Jace (23 page)

Mate!

T
HE
McClarens had been challenging Jace for four days and she’d about had enough of it. Miri stood in the kitchen waiting for Peanut’s bottle to heat and glared at Tobias, who lounged in the doorway. “When are they going to accept that he’s not going away?”

“Probably about the time he stops winning,” Tobias answered, pushing away from the doorjamb.

“That doesn’t make sense.”

He shrugged. “They’re weres, and they’ve got a point to make. They don’t have to make sense.”

She wanted to whack him on the head with a pan. “You’re an Enforcer. You can make anyone do anything.”

“That’s what they say.”

She rolled her eyes. The edginess rose. “Just my luck, an Enforcer with no muscle.”

All the insult did was jar loose a laugh. “As your husband pointed out, there are rules.”

“You don’t look the type to worry about rules.” She took the bottle to test it. Peanut reached for the pan. She pulled her back, dropping the bottle and splashing hot water on her arm.

“Darn!”

Tobias turned her arm over and smoothed his thumb over the small burn. The sting disappeared. “And you can relax.” His gaze met hers. “Eventually they’ll realize this is not progressing and that they have to come up with another solution.”

“Meanwhile they beat up on Jace. That’s so comforting.”

“Have you seen the McClarens?” The flick of his eyebrows and the twitch of his lips conveyed his amusement. “I think he’s holding his own.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that. Jace
was
holding his own. She was just darned tired of seeing him with bruises. Miri expected Tobias to remind her that she could put an end to this with one special little bite. He didn’t. He merely chucked Peanut under her small chin and said, “I heard you named her.”

She was grateful for the diplomacy. She didn’t think she could explain the panic mixed with longing that the thought of marking Jace inspired. “Yes. Penny.”

“Trying to stick close to Peanut, eh?”

Not that she wanted to admit. “I think the name suits her.”

Penny fussed. Miri jostled her, distracting her from her hunger with the excitement of movement. She wished it was as easy to distract herself. She’d been restless all day, her blood seeming to run hotter, her temper closer to the edge, and the love bites Jace had sprinkled over her body last night tingled with an excitement she couldn’t rub away. Feeding from Jace had not only made her stronger, it had changed her. She just wasn’t sure how.

“Well, they can’t challenge him now. So if you’re bringing one, just turn around and take it back out the door. He hasn’t had a chance to heal from the last time.”

Tobias held out his hands for the baby. “I don’t think that’s your call.”

“I’m making it mine.”

Miri handed Penny over and watched the miracle of the deadly Enforcer turning to mush right in front of her eyes. It happened every time he held the little girl, and every time, it was like watching a mini miracle. This time was no different. As he swung her above his head, the harsh lines of Tobias’s face melted into a gentle smile.

“Penny’s a good name for you, little one.” He gave her a little wiggle. “You’re certainly just as bright and shiny as a brand-new one.”

He brought the baby down and tucked her against his side. Penny rooted around and then latched onto the collar of his leather coat. Tobias didn’t pull the material away from her, just patted her on the back as he raised an eyebrow at Miri’s stare.

“Enforcers are human, you know.”

She hadn’t realized she was so obvious. “You can read minds?”

The right side of his mouth kicked up. “No need to work that hard when what you’re thinking is so clear on your face.”

Which wasn’t exactly a denial of an ability to read minds.

She sighed. “Jace says the same thing.”

“It’s not a bad thing.”

“It’s not a good thing, either.”

Especially when people were trying to get information out of her. Which it seemed everyone had been trying to do the last few days—from Allie just trying to be sure she was okay to Tobias trying to see… She glared at the were. She didn’t know what he wanted to know, but he was looking for something.

She turned the gas off under the pan of water, a sense of inadequacy coming at her out of nowhere. The flame went out with a little puff that echoed her annoyance. The only one who seemed to think she hadn’t done her best while she’d been imprisoned by the Sanctuary was her. While everyone else praised her for hanging on, she couldn’t shake a sense of failure. That somehow she should have been stronger, found a way to get away, a better solution to the problem of how to save Faith. That it was her fault Faith wasn’t here now, being spoiled by her father and all the other men around. She was an Alpha female. She should have been able to do something other than what she had. Miri stared at the half-full bottle. She should have been able to do something.

“Is the bottle ready?” Tobias asked.

On a last blink, Miri shook off the pall of inadequacy and turned. The were was attempting to pry little Penny’s mouth from the collar of his leather coat. She wasn’t happy with the attempt. The more he worked, the harder she sucked.

“I’m sorry. Here, I’ll take her.”

Tobias didn’t hand Penny over. “No problem. I’m just thinking this probably isn’t the cleanest thing for her to chew on.”

He looked so domesticated she had to blink again. Enforcers were all-powerful in were culture, a blend of legend and reality. They were the ultimate law, the ultimate decider of fate. They were the bogeymen mothers used to modify children’s behavior. They were not potential fathers, yet one was standing in her kitchen fussing over a baby, letting it suck on his collar while worrying about germs. He couldn’t have looked more fatherly. To the point that, if any female saw him like this, he’d leap to the top of the potential mate scale. Except she’d never heard of an Enforcer taking a mate. A mate would be a weakness, a vulnerability. Enforcers weren’t allowed to be weak.

Miri tested the formula on her wrist. It was lukewarm. Close enough. “I’ll take her now.”

As soon as Tobias tried to move her away from his body, Penny’s little face went into a pout.

“Come now,” he coaxed, holding her face level with his. “You don’t want to cry your way out of a good bottle, do you?”

Penny, didn’t lose her pucker, but she didn’t scream, either, as Miri took her. Which was a relief. Penny’s lungs had gained considerable strength over the last week.

Tobias smiled when Penny didn’t stop frowning at him even as Miri got her settled. “She’s got opinions, that one.”

Miri tucked her into the crook of her elbow. “She does that.”

The instant the nipple touched her lips, Penny latched on, sucking hard.

Tobias watched her closely before asking, “She’s not having trouble with the food?”

Miri shook her head. “She seems to be thriving.”

“That’s good.”

Yes, it was. It gave her hope for her own baby. That maybe she was doing just as well and not struggling like Joseph.

“Yes, it is.”

Tobias studied the baby a few seconds more and then asked, “Is Jace around?”

The hairs on the back of her neck rose. Her upper lip jerked with the urge to snarl. “Not if you’re bringing another challenge around.”

“No need to jump down my throat. I’m just the messenger.”

She highly doubted that. Tobias had the look of a man who was behind a hell of a lot of things, and in control of everything. She put the bottle on the counter. Penny always drank too fast and the nipple on this bottle was cut too big. She rested her against her shoulder and started patting her back. “So, are you?”

Tobias snagged the dish towel off the front of the stove and tucked it under the baby’s chin. “I’m not sure.”

“Not sure about what?”

Jace strolled into the room, his power seeming to fill it as his energy reached out to surround Penny and her. Her pulse accelerated in welcome and remembrance. The memory of the night before was in his eyes. He’d come to her wild. She’d welcomed him just as wildly. A second tendril stroked over her in an intimate caress. The restlessness inside her quieted, focused, centered. Her breasts ached and swelled.

The knowing smile on Jace’s lips touched her anger as much as the cuts on his cheek and jaw enraged her soul. The McClarens had no right to keep doing this to him. Penny gave a tiny little burp and started rooting around on her shoulder.

“I think Penny is ready for her bottle again.”

She shook her head. She’d been fooled too many times before not to know this was premature. “Not just yet.”

Just then Penny belched way too loud for something her size. Both men laughed, as if it was a good thing for a little girl to belch like a grown man at a burping contest.

“That’s hardly a ladylike sound, little one,” she told Penny, trying to keep her focus there rather than on Jace. Her desire rising, her longing for his touch was almost palpable and would be easily detectable for an Enforcer of Tobias’s caliber. Which would be embarrassing.

Her hopes to stay neutral were dashed when Jace crossed immediately to her side and tucked her, baby and all, under his shoulder. Tingles went up her arm into her chest, catching on her heartbeat, accelerating it, before surging outward in a vital awareness. She battled the small rebellion into submission with several deep breaths. That lasted until he started running his fingers up and down her arm. A quick glance up showed the faint smile lines at the corners of his eyes indicating he knew exactly what he was doing to her. And how much he was enjoying it. If she hadn’t had the baby in her arms, if Tobias wasn’t standing four feet away watching them with that same kind of smile on his mouth, she would have kicked him in the shins.

“Leave her be, Miri. A healthy appetite is nothing to shake a stick at,” Jace said.

She immediately thought of Joseph. No, it wasn’t. She kissed the top of Penny’s head as Jace asked, “So what brings you here, Tobias?”

“I have a message from the D’Nally.”

“Does he want to challenge me, too?”

Jace’s energy hummed with an inner tension. The spot on her neck where he had bitten her this morning during their lovemaking burned. She rubbed her cheek on his arm, trying to soothe him while doing a mental probe for the cause of his upset. She was clumsy at the mental thing. Her efforts were thwarted with the softest of rebuffs. She sighed. Jace gave her a quick squeeze. An apology or a warning?

“No. It would be the Tragallion pack that would challenge your right to be their leader.”

“What does he want, then?”

“Apparently, to talk.”

“About what?”

Tobias shrugged. “He wouldn’t say.”

Miri frowned. Try as she might she couldn’t scent or feel any underlying clue to the were’s emotions. Was he lying? Was it a trap? “Well, until they do, nobody’s meeting with anybody.”

Tobias could look amazingly arrogant when he wanted to. “That’s not your call.”

She didn’t care. “I’m making it mine.”

Penny bobbed on her shoulder, her face crumpling in the warning pout that always prefaced a scream. She shifted the infant’s position, trying to keep her eye on both men and the baby as she did.

Jace placed a kiss on her hair and dropped his hand from her shoulders. “Why don’t we take this discussion outside so we don’t disturb the baby?” he said to Tobias as Penny started to cry.

Miri brushed the corner of the baby’s mouth with the bottle, eyeing Jace knowingly. “You wouldn’t be trying to exclude me from this conversation, would you?”

“Not at all. Just figured I’d get some fresh air.”

Who did he think he was kidding? “It’s ten degrees outside. About the only thing you’ll get out there is an ice cube.”

He shrugged his shoulders as he grabbed his coat off the hook by the door. “I’m a vampire, Miri, love. If I want ten degrees to feel tropical, it will.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, you’re just going outside because I can’t take the baby out there.”

Tobias laughed, opening the door. “She’s on to you.”

Jace grabbed his Stetson off the peg on the wall and settled it on his head. “So it would appear.”

“
She’s
getting annoyed being spoken about like she’s not here.”

Tobias smiled, his long brown hair blowing back over his shoulders as he stepped onto the porch. “It’s good to see she’s got her spirit back.”

Jace laughed. “She gets much more back, and I’ll be fighting as much at home as I have been outside of it lately.”

He didn’t sound at all upset at the idea. “You wouldn’t have to fight so much,” Miri countered, as she teased the corner of Penny’s mouth with the nipple, “if you’d just turn one down now and then.”

Jace angled the hat down over his brow, his eyes glittering from underneath while his energy flowed over her in a touch of pure sin. “And deprive the McClarens of their fun?” He shook his head. “They’d never forgive me.”

THE
night air was a balm upon his skin. Jace slowly closed the door behind him and tugged his coat on.

Tobias motioned over to the right, toward the practice field. “Do you want to talk over there?”

Jace looked over his shoulder to the kitchen window where he could see Miri staring out, watching them. They didn’t need to be in earshot of the house for this conversation. “Works for me.”

Particles of ice crunched under their feet, setting an easy rhythm to the pace as they passed the two houses between them and the field. Beside him, the Enforcer walked head up, shoulders back, an easy confidence in every step, looking completely at ease.

Tobias glanced over. “How’s Miri really doing?”

Jace, however, was not at ease with the other man’s preoccupation with his wife. Tobias was here for a reason. Jace didn’t like the sense he was getting that it had to do with Miri. “What business is it of yours?”

“She’s a D’Nally.”

“She’s my mate.”

“One doesn’t negate the other.”

He cocked his eyebrow at him. “Funny, I had the impression that it did.”

There was the barest interruption in the were’s energy. “Yeah, I could see why you’d get that impression.”