Bastard Stepbrother (Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance)

by Faye, Amy

  He raises an eyebrow, amused.

  "Yeah. Well. Moving on. So then my mother tells me, what she told me, and you're not exactly moving to tell me your side of things. You're also not exactly moving to pick up where we left off. So I figure, I've got to get on with my life, I guess. Stop thinking so much about… well, you get the idea."

  "Tell me."

  "I wanted to stop pretending that what happened the other day was suddenly going to turn into some kind of relationship."

  "Good girl," he says, and I'm annoyed at the little shiver that rakes its way down my spine.

  "So some guy. I don't know his name to be honest, he comes along."

  "I'm not going to like this next part, am I?"

  "I told you to wait," I say, and then I stare at him long enough to drive the point home. "So he's coming on pretty strong. And I'm not telling him no. Not telling him yes, either, but he looks like he'd about hump a bear if it let him."

  His eyes close and a pained smile stretches across his face. "Why are you telling me this?"

  "I didn't. I told him to buzz off and I went home a little lonely and a little horny and probably a little too drunk. And all I could think about last night was, I went out to forget about a relationship I wasn't even in, and I couldn't even do that right."

  He takes a look at me. I wonder what he sees. Does he think I'm weak? Pathetic? What?

  And then he starts moving, his arms wrapping around my waist, and he pulls me into a kiss. I can feel his stubble rubbing against my skin and I don't mind it one bit, in spite of myself.

  My arms pull around him as well, and pull him in tight. I don't care about ten years ago. I just want what I want, and I want it now.

  And for once in my life, I'm going to let myself have it.

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  She didn't want to want his touch. She didn't want to need his kiss.

  Her wants and needs seemed to defy all reason.

  He caught her chin with his hand and kissed her again, more softly. The gentleness took her breath away more than his ferocity had. She gave in, abandoned her sense of duty, just for a moment. His kiss burned, his soft lips searing her soul.

  His hips pressed up against her. She felt him as he hardened, her hands grabbing his shirt in fistfuls and pulling him closer to her.

  Her sudden change startled him, made him back away from her.

  "Shit," he said, shaking his head. "We need to not do this."

  "I need you to do this, Dean," she said, her voice low.

  "I'm takin' advantage of you," he said, his accent returning.

  "Like hell, you are. Come here before I take advantage of you!" She laughed, but he only backed away again. Fury course through her veins, along with embarrassment at being shunned. She slapped him again, to teach him a lesson, but it made his desire return.

  She was slammed against the bookcase even harder, with a gasp and a laugh. His teeth sunk into her neck, biting into her skin. He hit just the right muscle to make her nipples tingle, going hard.

  Deft hands made quick work of her skirt, bunching it up around her hips. Her hands undid his jeans, pushing them down and letting his manhood spring free.

  She couldn't see it, but her hand felt it. He was large, the texture soft. It pressed up against her slit, rubbing back and forth as they kissed again.

  His fingers touched her mound, pushing her panties out of the way and opening her slit to prepare her for him. She was dripping wet between her legs.

  She lifted her left leg and wrapped it around his hips, shifting her position just enough to press his head against her hole. He entered her, slowly. Both held their breath until the head of his cock pressed against her cervix.

  She hauled in a sharp breath and tensed. Yeah, he was big. It hurt, but not for long.

  His mouth devoured hers as he took her, their tongues playing and exploring the soft texture of their mouths. Her orgasm came slowly at first, like waves of drugged bliss. He spilled inside of her, and kissed her again.

  "Please, leave with me. Tonight."

  Cady shook her head. "I can't. I have to save them."

  He gave her a frustrated look, his eyebrows stitching together. As he left her, he sighed.

  "You have one day. Tomorrow night, we leave, whether your friends are safe or not.”

  I did not tell half of what I saw for I knew I would not be believed… – Marco Polo, on his deathbed in 1324

  Chapter 1

  Cady

  Cady startled awake, her eyes opening to the darkness of her bedroom. Her hand clutched at her chest, she took deep breaths and waited a moment for her heart to stop beating so fast.

  It was the same dream, the one that she wished would go away, but now knew that it wouldn't. Either she acted on the warning it gave, or it would become reality. She had to get away.

  Sitting up, she took in her surroundings and tried to figure out a plan. The soft sounds of 32 other people sleeping in the same room attempted to lull her back to sleep, but she fought the urge. Her eyes fell to the bed to her right, the same one that her best friend, Sasha, had once slept in. The same friend that went missing, and that her dreams had been about.

  The woman in the bed above Cady's bed shifted in her sleep with a snort. This was only Cady's second week in this bedroom, since she was bunking with the children until she turned 18.

  She leaned over in her bed, resting her head in her hands as she thought. The dream was clear in its message, now. At first it showed only Sasha screaming, bleeding. There were few details for the first day or two, and then they started to fill in more. There was someone, or something, in the room with her.

  Sasha's assailant was never clearly visible, but Cady felt terror just thinking of him, or it. There was a vague sense that the torturer was not entirely human, though his hand was human enough. It was the air around him, the way he breathed, and just a sense. A tingling at the back of her neck when she thought of the dream. The nausea that clawed at her stomach after each nightmare.

  For the first few nights, Cady had hated the dream. She wanted it to just disappear, to leave her alone. She wanted to simply live a simple life, doing as she was told by The Priest. She loved him, she knew she did.

  But her most recent nightmare was different. She could feel each prick of a needle, each burn and stab for just a moment when she awoke. The man was chanting, but she couldn't understand the mad words. They came from a language she had never heard, one that seemed impossible for a human mouth to form. The world felt mad.

  It was no longer Sasha being tortured. It was Cady on that bed, being lashed, stabbed, and burned. Her own red hair was cut off, and shame burned at her cheeks. To have her hair removed would be truly humiliating. She knew that a woman's only asset was her hair, and it was easy enough to remove. It was a common punishment given by Counseling when someone fell out of line or displeased The Priest.

  And that was where the most frightening part of the nightmare came about. Cady was being tortured in the Counseling building. That same inhuman
thing was torturing her, but she could see the building better than ever. She knew that it was her own people, the people she loved dearly, that would be her downfall. She knew it was her own people who had taken Sasha.

  The Counselors were made up of the men in The Lore Keepers, which was what the outside world called Cady's group. They also called it a cult, but to Cady it was more like a family. So it was nearly impossible for her to imagine someone that she loved so dearly, could be so wicked.

  She thought of just ignoring the dream. It would be so easy. She wouldn't need to rock the boat, or cause an upset. She wouldn't have to escape.

  Then she remembered the horror she felt every time she remembered the dream, and she knew that it would never leave her. She either acted on it, or it would come true. She needed to escape.

  But how?

  Cady looked around the room, and spotted another friend. A woman who had also just turned 18, someone she had grown up with. Janine, who was currently The Priest's favorite. She had barely gotten any sleep since she became an adult, The Priest was so demanding of her time and body.

  Janine had never complained, but Cady couldn't just leave her there. She couldn't leave it up to chance that her friend might be hurt. She would come back for the others, but she knew she could get Janine out with her.

  Glancing out the window, Cady saw that it was still in the darkest hours of the night. They would have time before the men woke and started their work in the fields. There was more than enough time to make it to the woods outside of their land, and from their woods Cady knew she could find the road. The first building she would find on that road was a police building. She had passed it many times when she went to sell their crops to the outsiders. She knew the way.

  She was confident.

  Stepping out of her bed, she slowly crept past four other bunk beds before she made it to Janine. Her friend was snoring lightly, and had a smile on her face. There was something in her hair, no doubt a parting gift from The Priest.

  Jealousy flared Cady's nose. The Priest had only given her one night, the night she had become a woman. Pushing the anger away, she leaned in close and whispered in Janine's ear. “Janine. Hey, wake up.”

  Janine startled awake, pushing away from Cady. She opened her mouth to yell, but Cady pressed her hand against it. “Don't scream. It's just me, Cady.”

  Letting her eyes settle, Janine squinted and then nodded. Cady removed her hand from the woman's mouth and then smiled. She hoped she looked reassuring.

  “Sorry I scared you, but we need to go.”

  “Go where?” Janine whispered. Her voice was slurred, probably from alcohol. They would need to take water or Janine would be dehydrated before they made it out of the trees.

  “I don't have time to explain, but we need to get away. We have to get to wherever The Counselors can't get us. I've been having these… dreams. Dreams about Sasha, and then about myself. I think they're real. Janine,” she placed her hand on Janine's shoulder. “The dreams feel so real.”

  Janine scooted to the edge of her bed, and the woman above her shifted. If they weren't quick, they would run out of time. “What happened in your dream?”

  Cady's face screwed up. Remembering the tortured look in Sasha's eyes, the terror on her face as she was burned, it hurt. Remembering her own face with the same look hurt even more. Her heart beat against her chest. She never wanted to experience that pain.

  “She, we, were being tortured. By The Counselors. Or, it was taking place in their building.” She took a deep breath, then. It would be hard to run with her heart already pumping. “Come on, we have to go before the others wake up.”

  Janine hesitated, her small body sitting still on the bed. “Don't you want to save them too?”

  “Of course, but we can do that later. We have to go, now, before the sun rises. If we reach the police, we can get others to help us.”

  As Janine slowly stood up, Cady took a moment to curse her mother for ever joining The Lore Keepers. She was only a toddler when her mother brought her here, after her father died. This was all she had ever known, and even now she loved it. She loved these people. But something felt wrong, deeply wrong.

  She caught a moonlit glimpse of Janine's face, and noticed a fresh bruise on her cheekbone. Cuts, bruises and worse were common for those that The Priest favored. He liked things rough. Again jealousy flared in Cady's mind, but she shook her head.

  “Come on,” Cady repeated. Followed by Janine, they made their way silently across the floor. They had nothing to bring with them. They owned nothing of their own. Their clothes were shared. Their jewelry was shared. Everything belonged to everyone, and it seemed wrong to take anything more than their thin nightgowns.

  Stepping out of the cabin, Cady breathed in the cold January air. It would snow in the next few days, the first true snow since the beginning of the warm winter. The air smelled like fire from the bonfire the men had most nights, but it also smelled like freedom. There was a call above them, huge birds that Cady had noticed before but never payed attention to.

  A sudden sharp pain forced Cady to the ground, and then it all went black.

  Dean

  A trail of blood, sliding down the face of a mountain, followed the huge form of a man. His coat was bear skin. His hat was, too. He put his abilities to good use, hunting normal animals.

  He was not carrying a normal animal.

  It was a gigantic beast, its muzzle full of too many teeth, its paws fitted with too many claws, too sharp. A giant wolf, larger than even that mountain of a man. The blood was coming from its neck, pouring slowly into the white snow.

  It smelled awful, as werewolf blood always did. It smelled liked the beast had been dead for weeks instead of hours, like maggots had already begun to eat away at it. The man was used to this smell, but it still made his stomach sour.

  “Disgusting beast,” he spat. “Should have just let you kill me and everyone up there.” He was retired, one of the few in his line of business that ever could. So few of his friends lived past 30, the age he just turned six months ago. He was retired before then, but the birthday had hit him hard. It was the first he spent alone since his ex wife left him, or he left her. It was a blur, the whole breakup.

  But Dean knew one thing: if he didn't stop hunting, he would end up as dead at the hands of some monster. Maybe not a werewolf. Maybe it would be something he had never seen before. But he knew that his life was already shorter than it needed to be, with the poison and curses he had taken on over the years. No need to cut it shorter.

  The monsters didn't care that Dean was retired, though. No, they kept coming. Seeking revenge for those he had killed before, or seeking glory. Hell, some were probably sent by his ex.

  He rolled his eyes and snorted.

  The werewolf that he was dragging down the mountain made the mistake of going too close to Dean's ski lodge, the business he purchased when he retired. It kept him busy. He got to be around normal people, so he was never alone. He was never lonely. His job was probably the only thing that kept the old man sane.

  So he had to kill the wolf.

  It had been an easy enough kill. The beast attacked, but too quickly. He didn't cover his throat. The silver dagger had gone into his flesh easily, and the wolf couldn't even sink his teeth into Dean. He froze and fell to the ground, whimpering like a pup with a broken paw.

  One last stab with the silver dagger finished the job. The hardest part of the kill was dragging the damn thing three miles down the mountain so that he could burn it without others noticing. The blood would stink up the mountain for a week, but he chose a wooded area so few would have the chance to find the smoldering remains. No one skied in the woods.

  Finally spotting the clearing in the center of the woods, he drops the beast. He knew he was about halfway down the mountain, and that the climb back up would be easier than the descent.

  Looking up, he admired the stars. It was calming, the way they twinkled in the night, but then he
saw something he didn't like. A shooting star. All throughout his life, shooting stars had meant bad things were coming.

  “You fuck off with your omens,” he said, pointing to the sky. Dean didn't know if he believed in God or gods, but he knew that they probably didn't care if he used a threatening voice against them.

  Sighing, he walks around the clearing and picks up branches, large and small. They all go into a pile on the snow, and on top of the pile, the werewolf. He threw the beast up there, then wiped away the stinking blood on his coat.

  He walked in a circle around the bundle of sticks, spreading a thick line of salt into the rapidly melting snow. With the circle complete, he stepped back.

  A splash of gasoline began the work of covering up the foul wolf smell, and when Dean tossed a match onto the pyre, he felt his anxiety melt away. One less responsibility. He could go back to worrying about when his carrots were going to come in, since the shipment was a day late and people wanted him to make them stew.

  “This is the last one,” he grumbled. “If one more monster tries to take me, I'm just going to let it.” He was too tired to keep fighting. His bones ached. Most men his age were still out having fun. They certainly weren't nursing painful joints. That was the price of the war he waged against the supernatural.

  He looked up at the sky again, almost dreading that he might see another shooting star. He dared the gods to call him on his bluff, because even he knew it was a bluff. If it was only himself in danger, he would die. But if it was someone else?

  He looked around, then spotted the trail of blood that would lead him back up to his lodge. He paused before beginning the climb, however, and crossed his arms. “And if my ex tries to kill me, I'll do it myself so she doesn't get the pleasure.”

  Satisfied, he started walking next to the trail of blood, using a branch to shuffle the snow and hide the red with a smirk on his face.