I stood stiff in his arms, waiting for my inner-wolf to perk up at his nearness, but she didn’t, not in the way she usually did, so I wrapped my arms around his waist, and squeezed back.
CHAPTER 21
~ AIDAN ~
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I asked, waving a hand toward the man, tied and bleeding out onto the floor. I felt cold and tired. I probably should have been mad, but I just couldn’t drudge up the emotion. Jade was with Jared. Cold and tired and disappointed was pretty much all I had right then. Ice slid over my skin. I wanted to dig out my phone, and call her. How long had I been gone? An hour? She didn’t have a car, but he could have picked her up. My brain raced and swirled with all the things she could have done with him in the last hour. My stomach rolled. I swallowed hard. “He can barely hold his head up.”
Jeff chuckled, and shook his head. “He’ll heal,” he said. “The count’s eighteen.” He chuckled again. “Seventeen now.” He moved into the house, rounded Richard, and placed a hand on his shoulder, his grip hard. “I was supposed to kill this one, but I figured he could be of use to you. Like I told you, they were moving locations when I left and he’s been to their new hot spot.” He dug his fingers into Richard’s shoulder hard enough that the man groaned and winced, and then he let go, shrugged his shoulders, and said, “But if you don’t want him, I can dispose of him.”
I couldn’t focus. I knew I needed to. I knew that Jeff was playing me and I needed to pay attention, read between the lines, but all I could think about was Jade. Was it so wrong that I wanted to keep her close, protect her, hold her, to have her in every possible way? She seemed to think so. “Stop being such an overbearing dog,” she’d said to me this morning, laughing. She had kissed me, kissed my cheeks, my lips, my neck, a flutter of delicate presses along my skin. “I’m yours, Aidan. You have nothing to worry about.”
But she wasn’t mine. Not really. Not fully. Most of all I wanted her to want me the way I wanted her. To be with me. I thought that was the part that was eating at me the most. When she was with me, she wasn’t really with me. Her mind was with him. I was lost to her. Completely lost. At some point those ideas of love had gripped me, turning into so much more than just ideas. And knowing that she was out somewhere with Jared, that she clearly didn’t feel the same as I did, was wrecking me.
I guessed that was probably why Jeff had told me where she had run off to. I figured he wanted me distracted. “What’s his death sentence for?” I asked, trying to push her out of my mind, even for a second.
“He fell in love, took off with one of the women just before the accident.” Jeff’s tone held a note of remorse, remorse that I knew he didn’t feel. “He was stupid enough to go back, and when he was caught, they called me to get rid of the problem.”
The rage I had been missing surfaced and thrashed against my skull. Accident. The way he said it was as if it were actually an accident such as a car crash or a house fire. But it was nothing like that. His pack had brutally used two women, used them until they died. It wasn’t an accident. He didn’t care that they were dead. I was even willing to bet he had known they would die.
“I can help you,” Richard rasped. He struggled to lift his head enough to meet my eyes. His were a cool blue, hard and full of conviction. “I want to help you.”
“We’ll take him,” I said, and fished my phone out of my pocket, and thumbed the screen. 9:30. Jade had been alone, or with him, for an hour and a half. I should have killed him. I could have, too. In the eyes of pack law, Jared had done enough to be put down, but Jade … she wouldn’t even let me throw him out of the pack, claiming none of his crimes were his fault. They were hers.
Another rush of ice pushed through me. I stared at the clock. A minute ticked by. In the back of my mind I knew I needed to call the team. Get them here. Deal with the cougar. If nothing else, I wanted time to question him before he met his death, but I stood there frozen staring at the clock. Another minute passed and then another.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jeff said blandly. I glanced up as he stepped away from Richard. There was a pitiless, callous glint in his eyes as he approached me. “You’re wondering how long she’s been gone, counting the seconds, minutes, maybe even hours since you left her this morning. She probably told you she was going to take a shower and meet up with the team. She’s been trying so hard to help and you wanted to believe her. You want to trust her, but you can’t, not really. Not when you know he can speak to her inner-wolf and that she cares about him enough that she has to hide it from you.” He paused, smiled, and chuckled. “I bet you’re trying to figure out how long she’s been with him this morning. Did she actually take that shower? How long could that have taken?” He stopped in front of me, his smile widening. “You should have taken my advice. You shouldn’t have waited to claim her as your own. If you had done it, you’d see Richard as something of value to you and not just another problem for you to solve.”
Listening to him speak about his daughter as if she were a piece of meat was like walking through the pits of a garbage dump. Stomach-turning and vile. But even if listening to him made bile rise in my throat, he’d summed up everything that was racing through my head. I forced out a laugh that I hoped sounded somewhat believable and lied, “Actually, I was thinking you have a lot of cleaning to do before your wife gets home from work.”
He chuckled and said, “I’m sure that’s exactly what you were thinking.”
For half a second I entertained the idea of shifting and ripping out the man’s throat. Oddly enough, it was my inner-wolf who pushed the thought away. I’d promised our mate that I wouldn’t hurt her father, and it seemed as if my inner-wolf was determined to make me keep that promise. He wasn’t willing to make a move that could jeopardize my chance at claiming her.
I thumbed my phone again, bringing up Beck’s number, and tapped it as I headed down the steps of the porch, putting some distance between myself and the bastard Jade called a father. It rang twice before he answered. “How’d the meeting go?” he asked.
“Gather the guys and come to Jeff’s,” I said, walking down the driveway, away from Jeff. I let my voice drop low and added, “And send someone to track down Jade.”
“What do you mean ‘track down Jade?’” he asked, his voice taking on a hard edge.
“She’s with Jared,” I said, and swallowed the rotten taste that had filled my mouth that was full of my useless anger.
“You let her go see him.” It wasn’t a question. I didn’t miss the blunt accusation in his voice. Beck had taken on a big brother kind role with Jade, the whole team had actually. She had them wrapped around her finger, and they loved it, loved her, and right now, Jared wasn’t in their good graces.
“She told me she was going to study and then meet you guys,” I growled. The rotten, rusty taste filled my mouth again and I tried to swallow it down.
“Shit,” he said, summing the whole situation up perfectly. He growled out a few more obscenities before he said, “Let me go for her.”
I clenched the phone tighter, feeling every muscle in my body flex right along with my fingers. His reaction wasn’t helping my mood, even if it was exactly what I had expected. “I don’t care who goes for her. Just send the guys to me and have someone bring her back to the headquarters. Jeff is giving us one of the cougars.” I didn’t wait for his response before ending the call. I shoved my phone back into my pocket, and focused every bit of energy I had on reining in my emotions.
~ JADE ~
Jared’s arms felt solid wrapped tightly around me. He was taller than me, not a lot, but enough that he had to bend a little to whisper in my ear. “You sure about this?”
I nodded. “Yes. I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t. Aidan’s never going to get over it if you keep running and like I said, he needs you now more than ever.”
He moved back slightly to meet my eyes, and brushed a strand of hair from my cheek with a big warm hand. “He might not agree,” he poin
ted out.
I shuddered. No, Aidan probably wouldn’t agree. I had no doubt that he would want to throttle me when I brought Jared back, but it was a risk I had to take. The longer he stayed away, the guiltier we looked. The pack needed to see the three of us working together. They needed to see my reaction. They needed to see that I wouldn’t turn back to Jared when things got tough, that I was with them, and most of all that I was with Aidan.
And I knew Jared wanted to be different. I saw that. Over the last few days he’d worked so hard to show me that he did care about the pack. He may be a cocky pain in my ass, he may push all of my buttons, but he was loyal. He was pack. He was family.
I grinned. “You leave Aidan to me. He’ll come around.” Okay, I wasn’t entirely sure that he would come around, but I was hoping he would.
Jared chuckled and shook his head, clearly thinking I was mental. Right then, I wasn’t sure that I disagreed.
“You have a death wish, don’t you?” Beck, his voice rough, pierced through me like a row of sharpened teeth.
“It was just a hug,” I squeaked, jumping out of Jared’s arms. “What are you doing here?”
Beck was tense, but trying not to show it. I could see it in his set face and the way his shoulders bunched, emphasizing the muscles under his jacket. “Aidan sent me to find you.” He didn’t crack his usual you’re a pain in the ass smile, but then, neither did I. “Haven’t you put him through enough of this bullshit?”
Nice. It was going to be one of those days.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said in a stronger voice, although there was a bit of a whine to it. I couldn’t help the small smirk, and Beck rolled his eyes. “I’m not doing anything wrong here. It’s just a hug.”
“Just a hug,” he repeated, as if I’d said the words in some foreign language and he couldn’t quite grasp the meaning. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that he was disappointed with me and, man, did it make me feel like an ass. I probably should have stopped at, “I’m not doing anything wrong here,” because the look he shot me made me want to find a rock to crawl under, full of animosity and frustration. He paced toward me. He looked as if he wanted to grab and shake some sense into me. “If you really believed that, you would have told Aidan where you were going. You were warned to stay away from him.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it when nothing came out. He stopped only inches from me, folding his arms over his chest, still giving me a god-awful expectant kind of look, as if he were waiting for a detailed explanation. It was the kind of look Dominic or Marcy would give me, but really, I had nothing that would make this look better so I kept my mouth clamped shut.
“Beck, lay off,” Jared said, pressing in closer to me again. “She was trying to convince me to come back. That’s all. Give her a break.”
“If you speak again, I’m going to punch you,” Beck said softly, but it was clear that he meant it. He glared at Jared. There was a warning in his eyes that I couldn’t even begin to understand, but I figured Jared did. He moved in a blink, propping himself against a tree about ten feet away.
Beck’s nostrils flared as he fixed his eyes back on me. “His scent is on you,” he said, gritting his teeth and digging out his phone. He tapped on the screen, brought it to his ear, and after a second, he said, “I’ve got her.” He paused, scanned me over, and moved a little closer. He grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around, and then he lifted my hair, inspecting my neck and shoulders. “I’m checking, Aidan, just hold on,” he barked. He did a thorough once over of my clothes and then said, “There’s not even a hair out of place on your mate.” He paused, cut a furious look at Jared, and said, “Yeah, I’ll bring them both in.”
I could hear the heated tone of Aidan’s voice as he gave his orders, but couldn’t quite make out the words. Oh, God. Nausea rolled in my belly. I held out my hand, and said, “Give me the phone. I want to talk to him.” Beck started to pass the phone, but hesitated, listening for a moment to whatever Aidan was saying. He scowled at me, shaking his head, and then thumbed the screen and jammed the phone into his pocket. “Beck, what the hell?”
“He heard you and said ‘no.’” There was a dry, cutting edge to his tone that I really didn’t like.
“Is he mad?” I whispered, my throat closing up. My chin started to dip on its own, and my shoulders sagged. It wasn’t that I hadn’t secretly seen this coming, well, okay, not exactly this, but I’d had a hunch that Aidan wouldn’t be all that pleased with me dragging Jared back into the mix. But I knew that what I was doing was right. If anything, we needed to keep the pack together — keep them safe — and even if Aidan didn’t like Jared, as the head of our team of enforcers he was a big part of the pack.
Beck frowned. “Disappointed, definitely hurt. You’ve got to stop this shit, Jade. You threw the guy away because he lied to you. Do you really think this is any different?”
“Jared and I are just friends,” I said. “It was never anything else. You know that.”
Jared’s temper flared, the heat in his scent pulled my eyes to him. His face shifted slightly, his eyes flashing gold, and then it faded, but the heat in the air lingered. Beck flashed him another cold glare, just as Jared opened his mouth, and he closed it, biting back whatever he was about to say.
“It doesn’t matter what I know,” Beck said, softening a little. “Finding you in the bush alone with him doesn’t look good. What if it had been someone else? What if he’d called Craig or Landon instead of me? You need to start thinking, Jade. You can’t just run off like this. You wouldn’t do it with the team and you can’t do it with him. He’s your partner; you need to treat him like one.” He huffed and then a wicked smirk curved his lips and he chuckled. “You are going to be in so much shit when he smells Jared on you.”
“Not funny, Beck,” I said with a sigh, and then ran my fingers through my tangled, windblown hair.
“Yeah, it kind of is.” His gaze was still dark with disappointment, but at least he was smiling now. “I love seeing that look on your face when he growls at you. It’s priceless.”
I smirked and stretched out my arms. “Want a hug?”
He shook his head and took a large step back. “Oh, hell no, you screwed up, you pay the price. I’m not getting in the middle of this shit.”
CHAPTER 22
~ JADE ~
Aidan didn’t look happy. He was leaning against the concrete side of the building. His arms folded over his chest, glowering, when Jared, Beck, and I emerged from the woods.
My heart did a little flip-flop against my ribs and I stopped abruptly. Even glowering, he was a sight; tall and broad, with so much muscle. He was in jeans and a long sleeved white T-shirt. His shaggy, light brown hair was flipping at the sides and disheveled on top, and all I could think about was running my hands through it. His intense brown eyes met mine and I watched, frozen in place, as they flashed gold. He pointed at me, wagging a finger, beckoning me. My inner-wolf perked up, pushing at my skin, desperate to break free and run to her mate.
But I didn’t move. It was as if my feet were pinned in place, no longer connected to my body. A rush of wind kissed my cheeks, bringing with it an assault of scents: leafy greens, hot power, the tang of anger and anxiety, and mixed with it all was a coating of spice. It was the spice that freaked me out the most. I knew exactly what it meant. He was jealous, which was, well, annoying, but it was also a little hot and I shuddered hard.
Aidan’s lips parted and he growled. His eyes flared brighter. He beckoned me again, his finger stiff as he flicked it. I took a shaky, unsure step. The emotions in his scent were seriously nerve-racking, and they were also overly exciting my inner-wolf, sending hot chills over my skin and warmth pooling in my belly. It wouldn’t take much for his inner-wolf to push to the forefront, for him to go all alpha on me, and I fought back the feeling that maybe, just maybe, I had made a mistake. I shuddered again and his nostrils flared.
I took another step and Beck snagged my wrist, pulling me to a
quick stop. “Jade, play nice,” he warned.
I shook off his hand. Now was so not the time to touch me, like at all. Not when my inner-wolf was all squirmy, wanting her mate. I put my feet in motion, and picked up my pace to a jog. “Hey,” I said, meekly, as I approached. “How did your meeting go?”
Aidan didn’t answer. His jaw was tense, the muscles along his neck, roped and straining. I picked up my pace further, closing the distance between us as quickly as I could, and as soon as I was close enough, I threw my arms around his neck, pressing myself flush against him. He shifted his gaze, glancing down at me, and I rolled onto tip-toes. I meant to kiss him, ease some of the jealous rage I saw flaring in his eyes, but he wasn’t having it. Before I knew it, his nose was pressed to my neck, dipping to my chest, and then back up to my hair, pulling in long, deep hauls.
I felt the growl bouncing around in his chest just before I heard it. His hands wrapped around my wrists, pulling them from his neck, and he glared down at me. His jaw worked as he clenched his teeth and he growled, “Gym shower. Now.”
“Wow, really?” I asked, leaning back. I smiled the sweetest smile I could, hoping it would soften him. It didn’t. He let go of my wrist, folding his arms back over his chest. I huffed and glanced over my shoulder, watching Jared and Beck make their way to us. Beck was already chuckling, a deep rumbling from his chest. “Two guys telling me I smell in the last few days. You know, if you all keep it up, I’m going to develop a serious complex.”
“Jade,” Aidan said in warning, clearly not seeing the humor in my statement.
“It was just a hug, Aidan,” I muttered, feeling about fifty different kinds of guilty. My inner-wolf squirmed and sunk in my stomach as if she were feeling just as bad.