Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) (23 page)

~ AIDAN ~

“Answer my
question,” I said with a lethal note in my tone.
 
I was on edge.
 
Even with the door closed, I could smell
her.
 
That sweet scent slid through the
crack under the door and wafted around me.
 
Her inner-wolf was calling me, seeking me out, and begging me to claim
her.
 
I needed this to end.
 
Now.
 
Before I completely lost my mind.

And Beck wasn’t making it any easier.
 
It had been just over three hours now, since
I had him drag Marcy and Dominic in, more than enough time to make Jade believe
that they were actually in deep shit.
 
But for the last three hours, Beck had lounged in one of my leather
chairs with his feet up and eyes closed, making comments about what pack member
we should stick Jade with when she lost.

“Yeah, he called,” Beck said, keeping his
eyes closed.
 
“Talked to him last night
while Jared was playing with your newbie.”
 
He cracked one eye open and smirked at me.

“Beck,” I growled a clear warning.
 
I leaned forward, placing my palms on the oak
desk.
 
Dominic gripped my shoulder before
I could stand up, holding me in my chair.
 
The enforcers had their own set of rules they played by.
 
It was supposed to keep some balance in the
pack and gave them the authority to deal with alphas that didn’t follow the
rules, or punish those who needed it.
 
And Beck seemed to be intent on reminding me at every turn.

He chuckled softly.
 
“Easy alpha, I’m not your enemy.”
 
He clasped his hands, lacing his fingers
together, and stretched his arms over his head.
 
“If she doesn’t win, Jared would be a good match for her.
 
He’ll tame her.
 
Or we could always do what we do best.
 
Jade’s broken more than a few rules.”

I growled.
 
It ripped out of me before I could stop it, and Beck laughed.
 
He was toying with me.
 
He had been since he came into the room,
seeing how far he could push me before I snapped.
 
I knew they had no plans to take Jade down
for the rules she’d broken.
 
While she
was in the games, she had a free pass for most of them.

Beck was about my height and build, maybe
slightly bulkier, but not by much.
 
And
he carried himself just like the enforcers from my father’s pack.
 
They all had the same air about them.
 
Confident.
 
Cocky.
 
They knew they could get
away with pretty much anything.
 
Without
them to carry out and enforce the rules, most packs would crumble.
 
They didn’t just keep the wolves in check,
but they kept alphas from abusing their power.

“Beck, cut the shit,” Dominic snapped.
 
He gave my shoulder another squeeze before
letting go.
 
“What did Jeff say?”

Beck chuckled, and I let my alpha scent
trickle into the air.
 
Enforcer or not,
he still had to obey me to some extent, and right then, I was out of
patience.
 
As soon as I did, his eyes
hardened and he fixed a burning glare on me.
 
“Bruce is sending him out on a recruiting mission,” he said through
gritted teeth.
 
“There was an
accident
and they lost the last of their
females.
 
He says Bruce doesn’t know
about you, and the cougars Trevor ran across were a fluke.”

“What kind of accident?” Marcy asked.
 
She’d been sleeping, curled up on the leather
couch for the past hour.
 
I wished she
had stayed asleep.
 
She yawned loudly and
then propped her head up with her elbow, looking at Beck groggily.

“You know what they’re used for,” Beck said
coolly, before I had a chance to come up with a lie.
 
“Do you really need to ask how they died?”

Marcy jolted upright and her hands flew to
her mouth.
 
She gasped.
 
“Oh my God.”
 
Her eyes widened and she started to shake.

Dominic squeezed my shoulder again, most
likely trying to warn me not to flip out, and then he went to Marcy, pulling
her into a tight hug.
 
Heat rushed up my
neck and my muscles tensed as she started to sob into Dominic’s sweater.

“Were you planning on telling me?” I growled,
settling my glare back on the enforcer.

He raised an eyebrow and shrugged.
 
“Just did.”

“How many?” I demanded.
 
My imprint started to heat up, and my scent
rolled off me like a tidal wave.
 
I
gripped the armrests of the chair, feeling the plastic snap within my
hands.
 
If Beck wanted to push me, I’d
push back.

He winced, and he let out a mix between a
growl and whimper, before he said with a slight tremble in his voice,
“Two.
 
Jeff is trying to stall things so
you can claim your mate.
 
He says that’s
why he took the mission to bring in the women they want.
 
With them dead, we’ve got time.”

“Beck, you’re a heartless bastard,” Marcy
shrieked.
 
Her face was tearstained and
her shoulders were shaking.
 
She pushed
out of Dominic’s arms and stomped over to him, balled her tiny fist, and swung
at him.

Beck caught her fist easily, closing his
hand around it, and his eyes flared.
 
“Maybe, but it is my job to kill people.”
 
He squeezed her hand, and Marcy yelped, and
tried to tug out of his grip.
 
“You’ve
been claimed,” he said to Marcy, letting his voice drop to a growl.
 
“You’re part of this pack now.
 
Learn the rules.
 
I’m not going to warn you again.”

“Let her go, Beck,” I said, and scrubbed at
my face, in an attempt to cover up my simmering rage.
 
Things just weren’t adding up.
 
No one seemed to know why Ray would have made
a deal with the cougars.
 
There was
something missing; I was sure of it.
 
I
just couldn’t figure out what it was.
 
What could Bruce offer that Ray wanted?

Beck cut me a look and let Marcy go.
 
She jumped back from him a few steps as he
dropped his feet from the table.
 
A
yellow ring glowed around his blue eyes, and his jaw twitched with tension.
 
He growled, letting his inner-wolf come out
in his voice.
 
He flexed his hands,
balling and un-balling them, as he glared at me with a silent challenge.
 
“Tone the scent down, alpha,” he said.
 
“The enforcers are behind you now, but that
can change.”

I laughed, a cruel kind of laugh, that
didn’t sound right coming from me.
 
I
pushed my chair back and as I did, Dominic skirted around my desk, and leaned
on it, blocking my view of Beck.
 
“Has
your team picked up anything?” he asked with an edge.
 
He shot me a quick pleading look, and I
reluctantly pulled the scent back … a little.

“Not yet but we will,” Beck said tightly,
and I smiled, more than a little glad that I was affecting him so much.
 
“And now that we don’t have to worry about
the humans, we can clean them out when we find them.”

A sick feeling rushed over me as I listened
to the enforcer.
 
I didn’t want to admit
it, but he had a point, and I actually agreed with him.
 
Without any humans left to worry about, we
had time to track them down.
 
We could
watch them.
 
Figure out their
weaknesses.
 
It would give us more of an
edge against them.
 
And with Jeff
stalling and feeding us information, we could hit them and clear them out in
one shot.
 
I hated to admit it, but
overall, the deaths would make everything … easier.

The tension slowly started to break, and
fizzled away as I pulled back the last of my scent.
 
Dominic’s rigid shoulders sagged, and he let
out a loud puff of a breath.
 
“I think
we’ve freaked her out enough,” he said, turning back to me.

“Yeah, probably,” I agreed.
 
“You sure you guys want to do this?”

Marcy was all splotchy, but her tears had
dried up, and she gave me what I thought was supposed to be a reassuring
smile.
 
“Jade will forgive us later.
 
She always does.
 
Besides, Jade is an act first ask second kind
of person.
 
If she thinks she’s losing
you, she’ll finish this off.”

“You’re really going to tell her you’re
taking Tiff as your mate?” Beck asked, leaning back in his chair, the smug and
cocky smile back on his face.

“Yep, that’s the plan,” I said, pulling
myself up to my feet.
 
My legs felt like
they were tied down as I made my way over to the door.
 
I still wasn’t sure that Dominic and Marcy
were right about this little idea, but everything I tried had failed epically,
and I was out of options.
 
I just hoped
Jade didn’t try to kill me after I told her.

“You’ve got guts,” Beck said and
chuckled.
 
“That girl has bite to her.”

I glared at Beck hard.
 
His commentary was not helping, and he damn
well knew it.
 
He grinned and got up,
joining me at the door.
 
I took a deep
steadying breath and then stoned my expression, forging cold remoteness into my
body, and I pulled the door open.

As soon as I opened it, I froze.
 
Jared had Jade on his lap, his face buried in
her neck.
 
And Jade … Jade was
giggling.
 
Her hands were on his bare
chest, and her head was tilting to the side, as if she was trying to give him
better access.

My inner-wolf went wild, clawing at my
stomach, and tearing at my heart.
 
Raw
heat pulsed through me, and my chest started to hurt.
 
A cold sweat broke out on my back, and the plan
to tell her that I was picking someone else vanished from my mind.
 
“Jared,” I growled.
 
“She’s off limits.
 
This is one rule you can’t break.”

Jared chuckled, and looked up.
 
His golden eyes met mine, burning with a
silent challenge.
 
“I think she’s ready
to give up, alpha,” he said.
 
He took his
time untangling himself from Jade, stood up slowly, and pulled her to him.
 
“She’s free game.”

Jade looked at me a little desperately, as
she tried to wiggle out of Jared’s arms.
 
Jared leaned into her, whispering something so softly in her ear, that I
couldn’t make it out, and she stopped moving.
 
She held my eyes and as Jared spoke, something passed across her
face.
 
It was cold and hateful and vile,
and her scent pulsed into the air.
 
Jared
smirked and let his arms drop from her waist, but Jade didn’t move.
 
She kept her back pressed firmly against his
chest, and his smirk turned into a wide grin.

I started toward her, slowly, carefully,
wishing I knew what was going through her mind.
 
She’d looked at me with hatred before, but it was nothing like this.
 
I was half way across the waiting room, only
about fifteen steps from her, when she snarled, “You had me competing for
you.
 
When did you plan on telling me?”

“Jade …” I said, and dammit, but my voice
cracked on her name.
 
The hatred in her
eyes … it was just too much.
 
My heart
crumbled like a piece of dried bread.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?
 
That I’d just … just … become an alpha, be
your mate …” She was visibly shaking, and her skin flushed cherry red.
 
Her scent burst from her wildly, hitting me
with a deadly force, and I stopped instantly, unable to move.
 
My throat closed up, as if someone cinched a
rope around it, and started to choke me.

“Jade,” Marcy snapped, stepping toward her.

Jade’s eyes flared, and a shudder rushed
over her skin.
 
“Shut up, Mac,” she
growled, and her canines sharpened.
 
“Let
me guess.
 
You weren’t really in jail
with Dom.
 
You two have known all along.”