The Wolf's Mate Book 1: Jason & Cadence (15 page)

Callie glared at her in fury, and Cadence got
out of the car and shut the door. Her tires squealed as she pulled
away, leaving Cadence as confused as ever about her life. A million
questions assaulted her mind. Did Jason love her? Why hadn’t he
ever said anything? And after all the years of her mooning over him
and carrying on about her unrequited love to both Michael and
Callie, why had they never told her that he had feelings for her?
They were her two closest friends; they weren’t supposed to be
keeping things from her.

No one called or showed up at her house. She
spent the afternoon thinking over her life and her past with Jason,
and she had this nagging feeling that there was something she
should remember, or know, but she just didn't and it annoyed her.
Michael said that she was a partially marked alpha. She thought
about the conversation with Callie in the car. Her sweet friend who
hadn’t ever said a cross word to her had nearly bitten her head
off.

She didn't know what being partially marked
meant, but she was a half breed, a total anomaly. She couldn’t lead
a pack, could she? And why did Michael say she wasn’t supposed to
know? Jason was raised to be the next pack alpha. If she was truly
an alpha female then it stood to reason she would have been told
about it. Jake taught her about the packs when she was growing up,
but other than the weekend bonfires she really didn’t know that
much about the inner workings. The meeting Jason had at the house
on Monday was the first time she’d ever gotten involved in anything
other than in a purely superficial way.

The headache starting behind her eyes told
her she needed to stop trying so hard to figure everything out, and
she finally laid down to catch a nap before getting ready for work.
While she dozed, she had the strangest dream.

She was young, maybe 9 or 10, wearing a
yellow dress. She stomped her foot at the black wolf. "Just tell
me, Jas. Tell me what I'm supposed to know."

He shook his head and butted his head against
her, forcing her to walk forward towards his parents’ house. They
rounded the corner, and he pushed her towards an open window where
his father was watching. "I had no idea you were so slow, my dear."
His father said.

"That's not very nice. You're not nice at
all." She said, feeling tears press.

Jason butted his head into her knees and she
fell down onto the soft grass and rolled onto her stomach and then
he nuzzled her neck and growled. The last thing she remembered was
turning onto her back and looking into his eyes and seeing his
teeth bared. She woke up, shaking, and touched the back of her neck
and everything was crystal clear. Jason had bitten her when they
were kids. It was a partial marking because he hadn't publicly
marked her with a statement first. But why had he drifted so far
from her all this time?

With too many questions blazing in her brain
like fireworks, she showered and dressed for the bar in a black
suede vest, red plaid mini skirt and boots, determination to set
things right coursing through every fiber of her being.

She paused at the entrance to the bar. What
was she going to do? Storm over to Jason’s table and tell him that
she knew what he’d done and he had a lot of explaining to do? Yes.
Yes, that’s what she was going to do. She was going to demand he
tell her everything. And then she was going to tell him how she
felt. That she had never stopped loving him, and now that she could
see things clearly, she understood why she’d never been able to get
over him. And after their slate was clean, she was going to make
him work for her forgiveness. With her inner wolf bitch demanding
satisfaction, she stormed into the club to find it half empty.
Jason’s pack was all but missing.

“I asked them to steer clear tonight.” Jake
wiped a beer mug with a towel, inspected it, and hung it from a
hook over the counter.

Her inner wolf whined and sat down,
disappointed. “Why?”

He gave her a raised brow. “I think you know
the answer to that, Cadence.”

Chris walked over before she could think of
anything to say to that and leaned on the counter on his forearms,
clasping his hands together.

"I'm sorry. I never meant for you to be so
tormented by everything. After work tonight, why don't you let me
take you out to get something to eat and we can talk. Now that the
alpha order has been broken by Michael’s big mouth, I can tell you
everything that’s been kept from you."

Her polite “no” died in her throat, and
instead she said, “So there was an actual order to prevent everyone
from telling me I’m an alpha?”

“It’s more complicated than that.” He looked
at Jake and she did, too, and Jake just shrugged and turned to
other customers. Chris lowered his voice slightly. “Jason’s father
made an edict to his pack and asked my dad to extend it to his, so
he did. We weren’t really allowed to talk to you about pack
workings unless you brought it up yourself, but you never did. All
those years, you never came to any of us with questions.”

No, she hadn’t. Because she thought she
didn’t belong to their world. She looked at him helplessly and he
gave her a soft, sad smile.

“I’m going to go hang out. When you’re ready
to take off, let me know.”

A little too stunned to tell him that she
didn’t want to talk to him about anything to do with her and Jason,
she just stared at him with her mouth hanging open until Jake
nudged her to action and she began to fill drink orders. With half
the bar empty, the normal Saturday rush never happened, and it gave
her time to think.

Here’s what she knew so far, thanks to
Michael’s big mouth. She was partially marked, whatever the hell
that really meant, and powerful enough to be female alpha to a
pack. Jason and Chris were fighting over her like she was the last
toy on the shelf, but part of the fight was because Jason had some
kind of extra claim to her. Michael said that Chris put his hands
on her in public and he wasn't allowed to do that. Because, why?
Because Jason and she were really mates?

Her mother was no alpha. Cadence thought that
alphas only came from other alphas. Why hadn’t anyone ever told her
in plain terms what she’d clearly not known? And more importantly,
why hadn’t she ever asked? She never outright asked Jason why he
turned away from her and she still didn’t understand. Just because
he wasn’t allowed to tell her about marking her or her being alpha?
That didn’t make sense. Well, none of it did, frankly.

“You want to talk, kiddo?” Jake asked,
slinging his rag over one shoulder when the bar was thoroughly
dead.

“No. But thanks for offering. Thanks for
everything.” She kissed his cheek and he smiled.

“Come on, girl.” Chris held his hand out to
her and she took it but then dropped it. Now that she had the truth
of her past playing over in her mind, she now knew why kissing
Chris felt like cheating. Because he wasn’t the right man for
her.

“You in the mood for dinner or breakfast?” He
asked when they were outside. The night air was crisp. The scent of
fall and coming winter was heavy on the breeze that scattered dead
leaves on the concrete.

“Neither.”

“So, let’s walk. Okay? If you’re not hungry
in 15 minutes, then we’ll come back and you can head out. I’d just
like to talk to you for a bit. Please?”

If he was offering to answer some questions,
assuming she trusted him to tell her the truth, then maybe a little
chat was in order. And fifteen minutes wouldn’t make that much of a
difference, would it?

“15 minutes. That’s all I’m promising.”

Looking like he’d won the lottery, Chris
offered her his arm and she took it, if only to be polite. They
walked in silence down the street towards the park. On the other
side of the vast green grass was the garage. Maybe Jason was
there.

“So,” Chris sat down on a wooden bench near a
fountain and she joined him, “how freaked out are you?”

“Not so much now. I feel like I missed out on
a lot of stuff, because I felt like I didn’t belong. But I
did.”

“Of course you did, Cades. Your mom was pack
and that makes you pack. It’s not your fault that your father hated
wolves, anymore than it was your fault that Jason overstepped when
you were a kid.”

“Overstepped?”

Rolling his eyes, he said, “Of course. No one
picks their mate so young.”

“You don’t think it’s kind of romantic?”

The look of utter disgust that rolled through
his face said he didn’t think much of anything that Jason did.
“What’s romantic about physically abusing a child in the name of
staking a claim that he couldn’t have possibly known would come to
something he’d even desire?”

“What?”

“Look, you’re gorgeous. But there’s no way
that he could have known that when you were just a little scrawny
kid. He was betting you’d look like your mom.”

The bile rose in her throat and she lurched
from the bench. Clearly he didn’t think he’d said anything wrong,
because he stood up and reached for her. “Hey, you look sick. Are
you okay?”

She put her hands up. “Don’t touch me,
Chris.”

The concerned smile slid away. “What’s the
matter with you? We’re just talking here.”

Shaking her head, she began to walk
backwards. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. This was a
mistake. You and me. All of it.”

He mirrored her steps so that she didn’t get
further away from him, but she did get deeper into the park and
further away from the bar and people. The center of the park was a
labyrinth of trees and shrubbery, raised flowerbeds and playground
equipment, not to mention picnic tables by the dozens. She had to
glance behind herself often so she didn’t trip.

As they moved through the park like some
horrible choreographed dance, they kept moving through the light
and shadows of the lamps, and with each flash of light, his face
changed, from a sweet, lighthearted smiling face to one of pure
menace. Whatever his plans were for her now, she wanted no part of
them. Taking a chance, she faked right and he dove for her, but she
dodged left and ran. He cursed, screaming for her to come back to
him, and then his feet picked up the pace and he ran after her.

She dialed into the very essence of her wolf
and begged that part of her to get her out of this mess. Surging
through the park, she dodged and wove past the obstacles as if she
had four legs and not two, letting her instincts carry her to the
only place where she would feel safe: the bright lights of the
garage that said someone was working. Someone would hear her, help
her, and stop Chris from doing whatever wicked things were going
through his mind.

Her lungs ached and her thighs burned, but
she pushed on, bursting through the row of shrubbery that lined the
sidewalk and leapt into the street.

“Cadence, no!” Chris yelled, a split second
before she heard the squeal of brakes and was blinded by
headlights, her body caught between terror and fate, and her very
last thought was that she wasn’t going to get to say goodbye to
Jason.

Chapter 8

Flexing his hands to ease the ache that
punching Chris had garnered him, Jason flopped around on the bed,
trying to find a cooler place on the pillow. The clock read 1:14.
She was probably out with Chris right now. There was no way in hell
that Chris would have had that bar to himself and not tried to take
Cades out or at least spend some time with her. And after their
little toss up earlier, Chris was clearly more determined than ever
to at least turn her from him. He’d said as much when they’d both
shifted back after the fight. It had been an even match for the
most part, but he was bigger than Chris, and sometimes being bigger
is enough and this time it was. He’d watched him leave with his
proverbial tail between his legs, but the look in his eyes said it
wasn’t over by a long shot. He should have just gone to the bar
anyway, stayed outside, offered her a ride. Something. Doing
nothing was the same as rolling over and giving up.

His phone buzzed at the exact moment that
someone banged on the front door. The caller ID said it was Linus
calling him. “What?” He barked into the phone as he went to the
door. “Someone better be dead,” he groused as he threw open the
door, but the words hung heavily in the air when he saw Michael’s
face. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.

Michael shoved him bodily back to his bedroom
and took the phone, “We’ll be there in like 20. Call my dad,
too.”

“What happened, Michael? Tell me!” Panic wove
little icy fingers through his body.

“Cades’ in the hospital. Get dressed man,
come on!” Michael threw clothes at him from the floor but Jason’s
body wasn’t responding. He was too shocked. Michael growled and
snapped his fingers. “Get. Dressed.”

Snapping to action, he pulled on his jeans.
Satisfied, Michael explained, “She’s alive, okay, but she’s pretty
badly hurt. She left the bar and went for a walk with Chris, he
said, and she ran out into the street across from the garage and
right into the path of one of our tow trucks. Fritz was driving it,
doing a late pick up for the police station. Chris shoved her out
of the way, but he pushed so hard that he sent her flying into the
plate glass window of the garage.”

Jason swallowed hard and shoved his feet into
his boots. “She’s going to be okay?”

“Doctors at Mt. Carmel say yes, but she’ll be
there a few days. No broken bones, but she hit her head and has
been unconscious, plus all the blood loss. Are you ready?”

He followed Michael out and they got into
Bo’s pickup truck. “I won’t waste time at stoplights, man,” Bo said
with a grim face as he slammed his foot down on the gas and the
truck lurched forward.

She’s going to be okay. She’s going to be
okay. Doctors know what they’re talking about right? She had to be.
She had to be okay. Nothing else mattered.