Deadly Pack (Deadly Trilogy Book 3)

by Ashley Stoyanoff

  He cupped my face in his big, warm palms, and brought my eyes back to his. “Don’t care about the bed or the carpet, sweetheart,” he said, a small smirk playing at the corner of his lips. He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe I was worried about those things. “I don’t care if the whole house needs to be torn down and rebuilt. You are the only thing that matters to me.” And then he kissed me, and it was full of passion and fear and need, and I was clutching onto him, and him onto me, and for those few seconds, I completely forgot that the pack were all standing by.

  But then it ended, and he decided to let me breathe again, although it was a ragged breath at best. He brushed his thumbs across my cheeks and his expression changed to serious. “Tell me what happened,” he said, and with those four words, reality came crashing back.

  I told him everything.

  Mom put her overcooking to use. With Dominic’s help (she refused to go back into the house, not that I blamed her), they fed to the pack the food she’d already cooked. They’d found a long, plastic folding table in the garage, along with what I thought had to be a year’s supply of throwaway plates and cups, and set it up in the backyard. It was loaded with a mix of fruit, eggs, bacon, and pancakes. There were also a lot of steamed vegetables, batches of cookies, and muffins, and I even spotted the ground beef that had been in the freezer and all the fixings for tacos laid out.

  While they were setting up the feast, Aidan explained why he’d brought the pack along with the two cougars from the diner, who were currently tied and gagged in the garage, home. He had a plan — a plan that was already in motion. And although the plan was no better or worse than Erika’s idea, I really didn’t know how to feel about him sending Landon out with only two other wolves, without even telling me first.

  I tried a few times to tell him about Erika’s idea, except I didn’t think he was listening. He was excited and kind of hyper, and he kept telling me how huge it was that my dad was a full shifter (not that I had any clue what that meant) but it seemed to explain a lot to him. I also had to admit that even though he was excited and it was kind of hard to keep his attention, I hadn’t tried overly hard to make him listen to me either. Replacing one semi-okay plan with another semi-okay plan didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and Aidan was pretty busy trying to organize everyone, so yeah, I didn’t really try too hard to get it out.

  When Aidan went to help pull the dead from the house and load them in the truck, I snuck away. I needed a moment, or maybe ten, to pull myself together. I was feeling pretty shaky and really confused, and I was just plain tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of being scared. I was also tired of caring about what happened to my dad.

  Numbness would be better, I thought. And right then, I was also feeling pretty numb.

  I was standing on the back porch watching my wolves practice their fighting techniques, when I felt his hands grip my hips, and his chest press against my back. It was a familiar scene in front of me. One I’d participated in countless times, except it had been Jared barking out the instructions, not Beck and Craig, and I’d been the wolf getting my butt kicked.

  Aidan’s breath was warm against the back of my neck, sending small shivers along my skin. His hands were resting lightly on my hips, holding me close against him. He didn’t say anything for a long moment and when he did, it was a whisper in my ear. “How are you holding up?” he asked. He seemed a little calmer, but I was pretty sure he was just trying to mask the excitement he was feeling for my benefit.

  “I think I’m pretty much numb,” I said, and then, not wanting to explore that topic any further, I continued with, “Thankfully Mom won’t go back into the house so the cooking has stopped. And the pack’s eating everything she already made so it looks like we won’t have to go shopping for a freezer.”

  Aidan chuckled, a deep, throaty sound that made my knees soft. “I have some good news for you,” he murmured, as his lips grazed the side of my neck with gentle presses that made my stomach flutter a little.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “What’s that?”

  He leaned back against the house, pulling me with him. “The team and I are good.”

  I tilted my head back to look at him and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, I noticed that.” And I had, pretty much the moment he’d gotten out of the car and I saw him laughing at something Beck had said. I didn’t think I’d ever seen Aidan laugh with one of the enforcers, and I knew I’d never seen one of them try to make him laugh. But them getting along (even if it was awesome) was not really important. Not after finding out my father was not what I thought he was.

  Silence fell and I leaned back, resting my head against his shoulder. I felt sick to my stomach and tired, really, really tired. I was trying really hard to stay relaxed against him, but cold panic kept jerking at my muscles. I knew, just knew, that he had to hate me for letting my dad go. How couldn’t he? If I were him, I’d probably hate me, too. And once his hyperness wore off, he would. I was sure of it.

  My hands were shaking, so I folded my arms across my chest in an attempt to hide it. I pulled in a breath, let it out, and broke the silence. “Tell me I didn’t screw up.”

  Aidan actually laughed. “You’re kidding me, right? Of course you didn’t screw up.”

  “Now say it like you mean it,” I shot back, shocked, and well, it hurt, like a lot, that he was laughing at me. I tried to wiggle out of his arms, but he held on, his hands moving from my hips to coil around my waist with relentless strength.

  “You found out that he can shift into more than just a cougar,” he said, an animated pitch coming out in his voice. “That’s something, Jade. It’s huge, actually. A piece we didn’t have before. It explains so much. Like why I couldn’t pick up his scent. He’s not just one animal, he could be any of them. All of them. It confuses the smells, hides them, and changes them. I should have figured it out. We had a full-blown shifter in my dad’s pack when I was seven. If anyone screwed up, it was me. Again.”

  I wasn’t entirely sure what he was talking about, but I knew he was trying to be reasonable, trying to make me feel better. And it was a super nice gesture. It just sucked, though, that it didn’t help my trembling hands. “For the record, I’m not sure what you’re talking about with the more than one animal smell thing and I only found out that he could do that because I let him walk away.”

  Aidan didn’t try to explain the animal/smell thing. Instead he gave me a little squeeze and said, “He’s your dad, sweetheart, and your mom was here. I imagine that if it were my dad and my mom was there, I’d do the same thing.”

  “No you wouldn’t,” I said. I swallowed a bubble of panic and tried really hard to make my voice sound reasonable, just like his, and when I spoke again, I even thought I succeeded, sort of. “You hate your father.”

  “But I love my mother.” Again with the reasonable tone. “On the plus side,” he continued with a smile in his voice, “we now have a good reason not to put off ripping out that nasty ass carpet.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I was starting to feel drowsy and almost content leaning against him, but it was hard to completely relax with the sounds of the wolves training in the yard. A constant reminder of what was still to come.

  Aidan chuckled and kissed the side of my neck, just below my ear. “What was Erika doing here?” He kept it at a bare whisper, as if he wasn’t sure he’d really meant to voice the question out loud.

  “I tried to tell you earlier,” I said. “She had an idea.”

  “Erika.” He sounded surprised and I tilted my head to the side to see his forehead scrunched up. His eyebrows rose as he looked down at me. “Erika had an idea?”

  “Yeah.” I dropped my head again and rested it on his shoulder, and then with a long sigh, I told him the idea.

  Aidan said nothing when I finished, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the change in his scent. It was still heavy with that hyper excitement, but there was something else there now, something I just couldn’t place, spicing it up.


  His arms dropped from my waist and I slowly turned around. His face was set, deep in thought, and when he met my eyes, he gave his head a little shake and laughed, a startled kind of sound, and said, “I like it.”

  “You. Like. It,” I repeated slowly, narrowing my eyes. “How can you like this idea?” But I already knew the answer, I thought, because it really was a great plan.

  “It could work, Jade.” He was staring down at me, but I didn’t really think he was seeing me. His eyes sort of hazed over and his expression intensified to what I thought of as his thinking face. He leaned forward and kissed my cheek absently, and then he walked away. He made it about ten steps before turning back and sending me a quick, unreadable glance. “Come on, Jade. Landon’s going to be back anytime now. We need to get ready.”

  I wasn’t sure what get ready meant, but I followed him on aching legs down the steps and into the yard, figuring I was probably about to find out.

  CHAPTER 17

  ~ AIDAN ~

  The yard was as busy as a mall before Christmas. Pack members were gathering in clusters, some looked excited and some right out worried, but all of them were here, and they were all ready to move the second Landon got back.

  There was a good size group of them in wolf form, training with Beck and Craig. They were like drill sergeants, breaking out training exercises, over and over. It was amazing, seeing the pack work like this. Together. As a unit. When they did, they looked as if they could take down anything in their path. And I was counting on just that.

  “Dom,” I called, and waved a hand for him to come over, when I spotted him in wolf form, running through a drill with Luken. They both stopped at the sound of my voice, and Dominic glanced my way, just a quick turn of his head, before he deliberately turned his back to me, and squared off with Luken again.

  I heard Jade stumble down the steps, following me. I glanced over my shoulder as she did a little hop skip, catching her balance. She shot me a flustered and slightly confused smile, and jogged to catch up. “What’s up with him?” she asked warily, as she reached me.

  I cut her a quick sideways look and grinned. “He’s giving me the silent treatment, I think. He’s not a fan of my plan.” I was too wired to really care. Completely wound up. My entire body was buzzing with energy. My hands, my legs, even the inside of my stomach felt like a live wire, sparking and tingling.

  “I’m not entirely sure I like it either.” She laughed. It was just a little laugh and it sounded panicked. “I’m also not even sure I know what it is anymore.”

  I stayed silent, searching the clusters for Erika. My head was just too full to try and get anything out. Jade’s dad was a shifter. A full-blown shifter. That was big. Huge. And Erika’s plan, combined with mine … I had to tell her. Had to talk to her. I needed every little detail.

  Jade waited for a moment and then she let out a long, dramatic sigh. “You want me to talk to him?”

  “Nope. He’ll get over it.” I continued scanning the yard, and finally spotted Erika tucked away under a tree. “Come on, we need to chat with Erika.” I reached out and took her hand, and together we skirted the yard.

  When I’d first met Jeff I thought something was wrong with me. I felt like I was losing my senses. I’d been going crazy these last few weeks trying to figure why I couldn’t smell his animal. Had he been taking some kind of drug that masked his scent? Or was there some kind of herb he was using? I knew it had to be something and I knew it wasn’t just me. My pack didn’t smell the cougar in him either. But the reason had been simple. The reason was his species.

  Jade didn’t get it. I knew I probably should have taken the time to try and explain it to her better. But really, I didn’t know much more than what I’d already said. Shifters, real, full shifters, carried only the scent of the form they were in, while they were in it. It had something to do with the multiple animal thing. That’s what the shifter from my dad’s pack had told me when I was a kid, and even to him it had been a mystery of sorts. He’d called it nature, but I remember telling him it was magic.

  Damn, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t put it together. It was all there, staring me right in the face. But in my defense, I hadn’t come across a full shifter since I was seven and that was a long time ago.

  What Jeff had said about the wolf pack pushing them out of Dog Mountain could very well be true. From what I’d been told about the Dog Mountain pack history, the cougars had been around tormenting them from before Jeff was even born. And Richard had said the same thing before he died. It would explain the bad blood between my pack and his.

  I wondered if the cougars even knew what he was. Shifters weren’t a common species to come across. But as Jeff told Jade, times change so maybe they did know. Maybe he’d promised them world domination or some crap like that, and with the rest of the stuff he’d spewed at Jade about uniting shifters, and being unstoppable, well, it kind of made sense that they did know. So even though she told him to run, my gut was telling me he didn’t go far.

  And that was exactly why Erika’s plan was brilliant. With a few tweaks we could make it look like Jade had a change of heart after seeing her father. She could deliver the females as a peace offering. The first step in uniting our packs. It was perfect.

  But really, uniting shifters was a joke. There was a reason why packs didn’t mix, especially wolves. We were too damn territorial. Another pack coming in, all it would lead to is one big pissing contest. Sure, we could work together when necessary, but even then it wasn’t an entirely comfortable union and it typically ended as soon as the job was done.

  The whole unstoppable thing was a joke, too. What did he think? We’d just come out in the open and take over the world? Even if he managed to get enough shifters on board, humans would be an entirely different story. Dog Mountain was unique. They accepted us probably because we didn’t let our pack business spill too much into their day-to-day lives. But humans as a whole, in big numbers, they’d panic. And they had a whole lot of guns and testing facilities. Shifters, Weres, we’d never stand a chance against human technology when that panic set in.

  So what would that leave him? Maybe he’d be able to rule the shifters. Maybe a few were-packs would join in. But in the end, he’d still be a nothing. A blip on the map.

  Erika was sitting, tucked under a tree watching Craig’s every movement as if it were the last time she’d ever see him and she was trying to commit it all to memory. As we reached her, Jade squeezed my hand tightly. I didn’t know if it was some kind of warning or her nerves, but I rubbed my thumb in small circles on her palm between our clasped hands, figuring it might soothe her either way, and said, “Hey, Erika.”

  Erika startled and looked up at me with wide eyes. “Oh, hey,” she said, and faked a smile as she glanced between Jade and me, before she let her gaze fall back to Craig.

  I watched her faze us out, as if she’d already forgotten we were there, and I wondered if she knew how damaged she looked. Probably not. It was like her heart wasn’t just broken, but had been torn clean out and was lying at her feet.

  Seeing her damaged managed to tamp down my excitement, and made me feel like a piece of crap, because it was partly my fault that Craig wouldn’t speak to her. I let go of Jade’s hand, crouched down beside her, and placed a hand on her bent knee. “If you want to talk to him, I’ll pull him out of there. Mark could take over.”

  Erika considered it, and then shrugged. “Nah, it’d just piss him off.” She noticed Jade looking at my hand and quickly brushed it from her knee. The fake smile made another appearance. “Besides, it’s just hit 11:00. Landon will be here any time now. No point in Craig wasting his anger on me when he could use it fighting.”

  I glanced up at Jade. I was completely lost on what to do here. I didn’t know if this was some secret girl code like the word fine which I knew from experience meant anything but fine, or if Erika was serious and she really didn’t want to talk to Craig.

  Jade watched us for a long second, before
she slowly bent down and took a seat beside Erika. She kept her expression carefully still as Erika shimmied back from me. She didn’t want to scare her, I realized.

  When Erika stopped squirming, she said, “I told Aidan about your idea.” Her tone was soothing, sweet even, and just as fake as Erika’s smile. “He said he likes it.”

  Erika glanced at me and hesitated. “You like it?” She blinked and smiled for real. “Really?”

  I grinned and the excitement started to bubble up again. I was about to tell her and Jade the new plan that was forming in my mind when Craig, his voice growled, asked from behind me, “What’s going on here?”

  Right, I thought. He was always watching her, too, even if she didn’t realize it. My grin widened at the stunned look on Erika’s face as her eyes slid past me to look at him.

  I glanced over my shoulder and said, “Grab Beck and Mark, and tell Dominic to get over his issues and get over here. There’s been a change in plans.”

  ~ JADE ~

  It was nearly 11:15 when Dominic finally shifted and joined us. Fifteen long minutes and my heart was still beating wildly in my throat. I wasn’t sure I liked hyper Aidan. Actually, it was kind of unnerving.

  Dominic paused at the edge of our little meeting, and when he noticed that Aidan hadn’t waited for him, I thought he looked disappointed for a quick second, but then his closed off mask fell back in place.