Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite) (21 page)

Ethan! Ethan was the last person he would have suspected.

Ethan talked the whole time they were working about the different types of wood they were using to build staircases. Dane agreed and contradicted and argued a good case for maple over Brazilian cherry.

“Don’t get me wrong, I like the look,” Ethan said, hammering in finishing nails. He wore earplugs the whole time to soften the noise. “We had this idiot a few years back import this chandelier with Swarovski crystals and eighty-four lights—gorgeous. Probably a fifty-thousand-dollar chandelier, and he wanted to put laminate flooring right below it—and not even a good laminate. I thought Jordan was going to cry.” He slanted Dane a look. “He wouldn’t, of course.”

Twenty minutes later, they were surveying the new door with a healthy sense of accomplishment.

“You did that?” Ethan asked, pointing at the old door.

“I was worried about Vanessa.” The door looked like a bear had gotten to it. It was mostly him, anyway. The sheriff probably hadn’t contributed all that much.

“Not bad, skinny. You have the makings of a solid beta—not that we obey the hierarchy around here. It’s a shame you weren’t blessed with four legs or you’d be giving Jordan a run for his money for Alpha even.”

Somehow when Ethan called him “skinny” it came out sounding less insulting than when Jordan did. He saw Vanessa pause inside the house and shoot him a look.

“Your pack seems too big and like too much work,” Dane said. “How big is it?” He could feel Vanessa drilling holes into his head with her eyes. She’d be pissed, but that didn’t bother him as much as it should.

“Oh, let’s see…if you include all the human offspring, mates, or relatives we’ve taken in as pack members, there’s about seventy of us.”

“Seventy? How about without all the humans?” His hearing wasn’t as good as a Lycan’s, but he heard Vanessa slam a drawer inside.

“Sixty or so. Which is big—real big. Jordan has his hands full.”

“Wow.” The biggest understatement he’d ever uttered. There were sixty Lycans around? That was insane. He’d been here seven months and hadn’t known about a single one until two weeks ago. “I think I’ll leave that to your Alpha. I can’t even get Vanessa to listen to me.”

Ethan laughed. “No, I think you’d have an easier time with the entire rest of the pack combined. I told Felicity when Vanessa came to us four years ago that she’d have to find a mate as stubborn and ferocious as her, and I’d have never thought to look outside the Lycans—that’s more rare. Even in our size pack, you’re only the second mate who’s on two legs. It’s a good thing our nature knows what’s best.”

“Yeah, that’s good.” It was an interesting way of putting this whole scent-match thing—something in their nature.

“Boy, if Felicity hadn’t scent-matched to me, I’d never have convinced her otherwise that I was right for her. She likes things with a little more class than me. I say, what’s wrong with being practical? She keeps trying to talk me into an antique French provincial dining room table, and we’ve got twin three-year-old grandkids. It’s like she’s trying to put me in my grave.”

After he left a few minutes later, Dane couldn’t shake the feeling that Ethan was an older version of him. In twenty-five years, he’d be trying to talk Vanessa into a marble countertop, and she’d be arguing for concrete—though only a crazy person would pick concrete over marble, and then they’d fight it out, and then make love on whichever counter they settled on.

“What are you thinking?” Vanessa asked, dropping onto the couch beside him.

“That someday we’ll have a marble countertop.”

She squinted. “You know, I’ve heard that men think about different things from women, but I assumed it was mostly related to sex.”

“Also that we’d be having sex on that marble countertop.”

“Oh, okay.” She tipped her head onto his shoulder and sighed. “Marble is cold, though.”

“We’d put a blanket or a tablecloth across it. I suppose you’d rather have concrete, though.”

“Oh, hell no. Over marble? Are you kidding me?”

“I happen to like concrete…”

Chapter Sixteen

Her face was pressed against Dane’s chest, his arm around her, but a horrible, horrible smell conjured a dream of death.

“What? What is it, honey?” Dane asked, pulling an earplug out of his ear. She’d never known such a light sleeper. She’d never be able to slide anything by him and hope he’d sleep through it. And, ugh, her snoring, not that it was
that
loud, appeared to give her away. He twisted slightly to glance at her alarm clock. “It’s just after two…way too early.” He dropped back down on the pillow heavily with a soft groan.

She held still. She couldn’t go back to sleep now, even if they seemed destined not to get a decent night’s sleep ever again.

His arm tightened around her as her silence continued. “What’s wrong?”

“That smell…can’t you smell it?” No, she definitely couldn’t go back to sleep. In fact… She covered her nose and she could still smell it. It was rank. It was filling the air and destroying all the oxygen.

He took out the other earplug and pushed onto his elbows. “It’s not smoke, is it?”

“No, it’s something dead. It made me have this horrible dream about Cheri and the poachers…ugh.” She sat all the way up. They’d have to get rid of it. Put whatever that dead animal was inside fifty garbage bags layered one on top of the other. Then she’d need to take a couple showers and wash all the bedding.

Unlike other Lycans, she’d never cared for the smell of fresh uncooked meat. It hit her gag reflex wrong and summoned images of glassy-eyed critters. She couldn’t even drive by butcher shops, and anything near the meat department might as well have been as dead as the red meat in there. Meat had to be frozen, precooked, or fish.

Ugh, it was awful. Vile. And it kept getting stronger like something had staggered up and dropped on her front porch.

“It’s making me sick,” she muttered from behind her hand.

“You’re adorably fragile. You’re allergic to everything, country music makes you nearly pass out…and now a smell?”

She shook her head. “No, Dane. No. Trust me. This is bad. This is very bad and whatever it is—it’s close.”

He went still. “Like grab my gun type of bad?”

She nodded rapidly—without removing her hand from her face. If something had left its kill this close to a wolf’s den, it had to be a big predator. And it was unlikely that a sick or old animal would approach her place, either.

He slid out of bed and grabbed his handgun from inside a wicker bedside table that had come from her human ancestry. Her human great-grandmother was a big fan of wicker. He crouched and moved across the floor like a Lycan as she crawled across the bed for a closer look. At the sliding glass door leading out of her room onto the porch, he pulled the curtains back slightly, swore, and jerked them closed.

“Okay, you stay there, Vanessa. Don’t move. We need to call Travis right away.”

“Travis? We need Travis?” Noooo. They wouldn’t need him for a dead animal. She jumped out of bed. She managed to swing the curtains slightly before Dane grabbed her around the waist and tugged her back, but it was enough for her to see Carrie’s dead eyes staring up from the porch. Carrie, who’d taken her place at the office. Carrie—Cheri’s friend. Vanessa screamed and screamed and screamed.

An hour later, Dane was wrapping her fingers around another mug of herbal tea. She didn’t remember how many other mugs of the tea there’d been—didn’t remember drinking them even, but Dane kept giving them to her, kept replacing empty mugs. He’d even asked Sheriff Terry to turn off the sirens so they wouldn’t upset her. Her front yard still flashed with lights like an excessive Christmas decorator’s yard. Red. Blue. White. Flash. Flash. Flash. More lights kept arriving. And behind them, she could see the reflections of eyes in the bushes. The pack had come as well.

They shouldn’t have. It wasn’t safe for them to be seen here. It wasn’t safe for anyone to be around her.

“And you’ve no idea who might be doing this?” the sheriff asked her.

She shook her head, because what could she say?
Cheri hated me, but she picked a bad partner for revenge. They sold their souls to the devil, and he’s going to wipe all the Lycans in our pack out—one by one until they get to me.
Carrie had died because she’d taken her place. Dane’s house had been lit on fire. Anyone who came between her and whoever hated her this much was going to die. Maybe they’d even get to Dane.

No.

No, they couldn’t get to Dane. They could have her first. She’d planned on that. She preferred that. She would rather they find her than Dane get in their path.

Jordan and Travis were outside talking, and even though they were trying to keep it quiet, she heard them discussing that this was probably a message.

It was. Of course it was.

Come out, come out wherever you are, Vanessa. If she kept hiding behind Lycans or Dane…

Dane put his arm around her and took the mug from her hand and set it on the coffee table before wiping off the tea that had splashed on her hand. She stared at her hand…watched it shake. It looked as if someone were shaking her, rattling her. Dane grabbed her quivering hand and held it in between his warm ones. They enveloped hers completely. His palms were warm in a way that reminded her of coming home to her den. Safe. He made her feel safe. But her presence meant the opposite for him.

“I don’t think this is a good time for her, Sheriff,” Dane said softly, quietly, like she wasn’t here—like she couldn’t have heard his words even if he was fifty yards away whispering.

“Maybe I should ask Travis to watch over your house tonight…well, I mean Ms. Tucker’s house. Maybe I should have him stay here in the cruiser.” The sheriff spoke equally softly.

He was going to have Travis stay in a car. Travis, who probably had been covering miles of territory every night as a Lycan. Travis, who was, even now, discussing sending out patrols with two Lycans—always two Lycans. Travis.

She started laughing, and Dane pulled her closer, turning her sideways so she could bury her face in his shoulder when her laughter switched to crying.

The sheriff left the inside of the house a moment later. She could hear him suggesting she might be unreliable: “Ms. Tucker seems to be in shock, not that I blame her, of course—with the other body found so close, the car accident, the fire, and now this.”

It was like he was listing all her sins for the record.

Jordan came in and crouched in front of them. This latest shock had sobered him. He looked exhausted, but strong, and she instinctively tipped her chin down when she saw him and avoided direct eye contact.

“Nessa, I hate to ask you this, but did you hear or smell anything out of place—well, before you discovered…this?”

She shook her head.

“Travis said Ross tracked the scent back to the road where there was a semi-truck parked—the emissions make it obvious, but he lost the trail—and he thinks the Lycan may have gotten out of the truck at some point or run alongside for a while and then the scent seems to change and disappear. None of us can place it either. The police will be receiving an anonymous tip about the semi-truck so Travis can start searching for it officially. Anyway, as much as this is tragic, it may help us catch them and end this.”

It would also end if they caught her. They’d stop targeting everyone in between them.

“She wasn’t killed on my front porch, right?” It was the first thing she’d said since she stopped screaming.

“No. She wasn’t killed out there.”

“If I take her to the ER, can they give her something to sedate her?” Dane asked Jordan. It might have been the only polite words they’d ever exchanged, but it still bothered her that Dane was acting like she wasn’t sitting right here. She was right here.

Unless she wasn’t.

Maybe this was a horrific nightmare.

“I am awake, right?” she asked both men.

Jordan’s eyebrows rose and he said to Dane, “I don’t think I’d chance it with all of her allergy medications.”

“I’m right here!” she shouted. Without the siren going, it echoed in the house and outside, and probably a dozen Lycans now thought she was mental, but she didn’t care. “Stop talking about me as if I’m not here! I’m here! This is my fault! His house! Her death! My fault! They’re doing it to get to me! To kill me! So I know I’m right here because I’m their damn destination!” She pulled her knees into her chest and wrapped her arms around her head, shutting it all out. This couldn’t be happening. Cheri’s death was bad enough, but Cheri had at least been intending to kill her. Carrie had just come between Vanessa and this death squad when she’d taken her job as a receptionist. Carrie had taken
her
place.

Dane rubbed her back in long, slow strokes as Jordan leaned in and said, “No one is blaming you, Nessa.”

No one had to. It didn’t need to be said. It was obvious. No one needed to point out to Dane that he was a human. No one needed to say the sky got dark at night and light during the day. It was that damn obvious. Someone set fire to the house she was staying in and when she moved to her home, they killed the person taking her place at work and dumped her on her porch. How the hell would that not be a message? No one went to the trouble of dumping a body on someone’s porch without a good reason. The pack had been patrolling the area on and off. It’s amazing whoever did this wasn’t caught.

Of course it was a message. It said, “We will kill everyone you put between us.”

“Maybe you should come stay with me again,” Jordan said.

“No!” Dane said. “She is staying with me. I can take care of her just fine.” There was the shine of steel in his words—and it sounded like he’d muttered them through clenched teeth.

“She needs her pack right now.”

And they were back to talking about her as if she weren’t there.

“I’m her mate. You can’t possibly care about her as much as I do. No one can.”

It might have been nice to hear that not in this scenario. And besides that, caring about her was most likely going to get him killed.

But it still would have been nice to hear that not ground out between his teeth like a threat, not growled like he was staking a claim. It was like a Hallmark card burned on her front lawn.

“You didn’t even know you were her mate two weeks ago. I’ve been protecting her for four years.”

And this would be the way it was. She would be caught in between two Alphas forever if she stayed here. Dane couldn’t understand their ways, and Jordan couldn’t see that protecting her was putting everyone she cared about at risk. Then Dane’s insubordination to the Alpha would either get Dane killed or Jordan overthrown in the middle of a crisis. Being between them, between the humans like Dane and the monsters like the poacher and then the pack, was going to end up with someone dead, and she might not be able to pick who.

Uncurling from her pose, she pushed to her feet, unsteadily. She couldn’t be here. She needed to think. She couldn’t think with Dane and Jordan here fighting for the Alpha spot in her life. She almost ran out of the room before she felt the gaze of all the Lycans around. Gritting her teeth and knowing Dane would take it the wrong way, she forced herself to turn to Jordan with a bowed head and say, “I need some time—to think. I’m going to go take a shower.”

“It’s not your fault, Nessa.”

Dane didn’t say anything, but she could smell the heat from his anger pouring off him. It was probably for her, because she had to be conscious of the good of the pack, even as her own life was falling to pieces. Even if it wasn’t for the right reason, she deserved his anger—she’d brought him into this.

She saw Jordan dip his head, dismissing her.

She turned to Dane and whispered his name with a nod, but she didn’t meet his eyes, and she kept her fingers curled in a fist so she wouldn’t reach out to him and acknowledge him after establishing Jordan’s authority. Then she walked away without waiting for him to react. In the bathroom, she turned on the shower, but just sat numbly on the floor in the noisy shadow of falling water where no one—not even the pack—could hear her cry, if she could even do that.

…

He sighed and leaned forward, covering his face with his hands. This was a nightmare. She blamed herself, and he couldn’t keep his temper in check with Jordan around.

Jordan switched to sitting beside him and leaned forward and hissed quietly, “You are on a short leash, Dane. I’m not going to let her die just so you can prove something.”

He lifted his head and shook it slowly. Him? This whole business had started within the pack when Jordan hadn’t realized his own mate was a psychopath. “Funny, I was just thinking the same thing about you.”

Jordan stared into his eyes. “I promised her I wouldn’t kill you if you followed my rules, but you are getting dangerously close to interfering in pack business.”

Dane opened his mouth to say something, and then he remembered that Vanessa had promised
him
she’d be the one to sacrifice herself and die on his behalf if it came to that. And he seemed to be skirting the edge of someone’s life being forfeit. He snapped his mouth closed. She was already blaming herself. He swallowed thickly and took a deep breath. “I think my presence is keeping whoever this is away, and it sounds like you have an entire pack to protect. I’m only concentrating on one person. It makes more sense for her to stay with me.” Man, that stung like a scrape under lemon juice. It might be the one and only time he’d backed down from a pissing match.

Jordan scowled, but the heat left his gaze and the shimmer of the wolf inside him faded. “Yeah, but your one person happens to be the one person they want.”

“But that makes no sense. It makes no sense that they’re still targeting Vanessa.”

He shrugged and sat back. “I don’t know why they’re still carrying out Cheri’s plans. I don’t know how they know the area well enough to recognize and avoid our patrols.” He shook his head and then looked around.

The police were finishing outside, but Dane had seen shadows move and the flicker of eyes catching the light in the bushes. Who knew how many Lycans were out there? He hadn’t even realized how many there were in the area. The population of Mount Baker National Forest was spread out. It rose and fell in the vacation homes and local bed-and-breakfasts, but it sounded like about one-tenth of the local population was in the pack in some way. The entire pack could be out there in the woods, watching, waiting to see how their Alpha handled them being the ones hunted. Initially, Dane had been pissed when Vanessa ducked her head and asked permission to leave the room…and then he’d seen Travis glance down behind Jordan. Travis had been watching the exchange. This top wolf thing was serious as hell to them.