Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) (14 page)

~ JADE ~

She bit me.
 
She bit me.
 
She bit me.

My ankle was bleeding.
 
Erika’s tongue tickled my skin as she lapped
up the scarlet trail that leaked from my flesh, catching it before it reached
the ground.

She
bit me.
 
She bit me.
 
She bit me.

I couldn’t move away.
 
I wanted her to stop.
 
My stomach rolled and bile rushed up my
throat.

She
bit me.
 
She bit me.
 
She bit me.

Erika whimpered, and her tongue flicked out
again, sending a hot rolling chill up my leg and over my skin.
 
She was salivating.
 
Her drool was warm and cool all at once.
 
She nosed my leg, trying to get my attention.

She
bit me.
 
She bit me.
 
She bit me.

“Erika!”
 
The voice was loud.
 
Commanding.
 
Furious.

Erika whined and pressed her head against
me, cowering at my feet.
 
She looked up
at me.
 
Fear shone in her eyes, and she
whined again.

“Erika, get away from her,” the voice
demanded, but she didn’t move.
 
I didn’t
know how she could resist the urge to obey.
 
That voice.
 
It made my insides
shiver, not in a good way.

She held my eyes and tilted her head to the
side.
 
She barked once, just a little
yip, and then bowed her head again.

“Shit,” the voice said.
 
A hand touched my shoulder.
 
It was gentle and warm and familiar.
 
“She’s waiting for your command,” it said
softly in my ear.

“She bit me,” I said.
 
I felt empty.
 
Hollow.
 
Vacant.
 
“She bit me.”

A growl rumbled through the air.
 
I shuddered.
 
So did Erika.
 
I felt her
trembling against my leg.
 
I bent beside
her.
 
I don’t know why.
 
I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop
it.
 
“It’s okay,” I whispered, and patted
her lightly, letting my fingers trail down her back.

The growl came again.
 
Louder.
 
Stronger.
 
And the white wolf cringed into me.
 
She licked my chin, and flattened her ears.

“Jade, stand up.
 
Don’t let her hide behind
you.
 
You can’t protect her from her
alpha.
 
It’s not your place.”

“She bit me,” I said again, hating myself
for saying it.
 
I looked up, and Dominic
smiled a sad, sad smile.

“I know, honey,” he said.
 
“But you need to step away from her.
 
Tell her to go with Aidan.”

I furrowed my brow and looked around.
 
What was he talking about?
 
There was no one else here.
 
I opened my mouth, ready to demand an answer,
when
suddenly,
I was face to face with
the
black wolf.

I jumped a little, and rocked on my
feet.
 
Erika whimpered, and Dominic
snapped, “Don’t show fear.
 
It’ll ruin
what you’ve already done.”
 
I started to
look up, the realization of what had really happened hit me hard and fast.
 
“No, don’t look away from him, Jade.
 
Stand up slowly, keep your eyes open and
fixed on him.”

The black wolf snarled, and bared his
teeth, and I fought the urge to close my eyes.
 
This was Aidan.
 
Aidan was the
black wolf.
 
I thought I was going to be
sick, and I swallowed hard, pushing the rising bile back down my throat.
 
I stood up on shaky legs and held still.
 
I wanted to run.
 
I fought against the scream that was trying
to push up from my stomach.

We locked eyes for an agonizing and
terrifyingly long moment, the black wolf and me, and then he shifted his focus,
growling at Dominic.
 
And Dominic …
Dominic dropped his eyes and shrunk, rolling his shoulders over, and making
himself as small as he could without dropping to the ground.

Erika crawled toward Aidan, her belly
dragging along the ground, and licked his chin until he snapped at her to stop.
 
With one last piercing glare at me, he
left, with Erika trailing behind him, her tail between her legs.

“Why did you make me do that?” I asked, my
voice cracking over the words.
 
The last
bit of Erika’s white form disappeared into the trees.

“Because Erika is treating you like an alpha,
and if you bowed to him, you would lose that respect,” Dominic said, as if it
was matter-of-fact.

“But you bowed to him,” I countered.
 
I wish I hadn’t said it.
 
I didn’t want to talk.
 
I didn’t want Dominic’s help.
 
A cold sweat was dripping down my forehead,
and the bitter, sour bile was fighting its way back up my throat.

“Yes, but I’m his beta,” Dominic said.
 
He sounded so distant.
 
So far away.
 
“I’m lower than him.”

The world around me was spinning and
shifting.
 
The night seemed darker, blacker,
and bitterer.
 
My stomach rolled and my
head spun.
 
I looked at Dominic and
whispered, “She bit me.”

I woke up to a
wonderfully familiar smell.
 
It was musky
with a hint of apple, and I pulled in a long, deep breath, savoring it.
 
His hand brushed lightly across my forehead,
pushing away my hair, and I cuddled up closer to him, burying my head in his
chest.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.
 
His voice was whisper soft, and he pulled me
closer still, wrapping his strong arms around me.

“Tired and thirsty.
 
Really,
really thirsty.”
 
My voice was
muffled by his sweater, but he still heard me and laughed.

“Thirsty?” he asked and chuckled
again.
 
“I think that’s the first time
I’ve heard that one.”

I kept my eyes closed.
 
I didn’t want to look at him.
 
I didn’t want to see the pity or the
understanding that I was sure would be on his face.
 
The sun was beating through the window.
 
Its warmth touched my exposed skin and it
felt so … real.
 
All of it felt
real.
 
I wondered how long I had
slept.
 
Was it a few hours?
 
A few days?
 
Was I already in transition?
 
I wanted to be angry, but I couldn’t bring
myself to drudge up the feeling.
 
What
point was there?
 
It was done.
 
I was, or soon would be, one of them.
 
Anger seemed like such a waste of effort.

We lay there silently for a long
while.
 
Dominic rubbed soft and soothing
circles onto my back, and although I couldn’t say it, I was glad he was
there.
 
Who would have thought that this
would be what brought us back together?
 
I surely hadn’t, but in a way, I was glad for it.
 
His arms around me made everything a bit
brighter.
 
Fuller.
 
Easier to handle.
 
I could still feel Erika’s wet tongue on my
ankle, tainting my blood.

“What’s going to happen, Dom?” I
asked.
 
I squeezed my eyes tighter,
wishing I could just go back to sleep and pretend none of this had happened.

“Well, um …” he started, and squeezed me a
bit tighter before continuing, “the first thing that’s going to happen is that
you are going to have a shower, and then you’ll get dressed, and then you need
to talk to Aidan.”

I bolted up, pushing him off me, and a
surge of white-hot rage rushed over me.
 
“What!” I shouted and then took a long breath, trying to rein in my
voice.
 
I narrowed my eyes at Dominic.
 
He was still lying back on my bed, cool and
calm, smirking at me.
 
“I’m not going to
talk to him.
 
I never want to see that
jerk again.”
 
Okay, so maybe anger wasn’t
all that hard to feel after all.

That wiped the smirk from his lips.
 
“Jade,” he said, with a commanding force that
made me sit a bit straighter.
 
“There’s
no place in this town for a lone wolf, and with what you did to Erika …” he
trailed off and took a long, deep breath.
 
“If you don’t join the pack, you’ll run the risk of creating your own,
and trust me, you don’t want that.
 
Not
here.”

~ AIDAN ~

Dominic’s voice was
loud.
 
It drifted down the stairs as if
it was seeking me out, making sure I didn’t miss a beat of his conversation
with Jade.
 
I wished I had missed it all.
 
The venom in her voice when she said she
never wanted to see me again had my inner-wolf doing back flips in my stomach,
just itching to run to her and beg her to accept me.

She was meant to be an alpha.
 
Not just an alpha, but
my
alpha mate.
 
I could feel
it with every fiber, every vessel,
every
nerve ending
in my body.
 
I wasn’t sure how Dominic
was managing to speak to her the way he was.
 
His voice held so much command.
 
It didn’t waver in the slightest.
 
I assumed it was because of their past, whatever that was, but still,
the rest of the pack had been treating her with hostile caution and he acted as
if she was just a girl.
 
And right then,
I wished I had done exactly that right from the start.

As it was, it took everything I had in me
not to run up those steps and punish him for speaking to her that way.
 
It was as if my inner-wolf had already
claimed her and accepted her as my equal.

Mr. Shaw didn’t seem to notice my
turmoil.
 
He just stared at me, long and
hard.
 
It was distracting and annoying,
and I could feel my blood pressure rising with every passing second.

He seemed like an okay guy.
 
And I figured he had a right to be a little
pissed about his daughter, but the longer he stared at me, the more I felt as
if he wasn’t really that angry.
 
It was
as if he was sizing me up, taking in every little detail and trying to decide
my worth.
 
He reminded me of my first
girlfriend’s father, and it made me overly nervous.

Mrs. Shaw had been a lot easier to deal
with.
 
I’d met her briefly this morning
and it had only taken a few short minutes to convince her that Jade would be
fine.
 
She didn’t even bother checking in
on her daughter before running out the door to work, entrusting her fully to my
care.
 
And she had actually seemed happy
about the fact that Jade had been bitten.

We had been sitting in the living room for
about an hour waiting for Jade to wake up when he finally cracked an odd kind
of smile and said, “So my daughter is part of the competition.”

“Yes, sir,” I said a bit stunned.
 
I looked him over again, and furrowed my
brow.
 
The inner workings of a pack’s
rank were not something that a human should know.
 
He was staring at me, waiting for more, and
he was giving me a no bullshit kind of look, one that had me certain he knew
exactly what was going on.
 
Most likely
more
Ray
damage, I figured, and I
continued with caution, “She broke Erika last night.
 
And she didn’t back down from me after the
challenge.”

That shocked him.
 
I saw a quick flash of it in his eyes, but he
covered it up quickly.
 
“I don’t doubt
that.
 
Jade has spent a long time hating
your pack.
 
She wouldn’t back down.”
 
He stretched his long legs in front of him
and crossed them at the ankles.
 
“Has she
accepted the rank?”