“No, thank you,” Holly said, waving away her beer as she turned back to the fire instead.
“You want me to get you some wine?” Jacob asked her. Holly smiled nicely and shook her head. She’d been distant lately, he could feel it, but he decided not to push it. She’d bounce back like a rubber band. He moved his hand to the small of her back and stroked anyway; she leaned into it. That was a good sign, he decided.
“We were just taking mountain gossip,” Cassidy said, breaking the blanket of silence that came with the Alpha’s presence. “Brent says it smells like the Davos clan might be using our territory again.”
Our territory. Jacob gritted his teeth. Westmore territory. Not Brent’s. Not anymore. He had no one but himself to blame for that.
Jacob flicked his beer cap to the ground. “Sounds like a lot of hearsay to me.”
“You wouldn’t know,” Brent broke in boldly. He flicked his cigarette into the fire and it swallowed the butt whole. He gesticulated instead with what was probably his fifth or sixth beer, which dangled from his long fingers. “You haven’t been up there.”
“I’ve had my share of the mountain lately,” Jacob growled pointedly, reminding Brent that the last time they were up there, Brent had walked him into an ambush.
“He has a point, Jacob,” Cassidy said. “You can’t shift, not in your condition. I’ll go up there tomorrow and sniff it out.”
“No one’s going up the mountain,” Jacob said. “Don’t want you walking into a cougar nest too.”
“Goddammit, Jacob!” Brent snapped. “If you think I’d hurt Cassidy, you’ve really lost it now.”
“I don’t gotta tell you a damn thing,” Jacob said lowly.
“You know why I did what I did,” Brent said firmly. Like his voice was straining to push the words through Jacob’s stubborn skull.
“You wanna be Alpha, you can rip my crown from my dead hands,” Jacob said and took another swig of beer.
“Someone’s gonna! That’s the problem! It’s killing you, brother.”
Jacob stood suddenly. The fire shuddered as embers scattered under his boots. “You challenging me?” he asked. His voice was cold as black ice.
A hush fell over the pit. Even the crickets seemed to lower their wings.
“C’mon, now,” Cassidy murmured softly. “The cubs are here.”
“Dave, take the kids inside,” Brent said and he got to his feet, level with Jacob now. His stare locked on Jacob’s. The Alpha didn’t bat an eye.
Cassidy and Holly rushed to their feet.
“Jacob…what’s going on?” Holly whispered.
Cassidy got her hands on Brent’s chest and said firmly, “Stand down, you’ve got nothing to prove, don’t you dare—”
“Jacob!” Brent roared, “I’m calling a challenge. We settle this. Right here, right now.”
“You got it,” Jacob said and peeled his shirt over his head.
Chapter 56
Oh no, Holly thought.
Oh no, no, no. He wasn’t going to fight. He couldn’t.
One more transformation. That was what he’d told her. One more shift into his bear form and he wasn’t coming back. And Holly couldn’t think of a time more likely for him to spontaneously change than locked in a bare fistfight with his brother.
“Jacob,” she hissed. “Don’t do this. You can’t change. You’ll—”
“I’m not gonna change,” he said, then shot her that damn cocky smile. “I’ve got you here. You’re my rock.”
Like she was some lucky rabbit’s foot. Holly felt like he’d tied rocks around her ankles and tossed her into the deepest part of the ocean.
“You don’t know that,” she said under her breath. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Dave ushering the children away from the fire pit, back home. This was quickly tumbling into a disaster. All because of a couple overgrown boys and their egos. “Jacob,” Holly said and slipped her hand over her shoulder. Trying to calm him. Tame him. Like petting a jumpy stallion. “Please don’t do this.”
Look at me, Holly tried to scream through her eyes. She wanted to yell at him telepathically, where no one else could hear: I’m pregnant! We’re having a baby!
But now was not the time. Or place. She didn’t want to tell him here of all places. In front of the entire clan. Not when she was trying so hard to fit into his family and prove herself as a good little Alpha’s mate. Holly felt tears spring her eyes and her face flushed hotly. On top of everything, her hormones were going haywire. Of course. Because Holly Westmore could not catch a break. “Let’s just go home,” she tried finally, pawing at him. “Remember that…thing…I had to tell you about…”