by M. L. Briers
“Give me my keys, you drive like an old woman…”Dee ground out between clenched teeth as she started for the front door and she heard her mate growl behind her.
“We’ll take my car and I’ll be driving.”He ground out and Dee couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Damn Alpha’s.
Dee had to admit that when he needed to drive properly he could do it, and with gusto.
“Why the hell couldn’t you drive like this yesterday?”She snapped at him across the space between them and saw his jaw muscle twitch.
“Had no reason.”Aidan offered back to her, keeping his eyes trained on the road ahead. At this speed he was more than aware that one wrong move and they could end up in an accident that she might not walk away from so easily. That wasn’t going to happen.
“Well this is how you should drive…”She sniped back at him. Turning in her frustration to look at the fast moving scenery outside the window. When the hell were they going to invent teleportation? That’s what people needed from science, she thought. If only the Fae had been able to perfect a spell that could work in the same way she wouldn’t be sitting there doing nothing and feeling so damn helpless about it.
“If this is how you drive, you’re never getting behind the damn wheel again.”He growled out. Knowing that his mate was climbing the walls and giving her a reason to focus her attention on something she could do something about, him.
“Says you…?”Dee’s head snapped towards him on her neck and she glared across at his side profile. Handsome, check, great body, check, egotistical and up his own arse, checkmate.
“I’m your mate and your Alpha…”
“You can go shove your head right up your…”
“You are going to have to come to terms with the facts as they are at some point, Dee.”Aidan could make this right another time. Right now he wanted her to focus on hating him, not the fact that Lacy was still a good half an hour away.
“And please spare me the chest beating and fangs gnashing…”She hissed back at him.
“It’s who I am, Dee.”That wasn’t the whole truth, but it was in him to act like that and they both knew it, the sooner that she accepted his darker side the better.
“And that’s the problem. I get that I’m your mate, Aidan. I do, nobody gets that more than me. I can’t keep my damn eyes or hands off you…”She shot him a sideways look and expected a broad grin, or a show of smugness, but he just sat there. “But I’m my own person too, and I can’t tag along two paces behind you like the little woman…”
“That’s what you’re expecting to happen?”
“Browbeaten and downtrodden…”Those words grated inside her. He was the Alpha, his word was law…
“You think that little of me?”He couldn’t help the anger within his tone. She’d touched a nerve. That was how his mother had lived her life until he was old enough to put a stop to it. That wasn’t how Lycan females should be, and it wasn’t how it was within his pack, and it would never be while he was the Alpha.
“I don’t know you enough to think anything of you…”Dee snapped out. Why were they even having this damn conversation now? There were far more important things, like Lacy…
Aidan took her words on board. She was right, she didn’t know him. How could he expect her to understand his ways and the ways of his pack? But she thought him a monster like his father, and that pained him. He never wanted to look in his mates eyes and see the pain he had witnessed in his mothers.
“There’s something else we need to work on then.”He offered her. Out of the corner of his eye he noted the way her body seemed to relax slightly in her seat. Saw her fingers fiddling with the hem of her top. Heard her sigh gently, as she continued to stare out of the window, and he knew that when she got to know him, she wouldn’t think him such a damn monster, but until then maybe he should tread a little easier with her.
“Fine. You show me there’s more to you than just great sex…”
“Great sex?”It was the first time his eyes had left the road as he snatched a look at her. “You’re not very good at articulating where sex is concerned…”
“You’re an Alpha, how much more ego boosting do you need?”She sniped back.
“Ego boosting? I didn’t hear you complaining, in fact all I did hear we’re sounds of pleasure…”
“Guess I should have been an actress then…”Dee couldn’t help the smile that lifted the corners of her lips as she heard him growl across the space. “I know they say the real thing is way better than plastic, but even with this mating pull between us, I can’t help but long for the whirl…”
Aidan was caught between the thought of her pleasuring herself and the fact that she was telling him she preferred it to him… His wolf was practically whimpering within him.
“Last night you tried to castrate me with your knee and today you do it with your words…”He spat out and she bit down on the snigger that wanted to escape her lips.
“Cheer up, it’s not the end of the world that you can’t perform as well as a…”She managed to get out before his growl rumbled again.
“Woman, if we weren’t in a hurry I would pull over to the side of the road and…”
“Prove your manhood.”She rumbled in the deepest tone she could manage back to him and saw his eyes flick towards her again and she looked away.
“I…”Aidan bit down on his jaw. Prove his manhood? What the hell? He’d kept her awake for most of the night proving his manhood… How much proof did she need? How many times could he bring her to bliss before he satisfied her? Was she just jerking his chain or was she serious? The shame of not being able to completely satisfy his mate made him want to hang his head…
“Maybe Evan could give you some pointers…”
“Evan?”He growled louder and for longer.
“Apparently he was Godlike in his abilities…”She wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep a straight face. Surely his senses would tell him that she was being dishonest? But then if his ego was taking that much of a pounding perhaps he wasn’t thinking clearly… “Oh my God, you’re actually pouting.”She spat out on a long chuckle, unable to hide the amusement from her voice any longer as she stared at him.
“I’m Alpha. I don’t pout.”He growled out.
“I’m Alpha I don’t pout.” She offered back to him as deeply as she could, trying to mimic him, but she’d never get that level of depth within her voice that was as natural to him as breathing.
“Woman, when I get you back to the house…”He growled out and she waved a dismissive hand towards him.
“Yeah, yeah, you’ll take me places I’ve never been before, the earth will move, rainbows will form over the house, and I’ll break out into spontaneous applause, once I have the energy to lift my hands again, blah, blah, blah…”She teased to a constant rumble of thunder that emanated from his chest.
“That’s a challenge I’m willing to undertake.”He did more than growl, he promised, and Dee took a long moment to think about that. Perhaps it wasn’t the best damn challenge to offer him, after all, there were some points last night and again this morning when she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to breathe again, to move again, or to walk again.
Whoops.
The closer they got to Lacy the deeper her mood turned towards the dark side. Teasing him about his prowess in bed was one thing. It had provided her with a welcome distraction as they ate up the miles back home, but now she was feeling the apprehension again, the frustration, and the need to dish out some Fae justice against the Lycan that had hurt her friend.
The moment she unlocked the front door she felt the coldness within her for what had happened in the apartment. The negative energy swept over her body like a cloak, and she gasped in a breath as her eyes took in the devastation.
Aidan’s arm went around her waist and he drew her towards his hip, locking her in place against him as every muscle within his body tensed.
“I scent blood…”He offered her quietly and Dee tried to pull away from him
, but he wouldn’t allow it. There was only a faint scent of a Lycan male in the air and he could hear just one heartbeat, but still he didn’t know what they would find.
“Let me go…”Dee squirmed against him, fighting a useless battle of strength with her mate wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She lifted her foot and brought her heel down on the top of his toes, and he growled out a warning to her as the pain shot through him, but still he didn’t release her.
“Stop…”He started for Lacy’s bedroom, taking her along with him, and she stopped squirming as she headed towards where she wanted to be.
Dee’s hand shot out and flicked on the overhead light and her breath caught within her throat as her eyes took Lacy in. Lying curled on her side on the bed, her eyes were closed in sleep, her faced was battered and bruised, and there was a deep cut above her right eye.
CHAPTER NINE
Dee pushed against his hold on her and he immediately let her go. Dropping to her knees on the floor beside the bed, Dee reached out a tentative hand and brushed the stray strands of hair away from her friends face.
“Lacy…”Lacy jumped at the sound of her voice. One eye snapped open and took Dee in, while the other was swollen and forced to stay shut. “Oh God, Lacy, I’m so sorry…”Dee bit down on the urge to weep for her friend. Now wasn’t the time to lose it. She needed to be strong, put up the emotional barricade within her for what was yet to come.
Lacy pushed her elbow into the mattress and it quivered beneath her weight as she pushed up in the bed.
“This is not your fault…”Lacy managed through the pain of the swollen split lip. She’d called Tanya because she knew how Dee would take the news of what had happened and she didn’t want her blaming herself. “No woman is responsible for a man’s actions, they need to own that themselves. You know that, Dee.”
Lacy’s words didn’t make her feel any better. Wave after wave of guilt and remorse battered against her as she stared back at her friend. The pin pricks of pain behind her eyes, the taste of salvia in her mouth as she held back her tears, and the way her heart hurt within her chest for what her friend had endured was just too much.
“I’m sorry, I’m just so sorry…”Dee trembled against the emotions that raged within her. Love for Lacy, disgust for finding her battered and bruised, hate for the man who did this, and the need to find the bastard and deliver some Fae justice raged within her.
“I need to check you over…”Aidan moved towards her slowly. Her didn’t know what she had endured, apart from the obvious signs of trauma, and he didn’t want to scare her or cause her any more fear or distress than she had already suffered.
“I’m fine, you big fur ball…”Lacy tried to put as much of herself into her words as she could, but they all knew she was anything but fine. Being attacked was a shock to anyone’s system, even the most hardened.
“You look far from it, Lacy. Please let me check that nothing is broken…”Aidan walked towards her in slow sleek movements. For a six foot odd hulk of a man, he was amazingly unthreatening in his progression.
“I broke a couple of nails if that’s any help to you.”Lacy was trying to rebuild the wall around her emotions inside her. During the attack she’d fought back, but fighting against a wall of muscle was never going to work. Then she wanted to die and let it be over.
After a few hours of lying on the floor, alone and in pain with mixed emotions going through her mind, fear, anger, hatred, she’d finally settled on justice and making the son of a bitch pay for what he’d done. Now she needed strength, courage, and determination to see her through…
“Let him help…”Dee pushed up off the floor and sat beside her on the bed. Bringing Lacy’s back against her chest, she held her upright as her mate started at Lacy’s head and went through a slow, methodical cataloguing of her injuries. Dee could feel every tremble that went through Lacy’s body and every one of those trembles steeled her resolve to kill Billy for what he’d done.
With every new bruise beneath his fingertips Aidan felt the anger within him building into a need to rip the Lycan limb from limb. No man should ever treat a woman with anything other than tenderness. This one wasn’t even Lycan, she couldn’t even fight back against his strength and speed, and he’d used her as a punch bag. If he was a member of his pack he’d be dead already. Now he needed to hunt him down and make him pay for this, and he would.
Once Aidan was satisfied that Lacy hadn’t received anything more than superficial wounds he retreated from her bedroom and let his mate care for her.
Putting a call into Evan to update Tanya of her friend’s injuries, he told his Beta to get all the information he could out of Tanya on who the Lycan that did this was, and to put it out there among the packs that he wanted him found.
“So how bad is she?”Evan growled down the line.
“You wouldn’t even recognise her. He really went to town. I’m bringing her home. She’ll be under the packs protection until this guy is found. Then she can decide if she wants to stay with us or not.”Aidan’s need to protect her came first within his mind. She was family, or as close to family as she could be and nobody would lay a hand on her again.
His second need was vengeance, and that left a bitter taste within his mouth for what he wanted to do.
Aidan didn’t give a damn about Lacy’s protests. He’d carried her bags down to the car and then came back up for her. He was sure she was right, and even on trembling limbs she would be able to make it down the stairs and to the car, but it wasn’t in him to let her try.
Scooping her up into his arms, he noted how she felt so small and fragile, which only made his wolf even more protective of her. Making short work of the stairs down to the car and gently placing her on the back seat, he waited for his mate to get settled in beside her and readied himself for the journey back home.
Scenting the air on the street for any sign of Lacy’s Lycan attacker didn’t yield him any results, but then that wasn’t surprising. Lacy had admitted that she told Billy that Dee had moved out and was staying with his pack. Although she hadn’t told him that Dee had found her mate, only about Tanya, so the beast was probably going to make his way towards their home.
Aidan could almost taste the man between his jaws. He’d be more than happy to end him. He was no better than a rogue, attacking a human female the way he had. The thought was more than sickening.
“Ready?”Aidan climbed into the driver’s seat and caught sight of his mate in the rear view mirror. Just the sight of her seemed to warm his body through.
“Can he drive? I have enough injuries…”Lacy pushed the words past her bruised lips and Dee couldn’t help but snort a chuckle. She’d told Lacy about his driving in order to distract her from the pain as she tended her wounds.
“You could always walk.”He growled back over his shoulder and she snorted a laugh.
“Says the guy that wouldn’t let me walk down the stairs…”Lacy offered and he grinned to himself as he started the engine and put the car into gear. “Did you know your mate was such a big softie?”Lacy made it sound like an insult, and in some ways to his masculine sensibilities it was, and she was rewarded for the pain it caused to talk by his gentle growl that floated through the air.
“Considerate is not soft.”He offered as he tooled the car out into the lane and started for home. He’d feel better when he had them safely back at his house.
“But it’s sweet though right?”Lacy continued, ignoring his protest. “You have a sweetie…”She offered towards Dee as she heard him groan. “That’s just sooo cute.”She added teasingly and heard him growl again. This time louder and with a little more force to it.
“Be nice, remember you have to live with him.”Dee chuckled and Lacy started to shake her head, but thought better of it when the car spun around her.
“No you have to live with him. I can just pick up and leave anytime.”Lacy informed her, feeling better within herself for ragging on the big bad Alpha.
“Not while
he’s out there you can’t. You’re under my protection…”Aiden bit out. It was better that she learnt it now than they end up in some kind of confrontation that wouldn’t end well for her, should the matter arise later.
“Ohhh…”Lacy turned to look at Dee with pure innocence on her face, or the best she could muster considering the state of her. “I’m under his protection.” Dee snorted another chuckle.
Dee didn’t think that Aidan appreciated just how powerful the three Fae actually were when they were together. If Billy decided to come after one of them once they were reunited, he wouldn’t walk away from that. That was something she would guarantee.
“Good to know.”Dee said aloud as she shared a smile of knowing with Lacy. The Alpha might have a wakeup call pending.
Tanya was pacing back and forth across the living room floor. Evan was seated on the sofa and watched her carefully. He neither wanted to stop her, nor suggest that she stop, as the last time he did that she nearly bit his head off. And they say Lycans could roar.
“They should be back by now…”Tanya was talking to herself. He’d learned his lesson with that one as well and sat there mute, just following her with his eyes. “It’s getting late.”Tanya bit the bottom of her lip anxiously and her mate refrained from trying to sooth her.
Suddenly Tanya turned towards him, her hands drew into fists at her side and she glared down at him.
“I said it’s getting late, right?”She snapped out, and he snapped to attention.
“Yes, but they needed to pack Lacy’s things and…”Tanya hissed out her annoyance as she turned away from him. He guessed his part in the conversation was done. Damn, but females were complicated. How was he supposed to know when the right time to answer was?
“They should be here by now…”
“I’m sure everything’s fine…”He offered and she spun back around towards him, her eyes blazing accusingly.
