Deadly Mates (Deadly Trilogy) (19 page)

Another gust of wind brought the scent of blood swamping around me.  I breathed it in and turned, looking toward the tree line.  The wind shifted, blowing from the other direction, and again, it brought the coppery smell back with it.

“He got a phone call while he was here and he took off pretty quick,” Jeff said and chuckled, a cruel sound that put ice in my veins.  I shifted my gaze back to him and he smiled wide.  “I’ll give you one guess who called him.”

I gritted my teeth.  I didn’t need a guess.  I knew exactly who had called him.  “Jade.”

Jeff didn’t confirm it, but I guessed I didn’t really need him to.  I’d known something was up with her when she practically shoved me out the door this morning.  But I had really been hoping it had nothing to do with Jared.

Jeff stood up and walked to the door.  He was still smiling, enjoying the pain he was inflicting on me; I was sure of it.  “Before you go running off to track down that mate of yours, I called you here to tell you I finally got a full count of the cougars and I also picked up a little something for you that will lead you right to them.”  He shoved the door wide open, and stepped back.

For a long moment, I didn’t have a clue what I was looking at.  The s
tench of cougar and blood was suddenly so thick that I almost gagged.  I moved up the steps, holding my breath as I did.  Sitting on a chair, tied tightly enough to cut through the skin, was a man about my age.  His eyes were closed, his head, lolled to the left.  Blood dripped to the floor around his feet.

“Richard,
” Jeff said.  The man lifted his head and slowly opened his eyes. “Meet Aidan, the alpha of the Dog Mountain pack.”

~ JADE ~

“It’s official.  I’m going to flunk out of high school,” I said, slapping my textbook shut.  My whole plan of studying for an hour before meeting up with the team was so not going to happen.  I couldn’t focus my mind on anything other than what my father could possibly want.  He had been lying low, avoiding us completely, and Aidan had sat back and watched, just like he’d promised me.  But this morning Dad had called, waking Aidan and me up, demanding a meeting.

Marcy giggled, a trill sound that burst through the speakerphone of my cell.  “You’re not going to flunk out, Jade,” she said.  “Half your teachers are part of the pack.  They wouldn’t dare fail you.”  Clunking footsteps and a rustle of fabric flitted through the phone suddenly and she squealed a little breathlessly.  “Trevor, stop it.  Alpha on the line.”

Trevor grunted something that I thought might have been an apology and I rolled my eyes, flopping back on the couch.  “Don’t you guys have Erika duty today?” I asked, picking up the list of late assignments and scanning it over.  It was ridiculous how much homework could pile up over a week.  As far as I was concerned, there should be some kind of law about homework.  How the school system expected people to sit in class all day and then spend hours each night cramming in more knowledge was beyond me.  Not that I had been sitting in class much lately, but that was beside the point.  It was a sunny Saturday morning and I was stuck on the couch surrounded by a mountain of work.  Where was the home/school balance?

“Don’t remind me,” Marcy said, her voice sounding further away and a bit fuzzy as she switched me to speakerphone.  “She’s driving me insane.  Tell me again why we’re putting up with that ... that ...” she groaned.  “See, she has me so pissed off I can’t even think of a good name for her.  I get the whole going after the single alpha thing, but I don’t know how she could do this to Craig.”

“I’m supposed to be diplomatic now,” I said, dropping the list to the couch.  “And protecting a wolf that helped the pack is diplomatic.”

Marcy snorted.  “You, diplomatic?  Yeah, right.”

“Hey, I totally resent that,” I said, except she probably had a point.  I really wasn’t the diplomatic type, but still, I was trying to be somewhat reasonable.  “I can be diplomatic.  You’ve got to admit it, I’ve got skills.  If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be lounging in Trevor’s bed right now, would you?”  And pulling that one off had taken mad skills.  I’d sat with her dad for hours trying to explain the whole mate status thing and what that actually meant.  In the pack world, she was literally married now.  I’d done a crapload of bargaining and more negotiating than I’d ever done before, but in the end, we’d finally come to an agreement and Marcy had moved in with her mate.  Seriously, the whole thing had been a perfect example of exactly how diplomatic I could be when I needed to.

“How’s everything going with Aidan?” Trevor asked casually.

I took a deep breath.  “I don’t know.  He’s been crazy bossy, and I swear he hasn’t left me alone for even a second in the last two days.  It’s like he thinks if he turns his back I’ll just vanish.”  I’d known that trying to start over would be work
— a lot of work — but he was being impossible.  Problem was, whenever he was around birds flapped in my belly and my heartbeat pretty much tripled.  He made my body sing and my inner-wolf dance.  And I loved him.  I really did.  There was no denying it, not anymore.  I just didn’t have the strength or energy to do it anymore.  But sometimes space was a good thing, and Aidan hadn’t been giving me much space (or any space) over the last two days.

And yet here I was alone.  Actually alone.  Sure, I had basically shoved him out the door this morning, but still, after two days of his hovering it felt weird not having him standing over my shoulder, and whether I liked it or not, his absence made my inner-wolf uneasy.

“He’s your mate, Jade, and an alpha,” Trevor said.  “Of course he’s bossy.  His inner-wolf wants to keep you safe.  It’s probably all he can think about.  Give the guy a break.”

“He’s not my mate,” I countered, the weight of my words close to unbearable, and I suddenly found it hard to catch my breath.  “I don’t know if this whole starting over idea was such a hot idea.”

That wasn’t entirely true.  I didn’t regret starting over.  In truth, even with Aidan’s constant closeness, and his increasing possessiveness, I was glad I was here — with him.  But if I took that step, I wasn’t sure who I would be anymore.  I wasn’t even really sure who I was now.  I had adapted to my new life.  I had survived.  I thrived as a werewolf.  And well, it had become comfortable.  The truth?  I was terrified that if I took that step with Aidan I’d lose myself, that I’d become just another piece of him.  There had to be a balance — somewhere.

Never fall so hard that you can’t live without him.
You need to stay your own person.
Mom’s advice to Marcy when she’d broken up with Trevor for the first time never strayed far from my mind these days.  I thought they were supposed to be words of wisdom, except I didn’t know how to stop myself from falling, and I was falling, fast.  It didn’t help one freakin’ bit that our inner-wolves knew there would be no one else.  They were done with waiting and darn it, but the thought made me glow from the inside out.

“Has the last few days really been horrible?” Marcy asked.

“No,” I said a little grudgingly, staring at the phone on the coffee table.  “They’ve been perfect.  He cooks, cleans.  He’s considerate and he even lets me have the television remote.  It’s sickening.  He’s not supposed to be this sweet.  But I need to just be
Jade
for awhile.  I need to find my way through this, make a place for myself in the pack.  I might have won the games for alpha female, but it’s almost as if the males can’t see me as my own person, like I’m just another arm of him, not important but there anyway.”

If I had been hoping they would disagree with me, I was left disappointed.  The silence stretched on for a long moment before I asked, “Have you guys seen Jared?  The guys won’t tell me anything and with Aidan hovering, I haven’t really been able to check on him.”

“It’s for the best, Jade,” Trevor said.  “You need to forget about him.  If you would move on and embrace your mate, you’d see a shift in everyone’s attitude.”  His tone was firm, but not cold.  Trevor was one of the few male pack members who hadn’t shunned me over the whole Jared thing, although I was pretty sure it was only because he was mated to my best friend.  He had to play nice, and so did I.

“How is this fair?” I asked.  “Aidan actually messed around with Erika and no one batted an eye at it.  All I did was pretend to have a boyfriend, a few public kisses, that’s it.”  A frustrated growl rumbled around my chest.

“Aidan hasn’t hated the pack for two years,” Trevor said, his tone measured and tense.  I figured Marcy was probably giving him a look to stop him from telling me off.  “We all know how you felt about us, it’s not like you hid it.  You didn’t bother to try once you became one of us.  You showed complete disregard for our ways, decided you didn’t need to follow our laws, and you publicly humiliated our alpha — your mate — and walked away with an enforcer.”

He was right.  Yes, I had done all that, but in all fairness I hadn’t known that I was doing it.  No one had bothered to tell me the rules.

The sound of a car pulling into the driveway drew my attention and I glanced out the window.  I watched for a moment as a white Honda pulled to a stop and then a pack member got out.  “Got to go, guys. Luken’s here,” I said, as I watched him walk up the driveway.  He knocked on the door, a thumping three bangs that rattled the hinges.  “Get to Beck’s.  He needs a break.”  They both mumbled a reluctant agreement before ending the call.

I crossed over to the door, pulling it open.  I didn’t even get a chance to say hi before Luken asked, “Where’s the alpha?”  His arms were folded over his massive chest and he focused a dark glare on me.  The werewolf was close to enforcer status, just one row down in the pecking order of the pack.  He was built like an enforcer, too, tall with more muscle than any one person needed.  He was in jeans, a black baseball cap, and an off-white fall jacket.

“You’re looking at her,” I said, aware that I had hesitated way too long before answering him.

He stood perfectly still for a moment as his nostrils flared, and then he leaned forward, taking a deep sniff of my scent.  His lips curved in disgust.  “You’re not my alpha.  Where is he?”

I laughed, a startled sound, and brought a hand to my chest in mock hurt.  “Ouch.  You know if you guys keep this up, I might actually start to believe you don’t want me here.”

He lifted one shoulder in a small shrug.  “We don’t,” he said.  An easy smile curved his mouth.  “Where’s Jared been?”  He sounded cautious, as if he were testing how far he could push me without crossing the invisible line that would lead to me telling Aidan or unleashing my alpha scent on him.  Even so, tension slid down my spine, awakening my inner-wolf, and ratcheting up my anxiety.  I was sure that the males of the pack knew I was clutching onto my independence with a fiercely tight hold.  Luken wasn’t the first in the last two days to talk to me like this, or ask me about Jared, and I was sure he wouldn’t be the last.

“What do you need, Luken?” I asked, planting my hands on my hips and giving him my best
no-nonsense
look.  The wind ruffled his jacket, filling the space between us with a light rustling of fabric.  “I’ve got stuff to do.”

I held onto my inner-wolf tightly, keeping her growing annoyance balled and contained.  She was getting tired of the constant challenge of our authority, but really, so was I.  In my mind, it shouldn’t matter that I wasn’t a mated alpha.  I had taken out every challenger.  I deserved their respect even if I had walked away from my mate.

“You wouldn’t understand.”  He paused for a moment, and then said, “Just tell him to call me.”  And with one last disgusted look my way, he turned from me and stalked down the driveway to his waiting car.

I stood there for a moment, feeling like a piece of crap, at least until the car door slammed.  It was amazing how much damage I had done to the pack without even trying, and I was actually starting to feel guilty about it.  I blinked, watching him pull out of the driveway before retreating back to the couch.

So that sucked,
I thought.  I didn’t want to believe it, but maybe Trevor was right.  Maybe I needed to move on.  But I knew I wasn’t wrong either.  Wanting to be my own person, to not be defined by who I was with wasn’t wrong.

I glanced at my phone, reached for it, and pulled back.  I knew there really was only one thing to do.  I had to fix things and I knew exactly where I needed to start.  I reached for my phone again, snagged it up, and made the call before I could change my mind.

~ JADE ~

I sucked in the fresh air.  My lungs couldn’t get enough of it.  Clean and crisp and cool.  The jog over to the clearing had been refreshing, relaxing.  I stood hunched over, my hands on my knees, pulling the air into my lungs, and expelling it in slow, deep puffs.

The sun was out in full force this morning, coating the clearing where I had spent many hours in training with Jared and Beck, in a warm glow.  Leaves rattled across the dried out grass as they were carried in a cool breeze.

I knew he was behind me, watching from the tree line, but I needed a moment to just breathe.  His scent was thick in the air, a mix of caution and a hot spike of tempered anger.  I figured he was waiting for someone else to show up.  I didn’t really blame him for that, but it hurt a little that he assumed I’d try to set him up.