Deadly Mates (Deadly Trilogy) (24 page)

Knowing that should have helped, too.  It really should have.  But it didn’t.

There was still a good crowd in the parking lot when we got outside.  At first glance, I didn’t think any of them noticed Jade.  It hadn’t been obvious that they were watching her join the team, and for a moment I thought that maybe her shifting in private was a bad move.  Too discreet to draw attention.  But as I followed her out the doors, I realized they were watching.  I caught the sidelong glances checking out the matte-black wolf trotting away from me, and the arched eyebrows in my direction, and I forced a smile to show I was supporting her.

When she reached the edge of the forest where the wolves were gathered, Jade twisted to look behind her, and her bright golden eyes settled on me.  She let out a sound that was somewhere between a growl and an excited yip.

“Be careful, sweetheart,” I called, lifting my hand in a little wave. 
Just breathe.  She’s going to be fine.  We are going to be fine.
  Damn, it would be better not to feel anything right now.

As the team and Jade took off into the forest, I spotted Tommy and Chris leaning against the building with Dominic.  And oh, they weren’t happy.  Even if Tommy’s shiny head wasn’t redder than a blistering sunburn, the hot spike in the air would have given it away.  Clearly they didn’t appreciate Jared telling them to hang back from the hunt.

“Hey,” Dominic said, as I approached.  He was frowning and giving me one of those looks that told me he knew I was on the verge of cracking.  I had to give it to him; he knew how to read me.  “She can handle herself.  She’ll be fine.”

I nodded, but didn’t say anything.  He was right.  I knew it.  He knew it, too.  But knowing it didn’t mean that I liked her going any better.  But I made a conscious effort to dial back my anxiety.

My relaxed persona must have been somewhat convincing, because as I settled in with them, Dominic chuckled and then said, “You know.  She once told me that there’s nothing sexier than a man who’s in love with his woman and not afraid to show it.”

Tommy and Chris chuckled, and both of them rolled their eyes.

Dominic flashed them a bright, pearly white grin, full of exaggerated smugness.  “Laugh all you want,” he said.  “I may not date women, but I know what I’m talking about when it comes to impressing them.”  And then he grimaced.  “Mac and Jade like to talk — a lot.”

I had to laugh.  If Dominic knew anything about Jade or Marcy, it was only how to piss them off.  Except it really did sound like something Jade would say.  The question was: how was I supposed to show how much I loved her without coming across as being possessive or overbearing?  That’s what I wanted to ask, but what I said was, “
She’s not really
my
woman.”

“Keep thinking like that and she never really will be,” he said and clapped me on the shoulder.

Something inside me flinched, hard.  “Yeah, well, we’re still trying to work out our issues.”

“Whatever, I’m not judging, man.  Just sharing my wealth of knowledge on the mystery of what women want.”  He smirked, cutting me an angled side glance, and then said, “Come on, these two want a meeting.”

“Sure,” I said with a nod, and pushed off the wall.  “I’m going to check in on the cougar.  I’ll meet you guys in my office in a few.”

The headquarters had once been a home to the pack.  They
had slept here, ate here.  There was security in staying together.  And the building had everything they had needed: beds, private rooms, kitchen, gym, media and game rooms.  It had been built with the purpose of keeping the pack together, now it was just a place to conduct business.

The slap of my shoes echoed in the bright, empty hallways as I made my way through the building.  I followed along and then veered to the left where the old sleeping quarters were.  Keeping the captive there was Jade’s idea, insisting he be kept comfortable until we could determine if he truly was our enemy.

If I hadn’t known where he was, I could have followed the smell of cougar, that odd mix of lemon and birch bark, all the way to where Richard slept.  It gave the sterile pack headquarters a weirdly cold feel, smelling the enemy within its walls.

As I stepped out of the hallway, and pushed through the doors that led to the rooms, Luken looked up and gave me a bright smile.  He leaned against the wall, a phone in his hands, just outside the door to the captive’s room.

“I didn’t expect to see you here,” I said.  I knew he’d been planning to talk to Jared, but I figured he would have been shot down.

“Me neither,” he admitted, hastily pocketing his phone and straightening as I approached.  “Jared said he’d think about it and stuck me on guard duty while they’re on the hunt.”  He shifted from one foot to the other and averted his gaze.  “About Jade, sorry I gave her a hard time.”

“I’m not the one you need to apologize to, man.”  The words sounded normal, but my tone was hard and direct.  His smile dimmed, no longer looked bright, but breakable, and I heaved a sigh.  “If you would have talked to her, you wouldn’t have to be stuck on guard duty.  You’d be on that hunt with them right now.  She would have gone to bat for you, and if that didn’t work, she would have pestered him until he agreed.”

He didn’t look like he believed me or it could have been that he just didn’t want to believe me, but it was the truth.  Jade would have welcomed the help and she would have f
orced the issue until she won.

We stood there in silence; the only sounds were our breathing, until he cleared his throat.  “I’m guessing you came to see him,” he said.  He didn’t wait for my answer before he turned and stiff-armed the door, letting it swing open.

“Any movement?” I asked, as I stepped in and flicked on the light switch.

The room was simple, holding only a bed and dresser.  The walls were painted in a pastel blue and the window coverings were fringed with a pale green lace, the remnants of whichever pack member had once made it their own.

“Nothing yet,” he said.  “I’ve been checking every fifteen minutes.”

My gaze locked on to Richard lying flat on his back in
the bed.  He had passed out before the team had shown up at Jeff’s.  I hadn’t thought much of it at first.  He’d been so torn up and beaten at the time it had made sense that his body would shut down, try to heal.  But the wounds were closed now, looking more like old scars than fresh cuts.  And he didn’t really look asleep.  He was too still.  His eyes didn’t flutter.  His muscles didn’t twitch.  It was almost as if he’d been drugged into a comatose state.

About ten minutes later, I made it back to my office, feeling about fifty different kinds of pissed-off.  Not that I hadn’t seen it coming, but I was now certain that the little gift from Jade’s father was more of a distraction than anything else.  The question was: what was he trying to distract me from?

Man, the urge to race out and beat the shit out of Jeff until I had the answers I needed was nearly irresistible.  But then, so was the desire to keep Jade happy, and beating her dad wouldn’t keep her happy.  I seriously never thought loving someone could be this damn confining.

I heaved a sigh and settled in behind my desk.  “I’m guessing this meeting is about your report on the team,” I said.  “What did you find out?”

I expected Tommy to tell me I was wrong and urge me to wait.  They’d made it clear in the email that I should hear whatever it was from the team, but from the look he exchanged with Chris I assumed my guess was right, and that waiting was no longer an option.

“None of them are going to talk to you now that Jared’s back and breathing down their necks.”  He collapsed onto the couch, across from my desk, and stretched his legs out in front of him.  A slow, grim smile twisted his mouth and he said, “The team, all five of them are half brothers.  Same father, different mothers.  Jared was born here, but the others came along a couple years ago.”

I frowned and began tapping the pen in my hand against my desk restlessly.  I looked at Dominic, and cocked a brow.  He was frowning, too, and shrugged as if this was the first he was hearing about this.

“Who’s their father?” I asked, as a fast ripple of irritation passed through me.

“That’s the interesting part.  You killed their father,” Chris said, his voice carried a dark undertone.  He leaned forward in his chair, resting his forearms on his knees.  “According to Landon, Ray tracked them down and changed them just before he fought and won alpha.  He was building a pack that wouldn’t think about trying to overthrow him, even before it was his.”

I felt Dominic’s eyes on me and I dropped the pen, splaying my hands out on my desk, as I settled a glare on him.  “Why doesn’t anyone in this damn pack know about this?”

Dominic stared at me for a moment, his expression unreadable, and then said, “Knowing Ray he probably didn’t want anyone to know they were his sons.  It explains a lot, though.  The team always looked the other way when Ray stepped out of line.  It was smart not to let anyone know.  Too many gray lines when you have that many blood relatives in power positions.  If I’d known, I would have fought it, and I’m sure others would have, too.”

His weak explanation didn’t improve my mood, even if it did shed some light on why all those pack members had
cowered back, clearly afraid to interfere, while Ray had been beating his mate.  If the team had always looked the other way, then there was no one to have their back if the alpha abused his power.

I was starting to feel a bit ill.  “Should I be worried about Jade out there with them?”

“No.”  Tommy said it with certainty.  “Landon and Mark are loyal to you.  Beck is stuck in the middle somewhere, loyal to the pack and to his brothers, but he wouldn’t let any of them, not even Jared, touch her.  He loves her, even if he isn’t sure about you.”

“None of them will talk about Jared,” Chris added.  “They’re trying to cover for him.  It’s pretty obvious he would love to see you dead.  And Craig hates you for touching Erika.”

I leaned back in my chair.  I didn’t know what surprised me more … that two of them were loyal to me or that two of them would be happy to see me dead.  I guessed it could have been worse.

“Don’t blame yourself,” Dominic said after a stretch of silence.  “When your mate’s ex-whatever-he-was wants you dead, he wants you dead.  There’s nothing you can really do about it.  And besides,” he shrugged, “Jared always wants someone dead.  He’ll get over it.”

~ JADE ~

I had expected to be taken to the last trail that
was uncovered, or at least to the base of the mountain where the cougar tracks were thicker, but instead the team had turned off and headed straight for a new patch of land that hadn’t been searched.  And I really didn’t like where they were planning on searching.  We were heading straight into the hunting camps.

I knew that hunting season wasn’t open yet and that even if it was, hunting wolves was illegal, but even knowing that, it still didn’t seem like such a hot idea to go running into a place that potentially had men with guns.

But I figured the hunting camps were a good place to look.  They had shelter.  They had beds.  And they were only used a couple weeks of the year.

Jared’s deep brown wolf led the way, keeping a muscle burning pace.  The team stayed with him, running in a watchful silence.  We ran for a solid twenty minutes before he finally slowed to a light jog and cut right, heading down a dirt roadway.

The roadway hadn’t been travelled recently, not a single tire track was pressed into the dirt.  Trees hung overhead, and sprigs of weeds and grass had popped up sporadically down the center of the path.  The forest was darkening quickly, the sun almost gone for the day, and skeletal shadows crisscrossed along the path in front of us.

Jared slowed again, veering left as he followed a bend in the trail.

And then the first camp came into view.

The building ahead had a rotting sign hanging over the door that read,
Brinkwell.
  It was a large rustic looking cabin made of logs.  There wasn’t much of a clearing, as if the owners had only cut down enough trees to make way for the structure, a few picnic tables, and a fire pit.

Beck moved in closer to me, hugging my side.  He growled when I pulled back and away from him.  It was a flat warning to stay close and he reinforced it by nipping at my shoulder.

I stopped dead, cocking my head to look at him.  His eyes stayed on mine as he dipped his head, pressing his muzzle to the ground.  His nostrils were flaring with each long breath he took.  He nosed at a small pile of leaves, pushing them toward me, and I breathed in the scent.

There was, I realized, a
faint trace of cougar on those leaves.

Jared growled and Craig, Mark, and Landon moved in around him.  He pawed at the wooden door of the building, but it didn’t budge.  His coat began to shudder and ripple.  The dry crack of bones sounded loudly in my ears.  His fur receded in a quick, clean motion.  And then he was human, standing on the rickety looking deck.  “Beck, don’t leave her side,” he said in a ragged pant, and then he shoved the door open.

~ AIDAN ~

“She’s not going to like this,” Dominic said, but he pushed the door open and hopped out of the car anyway.