Dire Desires: A Novel of the Eternal Wolf Clan (7 page)

But Vice was so fucking sad. The loss of a certain kind of innocence that these young Weres would never get back.

Vice never had it, but to watch the young ones doing what the Dires had trained them for made him so proud and sick at the same time.

“Hey.” Liam stood in front of him now, uncertain for only a moment before Vice grabbed the back of the young wolf’s neck and pulled him in for a backslapping embrace, a warrior’s congratulations. A charge’s comfort, as Liam buried his head against Vice’s shoulder for a little longer than he should have, as if trying to gain back what he’d just lost.

There was no going back now. There couldn’t be. And humans would be the better for it.

Vice pulled Liam’s head back up, looked the young king in the eye and made sure he knew it too.

I
nstead of going straight to the penthouse, Jez
pulled into t
he parking lot of Mo’s Diner.

“I thought we decided home was the best option,” Jinx said, wondered when and how he’d begun to think of the place as home in such a short period of time.

“She’s got to eat, right?” Jez asked and Gillian’s stomach rumbled. She blushed and laughed a little and Jinx felt himself grow lighter every time he heard the sound.

Fucking pansy ass. “You know who owns this, right?”

Jez smiled. “Of course.”

Jinx kept Gillian close when they went inside. Most Weres wouldn’t be able to sense what she was—they just didn’t have that kind of nose when a Dire was preshift, and Dires were good at that kind of camouflage for good reason. But still, that didn’t always stop stupid things from coming out of wolves’ mouths.

“Grab a seat in the back,” the owner called. He was a big Were, head of this family-run business. The Were family considered themselves their own pack, owing loyalty to no one. And yet, Jinx heard they pledged theirs to Liam, if push came to shove.

A smart move to align themselves with the once and future king.

Obviously, Jez had been here before, as none of the Weres looked at him oddly. In fact, the waitress asked if Jez wanted his usual.

Jinx raised a brow when Jez nodded.

“I don’t think I want to know what a deadhead’s usual is,” he murmured without thinking.

“You like the Grateful Dead?” Gillian asked and Jez gave her a smile.

“I followed them one summer.”

Jinx rubbed a hand along the back of his neck as he watched his mate and his vampire roommate bonding over “Sugar Magnolia.” He supposed things could be worse.

They all ate heartily once the food came. Jinx ordered another round of fries for Gillian and a burger and shake for himself—they would be his third—and she didn’t seem to think the way they ate was odd at all.

“I see someone I need to do some business with.” Jez excused himself and made his way to a table across the room where two werechicks sat. They’d been staring at Jez from the moment he’d walked in and Jinx made a mental note to ask his roomie what the hell that was all about.

The extra food came and Gillian put ketchup carefully on the side of her plate. Took a sip of his shake when Jinx offered to share.

“Thanks. This food is so much better than the hospital.” As she spoke the word, her expression tightened a little.

“It’s okay, Gillian. I’ll make sure you stay out of that place.”

“Why are you doing this? Hiding me? Helping me?” she asked.

“Does it matter? You’re free.”

She nibbled a fry dipped in ketchup, then said, “In my experience, there’s a price you pay for everything.”

“I think you’ve paid enough, Gillian.”

She smiled. “I like the way you say my name. You don’t have an accent, but every time you say my name, you do.”

Because he slipped into the cadence of the old language whenever he was around her, couldn’t help it. He felt like he was in the old country; expected he could look out and see the bloom of the Reinrose, the delicate purple Revebejelle that circled around the center of town hall where all the celebrations took place. He could see Gillian dancing in a loose white dress, her hair glinting like diamonds in the sun.

You are losing your ever-loving mind
. And after living with both Vice and a vamp, he didn’t have all that far to go.

•   •   •

Jinx seemed far away for the moment. She took the opportunity to study him carefully. He was like no man she’d ever met before—a mix of modern motorcycle badass and somehow old-fashioned in his manners, the way he opened her doors for her, pulled out her chair. That wasn’t some act, like her father and his friends. No, this was ingrained in him, like it was second nature.

His eyes were green like the fields she ran in during the springtime—she slept on the pads of warm grass during the day, hidden away from the prying eyes of the others in the park, and at night, she ran, smelling the musk of the flowers. His eyes warmed her. His hair felt as silky as it looked and she wanted to run her hands through it again. To kiss him again, although granted the cemetery was possibly the least romantic place for a first kiss.

She grinned at that thought and it faded when she saw his expression had gone serious again. “Whatever happens, Jinx, just don’t send me back.”

“I won’t.”

She pushed her plate away. “My parents won’t give up easily.”

“What do they do when you run away?”

“I always come back within a couple of days.” She left her clothes folded, a sign like
DO NOT DISTURB AND I’LL COME BACK PEACEFULLY
. “For all I know, the hospital doesn’t even tell them I leave and come back.”

But this time was different. They would know this man took her and while he didn’t appear to be scared of anything, he’d never been up against her family.

Then again, neither had she and as the dust settled and the enormity of what she’d done began to hit her, she realized she would be on the receiving end of their ruthlessness for the first time.

Gillian Margaret Blackwell
. She could still hear her mother middle-naming her after all these years and she winced.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just . . . memories.”

“None of them good, by the looks of it.”

No, there hadn’t been good ones for a long time. Maybe, with Jinx, there would be.

•   •   •

Lia
m stared at his hands. He’d woken up four times already in the past two hours, convinced he could see the blood on them still. He knew it couldn’t be so—they’d been washed several times already, but the smell . . . the howls . . . rang in his ears.

The spoils of war.

“Ten more surrendered tonight,” Cyd had told him just before he came in here to get some quiet. The rooms they used were at the end of the Dire tunnel, where it was safest for them and yet gave them enough independence to begin functioning as a pack of their own.

In time, Liam would move back to Manhattan with the twins and the majority of his pack.

Max was being held in the room next to Harm and she had everything she could want, except freedom.

Liam felt the yoke around his neck as surely as she did.

It was hard to stay away from her. Cyd offered to find him other comforts but Liam refused.

Didn’t want to ever fall in love again but he didn’t want meaningless shit either.

Cyd took the comfort instead. As an alpha, all his desires were strengthening exponentially. After their kills, they’d never be the same.

As it’s meant to be.

He heard the two weregirls’ cries of pleasure throughout the night. Cyd obviously satisfied them completely and then some, as they’d had come out to breakfast smiling.

Cain was quieter about his needs, as he needed to be as the omega, but he fed his appetites as well. And when they gathered again, the strength of that trio would cement them all a great place in Were history.

Would it be enough? His father had done it for twenty-one years, since Liam’s birth, with not a single companion, no true mate. He said it was much easier without the entanglement and for the first time, Liam understood what he’d meant.

His father could’ve stopped him from mating with Max, but instead let him make his own mistakes. Linus saw nothing wrong, saw mistakes as something to learn from.

Liam saw a hell of a lot wrong with it.

So what, you’ll keep the boy and protect him from everything?

The pup was innocent and a hybrid. It would deserve none of the scrutiny and rejection it would get. But could Liam show the whelp love? Because without that . . .

“Liam? The California alpha’s on the line for you,” Cain said. “He wants to congratulate you on a job well done.”

A job well done most likely meant Liam had his support. The thrill of that helped to erase some of the heaviness in his heart at what good pack law really meant.

J
inx’s wolf d
id not like closed spaces, but he offered Gillian the option of the elevator. She seemed to accept his claustrophobia in stride and walked up with him.

“I don’t much like small spaces either,” she told him as they started up the stairs together. Jez took the elevator, mainly so he could make sure all was right in the penthouse.

Jinx was sure they would’ve sensed trouble, but Jez was more careful than most, a trait Jinx appreciated.

“I really like the other house. Why don’t you live there anymore?”

“It was time for me to get out on my own.” They rounded the landing to the halfway point of the upstairs.

They finished the walk in silence. Jez met them at the door with a nod to Jinx as Gillian stepped inside.

“I like this place too,” she told Jinx. There were lots of windows in the main part of the room. Most vampires would hate that, but Jez wasn’t most vampires.

“I’m going to head to the roof,” Jez told them.

“Do you sleep there?” Gillian asked.

“I don’t sleep much at night, no.”

“I’d like to sleep outside, I think.”

“I’m never going to have any privacy again, am I?” Jez grumbled, but he didn’t look all that put out as they went out onto the rooftop terrace under the stars.

It was so calm—too calm for monsters to be roaming the night. Then again, most humans thought wolves were monsters too. He settled with Gillian in one of the double loungers while Jez took one on the other side of the roof for maximum privacy.

She snuggled in against him. “Do you see them now? The ghosts?”

“Yes. They’re everywhere.”

“I could only see the one in my room. I liked her,” she said wistfully.

There’d been a time he’d liked ghosts too—thought maybe they were misunderstood. He’d spent what seemed like a lifetime trying to hold to this theory. Since it was his ability, shouldn’t he be kind to the things?

Rogue never had that issue. He’d wanted the spirits to go back to where they came from, no niceties at all. And by the time Jinx was convinced he was right, Rogue was far ahead of him in the
sending them back into their box
thing.

But Jinx had learned. “You shouldn’t ever get that close to a ghost. Don’t let them talk to you. Ignore them, because most of the time, they lie.”

That was true about half the time, but for the inexperienced, the ignoring thing was generally the best rule of thumb.

“You make them all sound scary.”

“You don’t know what’s underneath what you’re seeing or hearing.”

“It sounds like a hard job. I used to want to work at Carvel when I was younger, but mainly so I could have ice cream all day long,” she admitted. “What about you? Did you always want to hunt ghosts?”

He couldn’t tell her yet that, as a Dire, you didn’t really have a choice as to what you wanted to be. You just were—and he was a warrior alpha wolf born into a great warrior family big on tradition and worried as hell that the twins would ruin the line with their witchy ways. “It’s what I’m good at.”

There was a long, comfortable silence and then Gillian turned her head against his chest and went to sleep. It was a calm, peaceful sleep, with deep, easy breaths and the hint of a smile on her face. He covered her against the coolness of the night, since she hadn’t officially turned yet. Her metabolism was faster, she was warm, but he wouldn’t take any chances.

Shifting—especially the first shifts—on any Dire were very hard. In his day, on average maybe half survived the transition.

Brother Wolf whined in his ear and he didn’t blame him. Jinx didn’t want to think about the possibility of losing Gillian either.

As Gillian slept under the stars, he and Jez moved back over to the small table in the middle, bringing beer and chips and salsa with them. Their talk turned back to the other matter at hand while they had the opportunity. Decided that reopening purgatory was the worst idea ever, but neither had a clue about how to send the purgatory monsters to hell.

“Hell might not even accept them,” Jez pointed out.

“How can you be rejected from hell?” Jinx asked.

“I was.” Jez sniffed.

“You sure there’s no one innocent in purgatory?”

“There’s another place for the innocent who haven’t moved along yet. They’re not all walking the earth.”

“And you’ve seen this place?”

“I’ve had a rather extensive tour of all the areas except purgatory. And I can assure you that none of these monsters were in hell.” Jez sucked back the beer and then grabbed for the chips. Odd deadhead, this one was.

“In order for you to travel through hell, you can’t be innocent.”

“That I’m not innocent is news?”

He’d never asked exactly what the vamp had done, but he supposed, by the very nature of vampires, that killing was up there on their list of sins. “I’m going to have to get Rogue’s help on this.”

“I’m thinking it couldn’t hurt.”

The hellhounds listened to him for now and in turn, corralled the monsters. He couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take before the monsters actually ruled him. This kind of power was something you couldn’t wield for very long without losing a hell of a lot of yourself.

But he couldn’t deny that he’d allowed himself to think about how he could use the monsters for good.

“When are you going to tell your girlfriend that you run purgatory?” Jez asked.

“I will fucking stake you.”

“That’s a myth. And it was a simple question. You need to get laid.”

Jinx grabbed the phone and dialed Stray.

“I say get laid—you call a male wolf. Odd,” Jez moved and Jinx gave him the universal shut up signal in the form of the middle finger.

“Yeah, it’s me. When you go to the hospital, can you find the books that were in Gillian’s room? Yeah, there were some classics, a few romance.” He rattled off some titles. If Stray couldn’t find them, Jinx would replace them with new copies, because everyone deserved to have something that made them feel good when they were in a strange place.

Hell, even Jez had done that for him, had orchestrated moving Jinx’s old comforter and pillows from the Dire house to here, with Vice’s help. Brother Wolf greatly appreciated the comforts of home. It had only been a few weeks, but when they’d faced battles together, warriors tended to bond faster. He wasn’t sure what would’ve happened to him had he not approached Jez in the first place, and he didn’t want to think about it.