Otherworldly Bad Boys: Three Complete Novels (37 page)

“Brooks, we don’t have to like it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I kind of do.”

“No. You don’t.”

“I need to be a little bit happy to function, if you know what I mean,” he said, glaring at her.

Dana stole a look at Avery’s crotch. There definitely wasn’t anything bulgy going on with his boxers. She put her hand on him.

He ripped her away. “Jesus. What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’ll go down on you,” she said.

He scooted backwards. “Let’s just put the brakes on here.”

Dana sat up.

Avery flopped backwards on the bed.

She looked down at herself. “Is it because I ran so much that my boobs shrank, like you said?”

“What?”

“You know, you told Cole I didn’t even have breasts. Maybe if they were bigger—”

“No.” He glared at her. “Don’t do that. Don’t act like an idiot woman who’s insecure. You know you’re gorgeous.”

“So then...”

“I started touching you, and you were writhing like you were in pain,” he said. “It kind of turned me off. Completely. And this whole thing is weird anyway. I mean, we’re only doing this because you think it will break the bond you have with Randall, not because you actually even
want
to.”

“Well, you only kissed me because I’m a female alpha, so I figured you wouldn’t have a problem with it.”

“Seriously?” He got off the bed. He fished her shirt off the floor and threw it at her. “Get dressed, Gray.”

“We don’t have to stop—”

“
Yes
, we do.” He yanked on a pair of jeans. “I’ll make coffee.” He disappeared out of the bedroom. She could hear him clattering around, filling the coffee maker with water.

She shrugged back into her shirt and joined him in the kitchen.

He was shirtless, dumping heaps of coffee grounds into the machine. His hair was mussed, and she realized that she felt something here. A surge of familiarity and affection. And yes, attraction. He was very pretty, Avery Brooks. She couldn’t help but smile. “You think I’m gorgeous, huh?”

He looked up. “Always have.”

“Well, you’re not so bad yourself, you know.”

He smiled ruefully. “I thought I was a means to an end. A way to get rid of Randall.”

She shrugged. “Not just that.”

He closed the coffee maker. “Look, Dana...”

He’d used her first name. “Yeah?”

“You know, I never thought that if I was that close to being with you, I’d lose my hard on. But, um, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You thought about being with me?”

He gave her an embarrassed grin. “Yeah, it usually goes much better in my head.”

She arched an eyebrow, smiling. “Really?”

He flipped the coffee maker on and leaned up against the counter. “I can’t figure you out.”

She moved closer, placing her hands on his bare chest.

He sucked in breath.

She ran her fingers over him. He was firm and unyielding. “I do feel things for you, Avery.”

He caught one of her hands with his own. He bent down and kissed her.

She closed her eyes, giving in to it. And then a shock went through her, a feeling of loathing and disgust, like she’d been doused in crude oil. She stiffened.

He pulled away. “That. Every time I try to be close to you, that happens.”

“It’s just the wolf,” she said. “It’s the bond with Cole. We have to keep going to get rid of it.”

Avery turned, placing his hands on the kitchen counter. He stared down at the floor. “I don’t know if I can.”

Damn it. Why did Avery have to be such a nice guy? Cole wouldn’t care about her relative discomfort. He’d take her, no matter how she reacted, his silky voice in her ear, convincing her that she wanted it, guiding her to the pleasure—

Don’t think about Cole
, she scolded herself.

“We’re going on the road,” he said. “We’ll be hunting down all of Randall’s betas, staying in hotels...” He straightened, turned to her, and caressed her cheek. “Just the two of us.” He planted a kiss on her forehead. “We’ll try again.”

She bit her lip. She nodded.

* * *

Hunting down the betas was annoyingly slow work, mostly because of all the back-tracking they had to do. If any of the wolves they talked to reacted to Cole’s scent, then Dana and Avery had to cart them back to the SF headquarters. This often meant that they drove out early in the morning, found a beta, and then drove all the way back. They talked about the idea of trying to load more than one beta in the back of their car, but there wasn’t a lot of room, and the logistics might not work out.

For every beta they found, there were two or three on the list of potentials who didn’t react to the scent. They could take in a beta, go to test more wolves, and then not find anyone. By that time, it might be late, making the drive back to headquarters with the beta difficult and torturous. Of course, there was no way they could put up a beta in a hotel.

For one thing, the betas were not exactly cooperative. Many of them had no idea that they’d been bonded to Cole, although some of them did have vague memories of shifting months and months ago, like Coraline did. Whether they remembered or not, they didn’t take kindly to the idea of being forced to leave their lives and be sequestered at the SF for an indefinite period of time. Even when Dana promised them they were working on breaking the bond, they didn’t seem too happy. After all, they weren’t aware they had any problems. All of this had been dropped on them out of the blue.

She and Avery had to do a lot of talking and explaining. They had to say a lot of the same stuff over and over. They had to engage in a lot of fear tactics. When none of that worked, they had to use their tranquilizer guns.

It was tedious and hard work, dealing with people that were angry with them all the time.

So the weeks went by, and they didn’t actually end up staying in hotels that often. And when they got home to headquarters, they were both exhausted.

There wasn’t much chance to try again, as Avery had put it.

But they did manage a few attempts. None of them went well.

In a hotel in Maine, after a string of days finding no betas whatsoever, she managed to push down the bad feelings long enough to get completely naked with Avery. Things were going well. She thought they were, anyway. Sure, she was gritting her teeth and sweating, half of her body fighting it, but she was overriding all the bad feelings, and she was determined.

Avery backed out, though, right at the end.

Maybe it would be more accurate to say he limped out.

“You’re not exactly hot stuff when you look like that,” he muttered.

Another time, they started making out on her couch in her apartment at headquarters, after getting back from a very long day of dragging in an uncooperative beta. It was late at night, she was tired, and Avery barely got his hand inside her shirt before she started feeling the nasty tug of wrongness. It was like soot in her veins, gunks of darkness. It was hard to breathe. When she’d started turning purple, Avery had stopped the entire thing.

“You looked like you were dead. Maybe some people are into that, but I’m not,” he’d said.

And so it went. They tried, but it was uncomfortable for Dana, even painful, and Avery couldn’t stay aroused in that situation.

There also didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to her reactions. Sometimes, she could manage kissing him for ten or twenty minutes without bad feelings. The sensations wouldn’t start until they were being intimate. Other times, all Avery had to do was brush a hand over the small of her back, and she’d be ripped in two by a horrid feeling.

The good news was that they were making progress working through the list of Cole’s potentials. Even if she was still Cole’s mate, they were taking away his betas out in the world. Every wolf that they locked up was a wolf that Cole couldn’t force to shift. Those wolves couldn’t kill people. That was important to Dana. She knew they were doing good work. They were saving lives.

Of course, sometimes it felt like the opposite, when she took betas away from their parents, their husbands, their homes, and basically imprisoned them in the SF. That didn’t feel very good.

Still, within three weeks, they were done. They brought in the last beta and crossed the last potential off the list just in time for the full moon. That was a good thing because there would probably be a regular rogue attack somewhere tonight, and she and Avery would be busy. They might be done with the list of potentials, but they’d have no chance to rest.

She and Avery got the beta through processing, and Julie there reminded her that Hollis had just finished his training and was being released.

She hadn’t seen him since the time he’d tried to kiss her, and she hadn’t succeeded at breaking her bond with Cole, but she decided she’d go down to see him off anyway.

“I can come with you,” said Avery.

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’m just going to say goodbye, and then I think I’ll go for a quick run.”

“A run?” he said.

“Just for exercise, not to stave off thoughts of Cole Randall,” she assured him.

“Good,” he said, pulling her close.

Their quick kiss didn’t hurt her.

She trotted down a level to Hollis’ room.

It was empty. He’d left his robe and a stack of newspapers behind. She’d missed him. He was already gone.

Well, maybe that was for the best, she decided. She and Hollis had a rocky relationship, especially lately.

She went back to her room and changed into shorts and a tank top. Then she headed outside to take a few laps around the inside perimeter of the fences.

As she ran, she contemplated the problem she was having with Avery. The past three weeks had cemented her affection for him, and she felt close to him in a way that only people who have shared intimacy can. Avery was more that a means to an end, but she wasn’t sure how much more.

If they could somehow get past her discomfort and actually do the deed, what would that mean for the two of them?

She would be mated to Avery. That was still a little terrifying. After all, it didn’t solve the problem of men around her being attracted to her. She’d still be an alpha.

She wondered if it would mean that Avery would suddenly be the alpha wolf to all of Cole’s wolves? Wasn’t that what Avery had said, that when a lone wolf mated with an alpha’s female, he took over the pack?

If so, that could solve all their problems. The betas would be free, because Avery wouldn’t force them to shift. They could let everyone go.

It had suddenly become doubly important that they do it.

And even if it meant that she and Avery would be thrust together by instinctual feelings for each other, being drawn to Avery was so much more preferable that being drawn to Cole. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t like Avery. She liked him a lot.

It had to be done, anyway. That much was clear.

She picked up her pace and ran into the breeze, feeling better about everything than she had in a long time.

Then there was a sharp pain in her thigh.

She stumbled, crying out.

She went down on the ground, registering the fact that there was a tranq dart sticking out of her leg. They worked fast. She’d be out in seconds.

“Help!” she screamed. “Help me!

No one came.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

She awoke to a familiar, but terrifying, sensation. Her arms were above her head, and she could feel the cold bite of chains against her wrists. She opened her eyes.

No. She couldn’t be here.

This had to be a dream. She couldn’t be back in Cole’s basement again. She’d gotten away from here. She remembered getting away.

* * *

Deep in the dank basement of Cole’s house all those months ago, Dana had been stuck to Cole after they mated. They were joined, and they couldn’t separate. The wolf had liked it, she knew, but she didn’t. She had remembered watching things on the Discovery Channel about wolves—wild animal wolves. It was called a coital tie, and it practically ensured pregnancy. The wolf thought that was a wonderful idea. The human part of her was frantic at the thought of having Cole’s child. She’d be stuck with him forever, then. The wolf hummed with joy at that thought. The human part of her recoiled in horror.

She wasn’t sure that she could actually get pregnant in wolf form. What would grow in her? A human or a werewolf? Hell, she hadn’t known that sex in werewolf form was even possible. But it clearly was. It had happened.

She didn’t think to shift back to human form. Apparently, Cole didn’t either.

When they could finally detach themselves from each other, he crawled into a corner of the basement and lay down.

The wolf in her wanted to follow. Dana held it back. She forced herself to remember the way that Cole had hurt her, remembered each tooth in her, each claw.
We have to get away
, she explained to the wolf.