by Abigail Owen
“What’s all this?” Jaxon murmured in her ear. She shivered as his hand landed on the nape of her neck, beneath her hair.
“Nothing really. Just setting some of our females straight on my position in this dare.”
He glanced over to the group she was staring at and sighed. “Are you angry?”
Andie turned to face him. “That you considered mating with someone other than me? I won’t deny the thought makes me want to scratch her eyes out. But you didn’t want her, and I trust you. Don’t worry. I handled it.”
“I’ll just bet you did,” he murmured with a grin. “But how about I put a final nail in the coffin?”
“Sweet thought, but I don’t really need the help.”
“Oh, I know. But you’ll like this.” Jaxon leaned over and sealed his lips to hers. After a moment he pulled back. “Open your mouth, wife, and really kiss me,” he ordered.
Andie did as he asked. The world completely receded as he built the heat between them one slow, deep, drugging kiss at a time. Suddenly, Jaxon scooped her up in his arms and stood. Andie squealed.
“Wrap your arms around me,” he said before continuing to kiss her.
Andie hesitated. “Why?” she breathed.
“Because I’m taking you to bed. And the entire dare is going to watch us walk away without a doubt in their mind as to what we’re going to be doing.”
Andie was a little embarrassed by the display, but she understood why he was doing it. And he was right— as messages went, this was a fun one to deliver.
Andie did as he asked and then proceeded to lose herself in his passion as he walked them out of the room. She vaguely heard Hannah’s giggle, and Nick’s comment, “Well, you can’t tell they’re newly married or anything. Can you?”
Chapter 33
Andie ran more slowly than normal through the woods as she brought up the tail. She started every morning with her group of soon-to-be protectors and guards with a ten mile run around the lake.
Jaxon had made her a Commander. She and Pete had immediately split up the duties between them. Pete, who used to be in charge of all training, now concentrated on his area of expertise, which was weaponry, and Andie took over the physical combat side of things. Most dares had a group dedicated to constant preparation. They were ready to defend the compound from the pack shifters, fight those shifters in the wilderness, extract cougars in trouble, and much more.
The Keller people were already very skilled. They had to be in order to protect themselves from wolves and other pack shifters. But attacks directly against the compound had decreased significantly in the years since the Shadowcat Nation had been established. However, they still weren’t unheard of. Just two years ago, wolves had breached the Carstairs compound and killed eleven before they’d been driven out.
In addition to defensive needs for the compound, these days much of their physical training was for when they were outside the dare’s walls. Most of the members didn’t live in the compound year-round. With their cagy natures and need for wide ranges, they’d couldn’t handle the constant captivity. So the cougars tended to come and go. Any out in the wilderness now travelled in large packs of five or more and were trained to defend themselves if necessary. Now Andie had a hand in helping them be even more prepared.
But Jaxon wanted to beef up their preparations. The wolves could be handled with weaponry more than physical fights. After the wolf pack attack on Andie and Jaxon in Montana, Pete was arming the people out in the field more. Andie’s primary goal was somewhat different. When the battle with Carstairs happened, and they were sure it was coming, weapons weren’t an option. The Shadowcat Nation outlawed use of guns against other cougar shifters. But, more than that, there were a lot of cougars in that dare who weren’t a part of Walter’s and Kyle’s machinations, and they didn’t want to hurt any innocent bystanders. Which meant hand-to-hand combat.
Now Andie had a group that she was working with daily. She used a method that had worked very well for her with Carstairs, and she saw no reason why it wouldn’t be successful here.
Her long warm-up run was deliberate. Cougars, while having a large range to roam, were more sprinters than distance runners. Building their stamina for this sort of continuous pace was important. They hated her for it now, but someday, in the middle of a fight or having to run away, as she and Jaxon had with the wolves, they’d thank her for the advantage this much stamina gave them.
Personally, she reveled in the exercise. She sprinted the last short distance to their destination of the sparring mats. Her entire group was there already, bent over and heaving. Even Jaxon’s Protectors and Commanders – William, Dylan, Charlie, Pete, and Nick – who often joined her group for training sessions, were a little winded. Andie checked her watch.
“Good job. You’ve dropped your pace by a minute a mile in only a few short weeks.”
They perked up at that news. One or two exchanged slightly surprised looks as praise from Andie had been nonexistent so far. First she had to break them down. She’d told them from the beginning that she was there to be their leader, not their friend. They’d never complained to her directly, but she knew by the way they avoided her in social spaces that she’d done her job right. Now as their skills started progressing, she could start building them back up.
“Assume positions,” she said.
Immediately, everyone paired off with different people than they had the day before. Each person moved, thought, and reacted uniquely, so changing partners helped to hone their skills even further.
She walked around and tapped people on the shoulder in a certain pattern indicating the style of hand-to-hand combat they were to practice. She used the silent means of communication so their opponent wouldn’t know what was coming and would have to adjust their own fighting accordingly.
“Go,” she ordered, once everyone had received an assignment.
As the pairs sparred, Andie walked around the mats, giving tips here and there, but also causing distractions, jumping in to spar two-on-one for a moment, and adding other elements to the practice.
After a good amount of time, she called out, “Stop!” The fighting immediately ceased, and each pair found new partners. They started back up at her “Go” command, using the same style she’d assigned during the first round. She was just about to hop in as an extra opponent with one of her pairs when a very slight sound was her only warning that someone was about to pounce on her.
Timing her motion perfectly, Andie executed a series of back handsprings just as Jaxon dropped from the tree above her. As he stood up, she stepped in closer and threw a punch which he blocked taekwondo style, only to clamp down on her wrist and aim a kick at her stomach. But she wasn’t there. She had spun around the arm he still gripped to drive an elbow into his face.
She was quite a bit shorter than he, so the angle wasn’t right for her to get enough force into it. But he did drop her arm. They squared off and worked through a series of back and forth exchanges in various forms, testing each other. Andie got a couple of good hits in and a high kick to the side of his head. But Jaxon gave as good as he got, landing a solid fist in her midsection, knocking the wind out of her.
Andie grinned. Finally he wasn’t holding back with her as she suspected he’d been doing before. She switched it up and moved to a version of Krav Maga that allowed her to incorporate her more gymnastic abilities as well as reducing the advantage of his size. The method emphasized threat neutralization, simultaneous defensive and offensive maneuvers, and aggression.
When Jaxon tried his next move, she grabbed his arm. Using it as leverage, she leapt up in the air, threw her opposite leg around the back of his neck, hooked her foot behind the knee of her other leg, and used their top heaviness and momentum to flip him over.
She should’ve used the leverage to pin him, but Jaxon, apparently trained in that style, broke her hold on his arm as they rolled. He managed to maneuver them so that they kept going, and then he was on top of her with h
is arm at her neck. He put just enough pressure on her windpipe for her to know that he could crush it.
“Do you give?” he asked.
“Yes,” she grunted.
Jaxon nodded, then stood up and held out a hand to her. She accepted it and let him pull her up. Leaning over, she put her hands on her knees, sucking air into her lungs.
“You’ve been holding back,” she accused, as she rubbed at her neck.
“Maybe. How’d you know I was there?” he asked.
“I heard you.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Seriously?”
She grinned. “What? No one ever hears you?”
“Nope.”
“Well, maybe you’re getting less careful now that you’re an old married man,” she teased.
He leaned down and whispered in her ear, “Remind me tonight to show you what an old married man does with his wife as punishment for being a smart ass.”
She pouted and batted her eyes at him. “I though you loved my… sass.”
He just shook his head. “Minx.”
With that she turned to her training group, all of whom had stopped their sparring to watch their Alpha-pair go at it.
“That was impressive,” Charlie said. A few heads bobbed in agreement.
“And you’ll all learn how to do exactly that, and then teach it to others.” She paused to let that sink in a little bit. “I asked Jaxon to come observe our sparring today. I’ve been so pleased with your progress, I wanted him to see what you’re already capable of.”
Rather than let her words of praise linger in the air, as well as any feelings of nervousness about their Alpha watching their practice, she clapped her hands. “Positions!”
They all paired off as they were supposed to. “Go!” she ordered.
She stepped back and allowed Jaxon to form his own opinions. She was glad to see him assume her role without any prompting. Instead of watching everything from the sidelines, he moved from group to group, offering encouragement, but also jumping in to add suggestions or tips of his own. His behavior so mirrored hers, she wondered how long he’d been watching before he’d pounced or if he always worked this way.
Damn. Bet he was up there forever and I really haven’t gotten better at detecting him, she thought with consternation.
Finally, she called out, “Stop!”
The group gathered in front of Jaxon. “Andie has been quite vocal about your progress, and I’m thrilled to see that she wasn’t exaggerating,” he said. “Keep up the excellent work.”
Andie nodded her agreement. “Dismissed. Take the rest of the day and tomorrow off as a reward for all your hard work these last few weeks. I’ll see you on Monday morning bright and early.”
She and Jaxon headed to their room to shower. She always got so turned on sparring with her husband, and she knew it was the same with him. So it would probably be a long while before they actually made it to the shower.
Chapter 34
“Boss?” Charlie appeared beside the mats.
The weekend had come and gone, and training had resumed the previous day.
“Take a break,” Andie told the group. She caught a whispered, “Thank God,” through all the heavy breathing as she walked over to Charlie.
“You consider torture to be part of the job description, don’t you?” he asked with a grin.
“More like a perk,” she murmured. “What’s up?”
“Mind if we talk in private?”
Interesting. But he kept smiling, so she didn’t start worrying yet. “Sure.” Andie followed him around to the back side of the rock wall. Charlie dropped the grin and suddenly turned serious, something she didn’t often see from the jokester shifter.
“Carstairs called?”
He grimaced. “Not exactly.”
She narrowed her eyes and then took a sharp breath. “They’re here?”
He nodded. “Most of the dare, from what we can tell. He’s demanding extradition.”
Andie scowled. She’d actually expected them to pull something like this much sooner. But the entire dare? That was a shock.
“Let’s go.”
She returned to her group and dismissed them. Then she and Charlie headed toward the compound together. “What’s the plan?”
“Jaxon invited Kyle, Walter, and their Protectors and Commanders to come inside the compound for negotiations. They refused.”
“Hmmm. Walter won’t want to leave the security that comes with being surrounded by more members.” She scowled. They wouldn’t think of challenging Jaxon, would they? The more she thought about it, the faster she moved to get to him.
As soon as they entered the Council room, Jaxon stood up. She hurried to his side. “What do you think about this?” he asked. “What’s their angle?”
“They’re going to challenge you in some way. I’m pretty sure.”
“I doubt they know of our marriage,” he said. Then comprehension lit his eyes. “They’re going to try to imply that we took you and the others against your will, aren’t they?”
She nodded.
“But when we reveal we’re husband and wife, that argument will fail,” he said.
Andie sighed. “Do you remember the shape I was in the night you caught me sneaking in here?”
Jaxon glowered. “Yes.”
“Forced matings are commonplace in the Carstairs Dare.”
Jaxon gave a low growl. “So they’ll say I forced you?”
Andie nodded again. “And they won’t accept my word that I was willing. They’ll say you’re holding something over me to make me speak that way. And even if we convince them, Kyle will likely challenge you for the mating.”
“Another lovely tradition your old dare has upheld?”
She nodded miserably. Then she thought about her father out there with the rest of the dare and grimaced. “There’s something else.”
Jaxon waited patiently for her to continue. As quickly as she could, she filled him in on her father’s plans to try to gain control of the dare from the inside. She gave him a desperate look. “I think… I think most of them are here to see him fall. I think they’ll help push him into a challenge he can’t back away from. It’s the only reason I can think of for so many being here with him.”
“So they want a showdown?”
Andie wracked her brain. “It makes the most sense to me, knowing what I do.”
“Don’t worry, love. I can handle Walter Carstairs.”
“I know you can, but Kyle and Walter together are another thing.”
Misery clouded her eyes and pulled her mouth down. She was so happy here with him. Despite the rare less-than-hospitable reactions to her presence, she felt as if she was slowly winning over the dare and making a place for herself. And her relationship with Jaxon… she’d never experienced anything like it. Acceptance, love, tenderness, passion. It felt as though she were living a dream. And now, she loved him too much to have him possibly lose his life in this challenge.
Jaxon had obviously followed her thought process, because he took her chin and tipped her face up to his. “You will let me do this. You’re not backing out now, Andromeda Jaci Keller.” She smiled at his use of her new married name. She loved the sound of it.
“Trust me, Andie. This is going to work out,” he added, softly.
“I just… don’t want to lose you. I don’t think I could survive that. I’d rather go back to Carstairs knowing that you’re safe,” she whispered, looking down.
Jaxon was silent for a long time. “That’s why you ran the first time isn’t it? To protect me?”
She shrugged sheepishly.
“Look at me,” he said. She raised her eyes to his. “Something you’ve never asked me is if Sarai indicated that we’re Fated.”
Andie’s heart skipped a few beats. “What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying that we are. She warned me not to tell you until I was convinced of your love.”
Andie’s mouth dropped open, but the only s
ound that came out was a little squeak. Jaxon grinned. “I love it when I can render you speechless. I take it you’re okay with being Fated?”
Andie wrapped her arms around his neck and, ignoring all the other occupants in the room, proceeded to lay a kiss on him that would’ve led straight to the bedroom if they hadn’t had more pressing matters to deal with.
Pulling back she said, “I’m great with it. They’ll still challenge you, but I’m your Fated. I’ll challenge them right back.”
He jerked in her arms. “You will not. I forbid it!”
“Forbid?” she asked, stepping away slightly.
Jaxon took in the determined tilt to her chin and the fire in her eyes. His lips compressed as he clearly had to tamp down his protective streak. “Together then?”
She gave a single nod, satisfied. “It’s the only way for Fated.”
The sound of a throat clearing snagged both their attention, and they turned back to the rest of the room. Nick and Hannah were grinning from ear to ear. But William just said, “Congrats. So what’s the plan here?”
Jaxon and Andie glanced at each other. “We’ll accept the challenge together when it comes. If the rest of their dare make a move against us, then you hold them off. Otherwise, stand down, especially if they try in any way to help us.”
The room got serious very quickly. They knew the implications. The challenge would likely be not just for Andie as mate, but for the entire Keller Dare.
Zac growled from the back of the room.
“I know it goes against your promise to protect me, Papa Bear,” Andie said. “But you have to let me do this.”
“I don’t like it,” he grumbled.
“But you won’t interfere?”
He grunted and then nodded.
“Well, there’s no reason to wait,” Jaxon said, rising to his feet. “Gather the dare. Let’s get this over with.”
Chapter 35
Andie felt a bit as if she were in the middle of the movie Braveheart, or some other historical scene where two armies marched to a field to face off against each other. She sort of expected bagpipes or maybe Native American drums to be playing somewhere. With the entire Keller Dare at their back, she and Jaxon went out to the land beyond the walls surrounding the compound, where Walter, Kyle, and the rest of the Carstairs Dare waited for them.
