That threw him off for a second. His eyes went vague and unfocused. His hands started to uncurl, and his lips parted. “Is that …”
“Dominic,” I said, my voice deadly soft. “What I need right now is you backing me, not fighting me. That girl trapped in that damn cage means everything to me.” I swallowed and I pushed off the wall, turning away from him, mainly because my eyes had started to burn and I seriously didn’t want him to see it. “She’s my home. I’m going to get her out of there.”
There was silence for a long second before Dominic cleared his throat. “Um, is it safe to speak yet, or are you going to bite my head off?”
“What?” I asked, and all the breath left me in an audible huff with the word.
“Is that what you thought?” he asked, hesitantly. “That I was dead?”
“Yeah,” I said, and damn, I had to squeeze my eyes shut for a moment. I was fighting with all kinds of emotions — anger at Jade’s dad, frustration with the entire situation, fury that my dad had pulled Chris home before I was ready, outright fear that I was going to lose someone close to me. So far not one of my pack members had died today, and it scared the hell out of me that that could still happen.
“Shit, that must have sucked,” he said, and laughed a little, but there was no humor in the sound.
“Yep.” I turned to him and somehow I managed a small smile. “It did.”
His blue eyes searched mine and I knew he could see the emotion, but he didn’t call me on it. “So,” he said. “I’m going to go shift a few times, see if I can fix the gaping hole in my back. Five minutes and we should be good to go.”
He started for the door, then stopped, and grabbed me in a hug. I rocked back a little from the impact, but I hung on for a few beats, and with a couple of back slaps we stepped apart.
“I thought you were dead,” I said, and damn, my voice was all choked, but I found myself saying it again. “I thought you were dead.”
“Yeah, we established that.” Dominic gave me a half smile that looked kind of grim. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go see if they’re ready.”
****
I wasn’t sure if the pack that stood before me was ready exactly, but they were determined, and I figured that had to count for something.
The sun was starting to fall on the horizon, and with only a couple hours of daylight left, we really needed to move. There was no way that I’d leave the girls there over night, and by the looks set on my werewolves’ faces, they weren’t about to do that either.
There were twenty-two of us, all semi-dressed in a mix of camouflage and worn denim, that we’d found in the cabin. The air was cool with a breeze, and the forest around us was silent and still.
I thought I should say something epic and probably something motivating, but as I stared at them watching me, waiting, the only thing that came out of my mouth was, “I love her.”
As it turned out, the pack thought those words were in fact, epic. Cheers rose in the air, clapping and shouting, followed. I heard rumbles about alpha pairs and love and true partnership, and something about a new dawn for our pack. And for a brief moment, I was stunned silent.
“I can’t promise you that we’ll all walk away from this,” I said, shouting over the cheers. I waited for a second for them to tamper down and continued. “And if you want to walk away, I won’t blame you. You’ve all fought hard, and I’m grateful. But I can’t ... I won’t leave without our females and those kids. I won’t go home without my mate.” I paused for a moment and scanned the crowd and then asked, “Are you with me?”
“Hell yeah,” Beck shouted. “Wouldn’t miss a good fight for anything.”
But the rest of the pack was quiet, thoughtful. I was starting to get a little nervous that they were going to give up and go home, and then, Phil walked up to me, and I had to admit that my nervousness tripled. He wasn’t all for Jade being alpha, and he’d made that pretty clear in front of everyone when she’d walked into the headquarters with me after she’d moved out of her dad’s house.
He stood in front of me for a moment, his eyes giving nothing away, and then he smiled. It wasn’t really a happy smile, but it was an easy one. He extended his hand, and I took it in a shake. “I’m with you, kid, till the end.”
More cheers, louder this time, and I smiled, a real, full smile. They were with me, even after all the bullshit Jade and I had made them suffer through, they were with me.
CHAPTER 25
~ JADE ~
The blankets were old and fraying, and they were really easy to tear.
The edges of the cages were wired together with more of the same sharp barbs that lined the walls. They weren’t huge, at least not for three or four people, but they weren’t small, either. The cage doors were chained closed with heavy locks securing them. Breaking those locks was a no go. I’d tried. We’d all tried. We’d also tried to bend the barbed wire walls, pulling and tugging, but we couldn’t break it. The damn thing just bent, and with the way the wire crisscrossed in small squares, even with bending the wire, we couldn’t get an opening big enough to squeeze more than an arm through.
So now we were tearing up the blankets, wrapping our hands, and slowly untwisting the barbs that held the cages together along the edges. It was tedious and painful and frustrating as all hell, and I really didn’t think a human would have the strength in their fingers to do it, but we did. And it was working. So far we’d managed to loosen the top four inches on each cage door.
Erika hissed and jerked her hand back. “They couldn’t have left us thicker blankets,” she muttered under her breath, glaring at the corner of our cage and sucking on a finger. She huffed loudly. “We’re never getting out of here.” She sounded like she was fighting hard to sound normal, but she missed her mark. I could hear the panic building in her voice. I could smell it, too. And that bittersweet scent was choking me.
“Yes, we will,” I said. I didn’t sound normal, either. I sounded angry and hurt and betrayed. I swallowed hard and attempted to ignore the sting that Aidan’s leaving me here caused. He had his reasons. I knew that. If he thought he’d be able to get in and get us out safely he would have. And I had no doubt he’d come back. He wouldn’t just leave us here. But it still stung.
Keep it together! Be strong for them. I swallowed down the pain and whispered fiercely, “I’m going to get you all out of this.” And I would, definitely, hopefully.
Erika shook her head. “Jade …”
“I want cookies,” Laura blurted suddenly, and made a loud, frustrated sound from the back of her throat. “You’d think they’d at least give us comfort food after locking us up in these stupid cages.”
I heard the shuffling footsteps coming from behind me and alarm shot through me. I scrambled, just like the others were, to pull my blanket up around me and hide the torn strips under it. Laura had taken up the job as our lookout and since she loved to bake, she’d chosen cookies as the code for someone was coming, claiming that she’d be able to ramble on about them easily if anyone came by. She hadn’t been lying. So far she’d given out five recipes, talked about oven temperatures for baking them, and she’d even listed off her favorites and why.
“Really, Laura,” Kristen said and rolled her eyes. “Cookies again? Can’t you find something else to go on about?”
Laura laughed as the man stalked by us, but it was a little strained. She shrugged. “What can I say? I love cookies.”
He didn’t come close to the cages. None of them had yet. Not since Jason had been here. This one looked a bit older than Jason, but of similar build and height. He didn’t smile. He didn’t frown. His expression was as flat as his muted brown eyes. Those eyes, though, stayed fixed on the girls right up until he rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.
At least they were leaving us alone. It was the best we could hope for, really, but it was also the one thing that knotted me up the most.
Because if they were leaving us alone, it meant that they were busy do
ing something else — like hunting my mate.
Once he’d turned the corner, Erika reached out for me, clutching onto me as if she thought that if she let go, she’d fall. Her head bent, and she rested it on my shoulder. She was shivering, and the shudders went right through me.
For a second I was shocked, because well, it was Erika, and we weren’t really on hugging terms, but the shock faded. I pulled her closer and held on just as tight. “It’s going to be okay,” I said. “I’m going to get you guys home.”
She leaned back and looked at me. Her eyes were rimmed red, and she looked hollow and exhausted. “Jade, I-I’m so sorry.”
I blinked in surprised. “You? Sorry?” I studied her for a second. “Sweetie, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for.”
“Yes I do,” she said. “I’m sorry for ignoring your calls and for messing around with Aidan and for being a crappy beta.” She wiggled away from me and grabbed the edge of a blanket, tearing off another strip. “I shouldn’t have let him in that day. I should have answered the phone. I shouldn’t have told you I was studying. I was just …”
“Erika, stop,” I said, taking her trembling hand and squeezing it. “Just stop. It’s over. We’re good, okay? None of that matters anymore.” I meant it and by the look she gave me, I knew she was aware that I was serious. Whatever happened before was over, done, buried. The whole thing seemed kind of ridiculous now, given our situation.
I squeezed her hand one more time, and then I snagged up one of the strips of fabric and quickly wrapped up my fingers, before shifting back over to the corner I’d been working on, and starting in on the next barb.
She was silent for a moment, and then almost awkwardly, she said, “When Aidan showed up at my door he looked so wrecked, and you … you were being so stupid. God, Jade, you walked away from him. He’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you. We all saw it. The way you looked at him like he was it for you, and he saw you, too. It was like no one else existed for him except you, and you just walked away. I was so mad at you for that. I would have killed to have what you two have.” She laughed then, a strangled kind of laugh. “Turns out I did, I just didn’t realize it until it was too late.”
I looked at Erika, really looked at her, and I saw something. It was something in her teary eyes that made me feel a little helpless. And guilty. Crazy guilty. The truth was that I kind of hated me, too, for walking away. If I had have stuck it out, forgiven Aidan sooner and worked with him to stop my dad, instead of unknowingly helping Jared inflict his revenge, we probably wouldn’t have been stuck in a cage.
I didn’t even know what to say.
But I did know who she was referring to. Craig. I knew she was really hung up on him, and I thought the other women knew that, too. They were all looking at her with that you poor thing look, and all I wanted to do was fix it for her. It was ... weird, and really unexpected, but she was mine. My female, my wolf, part of my pack, and it tore me up seeing her so ... sad.
“It’s kind of scary, isn’t it?” I said. “Loving someone that much.” I shook my head. “I wasted so much time with Jared, you know? Time that I could have had with Aidan. At first I told myself it was because I wanted to stop my dad and Jared was the way to do that, but really it was because I was scared. Terrified, actually. Aidan lied to me, manipulated me into fighting for him, for the pack, and for you guys.” I laughed once. “Turns out it was probably the best thing he’d ever done.”
“Yeah,” she breathed. “It’s freakin’ terrifying.”
I looked back at the corner and started twisting the wire again. “If you want my advice, don’t stop fighting, Erika. Never stop fighting. Life is too short not to spend it with the person who makes you whole.”
“She’s right,” Jo said. “If he’s important, you need to fight for him. But if you ask me, Craig’s the one screwing this up. Not you. The way I heard it, he hadn’t even told you that he wanted you as his mate until after the Aidan thing.”
“We were sort of seeing each other,” Erika said. “It was casual, but it was still something.”
Kristen snorted. “Casual. All that means is that he’s too chicken to make a commitment. When you get that boy back, you make sure he knows you aren’t playing around this time.”
“Did you bring me cookies this time?” Laura shouted, and we all jumped and shuffled, hiding our escape efforts as fast as we could.
It was a long, long afternoon. Eventually the men stopped walking by. I wasn’t really sure if that was a good thing or not, but without their constant observation, we made headway on our exit strategy. Another ten minutes or so, and we’d be able to shove the doors open. We didn’t talk much, just worked. There didn’t seem to be a lot to talk about after the girls had determined that it was Craig that was being an idiot. I wasn’t entirely sure if I completely agreed with that. She’d hurt him. Crushed him, actually. But it made Erika a little less teary eyed to hear it, so it was good.
The sun was starting to fall when I heard the bell-like laughter. It was sweet, almost like wind chimes, and it was followed by a full-bellied, rumbling laugh that I’d have known anywhere.
I froze mid-twist and whispered, “Shush. My dad’s here.” I didn’t know what else to say, but the round of fast, suction-like breaths made me very aware that the girls knew that him being here probably wasn’t a good thing.
Because if he was here, then the chances were good that he’d found my pack, and Aidan wasn’t coming back for us.
Dad had his arm around a tiny young girl, with a head of blond, ringlet curls. She couldn’t have been more than twelve. He was smiling down at her as he strode toward us. It was the smile he’d always given me. The one that said I was the absolute center of his world. The one that made me feel warm and loved and safe. And seeing it directed at someone else stung — bad. So bad that my chest ached and my eyes burned.
Behind him were a bunch of his cougars, eight, no, there were nine of them. They looked happy and really excited. And it made my inner-wolf, and me, hurt, a deep, sharp ache that filled every part of my body.
I tried (and failed) to bury the feeling as I lifted my chin, and gave Whitney a narrowed smile. She quickly slid back, covering the corner of the cage they’d been working on, and at the same time, Laura took up the position in our cage.
Dad stopped and crouched down in front of the girl. “Go see what your brothers are getting into, pumpkin,” he said. “I’ll be in soon, okay?”
She smiled, a radiant, sunshine kind of smile, and giggled. “Will you play that card game with me?” Her voice was just like her laugh, sweet and bell-like.
“Sure,” he said. “Now, go on.” And with a quick kiss on his cheek, she turned and ran back around the corner, and a second later I heard the door to the cabin open and then slam shut.
“Did I miss a chapter?” Erika whispered. “Because that looked like a man who loves that little girl.”
“Yeah, it did,” I said quietly, not wanting him to overhear. I felt sick. Cold and sick and hurt. “That was exactly how he was with me until I met Aidan.” And I couldn’t help but wonder if that girl was meant to be more than a girl who wound up in a cage, because I was sure there had to be something more to that kindness, just like there had been when he used it with me. For me, he’d used it to steer me closer to Dominic and the pack, and I was sure he was using it on her to point her in whatever direction he needed her to go in. His pushes for me had always been subtle and always hidden behind that I love you smile but when I thought about it, really thought about it, they’d been there. Always. For years now.
Dad was asking where Jason was, and I didn’t think he liked the answer, because his eyes hit mine then, and they were bright with anger. He closed the distance to the cage with a long, determined stride and pointed at me. “Stand up, move to the door, and don’t you give me any lip, Jade. I’m not going to tolerate it.”
I didn’t stand up. Instead, I only blinked, stunned by the harshness in his voice. Was he completel
y done pretending to care about me? Had he ever actually cared? There wasn’t a trace, not even a tiny speck of warmth in his eyes as he glared at me. Nothing. It was as if I meant nothing to him anymore and I found myself crouching, getting ready to shift if I had to. The girls were silent, stiff, and ready, too.
“You should have listened to me, Dad,” I said. “You should have run.”
He gave me a long, frowning look. “Stand up, Jade. It’s time we come to some kind of agreement here.”
“I’m not leaving my girls in here,” I shot back with a touch of a growl deepening my tone. “You want to talk to me, talk, because I’m not going anywhere without them.”
His eyes narrowed. “I’m not giving you a choice. I’ve played your little game long enough.”
“My game!” I shouted. There was something in his tone that made my spine snap straight and my entire body tensed up tight. “I was never playing a damn game.”
“Watch that tone with me, Jade,” Dad growled. “I’m still your father even if you choose to pretend I’m not.”
I crossed my arms, holding the blanket snuggly in place. “It’s a little late for fatherly lectures, Dad. You lost that right the moment you threw me out of the house and pushed me into becoming Aidan’s mate.”
Dad lowered his voice and his eyes were suddenly intense. “I did that for you.” He sounded like he actually meant that. “None of this would be possible if you weren’t mated to him. I’ve given you power. I’ve given you the backbone you needed to run your pack and mine.”
“Why the hell would I want to run a pack of sick male cougars who think it’s okay to lock women in cages and use them like toys?” I glanced past him to the men who’d gathered behind him and snarled. “What’s wrong with you people?”
At one time I’d wondered if maybe they weren’t all evil. I’d hoped for it, actually. But as I looked at them, they didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. A few of them even chuckled. These weren’t good, but misguided, people. They were monsters. All of them.