He pinned her with his gaze. “Nothing goes inside you except my cock, remember.”

“Yes, and I remember agreeing that…but it was pending the applicable terms.”

“Applicable terms?”

“In situations where you’re denying me said cock, I get to dig out my vibrator and take care of the matter myself.” His face molded into a menacing scowl. Or, at least, he thought she’d find it menacing. Instead, she laughed. And cupped the erection pressing insistently against the denim of his jeans. “I want it. It’s mine.”

“Yes, it’s yours,” he allowed, “pending the applicable terms. In situations where you’re threatening to cheat on me with a fake cock, you don’t get any.”

Tricky little bastard. “It really is a good thing I love you and your cock, Trey, or I’d have had to snap it off for that.” An expression of shock replaced his scowl. She placed a finger to his lips. “Don’t say it back. I don’t want you to say what I know you don’t mean. Maybe one day you can mean it, but we both know that’s not today. I just want you to know.”

This was why she deserved a better mate – he was so damn wrong for her it wasn’t even funny. Still, she was staying exactly where she was. “You’re all there is for me, Taryn. I’m broken, baby. You know that. Before you…it was like those bits of me were just scattered all over the place. I’ve never felt whole. Not until you. You hold those pieces together. It’s not an exaggeration when I say you hold my sanity in your hands. Without you, I’d fall apart.” If that made any sense to her, he’d be surprised.

She stroked his bottom lip with the pad of her thumb. “Thank you for that. Now do me already.”

He sighed dramatically. “I’m mated to a nympho.”

“Ass.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The ringing of Trey’s cell phone had everyone in the kitchen stiffening, particularly Taryn who was sitting on the counter with her legs wrapped around his waist. Without releasing her gaze, he dug it out of his pocket and answered. “Hello.”

“They’re here,” Ryan informed him.

Trey wasn’t surprised that they had arrived at 10 A.M. The only reason he had told the pack last night that he was expecting Darryl around noon was because Trey didn’t want the informant telling Darryl he’d be ready for the bastard. “How many?”

“Dominic says there’s something like one hundred and seventy out there, but it’s likely that some of them are just there to stand at his side.”

“What about the three packs that offered to come and stand at our side, are they here?”

“Arrived an hour ago just before Lance and Nick. Everyone’s waiting just inside the gate.” They had arranged for their allies to arrive early, suspecting Darryl would make an attack in the morning time in the belief that he would be catching Trey unawares.

“Okay. Don’t let Darryl and his crew through the gate until I get there.”

“Sure.”

Trey ended the call and handed his cell over to Taryn. “I’ll lose it in the battle if I take it with me out there.”

She tightened her legs around him, wishing she could just hold him there and ask the others to face Darryl. Yes that was selfish and unfair, but she couldn’t help wanting that and she wasn’t going to apologize for it. This was her mate, the other half of her soul, the father of her child. If she had the right to be selfish about anything, it was him.

“I have to go, baby,” he told her softly.

She nodded sadly. “I know. Be careful. You have to come back to me.”

“There’ll be a lot of blood on my hands by the end of this battle. You know that, right?”

She pressed her forehead to his. “Do you honestly think I’d judge you for protecting your family, your pack, your territory? Darryl obviously wants to die. Assist him.”

Damn this woman got to him. Never had she judged him – not for being who he was, not for what he could and couldn’t feel, and not for anything he’d done or was capable of doing. He kissed her hard and deep, urging her into him, taking strength from her in a way that he had never been able to do with another person. Breaking the kiss, he buried his face in the crook of her neck and took her scent deep inside him, let it flow over him and center both him and his wolf. He hated to leave her, especially right now. Every primal instinct he had told him to stay at her side and be her constant protector, but there was no choice. He couldn’t tell the other males of his pack to face the danger alone – that wasn’t who he was and it wasn’t what an Alpha did.

“I need you to promise me something,” he said as he locked his gaze with hers. “I need you to promise me that no matter what you feel over our link, no matter what you think is happening, you stay here. You don’t try to reach me, you don’t take a chance out there just so you can heal me. You stay here with Grace, Lydia, Greta, Hope, Brock, and Selma. You focus on keeping yourself safe and our baby safe. Promise me.” He wasn’t surprised when she gave him a look that could kill. A lesser man would have cowered.

“That’s not fair,” she said through her teeth. “Of course I don’t want anything to happen to the baby, but by asking me to make this promise you’re asking me to choose between you both, and I can’t do that.”

He cupped her face with his hands as he insisted, “Yes you can and you will. I’m not asking you to choose, I’m asking you to keep yourself and the baby safe.”

She blinked back tears. Her wolf whined inside her head. “If you died, I wouldn’t survive it anyway.”

“Yes you would. You’re so goddamn strong, you could get through anything.” It made him proud to have her. For the first time, he was actually glad that the mating bond was only partially developed as it meant that she had a better chance of surviving the bond being broken. Not that he planned on dying today, but there was always a possibility. “I have to go.”

Reluctantly she uncurled her limbs from around him. “I love you, even though you’re being an unfair prick.”

He chuckled, but the sound didn’t hide the anger he felt with himself for not being able to give her those words.

Knowing what was going through his head, she gave him a cautioning look. “I don’t need words, I just need you to come back.”

“I plan on it.” Having kissed her one last time, he turned to see Grace and Lydia both crying as they had a private moment with their own mates while Kirk and Brock hugged each other tightly. Although Cam, Rhett, and Kirk weren’t enforcers and only ever worked as security guards for the gate, Trey couldn’t afford to leave them behind. He needed all the wolves he could get, especially since they needed Brock to stay behind – they wanted the females to have at least one male with them.