by Zoe Winters
“Awww. This is sweet,” the psycho bitch said.
Cole took a steadying breath and stepped into the circle. The shift came on the second the moonlight touched his skin. Jane watched, mesmerized, as his shape extended and shrank, changing until everything was fur and claws and teeth. His nostrils flared to scent the air. He growled at her, more wolf than man.
But Jane couldn’t call forth anxiety in her mate’s presence. Her body recognized him as hers, and she knew, somewhere beneath the animal, Cole recognized her in the same way.
He was much bigger than she’d expected him to be, larger than a normal wolf. Or maybe she’d just never been so close to one before. His fur stood on end as he continued to growl at her, crouched low, ready to pounce.
“Cole,” she said quietly.
He stopped growling and cocked his head to the side as if trying to determine how he knew that voice.
She crooked a finger at him. “I know you’re in there. You know I’m yours.”
He paced and whimpered as he scented the air. That’s good. If he’s not rushing to tear me to pieces it means he’s at least a little aware of who I am.
“You have to take the risk or I’ll die. Remember what you said about finding, then losing your mate? That will happen if you don't come over here and stop the bleeding.” Her voice weakened as she spoke.
His ears perked up at her warning, and he hesitantly crossed the floor to where she sat bound to the chair. Before he reached her, Rhonda spoke.
“Kill. Feed. That’s dinner, Cole.”
He growled at Jane and edged closer, his attention shifting to feeding and maiming.
“You fucking bitch,” Jane said. “Cole, ignore her. She’s trying to kill your mate.”
At the word, mate, he cocked his head to the side again as if he were trying hard to think things through and puzzle out what that word meant to him.
“Cole, if I die here, I won’t blame you. But I don’t want to leave you. So you have to pull it together.”
She stretched her hand out to him, and he closed the distance between them. His tongue flicked out experimentally to taste the blood dripping over her arm as if trying to decide what to do with her. He growled low in his throat as he continued lapping at her cuts.
Jane started to run her fingers through his fur. The action seemed to soothe him, and the growling subsided.
“What are you waiting for? Rip the little bitch apart,” Rhonda shouted.
The wolf’s head jerked up. His eyes narrowed on the omega, and he growled.
“I think you want to shut up now,” Jane said, her fingers still stroking through her mate’s fur. Cole let out a short grunt and went back to the business of sealing her wounds.
When he finished, he gnawed through the ropes that bound her hands and dragged her out of the circle of moonlight into the waiting safety of the shadows. Then he shifted back. His hand cupped Jane’s face, his thumb brushing a strand of hair away. Guilt shone out of his warm brown eyes.
“I’m so sorry. I should have marked you. You would never have been in danger from me if I had.”
Jane nodded. “It’s okay. I asked you not to.”
“I could have killed you. You’ll never know how close I was to ripping you apart. If I’d smelled any fear on you, I wouldn’t have been able to stop.” He dropped his head into his hands.
She pulled his hands away from his face and wrapped her arms around him. “You didn’t though. That’s the only thing that matters.”
He returned the embrace, then reluctantly pulled free of her. “Let me finish this, and then I’ll take care of you.”
He turned to face Rhonda who hadn’t had the good sense to flee when he’d been distracted. She stood at the front of the church, trembling, her hands outstretched in supplication.
“Cole . . . ” She knelt, offering her throat. Submitting to her alpha. Too late for that.
“There is no forgiveness for what you’ve just done. You’ve endangered my mate.”
“You hadn’t marked her. I didn’t know.” She was shaking.
“Jane, could you hand me the knife?”
She went quietly to the center of the circle and retrieved the knife, placing it in his outstretched hand.
“You can go outside if you don’t want to see this.”
She nodded and made a hasty exit.
***
He knew she’d take the opportunity to leave the church. For all Rhonda had done to her that night, Jane still couldn’t watch him kill someone shaped like a human. But it had to be done. He waited until he’d heard her footsteps recede and the door click quietly shut behind her.
He turned back to the wolf cowering before him.
“Cole, please don’t do this. I’m sorry. You can’t kill me. You know you can’t. I’m like a sister to you, remember?”
The wolf sighed. “Rhonda, you know I’ve always loved you. I’ve thought of you as family since we were pups. I’ve protected you. And this is how you repay me? By trying to destroy my life?”
“I love you,” she said.
“No. You love Rhonda. You knew how I felt about Jane, and you tried to make me kill her. How were you going to get me to start the mating process in all of that?”
He watched as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a bottle. He snatched it from her trembling hand and read the label. She’d pulled out all the stops. It was a love potion designed for therians to intensify the pheromones.
“You’ve used this on me before.” He’d thought he’d just been weak and lonely. He’d been too upset to notice what had been different about her. She’d taken advantage of his mourning a lost member of the pack. “So if it didn’t work that time, you thought maybe if you combined it with the frenzy of blood lust after a human kill, it would work then?”
She remained silent.
He threw the bottle across the room and it shattered, spilling the shimmering contents. She cringed.
“You don’t deserve it for what you’ve done, but out of respect for our former relationship before you betrayed me, I’ll make it quick.”
“No, Cole, please.” She was sobbing. Her voice rose in a shrill panic as she bargained for her life. “Have you no mercy at all? Spare me. Banish me. I’ll go away. I’ll never come near you or Jane again.”
He felt the faintest shred of pity for her, but he couldn’t be moved by it. Not when it put his mate at risk.
“I’m sorry. I just don’t believe you.”
He jerked Rhonda up by her hair, yanked her head back, and sliced the silver blade across her throat.
Chapter Fourteen
Jane looked to the door every few moments, her concern for Cole growing. The omega had been real chatty while she’d dragged Jane kicking and screaming to the church. The drawback of the drug Rhonda had injected was that not only could she not shift, but she didn’t have access to the amount of wolf strength she normally had. She’d still been stronger than Jane, but next to Cole she was helpless as a puppy.
Still. Crazy meant unpredictable.
She’d heard the begging through the thin door. The wolf was clearly insane and had no grasp on reality, but even though Rhonda wanted her dead, Jane felt pity for the woman. She knew how badly she wanted Cole and how much in love with him she was. Jane also knew Rhonda wasn’t his mate.
She was.
As she watched the first rays of sunrise peeking over the horizon, Jane prayed he would do it quickly. After several minutes, the muffled voices stopped, and the church went silent. She made the sign of the cross and waited. She didn’t believe in a higher power anymore, not after all the things she’d been through. But she’d been raised religious, and old habits died hard.
When Cole joined her outside, he looked exhausted, like it had drained everything out of him to do what he’d just done.
He appeared to want to touch her, but his hands were coated in the omega wolf’s blood, and Jane realized he’d cradled Rhonda in his arms while she’d bled out.
The knife was still clenched in his hand. “We’ll have to come back later. She should have a proper burial and a funeral with the pack,” he said.
Jane nodded.
“Come with me.”
Her stomach leaped, instinctively knowing what was about to happen, and welcoming it.
What’s wrong with me? A woman had just been killed on her behalf, and the only thought running through her mind was finishing with Cole what should have been finished before. She watched the muscles in his naked body contract and expand as he strode ahead of her, her eyes drifting over his muscular back.
She stopped beside him as he bent next to a stream to wash Rhonda’s blood off the knife and his hands.
“You did it fast?”
“Yes,” he said, his hand trembling a little as he cleaned off the blade.
“I’m sorry,” she said again. If she’d let him mark her before, surely Rhonda wouldn’t have continued with her plan. Maybe it wouldn’t have come to this.
“Not your fault. I should have seen it. I should have taken it seriously. I thought it was just a crush.” He placed the knife on a rock beside the water and turned to face Jane. His eyes glowed visibly.
Though he held onto his human form, Jane could see the wolf peering back out at her now, and she knew what that look meant.
“I’m too tired to shift again, so if you don’t want this with me, you’d better run now. I can’t follow human rules of courtship. It almost got you killed once, and I won’t do it again. If we’d been mated, I would have felt it the instant you’d been taken.”
Jane’s hands fumbled with the button of her jeans. She stripped them off and tossed them into the stream. Cole arched a brow.
“Well, I can’t put them back on. They’ve got blood on them, and they’re gross.”
She supposed she could wash them, but she couldn’t see herself wearing that pair of jeans again. It wasn’t as if the outfit carried fond memories. Oh yeah, and this is what I wore that time when a crazed lovesick werewolf cut me up in a wacky plot to take my mate.
Cole nodded. He was standing in front of her, still naked from the earlier shift, his body revealing the evidence of his arousal.
All at once, he was on her, ripping her top off and flinging it aside. He made quick work of her underwear and stretched out on the soft bed of grass, pulling Jane on top of him. His hand moved between her legs stroking the warm folds of flesh. She blushed at how wet she was and the fact that he knew the extent of her need for him.
He smirked at her. “This makes it easy.”
She gasped in mock horror and smacked him on the arm, surprised either of them had it in them to make a joke after all that had just happened.
His rumbling chuckle reached her ears and somehow reached into her stomach as well, searing her insides.
“Ride me, baby.”
He didn’t have to ask twice. She groaned at the feel of his body encased in hers. She would never get tired of how warm and alive he was. His large hands wrapped around her waist, urging her on harder. She was on top, but he controlled the rhythm as he drove into her from below.
Her hands clawed at the ground, uprooting blades of grass as waves of pleasure washed over her. A moment later, his canines elongated and his fangs were in her throat. A second orgasm came crashing over the first one, and her hands moved to his shoulders to hold onto him as tightly as he was holding her.
It was different than the vampire bites. There was no drinking, just a mark. Almost as soon as his fangs had gone into her, they were out again and he was licking the wound to make sure it healed properly.
There would always be a scar. It was the one bite mark she was proud to wear because it didn’t label her a whore or meat, but the beloved mate of the pack alpha.
Jane wasn’t sure which thing happened first, hearing the crunch of shoes, or Cole flipping them so he was on top of her, shielding her body. Half in defense of her safety and half in protection of her modesty.
Three pairs of shoes moved into her line of sight. Cross-trainers, hiking boots, and wedge sandals . . . Charlee?
She glanced up to see a man and woman she didn’t know and Charlee armed with a bow and a silver-tipped arrow. An arrow aimed straight at Cole.
“Get off her, wolf,” she said, the bow unwavering.
Alarmed, Jane tried to twist and rise, but Cole was having none of it. His body was tense, curled protectively around hers.
“Charlee, no! Put that away. He’s not hurting me.”
The redhead held the weapon steady. “Oh yeah, because across the way I saw him bite you. I’m sure that was just wolfy fun and games.”
Jane blushed and dropped her head back to the grass. “I’m his mate.”
There was a humming beat of silence before Charlee lowered the weapon and let the bow and arrow fall to the ground. “Well, crap. We thought you were in trouble. We did about fifty spells trying to locate you and work around the warding magic. Then finally you were outside the range of the shield. We were afraid you were dead.”
“Sorry. He wouldn’t let me use the phone,” Jane said.
“That was for your protection. I couldn’t let you go back to the vampires. You make me sound like a monster.”
“Well? You were keeping me hostage.”
Cole growled, but without menace. “Are we really going to have this argument now, Jane?”
She snorted, embarrassment over her predicament momentarily dwarfed by the humor of the moment.
Charlee sighed. “These are my friends Dayne Wickham and Greta Lawson.”
Cole snarled. “You bring Dayne Wickham near my mate, and you think I’m the threat?”
Jane wasn’t sure what the deal was with Dayne, but she really didn’t want to be naked under a werewolf while her friend and two strangers stood and looked on. “Um, Guys? Could we maybe have this discussion a little later? When I’m not all naked?”
“Sorry,” Charlee said. The others mumbled their apologies as well.
“Wait for us at the lake a few miles west of here,” Cole said with the authoritative tone only an alpha wolf could manage under the circumstances.
Charlee started toward the lake but stopped. “Oh, and I almost forgot. Anthony got a confession out of Paul about the things he was doing to you. He’s been locked up. The official charge is treason since he lied to his king. But Anthony wants to know if you want to be the one to stake him.”
Cole growled, “I’d like to be the one to torture him slowly to death.”
Charlee shook her head. “He’s not going to release him to a wolf, so give up the dream.” Then to Jane, “you can let me know.”
When Charlee and the others had disappeared into the woods, Cole scooped Jane up in his arms and ran. He moved with such speed, she was sure to an outside observer they would be a blur. He didn’t stop until he arrived at the tunnels that led to the den’s private entrance. He punched in the code.
“Jane, you might want to wait outside the den.”
A moment later clothes were handed out to her. She quickly slipped the jeans and T-shirt on, then stepped inside behind him.
“I guess I need to change the code.”
“We were worried. We came back and smelled Jane’s blood,” Blake said.
“And you didn’t follow it?”
“We were afraid we might be more harm than help because of the moon.”
Cole nodded.
Mara let out a low whistle when Jane finally stepped out from behind him. “Wow, Cole. You marked her hard enough, didn’t you?”
Jane ran her fingers over the puckered mark, a little self-conscious.
“Better to be safe,” Cole said. He watched the wolves, gauging their reaction.
Mara smiled brilliantly at Jane. “Welcome to the pack.”
***
Two days later Jane and Charlee descended the dank staircase to the c
ell Paul was being held in. He was stone cold and looked as if he were already a corpse, in that still, dead sleep that vampires fell into during the day. The guardians had let them pass with one imperious look from Charlee, who was taking to her role as queen like she’d been born to it.
It was hard at times to remember she was human.
A note from Anthony, sealed with a drop of his own blood, hadn’t hurt anything either. Jane had brought her hand-carved wooden stake, the stake she’d used on Sedrick and had kept with her in case she got the opportunity to use it again. She hadn’t been able to use it on Gregory; she’d gotten too attached to the idiot. But she was glad his political aspirations had driven them apart and enabled her to find Cole.
It would end with the last vampire much as it had with the first to try to pull her into the dark away from the sunlight she deserved.
When Anthony had first offered her the opportunity to be Paul’s executioner, she’d hesitated. She didn’t want to see him, to look into his eyes. She didn’t have anything lame and cliché to say like: “Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?” She didn’t feel like torturing him for hours or making him beg, as he’d made her beg so many times.
She didn’t want to become the monster. She just wanted to end it and know he was gone for good. She knew with Cole by her side the nightmares would never return. She looked down at Paul. In sleep, while the demon rested, she could only see his human form.
So peaceful and beautiful. So deceptive.
She aimed the stake over his heart, then raised it and slammed it home. The stench of death permeated the air as his flesh started to melt off his bones, slowly rotting away until there was nothing but dust.
Jane dropped the stake, and it clattered to the ground with deafening finality. She didn’t need it anymore.
She ascended the narrow stairs to the surface, while Charlee stayed behind to speak to the guardian. When she opened the door, a warm hand was outstretched to her.
Cole’s face relaxed when he saw her, though his voice still held a growl. “I can’t believe Anthony wouldn’t even allow me to go down there with you. Just because I’m a wolf . . . ”
