He Let My Sister Die, So I Ended His Bloodline novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Gray Coat

Slade's wolves grab Nessa at the Austin airport, and Ronan Mercer stops them while she tells a terminal of strangers there is no heir.

The beta stepped in front of the exit, and the two wolves behind him spread out to block the glass doors.

People coming off the flight slowed down and went around us.

"I'm not going back with you," I said.

"The Alpha didn't ask what you wanted."

He reached for my carry-on.

I pulled it against my ribs, with Cara's tin inside.

"Don't touch that."

"Then walk."

His hand closed on my arm above the elbow.

"Let her go."

The voice came from behind a pillar to my left.

A man in a gray wool coat had been leaning there the whole time, holding a paper coffee cup.

He pushed off the pillar and walked over without hurrying.

He was tall and rangy, with gray eyes and a tired, patient face.

"This is Texas," he said. "In Texas, men don't drag women through my airport."

The beta didn't let go.

"Who are you?"

"Ronan Mercer. Mesquite Pack."

He drank some of the coffee.

"You crossed my border without asking, which is the first problem. Your hand on her arm is the second."

The beta glanced at his two wolves.

They both looked at the gray coat and at the people filming on their phones near baggage claim.

Nobody in the terminal looked away.

The beta took his hand off my arm.

"This doesn't concern Mesquite," he said. "She's the Alpha's contract mate and she's carrying his heir."

"Is she."

Ronan looked at me.

It was a plain question, and he waited for the answer.

My throat was dry.

I had planned to say it in front of a lawyer, in an office, with a pen in my hand.

I said it in front of a hundred strangers with their phones up.

"There's no heir. I ended the pregnancy this morning."

Nobody made a sound.

The beta's face went slack.

"That's a lie."

"The clinic bracelet is on my wrist." I held it up. "Call Peyton and ask her what the clinic told her."

"The Alpha was told you went for a checkup."

"Then she lied to him, or he lied to you."

His mouth opened and shut.

One of the other wolves muttered, "Oh, hell," and stepped back.

The beta took out his phone, looked at it, and put it away without calling anyone.

When he spoke again, his voice was low and carefully even.

"You don't understand what you've done, Nessa."

"I understand it fine."

"The Alpha line is one man deep. His father is dead, his mother is dead, and he has no brothers."

He looked at the tin under my arm.

"That pup was the last Haught there was going to be."

I held on to the bag.

"Then he should have paid for my sister's surgery."

"This isn't over."

"No," Ronan said, "but this part is."

He tipped his head toward the doors.

"You've got a flight back, and my people will see you to the gate. Call it hospitality."

Two women in Mesquite jackets I hadn't noticed were standing at the end of the hall, arms folded.

The beta took a long look at them.

Then he jerked his head, and the three Cedar Ridge wolves walked out the way they had come.

Ronan watched them go.

I stood very still, because my legs were shaking.

"You didn't have to do that," I said.

"I know."

"Why did you?"

"I don't like it when someone grabs a woman who's holding a funeral urn."

I looked down.

The tin's lid had come loose in the scuffle.

I pressed it shut with both hands.

He didn't say anything about it, and he didn't look at my face while I fixed it.

"Do you have somewhere to stay?"

"A motel on the east side. I booked it on the plane."

"Which one?"

I told him.

He winced.

"No. That one's for people who've given up."

"It's the one I can afford."

He took a card out of his coat pocket and held it out.

It had a phone number and a street address on it, and nothing else.

"The guest house behind my pack hall has a bed and a lock on the inside of the door. Nobody there will ask you anything."

"What do you get out of it?"

"A quiet airport," he said.

I didn't take the card yet.

His hand stayed where it was, steady and patient.

I noticed the scar across two of his knuckles, and I noticed that I was noticing it.

I took the card.

"One night."

"One night," he agreed.

He walked me out to a gray truck and opened the passenger door.

I climbed in with the tin on my lap.

As he pulled away from the curb, my phone lit up on my knee.

It was a voicemail from Slade, left while I was in the air.

I pressed play, and Ronan didn't ask me to turn it down.

"Nessa. Joanie told me about Cara."

His voice was flat and quiet, and I had never heard it that way.

"I'm landing in Austin tonight. Whatever you did this morning, we will settle it face to face."

There was a pause, and then he said the one thing I hadn't expected.

"Don't scatter her anywhere until I get there."

The message ended.

Ronan kept his eyes on the road.

"He wants to be there when you bury your sister?"

"He doesn't get a say in that," I said.

My hands were shaking, and I pressed them flat against the tin.

"He doesn't get a say in anything she was."

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