The Heir (15 page)

The idea that he may be robbing her of her
one true love, gave him a twinge of remorse.

He took a deep breath and did something that
went against his being. He bowed his head to Jessica even though
she didn't know what the gesture meant. "I'm sorry for-"

"You’re sorry?" She interrupted, "You are
basically telling me that you married me without my consent, and
all I get is an apology? What kind of Alpha are you anyways? How
can alpha pull this kind of stunt?"

"I'm a good Alpha!" He snarled, after all the
things he'd done to ensure the survival of his pack, he couldn't
stand being questioned about his leadership.

Especially by her, it was now her place to
stand by him, not against him.

He watched her take a couple of steps
back-away from him, pull her knives out and flick them open, and he
couldn't help the growl that rose from his chest.

"Don't" He told her. "Don't run from me, I
will never hurt you." She eyed him warily and he barely kept
himself from closing the distance between them and proving his
words with his lips.

Instead he took a deep breath and ran his
hands through his hair before speaking in a calmer voice. "You are
my mate. I wish I'd done things differently but that mark on your
shoulder is all the proof you need. It hurts now, soon it will
heal, but it will never go away. Know this though; it was never my
intention to claim you this way."

"Claim me?" She asked in disbelief, "What do
I look like a piece of land, you stake it and it's yours? Sorry
buddy but no one claims me, I belong to no one. Especially not
you."

"When I marked you, I became yours too." He
growled with exasperation.

That brought Jessica up short. "What?"

"We belong to each other now."

Jessica dazedly made her way to her bed and
sat on the edge. Looking down at the floor she thought about what
he'd just told her and after a couple of seconds she asked in a low
voice, "How did this happen?"

The question was met with silence and Jessica
looked up to see Nick looking uncomfortable-and blushing! Jessica's
eyes flew open upon that discovery, if things weren't so serious,
she'd be laughing at him.

"I was having a dream." He muttered, looking
away, trying to hide his discomfort.

She raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms
across her chest, enjoying herself at his expense. "What kind of
dream?"

Nick cursed and growled, “The kind where my
wolf claims yours.”

His eyes began to glow; his teeth seemed to
get longer and Jessica was officially freaked out.

She got up, stormed towards the door and
flung it open. "I've changed my mind; I don't want your answers.
Feel free to let the door hit your ass on the way out." The act
lost its flair when she saw Axel standing in front of the
doorway-unmoving.

Nick followed her to the door but instead of
walking out he slammed it shut, his patience was running thin.

He wasn't proud of the way he'd claimed his
mate but it was done and it was time to move forward. He had a thin
hold on his self-control and her stance, her tone of voice-they
were like an unspoken challenge. All he wanted was to complete the
claiming process.

Mark the rest of her body-inside and out-with
his scent.

"If I go, you go." he growled.

She threw her head back and laughed. "You
wish!

"You're not safe alone; the serum is almost
completely out of your system."

Jessica looked at him with distrust. "How do
you know about that?"

Nick raised an eyebrow and smirked. "I
thought you weren't interested in my answer." He opened the door
and Jessica grabbed his arm to keep him from leaving.

"I take it back." Jessica exclaimed.

She surprised she hadn't chocked on the words
and by the look on his face, Nick was too. He eyed her from head to
toe before nodding and gesturing towards her bed. As she took a
seat, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a number. It wasn't
long before his call was answered.

"She doesn't trust me." He told the person on
the other side of the line. "Hold on." He said before handing the
phone over to Jessica. He didn't know why he hadn't thought of
doing this earlier.

Confused she took it and put it against her
ear. "Hello?"

"Jessica?"

"Mom?"

"Yes Jessica, it's me."

"Mom, where are you?"

"It doesn't matter; I just want you to know
that Nick is safe."

"Safe? How do you know Nick? And how
did-"

Nick snatched the phone from her and raised
it to his ear. "Hey, sorry but Jessica and I have a lot to talk
about. Talk to you later." He hit the end button and dropped the
phone into his pocket. Without taking his eyes off of her, he
waited for her reaction.

It wasn’t long in coming.

She shot up off her bed and pointed a finger
at him. "How do you know my mom? And where is she?"

Nick went to look out the window. He braced
his hands on the window sill and for the first time, Jessica
realized how tense he seemed to be.

It was never my intention to claim you this
way. The words replayed in her mind and after thinking about it for
a second, she believed him. If he'd wanted to, he could have pulled
some tricky move and claimed her months ago.

You and I will end up together, one way or
another. He'd warned her, and she'd thought him crazy. Now here she
was biting his head off even though it was all because of his
dreams.

Jessica sighed and ran a hand through her
hair. She could be a real pain in the ass sometimes. And as far as
mates went, she had to admit she could’ve done much worse.

Jessica didn't know him well enough but she
considered herself a good judge of character. She couldn't imagine
a bad person dealing with his pack members the way she'd seen Nick
deal with Christian last night and from the little that she'd seen,
everyone seemed to respect him.

And her mom, she couldn't dismiss what her
mom had just told her.

He was safe.

At that moment, Nick turned around to look at
her. “Alright, whatever you want to know, just ask, I'll try my
best to enlighten you."

"How do you know my mom and where is she?"
She shot off straight away.

"The council sent me on a mission... Long
story short, I found her, she was in danger, I told her who I was,
and she did a background check. Satisfied that I was trustworthy"
He placed extra emphasis on the last word. "She let me help her
out."

The finality in his words let Jessica know
that that was all she was getting on the subject, and she was
satisfied with it-for now. "Where is she?"

"Somewhere safe, it's not a good idea to
bring her here."

"Why not?"

"To bring her here would be to bring
trouble." He eyed her up and down. "And trust me I have plenty of
that at the moment."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "Who is The
Council?" She asked, refusing to be side tracked.

Nick scrubbed his face with his hands. This
was the part he'd been dreading. He motioned for her to take a seat
while he tried to figure out the best way to explain things to
her-and just how much to tell her.

"The Council’s main responsibility is to keep
the peace between packs. There are six Council members. Each member
used to be an Enforcer before the Council was formed."

He explained to her that after the murder of
their last ruler, the Council was created to keep war from breaking
out between packs. Many Alphas wanted the power afforded to the
ruler of all the packs in America and they would be willing to
declare war to one another to achieve the ultimate status.

With the advancement of technology, it was
feared that so many deaths could lead to the discovery of their
people. So the most powerful packs made an agreement, their
enforcers would enforce the law.

"We Alpha's can be very prideful." He told
her wryly. "And we don’t like taking orders from others.”

"But isn't that what you used to do, you used
to take orders from the last ruler?" Jessica cut in.

And this is going to be the tricky part, he
thought.

"Alpha Lykaon was the exception to the rule.
He was the most powerful of our kind. Through his veins ran the
blood of the first werewolf, the Arcadian King Lykaon. There were
very few who could resist his power."

"Lykaon, as in the Greek myth?"

Nick flung his arms out and indicated
himself. "Not a myth, although most of the truth has been deluded
through time, we are definitely not a myth. The belief that being
bitten by a werewolf will make you one, that's a myth. We are born,
not created or infected." He pointed out. "Only one person has the
power to create a werewolf, the Lykaon heir. It is a gift- a power-
passed down from generation to generation."

"How come this Lykaon person has all that
power? And how can you know that his blood is the same as the
ancient kings. I mean, can a lineage be traced back that far?"

Nick approached her and looked into her eyes,
looked for the mark he knew he would find. Still sitting on her
bed, she leaned back, away from him. After confirming the mark, he
straightened up and took a step back.

"We have our ways," He assured her
cryptically. "But mostly it's the fact that, no matter who the
Lykaon mates with, be it human or shifter, the Lykaons first child
is always one hundred percent werewolf. When I say that they carry
the blood of the Arcadian King, I mean that it’s an exact copy of
his blood. Male or female, the Lykaons child is the Heir to one of,
if not, the oldest royal dynasty in the world."

"So where is this Heir? Did the last ruler
die without kids?"

Nick hesitated for a second then shook his
head slowly. "He had one child." He told her. "But the council
doesn't know where the Lykaon Heir is."

Jessica made a sympathetic sound. "That
sucks."

"So when do you think you will be ready to
move out?" He asked her, trying to change the subject. Doubting
that now was the time to dump such a large load on her lap. She'd
taken everything in stride so far but he feared that any more heavy
confessions and she might explode.

"Move out?" Her eyebrows came together in a
frown and his words ping ponged through her brain not making any
sense.

"You are my mate now, mates live together."
The words were spoken slowly and he moved his hands around in
circles as if personally turning the wheels in her brain. Helping
her realize the obvious.

Her eyes widened with every word, and when it
all finally sank in, she leapt off her bed and shouted,
"What?!"

"As my mate and the female Alpha, your place
is by my side."

Nick knew she was going to object, it wasn't
in her nature to go without a fight and he had to admit that he
enjoyed sparing with her. She challenged him in a way that no else
could and he was looking forward to this next match. He was curious
to know what kind of objection she would find.

"Actually about that..." She bit her bottom
lip and it gave his lower body a jolt, he couldn't take his eyes
off of her lips, he kept imagining them wrapped around him, until
her words made it through the haze in his mind. "I was thinking we
could keep all of this in name only. You know live separate lives?
No one has to know-"

He shook his head slowly and in a tone that
brooked now argument said, "No."

"No, no, don’t shoot it down so quickly,"
Jessica stepped close to him and placed a hand on his arm.

While she spoke about separate lives all he
could think about was joining their bodies and taking that last
step to complete their mating.

"Think about it" She was saying, "you can go
your way and I go my way. I mean I'm sure there's some other girl
that would be better for you and the same, a guy, for me.

He shook his head again, she tried to remove
her hand from his arm but he trapped it there with his own. "There
is no other girl for me."

"What do you mean?"

"We are mates." He repeated for what felt to
him was the hundredth time.

"So?" She tugged on her arm and when he
wouldn't release her she slammed her foot on his toe, it didn't
hurt but it surprised him enough to relax his hold and before he
could help it she pulled free. He growled and she rushed to put her
bed between them. She raised her hands to ward him off and tried to
reason with him. "See? We can't even last an hour in the same
room."

"We could if we did what I have in mind." He
grumbled under his breath.

"I heard that."

He gave her his most charming smile and
wiggled his eyebrows, "Want to give it a try?"

"No!" She burst out. She didn't mean to shout
her denial but his smile sent shivers down her body, her mind
called her a liar and she wanted to drown the noise in her head
that sounded more like a yes. If she'd thought him attractive
earlier, the smile transformed him from a ten to a fifty. "I want
out of this, that’s what I want." She told him in a more moderate
tone trying to hide the effect that his playful side had on
her.

"I don't.” He told her as he walked slowly
towards her. Like a wolf stalking its prey.

"Of course you do," She stammered as she
crawled backwards over her bed, "you want to find a girl that
compliments you better than I-"

"There is no other girl," He cut in, "even if
we lived this separate life you are suggesting, there wouldn't be
another for me-ever." They were on opposite sides of the bed once
again and as he spoke he looked her in the eyes wanting her to see
the truth from his words.

The look in his eyes convinced her, "Ever?"
She asked skeptically and he nodded "So if you touch someone else,
it’s going to fall off or something?"

Nick didn't know what 'it' was and he told
her so. In answer she waved her hand at the general area of his
nether regions, blushing the whole time and he couldn't hold back
his chuckle. The chuckle died abruptly with her next question.