by Anne Marsh
Fuck him.
Fuck this.
God, he’s so big and mean. I want to wrap myself up in all the strength and protection he offers even more now that I know it comes with the mother of all price tags. Demand he hold me, kiss me, make me his because then I can pretend that everything else—the fur, the fangs, the fighting—is simply part of a long, bad dream and we’re about to wake up together in my bed.
The real world doesn’t work that way.
You’re so stupid.
Yes. Yes, I am. So there’s only one thing to do, isn’t there?
I sprint for the door with everything I have.
Blade
The wolf in me howls, demanding we chase her down. Christ, she’s gorgeous even when she’s running from me. So soft and fragile. So damned easy to catch. I want to lope after her. Slide my arms around her waist and haul her pumping body back against mine and fuck her hard.
Mark her inside. Out. Everywhere.
I’m a sick bastard and now she knows it, too.
She’s halfway across the room, her breath tearing out of her mouth in desperate pants because we’ve—I’ve—scared the shit out of her. And me? Oui, I’m hard. Chasing her is foreplay.
Jace levels a cold stare at me. “You got this?”
If I don’t, he will. Someone has to clean up this mess, and he’s giving me a choice. Either I make sure Leah never mentions her newfound belief in werewolves, or he does. That he’s even making it my choice is a fucking miracle I don’t deserve.
“I’ve got it,” I promise him.
Her fingers scrabble at the door, fighting to open it. She’ll win that battle in a handful of seconds and we all know it. What she doesn’t know, however, is that all I need is that blink of time and I’ll be on her. She’s lost already and she’s the only one who hasn’t realized that fact.
The door cracks open. I move.
I close the distance between us easily, grabbing her and tossing her over my shoulder. My mate should admire the strength I have for her, my ability to protect her, but instead she screeches like a banshee, hollering curses in my ear as I carry her out the back door. I can hear sirens filling up the street out front. It’s time to get the hell out of here.
Jace follows close on my heels, his Keelie Sue pulled tight against his side. They both pretend like Leah isn’t bouncing and cursing on my shoulder. As if this is perfectly normal. “We’re splitting. Gator’s grabbed the security tape. If we’re lucky, no one else gets drawn in.”
Fang emerges next with T.D. draped over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He slaps T.D.’s ass as he powers down the alley. “Hope to fuck he doesn’t think we’re dating now.”
I bark out a laugh before I can stop myself. Fucking Fang lives in his own universe, and sometimes it’s one hell of a show. Leah picks this moment to fight harder, as if she senses that Fate’s writing The End on her escape attempt. My shoulder’s not gonna take it for much longer. It’s all I can do not to dump her ass on the ground.
Don’t want to hurt her.
Pissing her off, though, is fine by me. When she’s yelling at me, she sees me. She gives me all of her attention, then. My dick agrees because it’s fucking hard as iron, threatening to punch through the front of my jeans. Been like this ever since I laid eyes on her.
I smack her ass just hard enough to sting. “Stay still.”
And then because I don’t want to hurt her—ever—I rub the sting away with my hand.
“I’m turning over a new leaf,” she hisses, her fear scent growing stronger. “You, you… werewolf. I’m not just agreeing to whatever shit somebody tosses my way because I don’t want a confrontation.”
Any other time but now and I’d applaud her for that. I don’t want her afraid. I just want her to be mine the same way I’m hers. She’s definitely not feeling me though because she pokers up, trying to wriggle down. Or launch herself into outer space. Not sure I can tell the fucking difference, to be honest. Doesn’t matter, either, because I’ve got her now and I’m not letting her go until we’re both good and ready.
“Put me down.” She doesn’t yell the words, but she doesn’t whisper them, either. I don’t want to piss on this self-respect parade she’s got going on—I respect the hell out of her—but I have a few points of my own to make. My dick twitches, reminding me that point number one is just what I am to her.
I tap her ass again, trying not to grin as her volume grows. She likes it. Bet she’d never admit it, not in so many words, but my mate likes the little sting of pain and the self-righteous anger she plasters over that liking erases her fear some. She likes my touch. She liked it two years ago and right now, today, she smells like a hundred different kinds of sweet. Sunshine, warmth, a slick, honeyed welcome that makes me fantasize about shoving my fingers past her shorts and under her panties. Pushing deep inside her where I belong.
“How long have you been a wolf?” She slaps her palms hard against my back. “Why were you on my couch?”
“Always and because that’s where I wanted to be.”
“I thought I was doing you a favor.” Her next blow hits my ass, and she’s not kidding around. But the fear scent’s gone, erased by her outrage.
She wants to pick a fight? Fine. I stride down the alley, after Fang. Fucker shoots me a two-fingered salute over his shoulder when he makes it to the exit first. Everything’s a competition with him. I’m supposed to put pack and club first—and Leah second. But damn it—she’ll always be first for me.
“Jace is gonna kick your ass,” he says when I catch up. I’d like to think that’s just friendly advice, but he sounds pretty damned satisfied about it. Probably thinks I’ve just handed him an engraved invite to move up in the pack hierarchy. And it’s possible I have.
Leah stills. “What’s he talking about? Oh, my God. Is he a werewolf, too?”
Fang cackles and hangs a left, abandoning me to my fate.
“You want the answer to that right now?”
She shuts up. Guess she answered her own question.
I’ve spent my life living by a code of honor. Fearing and serving my Alpha. Fighting for my pack and protecting our mates and pups. I didn’t always do the right thing as Big Red’s wolf, and Jace has given me a shot at atonement.
This thing with my Leah? This I’m getting right.
My place is four blocks from Leah’s work, which is probably some kind of divine statement or happy fucking coincidence. From what she said, she hasn’t been in town long, so it’s not like I picked it because she was close by. Some shit just works out—she owns a houseboat and I own a boathouse fronting the bayou. It’s not in pack territory, but it’s mine. You’d almost think Fate planned it that way, making us the yin and yang to each other. The sleepy drone of insects and thick, steamy heat push at my skin like something living. A bird calls, followed by the splash of a larger, more predatory animal dropping into the water.
Leah stops twisting. Stops fighting, stops yelling. She’s so still I’d think she’d stopped breathing, but my wolf and I, we feel the excited beat of her heart through our skin. The one thing she’s not anymore is frightened.
Thank fuck.
I unlock the door and shove it open. Step inside without putting her down. I’ve got bolt holes all over the bayou, places where I can fall back and lie low. I bought this one a few years ago when it became clear that Big Red sucked as an Alpha and that our pack was in danger of cracking beneath his leadership. Just in case I need to fall back, this is my higher ground, my space to make a stand. Now it will become the place where I take my mate.
To have her this close, her sweet heat cupped in my arms, and her scent filling the air, is heaven. I’ve always been more hell-bent than saintly, but I’ll steal this chance. She’s my everything, my heart and soul, my one chance to be someone and something more than the just my Alpha’s right arm.
I cross the big room in a handful of steps, laying her down on the enormous wooden daybed. She sinks into the sea of cushio
ns, staring up at me. She doesn’t say anything. Maybe she can’t, won’t. Fuck if I understand how this works—she’s not a weapon I could take apart and put back together in the dark.
“I want to fuck you,” I snarl, pinning her to the bed. “Tell me to stop if that’s what you want, but tell me now.”
“Talk to me,” she counters, coming up on her elbows. “Tell me about the wolves. Who and what the hell are you?”
“Fine,” I growl, cupping her face with my hands. “You already know the basics. I’m French, I’m a werewolf, and I’m way too old for you.”
She glares right back at me. “How old?”
“Centuries.” I settle back, her hips pinned beneath my ass. “You want to know everything about me? You called me medieval—I am. I was trained as a knight in the south of France. Knighthood was about birth. If your sire was noble, welcome to the brotherhood. If he wasn’t, there was a permanent no-vacancy sign. My father was a werewolf who sired a new pack on his lady wife and half the surrounding village. He didn’t take no for an answer and he made a brutal Alpha. He sent me to foster at a local court when I was seven. I served as a page, learning fighting skills and earning my place in the fortress. Fight. Defend. Those were my north and my south, the two points on my compass. He pointed me at someone, and I killed him. You got any more questions?”
Leah
I’ve got millions of questions but no answers.
Blade’s a wolf.
T.D.’s a wolf.
And since Jace is one as well, what does that make Keelie Sue? Just how many wolves are running around Baton Rouge shifting whenever they goddamned feel like it?
And… fuck.
“Was that a dog on my boat the other day or was that a wolf?”
His eyes never leave mine. “Wolf.”
“Just a wolf, or—”
“Gator,” he admits.
I take a moment to process that. None of this feels real. When you go to work, you don’t expect to turn around and witness a wolf fight. Not unless you work somewhere crazy like the Fish and Game Department or Animal Control. Then that crazy’s just your normal and it’s okay. Wolves don’t get their nails done. Shit. I think that’s the shock talking because I can’t process this.
“We’re not having sex right now,” I tell him because I feel a need to address the monster erection punching at the front of his jeans. Guess fighting really, really turns him on.
He stills. “That’s a fucking disappointment.”
I know one thing, though. I stood up to T.D. I told him to back the fuck off—and I can’t back down now. When you turn over a new leaf, it stays turned over—otherwise you’re just kinda flicking and poking the thing and getting nowhere fast, right?
“You okay, chère?”
Funny how the simplest words are also the strongest.
“No,” I say.
Do I whisper it? Nope. I fucking scream it at him. How the hell does he think I feel after discovering that shapeshifters are for real—and I’m up close and personal with one right now? He scrubs a hand over his head, pulling back.
“You don’t have to fucking deafen me,” he grumbles, but then he comes back, strong hands stroke softly over my cheeks. It’s possible my fingers tangle with his, too. It’s possible I pull him just a little closer, not because I need him or I’m caving, but because I’m taking what I want.
“I’m not a pushover,” I warn him. “You’re strong, but I’m strong, too.”
“Never doubted it,” he says promptly. “Never wanted you to be any other way, either.”
Images from the wolf fight keep flashing through my brain, like my head just can’t let go of what it saw. Blade shifting, his body melting away, disappearing only to be replaced with the wolf. He and T.D. tearing at each other. Hurting each other. Me standing there and watching because I couldn’t bring myself to do anything else. He got hurt and I did nothing. I fight the urge to throw up.
“How come you never told me? And don’t tell me it’s because I didn’t ask.”
Somehow my hand finds his chest, tracing his ink. I’d know him anywhere. Even as a wolf he was strangely, perfectly familiar. I knew which wolf was T.D.—and which one was mine.
“Chère, they don’ make greeting cards for this kind of shit.”
“Keelie Sue hinted that there was stuff about you I needed to know.” Revelation hits me harder than Blade smashed into poor T.D. “God. She’s one too, isn’t she?”
He shrugs as if I’ve asked him to add two and two. The answer’s that obvious to him. “Most of the Breed are shifters. Fang, Jace, Ware. Keelie Sue’s dad was one, too.”
Was.
“Jace killed him when he challenged for control of the pack,” Blade says as casually as most people talk about Uncle Bob getting promoted at work. Oh God.
He runs a hand over me as if he just needs to touch me. “We don’t need to talk about them now. We need to talk about us. About where we go from here. I claimed you. I know that doesn’t count for shit in your opinion, but it means everything to me and mine. And I’d like to do it right, but first we need to talk so I can hear what you need from me. I’m hoping it’s something more than just a friend with benefits, but I can do that for you, too.”
And that’s the thing, isn’t it? I need more than this too.
More than sex.
I need more me, more Blade.
And less wolf. The memories push at my head, fighting for recognition, fighting to blend with what happened today and suck me back into the nightmare of fear and pain I swore I’d gotten past. I won’t ever be that scared girl trapped with a wild animal, screaming in the darkness because she can’t get out, can’t get away. I’ve run too hard and too far to go back.
It’s time for me to leave.
“I have to go.” I push away from him and swing my legs over the side of the daybed.
“Stay.” His voice is rough and hoarse, and I’m not sure how I feel about the possessive note but I know I have to go. I stand and he doesn’t stop me. Instead, he rolls, coming to his feet as he follows me, graceful despite his size. Maybe it’s the years of martial arts training. Maybe it’s the wolf. Maybe the man was a ballet dancer in a former life. I just don’t know how to give us both what we want.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I say awkwardly. “About—”
“It would be best,” he agrees. I don’t think he means to threaten me. I really don’t. It’s just that the man has only scary settings when it comes to his club business.
“Okay.” I suck in a breath. “Then we’re good and—”
“And what?”
I blink back the stupid tears that suddenly spring to my eyes. He’s a scary bastard and I’m scared. That’s all this is. I need to leave before he decides I know too much or before he goes postal on someone else’s ass. I need him out of my life.
“Maybe I’ll see you around,” I say awkwardly. We both know I’m lying.
He takes a step toward me. “You’re breaking up with me.”
I shake my head. “We were never together.”
“I claimed you in front of my club. We’re mates.” God. His eyes glow as he says these ridiculous, wonderful, impossible, asshole things. We don’t belong together. We come from different worlds, and his, frankly, scares the shit out of me.
I hold up a hand. “You did those things.”
“Oui?” He blinks, clearly not getting my point.
“I didn’t choose,” I say quietly. “Maybe you could think about that some? I wasn’t part of this master plan you had. I don’t think I’ll ever get married or find a one-and-only, but if I did, I’d want that moment to be special. I’d want to ask and be asked. I’d want a chance to say yes. You took that away from me, Blade.”
“You want to be asked?” He sounds tired now, and there’s a hint of something else. “Then fine. I’m asking now. Be mine, chére.”
“It’s too late for us. You’re a wolf and a biker—and I’m not.”
“That’
s not all I am,” he says roughly, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s not all of me.”
“It’s all I see,” I say sadly and then I step away.
I make it two steps. Blade moves fast, pulling me back against him. For a moment, we just stand there, his face pressed against my hair, my hands doing this stupid flutter thing because I have no idea what to do with them. Hold the hand wrapped around my waist? Go all ninja on his ass? The first feels like giving in (even if it really, really appeals) and the second isn’t gonna work out so well for me, either.
He scares me and that’s the truth.
“Are you okay?” His words are rough, tense. It sort of feels like they almost get lost—in my hair, in the tension building between us, in everything that’s happened. No. I’m not okay. He’s a werewolf and today has sucked. But somehow I don’t think he’s okay either, and that makes everything just a little different. I shift and he sort of groans, his breath hissing out between his teeth. His hands tighten.
“I just want to pretend today never happened.”
“Be a good idea,” he agrees with a grunt, and then he lets go. I tell myself I’m absolutely not disappointed, but then he pulls me into his side, wrapping an arm around me and keeping me close. He’s not being gentle, but somehow this feels like necessary roughness, as if whatever happened at the salon has stripped a layer off his surface, and now I’m seeing the man beneath. And Blade’s not sweet, not easy, not a good guy.
When I flick a glance at him, his face is tense and remote. Wherever his head is, it’s not here with me. “Are you okay?”
“I’ll live,” he says tersely.
Ooookay.
And that’s when I spot the dark stain on his T-shirt. It’s black and spreading, an angry, wet flag that Blade definitely isn’t walking away from whatever happened today without a scar.
“You’re hurt.”
He grunts something that’s not a denial—and then he staggers. He recovers quickly, but his mouth tightens, his fingers flexing. His jacket falls away from his shoulder and the dark stain on his T-shirt is larger than before. I can see the tear in the fabric—and in the flesh beneath.
