Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) (3 page)

If Aidan caught my tone, he didn’t let
on.
 
He just shrugged his shoulders as if
to say
obviously
, and asked, “You
need a ride somewhere?”

Yes.
 
That’s what I wanted to
say.
 
The way he was watching, as if he
wanted nothing more than to get to know me, had my heart jumping like
crazy.
 
It was such a tentative look, as
if I was the only person around.
 
But
then I guess I was.
 
We were standing in
an empty parking lot, except the look in his brown eyes gave me the impression
that it wouldn’t have mattered if the lot was full.
 
And it made me want to know him, too, even if
it would be stupid to try.
 
Aidan had
just placed a huge target on his back and he didn’t even know it.
 
Strangely enough, knowing that he was
trouble, or more like knowing he had pissed off the beta, only made me want to
know him more.
 
But no matter how much I
wanted to say yes, what came out was, “Actually, I don’t live that far.
 
I’ll walk.
 
But thanks.”

“Sure,” he said, sounding a little
disappointed, or maybe that was just me hoping he was disappointed, because
well, he was a cutie.
 
He looked at me
awkwardly for a second and raked his hand through his hair before sticking his
thumbs in his back pockets.
 
“I guess
I’ll see you around?”
 
Was that a hint of
hopefulness I heard in his voice?

“Yeah, um, sure,” I said, stuttering
slightly over my tongue.
 
“See you.”
 
I turned from him, which was actually more of
an effort than I had thought it would be, and started for the path.
 
After a few steps, I glanced over my
shoulder, and I was a bit shocked, and more than a little thrilled, that he was
still standing there watching me.
 
“Oh, and
really, thanks,” I called and gave a little wave, and then, before I lost my
nerve and fully turned back to him, I headed for the trees.

~ AIDAN ~

Jade disappeared
into the trees.
 
I wasn’t sure if I
wanted to follow her or pretend as if I had never met her.
 
The one thing that I knew
for sure about Dominic was that he didn’t get angry, or anything, really.
 
He kept his emotions bottled up, hidden
behind a mask.
 
But that girl … the way
he had looked at me when I stepped in … if I had to guess, I’d say he was
jealous.

But then I really didn’t have to
guess.
 
I could smell it on him, and I
also caught a whiff of her hatred.
 
It’s
funny how emotions could tamper with someone’s scent.
 
It made them an open book, really.

What
was going on between them?
 
Dominic hadn’t taken her as his mate.
 
Their scents were still distinctly
separate.
 
But there was something about
the way that he had looked at her.
 
It
was as if she was his.
 
It was full of
safety — a guarded protection.
 
He may
have been angry, but it had been clear that he would have never hurt her.
 
Not really.

And I didn’t know how I felt about
that.
 
When a wolf picked a mate that was
it.
 
It was for life, and the thought of
her being someone else’s made my stomach clench.
 
It was stupid.
 
I didn’t know anything about the girl other
than that she was cute and she had pissed off more than one of my pack members,
but when I spoke to her, I couldn’t deny that I never wanted to stop hearing
the sound of her voice.
 
Even when she
was clearly nervous, she had been confident about it.
 
Her voice hadn’t wavered.
 
It was strong, and sweet.
 
Sure and stable.
 
She knew exactly who she was, and she was so
positive about it, that I wanted nothing more than to know her, too.
 
She was definitely … intriguing.

Why had I told her I was registering for
school?
 
I should have come up with a
better lie than that.
 
I graduated last
year.
 
Ugh!
 
I should have just left
it alone.
 
She was obviously on the verge
of being spoken for, and besides that, I no longer had the luxury of
choice.
 
Alphas don’t get to choose.
 
A frustrated growl rumbled up my throat and
after another long look at the path that Jade had disappeared down, I turned
and started for my car.

The cool breeze was refreshing, as I made
my way to the front of the school.
 
Everything was still green, but soon it would change.
 
The grass would die, the leaves would
fall.
 
Longer nights
under the moon.
 
For the first
time in years, I was excited for the winter to come.
 
I actually had a pack to run with.
 
One that was not my father’s.

Dog Mountain was small.
 
Everything connected to the one street that
ran through its center.
 
There were a few
shops, a handful of restaurants, a grocery store, and a hardware store.
 
I was told that in the summer months, it was
a busy place, packed full of tourists coming to enjoy the hot springs that were
tucked in the mountain, but it was hard to imagine it as I drove through the
empty looking town.
 
There were a few
people walking on the street.
 
Out of the
ten people I saw, six of them were werewolves.
 
At only 4:15, most of the shops were already closed for the day, with
only the grocery store and restaurants still open.

I pulled into the driveway of the shabby
looking motel that I now called home, and wasn’t the least bit surprised to see
Dominic’s VW sitting in front of my room.
 
He was leaning against his car, arms folded over his chest, and his legs
crossed at the ankles.

I parked beside him, shut off the engine,
and jumped out.
 
“You were following me,
weren’t you?” he asked, not even bothering to look at me.

I walked past him, digging out the flimsy
plastic key-card from my pocket, and unlocked the room door.
 
I thought about ignoring the question, but
seeing him leaning there, so calm and cool, and with an obvious lack of respect,
annoyed the hell out of me.
 
“I was,” I
snapped.
 
“Spread the word through the
pack; Jade is off limits.”
 
As soon as
the words came out, I regretted them.
 
I
could almost feel the anger rolling off of him instantly.

I pushed the door open and went straight
for the curtains, pulling them closed.
 
The room was an eye sore, and the sunlight dancing off the dust that
coated the dark wooden surfaces of the desk and dresser only made it worse.
 
I made a mental note to get cleaning
supplies.
 
I wasn’t a clean freak by any
means, but the dust was starting to drive me crazy.

“Dude, you can’t claim her.”
 
Dominic was right on my heels, coming into my
room and slamming the door with a jarring thud.
 
“You lost that privilege when you became the alpha.
 
You know how it works.
 
You can’t just pick a mate.”
 
There was a protective edge to his tone that
cut through me like a jagged and dull knife.

Dominic pulled out the desk chair and spun
it around before dropping down into it.
 
I could feel the hostility rolling off of him in waves, even if he did
keep his tone even and the usual mask tightly in place.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said with a
huff, except it kind of had been what I had meant, but I wasn’t about to admit
it.
 
I knew the rules better than most of
this pack.
 
My dad had been drilling them
into me since I was old enough to understand.
 
“Make sure Erika knows to leave her alone.
 
Same goes for everyone else, including
you.”
 
I narrowed my eyes and I could
feel my eyebrows knit together as I glared at him.
 
“This pack is going to learn to treat people
with respect.”

Dominic held my stare for a long moment,
his hazel eyes shifting more yellow with every passing second.
 
For a moment, I thought he was going to try to
lecture me
again
on why an alpha wasn’t
free to pick a mate, but he didn’t.
 
Instead
of arguing with me, he said in an acidic tone, “Yeah, sure, whatever you want.”

The tension in the room was thick as we
both glared at one another, neither of us willing to back down.
 
Secretly, I kind of admired his gall.
 
He had only known me for half a day, and in
that time, he had watched me kill the alpha, and still, he stood up to me.
 
This was the kind of beta I needed.
 
One that wouldn’t hesitate to tell me I was
wrong.
 
One that would
stand up to me when I was making dumbass decisions.
 
That’s what my father’s beta had done for
him, and that’s what I wanted, too.
 
Except, Dominic didn’t stand up to me because he was trying to help, he
did it because he had absolutely no respect for me.

“You will start showing me some respect,” I
said evenly, forging an authority into my voice that I didn’t feel, but I was
already getting sick of the way he challenged my every decision, and it had
only been twelve hours now.
 
It had to
stop.
 
“This is your last warning.”

“You think you can run this pack without
me?”
 
He tensed in his chair, and his
muscles shuddered under his skin as if he was on the verge of shifting.

I narrowed my eyes further and gritted my teeth.
 
“Are you challenging me?”
 
It came out as a growl.

Dominic considered it.
 
He looked me up and down, insolently, and the
first snap of a bone breaking and grinding sounded loudly in my ears.
 
Bristles of coarse hair littered his cheekbones.
 
His eyes glowed yellow, as his shift to a
wolf began.

Okay, so that wasn’t what I had
expected.
 
My jaw hardened, and I widened
my eyes, staring him down.
 
My inner-wolf
squirmed in my stomach, itching to come out, but I held it back, if only
barely.
 
Pins and needles rushed over my
skin as my fur began to sprout.
 
I stepped
closer to him; a savage growl erupted from deep within my gut, and rumbled
through my lips.

Dominic’s eyes widened, and for a split
second, fear passed across them.
 
It
didn’t last.
 
“Nope,” he said, shrugging
his shoulders; any trace of the wolf vanished.
 
“Just stating the obvious.
 
Ray couldn’t do it, and you won’t be able to
either.”
 
He spun the chair lazily in
slow circles, and all the tension in him melted away, replaced by the cool
conceit that I was getting used to seeing in him.
 
“Once Bruce’s pack finds out about you,
they’ll be here, ripping this town apart while you’re weak, and I know
them.
 
I’m the one with the contact.
 
I know how they work and where they’ll hit.”
 
He chuckled and grinned.
 
“You just focus on the games.
 
Without a strong mate, you’re as good as
dead.”

Again, I wanted to tell him to get
out.
 
How was I supposed to work with
him?
 
I didn’t like him, didn’t trust
him.
 
Everything about him screamed
authority and he wouldn’t back down.
 
He
had made it clear more than once that he didn’t want to be the alpha, but I
wasn’t buying it.
 
No one would go to
such extremes to show their dominance if they didn’t want the position.
 
There was just something about him that got
my defenses up and whatever it was, it only felt more intense with each passing
minute.

He was still spinning the chair around in
slow circles, when I finally dropped my glare and padded over to the lumpy
bed.
 
I sprawled out, staring up at the
off-white popcorn ceiling.
 
I couldn’t
say how long we sat there, neither of us bothering to say anything, when I
asked, “Why haven’t you made a move for her?”
 
I hadn’t even really realized that I wanted to know his reason until the
words were out of my mouth.
 
I glanced
over at him then and he was smirking.

Dominic’s smirk turned into a smile and his
shoulders began to shake as he tried to hold in a laugh.
 
“Is that what you think?”
 
He burst out into laughter, and choked out,
“Dude, I’m into men.”

That hadn’t been the answer I had expected,
and I was sure that if I hadn’t been able to smell the truth in his scent, or
hear the steady beat of his heart, I wouldn’t have believed him.
 
As I looked at him, though, even without
those other things, I could see the truth written all over his face, and it
confused the hell out of me.
 
The kind of
hatred I saw between him and Jade was the kind of hatred that stemmed from a
lot of hurt feelings and a deep connection.
 
Maybe they were together before he
realized?
I wondered.

“Why does she hate you so much?” I asked.

His smile vanished and his laughter died
abruptly.
 
“She doesn’t hate me.”
 
His tone was insolent, his jaw,
clenched.
 
It was as if he was daring me
to say that Jade didn’t like him.

“I’m not an idiot, Dominic,” I growled and
sat up, glaring at him.

He threw his hands up in surrender.
 
“Seriously, she doesn’t hate me exactly,” he
said with more than a little contempt.
 
“Jade just hates the pack.
 
She
thinks we ruined her life.
 
She’d be
happy if there was no such thing as a werewolf.”
 
He was lying.
 
I could hear it in his voice.
 
It
was defensive, and wavered slightly.
 
I
was about to call him on it when he smirked, and chuckled.
 
“But don’t worry about it too much.
 
Soon enough she’ll hate you, too.”

I lay back on the bed, forcing my tense
muscles to relax.
 
I didn’t want to think
about her, or anyone hating me just because I shifted into a wolf every once in
a while.
 
It was still hard to wrap my
head around the town dynamics.
 
Humans knowingly living with werewolves.
 
It seemed wrong and utterly perfect all at
the same time.
 
I figured it would make
life easier, not having to hide, and from what I’d heard about Bruce’s pack,
not hiding would make these people a whole lot safer.
 
But still … it was weird.