Deadly Mates (Deadly Trilogy) (23 page)

Dominic chuckled, and I was pretty sure the gravel sounding snicker came from Tommy.  I swiveled, cutting them each a dirty look, and the laughter died abruptly
, although all three of them were grinning.

Aidan’s warm hand clasped my hip as he moved in closer.  His emotion shone bright in his eyes, a deep stormy sea of anger and adoration and
dread.  He puffed out his chest, his lips drawn tight.  His scent increased and, well, I laughed.  I shouldn’t have, but I couldn’t help it.  I knew what he was doing; trying to distract me and it wasn’t going to work.

He leaned forward and kissed me on the lips, sweet and warm, with none of the intensity from before.  It was gentle, tender.  Full of all the emotion that I knew was growing inside him, the same emotion that was building within me.  “You’re not going anywhere with Jared,” he said.  “If you wanted to go out with the team, you should have thought about that before you brought him back.”  He said it as if it were simple and something I should have already thought of.

“Be serious, Aidan.”  I nudged him back a little and tried to laugh it off.

He let his scent trickle into the air and gave me a grin that was at least half wolf.  “Oh, I am, sweetheart.  I’m very …”

I put my hand over his mouth, stopping him from saying something stupid, and I stared him right in the face with a no-nonsense glare.  “Tell me what’s going on, Aidan.”

I took my hand away slowly, keeping my glare fixed in place.  He laughed a little, as if he were in shock.  “Go home, Jade.”  There was an unmistakable command in his tone, one that clearly told me he was the dominant one.  He was to be listened to.

“Aidan, cut it out,” Dominic said dryly.  There was a little smile on his lips and amusement in his eyes.  “Of course she isn’t going home.  You wouldn’t be able to watch her if she did.”  Clearly, whoever was sleeping was important to them if they felt the need to hide it from me.  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

“Don’t think he’s interested in watching her anymore,” Chris said.  His face twisted into a frown and he cut a sharp look in my direction.

Aidan’s body went tense, but he didn’t break eye contact with me.  I cocked my head to the side, narrowing my eyes, trying to ignore the others as he was.  I could feel the push of his alpha-wolf, trying to bend me to his will.  It was strange.  I had no idea what was happening, or why there was a shift in him.  But there was a shift, one that sent my inner-wolf into a panicked, angry frenzy in my belly.  Was he trying to protect me from finding out the truth or manipulate me?

Silence fell.  I wasn’t really sure what Chris meant, but his words rattled me nonetheless.  After what had just happened in the showers, I hadn’t thought Aidan would let me out of his sight, at least not anytime soon.  But as the silence stretched, and I tried to make sense out of what was happening, Jared’s first piece of training surfaced. 
“The moment you show weakness you’ll lose my inner-wolf, Jade,”
he’d said.
  “No matter what, you need to stay dominant.  No matter how much you want to submit, don’t.  There is a place for submission, but only to your mate and only when it is necessary to appease his inner-wolf.  You do it to show your respect.  You do it to show you agree, to show others you are backing him.  But submit when you shouldn’t and my inner-wolf will decide you are weak.  He’ll forget you.  Never let him forget, because if he does, so will I.”

Aidan held strong, his eyes wide, unforgiving, commanding.  Was his inner-wolf forgetting me?  Had I already lost that piece of him?  I had shown my submission to him twice.  Once to show I wouldn’t argue with his decision to take me home, and once to show him I was his during a heated moment, but I
wasn’t really his mate — yet.

I gasped and almost lunged into his arms.  Almost.  For a hot second, all I wanted was his comfort.  I wanted to hear him say that I hadn’t made another epic mistake as alpha female or as his potential mate.

It was his growl that held me in place, a low and commanding sound that left me short of breath.

And I thought that this probably wasn’t the best time to be passive, or look for comfort, and I growled back, yep, I actually growled at him.

Quick vibrations littered my skin.  “Aidan.”  My voice was a low snarl.  My nails dug deep into my palms as I clenched my fists.  My claws were itching to come out.  Hair brushed under my skin, waiting to erupt.  The need to dominate rushed at me.  It was … weird and a little freaky.  It was one thing to show him my submission when we were making out.  My inner-wolf was happy to let him take the lead there.  But here, in front of Tommy and Chris and Dominic, I was his equal, and he would either treat me like one or he would submit.  In my inner-wolf’s mind it was black and white — simple.

His scent thickened, so did mine.  My breath quickened, my body started to tremble.  Blood rushed from my face in a cold flush of fever, as I struggled to keep my chin level, my gaze on him.  It was as if I were fighting an exhausting internal battle with my inner-wolf.  She clawed for control while I wanted to bow, present my neck, and feel his warm lips flutter across me in acceptance.  Or was that my inner-wolf and it was me that wanted control?  I wasn’t one hundred percent sure right then.

His nostrils flared for a moment, and then he sat back in his chair and gave me an amused smile, as if he’d simply decided to humor me.  “Your father gave us a cougar.  According to him, the guy had a death sentence for helping one of their prisoners escape and your dad was supposed to dispose of him.  The wounds your father inflicted on him have healed, but he hasn’t woken up.”

“He gave you a cougar,” I said slowly, processing this news.  “Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, you should have told me that already?”

Aidan smiled his sexy, crooked smile that never failed to make my heart flutter.  “I had other things on my mind, sweetheart,” he said and winked.  “More important things.”

“Going all growly on me because I hugged a friend was more important?”  I pursed my lips, trying for annoyed, but I was pretty sure I failed.  “Might want to rethink your priorities there, honey.”

****

It seemed strangely unreal that my father would give us one of his own.  I leaned against the countertop in the makeshift kitchen of the pack building, sipping on hot chocolate, loaded with frothy whipped cream, wondering why he would when I thought it did seem somehow appropriate. 
Dad had to have guessed that Aidan hadn’t believed him about not knowing how many cougars there were, or where they were hiding.  What better way to show he was on our side than by giving us someone who knew the ins and outs of the werecougars, even if he wasn’t able to tell us anything yet.

I squinted against the bright rays of the setting sun that streamed through the window.  The parking lot was half full and there was a knot of people gathered by the cars.  They mostly looked unhappy and on edge, but then I couldn’t really blame them.  Aidan had decided to tell everyone about the cougar we had acquired, and no one really knew how to take it.  For the most part, the pack wanted the sleeping man dead, and no one was all that pleased with me that I wanted to keep him alive.

The thing was I figured that if my dad had in fact been about to kill him then he might be willing to help us if he woke up.  And even if he wasn’t willing, there was a reason he’d been given to us.  I wanted to know what that reason was.

And I was also almost positive that I needed to get my mom away from my dad which was absurdly ridiculous.  We had no solid reason to suspect she knew anything about what was going on, but we didn’t have a solid reason to doubt it either.  Pulling her out would tip off my dad, but then, maybe that was a good thing.  This defensive strategy wasn’t really getting us anywhere and I was beginning to wonder if going on the offensive was what we should have done all along.

Aidan hadn’t strayed far from me since our little dispute in his office.  I still felt the weird shift in him and it hurt, but only a little.  At least he still felt the need to stay close by.  It was definitely better than ignoring me.

I snuck a peek at him.  He sat at a scratched up round table, nursing his coffee as he studied the map of the forest surrounding Dog Mountain.  We’d made a lot of progress over the last couple of days, but there was still a lot of land to search before we could move on to the surrounding towns.

Aidan glanced up at me and his eyebrows rose.  “What?”

“I think we need to stop watching and act,” I said, shocked that I actually voiced my thoughts.  So was Aidan, judging by the wide-eyed look he gave me.  I sighed.  “I’ve been justifying waiting to myself because we didn’t have enough information.  Dad wants to use me, but we don’t know what for.  He also said I was your weakness.  I’m going to take a wild guess here, but I figure he’s going to use me to get to you, although I don’t have a freakin’ clue why.  The longer we wait because I don’t want to hurt my dad, the more people could suffer — will suffer.  And my mom …” I swallowed, dropping the thought.

“We don’t need to rush,” he said, but it wasn’t believable.  I knew he was just saying it to make me feel better; to give me a sense of security that really wasn’t there.

“Did you call Luken?”

Aidan nodded.  “He wants to join the team.  He wants to help find them.”

“And he thought I wouldn’t understand.”  It wasn’t a question.  It seemed crazy that he thought I wouldn’t understand that.  “What did you tell him?”

“I told him that he needed to talk it over with Jared,” he bit out, annoyed.

I huffed.  “I know you don’t want Jared here, but we need him.  The pack needs to see I’m with you, and the three of us working together will help.  I should have talked to you first, but let’s face it, you’ve been a bit overbearing lately.  You would have told me no.  We would have argued.  I’m just trying to fix the mess I made.”  I waved a hand in his direction.  “Clearly, it’s a bigger mess than I thought.”

“About earlier,” he said, racking a hand through his hair, and shifted his gaze.

“I get it,” I said when he didn’t continue.  “We aren’t really mates.  I shouldn’t have rolled over to you.  But you try and pull that crap again and you’ll be the one rolling over.”

He let out a soft growl and met my eyes again.  His were crinkled with humor.  “Sure, you keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”

I rolled my eyes.  “I’ve got to get going.”
I downed the last mouthfuls of my drink, and rinsed out my mug in the sink.  I walked over to him and gave him a peck on the cheek, before heading for the door.  “They’re probably waiting.”

“Hey, hold up,” he said, snagging my wrist, and pulling me to a
stop.

“Aidan, don’t start,” I said, turning into him.  My voice was
growlier than I intended, and I quickly cleared my throat, attempting to hide my frustration.  “I’m going.  I need to do something.  I can’t just sit here.  And besides that, my skin is crawling.  I need to shift.”  And it was.  My skin was rippling and prickly and itchy.  My inner-wolf needed out.

He chuckled and I couldn’t help but smile.  Man, I loved his laugh.  “I’m not going to stop you,” he said.  “I just wish I could go with you.”  He stood up and pulled me into his arms.  I wrapped mine around his waist, looking up at him.

“Yeah, well, we don’t always get what we want,” I told him dryly.  “One of us needs to stick around and be available and you’re the better option for that.  They like you, me not so much.  And I really think it will help my image with you agreeing that I should work with them.  You know, let the pack see you’re okay with it, with him.”

He dipped his head and pressed his lips to mine in a quick kiss that left me breathless and to my dismay, panting for more.  “I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”  He chuckled.  “One minute you’re growling at me and the next you’re melting into me.”

“I believe you growled first,” I said, batting my eyes in an attempt to look innocent.  “It’s about time I growled back.”

~ AIDAN ~

I walked Jade to the doors, hating every damn step and although I’d said all the right things to make her happy, I felt … on edge and a little empty.  I knew she was right, but it didn’t mean I had to like it.  It just seemed stupid to let her go out to hunt down the cougars.  It went against ev
ery protective instinct I had.

Oh, hell.
  There were so many other things to worry about right now, but the only thing on my mind was the weird-ass way my inner-wolf was reacting to her.

For a moment I indulged myself and imagined what it would have been like to claim her in the showers.  What her peachy skin would have felt like against mine.  What her hands and lips, grazing all over my body, would have felt like.  Seeing that fiery passion in her eyes.  I could almost smell the change in her scent and in mine.

The fantasizing was a good diversion, but it didn’t help.

It’s going to be fine,
I thought.  I just had to breathe.  She wasn’t going to be alone.  She’d have the team, she’d have Jared.  Okay, so that didn’t help either.  But they wouldn’t let anything happen to her, right?

And the cougars were smart.  They changed locations frequently.  They hid their tracks.  Based on the last week of hunting them, the odds of her actually running into one of them were low.