Still, his brother didn't respond to him.
Vane wanted to choke him for his obstinacy.
It was then he felt a strange ripple in the air around him. He glanced over his shoulder to find Stefan standing there with a smug sneer on his face.
Without a second thought, Vane attacked.
* * *
Chapter 6
« ^ »
Vane caught Stefan about the waist and the two of them went bursting through the hard oak door, into the hallway.
Aimee Peltier jumped away from them and started screaming for help while Vane pulled Stefan up from the floor and slugged him hard and furiously.
Instead of attacking, Stefan changed to wolf form and ran for the stairs. Vane started after him. But before Stefan could head down them, Wren, who was bounding up them in human form, caught the wolf by the neck and hauled him back into the hallway.
Stefan snarled, trying to bite Wren. The leopard held him with an ease of strength that gave Vane pause. He'd had no idea the young, quiet Katagari was so strong.
Vane stood back, breathing raggedly, as Nicolette came out of her room at the end of the hallway.
Aimee ran to her mother while Wren maintained his grip on the snarling wolf.
"What is going on here?" Nicolette asked.
Vane gestured toward the wolf. "He was in Fang's room."
Stefan switched to human form, flashed into his clothes, then pushed Wren away from him.
Wren barely moved a step away and the look on his face promised Armageddon if Stefan touched him again.
That harsh look succeeded in calming Stefan a degree as he took a step away from the leopard. "I wasn't doing anything. I was only checking on them to see if they were really here." Stefan curled his lip at Vane. "Vane attacked me."
Stefan turned back toward Nicolette with an expression that was almost respectful. "I thought it was against the rules of Sanctuary for anyone to attack without provocation."
Vane narrowed his eyes as understanding dawned. He realized only too late that this had been a set-up.
Stefan was smarter than Vane had given him credit for.
"Vane?" Nicolette looked at him. "Is what he says true? Did you attack him?"
"He was coming to kill Fang. You know he was."
"But did he attack him?"
Vane stiffened as he glared at Stefan. "He would have had I not stopped him."
"Did he attack first, or did you?" Nicolette insisted.
Vane's anger snapped out of control. "What are you? A fucking lawyer?"
"Watch your tone, Vane," Nicolette warned harshly. "I am the supreme law here and you know it."
Vane apologized even though it stuck tight in his craw to do so.
Wren gave him a sympathetic look that said he too would like to rip into Stefan. His whole body was coiled for it, but he stayed put.
Nicolette lifted her chin in acceptance of Vane's apology. "Now tell me the truth. Who attacked first?"
Vane wanted to lie, but Nicolette would sense it and that would only make matters worse. "I did."
She closed her eyes as if that pained her. When she opened them, her expression told him how much she regretted what she was about to say. "Then I have no choice except to banish you, Vane. I'm sorry."
Stefan's eyes gleamed.
At that moment, Vane hated all of them equally. So this was what it came down to. He was punished for protecting his brother.
So be it. It wasn't the first time this had happened. At least Nicolette didn't take a whip to him as punishment.
"Fine," he said between clenched teeth.
Vane headed into Fang's room to collect his brother, only to discover Aimee Peltier rushing to cut him off. She slammed the door closed, then ran to block him from the bed.
He tried to step around her, but she wouldn't let him.
"Vane, listen to me. Maman is only angry. Give her time—"
"No, Aimee," Vane said in a low, deadly tone as he fought not to take his anger out on her. "I knew the rules and I broke them. Your mother will never forgive that and you know it."
Aimee held her arms out as he tried to step past her. "Leave Fang here," she insisted. "You and I and even maman know what Stefan is doing. I will make sure that Fang is never left alone. I will stay with him myself every moment of the day and night. No one will hurt him so long as he resides in Sanctuary."
Her offer confused him. He didn't understand why the bear female would care what happened to them. "Why?"
Her pale eyes were soft and kind as she looked up at him and dropped her arms back to her sides. "Because no one should be hurt like the two of you were. What they did was cruel and unnecessary. It was a human punishment, not an animal one. I have lost brothers and I know firsthand the pain you feel in your heart for your Anya. I will not let Fang die, I swear it."
She glanced down to his hand where his mark was hidden, then she looked to the door behind him as if she were afraid someone might overhear her. She lowered her voice. "You have another to protect now. The last thing you need is Fang with you in this state. Go and guard her. You can call me anytime, day or night, to check on your brother."
Vane pulled her into his arms and hugged her kindly. "Thank you, Aimee."
She patted him on the back. "Anytime. Now go, and I hope you kick the shit out of that wolf outside."
He laughed halfheartedly before he let go of her and went back to the hallway.
Stefan arched a challenging brow at him, goading Vane to hurt him.
But he wasn't that stupid.
Vane would hurt him all right, but it wouldn't be on Nicolette's property.
Instead, Vane turned toward Nicolette to make sure Stefan understood what he intended to do. "Fang broke no rules. Is he safe to stay?"
Nicolette nodded, then passed a meaningful glare at Stefan, who cursed. "He is under our protection and we will make certain no harm befalls him."
The look on Stefan's face was priceless. And it told him one thing. This was far from over.
Bring it on.
Vane headed for the stairs.
"This isn't over," Stefan growled.
"I know the cliche," Vane said wearily as he paused to look back at the wolf. "It won't end until one of us is dead." He gave Stefan a taunting smirk. "And for the record, it won't be me."
Stefan growled low in his throat, but wisely kept his distance.
As Vane started for the front door, Stefan tried to follow, Wren stopped him. "Rules of Sanctuary," he said quietly. "Vane gets a head start and if you try to follow, you'll be limping… Permanently."
Vane tried to decide what he should do. Part of him was terrified of going anywhere near Bride lest he lead Stefan and the others straight to her. The other part of him was terrified of leaving her alone.
Especially with Fury there.
There was no way she could defend herself against any of them.
He cringed as he remembered the scars on his mother's face and neck that she had received from fighting his father and his tessera. Tessaras were small groups of wolves sent out as soldiers or scouts. They usually killed anything they came in contact with.
And he would kill anyone who touched his Bride. No one would ever cause her harm. Even if she rejected him, she was still his mate, and he would spend the rest of her life making sure she had anything she needed.
As for Fang, he was safe under the protection of the bears. Vane had no doubt of that.
But Bride…
What should he do? He wished he could remove the mark from both their hands. Of all the times to find a mate, this wasn't one of them.
If she were Katagaria, he'd only have to wait for her to decide to finish their union. Very few Katagaria females refused their mates. If they did, the male would remain completely impotent until the female died. The female on the other hand would be free to take as many lovers as she liked, but she would never be able to breed children with them.
That was why the males took great
care to please their females and to woo them during the three-week mating period.
Although his knowledge of humans was limited, he didn't think Bride would approve of him flashing himself naked in her bed and then offering himself and his eternal loyalty to her.
It might even scare her.
Not that he should even be thinking of mating with her anyway. He had no idea what kind of children they would produce. What would she do if she birthed a puppy?
At least his human mother had held enough decency not to kill them as pups. She'd cast them off on their father and vanished.
But then, his mother had been Arcadian. She knew and understood what his father had been. And she hated his father for it to this day. She hated all of them for it.
Not that any of this mattered. Vane had to go back and get Fury away from Bride. The wolf was unpredictable at best and deadly precise at worst.
Vane flashed himself into her shop, taking care to choose the closet in the back room where he doubted she would be. It wouldn't do to frighten her.
He let himself out and went to the back courtyard where he found Fury outside the door in human form.
"What are you doing?" Vane growled. He'd never intended Fury to be human around her.
"Leaving?"
Before Vane could respond, Fury flashed into wolf form.
Bride came into the courtyard a second later.
Vane cursed as he was forced to zap Fury's clothes into invisibility to keep her from seeing them.
"Oh good, you're back," she said with a smile as she closed the door to her shop. "I thought you had fallen in."
Vane frowned. "Fallen in what?"
"Your brother said you went to the restroom."
He was even more confused. "My brother?"
"Fury." Bride looked around. "Where did he go? He was just here guarding the back door while I locked up for a few minutes for lunch."
"Go with it, Vane," Fury said in his head. "I couldn't think of anything better."
He glared at Fury. "And just why were you in human form around her to begin with, Fury? You were supposed to be a wolf."
"I panicked. Besides, I wanted to meet her."
"Why?"
The wolf refused to answer him. "You know, if I hadn't turned human, she would have thought you ran off on her without saying goodbye. I can't exactly speak to her as a wolf, not without her freaking out on both of us."
"Vane?" Bride asked. "Are you okay?"
Vane narrowed his eyes even more. "Fury had to leave." And he better stay gone as a man if he wants to keep breathing.
Fury growled low in his throat.
"Oh," She looked down and smiled at Fury. "There you are, sweetie. I was worried about you."
Fury leaped up to put his paws against her breasts and lick her face.
"Yo, down," Vane snapped, forcing the wolf back. "There'll be none of that."
"I don't mind," Bride said charitably.
Fury wagged his tail and smiled wickedly, then tried to look up Bride's dress.
Vane caught him quickly by the neck. "Stop!" he snarled mentally to Fury. "Or I'll rip your head off."
Bride frowned at them. "Don't you like my wolf?"
"Yeah," Vane said, patting him roughly on the head. "He's my new best friend."
"I'm your only friend, dickhead."
Vane balled his fist in the wolf's fur as a warning to him. "You know you have to be firm with wolves. Let them know who the alpha is."
"Your father?"
Vane smacked Fury's head.
"Owl"
"Yeah," Bride said. "That's what my father says about all canines."
"Your father?"
She nodded. "He's Dr. McTierney, the leading expert in Louisiana on dog care. He's a vet over in Slidell. You might have seen his commercials. 'If you love your pet, neuter or spay.' He leads that whole campaign."
"Really," he said, grinning at Fury. "Maybe we should make an appointment."
"Yeah, right. Try it and die."
Vane clenched his fists as he tried to hide his anger from Bride. He was only one step away from choking the wolf in front of her.
Bride frowned as she glanced at Fury. "Strange…" She reached for his back paw. "I don't remember him having a brown patch there."
Vane bit back a curse as he realized Fury wasn't an identical match for him. Damn, she was observant.
"Maybe you just didn't notice it before," he said, trying to distract her.
"Maybe."
Bride led them across the back courtyard. She opened the door to her apartment and let the wolf in. She paused in the doorway.
Vane leaned his hand against the doorframe above her head and smiled at her. "You're nervous," he said quietly. "Why?"
"I'm just not sure what you're still doing here."
"I'm talking to you."
She laughed at that. "You know, I don't exactly have a manual of etiquette on what to do when a gorgeous guy drops into my life one day, gives me an expensive necklace I've been dying for, then we have the best sex of my life, and you vanish. Then pop back in when I need a hero and pay more money than those movers probably make in six months just to help me out. You take me out for a great dinner and then spend an entire night making my head spin. I don't know where to go from here."
"I have to say this is a first for me, too." He reached out and let his fingers rub against the lock of hair lying against her cheek. "What can I say? You're irresistible to me," he breathed.
It was hard to stay sane and rational when he looked at her like that. As if he were starving for a taste of her.
"And you're even more nervous." He sighed, then stepped back.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "It's not you. Really. I'm just not used to things like this happening to me."
"Neither am I." He dipped his head and kissed her. He savored her taste until he remembered that they had an audience.
Opening his eyes, he saw Fury staring at them inquisitively.
He hated that wolf. Reluctantly, Vane pulled back. "Why don't you close the store for an hour and take a real lunch with me?"
Bride hesitated, then nodded. Lunch with him would be wonderful. "I think I will. I have some leftover spaghetti in the fridge. We could walk to a store a block away and get some wine to go with it."
He looked rather uncomfortable with her suggestion as he scanned the yard outside. Was he looking for his brother?
"That would be nice," he said, but his body language belied the nonchalant tone.
For the first time in her life, Bride had a truly radical idea. She checked her watch. It was almost two-thirty and no one had come into her store for the last half an hour. Friday afternoons were traditionally slow for her…
"Tell you what," she said before she chickened out. "Why don't I close up early?"
His gaze heated with interest. "Can you do that?"
She nodded. "Give me a few minutes to do paperwork?"
"Take your time. I'm all yours."
The look in his eyes told her exactly what he meant by that.
Bride bit her lip at his invitation. How often did a woman hear that out of the mouth of a man who looked like this one?
Bride returned to her shop and quickly counted down her register. She did her paperwork while Vane browsed through her shelves.
It was hard to focus on sorting receipts while he was there, distracting her. He had his back to her as he looked through her drawers of rings. He had the nicest rump that had ever graced a man's backside. Worse, she could see his face reflected in the mirror.
And he could be hers…
Swallowing, she forced herself to fill out the bank deposit slip. He came up behind her as she was putting everything in the large zippered envelope. Bracing his arms on each side of her, he bent down and took a deep breath in her hair as if he were savoring her.
"Have you any idea what you do to me, Bride?"
"No," she answered honestly.
Vane stood there, his heart
pounding wildly. His body hard and aching.
His presence here was madness. He had covered his scent before he appeared here, but Stefan and the others were damned good at what they did.
It wouldn't be long before they found him.
Of course, so long as Bride bore his mark, she bore his scent, and even if he left her, they were just as likely to pick up that and appear to her as they were to find him.
More so in fact, since Bride didn't know to hide herself.
He was desperate for a taste of her and he knew she wouldn't deny him. But he couldn't take her again. Not unless she understood the full impact of that decision.
And the inherent dangers.
He shouldn't be here, in human form. But unlike Fury, his stronger incarnation was that of human. It was how he could protect her best.
It also made him even more vulnerable to her.
Leaning over, he brushed the exposed skin of her neck with his lips. "I wish you were mine," he breathed, inhaling the warm scent of her skin.
Bride couldn't breathe as she heard the deep, growling tone of his voice.
She felt like this was some kind of strange dream. How could this be real? She leaned back against Vane's chest so that she could look up at him.
The look on his face seared her.
A playful smile lightened the intensity of his stare. "We took things too fast, didn't we?"
She nodded.
"I'm sorry for that. When I see something I want, I have a bad tendency to take it first and then think later about whether or not I should have."
He moved away from her and headed for her door. "C'mon," he said, indicating the door with his head. "I'll escort you to the bank and we'll get the wine."
She slid off her stool and followed after him. Outside, there was a hint of a chill in the air. And an aura of danger around Vane. She had the feeling that he was paying way too much attention to the streets around them. Every time someone came near, he watched them intently as if expecting them to leap at them.
She made her deposit and then let him choose their wine after they crossed the street and entered a package store on Canal Street. When she tried to pay for it, she could have sworn he growled like an animal at her.
[Dark Hunter-Were Hunter 2] - Night Play Page 14
