Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) (16 page)

Everyone was moving, jumping at her
orders.
 
My whole body went rigid.
 
“Stop!”
I
shouted.
 
I couldn’t make my muscles
relax.
 
My jaw flexed, and it took
everything in me to just stand still.
 
Dominic froze, and Erika blanched.
 
“Get out.”

“Aidan,” Jeff said.
 
His voice was calm, but I heard the warning
in it, and he squeezed my shoulder with a firm, pinching grip.

I didn’t let him finish.
 
I didn’t want to hear it.
 
This wasn’t going to help, I knew that, but I
couldn’t stop it.
 
She was being impossible,
even if she didn’t know it.
 
I turned to
Jeff and looked him straight on.
 
“I said
get out.”

~ JADE ~

Okay, maybe I took
it a bit too far.
 
But in all fairness,
Aidan was pissing me off.
 
Who the hell
did he think he was coming into my house and commanding my guests as if they
were nothing more than slaves?
 
It was
wrong on so many levels.
 
But what was
worse was that something inside me growled when I caught his scent.
 
It was intoxicating, and in seconds, my own
scent ramped up and matched his.
 
I
didn’t know what was happening to me, but I loved it almost as much as I loved
the idea of being alone with him.
 
It was
all completely animal, and it excited and scared me all at once.

My dad gave him a crazy disappointed look
but didn’t argue.
 
But then, of course,
he wouldn’t.
 
He was the pack’s number
one fan.
 
“Mom and I will be at Joe’s
tonight if you need us, pumpkin,” he called, and then to my horror (and
absolute pleasure) he left, pushing Erika and Dominic out the door.

“You need to leave,” I said, but my voice
betrayed me.
 
It shook and all of the
command I had had just moments ago was gone.

“Has Dominic told you what to expect?”
Aidan asked, completely ignoring me.
 
His
tone was as sharp as his body language.
 
Commanding and demanding answers. Every part of me screamed to give him
anything and everything he wanted.
 
I
wished he hadn’t ignored me.
 
Really, I
wished he would just go, because all I could think about was jumping down the
stairs and ripping off that shirt of his.
 
I wanted to kiss every inch of his body, taste it, lick it, and oddly, I
really wanted to rub against it.
 
It was
driving me crazy.
 
He was driving me
crazy.
 
I had never wanted something so
much before.
 
It hurt in a wonderful kind
of way.

“I already know,” I said, and let my eyes
trail down his lean body again.
 
“Grew up
here, remember?
 
I’ll shift in three days
unless my blood rejects it, and in that case, I’ll die.”
 
His muscles looked deliciously strong, and as
I descended the stairs, moving closer to him, I could feel the heat radiating
from his sun-kissed skin.

“You won’t die,” he said.
 
He started to smile.
 
I saw a hint of it touching his full lips,
but it vanished quickly.
 
“I can already
smell the wolf coming from your skin.
 
You’ll shift.”

“Huh,” I said.
 
He was watching me closely as my foot fell on
the last step.
 
I wanted to run at him,
but I fought against it.
 
What had
Dominic said?
 
Don’t back down?
 
I tried to imitate Dominic, keeping my head
high, and my shoulders back.
 
I pictured
his strut and his confidence, and I channeled it.
 
Honed it in and projected it.

Aidan noticed.
 
His face lost a little color, and he sucked
in a loud breath.
 
“I’m not going to
tolerate you stepping over me.
 
If you
want to be part of my pack, you better learn your place.”

“Who says I want to be part of your pack?”
I purred.
 
Purred!
 
I almost laughed at
myself.
 
I really wasn’t the purring
type.
 
Blunt and direct was more my
style.
 
But this guy … I licked my
lips.
 
Completely involuntary, I swear,
and my eyes raked over him again.

He arched a brow and smirked … a little.
 
“Your hatred towards me is a bit much, don’t
you think?”

Hatred?
 
Clearly, he was misreading
me.
 
He squirmed a little and his face
went a bit whiter.
 
And I grinned.
 
I couldn’t help it.
 
I had never had a guy squirm from my stare
before and I had to admit, it was a bit exhilarating.
 
“Actually, no, I don’t,” I said, playing
along.
 
“You lied to me.”

He sighed, a frustrated kind of sound.
 
“You never asked, Jade.
 
You just assumed I was human.
 
I never lied.”

We were only a few feet apart now; just a
couple more steps and I’d be able to run my hand over his chest.
 
I shrugged lazily and took another step.
 
“Lying by omission.
 
It’s the same thing, genius.”

He chuckled.
 
The sound was like velvet.
 
Soft and strong and it made my knees go
weak.
 
He noticed that, too, and chuckled
again.
 
“I can’t omit anything that I
wasn’t asked about.”

I was about to tell him that he was being
an ass-hat.
 
What a stupid cop-out.
 
And by the look he was giving me, he knew
exactly how stupid he sounded, but I didn’t get a chance, because Marcy came
barging through the front door.

“Jade, I’m so sorry.
 
Dom made me leave this morning.”
 
She slammed the door behind her, turned
around, and ran smack into Aidan’s chest.
 
“Oh,” she squealed, surprised.
 
She took a step back, realized whom it was,
and then she gave him the dirtiest look I had ever seen.
 
She put her hands on her hips and narrowed
her eyes further.
 
“What are you doing
here?”

Aidan gave her a quick once over and said,
not cruelly, but with a definitely uncaring tone, “Trying to decide if I want
her in my pack or not.”

Marcy gasped, and hopped another step
back.
 
“You can’t ban her.”

He smiled and then laughed uneasily.
 
“Yeah, I can.
 
It’s not an automatic entry.
 
She
wasn’t recruited.
 
She picked a fight and
got bitten.”

“I didn’t pick a fight,” I said, folding my
arms over my chest.
 
My bottom lip jutted
out, and I hated myself for it.
 
Really?
 
Was I really
going to pout about this?
 
Technically, I
had picked a fight.
 
I could have walked
away.
 
But still, hearing him say it,
seeing that look on his face, it was as if he thought I was nothing more than
trouble.

“Aidan, dude, you’re being a douche bag,”
Marcy blurted.
 
Aidan’s eyes flared, and
her hands flew up in surrender.
 
“Settle
down, boy.
 
I’m all about team werewolf,
but she hasn’t even shifted yet.
 
Can’t
this, you know, wait?
 
Maybe you could
come back tomorrow or something?”

Aidan didn’t even think about it before he
shook his head and said, “Nope, someone’s got to stay with her.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Marcy said,
standing a little straighter, and she fixed her glare back in place.
 
She was aiming for fierce, I was sure of it,
but right then she looked more like a little kitten testing out her claws.

“I mean a pack member, Mac,” he said with a
groan.
 
“Someone needs to monitor her
just in case …”

“You said …” I started, but Aidan promptly
cut me off.

“Things can always go wrong, Jade.”

“Trevor,” Marcy blurted.
 
“Can he stay with us?”

Aidan gritted his teeth and it almost
looked as if he was trying to find a reason to say no, but after a moment of
consideration, he fished his phone out of his pocket.
 
He scrolled through his address book, tapped
on the screen, and then brought the phone to his ear.
 
“Trevor, come to Jade’s.
 
I need you to stay here with the girls.”
 
There was a long silence and Aidan
stiffened.
 
One by one, deep lines began
appearing on his forehead.
 
“When?” he asked.
 
Another pause.
 
“How many?”
 
He must
not have liked the answer because a growl slipped out, and he turned his back
on us.
 
“Just get here,” he snapped, and
then he shoved his phone back into his pocket.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, although even to
my own ears my voice didn’t sound like I cared.
 
His back was stiff, the muscles under his skin coiled and bulged, and
the urge to touch him again was unbearable.
 
I took a step, moving toward him, and he spun around.

Aidan’s eyes were golden.
 
Not a speck of the delicious brown left.
 
Strands of course hair littered his cheeks,
and his skin looked as if it was crawling.
 
Seeing him on the verge of shifting awoke something in me.
 
Something … deliriously
physical.
 
My muscles began to
ache in an amazing kind of way and prickles ran over my skin.
 
It was as if my body wanted to shift with
him.
 
Anything to be
closer to him.

“Jade, you will not let anyone other than
Trevor and Marcy through those doors.
 
Am
I clear?”
 
His voice was a deep growl,
and his eyes held me with such intensity that I couldn’t move.

“Crystal,” I whispered.

I couldn’t say how long we stood there
watching each other.
 
It could have been
seconds or minutes or hours, but it didn’t matter.
 
Right then, I could have stayed there
forever, lost in his shimmering eyes.

“Trevor’s here,” he grumbled, shattering
the perfect moment into millions of sharp edged shards.

There was a loud bang on the door, and
Aidan turned away from me, grabbed the handle, and pulled it open.

Trevor looked … rattled, and there was a
jagged rip across the front of his blue sweater.
 
There was also a gash along his right cheekbone
that looked as if it was starting to heal.
 
It was still a bright pink, and there was dried, crusty blood along the
edges.

“What happened?” Marcy shrieked and rushed
over to him.
 
She started fussing over
his sweater and his cheek, making a bunch of anxious gasping sounds.

Trevor grabbed her hands, holding her
still, and exchanged a long look with Aidan that I couldn’t even begin to
understand.
 
And then Aidan glanced at me
and said, “By the way.
 
You’ll need to
learn how to control that.”

“Control what?” I asked and hated the pout
I heard in my voice.
 
He stepped out the
door, keeping his back to me, and I hated that, too.
 
He was leaving, which was a good thing,
maybe, kind of.
 
Well it should have
been, but darn it, I didn’t want him to go.

He glanced over his shoulder, and
winked.
 
“Your lust.
 
Your scent is screaming sex.”
 
And then he walked out the door, shutting it
quickly behind him.

~ AIDAN ~

It was easier
leaving than I had thought it would be.
 
My inner-wolf wanted Jade so badly that it took everything in me not to
shift.
 
With Jade’s enthralling scent and
Trevor’s news, I really hadn’t thought I would have been able to walk out that
door and leave her alone, but I did it.
 
As soon as I shut the door behind me, I let out a pent-up breath that I
hadn’t even realized I’d been holding, and I dug my phone out of my
pocket.
 
I fired off a text to Dominic
telling him to meet me at my motel room and to bring Jeff.
 
I had some question for both of them, and it
was time that they started talking.

I got into my car, started it up, and
pulled out of the driveway before I could change my mind.
 
She was handling it all better than I had
expected.
 
She didn’t need me.
 
And knowing that she didn’t need me, made it
so much harder to deal with.
 
I wanted
her to need me.

But what I really needed was a shower.
 
Preferably a cold one.

Jade’s scent had held a distinctly alpha
quality to it, and she was responding to me exactly how I had hoped she
would.
 
I was an unclaimed alpha, and her
inner-wolf had picked up on it immediately, even if she didn’t know that it had
happened.
 
Female wolves’ hormones tended
to go a touch haywire when there was an unclaimed alpha nearby, and since she
had liked me beforehand, well, it was all a little more … intense.

Thankfully, when I arrived back at the
motel, the parking lot was empty.
 
I
darted into my room, and knowing I probably only had a few minutes before
Dominic would get there, I stripped off my clothes and jumped into the shower,
turning the taps as cold as I could stand.

The shower helped … a little.
 
I had just turned off the ice water when I
heard a thudding knock at my door.
 
I got
dressed in a rush and yanked the door open, and just as I did, Jeff’s fist
slammed into my jaw.

I stumbled back a step, and a sharp pain
shot through my face.
 
What was it about
the Shaws that made them want to hit me?
 
Yesterday, Jade.
 
Today, her father.

Dominic was on him in a flash, grabbing his
arms and holding them behind his back.
 
Jeff didn’t struggle.
 
He stood
just outside my door glaring at me.

“Okay, yeah, I probably deserved that,” I
said, rubbing my aching jaw.
 
The skin
was already hot under my hand.
 
“But I
warn you, Jeff, don’t do it again.
 
I’m
not Ray, and I will not humor you.”
 
I
turned from them, padded over to the lone desk chair in my room, and took a
seat before I said, “Let him go, Dom.”

“Yeah, you did deserve it,” Jeff said,
shaking his hand out.
 
“Don’t you ever
try to kick me out of my own house
again.
”

Dominic slid by Jeff and sat on the desk
beside me.
 
He wouldn’t look at me, but I
wasn’t really surprised about that.
 
What
I was surprised about was that he was taking his place beside me.
 
I really hadn’t expected it.
 
After ripping him away from Jade and
threatening to boot him out of the pack, I had figured he would have stayed
clear of me, at least for a while.

Jeff looked stunned, too.
 
His jaw dropped slightly and his eyes
widened.
 
Clearly, Dominic had said
something to him when they had left.
 
Jeff
looked as if he was about to say something, but he held it back.
 
After a second, he crossed the room, letting
the door slam behind him, and he took a seat on the edge of the bed.

“Where’s Jade?” Dominic asked.
 
He tried to sound casual, but it was a
useless effort.
 
His voice was like
gravel and his scent was a mix of hot fury and concern, and it held a tangy
edge of jealousy.

“At home,” I said with a chuckle, as the
dirty look she gave me flashed across my mind.
 
“She kind of kicked me out.
 
But I
have some good news.
 
She doesn’t
entirely hate me, although I think she wishes she did.”

“I never thought she did,” Dominic said
through clenched teeth.
 
“You sparked her
interest the first second she laid eyes on you.”

“How could you leave her alone?” Jeff
asked.
 
His complexion paled quickly and
it looked as if it was a struggle for him not to jump up and run out the
door.
 
“What if one of
them attacks before she’s ready?
 
What if …”

I raised my hand and he sucked in a breath,
holding in whatever he was about to say.
 
“She’s not alone.
 
Mac and Trevor
are there.
 
And she did beat Erika as a
human.
 
I’m sure the other three won’t be
a problem for her.”

Dominic shifted on the desk and finally
looked at me.
 
“What if she rejects the
change?”
 
He held my eyes, and I saw his
fear.
 
It was shining through his mask,
although by his tense posture, I was pretty sure he was trying to hide it.

“She won’t,” I said, keeping my tone
light.
 
“Actually, I wouldn’t be
surprised if she has her first shift today.
 
She smells more wolf than human.”

“Aidan, please let me go stay with her,”
Dominic said.
 
He reached out, placing a
hand on my shoulder.
 
“She hates Trevor,
and she needs someone to help her through this.”

I shrugged his hand off, and stretched my
legs out in front of me, crossing them at the ankles.
 
“Bad news, too, though,” I said, ignoring his
plea.
 
“It’s time for you to come
clean.
 
Because
honestly, if I catch another whiff of jealousy on you, I’ll rip you apart.”
 
I said it all with a smile, but there was no
mistaking how serious I was.

Jeff sat still.
 
So still in fact, that I was pretty sure he
was even holding his breath.
 
His hands
were clasped in his lap, and his graying hair looked like it could use a good
brushing.
 
When I had first seen him, he
was kind of intimidating, big and burly.
 
The father of the girl I liked.
 
Right now, he looked small and scared.
 
It was … weird and a little perfect.
 
All I had needed was to show my authority and I could make this man
tremble before me.

Dominic sighed, and hopped off the
desk.
 
He padded over to the big window
and pulled open the curtain, letting the sunshine glitter through the
glass.
 
He was nervous.
 
I could smell it, and his heartbeat picked
up, thrumming a little quicker against his ribs.

“There’s nothing to come clean about,” he
said and glanced around the room.
 
He
snagged the garbage can, and made his way back over to the desk, picking up the
scattered protein bar wrappers and empty coffee cups.

I watched him pick up all the garbage and
then begin to straighten the textbooks on the coffee table.
 
The tension was growing; his nerves were
making his hands tremble slightly.
 
“I
know something’s up with you two, Dom, and I want to know what it is.”

He turned to me and gave me a blank
look.
 
“Shouldn’t we be dealing with your
exposure?
 
The pack needs to
prepare.
 
If we aren’t ready, she’s the
easiest target.”

“She’s not an easy target,” I said, not
backing down.
 
“She doesn’t even need to
move to pin someone in place.
 
I know you
felt it.
 
You jumped pretty quickly when
she said she was hungry.”

I let my scent roll off of me, filling the
room, and folded my arms over my chest.
 
He was giving me an insolent look, one that clearly told me that he did
not, and would not, agree with me, and I was done putting up with it.
 
I hadn’t wanted to use my alpha scent like
this.
 
I hadn’t wanted to turn into my
father, but I couldn’t fight him and deal with everything else.

Dominic held my stare for a moment before
his body visibly started to shake.
 
He
laughed, a strangled sound, and put his hands up, backing up a step.
 
“I swear there’s nothing going on between
us,” he said with a desperate note in his voice.
 
“We grew up together.
 
We were best friends.
 
She kissed me once.
 
I told her I was gay.
 
Without the whole sex issue between us, we
got closer.
 
I got bit.
 
I ditched her.
 
She hated the pack and me for it.
 
That’s it.”

I felt the change in my eyes, the soft
sting as they began to glow, and he shuddered back another step.
 
“If that were all true, you wouldn’t be so
jealous,” I said, watching him drop to his knees before me.

Guilt washed over me hard and fast.
 
Dominic’s face twisted with agony and a quick
flash of how this felt slammed into me.
 
I remembered the pain burning over my skin when my father had let his
alpha wolf out.
 
I remembered the scent
clawing through my body, making my inner-wolf convulse.
 
I remembered the power behind it, and that
memory was what made me pull it back.

Dominic gasped in a breath.
 
“I love her like a sister,” he said panting
and crumbling to the floor, as I pulled back the last of the invasive
scent.
 
He took a few breaths and pulled
himself up, propping his back against the wall.
 
“I don’t want her hurt.
 
She hates
hard, she loves even harder, and if she doesn’t win, she’ll be crushed when she
realizes that means she won’t get you.”
 
He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound.
 
He gave me a look, and if I didn’t know
better, I would have thought he actually cared about me.
 
“And you’ll have to walk away from her.
 
How many times do I have to tell you, I’m
looking out for you!
 
Not her.
 
If she lost right now, could you walk
away?
 
I’m not blind, Aidan.
 
You’re attracted to her and that’s
dangerous.
 
If you help her, give her any
kind of advantage, she’ll be killed, and you won’t be able to stop it.
 
The pack won’t stand for it, the enforcers
will step in, and I don’t trust you enough not to help her.
 
You’ve already interfered with her once.”

The cocky strength was back in his voice,
and the color was quickly returning to his cheeks.
 
As I listened to him, I felt as if he had
swung a baseball bat into my gut.
 
“That’s different,” I scoffed, but I knew it wasn’t.
 
“You were dragging her to a car.”

Dominic got to his feet, still a little
shaky, and paced toward me.
 
“Yeah, I
was. But if she had have been my mate, she’d have been put on trial for
crossing me.
 
And you would have had to
hand down the sentence.”

I scrubbed at my face.
 
“You’re going to tell her, aren’t you?”

“Nope.
 
You were right.
 
She won’t fight for you.
 
Not because she doesn’t want you but because
she’s stubborn.
 
She’s pissed at you and
with Jade that can last a while.”
 
He
sighed long and loud and ran his hands roughly through his hair.
 
“She’ll lose everything while she chews on
her hatred.”

I didn’t say anything because I was pretty
sure he was right.
 
Sooner or later Jade
would gain control of her inner-wolf and when she did, I was pretty sure she’d
turn her back on me.
 
Dominic let out a
gusty huff and took up his place beside me, sitting on the desk.

“I want to be free to help her with the
change,” he said with determination.
 
“I
want to be able to help her win, and I can’t do that without your consent.
 
Before you shoot me down, just think for a
second about how close you are to having two packs in this town.
 
Erika will follow her anywhere and I’m sure
others will, too.”