Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) (19 page)

Aidan’s hand snaked around my wrist and
pulled my hand away from his chest.
 
“Jade, focus.
 
You
need to get dressed.
 
We’re going to be
late.”

“Seriously?”
I asked a little breathlessly, still staring at his chest.
 
I lifted my other hand, wanting to touch it
again, and he quickly snagged it.
 
“You’re worried about my education, but you’ll let one of your wolves
attack me.
 
What’s wrong with you?”

“You missed yesterday,” he said dryly,
pushing me back a step and holding me at arm’s length.
 
“I promised your parents you wouldn’t miss
any more.
 
Get dressed.
 
You’re going.”

“My parents …” I licked my dry lips.
 
“You know where my parents are?”

“Yep, your dad went out of town for a few
days and your mom’s at work.
 
Get
dressed.”
 
He dropped my wrist then and
his scent all but vanished into a thin and ultra light film in the air.

I sucked in a deep, fresh breath and my
insides shuddered with a deep-seated longing.
 
I glanced up at him, meeting his golden eyes and asked, “You going to
let me change?”

He chuckled and crossed his arms over his
chest, making his broad shoulders look even bigger.
 
“I’m not stopping you.
 
Go ahead.”

I blushed from head to toe.
 
He couldn’t actually think that I was going
to give him a strip show, could he?
 
He
leaned back on the door causally as if that was exactly what he intended.
 
“God, Aidan, get out.”

He smirked.
 
“How cute.
 
A modest werewolf.
 
You worried I won’t like what I see,
sweetheart?”

“I couldn’t give two shits what you like,”
I lied, spun on my heels, and stalked toward my closet.

He chuckled, and it was positively
infuriating.

~ JADE ~

Aidan really made
me go to school.

After a few minutes of shuffling through my
clothes, stalling, I heard the soft click of the door as he left.
 
I let out a pent-up breath, thankful he wasn’t
actually going to make me change in front of him.
 
He hadn’t gone far.
 
He was standing right outside my bedroom door
when I emerged, after tugging on blue jeans and my favorite plum hoodie.

When we got into his black Mustang, I tried
to ask him about the mark on his chest, but all he’d say was that it was none
of my business.
 
He pulled up to the
coffee shop and left me in the car, with a firm warning not to move an inch,
while he bought coffee and donuts.
 
He
shoved them at me without a word.

Aidan escorted me to my locker, and he
hovered over me in my classes, making people move so we could sit beside each
other.
 
Things had … changed.
 
Something had shifted in him.
 
For the past few weeks, he had been approachable.
 
Now, not so much.
 
He was testy.
 
His eyes flashed a lot.
 
And he
was seriously turning into a jackass.
 
He
was snapping at everyone, including the pack.

He wouldn’t let me sit with Ben and Ann at
lunch, and he wouldn’t let Marcy sit with the pack or Trevor.
 
He dragged me — literally dragged me —
around, his hand always gripping on my wrist, or his arm looped around my
waist, everywhere he went.

I had never been so happy to hear the bell
ring at the end of the day.
 
News had
already travelled about my new
status,
and between the cautious looks from the student body, and Aidan’s retardedly
possessive behavior, I couldn’t wait to get out of there.
 
I left the computer lab, very aware that
Aidan was right behind me, and I turned left, heading for my locker.

“Jade, come,” Aidan snapped.
 
I stiffened and spun around.
 
I didn’t want to, but that tone … I just couldn’t
ignore it.
 
I whimpered and my inner-wolf
stirred in my stomach.
 
He gave me a
stern glare and pointed to the floor in front of him.

My jaw dropped, and I put my hands on my
hips, attempting to glare, and fighting the urge to run at his command, although
I was sure I failed miserably because he didn’t even flinch.
 
Thankfully, though, my feet stayed firmly in
place.
 
“Did you just beckon me like a
dog?”

His eyes flared and he pointed again to the
floor in front of him.
 
“Jade,” he
growled.

At the sound of his growl,
all of the
end of the
day
chatter died, and tension rose all around us.
 
Students rushed by so quickly it was as if
they were running for cover from a bomb that was about to explode.

We stared off for a few long minutes.
 
He’s
serious,
my inner-wolf reminded me over and over, and it was a struggle not
to run to him.
 
But dammit, I’d had
enough.
 
Since I had been bitten, he had
been acting like a complete jackass.
 
But
the worst part about it was that this new attitude was making my body sing.
 
The way he looked at me with those wide eyes,
the tone of authority in his voice … it spoke to me in a whole new way.

I wanted to walk away, and turn my back on
him but I couldn’t.
 
His glare pinned me
to the floor.
 
My knees were shaking, my
hands started to tremble, and damn him, but he grinned as if he had just won a
battle.
 
He paced toward me, never once
looking away from my eyes, and he leaned in so close that I felt his warm
breath push against my lips as he whispered, “Do you know what the penalty is
for defying your alpha?”
 
I shook my
head, just a small side-to-side bob.
 
My
mouth and throat were too dry to answer.
 
He chuckled softly.
 
“Death,
Jade.”

He locked his hand around my wrist.
 
The touch of his hand on my skin sent a rush
of sparks and chills through me, and he pulled me to his car.
 
And I hated myself for following along like
an obedient little dog.

~ AIDAN ~

Jade locked me out
of the house.

She didn’t say a word to me as I drove her
home, and she even smiled that sweet smile she used to give me before she knew
who I was, when we got out of the car.
 
I
figured she was coming around.
 
I thought
that my little threat had done the trick.
 
For half a second, I was sure she was going to fall in line and accept
me as her alpha.
 
But clearly, I was
wrong.

I didn’t have time for this crap.
 
Not with the werecougars and the constant
issues with the pack.
 
Not to mention the
fact that if she didn’t submit soon, I was sure we’d have more than one pack
running around town.
 
Jade was putting
out more signals of her dominance than I was able to mask, and I was pretty
sure that she didn’t even know she was doing it.

All through our classes, I had rolled
Dominic’s words around in my mind, but the problem with his solution was that I
just couldn’t submit to her until she was officially my mate.
 
She needed to claim her place in the alpha
pair first and be recognized as my equal.
 
I might not have been able to submit to her, like he had suggested, but
I had figured out a loophole.
 
A small
gap in the laws that allowed me to take her under my guidance even as a challenging
female, and what did she do?
 
She locked
me out of the damn house!

“Open the door, Jade,” I growled for what
had to be the twentieth time.
 
I was
starting to think I’d have to break a window.
 
The top of her head was just visible through the small window in the
door as she leaned against it.

“Looks like I’m smarter than you,” she said
through hysterical giggles.
 
She must
have rolled up on tiptoes then.
 
Instead
of seeing just the top of her forehead, her big brown eyes and wide grin peeked
through the window.

“Jade, open the damn door!”
I shouted again, and banged my fist against the wood.

She jumped back quickly and called, “Don’t
think so,” still giggling like a crazy person.

I had always liked to think of myself as a
calm man.
 
Patient, caring, rational, but
in that moment, all I saw was red.
 
Her
scent was stirring something in me that I had never felt before, and her
screw you
attitude was driving me
mad.
 
My inner-wolf clawed in my chest.
 
That part of me, my animal side, had already
accepted her.
 
It didn’t care about the
rules or the laws or the challenges.
 
It
saw her as my equal — my mate.

The image of her wrapped in the thin towel
the other day, and the one from this morning in those skimpy little shorts and
tank top flooded my mind.
 
My skin
heated, burning hot.
 
I wanted her more
than I wanted to breathe.

“Jade, you are going to be mine,” I growled
without thought.
 
I slammed my palm
against the door so hard it shook.
 
“Fighting me will only delay it, but it won’t stop the inevitable.
 
I know you feel it.”

That stopped her laughter abruptly, and I
chuckled under my breath.
 
“I’m not a
piece of property, you jackass,” she retorted.

“Yeah, you are,” I said, and sighed
loudly.
 
You are as much my property as I am yours.

I felt as if I was standing in quicksand,
sinking deeper and deeper.
 
What the hell
was wrong with me?
 
I hated this feeling
of helplessness.
 
I’d been a werewolf all
my life.
 
I knew how to control my inner
cravings, and the erratic behavior.
 
But
Jade … her inner-wolf … the wanting ... I shook my head, pushing the thoughts
away.

She let out a strangled laugh.
 
“Yeah, and that’s the way to get me to open
the door.
 
Have a good night under the
stars or go home.”

I listened to the soft pat of her footsteps
as she made her way through the house, and then I heard the whoosh of air as
she sat, most likely on the couch.

I had to stop going easy on her.
 
I’d been trying to tame my scent for
her.
 
The last thing I wanted was to cripple
her under the full force of the alpha power.
 
I wanted her to want me willingly.
 
I wanted to see that lust in her eyes again without forcing it out of
her.
 
But I was running out of time.
 
I could see it, her, slipping away.
 
She wasn’t mine yet, I didn’t have to hold
back, and maybe I shouldn’t be, at least until she won.

I don’t know how long I stood there staring
at the door before I took a seat on the porch steps.
 
I was starting to wonder if alphas were
banned from the games not because of the interference issue, but for their own
sanity.
 
I felt as if mine was teetering
on a cliff, ready to tumble and shatter in the rocky cove below.
 
Watching Jade beat the last two challengers
had been amazing.
 
She was amazing.
 
And each time she pinned someone in place, a
challenger or not, by just her glare … it sent my inner-wolf crazy with want.

I scrubbed at my face roughly and then
raked my hand through my hair.
 
I didn’t
need this kind of distraction.
 
Not
now.
 
Jeff claimed that he could distract
the cougars and give me more time, but I wasn’t so sure.
 
Even now, I could smell them.
 
The cougars were coming closer and closer to
town, marking my woods as their own.

And there was just something about Jeff
that wasn’t sitting well with me.
 
It
turned out that the incident Dominic had been referring to when he had punched
him was the moment he had caught Jeff cheating on his wife.
 
That kind of thing happened, I knew that, but
after finding out what the women were used for in his pack, and with the way he
could hide his scent …

“You’re breaking the laws,” a voice said,
yanking me from my tortured thoughts.
 
“You cannot hide her.”

“I’m not breaking any laws, Trisha,” I
said, not bothering to look up.
 
I
scrubbed at my face.
 
“She’s a new wolf,
and with that status, I’m allowed to train her.”
 
Couldn’t I just get five minutes alone?
 
Five minutes with my thoughts.
 
I really didn’t think that was too much to
ask for, but it was as if my pack could sense when I wasn’t doing anything.

“You’re interfering in the games,” she said
coolly.
 
“We have a right to fight her.”

I would have been lying if I tried to say I
wasn’t stunned at the aggression I smelled pulsing from Trisha.
 
I was floored that the woman even wanted a
shot at Jade after this morning.
 
A part
of me had hoped that the last two standing would drop out now when they saw
what she was capable of, and save us all the hassle.
 
But I figured that just would have been too
easy.
 
I looked up at her then and said
with a chuckle, “I’m not stopping you from challenging her.”

Trisha crouched in front of me, leveling
herself to my gaze.
 
She was the oldest
challenger, in her mid-forties, I guessed.
 
She was lean and long like a dancer, wearing yoga pants and a long
sleeved, bright pink T-shirt.
 
Her blond
hair was pulled back in a severe ponytail.

“You’re playing favorites, Aidan,” she
said.
 
“You want her.
 
I can smell your desire.”
 
She laughed cruelly, and reached out, running
a long fingernail along my chin.
 
“When
you’re mine, the first thing I’m going to do is mate her to another.
 
Trevor maybe.
 
She despises him, and it will break her
little friend’s heart.
 
Or Jared.
 
He’ll keep
her in line.”

Jealousy rushed through me at the idea of
anyone else touching Jade.
 
My eyes
flashed.
 
“You’re walking on dangerous ground,
Trisha,” I snarled.
 
I had never felt
jealousy like this before, and it scared the crap out of me.
 
Right then I knew I’d rather be dead than see
Jade mated with someone else.