by E A Price
At least he didn’t leave a polite ‘thank you for the fuck’ note. At least he faced the women in the morning.
Besides, it was different with Simone. She was more to him. At least, he thought she was more. Didn’t Simone feel it, too? Didn’t she feel the connection between them?
His animal whined. Guess she didn’t.
The beast pushed to the fore and Acksel didn’t even try to stop him. They shot out of the house half changed and ran, and ran, and ran until they almost couldn’t feel anything anymore. Feelings, who wanted fucking feelings.
Chapter Nine
Carrick didn’t say a single word on the way home, and Simone preferred it that way. Even her lively tiger was thankfully quiet. It was hard to sulk in moody silence with someone yammering in your ear. Carrick was the perfect companion for silence, his own mood never seemed to elevate above dour.
“I’m surprised Parker or the Alpha didn’t come after me,” she commented as they pulled onto pride property.
The huge tiger shifter grunted. The noise a grunt made seemed to be his favourite word. “I persuaded the Alpha that I should do it; he was pretty steamed. Parker never offered.”
“That probably seems odd to you. Him being my mate and all.” The word mate had never tasted so foul as it did at that moment.
“Each to their own.”
“If it had been Lauren, you would have gone. Can’t have your property getting away from you,” she said, nastily. Even as she said it, she was surprised the words had come out of her mouth.
Carrick stopped the car and looked at her. Dark, almost black eyes surveyed her from a scarred, weary face. If Simone hadn’t been in such a mood, she might have looked away in submission, but she didn’t, she just glared right on back.
Finally, he grunted and said, “I’ll treat Lauren right.”
“I didn’t…”
“No, but you were thinking it.”
“What do you care what I think?”
Carrick shrugged and started the car. “I don’t, but Lauren does. I may not be every nineteen-year old's dream come true,” he grimaced, and the scars on his face crinkled, “but I won’t hurt her.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“I hope you’ve got a good excuse for the Alpha.”
Simone sighed. “The truth – I’ll tell him I was in a car crash. I’ll say I was injured and… a wolf took pity on me. About…”
“The male wolf?” he guessed, correctly.
Acksel, she added silently, allowing her tiger to feel a flicker of pity. She looked at Carrick uneasily. Carrick wasn’t actually someone she knew well. In fact, all she knew was that he was big, brooding, strong and that the Alpha liked him. It was impossible to tell how he felt about the Alpha, or about anything really. “Yeah, look…”
“I didn’t see anything.”
Simone watched him for a few moments, holding her breath, hoping there wasn’t a ‘but’ coming. He didn’t say anything. “Thank you, you’re… not so bad.” She blushed as she said it.
Carrick’s lips twitched, almost as if he were about to smile. “Thanks.” He paused. “I wouldn’t mind if you told Lauren that.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
*
“Hey!”
“Britt,” said Acksel, tightly. He was sitting on the porch, wearing nothing but his jeans. He watched as his sister bounded towards him, oblivious to his fury. He stilled his wolf, who was snarling and prowling, looking for any excuse to lash out. He wanted to punch something. No, he wanted to punch somebody. He wanted to hurt whoever had taken Simone away. He could smell the faint scent of male tiger. His wolf wanted to tear the other male apart. But he’d settle for anyone right now, and he didn’t want his sister getting in the way. Where was his brother right now? Hans knew how to take a punch.
“Where’s Simone?” Britt looked around expectantly. “I baked her an apology pie.”
“Apology pie?” he grunted and then groaned. “No, don’t start crying,” he snapped, harshly.
“I’m sorry!”
He groaned. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to hear the word sorry ever again. “She’s gone.”
Britt blinked at him. “Gone? Is she coming…”
“I doubt it.” People who snuck out in the early morning generally didn’t plan on coming back. And that ‘thank you’ note didn’t intimate that she was interested in anything more than a night with him.
His sister sat down next to him. In spite of his rolling anger, she did soothe him slightly. As much as Hans complained about them, having three golden haired baby sisters growing up had tempered the moods of two teenage wolf shifters somewhat. Yep, it was hard to believe, but Hans could have been worse.
“I’m sorry, Acksel.”
His wolf growled. “We all know you’re sorry.”
“No, not for that, I mean for you.” He looked at her through hooded eyes and she frowned. “Don’t give me that look. I saw the way you looked at her. It’s the way Hans looks at Melanie. It’s the way Mal Tanner looks at his mate. It’s the way…”
“I get it!”
Britt rested her head on his shoulder, and he exhaled deeply. “Love’s hard,” she said, with the weight of someone who’d had their heart broken dozens of times. She was actually a seventeen-year-old wolf shifter who, to Acksel’s knowledge, had never even kissed a boy, never mind had her heart broken. His wolf was rather hoping it was a state she’d remain in until she was at least twenty-five, or possibly thirty.
“You’re seventeen,” he grumbled, dismissively, although not cruelly. “What do you know?”
“Craig told me he loved me yesterday,” she said, shyly.
Acksel slapped a hand over his face and groaned. On the one hand, this was a distraction from Simone, but on the other, his wolf wanted to hunt the boy down and rip him to pieces. Given his mood, Acksel needed to be careful he didn’t lose control, shift and do just that. “He’s only fourteen.”
“I know. He said it because I was upset, but I’m just worried that he means it.”
“Want me to beat him up?” It was a serious offer.
“No, but thank you for asking, instead of just yelling at me for allowing an idiot to tell me he loves me.”
Yeah, that was the outlook Hans would have on it. “Hans is going to be an interesting parent one day.”
“Nah, if he does have a kid, I think he’ll worship him or her the way he does Melanie.”
Acksel smiled at his sister. “Huh, I thought I was the only one who understood Hans.”
Britt snorted. “There’s not much to understand.”
“You should probably get going to the Beta for your punishment.”
“I know,” she muttered.
He remembered Simone’s fear for Britt’s safety. His wolf rumbled, unhappily as he worried about just what Simone’s life was like. “It won’t be that bad.”
Britt gave him a pious, suffering look. “Well, it’ll be less than I deserve I know that.”
“You’re a good pup, Britt.”
“So are you. A good brother, I mean Do you think Simone will ever come back?”
Part of him was angry at her for leaving, for not saying goodbye, for their time together not meaning more to her. But he was cursing himself for letting her go. His wolf was all for going after her, but where had she gone? Jeez, he didn’t even get her last name. He didn’t find out what pride she belonged to or if she even did belong to a pride. She could be anyone and anywhere at that moment. Was Simone even her real name? To think he could have looked in her purse, he could have seen her name on her driver’s license – he could have found out who she was if he’d snooped. Why the fuck did he have to be so fucking respectful? What the fuck was wrong with him?
“I don’t know.”
Chapter Ten
Parker greeted Simone at the door to the Alpha’s house. Under the gaze of Carrick, he gave her a friendly hug, only frowning slightly at her scent.
“Where the hell ha
ve you been?” roared the Alpha, descending on them like a giant bat.
Simone ignored Nita, who was standing a few steps behind the Alpha, smirking like five Christmases had come at once. Surprisingly, Nita’s mate, Asher was also there. He was standing behind his mate staring into space. Probably pretending he was somewhere else Simone thought, jealously. Nita was the only one who looked happy.
Her tiger quailed a little under the Alpha’s ferocious stare, but Simone kept herself composed. “I was in a car crash… I almost died,” she added to try and get the message through that coming home late was a small matter in the scheme of things.
The expression on the Alpha’s face told her it would have been better if she had. She quickly went through the edited story of what happened.
She tried to hold back the shudder as the Alpha stepped towards her, crowding her space. The smell of sweat and male tiger almost made her want to vomit. He was barely an inch from her, and she felt his breath on her as he sniffed.
The Alpha growled. “You smell like wolf. Male wolf.”
Don’t let him bully you, she told her tiger, instinctively trying to shy away from the brute power of the Alpha. “From the male who saved me.”
“His scent is all over you,” he sneered.
“He pulled me out of the car… it’s destroyed, by the way,” she said, trying to change a dangerous subject. “But his pack gave me a check to cover the cost, they left the name blank so you could put your name on it.”
She started pulling a piece of paper out of her purse. The Alpha tore it out of her hand and ripped it into tiny pieces, letting them flutter to the ground. I don't want any wolf’s charity.” He moved away from her and started pacing. “Why didn’t you call us? Where’s your mother?”
Simone took a deep breath and tried not to sound too mocking. “I was unconscious after the car crash. And my mother had to stay in hospital – they wouldn’t let me bring her home.” Which was sort of true.
“I told you to take the Beta with you,” he howled. “Why did you go on your own?”
“I tried knocking on his door, but there was no answer.”
The Alpha narrowed his eyes; he searched her face for any deception. Simone tried to look guileless. Technically, it was almost true. If she had knocked on the Beta’s door, it was doubtful he would have answered. He was given to late nights and drinking himself into a stupor. He rarely rose before noon unless he had to, and since Simone had left at 6 am – there was no way the Alpha could be certain she was lying.
“You should have come to me,” he said eventually.
Simone hung her head, giving him an inch of submission. “I’m sorry, Alpha. You are right. It won’t happen again.”
He made a few more growling, grumbling noises, but he seemed appeased that she hadn't actually tried to run away.
“I’m really tired, can I go?”
He glowered for a little while longer, but eventually he said, “Yes.”
“What?” screeched Nita. “But she stayed out, and she…”
The Alpha gave her a sharp look, and she quieted. “Take your mate home, son,” he said to Parker.
Simone avoided looking at Nita. She could feel the heat of her displeasure; she didn’t need to see it. The fact that she was annoyed was probably the only bright spot of the day.
Carrick wordlessly led the two of them out. He nodded at Simone and his jaw ticked, which she supposed was his approximation of a smile.
Parker waited until they were in the safety of their own house before he turned to her. “You sure you’re okay?”
She shrugged, and her tiger grumbled that she was far from okay. “I’m fine, considering.”
“I wish you’d called. My dad… well, he’s been going nuts.” Parker gave her a playful tap on the shoulder. It was the closest they ever got to affection. “Thank fuck Carrick offered to get you, I don’t want to think about what my dad might have done.”
“How did he know where I was?” It was something that had been niggling at her.
“I think he put a tracker in your car.” Parker shrugged like it was an everyday, normal kind of thing to do. Instead of creepy.
She guessed Carrick must have seen where she crashed and followed her scent. Simone shook her head sadly.
“You know how he gets when a female tries to leave the pride. It’s just the way he is.”
Parker said it in such an offhand way that Simone’s tiger ground her teeth. Why was he okay with the way his father behaved? Parker couldn’t have been happy with the situation. He wasn’t interested in females, yet he seemed content to pretend to be mated to one.
“How can you defend him?” she snapped, and her tiger bared her fangs.
“I’m not defending him,” said Parker, wearily.
“But you’re okay with the way we live – pretending like this?!” The house she had lived in for the last four years suddenly seemed so small, and constricting. She didn’t feel like she could breathe there anymore.
Parker glared at her. “I thought it suited us both.”
Yes, she supposed it did – at first. They had been friends growing up, and everyone had assumed that they would be mated, but neither of them really wanted that. Parker had no desire for a female mate and Simone wanted… well, she just didn’t want a tiger mate. She wanted to be free to do what she wanted. However, her bid for freedom at eighteen-years-old, merely involved falling head over heels for a human in town, only to have him screw her and then dump her straight away. Freedom wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
She had confessed everything to Parker in a moment of teary weakness. She was no longer a virgin, and since the Alpha insisted that all females be virgins upon mating, her indiscretion would have meant punishment. And she feared what that meant. Patrick, he Beta was vicious at best, and often punished parents for cubs’ errors. Given Patrick’s desire for her mother, Simone feared the worst. So she and Parker had come up with a plan to mate one another. She escaped punishment and another mate who would treat her like a slave, plus it meant the Alpha would pay her mother’s medical bills. And Parker had a mate so he didn’t have to worry about what his father would do if he knew Parker was gay.
The arrangement was satisfactory enough. But that didn’t stop Simone trying to make plans to get away from the pride. And now that she had met Acksel… no, she couldn’t possibly go on like this.
“Parker…” she tried in a softer tone.
He looked pained. “My father’s a powerful Alpha; he has friends in the Supernatural Enforcers Agency. Our life here… it is what it is, and it isn’t going to change so we should make the best of it.”
“But…”
“You really do smell like male wolf. You should go and take a bath.” Parker gave her a pained look before he walked away.
Simone nodded as her tiger hung her head. She couldn't blame Parker. He was no different to half the tigers in the pride. He was too afraid to go against the Alpha, so he just accepted the crappy aspects of his life and got on with it. She'd been doing the same thing for a long time - too long.
As she walked upstairs, she pulled the check from Acksel’s pack out of her purse. Her Alpha had ripped up a leaflet she’d picked up from the hospital about symptoms of fatigue. Her eyes wandered over the generous amount of money, and she bit her lip.
Chapter Eleven
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” snarled Acksel. His wolf snapped his jaws together.
The four enforcers stopped and stared at him in surprise. Mal Tanner tried to smile, sheepishly, but then thought better of it. “I’m sorry, I…”
“Sorry?!” growled Acksel. “You’re a fucking hour late! It’s the third time this week.”
Mal’s eye twitched in annoyance, but he managed to contain his anger. “My pup’s been sick this week. He hasn’t been breathing properly, and we were worried about him. Because he’s premature and half human we were worried about his lungs and…”
“The poor thing,” said Felici
ty, quickly trying to get Mal out of the line of fire. “Is he going to be okay?”
“The doctor says so; he thinks it’s just a bad cold. My mate has it, too now. Terri can barely lift her head, never mind take care of our pup.”
“You go home and look after them; I can cover your shift.”
Mal’s face lit up. “Really?” Then he looked at Acksel’s glower, and uncertainty returned.
“You should go. Wouldn’t you agree, Acksel?” said Felicity, pointedly.
“Whatever.” Acksel huffed and turned away.
He could see Felicity’s furious head nodding, telling Mal to get out before Acksel changed his mind or worse. He knew he was acting like a dick head. But honestly, he didn’t give a fuck. It had been over four days since Simone left and he was in a perpetual bad mood and dealing with a near-mutinous wolf. Anyone who got in his way better watch out.
He looked at Felicity, who was maintaining a wary distance. He looked at the other two enforcers. Their eyes widened, and they ran out of the hut.
“You sure you don’t mind covering for Tanner?” he asked, gruffly. He was an asshole, but he did have a duty to his pack. His wolf didn’t seem to care about that anymore, but Acksel still had a small, lingering sense of responsibility.
“No, I got it. You’ve practically been working non-stop these past four days, I can handle things if you want to go home.” She held her breath to see if Mt. Acksel was going to explode or not.
He scowled – a near permanent expression these past few days. Yes, to try and distract himself he had thrown himself into his work. Although that might not have been a good thing. But the other alternative was hanging around his family’s house and snapping at his sisters – and he couldn’t take Britt crying anymore. Course, now he was tired and angry, and instead of just being an ass he had turned into a raving, lunatic of an ass.
Acksel relented and nodded at Felicity. Which was as close as she was going to get to thanks at that moment in time.
He left the enforcers’ hut; making the two enforcers who had been hanging around outside scatter. Yeah, they learned quickly.
