Tallius (Spoils of War Book 2) Read online

  Tallius:

  Spoils of War 2

  By

  Susan Bliler

  Copyright © 2019 by Susan Bliler

  Alpha She, Ltd.

  www.susanbliler.com

  Contents

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Cover fonts, spine, and back cover done by:

  Susan Bliler

  Cover image courtesy of:

  Editing done by:

  Grammargal

  As always thanks to my beta reader:

  Cindy Hubbard.

  I couldn’t do this without you.

  Thanks for believing in me.

  ;o) ting

  This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidences are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Susan A. Bliler.

  Dedication

  I would like to dedicate this book to the song “Dream On” by Aerosmith.

  The business of writing isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s mostly hours and hours of plaguing self-doubt interspersed with moments of insight and rare confidence. Each book is another endeavor into putting your work out there for crippling ridicule or beaming praise. Staying inspired is difficult, but this song. Hoooo, this song has brought me up from the darkest of depths, it has bolstered me, and saved me, and kept me writing more times than I can count. The universe always sends me this beautiful fucking song right when I need it! “Dream on, dream on, dream on, dream until your dreams come true!”

  Dream until you’re black and blue, my Stalkerz and Wolvez. Don’t ever give up. I won’t quit on you if you don’t quit on me!

  Ahwooooooooo!

  Chapter 1

  Tallius’s booted feet crunched across the hard gravel of the Fortress yard as Reign trailed close behind him. Nosey-ass vampire! Air chugging out of Tallius in arctic puffs, he hurried toward his Alpha’s truck. His Alpha, War, was leaving today, but some things needed to be addressed before Tallius could allow that to happen.

  Rushing toward the truck, Tallius felt a bite of guilt when War’s new mate, Nora, leaned forward in the passenger seat and eyed him with a worried look.

  Fuck!

  He wanted to let War and Nora hit the road. They deserved a break after all they’d been through with Nora getting kidnapped and War taking his pack into battle to retrieve her. Today, they were going to Montana City to pick up War’s mother and sister to bring them back to the Fortress, but Tallius had to talk to War. There were pressing issues at hand that just couldn’t wait.

  Before Tallius could even get to the truck, War followed his mate’s gaze. In a blink, his expression went from one of delight to pure menace. Eyes flashing bright with his wolf, War rolled down his window and growled, “No, Tallius! Whatever the hell it is, no! We’re going to pick up Mama and Peace today, so whatever the fuck you’re trying to dump on me, don’t!”

  He didn’t want to; he really didn’t, but . . . “We’ve got problems,” he blurted out.

  War and Nora huffed in unison, but Tallius could tell by War’s expression that he wanted to know. Alphas were like that. They didn’t want shit going down in their territory or among their pack without knowing about it.

  Tallius quickly explained, “There’s an emissary here from Cray’s Yellowstone pack with a message.”

  War drummed impatient fingers on the door of his truck as he bit out, “Who is he and what’s the fucking message?”

  “She,” Tallius corrected. “It’s a female.”

  “A woman?” Nora looked up at War before leaning across his body and asking Tallius, “Where is she?”

  Uncomfortable, Tallius rolled his neck before saying, “Matese is guarding her.”

  “Matese?” War frowned.

  Matese was their newest pack member. He’d formerly been one of Cray’s wolves, so Tallius assumed that he most likely knew the woman. It made sense to him to let the ornery wolf-shifter guard her.

  “Good!” Nora bit out. “We’ll be back in four days. Have him entertain her until we return.”

  War’s lips curled up as he shot his mate an approving grin that had Tallius panicking. He was just about to open his mouth when War’s attention went back to his Beta and his grin slipped. “You said problems. What else?”

  Tallius fidgeted nervously and looked back at Reign, who stood behind him, arms crossed as he smirked. It had War’s eyes narrowing on both men.

  “The Fury pack wants a mutual meet,” Tallius said.

  Mutual meets were when packs sent just one representative to a neutral location to exchange information or to negotiate a truce with a rival.

  Narrowing his eyes, War asked, “An Alpha meet?”

  “No.” Tallius shook his head. “Aydin is sending his pack Beta. He’d like you to do the same. The site would be the old cabin up on Baldie. Two days from now.”

  Tallius silently prayed War didn’t remember what Tallius had told him about Aydin’s Beta. The she-wolf had previously advised her Alpha to go to war against the WG.

  War’s eyes narrowed even more as he stared intently at Tallius and asked, “What’s her name again?”

  Trying to sound indifferent, Tallius bit out, “Mira.”

  And just like that, just merely speaking her name had color rising tellingly into Tallius’s cheeks. Swallowing hard he tried to hide the fact that he was affected by the Fury Beta.

  Apparently, he didn’t pull it off because War’s eyes thinned to suspicious little slits before he barked, “Tell Aydin you’ll be there.”

  No! No, no, no, no, no! He couldn’t go to a private mutual meet with Mira! That’s the exact opposite of what he wanted. “But . . .”

  Behind Tallius, Reign shoved him in the back and crowed, “Told ya he’d make you go.”

  “No buts,” War cut off Reign’s teasing. Eyes locked on Tallius, he commanded, “Set it up. See what they want. And treat the woman well. The Fury are allies I wouldn’t mind having.”

  Thinking fast, Tallius countered, “If you won’t be back for four days and you’re sending me to this meeting, who’s in charge?”

  Without another glance for Tallius, War started backing his truck out of his parking spot. “Reign.”

  Behind him, Tallius heard Reign fume, “No!”

  “No buts.” War grinned, shifting into drive. Leaning out his window, he pointed at Tallius. “Be good to Mira. And tell Matese to treat our guest well.” Then he slid his finger to Reign. “And don’t fuck shit up!”

  Watching his Alpha drive away, Tallius felt his heart hammering in his chest. No, no, no! This wasn’t happening! It couldn’t happen. It just couldn’t! He couldn’t face Mira again, not after the last time he’d seen her, not after the way she’d looked. The sadness on her face had been etched there by his pack and their at
tack on her pack, the FourClaws. Mira hated him and the entire War Gods pack, and he got it! They deserved her hate, and he could live with it, but having to face it, having to face her? Nah! No fucking way. It was a definite hard pass from him, but only if he could get War to agree.

  Ignoring Reign, Tallius let his wolf explode from him and shot out the front gate of the Fortress. Racing across the drawbridge, he ignored the main road War’s truck disappeared down and took a hard right knowing the road wound back around making it so he’d be able to cut War off.

  At a dead run, Tallius was digging for an excuse to get out of the Beta mutual meet. He had nothing, not a single fucking excuse, to avoid going, but it wouldn’t stop him from trying to talk War into sending someone else.

  His paws hit the dirt road, and he turned and pricked his ears, straining to listen over his own panting. He could hear the rumble of War’s jacked-up truck barreling down the road. Shifting back into his human skin, he smoothed his palms over the front of his shirt and then fisted them, rubbing his fingers over the dampness of his palms.

  War’s truck came over the rise, and Tallius rolled his shoulders trying to appear casual. War’s truck got closer, and when it was almost to Tallius, it rolled to a stop. The whirring sound of War’s power window going down sounded, and then War snapped, “What?”

  Shooting straight to it, Tallius asked, “How do you know this isn’t a setup? Aydin could be luring one of us in just to start a war.”

  With a growl, War shot Tallius an impatient look. “He ain’t starting no fucking war. If he wanted that, he missed his window. You think he’d wait until I was fully cemented on the throne to issue a challenge.” War canted his head, and his eyes narrowed on Tallius. “You’re acting dumb. Why?”

  Tallius’s face went comically deadpan as he blinked at War. “I . . . I ain’t dumb, man!”

  “I know,” War snarled, “which is why your excuses don’t make sense. Unless . . .” He leaned closer, his eyes searching Tallius’s. “It’s her! You don’t want to see Mira!”

  “Pfft.” Tallius pulled a face and shook his head. “Wrong! I don’t give two shits about . . . her!”

  Leaning back, War crossed thick arms over an equally impressive chest. “Then what?”

  Lamely, Tallius argued, “I just don’t know why I gotta be the one to go!”

  War’s brows winged up in disbelief. “It’s a meeting of Betas, Tally. And you’re my Beta! The fuck, man?”

  Tallius frowned hard. “You can send anyone.”

  “I don’t want to send anyone. I’m sending you. End of discussion.”

  “Don’t you think with the Alpha gone the Beta should stay and hold things down?”

  War put his truck in drive, and just before his window sealed shut, he popped off, “Nope!” Shooting off down the road, War left Tallius growling in the spray of dried leaves that were kicked up.

  Fffffffuck!

  Planting hands on his hips, Tallius glared at War’s taillights. He hated running fool’s errands, and this was definitely one. Worse, sending the pack Beta to do the job was giving Aydin’s Fury pack more credit than they deserved. Regardless of the fact that Aydin was sending his own Beta to the meeting, it just . . . It just . . .

  “Fuck!” The explosive word ricocheted off the naked trees.

  Standing in the waning sunlight, Tallius was reluctant to admit the truth, which was that War was right. He didn’t want to have to face Mira, and that’s all there was to it.

  He remembered Mira from his pack’s battle with the Four Claws. He’d seen her. They’d locked eyes while Tallius was ripping the throat out of her pack’s Beta. Her sad, tear-stained face had looked so damn stricken it gutted him. Then, in a flash, her face morphed into a mask of pure hatred. Tallius had never been the recipient of such intense revulsion in all his life. It had haunted him for months. Even now, months later, she drifted in and out of his dreams like some beautiful torturous wraith. But she wasn’t a wraith. She was a hundred percent real, and he was one hundred percent meeting her for a face-to-face unless he figured a way out of it somehow.

  Pacing, he blew out a breath and wondered if he maybe he should just do it. Maybe seeing her would end his torment. Maybe now that some time had passed and she’d settled into life with her new pack, she could understand the need for his pack’s attack on the Four Claws.

  “Yeah.” He rolled his eyes and stopped pacing to fist his hair. “Maybe she’ll say, ‘Great to see you, psycho. Thanks for killing my pack and destroying my home. How ya been?’”

  “Fuck!” he yelled again, throwing his arms forward. Everything was just ffffffffuck!

  Chapter 2

  Mira settled two folded sweaters on top of the jeans, socks, and underwear that were stowed in her plum-colored suitcase. She didn’t own many girly possessions, and she counted her suitcase among those few. A gift from her aunt for Mira’s sixteenth birthday, it was one of the few possessions that Mira had salvaged from her life with her old pack.

  Now, tossing some toiletries inside, Mira grabbed a plain black makeup bag and double-checked to make sure it held her favorite light pink lipstick and black mascara before cramming the bag into the suitcase and zipping it closed.

  The mutual meet she was prepping for weighed heavily on her mind, and while it was only supposed to last an hour tops, she knew better than to travel up Baldie without being adequately prepared. The mountain was known for its unpredictable weather, and truth be told, her Alpha, Aydin, was giving her two weeks to get to the meeting and back. It was way too much time because doing the math in her head, she’d figured it’d only take her a day to get to Baldie in her new Challenger. A bit of a lead foot, the car was something she’d splurged on, a prize to herself for making Beta in Aydin’s Fury pack. It hadn’t been easy winning the position, and trying for Beta wasn’t something she would have done in her old FourClaws pack.

  She’d grown up with the FourClaws and had been content leaving pack politics to the adults. As she’d grown older and more confident in herself, she’d still held back from getting involved with the pack hierarchy because they were a traditional pack, and that meant that the higher rankings were reserved for men and men alone. The Fury pack was nothing like that. They were more contemporary, and when Aydin cemented himself as Alpha of the newly formed pack, he’d encouraged Mira to try for Beta. He’d noticed the violence she kept bottled up and tended to unleash at the most inopportune moments. He’d pushed her to embrace the change in her wolf, but she’d been reluctant. The newfound aggression in her wolf had been born the day she’d watched the WG tear her pack apart. Granted, the FourClaws weren’t all that innocent. Her old Alpha, Darius, had refused to cow to War. He should have. Everyone in the pack had voiced their opinion against going to war, but Darius and the pack Beta, Roe, had met with the pack enforcers and decided to challenge the WG. War’s terms for compliance hadn’t been bad. He’d wanted Darius to sign a contract agreeing to conformity with a unified set of wolf shifter laws. That simple. Sign a contract, follow the law, and make a few changes, but no. Too pig-headed, Darius threw down a challenge and brought hell to the FourClaws. Honestly, Mira—like a lot of FourClaws members—hadn’t expected the swift and complete punishment meted out by War and his WG. They’d come quick, and in the span of thirty minutes, Darius, Roe, all of the enforcers, and any other pack member who stood against them were wiped out. It had been scary to watch, terrifying to experience, and all she could really remember from that day was the War Gods Beta, Tallius, looking right at her as he ripped out Roe’s throat. She still had nightmares about it . . . about him! She still often woke up choking like it had been her throat that Tallius had shredded, and she hated that he still had the power after all these months to have her waking in sheer terror.

  Shaking off the memories, Mira lifted her suitcase off the bed, shrugged into her black leather jacket, fisted her car keys, and stopped at the door to give her room one last once-over. The place was small, just a simple room with
a single bed, one dresser, and not much else. The Fury was newly formed and still getting their feet under them, and when Mira left FourClaws territory she’d taken clothes and that was it. Her old life had ended the day the WG tore through their territory. The old her had died along with the males of her pack, and she’d left most of her things intentionally. She was someone new now . . . something new now, and knowing it’d only take a day and half to get to Baldie, her intention was to meet with that prick Tallius, say what needed to be said, and then hole up at the little ski resort that was just fifteen miles from the pack cabin high on the mountainside. It’d be a well-needed vacation and a good opportunity to get reacquainted with herself. Things had been tumultuous since the War Gods pack had decimated her beloved FourClaws, and fighting her way up to Beta in the Fury had been more than taxing. It had brought out a side of Mira she hadn’t known existed. It was a dark and feral side and a side she wasn’t sure she liked. It was a side the War Gods had created, and a side she needed to grow more familiar with. She’d take the time to do that after dispensing of her business with that fuck Tallius.

  Stepping out of the main house, Mira was relieved that no one was outside to send her off. She didn’t want to make ties here at the Fury. She’d learned her lesson with the FourClaws. Getting close meant having to deal with the loss if war came to her pack again. She’d thought the death of the aunt who’d raised her was unbearable, but dealing with the annihilation of nearly her entire pack still had her reeling.

  Popping the trunk on her car, she tossed her suitcase inside, and when she slammed the trunk, Aydin was standing near the front of her car. Arms crossed, legs splayed, he stared at her with narrowed eyes.

  “You heading out?”

  “Yeah.” She rounded the back of the car and made for the driver’s-side door.

  “You sure you’re okay to do this?”