You Will Be Mine (New Horizon Book 3)

Chapter 33: Jeannie

When I open the door from the garage into the kitchen, I stop in my tracks, realizing that I hear Gabe speaking in the next room over from us.

“Ella, please. I just need a minute,” he pleads with someone.

And I have mixed feelings about that. It sounds like he’s close by, and I don’t want him to see me with Garrett. I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with Garrett and I going to lunch together and talking, but I know Gabe won’t like it and might even get mad. But on the other hand, I also don’t like knowing that he’s over there talking to some girl named Ella, so I can kind of relate to how jealous he might get if he sees me with Garrett.

But I mean, Garrett is his brother. I know they’re close, and he has to know that Garrett can be trusted not to cross any lines with me. Sure, he gets affectionate here and there, but it’s always appropriate to the moment, reserved only for when I really need the support. I don’t know Ella. What I do know is that Garrett just got done telling me about how the women around here throw themselves at him, and I can't help wondering if she's one of those women.

I hear a feminine voice respond to him, but her voice doesn’t carry as well as his does, so I can’t make out what she says to him.

“I just feel like I should apologize to you,” he says next. “It wasn’t right of me to do what I did. I could tell even then that you had mixed feelings about it, and I feel like I took advantage of you. I just want you to know that I regret how I handled myself, and I do care about your feelings.”

Another mumbled female response, and I’m on the move, trying to find a position where I can hear them better.

“Jeannie, no,” Garrett hisses from behind me. “He’ll smell you, if he hasn’t already.”

That stops me in my tracks, frozen in place in the middle of the kitchen.

“No, I found my mate, and she’s the only one for me,” Gabe says next. “I’m sorry. What I said then still holds, but I just felt like I still owed you an apology.”

“Well, I hope you feel better now,” she spits out bitterly, a little more loudly than before. “I thought you came to me because you’d changed your mind.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, his voice pleading with her to understand. “And for the record, it’s not you or anything you did.”

“Save it,” she tells him, obviously annoyed.

It hits me then that I really don’t know enough about the people around here to be passing judgment on the way Gabe has handled the situation with the women he’s been with. He’s probably apologizing to this girl because what I said the other night got to him, and he’s trying to make it right. But it’s obviously not getting him anywhere, just like he argued with me then.

“What good would that do?” he said to me that night, but I just didn’t get it then. I might be starting to now, though. He may have been right, and I’ve been holding him to an impossible standard about this.

And yet, it means a whole lot that he tried, even knowing it was doomed to fail.

“I don’t know what the right thing to do here even is,” Garrett whispers from behind me. “I could go back out in the garage and go around to another door to get past him, but he’s going to smell me on you, and I don’t want to leave you alone to deal with that.”

“Do you think he’ll be mad?” I wonder worriedly. Even knowing that there’s nothing wrong with talking to Garrett, I still don’t like the idea of upsetting Gabe over it.

A chubby, mousy-haired young girl bursts into the room, red in the face and obviously worked up over something. It’s the girl, the one I had in mind when I told Gabe I’ve seen women around the packhouse looking at him longingly, their eyes full of hurt and regret. I may have been exaggerating because it’s only her I’ve seen, but the fact that he sought her out for an apology means I probably did pick up on something real. She might be one of the “more questionable” hook-ups he’s had, in Garrett’s words from earlier, and even Gabe thought of her when he was considering who he might have wronged.

She glances our way and sighs, muttering something under her breath as she heads back the way she came.

“You can count on it,” comes my answer, but not from Garrett. I turn to meet the heated glare of my mate, and I can’t help blushing as if he’s caught me doing something embarrassing.

And before I know it, he’s charging across the room at his brother, the rage rolling off him in waves. Even I can feel it, but what I feel more than that is Simon. He’s upset, but I’m not sure that anger is his primary emotion. He’s worried and devastated, though there is definitely anger in there too.

“Outside,” Garrett calls out, already running to the back door to evade Gabe’s wrath. “Or Henny will murder us.”

“You won’t have to worry about that when I’m done with you,” Gabe threatens, chasing his brother out the back.

I don’t know what else to do, so I follow them out the back door, worried that Gabe might try to hurt Garrett, even though it’s my fault that we were together.

“Why is your scent all over my mate?” Gabe yells, chasing after his brother across the area behind the packhouse.

It looks like Garrett is leading him toward an open grassy area, which is probably a good thing. If they’re going to fight, it should probably be away from other people.

And like I told them before, I’m a fast runner. They’re definitely faster, but I manage to keep up to them fairly well. Though, it’s not with enough breath left over to try to reason with either of them.

“We had lunch,” Garrett calls over his shoulder. Then he stops running, turning to Gabe with his hands up in surrender. “That’s it, I swear. Food and conversation. She texted me and wanted to talk.”

“And you didn’t bother to tell me about it. She’s my mate, Gary!”

“Don’t call me that,” Garrett protests, fighting back his own anger. “You know I hate that.”

“Argh!”

Gabe seems to be fighting back the urge to attack his brother, breathing heavily in and out. I hurry over to them hoping to intervene before it gets ugly, but the sight of me seems to trigger Gabe all over again.

“She doesn’t smell like ‘just lunch’ either,” Gabe shouts at his brother, lunging for him and knocking him to the ground. “Your scent is all over her, as if you were all over her,” he points out, punching out at Garrett, who rolls to the side just in time to avoid the blow.

“Gabe, stop it,” I plead with him, which seems to give him pause.

But Garrett takes advantage of that, kicking and wiggling until he’s on top. I can feel that the anger from Simon is only intensifying, and I know this is about to go badly.

Gabe manages to throw Garrett off him and get back to his feet, bracing for the way that Garrett tries to charge at him and knock him over again. Letting out a sound that is more roar than scream, Gabe turns and glares at his brother, breathing heavily, and I notice the dark patches of fur starting to crop up all over him. Simon is fighting his way out.

I’m trying desperately to connect with Simon and calm him down, but he’s blocking me out. He apparently wants this as badly as Gabe does. I would just step back and let the wolves fight, but I can’t help feeling responsible for this. It’s my fault that Garrett snuck out with me. I mean, I didn’t ask him to keep it a secret from Gabe, but neither of us reached out to him either.

“Simon, please don’t,” I plead with the wolf now. “It’s me you should be angry with.”

He turns and gives me a warning growl, still mostly man but quickly losing control. He nods his head at me, wanting me to step aside and let them fight. When I don’t move, his growl intensifies. He really wants me away from here.

Garrett takes advantage of his diverted attention and starts shifting, doing it much more rapidly than I’ve seen before and letting Sebastian tear through his clothes. Once Gabe realizes what he’s doing, he follows suit. Now there are two massive wolves wrestling with each other, growling and roaring with their rage, and nothing but shreds of their clothes left on the ground.

I’m not even sure that it’s still our lunch they’re fighting about. This feels deeper than that. Even the wolves are invested in battling each other, and I can sense how they are both hungering to win this fight. It’s like they feel they have something to prove. To me or to each other, I can’t be sure.

I look on helplessly for a couple minutes, but something feels off. There’s this new, unfamiliar feeling brewing inside me. It’s anger, it’s frustration, and it’s worry, but it’s also something else. I can’t quite figure it out, but I know I’ve never felt it before. It’s keeping me rooted to this spot, even though I kind of want to go get Mrs. Bentley and have her put a stop to this.

As soon as that thought crosses my mind, another one replaces it. A much stronger idea that forces the other one away. What I really want is to be able to shift into a wolf so powerful that these werewolves won’t be able to ignore me and push me aside anymore. I want to show them who’s boss and put them in their places. But I have no idea where that idea comes from, even as much as I like how it feels.

It’s when I watch Simon lunge for Sebastian in a way that flips him over onto his back so violently that it seems to knock the wind out of him that I’ve had enough. That feeling is starting to burn, everywhere, all over my skin. It’s as if my emotions about the fight going on in front of me are feeding it, and now it needs a release.

I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s painful. It’s more like an urge so powerful that I can’t fight it anymore, and I let out a scream as it overwhelms me. As I scream, the burning becomes a floaty tingling, and my vision starts to twist around until I’m not even sure whether I’m still standing. I could be on the ground for all I know.

A few moments later, whatever was happening seems to be over, and I feel much better. Stronger and more alert even. But those stubborn, pigheaded wolves are still going at it, and I still hate the sight of it. Sebastian is bleeding and limping but still fighting on, and Simon doesn’t look much better.

“Stop it!” I try to cry out again, fully expecting them to just keep ignoring me.

But whatever that sound was that just came out certainly didn’t sound like my voice. It sounded more like the roars the two of them have been letting out to express themselves in their wolf forms. And rather than ignoring me, they stop in their tracks, and Simon even lets out a yelp of surprise as he joins his brother in turning my direction and lowering himself down on the ground.

They look as startled and confused as I feel, but to my relief, they’ve finally stopped fighting each other, focusing on studying me instead. Which begs the question – what in the heck did I just do?