by AJ Merlin
“Alek, I really think-“
A tearing sound from my bedroom made both of us look down the hallway, eyes fixed on the solid wood of the door.
“This isn’t a good idea,” Roman warned again, but kept step with me as I walked towards my door.
“I’m not afraid of anyone. No matter who the hell is here, I’m not-“ I shoved the door open hard, claws that had taken the place of nails clicking on the wood of the door as I sent it flying back on its hinges.
Jack Thomas, my least favorite Uptown Grounds customer of all time, sat on my bed, methodically tearing the maned wolf stuffed animal to shreds.
“What are you doing?” I hissed, moving to let Roman into the room beside me.
Jack’s eyes slowly slid from the stuffed animal to Roman, never once landing on me. They were pale, pale grey, and more of the color leeched from them as I watched.
“An enforcer,” he sneered, speaking to Roman. “She wanted to be protected so badly she settled for an enforcer?”
His words shocked me to my core, but hot fury quickly replaced the shock.
“Protection?” I demanded. “I don’t need protection.” I was going to make him regret breaking in here and touching the stuffed animal Roman had given me.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Roman growled under his breath, not once losing his cool like I had. “You’ve been following her, too, haven’t you?”
Jack only shrugged one shoulder, tossing the remains of Roman’s gift on the bed. “I had to. After she left her last job, I needed to make sure she was safe.”
“Safe?” I was so confused. Utterly baffled and unsure of what the hell was going on. Jack Thomas was my stalker that apparently did exist? “Jack, what in the world is wrong with you?”
For the first time, Jack looked at me. “You just don’t get it,” he said, slowly getting to his feet. “What’s wrong with you, Alek? All those times I asked you out. All those times I walked you out, or stayed late to make sure no one else touched you-“ He broke off and sucked in a breath, eyes closing as he calmed himself down.
Roman and I traded another look, both of us staring at each other in utter confusion. What was wrong with me?
“And you just pick up the first three alphas you can find. What is it about them? The money? The reputation? Having the law on your side?” He gestured at Roman. “Was I not good enough?”
“What are you…talking about?”
In no version of reality had Jack Thomas ever expressed any healthy interest in me. He’d touched me inappropriately, he’d stalked me, and he hadn’t left me alone even when I’d begged him to.
And now, he’d broken into my apartment and destroyed one of my absolute favorite possessions.
“Fuck it-I don’t care what your kind of crazy is. But this-any of this-isn’t okay!”
Under my glare, Jack Thomas’s bravado just…collapsed. His shoulder slumped, his hands falling limp in his lap. He sighed, head falling forward to hang from his shoulders like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.
“I guess I missed my shot, then, huh?” he chuckled to the floor.
Roman and I looked at one another again. I raised my shoulders in a confused shrug, and his frown deepened.
“You’re still under arrest,” my enforcer said firmly, striding forward to the bed and reaching out. “No matter what you were thinking, you-“
Time seemed to slow down as Jack’s hand uncurled to reveal a set of wickedly curved claws. His head tilted up, just enough for me to see his eyes that had lost all of their color and humanity.
“Roman!” I shrieked, reaching out towards him as I lunged forward.
He, too, saw the danger when I did. His mouth opened, fangs lengthening to sharp points when he moved to intercept Jack’s hand.
When he twisted, I could no longer see between them, but I could see when Roman jolted to a halt, his grip on Jack’s arm between them.
He’d stopped him. He was okay. Everything was-
Jack stood and turned, withdrawing his now bloodied hand from Roman’s chest as the latter fell onto his back on the bed.
I moved towards him, intent on getting to the enforcer as quickly as possible to make sure he was healing and call an ambulance.
But I never made it.
Jack caught my wrist in his bloodied hand, pulling me up short.
“He’ll probably die,” the alpha sniffed disdainfully, looking down at Roman. The enforcer was unconscious, though I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad in this situation.
From where I was standing, it didn’t look like he was healing. A wide tear in his shirt showed the furrows in his chest, just under his heart, and how blood-and-worse spilled out of the wound to stain both his shirt and my bed.
I blinked, dimly aware that tears had begun to fall, burning hot tracks on my cold skin as I watched Roman struggle for breath.
“How could you?” I screamed, turning and shoving hard at Jack. I growled, ready to shift and tear out his throat for what he’d done, but he roared in my face and sent me stumbling backward with a shove.
He was so strong. I tripped from his blow, landing on my ass against my own door as my arms shook from fear at Roman’s condition.
“Please!” I gasped, seeing the way Jack’s disdainful gaze had rolled back to my alpha’s. “Please just-just don’t hurt him anymore!”
His eyes flicked back to me, surveying me coldly. “Why?” he asked, voice cold. “Because you love him?”
I started to answer, but paused.
If I said yes, would that really save Roman from Jack?
How could I get him away from my alpha so that Roman could-hopefully-heal?
My heart pounded in my chest, distracting me from my thoughts in a terribly inconvenient way.
“Because it’s wrong,” I said at last, voice barely a whisper. “And I’d never forgive you.”
Surely, there had to be some truth to his words, right?
Truth to him, anyway.
If he’d been so interested in…me, then maybe somewhere in his insane little brain, he wouldn’t want to do something that would upset me.
Otherwise, Roman was dead and I’d never forgive myself.
Jack tilted his head, gazing at me like he hadn’t considered that answer. “Not because you love him?” he repeated.
“Not because I love him. I barely know him, Jack. He’s just-“ I swallowed the words that burned in my throat. Roman wasn’t just anything. “He’s just an alpha that I let court me.”
Please don’t be dying, I begged the coyote alpha’s still form. Please, please-
“You could’ve let me court you.” He sounded like a petulant child who hadn’t gotten his way and I had to fight back the sneer at his words.
“I…” I didn’t know what to say. Slowly, I got to my feet, wishing I could somehow pull my phone out of my pocket and call someone.
But with his attention fixed only on me, that wasn’t going to happen.
“It’s in the past now. Come on.” He walked past me, then paused at the door.
Go with him? No. No, no absolutely not. Everything about that screamed bad idea.
I had to buy myself some time.
“Can I please call someone for him?” I whispered, putting myself between the bed and Jack Thomas. “Please. He needs help. He’s a shifter too. We can’t just leave him-“
If I’d expected it, if my attention hadn’t been almost riveted to Roman, I would’ve seen his muscles tense. I would’ve seen him start to turn, and I would’ve seen the way his hand had curled into a fist before he lashed out at me with a loud snarl.
But instead, I didn’t. Instead, with too much of my focus on the bleeding wound on Roman’s chest, and with my attention split seventeen ways while I tried to figure out what to do, Jack was able to hit me without me even able to stumble back.
Pain exploded in my skull, as if he’d hit my temple with a sledge hammer and the force had shattered my skull into tiny fragments that lanced through my brain.
My knees folded of their own accord, mouth opening in a gasp as pain rocked me to my core and blackness rose to meet me in an unpleasant, painful thud.
Chapter Thirty-One
Roman was dead.
That unpleasant probability swam in my skull while I tried to swim upwards through dark, muddy waters that wanted to keep me asleep.
I didn’t want to wake up, because Roman was dead.
Without me there to call someone or stop the bleeding from the dreadful wound, would it have been able to heal? Sure, shifters healed fast, but…
But not from something like that. He would’ve needed help to heal from that.
And there hadn’t been anyone there, except for me and Jack.
Now Roman was dead, and it was my fault.
It was all my fault.
Finally opening my eyes, I found that I felt…dull. My head was fuzzy, and my vision wouldn’t quite clear. Scrunching my nose, I found that the unpleasant, flaky substance on the side of my head seemed to be dried blood.
The room I was in stank of rust, of mold, and of metal. Like an old building that hadn’t seen the light of construction in many years. The table my hands were cuffed to only pointed harder in that direction, and I wondered just how easily the rusty legs would snap if I tried to get free.
I couldn’t move my arms enough, either. They were handcuffed to a ring in the table in front of me, and when I tried to pull backward, I found my efforts weren’t enough to break free.
But none of that mattered, because Roman was dead.
I stared at my hands, clenching and unclenching my fingers.
Why did I feel so strange?
Why did I feel as if I couldn’t focus, and like my body and brain had suffered some kind of minor disconnect that interrupted fine motor function?
Where was I?
I swallowed around the cotton-y feel in my mouth and my brain registered the sound of a door opening, and footsteps coming closer.
For a brief moment, I wildly thought that my coyote alpha would walk through the doorway. That he was fine, and somehow things had worked out while I was asleep.
Instead, Jack appeared. His pale blonde hair slicked back in its normal style and his light blue eyes finding my own dull gaze.
Of course it wasn’t Roman.
Because he was-
“I’m glad you’re awake,” the man said, coming to stand in front of the table and bracing his hands on its surface.
“Are you?” I asked hollowly, swallowing around the dryness in my mouth.
“I realize that I might’ve overreacted, but…” he trailed off with a shrug of his shoulders. “I tried being a bit better about this, you know?”
“Being. Better,” I parroted, lifting my hands slightly and letting them fall in a jingle of metal. These were shifter cuffs, like Roman’s
I wasn’t going to be breaking free of them anytime soon.
“When was that? When you were stalking me? Or….the creepy roses? It was you who broke my lock the first time, wasn’t it?”
He watched me carefully, blue eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
But I wasn’t afraid of him.
Not here, where he couldn’t hurt anyone other than me.
Maybe if he’d known that I’d faced down crazy before and been just as helpless as I was now, he would’ve picked a better scare tactic.
“Or was being better back when I worked at Uptown Grounds and you couldn’t keep your hands off of me or your filthy mouth off my ear?”
He struck fast, but I didn’t flinch. Not when he moved, not when he pulled his hand back, and not when he slapped me.
I stared at him, pain burning like fire up the side of my face, He’d split my lip with the blow, and I opened my mouth to sigh and lick at the blood beading on my skin.
“I don’t like you speaking to me like that,” Jack said, pointing a finger at me like he was scolding a child.
“I don’t think you have much choice on how I speak to you.”
“I’m not above violence, Alek-“
I laughed, the sound higher and louder than I’d intended. “No one on this earth is above violence, Jack,” I spat back, struggling to my feet. I couldn’t move my arms much, but the table was high enough that I could still stand. He watched me carefully, but didn’t speak. “So if that’s your threat, if violence is what you were going to ply me with since stalker tendencies and dead flowers didn’t work, then I’m here to tell you that hitting me isn’t going to make me come around to liking you.”
“Like me?” He seemed taken aback. “I’m an alpha.”
“And I’m a damned bad barista, but I don’t see the point of either right now.”
I wasn’t lying when I’d told him that hurting me wasn’t the key to my little omega heart.
As a child, after the enforcers had pried my mother off of me, and after years of being afraid, I’d changed.
Like a child once afraid of the dark who grew up to keep the lights off, I wasn’t afraid of being hurt physically.
Perhaps if he’d known, he would’ve brought Roman. Perhaps he would’ve waited around for Noah or even dragged Miss Murple out of her litter box to threaten me with cat-violence.
But he hadn’t. It was just the two of us here in this smelly, decaying place.
And he had no advantage if he really wanted me to agree to anything else.
On the other hand, he didn’t look worried. He barely seemed to care at all, and his cold eyes went to my still-bound wrists before coming up to meet mine again. “I probably sedated you too much,” he shrugged. “I expect you’ll care more when you’re more awake-“
I laughed, cutting him off with the half-hysterical noise. “It’s not the drugs, you idiot.”
Well, not this part. But the drugs were potent, and I wondered how much sedative he’d shot me with for me to feel so bad even after I’d woken up.
How long had I been unconscious?
“Are you testing me?” Jack asked mildly
Why wasn’t he angry? I was doing everything in my power to piss him off, save miraculously breaking free and breaking his face, but he just stood there, like he couldn’t understand my reaction but wanted to.
“Do you want me to hit you?”
“I’m going to assume that was a rhetorical question.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you, Alek. I’m trying to get you to understand that I’m willing to be your alpha.”
“Right, see, and that’s where we have our problem, Jack,” I sneered. “Because I have three alphas, and I’m not looking to add another.”
“Add another? No, no I’m not saying-“
“I know what you’re saying, but I’d rather not hear it out loud.” It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Jack wasn’t interested in applying for the position of fourth potential alpha in my life. “And frankly-“
He cut me off with a growl that made me jerk back, my omega biology screaming that he was an alpha and frightening and pissed.
If any of my alphas had growled like that, I would’ve been upset. I would’ve known what was wrong, and how I could help.
But Jack’s growl just filled me with utter revulsion at him, and my own reaction.
“It’s not too late,” he said, optimism coloring his tone as he walked around the table towards me. My heart pounded in my chest and I tried to swallow again.
I didn’t want him anywhere near me.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed, jerking at the cuffs so hard I felt them chafe my skin.
He didn’t listen, though I wasn’t shocked at that. The alpha reached out, words accompanying his looming, reaching fingers. “You didn’t let any of them mark you. That means-“
When he laid his hand on my shoulder over my t-shirt, I felt my maned wolf snap.
I kicked at him, lunging so hard I pulled the table off of the floor and slammed my sneaker into his stomach.
Jack doubled over, though recovered much faster than I’d hoped and his hand
reached out again, this time clasping around my throat.
In response, I roared, my fangs long and deadly sharp and my hands pulling hard at the cuffs. He glanced at the table, then back at me with hesitation.
He didn’t want to hurt me.
I’d make him regret that.
He was strong, but he was only one person. I stomped on his instep, not allowing him to get enough of an advantage to make it count.
He barely even grunted at the blow.
Still I tore at the cuffs, bucking backward away from both him and them. If I could just get free-
The metal around one wrist snapped, and both of my hands slid free, one hand still dangling cuff and chain.
Both of us looked at the cuffs, and his hand fell from my throat.
“Did we get these on a discount?” I asked, my gaze burning into him.
I needed to figure this out quickly. I needed to make a decision before the drug in my system caused me to slip.
“You’re going to regret pushing me like this,” Jack warned, striding towards me with purpose
I kept the table between us, moving to keep him in sight and distanced.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t willing to play my little game. Jack growled, fur sprouting along his arms and his muscles rippling, bones snapping under his clothes.
He was going to fully shift.
Fuck, I told my self, backing away from him and the table. Fuck!
I wasn’t in good shape to have it out like this. I could barely think, let alone stop him from tearing out my throat.
Especially when, as it turned out, Jack’s animal shape was a very large, very ugly liger.
I’d never seen a bigger feline in my life, and it took me a moment to realize that he wasn’t just a weirdly marked tiger. No, Jack Thomas was an actual fucking liger.
Until now, I hadn’t known that the rare hybrid of tiger and lion was a thing in the shifter-world, though I supposed I had no reason not to think that it was.
And in this shape, he outweighed me by almost eight hundred pounds at least.
I was fucked seemed like an understatement, and I felt cold inside, as if my body was numbing itself in preparation for the inevitable.
He could kill me.
