This Weakness For You (Entangled Select Otherworld) (Taming the Pack)

by Wendy Sparrow

  “Christa, those green pills make me dizzy, so I stopped taking them a few days ago. I really don’t think I need them.”

  “Green pills?” She sorted through his prescription history. “Do you know what they are? Because I’m not seeing anything in what your doctor has reported in that should look like that.”

  Ernie was quiet. “Wait, do you think these might be my wife’s pills? The doctor gave her something for menopause, and she keeps sticking it on my shelf and sometimes I don’t have my glasses on when I take my pills—so I just take one from each bottle.”

  She sat back in the chair, tossing down the pen. “Ernie, if you’re going through menopause, that’s a whole other problem we should be talking about.”

  Ernie laughed. “Let me go check my cabinet and see.”

  The loud rattle of gravel and the squeak of brakes put a frown on her face. “Was that at your place or mine?”

  “What’s that?” Ernie asked. She heard him shuffling across carpet.

  The door was flung open and Jordan strode in.

  “Uhh, Ernie, my…uhh…Jordan just got here…I’ll need to call you back.”

  Jordan didn’t even pause; he stalked toward her…yes, stalking was in their nature. Her heart started to pound, and she was too shocked to be happy.

  He was home.

  Jordan was home.

  “What?” Ernie asked.

  Jordan yanked the receiver out of her hand. “She’ll call you back,” he said before hanging up. He pulled her out of the chair and set her on the desk. Leaning in, he cupped her face. “What the hell do you do for a living?” Then he blinked and said, “Never mind.” He lowered his mouth onto hers. He pushed her lips open, demanding entrance, and his tongue stroked hers.

  Her entire body flushed with heat, and she opened her legs so he could move between them and press closer to her. She hooked her legs around his hips. This was really happening. After all their dancing around this, it was finally happening.

  He pulled back slightly and murmured against her mouth, “I missed you.”

  She’d expected him to go back to kissing her, but he pulled back farther. Her lips felt wet and cold, and she opened her eyes. He was staring down at her—devouring her—his gaze hot and intense. There was a thin line between the man and the beast.

  “I wish we had about fifteen minutes to spare,” he said, picking her up, his hands on her butt and with her legs still around his waist.

  She pressed herself tighter against him and sighed…until his words caught her attention.

  “Wait, what?” Her hands had crept up around his neck, and she leaned back to meet his gaze again. “We don’t have fifteen minutes?” She twisted and looked around. He was heading toward the open front door—carrying her. His Bronco was out front with the engine idling, and the front door still open.

  Lucifer slid back inside the house just before Jordan slammed the front door closed without breaking stride.

  “Jordan?” She grabbed his face and forced his eyes to meet hers. “What’s going on?”

  “Meeting. You’re coming.” He set her down on the passenger seat.

  “Why am I coming? What are you doing home?”

  He slid behind the wheel, and a moment later they were tearing out of his driveway like he was sixteen and holding his driver’s license for the first time.

  “Jordan!” She punched his arm. “Drop the Alpha act and explain now or I will jump from a moving vehicle.” She’d expected to be on his bed making wild jungle love, not hurtling along the road at crazy speeds.

  He handed her his cell phone. “We’ll get reception at the end of the road. Call your brother and tell him we’re on our way, and that you’re fine.”

  She punched him again. “Jordan!”

  He blinked and turned to her. “What?”

  “What is going on?”

  He shook his head and said, “Uhh, sorry, I think I’m in a bit of an adrenaline fog and I didn’t sleep last night. I’m trying not to lose focus.” He exhaled deeply. “Okay, the trip to Rainier was a trick to get me to leave my pack vulnerable, and one of my former pack members who apparently hated all of us set up an extermination of the whole pack. I’ve been trying to call you—so has your brother, but he had to get the whole pack to safety and to be counted, so I told him I’d pick you up. I’d almost had an operator break through on the phone, but I figured if you were on the phone, you were safe, and I didn’t want you leaving the house alone.”

  Her mouth went dry, and she kept staring at him. Eventually she had to blink, but then she went back to staring at him.

  Jordan reached out and shook her shoulder. “Breathe, woman. You’re going to pass out.”

  She inhaled deeply. “Wait…so someone is trying to kill your pack?”

  “Our pack? Yes. A Lycan named Ross sold us out to the poachers. According to Travis, they were given all our names and addresses, along with notes on the most vulnerable among us. He said he’d get me out of the way for the first wave of attacks—as long as they left killing Dane and me to him.”

  “What?” she screeched—in what could only be described as a banshee tone.

  Jordan winced.

  She cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “I mean…what?” she asked in a more reasonable and less screechy voice.

  “Yes, he blamed us for the death of that Lycan—the one I scent-matched with, the one your brother killed.”

  She sat back and just kept shaking her head back and forth—it felt like the only reasonable response.

  Jordan reached out and ran a hand along her thigh.

  “Keep both your hands on the wheel! You’re driving like a maniac!”

  He reached out, grabbed her hand, and put it on his thigh. “Okay, but I need to be touching you. I’ve been out of my mind for the last two hours trying to get to you. I kept trying to focus on the pack, but in the end, I just left that to your brother since he had his mate and child right there with him.”

  The phone in her other hand started ringing and she answered it. “Dane, sorry, I didn’t realize we had reception.”

  “He has you,” Dane said, exhaling slowly. “Tell Jordan everyone—in one way or another—is accounted for.”

  “I heard,” Jordan said, his jaw tightened. “We’re about five minutes out. I don’t want to know anything else until I’m there. I need to concentrate on driving.”

  “Uhh, he said not to say anything else, he has to concentrate on driving—and, trust me, Dane, he really does. He is driving crazy.”

  Dane actually laughed. “Yeah, tell him if he kills you both, that will slow you down significantly.”

  A ghost of a smile played on Jordan’s mouth as he slowed down.

  “What was that about?” she asked as she hung up.

  “Your brother is enjoying throwing every single thing I ever said to him back in my face,” Jordan said. He was only going sixty now—it was still about thirty miles an hour faster than anyone should drive on this road, but it wasn’t the gas pedal straight to the floor as he’d been doing before.

  Jordan’s phone started ringing again. “Uhh, it says it’s Travis,” she said.

  “Go ahead and answer it.”

  “Hey, Travis.”

  There was a smile in his voice as he said, “Hey, Dane’s sister and Mrs. Hill.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I’m guessing you’re answering the phone because Jordan is still driving like a maniac.”

  “What’s new?” Jordan asked, his eyes on the road. She kept the phone up to her ear since Jordan didn’t have any problem hearing it anyway.

  “He’s not only turned off his cell phone, but he’s disabled it—smashed it or something so that the GPS doesn’t work. We also found a jammer that he must have used to block Colby’s signal so that I thought Colby was off the grid. He might be using something like that again on his cell, but whatever he did, it’s working—the cell phone is a dead end. He knows we’re onto him. He must have fi
gured out when I didn’t respond to his text earlier. Or—he might have seen you gathering in pack members and guessed.”

  “Dammit,” Jordan said.

  “But there’s more.” Travis paused. And cleared his throat.

  She didn’t have to know much about Travis to know that what was coming next couldn’t be good.

  “What?” Jordan growled.

  “Ross tapped your phone. Your home phone.”

  “What!” she and Jordan shouted at the same time.

  “That’s how he contacted the poachers. That site your brother found—he got on it. We found out from his search history. Plus, it’s the only thing that makes sense with the information he fed the poachers.”

  Jordan’s string of profanity was vivid and colorful, and she’d never heard anyone curse quite so fluently, but all she could think of was that her first brush with dirty talk had spectators. That was a little too dirty. “Ew,” she said.

  Jordan stopped swearing and looked at her. “I swear I didn’t know. I never would have started this if I’d known.”

  “I need a shower. Then I need you to find that guy, whatever his name is, and rip out his throat or at least make him forget all of last night’s conversation. Because…ew.”

  “I don’t think we’re all on the same page,” Travis said.

  “Travis?” Jordan snarled.

  “Yeah.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Yup.”

  Christa looked at Jordan. “Jordan, I said…things.”

  “Christa, it’s going to be fine.”

  She nodded, but…oh my hell…she’d said things. Lots of things. Then, Jordan had said things and… The world looked…sparkly.

  “Breathe, Christa,” Jordan said, and she inhaled.

  “It’s going to be fine,” both men said at the same time.

  “Hey, she’s my wife. Only I’m allowed to say things are going to be fine,” Jordan yelled.

  They all went silent.

  “He hasn’t slept very much,” Travis volunteered.

  Blinking, Christa turned to Jordan and patted his thigh. “It’s going to be fine, Jordan.”

  “I can’t believe I—like a damn fool—led him to a poacher. This is all on me.”

  Christa slugged him in the arm. “Yes, because you knew some sadistic freak was listening in and felt like killing a lot of people.”

  “He would have found them eventually,” Travis said. “He’d already been looking. Do you want to hear the rest?”

  Jordan sighed. “Sure. How bad can the rest of it be?”

  “Well, Ross is more masochistic than we gave him credit for. He’d yanked his tracking chip out and left it behind so we’d think he was here all this time. Also, he was about as sadistic as we assumed, because the scent of blood led us to the freezer where there is indeed a bag of guts that he must have been smearing all over himself in order to leave trails.”

  “Ew,” Christa said.

  “Oh, right, I forgot you were listening. Sorry about that.”

  “Still not as gross as him knowing I ate ice cream naked.”

  “Having seen the freezer, I’m going to have to disagree,” Travis said.

  “Wait…you don’t seem surprised by the ice cream thing…you were listening, too!”

  “You talk very loud.”

  Jordan broke in, snarling, “I can’t believe I fell for it as long as I did. I’ve been there, chasing my damn tail, and the bastard’s been here this whole time.”

  She rubbed her hand up and down his leg again, and the scowl on his face faded to a serious frown.

  “I was still falling for it,” Travis said. “And I think if you hadn’t been anxious to get home to your mate, you would have too.”

  Jordan shrugged. “You might be right. I was rushing everything to get back here, and I was looking for an excuse to come back.”

  Christa bit her lip to avoid smiling. He’d really wanted to come home to her. He wasn’t just saying that.

  “Besides, you left Dane in charge—you didn’t just abandon your pack.”

  Jordan sighed. “He’s been here for three days, Travis. Three days that I should have been here, too.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” Christa and Travis said at the same time.

  Jordan glanced over at her, bemused. “We’re almost to our pack’s gathering. I’ll call you when I have a handle on how many are dead and what our weaknesses are.”

  “How many are dead? People are dead?” She’d screeched again.

  Jordan winced, and she heard a moaned, “Damn, that was loud. I told you that you’re loud,” from Travis.

  “I’m sorry, but…people are dead! I’m not used to dead people. Maybe you guys have people dying all the time, but…”

  “You should count prime numbers,” Travis said. “In your head. I do that. So, Jordan, when you know the score, some of my pack wants to come up on hunting parties—especially if it gives them the chance to hunt poachers. If it gives us the chance to hunt poachers, that’d make this worth it.”

  “I doubt Colby would agree,” Jordan.

  “Hell yeah he would. If there’s a heaven, he’s just pissed he died before he could go on a poacher hunt.”

  Jordan visibly relaxed. His clenched grip on the steering wheel loosened so his knuckles were no longer white.

  “Well, and that he ended up in someone’s freezer. I’m not sure if we should stuff his guts back in his body before we bury it or what. They’re kind of a mess. If I’d done this, I’d have double-bagged them.”

  “I think we’re done talking about this,” Christa said.

  “Yup. It puts you eating ice cream naked into perspective, doesn’t it?”

  “Travis, so help me…” But she was talking to dead air.

  “He’s an ass.” Jordan shrugged.

  She set the phone in her lap. Okay, she could handle this. After so many years of dealing with minor emergencies over the phone, you’d think she’d be better equipped to handle this…but she was days into a marriage and rulership of werewolves. And someone had listened in on her first filthy conversation. That was just so wrong. But she could do this.

  “Hill’s Contracting and Construction? This is your work?” she asked as they approached the building.

  “Most of the pack works here, but I own it. They work for me.” Jordan parked in the full parking lot, but didn’t get out. “There are a lot of cars here—that’s good. I see Ethan’s car.” His gaze flew from car to car. “In fact, if I’m counting right…we have someone from nearly every family.” He took a deep breath. “Though I don’t think I’d count that as a good thing if I lost my mate.”

  Christa unbuckled and scooted closer to him. “Well, from your mate’s perspective, I think that is a good thing.”

  He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Jordan?”

  He finally looked at her.

  “This is my first meeting. Is there anything I absolutely shouldn’t do? Like anything that’ll get me tossed out—my throat ripped out—or do only you do that?”

  He blinked. “Your throat ripped out?”

  She shrugged. “Vanessa said some things were that serious.”

  He shook his head and leaned to press a kiss on her mouth. “No one will do that, I promise. Most of the Lycans will keep their heads down unless they want to be recognized to speak. You’ll be forgiven for speaking out of turn, though, since you’re Alpha—plus you’re new, small, and cute.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’ve always wanted to have new, small, and cute on my side.”

  “Wait, there is one thing…” He glanced around before turning the key on in the ignition, flipping on the radio, and cranking up the volume. Dragging her close, he said in her ear, “You absolutely shouldn’t mention that I scent-matched before you or that Dane killed her. As far as you know, that didn’t happen. It might be very bad for your brother if you did. You don’t even know the Lycan was a female. Don’t talk to me abou
t it. Don’t talk to your brother about it. Don’t mention it out loud. Ever. You understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Say that you understand—I need you to understand how serious this is.”

  “I understand.”

  Jordan trailed his mouth along her jaw and pressed a quick kiss on her mouth. “I missed you,” he said again before turning off the radio and grabbing the keys from the ignition.

  Jordan finally opened the car door, but gestured for her to wait as he inhaled deeply. Then he lifted her out, and rather than setting her down, he ran toward the building. The door opened as he approached, and Ethan let them in. Ethan smiled at her, without meeting her gaze.

  “Good to see you, Ethan,” Jordan said, setting her on her feet.

  “Good to be seen,” Ethan said.

  “Are we watching our backs in here?”

  Ethan nodded to a side room. “Cramer is monitoring those cameras we added two years ago. I think you’ve made your point that they weren’t just paranoid nonsense.”

  “You were the one who said they were,” Jordan commented.

  “I know. That’s what I’m saying.”

  Jordan turned away and then swung back around. “My landline at home is bugged.”

  Ethan shot him a bewildered look. “You mean you don’t check that?”

  Jordan blinked once and then asked, “Can you take care of it for me?”

  “Sure. I’ll sweep all the rooms, too.”

  “You have the equipment for that?”

  “Of course.” His tone was so matter-of-fact it made Christa smile. Old guys were awesome.

  “Are you a vet, Ethan?” Christa asked.

  Ethan stood a little straighter. “Yes, I am. Marine. Semper fi.” And he’d bowed his head while talking to her. Amazing. Her dad would love Ethan.

  Jordan grabbed her hand and pulled her through into a big meeting room that had a two-foot-high platform spanning one end. There was a crowd of over fifty people there, and they stepped back with their heads down as Jordan dragged her through. Dane was already on the platform with Vanessa near him. She was rocking Nathanial in her arms while staring out over the group with pinched features. Once they were on the platform, Jordan squeezed her hand and nodded toward Vanessa…then he let go and turned to scan the group. Christa went around Dane and Jordan to stand by Vanessa.