Deceived By the Others (14 page)

“You will cause permanent damage once he figures out you’re not kidding about sending him to Royce. Though, really,” Dillon stopped himself and laughed, shaking his head before continuing, “I have to say, I’d pay good money to see him playing cabana boy to a leech.”

“I can’t believe you, Chaz,” Paula said, the disgust as thick in her voice as it was in her expression, deepening when she turned a hateful glare on me. “Are you doing this for her?”

Chaz’s hand had been limp in my lap until Paula spoke; it abruptly turned into a tight fist, sending bright rivulets of blood spilling from the cuts. As he tensed in preparation to stand, I quickly wrapped a towel around his arm, then put a restraining hand on his shoulder as I stood instead.

“Let me handle this.”

He glanced over at me, the low, ominous rumble in his throat dying into silence as curiosity won out over his anger. At his nod, I quietly moved over to where Paula sat on the bed. Kimberly slid away from us, leaving me to face Paula alone. I stopped a couple feet back from the bed, fists propped on my hips as I met the Were’s baleful glare with a harsh stare of my own. She looked away first.

“I am tired of your shit, Paula. I didn’t do anything to deserve the harsh words, the mean looks, or the petty name-calling. Was I in thrall to Royce at one point? Yes. Am I now? No. So,” I said, taking another step forward, aggressive enough that she pulled away from me. “I don’t know where this animosity is coming from, but how about you knock it the fuck off and try to treat me with a little respect, hmm?”

Her gaze darted to the others, her mouth opening in dismay at seeing that Kimberly had distanced herself from this argument. That was fine and dandy by me. The last thing I needed was more of the pack to turn on me.

“Fine,” she muttered softly, so quiet I could barely hear it.

“If you have a beef with me, make it because of something I did to you, not over a rumor. Got it?”

“Yes,” she said, a little louder now.

“Good,” I said, though now that I’d won, I wasn’t sure what to do. She just sat there, not looking at me, and everyone else was being awfully quiet. After a minute, I sighed and turned away, intending to fix up Chaz’s other arm.

As soon as my back was turned, she was moving. The only reason I managed to duck out of the way in time was because I heard the squeak of bedsprings. Despite my quick reflexes, her nails raked down my arm, catching in the fabric of my sleeve. With her augmented strength, she might have broken the skin even with those blunt, French-manicured nails. Either way, I wasn’t interested in finding out if she could, and I was pissed that she’d stooped to this tactic to deal with me. If I let this slide, the others would see me as a pushover. I’d never have anyone’s respect in the pack, and she’d think she could get away with it time and again until I showed her I could stand up for myself.

She wanted to play hardball? I’d play it her way, then.

The others moved to hold Paula back, but before anyone could come between us, I spun around and decked her across the jaw. She staggered to the side, clutching at her bleeding mouth and staring at me in shock. Kimberly practically leapt off the bed and backed out of the way, giving us room.

Anger glinted in Paula’s eyes, and she bared bloodstained teeth as she lashed out to return the favor. I was prepared for it this time. Despite her incredible speed and reflexes, I managed to avoid the worst of it and was only struck a glancing blow on the shoulder, stumbling back a step or two.

The pain was bad, but I ignored it and aimed a kick at her solar plexus, intending to put her off balance and knock the wind out of her. Thanks to my anger it was a sloppy move, and I had to hop back to regain my balance.

She doubled over, the air going out of her with a pained sound, so I helped her along to the floor by hooking my foot behind hers and sweeping her off her feet. Breath knocked out of her, she stayed down when I put my sock-covered toes on her throat with just enough pressure to constrict her air.

She clearly hadn’t expected me to be trained to fight back and probably hadn’t thought I could hurt her too badly with my measly human strength. Or that superior—in her case, supernatural—strength didn’t always win out in a fight. To keep her from getting any ideas, I put enough pressure on her windpipe to cut her breaths down to wheezing whimpers.

One of the guys reached out to urge me to ease up, but I shrugged the grasping hand from my shoulder and kept my gaze locked on Paula’s. Her fingers scrabbled at my sweats, seeking purchase to pull my leg off her. I leaned down harder and leveled a finger at her face, making sure she knew I wasn’t kidding around.

“Listen up, Paula, and listen good. I may not have your strength or speed. Hell, I may not even be that good a hunter—but I’ve fought bigger, badder Others than you and come out on top before. Don’t test me again. You’ll lose.”

She nodded vehemently, as best she could around my foot crushing her throat. Since she looked more concerned about getting air than getting revenge, I backed up, watching her warily. I about jumped out of my skin when I felt another hand on my uninjured shoulder, but it was just Chaz coming to stand behind me to show support. The others had gotten up and were doing the same, even Kimberly moving gracefully from behind the bed to stand at my back. It was odd, really odd, particularly as they had to cram themselves into a small space in order to be at my back, but exhilarating, too. They supported me, and that was what mattered.

Paula slowly rolled onto her hands and knees, creeping over to take my hand. I withdrew quickly when it looked like she was about to do the same thing Seth had done with Chaz, licking his hand and looking like a kicked dog begging forgiveness from its master.

“Don’t. If you’re sorry, just say so.”

A brief flash of anger burned in her eyes as she glanced up at me before she nodded, sitting back on her heels. Once she found her voice, even through the rasping she sounded almost as petulant as I did whenever I had to apologize to Royce. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Chaz nudged my arm. “She’s acknowledging you as her superior. You could accept it with a little grace, you know.”

I looked at him blankly. “What?”

“She’s doing it because you bested her. This is how she publicly admits you’re senior to her in the pack structure.”

I made a face, gesturing at the others. Ouch, that pulled some muscles in my shoulder that really didn’t want to be pulled. Note to self: no more fistfights with Weres. “I’m not part of the pack. You guys know that, right? I’m just the pack leader’s girlfriend.”

Chaz laughed faintly, though it sounded strained. “You became more than that when you saved us from the guy using the Focus. If not for you, there might not even be a Sunstriker pack anymore.”

“I’d rather have you as part of the pack than not, even if you aren’t a Were. You’re strong enough to hold your own if you can best Paula with your bare hands. Or feet. Whatever,” Simon said.

I rubbed a hand over my face, not happy with this. If they were going to look at me as a pack member, did that mean I had to act like one? Was I going to have to defend my stance as a dominant member every time somebody got peeved at me? Granted, it was satisfying knocking Paula on her butt, but I wasn’t so sure I’d be able to do it again without the element of surprise on my side. It was a step up from being “the pack leader’s girlfriend” in their eyes, but it was also dangerous, uncharted territory. It might give them ideas to pressure me into becoming a pack member for real before long. Particularly once they found out I’d brought a contract with me for Chaz to sign. It wouldn’t be legal until filed with the courts, but they might consider it a gesture on my part to
really
join the pack.

Everyone eased back into his or her seat, acting like nothing had happened, like I hadn’t just had a knock-down-drag-out fight with Paula. Even with the bruise purpling her jaw and the raspy breaths, she was looking more normal and relaxed than I’d seen her since she started going off on me about Royce. Apparently kicking her butt was just the right thing to make her respect me. Who would’ve thought?

Still, the speculative looks the others were giving me now, even if tempered with more respect than before, had me worried. I could almost hear their thoughts, they were so obvious. They might have been hiding it behind shifting the talk to what they’d do for dinner tonight, maybe hitting the town for pizza, but I still caught the twinkle of interest and concern as each of the Weres snuck glances at me now and again.

Tonight definitely wasn’t the night to show the contract to Chaz—but the day’s events did raise some tough questions I wasn’t in any frame of mind to answer.

Would I consider becoming one of them and taking a place in the pack structure for real?

Chapter 13

We went to town for dinner. And by we, I mean the entire freaking pack. We all piled into about twenty cars and converged in a mob on one of the few restaurants scattered along the main street cutting through the town, taking up all the parking spaces for two or three blocks. The few people out and about tonight watched the strange, eclectic mix of people mingling together, a couple of young kids dashing between the adults, discussing whether to get pizza or check out the diner down the street.

Most of the votes swung for pizza, so that’s where we went. There weren’t nearly enough seats inside for so many of us, but we cheerfully harassed the poor kid behind the counter with enough orders to make his head spin. When he asked Dillon to repeat his order for the third time, Billy’s mom got fed up and wrote everything down on a piece of paper for him. The teen was grateful, though when someone mentioned separate tabs he turned an interesting shade of white under the fading summer tan. Obviously they didn’t get this many walk-ins very often or orders this big outside the tourist season. Maybe not even then.

It was even funnier when the kid realized we weren’t having some kind of wacky family reunion. He gaped when he spotted a pack tattoo and recognized it for what it was, eyes dilating and his pallor swiftly shifting into a flush of fear and embarrassment as he stammered out that it would take them a couple hours to get this many pizzas ready on such short notice. That would cut it close to sunset, but we’d manage. His relief at the lack of disappointed growls and sudden shapeshifts was so obvious, it was comical.

I was surprised the kid was so nervous considering the Cassidy family lived out here. Then again, maybe the Cassidys were more private with their business than the Sunstrikers. After all, we were visitors from the big city, and the tolerance for things with fur and fangs was generally a lot higher there than out in the boondocks. Not to mention the Sunstrikers currently outnumbered the townsfolk on the street.

They weren’t making an effort to hide what they were either. Many of them were in short sleeves, not bothering with jackets, showing off their pack tats on their upper arms. Some of the women had halter tops, and the few who hadn’t put their pack tattoo on their arms made sure they were visible on their shoulder blades. If the tattoos didn’t do it, the scruffiness and lack of warm clothing to combat the bitter October chill would have given them away.

With this many of them together in public, I doubted anyone would try anything more than jacking up prices or whispering empty threats when they thought the Weres were out of earshot. Still, it worried me a little when the kid rushed off into the kitchen area as soon as he got the last payment, hiding back there with the two cooks. A handful of Sunstrikers lingered outside having a smoke or talking on cell phones while the rest of us were crammed inside.

A couple of the girls casually mentioned they were going to window-shop while they waited for the pizza. As I was rubbing my sore shoulder, Kimberly lightly brushed my arm to get my attention. “Do you want to come with us?”

I hesitated before answering, taking stock of who was going. Paula was sulking, off in one of the booths by herself. The other girls were smiling and waving me over, hoping I would come with them. Oh, what the hell. I needed new underwear anyway.

“Sure, why not,” I said, hefting my purse up a little higher on my shoulder and giving Chaz’s hand a reassuring squeeze before letting go and joining the group of women gathering at the door.

It was surprisingly enjoyable walking up and down the tiny boulevard, talking with these women, finding out who they were and exclaiming over some of the hiking and ski equipment in the windows of some of the shops. Though it was cold for me, none of them seemed bothered by it. The exertion of walking around kept my blood circulating, keeping the worst of the cold at bay. And it was nice to be accepted into the fold. Either they weren’t aware of, or didn’t care about, the drama-fest that had taken place with Paula or the fact that I’d once been bound to vampires.

I did pick up a couple of new T-shirts and pairs of jeans while we were out. Sadly, the only shop in this part of town that carried underclothes wasn’t open and looked like it was closed for the season. Looked like I’d be going commando for the rest of the trip. Lucky me.

At one point, I pulled Kimberly aside to ask her about Paula. Since they were friends, I hoped that she might be able to shed some light on why Paula had such a beef with me. After some hedging on her part, I finally asked her directly if she knew what the problem was.

“Look,” she said, with a tone of finality, “it’s nothing you can do anything about. She’s got issues with vampires and anyone connected with them. A lot of us do. Ignore it if you can, because she’s not going to let it go, and I don’t think there’s anything you can do to change it.”