My embarrassment clearly dissolved a lot of tension, so I figured that was a good thing — kind of. But really, there were so many more important things to talk about. Like my dad being home or how the search was going for the cougars’ location. We needed to find them before they moved again, but no, discussing the status of my mating was so much more important. Ugh!
And then I spotted Erika. She was in red leather pants and jacket with a black tank underneath that was cut so low, the black lace of her bra was showing. Her midnight-black hair hung straight over her shoulders, and her lips, coated in a devil red, were parted. Her lust-filled eyes were fixed on Aidan. Any embarrassment I had felt vanished, replaced by an ugly surge of jealousy.
I placed myself in front of Aidan and growled. Yep, I growled. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew, just knew, I would regret the reaction. I was so not this person. I wasn’t psycho jealous, and I was secure enough with myself that I didn’t need to worry, but right then none of that mattered. Aidan was mine and that tramp was basically drooling over my man. I didn’t care that technically she was still my beta, or that Aidan and I weren’t even officially together. God, we’d just barely passed the forgiveness point. But as far as my inner-wolf was concerned, no one — absolutely no one — could look at him like that.
My growl didn’t faze her. She actually sidestepped, and tilted, as if she were trying to look around me. Her eyes dropped to his chest and then back to his lips.
“Erika, you did hear Dom, right?” My tone was so cold even I felt the chill rolling off my tongue. “The alpha male has a mate. I suggest you fix that gaze of yours elsewhere.”
Erika shook herself like a wet dog shaking water out of her fur. She slowly pulled her gaze from Aidan fixing it on me. She opened her mouth as if she were about to say something but snapped it shut just as quickly.
My reaction earned me another round of laughter from the werewolves who didn’t know me all that well. But the ones that did, my team and Dominic, they moved in, flanking me. “Is there something we need to know about?” Beck asked, letting his booming voice carry throughout the room.
The laughter died abruptly. No one missed the pointed question, or the lethal glint in Beck’s eyes. The lobby was so quiet that the only sound I heard was my racing heartbeat pounding in my ears.
My blood was pumping, hot and fast. My skin, shuddering. All I could see was her with her hands all over my mate. There goes being discreet, I thought. I opened my mouth, ready to tell the team about her little rendezvous with Aidan and the text message she had sent me, but I snapped it shut when Aidan said, “Meeting’s over.” He weaved his arm around my waist, holding me still. He glanced down at me and grinned, a sexy as hell half grin, and winked. If I had to guess, he actually looked happy about my reaction.
Aidan held my eyes for a long moment. His were dancing with humor and what looked a heck of a lot like relief, before he finally looked back up at the stunned crowd. “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” he said, his tone light and, yep, happy. “We didn’t want to wait to share the news with you all that Jade has finally come to her senses and moved in with me.” There were a few chuckles and Aidan paused, grinning like a fool as he waited for them to die down, before continuing. “As you know, Jade’s father came home this morning. Jade and I will be working closely with the team and we’ll call you all together again when we’re ready to act. Remember, our phones are always on, and our door, always open. If you need us for anything, come find us.”
No one questioned Aidan’s dismissal which shocked me a little. Marcy had told me that the pack had warmed up to him, that they listened to him, but even so, it seemed weird to me how quick they moved toward the door, no questions asked.
I barely noticed the curious glances in Erika’s direction as people started shifting toward the door. I was too busy trying to tone down the swarm of jealousy induced emotions that kept thrashing around within me and on top of that, I couldn’t figure out why Aidan was happy about it. I received a few hugs, some whispered congratulations on my move, and it sucked that pretty much all I could manage was grunted responses.
I don’t really know how long I stood pressed into Aidan’s side before he stepped away from me. I vaguely noticed him talking to Beck, and then whispering something to Dominic. My focus was fixed on Erika. Her complexion was paling fast, going a little whiter with each person that left the building.
When the last person left, and all that was left were the team and Dominic, Erika whispered, “I thought you were with Jared.” She put her feet in motion, coming closer, and when she was only a foot away from me, she dropped to her knees. “I swear. I would have never let him in the door if I knew you were going to take him back.”
She dropped her eyes to the ground, tilted her head, and presented her neck to me. I wanted to take a step away from her. I wanted to ignore her offer and tell her to get the hell away from me, but the team stopped me before I could. Beck and Landon were suddenly beside me again, their hands pressing into the small of my back, holding me in place.
I heard the growl the second they touched me. It was a predatory and extremely possessive sound, and I shuddered. I shouldn’t love it, but coming from Aidan I did, so very, very much, and just as quickly as their hands had settled on my back, they were gone. Aidan growled again and his scent swamped my brain, bogging me down, although I wasn’t complaining. Man, I loved that smell, the power mixed with the greens of the forest — best smell ever. My heart skittered in my chest and my inner-wolf decided to wake up, moving around within me as if she thought that my belly was the perfect stage to do the salsa.
The team moved, so did Dominic, clearing a safe distance from me, and my stupid mate secured me around the waist with a stiff arm. Erika didn’t move from her position, her neck still craned out before me, but she did whimper.
“Will someone explain what’s going on?” Craig asked. He crouched down beside Erika, his freaked out light blue eyes met mine, pleading, and his usually soft features were sharp and hard.
Erika squeezed her eyes closed and pulled in a noisy breath. Her shoulders drooped a little more and she blurted, “Jade’s upset because the alpha came to see me last night.”
Craig looked at her and blinked. His jaw started to drop and he gave his head a shake and as he did, he growled, a deadly sound. He stood up slowly, his jaw ticked. “Is that why you were late?” His cheeks flamed, his eyes flared. “Why you showed up at my place freshly showered, hair still dripping, with all that awful perfume?”
Erika straightened, rising up to face him, and she shrugged. “I wanted to keep my options open.”
Right then, I wanted to slap her, if not for me, for Craig. I hadn’t known that they were actually seeing each other. Erika hadn’t said a word, and Craig was more of the quiet type. If I had known, I wouldn’t have said anything, not with him here.
Craig’s fists flexed, released, flexed. He was vibrating, his skin starting to ripple. He glared at her, grinding his teeth so hard that I swore I could hear the enamel chipping.
I pried off Aidan’s stiff arm from around my waist and went to him, placing a hand on his forearm. “Why don’t you go take a walk,” I said.
“No, I need to hear this,” he growled, shaking off my hand, never taking his fuming gaze from Erika. “She promised herself to me last night.” His voice cracked, and another shudder rushed along his skin. “She’s supposed to be mine.”
Aidan cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention. “Craig, it was my fault,” he said, looking everywhere but at me. “I’m the one who sought her out. I’m the one who let it get out of hand.”
I spun on Aidan, my eyebrows shot up. “You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me! You’re defending her?”
Aidan’s mouth twisted into a wary frown and his hands rose in what I thought was supposed to be surrender. “No, not defending,” he said. “You have every right to ignore her, strip her of her title, and throw her out of the pack. I’m just th
inking we should consider showing her the same kindness you showed me.”
Erika huffed and planted her hands on her hips. “You can’t throw me out of the pack just because I gave the alpha the relief you wouldn’t give him.”
Craig’s eyes fell back on her, slicing like blades, and his stance stiffened. He lifted one side of his mouth in a sneer and as he did, I got a glimpse of the tips of his lengthening canines.
“You’re right,” I said. “But that’s really not the problem. When I was looking for you last night you told me you were at home studying.”
Erika smirked. “Well, yeah,” she said, waving a hand in Aidan’s direction. “I was studying, and I was thoroughly enjoying it, too.”
My jaw dropped. Honestly, I didn’t know where Erika was getting the balls from. It wasn’t that long ago that she had cowered in my bedroom trying to hide from Jared. Maybe she was just getting used to the enforcers or maybe she knew there was really no way out of the shit pile she had found herself in. More likely, she was just reverting back to the epic bitch she had been for the last two years. My mom had always told me that people could only hide who they really were for a week or two before the truth came out. Whatever it was, though, it was making me see red.
I took a step toward her, my fist clenching. I saw it all play out in my head, the satisfaction of smacking that smirk off her face. And I was going to do it, too, for Craig, if nothing else. I took another step, my jaw clenched.
And then Tommy stepped in front of me. “Jade,” he said. He ran a hand along his shiny head and then met my eyes. “This is the girl that brought you the video, right?”
“Yes,” I said through my teeth. “This is the girl. But right now, I don’t really care about the damn video.”
He grimaced and he dropped his eyes from mine. “I’ve been wondering how she got it without the enemy picking up her scent. Before you sentence her, maybe we should consider that.”
I gritted my teeth and almost snapped at him. I was just too mad to think. Aidan must have noticed, because suddenly his scent wrapped around me, and I pulled in a long breath of fresh greens. I shifted, glancing at him over my shoulder, and he gave me a look that clearly told me I had to hear her out before I made any decisions. I hated that he was right.
CHAPTER 15
~ AIDAN ~
“Hold up a second, Aidan,” Tommy whispered, placing a firm hand on my forearm, as Dominic began leading the group down to the meeting room.
Jade must have heard his whisper. She stopped abruptly and gave us a funny look. Her eyes drifted to Tommy’s hand clamped on my arm, and then she looked back up at me, arching a brow.
I sighed and then forced a smile. “I’ll be right there,” I said. “Don’t start without me, okay?”
She frowned a little, but then Chris moved in beside her and placed a hand at the small of her back, nudging her forward. She quickly stepped away from his hand and cut me another questioning look. I smiled what I hoped was an everything’s okay smile. It must have been convincing because she nodded and then followed the others down the hallway, with Chris right behind her.
I turned to Tommy, squinting against the bright sunlight that streamed through the glass doors. He wasn’t frowning, but he also wasn’t smiling; his expression was stuck somewhere in the middle. “Can this wait?” I asked.
“No.” He rubbed a hand over his hairless head as he waited for the others to clear out. Once they were far enough down the hallway that they wouldn’t overhear, he said, “Jared took off.”
I huffed, a loud gusty sound. “What do you mean Jared took off?” I asked. I didn’t need anything else to deal with. Not today. Out of every possible scenario I’d considered after what happened this morning, Jared leaving hadn’t been one of them. I had figured he would give me the cold shoulder or he might even try to challenge me, but leaving, well, he didn’t strike me as the giving up type, and leaving was definitely giving up. He’d be giving up his home, his pack, his friends ...
“Just what it sounds like,” Tommy said. “He took off. But I got to say, I don’t think it was because he wanted to go. Pretty sure the guys told him to get lost for a bit and cool down. I came in at the tail end of it.”
It’s temporary, I thought, surprised that I actually felt glad about that. I knew it would kill Jade if he left because of her — because of us. I folded my arms over my chest and frowned. “You think the guys pushed him out?”
Tommy nodded. “Yep. They’re pissed at him. I’m sure that if he showed up right now they would go at it. Specifically Landon. With the way he was talking last night, it sounded to me like he was ready to kill Jared. Don’t have a clue why, though.”
Charming. Just what I needed. The team at each other’s throats.
Through my teeth, I said, “So you haven’t really found out anything.” I knew it wasn’t a fair statement. Tommy and Chris had only just gotten to town yesterday and in all fairness, I hadn’t really expected them to find out anything from the team anyway.
Tommy glowered at me, and when he spoke, his voice was a gravel pit, rough and jagged. “Not fair, Aidan. We’ve only had one night with them, but I do know that Jared hasn’t been sticking around at your mate’s house just because he wants her. There’s more to it than that, but thanks to Beck, Landon clamped up when I pressed.”
I laughed, a cold, frustrated sound, and scrubbed at my face. “Well, I can’t very well act on your speculations now, can I?”
Tommy was uncharacteristically quiet for a minute. He studied me closely; his eyes were alight with a curious seriousness. “You are nothing like your father, you know that?”
I didn’t respond immediately. My father most likely would have taken the information as grounds to throw the whole team in lockdown and tortured them with his alpha scent until he got what he wanted to know out of them. And although the idea was an appealing one, since the last thing I needed was the team fighting right now, I wasn’t going to do it. Jade would never forgive me for it, and well, I didn’t want to run a pack by inflicting fear and pain on my wolves. It just wasn’t me.
I finally looked back at him and asked, “Did you really volunteer to come here?”
Tommy hadn’t expected the question. He furrowed his brow. “Sure, why wouldn’t I?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said with a lazy lift of my shoulders. “Maybe because you’ve hated me since I was born.”
He gave me an odd look, one that I couldn’t even being to understand, and in a low calm voice he said, “Never hated you, kid. If we were all soft on you like Lance was, you’d never be where you are now. Probably would have died in your fight for alpha.”
I really didn’t know what to say to that. He might have had a point, but I wasn’t ready to admit it, so I just shrugged and started down the hallway. “Come on,” I said. “Jade’s waiting.”
~ JADE ~
Time, even the last twenty minutes, had given me some perspective as well as a much needed reality check. The pack was, to put it simply, a freakin’ mess, clearly divided. There had been no mingling between the males and females, no friendly gestures. If anything, there was a hostile tension, wrapping around the room, well, until they started laughing at me.
I hadn’t believed Aidan when he had tried to explain how upset everyone was with me. Really, I figured he was exaggerating, but after seeing them all together, one thing was clear: I couldn’t hide behind the team any longer.
I had never gone further than Aidan’s office in the headquarters before and I was a bit shocked at how large the building actually was. Tommy had suggested we move our little meeting from the lobby to a more appropriate setting, so Dominic had led our group down the main hallway to a meeting room at the back of the building. There was a network of hallways that branched off the main one and every few feet there was another closed door. What all the rooms were for or why we needed such a big building, I had no clue, but after this was all over, I was definitely going to check them out.
Now I
was in a meeting room with the team: Beck, Landon, Mark, and Craig. Tommy and Chris were there, as were Aidan and Dominic. Jared still hadn’t shown up, but I was starting to think he probably wouldn’t. The room smelled of wolves, angry, nervous wolves. And there was a hint of lingering staleness as if the space had been sealed up tight for some time. That was the first thing I had noticed when I had stepped in.
And it was quiet. So very quiet. Everyone was looking at me, waiting expectantly, but I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t been in the pack for all that long, not to mention I had no clue what I was doing as an alpha. The sound of my footsteps were loud, echoing around the room, as I paced back and forth. Heat pooled in my cheeks, so hot that I was certain my face was a bright scarlet.
Once Aidan and Tommy had come in, we had listened as Erika recounted the events leading up to her capturing everything on video, and I hated it, but her story had an undeniable ring of truth. She had driven Tiffany to the meeting with my dad. Her best guess was they didn’t notice her scent so close because they had known she was there, although they had thought she was waiting at the car. She’d been certain that Tiffany was going to win the games and she had done what she could to get in Tiffany’s good graces before that happened.
But after waiting for a little over thirty minutes, Erika had wandered into the woods, following Tiffany’s trail. She said they were just beyond the tree line and the moment she had picked up what they were discussing, she had crouched down, hiding behind a bush, and started recording. When they had broken up their little meeting, Erika had bee-lined it for the car. She drove Tiffany home, listened to Tiffany brag about her little get together, and as soon as Tiffany was out of her car, Erika had found me. According to Erika, Tiffany had been so certain she would win the alpha female games that she hadn’t felt the need to hide her plans, especially since Erika had sworn her alliance.