The kid stopped growling at the introduction but didn’t get back in the car.
“He’s a vampire?” Everett asked, his voice booming in a way I’d never heard him speak before. He was trying very hard not to be insignificant and submissive.
“Yes, he is,” I said with a smile. “He’s my friend.” With as much compassion as I could, I said, “I told you things were different here. Maybe Nova can fill you in. I have something important to do.”
Turning back to Nova, I asked, “Is he inside?” I hoped neither Nova nor Everett heard the slight quiver in my voice.
“He is. They both are, actually,” he answered.
“I’ll be quick.”
“Aren’t you going to stop and say hello?” Nova asked, catching my hand in his. I understood the question in his glare. He wanted everything to be as it was before I left and I couldn’t promise that.
“I’m just going to make my presence known so that when he’s ready . . .” I couldn’t finish that sentence without a lump lodging in my throat. Maybe Patrick would never be ready.
I wouldn’t think about that.
“My little flower,” he said, brushing a stray hair from my cheek. “He knew you were coming the minute you hit his territory.”
That stopped me in my tracks. I finally turned, glaring back at Nova with a scowl.
“Go on then, make your stand,” he said, directing me toward the door. “I’ll look after your pup.” His reassuring smile meant more than I wanted to admit.
I strode into the club. The steady thump of the house music hit me like a brick in the chest. Striding by the coat check without a glance, I acknowledged the new girl with a quick nod. I didn’t stop when she called.
I bullied and jabbed my way through the crowd, around the bar and down the two steps onto the dance floor. It took me a few minutes of moving, bumping, grinding, and plain old shoving to get to the center of the dance floor.
Taking a deep breath, I filled my lungs with the hot stench of body heat, alcohol, and sex. I turned my face up to the ceiling where I knew everyone in the office above would see my face through the one-way mirrored floor/ceiling of Patrick’s club office. After making a complete circle, I released the breath I’d been holding in a huff of tension and dread. I made my way back off the dance floor, being belligerent when the dancers wouldn’t get out of the way. My heart thundered in my ears, pounding a frantic pace in my chest. Uncertainty lingered in my gut, making me nauseous as I squeezed between bodies slick with sweat. I had to get out of this club or I’d throw up.
When the crowd thinned, I ran. I didn’t give a shit if they could still see me through the ceiling. I couldn’t bear the weight of disappointment when he didn’t come. When neither Patrick nor Dean came and wrapped me in their arms. So much for standing my ground. Bursting out into the cool April air, I wiped a tear from my cheek.
I don’t know what I’d expected. I’d been doing nothing but thinking, dreaming, even fantasizing since we’d escaped that damned marble tomb. I wanted Patrick to take me in his arms, tell me he understood and that he’d forgiven me. Somehow, I’d convinced myself that’s what would happen when I showed my face inside that club. When Nova had hugged me, I thought everything would be fine. But when I stepped onto the sidewalk from the club’s front door . . . alone, I knew everything was not all right.
“How’d it go?” Nova asked with a quick smile.
“Fine,” I said, breezing by him.
“Hey, are you . . .?” he asked, reaching for me.
I dodged, moving out of his reach. I was already crying but if Nova touched me, I’d collapse into a fit of tears. I really didn’t want to do that. Not in public anyway. There was time enough to hide and cry later.
“Fine,” I snapped. “We’ll be at the Westin if you need me.” Slamming the car door, I shut the world out.
“Okay?” Nova said, his voice unsure. “It was nice meeting you, Everett. We’ll talk later. Hopefully,” Nova added under his breath.
Everett waved over the car and slipped into the driver’s side. He didn’t say a word, not a question, and not one complaint. He turned the ignition and pulled away from the curb. I appreciated that of him.
“The Westin is two blocks up and then make a left. It’s another two blocks on your left,” I said, sinking into my seat and hiding my eyes in my hand. Staring out the passenger-side window, I watched the familiar city pass us by. A band tightened around my chest as my breath hitched. They’d let me walk out, let me go.
I didn’t get the chance to cry. After checking into the Westin—I paid for two rooms, by the way—Everett barged into mine. He didn’t want to be alone in a new city. I think he was worried about me but I couldn’t tell the difference between general worry and specific worry. He slept on the suite couch in my room, close enough to hear my sobs. So I kept quiet, saving the crying until I was good and truly alone.
Lying in the dark, I stared at the ceiling, trying my damnedest not to turn my face into my pillow and sob openly. However, with a submissive, over-emotional, and already wounded werewolf in the next room, letting my emotions run wild wasn’t really an option. I didn’t want to have to talk about my feelings. I didn’t even know what they were. I especially didn’t want to explain to Everett how badly I’d hurt the people I loved. Closing my eyes, I concentrated on nothing but the sound of my breath leaving my lungs. One breath after another until everything faded to black.
“Should we wake her up?” a familiar, deep, male voice rumbled in the dark.
My eyes fluttered open but my body froze. I’d managed to fall into a fitful sleep and I wasn’t entirely sure I wasn’t dreaming. If I was dreaming, I didn’t want to wake up.
“I want to but it looks like she’s been tossing and turning. She probably needs her sleep,” Patrick’s voice said in a concerned whisper.
My heart fluttered at the thought of Patrick and Dean actually in my hotel room, here, worried about me.
“Ah, she’s up.” Dean chuckled softly. “Might as well turn the lights on and get a good look at her,” he said, seemingly disinterested. But I knew better.
The smell of his musk filled the room and his scorching power called to me in the dark, Gaoh to Eithina. I sat up in bed, rustling the blankets as Dean hit the switch. The room was flooded with artificial white light and I shrank away from the glare. It was a moment or two until I could readjust to it.
I brushed my hair out of my face and sat in the middle of the bed, uncertain. Dean smiled like a kid on Christmas morning. An expression that not many got to see and my heart raced as his olive-green eyes met mine. I’d caused that silly grin turning up the corners of his lips.
Patrick, on the other hand, glared at me. The muscles along his neck and shoulders tightened and his eyes darted from me to anywhere else in the room as if he couldn’t bear to look at me. His jaw was a line of solid granite and he clenched an envelope in his hand like it was his last remaining link to life.
“I think we can go now,” Patrick snapped.
“Wait!” I called before I could think of what to say next.
Everett burst through my bedroom door with a fire poker in his hand, bouncing in on the balls of his feet, and growling. I rolled my eyes but Patrick snatched the back of Everett’s neck and lifted him from the ground. His elegant hands reached out in a lithe movement that Ev never saw coming. Patrick lifted the kid from the ground, raising him by the throat to meet his dark, intense gaze. Dean ripped the fire poker from Ev’s hand in a sharp, wrench and tossed it to the floor. Dean breathed deep, taking a big whiff of Everett’s scent.
“Who are you?” Dean growled, a territorial warning to his words, making things low in my body tighten and heat. Dean’s adrenaline spiked and his musk filled the air. He was going to defend his territory, me, to the death. His bulky body tensed and the li
ght from the hotel lamps shimmered the olive complexion of his clean-shaven head.
Whimpering, Everett shrank at the sight of a real Alpha. My big protector. Hah!
“Let him go,” I said, amusement tinkling in my voice.
“Why should we?” Dean growled, his eyes shifting to a bright Caribbean blue as his wolf inched to the surface.
“Because he belongs to me,” I growled back, showing my grit. All the self-pity I’d been wallowing in the whole night disappeared at the sight of Everett scared. He needed me to protect him. If Dean wanted to get territorial, I sure as hell could do that, too. I loved him but I wouldn’t let him hurt what was mine.
Turning to me in surprise, his wolf prickled along the surface. He evaluated me for only a moment, taking in my squared shoulders and my stiff jaw. He met my gaze, giving me a half smile that curled my damned toes.
“Pat, you can drop the pup. He’s no threat,” Dean said, the soft growl rumbling from his chest made me weak in the knees.
Patrick dropped him, wiping his hands on his slacks as if he’d touched something dirty. Typical.
“You got a room, pup?” Dean asked, his Caribbean blue eyes focused entirely on me.
“Y-Y-Yes,” Ev stammered and backed away, scooting on his ass in a crab walk. Gazing up at the two men towering over him, I could see the confusion and question on Ev’s face. Had he made a mistake coming here? I was sure no matter how different Columbus was from Vegas, Ev would find his way. He had me.
“Then find it. We have business,” Dean ordered.
Everett peeked up at me from around Dean’s leg for reassurance, or permission, I couldn’t tell which. I nodded with a reassuring smile and he was gone in the blink of an eye.
“Did you mean it?” Patrick hissed, forcing the words out as if they were sharp.
“Mean what?”
“The letter,” he snapped. “What you wrote in this letter?”
I felt the blood rush from my face, chilling my body in a room filled with Dean’s scorching power. Clutching the letter written by my own hand up to me in a tight fist until the paper was wrinkled and unrecognizable, he stared at me. My heart thundered in my chest.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked, mortified.
“Smells like the pup,” Dean said with a faint smile.
“Nova handed them over to us just after you left Damsel,” Patrick snarled, sounding on edge and dangerous.
A tear slid down my face as my reserve crumbled. “He was only supposed to give those to you if I died.”
“You never said what to do with them if you lived,” Everett yelled from out in the hall.
Chuckling softly to himself, Dean smiled. “With submissives, you gotta be specific or they interpret the directions the way they want to understand them.”
“Did you mean the sentiments expressed?” Patrick asked again, anger flaring his nostrils. His hands trembled as he clutched the letter in his fist.
Opening the emotional shields I’d kept closed for so long, I let his rage hit me. I deserved to know everything he felt and much more for deserting him, for deserting all of them. I met his dark eyes and held my chin up, letting his anguish sink into me. But I also allowed my regret and sorrow to flow from me, in the hopes that he would at least understand.
“Yes. I still do,” I said. My voice quaked, only a tremor. I barely noticed but I was sure both and Patrick and Dean had. He ripped the letter open, stretching the paper tight until I thought he would tear it to shreds.
“My Dearest Patrick,” he spat out without looking up at me. “If you’re reading this, then I’m not coming home to you.” The words hitched in his throat, sounding harsh but I heard the pain he was trying to hide. “I’m going to try to explain everything as best as I can but I don’t have a lot of time. How to start? I blamed myself for both Danny and Amblan’s deaths.” His voice quavered as he read.
I remembered how helpless he felt when Amblan had died and how much I wanted him to be able to help me. That same pain was in his voice now, resonating in every fiber of his being, straight into me.
“I blamed myself for everything. I know now that Danny’s death wasn’t my fault but Amblan’s death was. I’m still wrestling with that. She may not have died by my hand but I failed her. I wasn’t strong enough to leave her behind. Because of my arrogance, my selfishness, I didn’t prepare her for what could happen. I left her vulnerable.”
Patrick turned sorrow-filled eyes up to me, his knuckles white from clutching the paper with desperate fingers. I’d hurt him. Meeting his dark eyes, my vision blurred as silent tears streamed down my face. I felt him there in my gut where he belonged, twisting my stomach in agony. As much as I blamed myself for everything, Patrick blamed himself for more, for not shielding me from the world and all the bad that came with it. Just as I’d felt that I’d let Amblan down, Patrick felt as if he’d failed me. Churning in the pit of my stomach and making my heart race was his regret and his guilt.
“I let all the pain fester and ended up hating myself for what I thought I’d become,” he continued reading, stumbling over my words. “I blamed myself for their deaths and I blamed you for making me what I’d turned into. I didn’t know how to tell you without breaking your heart.”
Patrick threw the letter to the floor, storming over to the window where the outside world seemed so far away. Dean and I both watched him as tension filled the room, making the air static. I was afraid to move, afraid of hurting him more.
Dean reached down and picked up the crumpled piece of paper. He smoothed it out with tender, light fingers as if the paper would shatter from rough handling. Dean began to read where Patrick left off.
“I also knew how much my relationship with Danny hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. Never wanted to hurt you like that again. I couldn’t face the truth or tell you that I’d fallen in love with Dean.” Dean’s rich baritone hitched as his eyes met mine in their clear olive tranquility. Clearing his throat, he continued reading. “I was wrong. I should have talked to you. I know that now but it’s too late for should have’s or would have’s. I should have confided in you and at least tried to explain. While I was gone, though, I discovered something. I am many things and always have been, including a killer. You didn’t make me that. You didn’t make me anything but happy. I forgot that people need me, not just humans. That’s where I’m going now, to help people who need me to protect them.”
A twinge of pride filled Dean’s voice as he read. Patrick’s still form rippled with strain as he stood at the hotel room window, watching the traffic below. His shoulders were a stiff line of anger and determination. The muscles along his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth and the skin around his wrist was colorless from the grip his hand had on it behind his back.
I wanted to walk over there and wrap my arms around him, reassure him that I was finally home, safe. I wanted him to know that everything would be good from now on. But I knew in my bones we needed to finish this. Patrick needed to hear and understand how big my fuck-up was and how sorry I was. I needed to make sure I said it to him . . . to them both.
“I’m just sorry that I couldn’t protect you from me,” Dean began again. “I hurt you and I’m so, so sorry. I’m going off to face Marabelle tonight and her servant Cordero Salazan in Las Vegas. If you’re reading this, then Everett made it to you. I’ve asked Dean to take him into the pack. He needs protecting. I ask only one thing of you. Even if it’s just my body, bring me home. I love you more than you know. I never stopped loving you and no matter what happens to me, I will always love you. Yours Always and Forever, Dahlia,” Dean finished in a whisper.
“You really thought you were going to die?” Dean asked in a hushed voice, his olive-green eyes flooding a cool Caribbean blue.
“I almost did.” Tears burned behind my eyes and my breath hitched in my th
roat. Patrick’s pain stabbed me in my gut like an ice pick as he listened. My own panic brought bile to the back of my throat. “They used a car battery on me,” I whispered. I didn’t recognize the sound of my own voice. It was over. Cordero Salazan and Marabelle couldn’t hurt anyone anymore.
Patrick turned. His dark gaze was strained, intense as his eyes bore into me. As if trying to read my mind, he focused on me with purpose. Patrick and I had never talked about that part of my life. I suspected he’d seen my torture in the memories we’d shared that first night in the limo though. He never asked questions about my youth or about my parents. He’d always been very careful to avoid those subjects, perhaps waiting on me to share those things. We’d never discussed it but I always thought he’d known. One of the things he never had to say. We didn’t need to talk about it, just knowing that he understood was enough. Patrick’s emotions were there on his face for the world to see and for me to feel, churning inside of me like a summer storm ready to pour. His horror surged through me, tingling my nervous system with the sensation of trepidation.
His power usually felt like cold water washing over me. Now it burned like ice skimming across my skin. The chill of death fused into my bones like standing in the artic in the middle of January.
“Ah, Baby, I’m sorry,” Dean said, closing the distance between us. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he brushed my hair back from my face with trembling fingers.
“You killed them?” Patrick asked, curt, still trying to hide his emotions and doing a horrible job.
I wanted to laugh at his direct question, tell him to stop trying to hide, but he was still too angry for jokes. A band tightened around my chest at his directness. In many ways, Patrick knew me better than anyone. He knew I wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt me that way and survive. He understood me, the real me. No matter how many lies I told myself, Patrick always knew what I was underneath.
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