by AJ Merlin
“Is the camera focusing itself, Hades?” I asked, when our standoff held.
His smile widened and the heaviness of the air evaporated, the sumptuous possibilities leeched from the air. “No it is not.” He got to his feet and walked back to it, giving me a chance to actually breathe.
“I guess that’s it then,” the man announced a moment later, rocking back on his heels.
I rolled to my feet on the side of the bed closest to the door, as if by looking the other way I could hide how my heart pounded and heat curled in my belly.
I needed to think of something not sexy. Like…our sister Beatrice during one of her sermons. Or moss. Or–“
“Unless you want to stay and track my viewer count?” Hades offered carefully.
And there went my attempts at finding my cool.
“No,” I said, the word a question. I cleared my throat. “Sorry. No I…I don’t think I’d know how to do that.”
“You count,” Hades informed me. “And tell me when my views are highest, or when they start to drop off.”
“Can’t I do that somewhere else? From my laptop or something? I don’t want to interrupt you. Or distract you.” I wasn’t sure my poor omega heart could take being in the same room as him when he filmed.
“Yeah. I’ll set you up with a laptop and a private room. Would that be better?” His voice again held that teasing lilt and I did not miss the implication of his words.
I wouldn’t be tracking anything other than my own filthy thoughts if we did that, I was sure.
“I’m sure I could make that work,” I replied, unwilling to back down so easily now that I had some space again.
When I looked at him, I saw he was grinning down at the laptop. “That’s all I needed,” he told me, sneaking a glance up at my face. “You can go get ready for taco night, if you want.”
“Are you jealous?” I was already backing towards the door.
“Yeah Alek,” he replied. “I am a thousand percent jealous that I’m not joining you at your place for taco night.”
Somehow, that didn’t sound like the joke I was sure he meant it as.
Chapter Eleven
“You liar!” Noah pointed a finger at me, adopting a lofty pose and holding the fridge door open to prove his words.
“What?” Stalking out of my room, I looked between him and the fridge. “What are you on, Noah?”
“You said we had everything for tacos.”
“We do.” I grabbed the fridge door, and pointed at the necessary ingredients. “Chicken, beef, sour cream, cheese, and taco shells. Beans are in the cabinet.”
“Where’s the salsa?”
Oh. Right. The salsa.
In my opinion there was no need for salsa, so I frequently forgot it was on the necessary ingredients list.
Oops.
“Oh. Right. You used it all the other night, didn’t you?”
“And you said we had more.”
“Well obviously I misspoke.” He closed the door with a groan.
“I’ll go get it,” I said, not bothering to change out of my comfortable hoodie and leggings. The store was only a couple of blocks away, after all. I’d be there and back in less than an hour.
“Well I’d hope so. Since you burn water and I am a master of seasoning.”
I didn’t remark on that, knowing how seriously he meant it. I did, in fact, not cook well. That was proven fact.
Noah was a damn good chef, and made our cheap, corner-store ingredients taste a lot better than I would ever think they could.
“Yeah, yeah.” I slipped on my sneakers, phone already in the pocket of my leggings along with my card. “If I’m not back by seven, you’d better come looking for me.”
“Right,” he agreed, pulling the meat out of the fridge. “God knows you get sidetracked easily enough. Guess it’s a damn good thing Hades doesn’t live anywhere near here.”
Or Roman, I added to myself. While I’d told him most of what had happened at Sadie’s party, he still didn’t get why I’d run away, nor why I was so smitten with the alpha that I’d never met before that night.
But really, I didn’t either. Sure, he smelled nice. But it wasn’t just that. Not when I’d met him and become smitten with his personality so easily.
Closing the door behind me, I made my way down the stairs, eyes on the door of our shitty apartment complex. We could move soon, I told myself, feeling my stomach rise in potential excitement. If I could save up from working at Prowl, and as long as Noah kept making what he did, we could get out of this shitty neighborhood and go somewhere worth living.
Nowhere like where Hades actually lived, I was sure. Noah’s joke was obviously just that. While he might have been a performer who made a very good living from posting erotic videos on Prowl, I figured he had no real need of a job.
Not when his clan, the Ahlleron family of panther shifters, all but ruled the city of Atlanta.
No son of them would ever be seen in my neighborhood, I was sure. Hades would probably break into hives just by setting foot on my street.
“Hello Alek!” The florist who worked next door to our complex paused in her repairs of the front door, something that seemed to constantly be breaking.
“Oh hey, Cynthia,” I greeted with a smile of my own for the older woman. “That door again, huh?”
She heaved a sigh and stood, brushing her hands off on well worn jeans. “If it’s not one part, it’s the next. You know I just installed new glass in it last week? Now the hinges are coming apart.”
“Maybe you should invest in a new door?”
Cynthia shook her head, her brunette curls making a valiant attempt at escaping their ponytail. “No, I don’t want to ruin the look of this old place. She has history.” She petted the door like an affectionate family member. “Where are you headed?”
“The store,” I said, hands still in my pockets. “We’re out of salsa, and Noah gets cranky if he doesn’t have any in the cabinets.”
She chuckled. “Oh-I meant to ask. Did that friend of yours ever find you?”
I’d taken a step, but now I paused again. “Friend of mine?”
“You know, the one who couldn’t remember your apartment number yesterday?” Cynthia busied herself by picking up her tools. “He was asking someone else who lives in the building about you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I admitted, bemused. “No one was trying to find me that I know of. Are you sure they weren’t looking for Alex? She lives a floor up from us.”
“Hmm.” Cynthia looked thoughtful. “Honestly, that could’ve been it. I was just eavesdropping while working out here.”
It most definitely was. Though she wouldn’t admit it, Cynthia’s hearing wasn’t the greatest. And I definitely didn’t have any friends coming over.
Though, for a moment, my mind tried to convince me that Hades or Roman had somehow tracked me down and had come to serenade me from my window.
As if, Alek.
“I’ll keep an eye out,” I lied, waving a small goodbye. “Have a good night, Cynthia.”
“You too, Alek.”
A few steps later I heard the door close, and when I looked back I saw she’d retreated into her shop-and apartment above it-for the time being.
At just past six in the evening, our street was as busy as it could ever get. Which didn’t mean a lot. Most of the places were businesses in this area, and being that they closed at five or so, there was little traffic going in or out.
That barely changed when I turned the corner to the final stretch of sidewalk before I hit the corner market.
A few women sat out on their porch, smoking pot from the smell of things. When I passed, the blonde of the pair offered me a grin.
I grinned back. She was nice, though Noah would never agree with that sentiment, I was sure. Not when she spent so much time telling him he was cute when we walked by.
In my opinion, she just liked to rile him up.
“Where’s yo
ur friend?” the woman called when it was obvious Noah wasn’t about to round the corner.
“He’s back at home,” I replied, not stopping. “I’ll tell him you missed him, though.”
“You do that.” She said something quietly to her friend and they both giggled over what I assumed was Noah.
The door to the corner grocery opened when I was still a good distance away, prompting a woman to stumble out onto the sidewalk. She glanced at me, tears staining her thin face, and immediately started striding in the other direction.
What’s her deal? I wondered, eyes on her until I made it to the door of the small store. Well, the problems of the world weren’t mine. No matter how I tried to convince myself sometimes that I could right injustices with a well placed, scornful look.
Besides, she didn’t look like she wanted any company, and I was dying for Noah’s cooking.
The door opened again, this time as I reached for the handle. A man came out, eyes fixed on me as he sucked in a very pointed breath.
I didn’t need to be that dramatic. It was obvious that he was an alpha, even without his cologne-drenched scent to tell me as much.
He hesitated. I saw the man eye me up and down, then watched as he turned the other way until he spotted the girl hurrying along the sidewalk.
Without a word, he let go of the glass door and followed after her.
The man wasn’t subtle about it, either. He walked fast, eating up the distance between him and her without even checking to see if I was looking.
Now that he wasn’t looking, I let myself shudder in revulsion. He brought a bad taste to my mouth that had nothing to do with the cheap cologne, and I stared after him with my face curled in disgust.
“It’s not your problem, Alek,” I told myself with a sigh, reaching out for the handle again.
I opened the door. “Really, really not your problem. You’ll probably regret doing what you’re thinking of doing.” Still I didn’t take a step, and the cashier looked at me in confusion when I just stood at the door like I was frozen.
“You really shouldn’t do this,” I added, but let go of the door while I was still on the outside of it.
Before I could stop to consider my decision further, I followed after the man.
He never looked back. The woman did, but only to see him following her before she started to walk faster.
For my part, I tried to think of what I should-or could-do. Leaping on the man’s back seemed like a bit of a bad idea. He was bigger than me, for one, and while that wasn’t a definite indication of strength, he was built a bit too much like a bear for my comfort.
If he was a bear and I jumped onto his back, the fight could take a very unfortunate turn very quickly. While I definitely had a habit of jumping into fights without all of the information beforehand, something about him gave me pause.
But I wasn’t going to let him hurt her. Could it be that they were just having some kind of quarrel?
I couldn’t take the chance that it was something more.
I swerved to the inside of the sidewalk so I could look more at her, and I saw the way she peeked at him fearfully and the way her eyes widened when she noticed the distance between them had lessened.
If it was a quarrel, it was one she was terrified of having.
The moment she turned into a dead end that ended only in a grassy lot, my stomach sank.
This was absolutely happening, and I had no idea what my plan was. It was different when it wasn’t happening to me. I was usually able to size up an alpha, and I’d never met one that scared me like this.
The man following her gave me pause. What sane person dogged a woman who was terrified of him for blocks, only to corner her in an abandoned lot?
When I turned the corner, she’d realized her mistake and had turned on the man, fresh tears running down her face.
“Are you okay?” I called, making sure the woman could hear my voice as I strode into the lot.
Her eyes flitted briefly from him to me, then went right back. As if he might attack her at any moment and she needed to be ready for it.
“I-I’m-“ she swallowed visibly.
“She’s fine,” the large, greasy-haired man snapped, visibly sizing me up with beady brown eyes. “We’re just having a disagreement. Get lost.”
“Seems like she’s uncomfortable,” I went on, walking around him slowly and giving the man a wide berth.
“She’s fine,” the man snapped again, sparing me a glance from his very dark eyes.
“Uh huh.” My tone was nowhere near believing, and I sidled closer to the woman until I was standing by her side. Just because I didn’t want to leap on him just yet did not mean that I would let him lay a hand on her. “Maybe this is a discussion you could have later? When she’s less upset?”
I put an arm around the woman in a show of solidarity and watched the man’s narrowed eyes flit between her body and my arm like I’d done something offensive.
The woman flinched under the weight of my arm, her shoulders raising defensively as her head lowered.
“I won’t tell you again,” the man said, and as I watched he began to shift just enough to show me that my concerns had been well placed. “Leave.”
Muscles swelled under his tanned skin, bulging under his sleeves and jeans. His nose seemed to flatten, teeth elongating as his nails curled and darkened.
There was every possibility in the world this man was about to turn into a fucking bear and rip my ass apart.
“Okay. Well…no.” I stepped in front of the woman protectively. “I don’t know what she did, but this really isn’t okay.”
In response to his visible threat, my own shift flowed through my body, my teeth lengthening and nails becoming claw-like.
However, I wasn’t sure that answering him with my own animal shape was the right move here.
He was much, much bigger than my maned wolf shape already. And I doubted he would be shrinking soon.
Lost in my own self-sabotaging thoughts, I found myself reacting late when the man reached for me.
Still I was able to slip free of him, and used the speed of my maned wolf to slam my fist into his collarbone.
He roared, the decidedly-ursine growl echoing off the buildings around us.
“D-don’t–“ the woman caught my wrist in her small hand. “He’ll hurt you. Just let him–“
“Hurt you instead?” I interrupted hotly, words sounding cluttered around my fangs. She met my orange eyes with hers that had brightened to a clear, aquatic blue. “I’m not okay with that.”
“He’s done it before. I’ll survive,” she pleaded. “But if you make him angry, he’ll just do worse to us both.”
I wasn’t sure what world she lived in that less abuse was the only answer to a problem, but I refused to join her in it.
I’d much rather find a way to pull her out.
The man had recovered, his collarbone healing in the time that it took the woman to plead her case to me. He growled, and I tuned out the words that he’d added under that unpleasant sound.
“You’re being loud,” I reminded him, turning to keep him in sight as he circled me. “Someone’s going to show up soon.”
He scoffed and ran a hand through his greasy hair. “In this part of town? Don’t make me laugh, stupid girl.”
“She didn’t mean to,” the woman said suddenly. “She just-just wanted to help–“
“No she definitely meant to,” I interrupted flatly. “I don’t know what it’s going to take to get you to leave, but that’s what’s going to happen here.”
“Sure,” the man sneered. “Soon as she comes with me and you screw off.” Without waiting for me to politely decline his request, he tried grabbing for me again. I dodged his reaching hand, coming up and under to shove him backward and further from her.
He reached for me, trying to pull me back with him, and managed to grab my hoodie. I jerked in response, pressure screaming at my throat as the fabric pulled tight.
Until it ripped, sending the man to the ground and leaving me with most of my hoodie intact.
“I always did think this should be off the shoulder,” I muttered, stalking closer to him. “You done? You ready to walk this off and–“
He tackled me, not bothering to stand up to do it.
I’d been an idiot for standing so close, and when the bear shifter pulled me to the ground, I realized quickly how much danger I was in.
My heart rose to my throat, pounding as I grappled for a grip on his wrists that sought to pin me to the ground, hands uncomfortably close to my throat.
Don’t let him break your neck, Alek! my better sense chanted loudly as I tangled my legs in his and shoved.
His body jerked upward just enough for me to get leverage from the ground. I bucked, knee slamming between his legs and helping me roll him over so that I was the one pinning him.
As fear and adrenaline pumped through my body, so too did my animal instincts try to take over. I snarled, my mouth full of fangs as the tingling of my shift tickled my body. I’d change and rip him apart before he could. I knew I could do it, even with the strange, distracting scent in the air that grew louder and voices that didn’t sound like the woman’s behind me yelling for me to stop–
An arm encircled my neck, jerking me backward and towing me off the bear shifter’s body. I scrabbled at the man’s forearm, my nails sinking in deep and causing rivulets of blood to flow.
“Let me go!” I snarled, eyes fixed on my prey who wasn’t yet sorry enough for picking a fight with me.
“Cut it out!” The man ordered, not letting go or even flinching as my claws again cut deep. “I’m not letting you go over there and kill him–“
“Let me go!” My wolf instincts were in a frenzy, a predator’s tunnel vision fixated only on the other man who was being pulled roughly to his feet by a man and woman with cuffs at their waists.
“Not until you calm down.” The person behind me was incredibly calm for the situation, and their arm flexed as they tightened their grip on my throat until it was uncomfortable. “And probably not then, either. You can’t just attack people in the street, Alek. You’re going to have to come with us.”
