the next three days, leaving his lieutenants to take lead on urgent matters.

But short of ordering the entire pack to clear the area, he’d known he wouldn’t have any level of privacy here. Especially not once word got out where he’d gone—and why.

Boone and his other two top men in the area would have curtailed any trouble that had arisen, and he knew he could count on his men, and calmer heads like Alison’s, to keep those with hotter tempers from forming any sort of unwelcome committee for Zee.

But nothing short of an outright order from the Prime would clear this land.

The big house and the miles of property that stretched around it were pack lands.

Niko, as the Prime, called the place his home, and each of his lieutenants had rooms there as well, as they often had to spend long hours with him dealing with pack issues. Two of his lieutenants, Shale and Aspen, didn’t have their own homes as yet. They were the two who preferred to take the longer-ranging jobs in his territory and neither had seen any point in building their own homes yet.

Aspen was still out on her trip down on the southern perimeter, checking in with the packs in that part of the territory, while following up on a lead about the assassination of Niko’s father.

When Niko stepped out of the truck, he caught a familiar scent that indicated Shale was in the area.

That was a good thing. Shale had never met Zee and he had never been the sort to let other people dictate how he formed opinions—he did it himself, once he met a person.

And, Niko knew, Shale was an insightful bastard and would know in a heartbeat what was going on between them. Or at least what was going on as far as Niko was concerned. The big bastard saw far too much, and far too easily.

Another scent came to him, the threads tied with yet another that wasn’t as familiar, but he’d come up against the owner far too recently to have forgotten it.

Alison was here, and so was Liam.

He turned to look at Zee over the car, words to warn her rising in his throat. But she had her head tipped back, lips slightly parted.

He heard the soft inhalation of air—then she was running, tearing across the ground.

Niko heard the front door open and caught the sharper, clearer bite of that third scent only a split second before he heard the boy say his sister’s name.

Then they were wrapped around each other. Liam stood a good head taller than Zee and bent forward protectively, but she was holding him as much as he was holding her.

Turning to give them what privacy he could, he caught sight of Shale as the big man emerged from the trees, shirtless, wearing only a pair of jeans. His skin, a smooth golden brown bequeathed to him by an ancestry that ranged from the Cherokee native to this part of North America to the Pacific Islands and Africa, with a solid mix of Scotch-Irish and German thrown in—or that was the way Shale described it. Niko had only met Shale’s mother, a petite, pretty woman with skin shades lighter than her son’s but hair of pure jet black and eyes that made him think of mist-swept moors and fairy rings.

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