Their Improbable Mating [Paranormal Protection Unit 3] (Siren Publishing Allure) (7 page)

“Agreed.” She was more than ready to get the drugs pushed out of her system, so it would be very good. “Because I’m ready to get out of this hospital. I seriously hate being in a hospital,” she admitted. “So yes, the sooner I’m out of here the better I am.”

“The happier I will be as well,” he told her. Stroking her cheek gently, he leaned in to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Eat please, and then we will lie down so you can rest some more. Hopefully tomorrow they will allow you to leave and we can figure out where we go from here, little one.”

“Sounds good to me.” She would need to make sure to head her father off at the pass so her boss wasn’t demoted to toilet cleaner or something. “Daddy is really seriously pissed at my boss, isn’t he?” She then frowned. “Shit!” Suddenly she thought of what had been bothering her. “The girls that were there, were they saved?”

“Shh,” he murmured, rubbing her arm lightly. “They have all been rescued. Some are here and others are at another hospital. We’re also working on getting the locations of those sold so we can bring them home, too, and prosecute those that purchased them.” He wasn’t getting into what her father was ranting about doing to her boss. Her boss better just hope he never ran into Allister, because he’d bloody well roast the bastard alive.

“Thank God.” Jackie relaxed against him and let out the breath she had been holding. “That makes me feel so much better, to know that they are actually safe.” She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she had been saved and those poor girls were still held.

“They are safe, love, I promise,” he assured her quietly. “We’ve also managed to contact a number of their family members. Some we haven’t, but only because they were the ones to sell the girls into l’Aurette’s service, so they too will face prosecution and likely hefty jail times. We have records of the transactions,” he explained at her curious look. “We also have all of l’Aurette’s money, so even if he were somehow to escape us”—which was impossible given where he was—“he’d have nothing to use to get away.”

“You guys wrapped up a sting operation that took us months and months to get embroiled in,” she murmured. “I underwent a surgical procedure just so that the implants could be placed because we knew that they would strip me nude. I have a tracker between my toes, the comms unit at my throat, and a device in my ear. Yep, I think that I’m totally jealous of you boys.”

Shrugging, he held her closer to him. “We’re just that good,” he said without bragging in the least. Having undertaken many similar operations, they’d had a lot of practice, so they were really that good. “Eat,” he ordered a little more gruffly. “No more talking until you put some of this food away.”

“Aye-aye, Popeye!” she said and saluted him. Winking at him to show him she was teasing, she continued to drink the soup she had lifted to her lips and moved from that to one of the sandwiches. After putting away one bowl of soup and one sandwich as well as two bottles of water, she was drooping. Yawning, she leaned against him. “I think I’m ready for sleep now.”

Considering how she was leaning against him, practically draped over him, he had to agree. Pushing the table away, he shifted out from behind her and helped her to lie down without getting tangled up in the IV line. Hitting the lights, he joined her and drew her in closer to him. “Then sleep, Jackie. Tomorrow is a whole new day and you need to be rested for it.”

“Tomorrow is going to be a good day.” She yawned and nuzzled her lips against the side of his neck again. When he asked her why, she smiled. “Because I’m getting out of here and either you are going to come home with me or I’m coming home with you, but one way or another I really don’t think I’m ready to give you up yet.”

Completely relieved to hear her say that, he hugged her to him. “I’m never giving you up, sweetheart, not now, tomorrow, or anytime in our future.” She was his, and he’d convince her of it, too, hopefully. Closing his eyes, he rubbed his cheek to her hair. “Sleep, love. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“I’m totally holding you to that, Allister,” she murmured happily and, curled against him as happy as a kitten, dropped off to sleep.

“Oh, you had better believe that you are releasing me today,” Jackie shot back at the young intern. “So get the paperwork ready. AMA all the way if that’s the case, but I’m leaving.” She had her father’s stubbornness sometimes, and now was one of those times. “I want to go home. Since it was just now told to me, from your own lips, that the drugs have cleared my system, I’m leaving. Period.” She paused and then, just because Allister wasn’t in the room, tacked on, “Don’t make me get Al after you. He would fry you up like barbecue and serve you with potato salad.” Well, not really, but it was the first thing that popped into her mind.

Snickering outside the door, Aiden waved over Mac and murmured what he’d just overheard. Stepping back, he smiled at the nurse that came bursting out squeaking away on her seriously rubber-soled shoes, and he shook his head. Sticking his head into the room, he caught Jackie’s eye and gave her two thumbs up and a little golf clap before resuming his post.

Well, that was just plain odd. Tugging the IV free herself, she wrapped it all up so that it didn’t make a mess and dug a bandage from the white cabinet under the TV. With her ass flapping to the wind, she opened the door and looked out. “And just what, pray tell, was the two thumbs up about? You aren’t Al. Who the hell are you?” She had realized that moment that this man looked just like her Allister, down to the same scar on their eyebrows, but this one was not her man.

“Aiden, his twin.” He grinned at her and eyed her up and down. “Does Allister know you’re showing your perky little ass off to the entire Marine Corps?” he asked, his smile growing wider as she whipped the gown shut on her rump. “And I was just applauding you taking nurse Ratchet there down a few notches. Snarky female has been trying to get us all tossed out on our asses since she came on duty, because apparently no one is that important to actually need guards of any sort inside the hospital. Hell, I thought she was going to give your father an aneurysm when they went toe-to-toe. If not for Bulldog, I’m pretty sure he would have broken the golden rule and decked the woman.”

“Yeah, she’s a Class-A power monger, and holy hell, help the ones that dare to take her power from her. She’s one of those people who totally wants to only assert her power, and it’s pissing her off like fucking crazy that there are a bunch of men here who could give a good hairy hot damn what she thinks that she is.” Holding out the hand that wasn’t holding her gown in place, she smiled. “Jackie. Nice to meet you, Aiden. So.” She leaned against the door. “You like to jerk Al’s chain from time to time, too, huh?”

Shaking her hand, he grinned and shrugged. “Now and again,” he said. Glaring at Mac when he snorted, he rolled his eyes. “He is my brother after all, so I get a sick and decidedly twisted pleasure out of yanking his chain. He’s a little stuffy, which often has made me question how we came from the same egg, but there’s no denying it. Of course I am the more handsome.” He smiled at her.

Jackie made a show out of looking at him. Frowning, she said, “Turn around.” At his look, she shrugged. “If I’m supposed to judge who’s the more handsome one, I need to see your ass, too, darlin’, because I have got to tell you…” She shivered, gooseflesh rising as she thought of Allister. “Al has the best ass that has ever been created in life and time.”

Mac sounded like he was having seizures as he muffled his laughs. Narrowing his eyes on her, Aiden eyed her up. “You pinch or smack me, I will reciprocate. You’ve been warned,” he said and turned to show her his ass. “Oh for the love of the Gods, Mac, go away, geez,” he said as the other male bent over double, howling in laughter as he turned back around for the verdict.

“Meh,” Jackie said and held her hand out doing the “so-so” movement. “Sorry, Ai, but I have got to tell you.” She licked her lips. “Al definitely has the best ass ever. He’s also the more handsome of the two of you because his eyes dance in intelligence and yours in mischief. Not that it’s bad, just I really, really love intelligence in a man.”

He punched Mac’s arm hard. The asshole was laughing so hard he was wheezing. He smiled as his friend fell over and didn’t move since he was having a hard time breathing through his laughter. “That’s fine. You’re his bond-mate. You’re biased.” He shook his head. “And he is smart,” he said softly to her, more serious. “But he’s also too serious sometimes,” he said quietly. “You’re his bond-mate, Jackie. Make sure he smiles now and again, will you?”

“Always,” she assured the man. “Mostly because I happen to really love it when he smiles. I love the way he simply lights up and the feeling of joy that all but radiates off of him. Yep, no worries, Ai. I will do everything in my power to make him smile and make him happy.” Leaning against the doorjamb again, she shot back, “So how did you know he had mated with me?” She didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about, but that term “bond-mate” had stuck out like a sore thumb, and she was curious what Aiden would spill since Allister wasn’t giving her jack shit on explaining the intense feelings they shared.

“Uh-huh, darling, I know he hasn’t yet had the talk with you, and since you’ve been in the hospital he hasn’t actually consummated the mating yet. That will come after he gets you alone and is assured in his own mind you are fully healed to his way of thinking,” Aiden told her. “And it’s Aiden, darling. Don’t go giving those of us that actually like our names and respect our parents enough to use them properly nicknames. It’s unnecessary and an insult to our heritage,” he said softly.

“Fuck you very much, Aiden,” Jackie replied with a frown. “I will let you in on a small fucking secret with me.” She stood toe-to-toe with him. “I shorten the names of very, very goddamn few people in my life. You see it as disrespect, but it’s not,” she murmured. “It’s my way of accepting you, of giving myself a fucking place in your life, but that’s really good with me, Aiden,” she stated pointedly. “I will keep in mind your fucking preference,” she added and slammed the door in his face. She only shortened the names of the people in her life she considered family. Her brothers, Allister, and she had tried with that man but failed, just as she had with Allister. “Right, thanks for the reminder.” Fearful of a relationship, she thought to herself that it was the world’s way of telling her that she and Allister didn’t belong. Picking up the phone, she dialed her father. “I want to come home, Daddy,” she stated simply. “Have your guards ready. I will be down in five.”

Walking back to the room with the clothing he’d purchased for her, Allister stopped dead in the hall at the mass of panic going on. With a sinking, sickening feeling in his gut, he moved closer. “What’s wrong? What happened?” he demanded and saw the grim, very unhappy looks on too many faces.

“She ditched us all,” Aiden said flat out. “She slipped out a side door that was supposedly guarded by a marine, but it was all a fucking ruse. She left with her father,” his brother told him plainly.

“She left?” Allister asked, not believing it until each and every man gave a stiff, unhappy nod. Swallowing, he nodded. “All right,” he murmured and passed the bag off to a passing nurse. “See if someone can use those,” he told her. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said to the group and then left.

“Aiden?” Mac said, looking to him, “What the hell just happened?”

Staring after his brother, Aiden wanted blood. “She broke him,” he told his friend and knew the Dragon was in his face when everyone took a step back. “That bitch broke him,” he snarled and had to fight to get his other side under control. She would pay for that, dearly.

A week later

“No, Daddy.” Jackie repeated the same things she had said for the first long bit of forever. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m perfectly fine, and yes, I am going back to work. I’m your daughter and I love you, Daddy, and I even love the brothers that are seriously driving me up the freaking wall, but I’m going back to work.” So that she could hopefully, hopefully get over the heartbreak she was feeling.

She had walked out on the one and only man she could have ever loved. She knew it. She wasn’t so blind as to not see it, but really what point was there? It had been made abundantly clear to her by his twin, reverberating and repeating the words that Allister had given her himself. They couldn’t deal with her way of things, and she knew nothing about them. She might have fallen in love, but she fell in love with a being she didn’t even know. She fell in love with a dream.

“Honey, there is so much that you don’t know,” Jackson said to his daughter, frustration burning him deeply. He wanted to tell her all about bond-mates, but he couldn’t. Bond-mates were sacred, and the fact that she had walked away from hers had him fucking spinning. “What happened, baby? Don’t tell me ‘nothing’ again.”

“Nothing, Daddy. It was just made very clear to me that I didn’t fit. I didn’t belong because I evidently had a great deal of a lack of respect.”

“What? Who the fuck said that?” Jackson demanded.

“Let it go, Daddy,” she told him softly. “Now, if you will excuse me.” She checked the magazine of her weapon, chambered a round, and flipped on the safety before putting one in the shoulder holster and another in her back holster.

“What is the job?” the general demanded.

“None of your business, Daddy. You do your job. Let me do mine,” she said and then, “Bye, Daddy. I love you.” Had to or she would cry again. She was so over crying. She had spent the last week sobbing her heart out and nothing came of it but more headache and more realization that she was obviously “not good enough” for Allister. He deserved someone that could, what was it Aiden had said, “respect his heritage,” and that was obviously something that Jackie
so
couldn’t do because she dared shorten a name, giving it teasingly in friendship, in familial love. Yep, she needed to go back to work. Maybe this time the bad guys would actually fulfill her death wish, fucking asshat criminals.