Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) (18 page)

~ JADE ~

He howled to
me.
 
The sound wrapped around me, and
warmth pooled in my stomach.
 
My heart
fluttered for a second and then drummed fast in my chest.
 
I was transfixed, unable to look away from
his midnight black coat.
 
Behind him
stood at least fifteen other wolves, all a mix of browns and grays and whites,
and they joined in his song.

The black wolf looked up through my
window.
 
His golden eyes searched my
face, and then he tilted his head back, and let out another skin tingling howl.

“It’s time, Jade,” Dominic said, and he placed
a hand on my shoulder.
 
I jumped.
 
I hadn’t heard him come in, but darn it, I
was glad he was here.
 
“You need to
pick.”

“Pick what?” I asked, and my voice
shook.
 
I looked up at him and my eyes
burned with the threat of impending tears.
 
Everything was falling into place and falling apart at the same
time.
 
I was becoming what I hated most,
but by becoming that, I was also getting back what I wanted most: Dominic.

He smiled a crooked smile and took my hand,
pulling me up from my seat.
 
“He’s giving
you the choice to pick the pack.
 
Aidan
brought them for you.”

“I … I don’t understand,” I stammered and
snuck another quick look at the black wolf.

Dominic reached out and tucked some loose
hair behind my ears.
 
“Every wolf has a
choice.
 
Pack or solo.
 
It’s simple.
 
You can walk away from us or you can join us.”

I glanced back out the window.
 
My skin was crawling and my face was starting
to feel … wrong.
 
Different.
 
I could feel the coarse hair poking out along
my arms and the pressure on my bones.
 
The wolves continued to sing below me, and the sound of them called to
me.
 
It was as if they were calling to me
and only me.
 
Asking me
to join them.
 
Waiting
for me to sing with them.
 
And
every fiber in my body wanted exactly that.
 
To be a part of them.
 
I wanted to throw up, and laugh, and scream,
and cry.

“Um,
Jade
…”
Marcy’s voice was shrill, and as I looked over at her, she scurried back on the
bed.
 
“You have a muzzle.”

~ AIDAN ~

Maybe I was wrong
about Jade.
 
Maybe she wasn’t ready.
 
But the truth was, whether she was ready or
not, I couldn’t wait any longer.
 
She was
vulnerable until she shifted, and I couldn’t worry about her not being able to
defend herself.

I had rounded up as many pack members as I
could, hoping that with this many wolves present, her inner-wolf would respond
to them.
 
But having them here meant
leaving very few watching the perimeter of Dog Mountain.

I tilted my head back and let another long
howl out.
 
I waited, listening to my pack
calling her, for what felt like forever.
 
I was about ready to give up, but then I heard it.
 
The click of a door.
 
The soft drop of clothes
onto the ground.
 
A gasp.
 
A moan.
 
A grunt.
 
The pat of paws on cement.

And then I was flying through the air, and
crashing onto the ground.

She stood over me.
 
Her fur was black as pitch and her eyes, a
brilliant gold.
 
She grinned, a toothy
grin, and hopped a little, ready to play.

The pack was silent, and the tension was
thick.
 
Her scent was powerful,
sharp.
 
I rolled back up to my paws, and
shook the grass from my coat.
 
My scent
ramped up a notch, and a chorus of whimpers filled the air.
 
But Jade … she didn’t back down.
 
I straightened, and I let a warning growl
rumble from my chest.
 
My lips curled up
and my eyes widened.

She cocked her head to the side as if she
didn’t understand, and I growled again.
 
I needed her to fall in line.
 
She
had to choose to follow me.
 
She had to
choose the pack.
 
I wished I could speak
to her.
 
I wished she would grasp
it.
 
But she nudged me again, nipping
playfully at my side.

~ JADE ~

I thought Aidan was
trying to tell me something, but I couldn’t focus on it.
 
His scent was wonderful.
 
Powerful.
 
Perfect.
 
And all I wanted to do was run and play and rub against him.
 
I had so much energy.
 
Too much energy.
 
It was soaring through me and I couldn’t
stand still.

He seemed … annoyed, and I wished he would
stop growling at me.
 
The tension that
rolled off the other wolves was suffocating and he was only making it
worse.
 
Each time he growled, they would
whimper and shrink further away from us.

And I didn’t want them to go.

I nosed his side, and he snapped at
me.
 
He growled again, louder, longer,
and my insides shivered at the sound.

I stood a bit straighter and pushed my ears
forward.
 
I growled and snapped back at
him.
 
I
want to play.
 
Why wasn’t he getting
it?
 
It was so frustrating.

Aidan shivered.
 
I could see it move along his fur.
 
It was amazing.
 
Tantalizing heat surged through me.
 
He growled again and I growled back.

Aidan took a step closer to me, his canines
bared, and he snarled.
 
His scent changed
then.
 
It became stronger and something
in me trembled.
 
He barked and followed
it by another growl that made my knees shake.
 
A voice in my head screamed at me to stay standing, but my knees started
to buckle, and with each second, it was harder to hold his stare.
 
I felt my head dropping inch by slow inch.

Something tore into my skin.
 
I yelped, and tried to jump away.
 
My flesh ripped.
 
It felt as if a bunch of little and very
sharp knives were stabbing into my hip over and over.
 
The silence was painfully loud, all the
growling and howling stopped.
 
The knives
bit into my flesh again, and a snarl exploded from me.

The copper scent of blood drifted up my
snout.
 
I pivoted on my hind legs, my
right side burned, and I came face to face with a dirty-gray wolf.
 
Her lips were curled back and blood — my
blood — covered her teeth and dripped from her muzzle.

Sounds of a scuffle rang out from behind
me, but I didn’t take my eyes off of the wolf in front of me.
 
She crouched down, snarling and snapping at
me.
 
I tried to mimic her movements, but
my backend hurt so badly.
 
I could feel
the warm trickle of blood run down my leg, and matting my fur.

She lunged at me, tackling me to the
ground.
 
I landed on my back with a
breathtaking thud, and her teeth came at me, aiming for my neck.
 
I kicked out, my back paws planted in her
stomach, and I kicked her off of me before her teeth could sink into my neck,
and I pushed back up on all fours.

I could barely put weight on my injured
leg.
 
I didn’t understand what was
happening.
 
Dominic had said they had
come to welcome me.
 
Why wasn’t he
helping me?
 
And where was Aidan?
 
The gray wolf was circling around me, and she
looked as if she was ready to jump on me again.

What’s
happening?
a
voice in my
head shrieked.
 
Why were they letting her do this to me?

I snarled at her, and for a split second
she froze and her eyes widened.
 
But then
she growled and came at me again.

I stood my ground for two reasons.
 
One: Dominic told me not to back down from
them.
 
And two: I couldn’t run even if I
wanted to.
 
I stretched my body, standing
as straight and as firmly on the ground as I could, preparing for the impact.
 
I growled, a menacing, and slightly freaked
out, sound.

The gray wolf was barreling toward me with
her canines exposed, and my heart was jumping around like a rabbit in my
chest.
 
Her teeth sank into my right
shoulder and she wrestled me to the ground.

Dirt and grass burned against my side as we
slid and rolled over each other.
 
I bit
out blindly, desperately, and I instantly tasted the salty sweat in her fur and
the iron taste of her blood.
 
The blood
seeped into my mouth and I latched on tighter.
 
I growled and yanked and flung her onto her back.

She made a whimpering sound, and I sprung
up, and towered over her.
 
Rage and fear
and something that I really didn’t want to understand fed through my
veins.
 
I felt my lips curl, the cool air
brushed against my gums, and the world seemed to stand still, vanishing away
and leaving only the gray wolf cowering at my feet.

It scared the hell out of me, but at that
moment, I wanted to kill her.
 
I wanted
to rip her apart and roll in her blood.
 
It was as if the animal that I had turned into was taking over, and all
I could think about was the taste of her blood.
 
I felt a growl rumble around me.
 
Her shoulder was gushing blood, a large chunk of skin was gone from
where I had bitten her, and her meaty muscles were exposed.
 
It would have been so easy to kill her.
 
I could see it all.
 
My teeth in her neck, tearing
out her throat.
 
The taste of her blood.
 
The rush of victory.

The growl came again, followed by a soft
whimper, and then a cold nose pressed against me.
 
I swiveled, baring my teeth and snapping
out.
 
A rusty brown wolf dropped to its
belly and then rolled onto its back and licked my chin.
 
Standing right behind that wolf was the
midnight black alpha.

I snarled at him furiously, and he snarled
back.
 
For half a second I thought about
lunging at him.
 
I was so mad, so hurt …
but instead, I shook off the thought, turned, and limped away from him and the
pack.

~ AIDAN ~

“What the hell did
you do to her?” Marcy screamed.
 
She ran
at me, her fist balled, and she punched me over and over in the chest.
 
And I let her.
 
She was crying.
 
Her shoulders convulsed as gasping sobs fell
from her, and she continued to punch me.

Trevor rushed over, ready to pull her off,
but I shook my head.
 
I hardly felt her
weak hits, and I figured she probably had a right to be mad.
 
So I just stood there until she was
done.
 
Playing the tough alpha seriously
wasn’t easy.
 
It’s not as if Marcy knew I
had no choice but to let Jade fight it out.
 
I hadn’t expected the attack to happen, not on her first shift, but the
females had a right to fight her, and I couldn’t do much to stop it.

It took a full sixty-four seconds for her
tears to win out, and Marcy crumpled against my chest crying
uncontrollably.
 
“Mac, I didn’t do
anything to her,” I said softly.

“You should have stopped the wolf!” she
shrieked, and pulled away, glaring up at me.
 
“I told Jade you were cold.
 
I
told her to stay away from you.
 
I was
right.
 
You’re just like all the alphas
before you.”
 
She pulled her arm back and
swung at me, open handed.
 
I caught her
wrist tightly in my grip.

“Marcy,” I snapped, my patience wearing
thin.
 
“Don’t think you can talk to me
like this just because you are dating a member of my pack.”
 
She struggled, trying to jerk her hand away,
but I held onto her wrist firmly and looked at Trevor.
 
“Take her.
 
I don’t want to see her again.”

“Aidan, Jade wants her here,” Trevor said,
refusing to look at me.
 
He stepped up to
us and wrapped his arm around Marcy’s stomach, pulling her away.

Fury spiked through me and I hated it.
 
I hated giving orders and using my alpha
status to get what I wanted.
 
I loathed
demanding things from the pack and forcing them to submit.
 
I hated my father for doing it, and I hated
myself just as much.
 
But this pack was
just too screwed up.
 
They didn’t listen
when I asked nicely.
 
And now
Jade
, the wolf I intended to make sure won the challenges
and become my mate, was aiding to their disobedience.
 
That
damn girl is going to be the death of me.

“I don’t really care what Jade wants,” I
said, seething.
 
I let my scent roll off
me, and Trevor started to tremble under the weight of it.

“I’ll take her to her room,” he said with a
desperate note in his voice.
 
“You won’t
even know she’s here.”
 
He still wouldn’t
look at me as he started to drag Marcy away and up the stairs.
 
She shouted at me through a garbled mess of
tears that I couldn’t even begin to decipher.

When he reached the top, he looked back in
my direction, his eyes fixed on the floor at my feet.
 
“Aidan, please stop.”
 
His voice was like gravel grating under
tires.
 
“She’s just as much my alpha as you
are.
 
Don’t make me pick one of
you.”
 
He turned on shaky legs, with
Marcy still crying in his arms, and disappeared down the hallway.

I gritted my teeth for a long moment.
 
I’d never seen anything like this.
 
Never.
 
How in the hell was Jade able to dig into
Trevor so quickly?
 
She wasn’t
branded.
 
She didn’t have the extra power
that came with the alpha’s imprint.
 
Her
scent was strong, but without accepting the position, it was still
bearable.
 
I cursed myself for letting
Trevor stay with her, waiting for her to shift.
 
His loyalty was shifting, just as Erika’s had, and I didn’t have a clue
what to do about it.

I stood at the bottom of the stairs,
counting them, up and down, attempting to relax my nerves.
 
It wasn’t working.
 
My fists clenched and unclenched, seemingly
on their own, and each second that passed, my skin grew hotter and my blood
boiled further.
 
“Dominic!” I shouted.

Dominic was out of Jade’s bedroom and
standing in front of me in a flash.
 
Surprising relief washed over me at his quick response; at least it did
until he said, “Just go, Aidan.”

I laughed.
 
It sounded cruel even to my own ears.
 
“I’m going to see her, Dom.”
 
I
took the first step, and he grabbed my bicep, yanking me back from the stairs
and pulling me into the kitchen.
 
He stopped
in front of the stove and turned on the fan, before glancing at me.
 
When he did, I figured I looked just as
pissed off as I felt, because he skittered back a few steps.

“She doesn’t understand what’s happening,”
he whispered.
 
“She thinks we allowed the
attack.”

I shot him a cold glare and through gritted
teeth said, “You should have told her to submit once she walked out of the
house.
 
You were supposed to guide
her.
 
You’re the one who asked to help
her.”
 
I was already regretting letting
him.
 
I thought he got it.
 
I thought he’d tell her what to do; clearly,
I was wrong.

“I did tell her.
 
Dammit, Aidan!
 
You’re such a jackass!
 
You can smell it.
 
She’s an alpha.
 
It’s in her scent.
 
Her inner-wolf will only submit to you if
yours submits to her.”
 
Dominic’s voice
rose with each word until he was flat out yelling in my face.

I wanted to punch him.
 
Just haul off and punch him.
 
Somehow, and I really don’t know how, I held
the urge back.
 
“She has to prove herself
for that, and so far, she hasn’t.”

“She took down another challenger,” Dominic
said, as if that was proof enough.

I shrugged.
 
“There’s still two more.”

He looked at me then, as if I was an idiot,
and an even bigger fool, and said a little helplessly, “She just wanted to
play.”

~ JADE ~

I could hear
him.
 
Aidan was whispering.
 
I couldn’t make out the conversation, but the
sound of his deep voice made me shiver.
 
I shouldn’t have been able to hear the notes of his voice.
 
He was downstairs, and my bedroom door was
sealed tightly.
 
But his voice wasn’t the
only thing that found me.
 
His scent,
musky and powerful, wrapped around me.

I sat on my bed, watching the last of the
scars on my hip fade away to nothing.
 
By
the time I finished showering and scrubbing my body clean of blood, my wounds had
closed.
 
It had only been thirty
minutes.
 
Thirty freakin’ minutes since
that wolf attacked me, and the marks were already gone.
 
I didn’t know whether I wanted to pass out,
hyperventilate, or jump around.
 
My
senses were hyperaware of everything around me, and it was terrifying and
exciting and a little sickening.
 
I had
never had so much energy before, and I didn’t know what to do with it all.

Aidan’s voice rose and fell as he argued
with Dominic.
 
He was beyond mad.
 
I could hear it in his growled murmurs and
smell its heat in the air.
 
It was almost
like the scent of hot pavement as the first drops of rain fell, except
stronger.
 
Each time it got louder, my
body shuddered with a mix of pleasure and spine-tingling fear.
 
My inner-wolf was doing back flips in my
stomach.
 
One second my skin was burning
with desire for him and the next, my inner-wolf was cringing and begging me to
lie down at his feet.

I wanted my dad.
 
I wanted to talk to him.
 
I needed to hear the reassurance in his
voice.
 
He always knew the right thing to
say, and since Dominic wasn’t explaining anything that made sense, I thought
maybe, just maybe, Dad would know what was happening to me.
 
He’d been involved with the pack for as long
as I could remember, and knew a lot about how they worked.
 
I had been dialing his number for the last
five minutes, and each time I called, it went straight to voicemail.

The front door slammed, and footsteps
pounded up the stairs.
 
I pulled my
blankets up around me, listening to the scuffling as Aidan, and his amazing
scent, made his way down the hallway.
 
It
was weird knowing instinctively who was walking on the other side of the walls,
but I did.
 
I could feel his presence in
my bones.
 
With each step closer to my
room, my heartbeat quickened.
 
My bedroom
door squeaked open, and he stepped into my room, closing it behind him.

He was wearing black jeans that sat low on
his hips, and a snug black T-shirt that showed off the ripples of his abs.
 
He had toned up since I first met him; all of
his muscles were more defined, not as soft looking.
 
He leaned against the bedroom door and folded
his arms over his chest, flexing his biceps as he did.
 
His eyes were yellow as they looked me over
and my breath caught in my throat.
 
The
man was perfect and completely flawed, and I loved it all.
 
I wasn’t sure if that made me stupid or
crazy, but either way, right then, I knew I needed serious help.
 
Was
this how all werewolves felt when they were in the presence of an alpha?
 
I wondered, as my eyes drifted over him.
 
I tried reminding myself that he let this
happen to me, but it was useless.
 
Each
time the thought passed through my mind, my inner-wolf growled as if it was
trying to banish it.

“Jade, let’s go.”
 
His voice was sharp and I jumped to my feet
without an ounce of hesitation, my tangled mess of blankets falling to the
floor.

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from him, and
right then, I was glad for it.
 
I watched
as he took a step toward me.
 
His eyes
travelled down my neck, along the strap of my tank top, and then they paused on
my cleavage for far too long, before he glanced down at my skimpy pajama bottoms,
and took in my bare legs.
 
If I hadn’t
been watching him so closely, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed it.
 
His nearness, his scent, it all screamed
power and authority and it was fogging my brain.

I snapped out of it in a rush, grabbed a
pillow, and whipped it at him.
 
“Get
out!” I shouted, as he batted the pillow away and it dropped to the floor.

He frowned.
 
“I’m not asking,
Jade
.”

“I don’t give a shit,” I snapped.
 
I grabbed the pile of blankets and dropped
back into bed, pulling them around me.

Aidan took up his post again, leaning
against the door.
 
“It’s Tuesday.
 
You have school.”

His scent thickened, and a soft glow, an
outline of what looked to be the letter ‘A,’ lit up on his chest, shining white
through his shirt.
 
My skin buzzed, my
inner-wolf pressed against my chest, and my throat tightened.

I got up.
 
I couldn’t stop myself.
 
I needed
to get closer to him.
 
That power.
 
It was unbelievable.
 
It rolled off of him in waves of delirious
heat.
 
It was as if I floated across my
room.
 
I barely felt my feet touch the
floor.
 
I stood in front of him for a
second before I couldn’t hold back any longer.
 
I lifted my hand and traced the glowing ‘A’ on his chest.

The sensation was like nothing I had ever
felt before.
 
My finger lit up as soon as
it connected with what felt like a raised scar beneath his shirt, glowing with
the same white light.
 
It sparked and
heated my entire body.
 
I shuddered with
pleasure.
 
The unbelievable power …
authority … command … I wanted it.
 
It
called to me.
 
It was like a little
whisper in my ear telling me to take it.
 
Claim it —
him
— as my own.