I definitely wasn’t telling her how gentle he’d been, or how he’d tried to make it easier on me. I’d sound like I was into the guy if I did. And I wasn’t. Nope.
“Huh, yeah, I bet he was.” She rolled her eyes so hard that her head rolled with them.
I ducked out of the bathroom, seeking an escape from Sassy and the truth she was spewing. She was right about most of it, and I still had to try.
She followed me into the kitchen. “I don’t care how decent he might seem while he’s trying to bang you. You can’t trust him.”
“Food. We need food.” The only thing that kept me from screaming at her was the fact that it was a lie. I still had a hundred credits tucked away. Thankfully, she didn’t know that.
“We’ll be okay. I’ve got stuff working. You don’t need to go back there.”
That meant only one thing. She was just talking to people in the resistance; she was planning on going on some of their raids.
“Don’t you dare do that,” I said, grabbing my jacket from the chair.
“Are you going to stay home tonight?” she asked, standing beside the door with her arms crossed. “You stay? I’ll stay.”
I took one last look at the clock. “I can’t fight about this anymore. I’ve got to go or I’m going to miss the shuttle.”
She leaned against the counter, tilted her head, and gave me the same look she’d been giving me since she was five and I wouldn’t give her ice cream. And just like when she was five, I knew as soon as I left her alone for more than two minutes, she’d be spooning it right from the carton. Except this wasn’t about ruining her appetite before dinner anymore. What she was doing now would get her killed. Unfortunately, there was more than one way she might die, and I’d have to pick my battles.
I ran out the door. There was one last van that transported humans from here to downtown, and I couldn’t miss it.
The second I walked out the door, the nerves hit hard. I took a couple of deep breaths, shook out my arms, and repeated my pep talk. I was marked. Donovan marked me. I’ll make it through tonight. And if I didn’t? Some things were worth risking your life for, and my sister was one of them.
There was no room for nerves. There was nothing else to think about but the objective. I could do this. I would do this. Another couple of breaths and I forced a false calm over myself.
* * *
Donovan
I was in the main salon of my mother’s house counting down the minutes. It was the last night of her gathering, and the crowd was larger than ever. The place was crawling with vampires, and no number of shifters would make me feel better about it. If anything, I felt worse. The tension was palpable, like I could hear the thunder from a storm of violence about to break out. Tomorrow, I’d be back in my own place and away from this mess and wouldn’t be agreeing to this again, if the pact still held by this time next year.
Veronica was stalking me from the other side of the room, where she flirted with any male she could lure into her show. She was trying to stir up the flames of jealousy where there wasn’t kindling. The only upside to this night so far was Mallard’s absence.
My mother was holding court in the other corner of the room, laughing as she took a drink off a servant’s tray.
A servant who might be the stupidest fucking female on this planet. I could feel the veins in my neck pulse as I watched Pen circle the room, avoiding me on purpose. I stalked her, putting myself in her way.
“If you don’t want to be fed on, why did you come back here? How many road signs do you need, exactly?”
She whipped her head to me, as if shocked I’d ask her such a thing in a crowded room. How could I not when she strolled into the parlor as if nothing happened, makeup still caked on her neck from the last run-in with Mallard?
She wasn’t my problem. She was a human that I wanted nothing from. So why couldn’t I let this go? If she wanted to die by vampire, that was her choice. Maybe she was suicidal or something. Again, her problem, not mine. One less human in the world was no skin off my back. And yet here I was, about to ream her for being here.
“Would you care for more port?” she asked, as if I hadn’t addressed her. When I didn’t play her game, she turned to move on to one of the other guests.
“I asked you a question.”
There was only the scent of rage. Good. I hated the smell of fear on her.
She glanced around, aware of the fact we were gaining a small audience, including Veronica, not that I was concerned about it.
“And so did I. Would you care for port, or will that be all?” she said through clenched teeth.
“Outside. Now.” The entire room heard me now, and I didn’t care. My mother looked as if she were going to die of humiliation. I still didn’t care. If she hadn’t adjusted after all these years of having me for a son, that was her issue.
Pen froze. She looked at her tray, then to the door, then at me, calculating her next move.
“We can do this nicely, or we can make more of a scene.”
I waved my hand, calling over another servant that was frozen, watching the show.
“Take her tray.” The man did as I asked. Or tried. For a second, Pen’s knuckles turned white as she tried to hold on to it. She had grit, maybe more than a lot of the werewolf females I’d been with. Why was she so quick to throw her life away? I went from wanting to laugh at her tug of war over the tray to even more furious.
This was ending tonight. I was getting rid of her one way or another. It was for her own good. If I didn’t have to see her again, that was for the best, because I couldn’t decide whether I liked her or hated her.
I pointed toward the door. She wrinkled her nose but went where I directed. I followed Pen while my mother pretended to be lightheaded, trying to distract everyone from my scene. Her guests fell for it and swarmed to her.
With a hand at her back, I steered Pen outside. Once there, she crossed her arms and tilted her chin up as if to say, How dare I treat her this way? I, the alpha of D.C., was getting the dirty eye from some little twit I kept saving.
I marched over, stopping a little too close to her. I was getting answers. “Why are you here? I told you not to come back.”
“Why do you care?” she asked with an attitude that I’d merely sensed until now.
What? That wasn’t how this was supposed to go. “I asked you a question. Answer it.”
Her shoulders jerked up. “Answer mine. Why are you trying to control me? Why do you give a fuck?”
That was it. If she didn’t want to save herself, there was nothing left to do.
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t give a fuck. Do whatever you want.”
“Thank you,” she said, before turning and heading back inside.
Penelope
I walked into the house, knowing what an ass I must seem like to Donovan. What an ass I sounded like to me. He probably thought I was the most disgusting, ungrateful human alive, and I didn’t blame him. The man kept trying to help me get out of my own way. I probably looked like a jerk or a lunatic. What he thought shouldn’t bother me either way. I couldn’t let it even if it did.
There had been no other route available. It wasn’t like I could tell him why I had to come back. Still, under all that fluff and indignation, the truth had been burning a hole in my gut, especially because I was beginning to suspect that he might not be the horrible monster I’d feared. He certainly didn’t look like one. The opposite, in fact.
It had worked out, though. Donovan dragging me out of the salon had made it that much easier to achieve my goal: slip over to Mallard’s room. I’d head toward the kitchen and then keep on going, until I was in the guest wing. After I got what I’d come for, I’d do my best to never see any of them again.
I hadn’t made it as far as the kitchen when I heard Mallard say, “I’ve been looking for you.”
Before I had a chance to turn around, he was a few inches in front of me. “Come. My room needs tidying up, my prett
y Penny.” He wrapped his hand around my bicep and dragged me forward.
I pulled as far away from him as my arm would allow, but he towed me forward, the soles of my shoes sliding.
“I’m claimed.”
He didn’t stop.
I saw a guard come to see what was going on, look at us, and turn the other way.
“I mean marked,” I said.
I was shoved hard against the wall, my head bouncing off it. Mallard pinned the rest of me. He dipped his head closer, breathing deeply as his fangs grazed the skin over my barely scabbed neck.
“I don’t smell any mark,” he said.
Now what? I’d just told Donovan to mind his own business. I was an idiot for coming here, and now I’d pay with my life.
“She told you, she’s marked,” Donovan said.
If I could’ve sagged off the wall, I would’ve. I didn’t think Donovan would step in, not again. Not after how I’d just acted.
Mallard turned his head to Donovan. “I had her first. She’s mine.”
“She’s marked. Back off. You know the rules. I outrank you.”
Mallard dug his hands into my shoulders. I didn’t make a sound because even as he hurt me, he was backing away, and I would do nothing to interrupt that, not a squeak of a noise. Donovan walked toward us, and I could gasp a breath again.
Mallard turned back to me, arms outstretched as he gripped me as if he wouldn’t let go until he was dead. Or I was. His face was telling me I was still his, no matter what anyone said. I’d seen the look of possession on a man’s face before. On the face of a vampire, it could chill you until your bones froze. That was how I felt, iced over, as it occurred that he might try to kill me right now.
Donovan walked closer. Mallard’s eyes never left mine as Donovan closed the gap between them. “This is your last warning. Get your hands off her.” A low growl followed.
Slowly, Mallard unclenched his hands and turned to face Donovan. “You. Haven’t. Won.”
“Won? You’re right. There’s no competition.”
Mallard bared his fangs, and Donovan stepped closer, seeming to grow a few inches taller as the deep rumble in his chest appeared to vibrate the wall I was leaning on.
The grip on my shoulders disappeared and Mallard was gone. Donovan stood in front of me, the veins in his neck bulging, his stare full of I told you so.
“Thank you,” I said, knowing those two words couldn’t measure up to what he’d done for me again. I stared at his feet, the guilt making it hard to maintain eye contact. “I didn’t think—”
“Walk.” He pointed in the direction of his suite and waited until I preceded him. He was probably going to lecture me about how I shouldn’t have come tonight. Even though I had a bulletproof motive, I’d listen to him tell me I was stupid and take it because he’d saved me—again.
His hand found my lower back, steering me in the last few feet until he shut the door of his room.
I began to ramble, knowing how ridiculous I looked right now. “I thought he wasn’t supposed to be able to touch me after you marked me. I thought it would be okay. I didn’t come because I wanted trouble.”
“The scent is weak. He thought he could get away with it, which is why you weren’t supposed to come back.” His voice had an edge that could slice granite. “Take your shirt off.”
“Why?” I stepped back, hating the way my heart fluttered at the idea of any kind of intimacy with him.
He followed me. “It’s torn. I’m going to give you one of mine and want to see where he touched you.”
“You did your part. That was more than enough.”
“Are you going to take your shirt off, or am I going to rip it from you?”
The way he was looking at me, it was clear I wasn’t leaving here until he saw for himself. There was rage in his eyes.
But only one question kept dominating my thoughts.
“Why do you keep helping me?”
Thirteen
Donovan
She wanted to know why I kept helping her, and it was a valid question with no logical answer. She might as well have asked where life started on Earth. I’d already bailed her out of a bad situation twice and she kept coming back. Was I going to repeatedly save her? Why the fuck did I care? I owed her less than nothing, but couldn’t stop this raging need to protect her.
“You’re marked by me, even if it’s weak. Mallard attacking you was crossing a line.” That at least had some truth. How dare he touch her after I’d claimed her, whether I wanted her or not. She was mine, at least in the eyes of others.
“Is that why you want to see my shoulders? Because it was disrespectful to you?” Her hands were trembling as they made their way to the tie of her uniform.
“Yes.” Sounded good enough. Considering I had no answers, I’d take hers.
I brushed her hands away as I undid the tie. Hers moved to the buttons but they shook too bad to do much. I swatted them out of the way.
“Why are you shaking so badly? He’s gone.” The smell of fear on her made my hands shake too, but with rage.
I pushed the shirt from her shoulders after only half of the buttons were undone. There were marks already forming, the pools of blood settling into fingerprints on her skin. His fingerprints.
My hands fisted as I imagined blood that wasn’t hers.
“I’m going to get something for that. Stay here until I return, and then I’ll see you home. And this time, you’re never coming back here. This was your last save.”
Why was I having such a visceral reaction to seeing her hurt? I wasn’t a monster, but I’d seen enough to become hardened. There had been plenty of deaths and confrontations between vampires and humans. Other than a shrug and a vague tugging around my belief that you didn’t pick on the weaker, I’d brushed it off as Darwinism. But not this time. The marks on her made me want to hunt Mallard down and drive a stake through his heart.
Penelope was nothing special. She was a human, a waitress. She was here to serve, that was all. It was the disrespect to me. It had to be.
I left the room, barely able to contain the fury. She was a human who meant nothing to me, so why did I want to track Mallard down and dismember him? I ducked into the spare bedroom to my right, clenched my fists, and forced my body not to shift the way it wanted to. There’d be no going back if that happened.
But Mallard would need to be sent a message. My tolerance was at its limit. I’d take care of her and then I’d handle matters.
I stepped out of the bedroom and sent Bigs a message. I need you to get Pen from my room, run her by the doctor, and then drive her home.
Bigs drove away with Penelope, and I let the minutes tick by, then gave it another few minutes, waiting for them to turn the corner and get safely away from here before I turned on my heel to go find Mallard.
He was seated at the table among the other guests, a blend of shifters and vampires, in a seat of honor. Huddy was there, looking at me as I walked in the room, knowing me well enough to spot trouble. I ignored him, along with my mother, who was asking me something or other about what had delayed me from dinner, as if I hadn’t caused a scene earlier. They were all a blur in the background as I walked toward my target.
I reached forward, gripping Mallard by the throat and ripping him from his chair. Vampires were fast, but once you got a hold on them, they were sitting ducks. Shifters were much stronger, especially one born to be an alpha. I dragged him to the corner of the room where he wouldn’t be able to slip by me and landed a blow to his face, and then another, until I found myself losing control for one of the first times in my adult life. I pummeled him with repeated swings. He might heal by tomorrow, but it didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt now, and I needed him to hurt.
There was arguing behind me, my mother among the chorus of people yelling for me to stop. Huddy had my back, along with my people, keeping the rest of the room out of it and calling it a fair fight.
I didn’t stop until Mallard’s features resemble
d tenderized meat, and it still didn’t feel like enough. The only thing that would satisfy this rage would be a stake in his heart, and I couldn’t do that. It would jeopardize my pack, and that was more than I’d do for any human, ever.
It wasn’t until Mallard was a sobbing mess at my feet that I stopped.
“Touch her again and next time will be the last.” I took a step back, giving him enough room to crawl out of the corner.
Mallard stumbled away from me as his people ran to help him, all with venomous looks in their eyes. I stood still in front of them, begging them to do something.
I could feel the excitement from my people. The vampires had been taunting us for months, and they’d finally gotten a little back. They’d been itching for this fight. Now I’d be doing damage control for weeks, playing the hypocrite as I tried to sell them the peace line again.
Except for my mother—she was the only shifter in the room mortified, scared she’d lose her place in the limelight and have to go back to a life of shadows if her son fell out of favor.
“What was that? What are you doing?” Larissa said.
“Teaching him a needed lesson.” When I grinned at her, she turned to her vampire guests with a stream of apologies.
I turned and strode from the room, sensing Huddy on my tail. That was all right. He was the only presence I could tolerate at the moment.
He followed me through the house, not saying a word as I stopped to pour myself a bourbon. He held his tongue until we were out on the back patio.
“What the hell was that about?” he asked, low and quiet as he glanced back toward the house and the scene of the crime.
“He went after Pen tonight.” I took a large sip and realized I should’ve taken the bottle.
Gut Deep: Torn Worlds Book One Page 7
