Stopping in front of a storage shed, I opened it and flipped on the light. We kept everything from lawn equipment, pool essentials and outside workout stuff in here, and I knew exactly what I needed. I was sure the girls would have rather had the pool noodles and floating chairs. That was too bad.
Twenty-pound dumbbells, with attached wristbands, sat on the third shelf. I grabbed four of them and made my way back outside. Without closing the door, I tossed the dumbbells to the sod.
“Each of you will take two of them and—”
“I’ve done this before, Ace,” Karma snapped. “I don’t need instructions.”
My eyes narrowed behind my shades and my jaw clenched, causing the muscles around them to flex under the skin. “Andra has not, and she needs instructions, Karma. Keep up that smart mouth and you’ll do tread duty an additional two times. Am I making myself clear?” She sighed as she bent to wrap a wrist band around her left wrist, but didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry,” I said in a louder voice, shoving my authority down her throat. She was swiftly pissing me off. I had a mind to give her the extra two times anyway. “I didn’t hear you. Was that a yes, sir or a no, sir that we are at an understanding?”
Huffing in frustration, Karma looked up at me and said two biting words. “Yes. Sir.”
I decided to let the tread duty do its job instead of carrying on this petty and simply ridiculous verbal argument. She’d pay for her insubordination soon enough. But if I added any more time to her duty, it would also extend Andra’s time. If your buddy gets in trouble, so do you. If your buddy gets rewarded, so do you. It was all about teamwork. With Rogan’s skills, he had been rewarded often, as well as kept Karma from causing any problems that would get them into trouble. Rogan wasn’t here to save her ass any longer, but I didn’t exactly want Andra to have to suffer through anything I didn’t put her through myself. Maybe it was a bad idea sticking those two together. Only time would tell.
“Come here, Andra,” I said as I squatted down beside the two dumbbells she would use. As I took her hand, a warm, familiar tingling vibrated up my wrist. I tried to ignore it to the best of my ability, but the fact that I physically needed this girl was evident as my thumb gingerly stroked over the thick pad of her palm.
Her intake of breath was sharp and, when her eyes shot up to look at me, she reached up and pulled my Ray Bans from my face, stripping me of my mask. She could see my eyes now, and I was praying like hell that she couldn’t tell they were filled with ten kinds of bullshit. “I’m sorry, Ace. I deserve this.”
That wasn’t good enough. My eyes turned cold as steel and I forced my hand away from her skin, and then took my sunglasses from her and put them back over my eyes before returning to the task of showing her how to secure the wristbands. I was careful not to touch any part of her exposed flesh as I fastened the first one into place.
“You can do the other one,” I said, and then stood to walk over beside the large pool, well out of touching distance of her.
After both girls arrived by the pool, with their weights, I began to tell Andra what would be expected during tread duty. Pointing out across the back yard, I said, “There’s a one-mile running track that spans over the entire yard. But, before we get to that, you’ll first start by jumping in the deep end of the pool and treading water for five minutes. When I call time, you will swim to the stairs, bring your weights back to the deep end, take off your bindings and run the track. When you return, you will secure your bindings and start the process over. Remember that you are buddies. If you work together, it will be easier on the both of you. Nobody is to jump back into the pool until both of you arrive and have secured your wrist bindings. No walking and no stopping. Do both of you understand?”
“Yes, but how many times do we have to do it?” Andra said, and Karma rolled her blue eyes.
“Four, unless either of you do or say anything to cause me to extend it further,” I said.
Andra blew out a breath and stepped to the edge of the pool. Karma walked up beside her and looked down at the water.
“Go,” I said.
Chapter 19
Thursday, February 5th 2015 11:55 a.m. CST
Montgomery, Alabama
Phoenix
Someone popped the trunk and Phoenix stared up at seven smiling faces. Not only were Heath, Roel and Alex standing in Phoenix’s garage, but Tracy, Heather, Brad and Lea were there, too.
Great.
“It’s better than a coffin, right?” Roel said on a chuckle.
Phoenix hopped easily out of the trunk then stretched his arms over his head, trying to get the kink the small space had caused out of his neck. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been in one before. If I had to choose, though, I’d definitely go with a coffin, minus the werewolf.”
Lea held out a black robe, complete with hood, and Phoenix shrugged it on. Walking through the upper part of the house during the day without protection from the sun shining through the windows was a bad idea.
“What the hell took you so long, Rhodes? Don’t tell me you stopped for breakfast and lunch before coming back to rescue us,” Phoenix said.
Alex shook his head. “No, I forgot that Jim, the owner of the tow truck service, was going to be out of town on vacation. He left the keys with his son, so that he could handle the business while he was away, but Jim Junior lives all the way across the city. I tried calling him, but got no answer. I thought about calling dispatch to have a patrol car pick me up and take me to his house, but I figured the less people knew what we were doing, the better, so I shifted and ran to his house, but he wasn’t there, either. I had to break into his home and find the keys, and then I stole the tow truck.”
Phoenix’s eyes popped wide. “You stole the damn tow truck? You’re a cop!”
Alex waved a hand through the air. “I’ll tell them it was important if anyone finds out. I’m hoping I can get it back before anybody does, though. I’m going to take it back now, it that’s okay. I’ll come right back and help y’all with…” he looked to the wolf in the trunk, “… that. Are y’all sure it’s not dead?”
Phoenix shook his head. “He’s breathing. Plus, he would have shifted back to his human form after his heart stopped. Take the truck back. Tracy can follow you in my Escalade, so you’ll have a ride and won’t have to run back. Call Lea’s phone when you return and she’ll let you in.”
“Heather and Brad rode here with me in the Land Rover. I’ll take it,” Tracy said, and then rose up on her toes to kiss Heath goodbye.
Phoenix nodded. “Lea will let you out of the garage after we get the wolf inside and the door secure behind us.”
Brad and Roel reached into the trunk and grabbed the wolf by its legs then hoisted it out and swiftly carried it toward the door that led into the house.
Lea opened the door. Phoenix pulled the hood over his head, tucked his hands into the pockets of the robe and followed the others inside.
Lea let Tracy and Alex out of the garage and closed it again. She shut the door behind her and turned to Phoenix. “What the hell were you thinking?”
With the hood covering his face, he couldn’t see her, but he could imagine the scolding look on her face as she chastised him. “We had plenty of time to get to shelter before dawn, Lea. None of us expected the moonrising wolf to—”
Loud shouting and snarling issued through the open basement door, and Phoenix took off running, leaving Lea without a full explanation.
As he arrived at the bottom of the stairs, he realized what all the commotion was about. The moonrising wolf had woken up and fought its way out of Roel and Brad’s grasp. Heather and Heath stood by them, blocking the wolf’s only exit. By the crazy look in the animal’s eyes, it was going to take more than the five of them to stop it from getting back up those stairs and out of the house.
“Any of you have a weapon on you?” Phoenix said as the wolf inched closer to Brad, its teeth bared and slobber dripping from its canines. There was no doubt in his mind that th
e wolf would kill to get out. “I’m sure I don’t need to remind any of you that he only has to kill one of us in order to kill all of us, excluding Heather.”
“I left all my weapons in the damn car,” Roel said.
“Yeah, me too,” Heath said. “I can shift and fight him if you think that’s a good plan.”
“No,” Roel said, “that is definitely not a good plan. He has nothing to lose, so he won’t hesitate when he goes for your throat.”
“Shit!” Brad said.
Just as Heather let out a whimper, the door of the basement slammed and locked. Great thinking, Lea, Phoenix thought, until he heard her footsteps as she slowly came down the stairs.
Without turning to look at her, Phoenix clenched his jaw, and said, “What the hell are you thinking?”
She moved by him at the foot of the stairs and aimed one of Phoenix’s guns at the wolf. “I was thinking that I am the only smart one in this house. When you live with vampires, you can never be too prepared.”
Roel let out a breath in relief. “God, I love you, Lea.”
The wolf spotted Lea and the gun. It retreated a few steps, but didn’t stop snarling.
“I don’t want to shoot you, but I’ve done a lot of things in my life that I didn’t want to do in order to survive,” Lea said. A low growl vibrated out of the wolf’s throat, but it backed away from Brad as Lea slowly advanced on it. “Go!” she demanded.
“How are we going to get the fucker locked in the cell room?” Heath said.
Lea squeezed the trigger of the automatic weapon, sending a silver bullet to the wall beside the wolf. A blast of debris from the stone wall sprayed the wolf, causing him to let out a high-pitched yip. He turned and ran down the long corridor.
Jaxon stepped out of his room just as the wolf passed Phoenix’s chamber door, but he didn’t have enough time to assess the situation or be alarmed. He pulled back his arm and punched the wolf between the eyes, knocking it to the floor and out cold.
Phoenix nodded as a grin spread across his face. “Just like that.”
Thursday, February 5th 2015 10:27 a.m. PST
Las Vegas, Nevada
Andromeda
She didn’t have as much trouble with the running as she did treading water, with forty extra pounds of weights pulling her down. She ran nearly every day, but strength training had never been included in her exercise routines.
Karma appeared to be having trouble with both, though. After they finished their third time through the obstacle, it was obvious the girl was tiring fast. Once, during their last time treading water, Karma went under. Ace had only stared at Andra from the chair he’d sat in at the edge of the pool.
Teamwork. He wanted her to save her buddy. How was she supposed to save someone else when she had twenty pounds strapped to each of her wrists? Then an idea came to her, and she quickly acted on it. Putting the dumbbell in her left hand at the bend of her right arm and the dumbbell from her right hand on her right forearm, she tried to release the bindings on her left wrist with her right hand, but one of the weights slipped off, causing the other to do the same. As they sank to the bottom of the pool, the heavy weight of them pulled her down with them.
As she reached the bottom, Andra realized Karma was panicked and trying to get free of the bindings and the weights that were resting on the floor of the pool. One thing she’d learned as a child while swimming was to never panic. If she couldn’t get this girl calmed down, Karma was going to run out of air and drown.
Andra set her weights beside Karma’s weights and let go of them, only to reach over and put her hands on the girl’s arms, stopping her panic immediately. Karma’s head shot up and she looked at Andra with wide, frightened eyes.
Andra shook her head, and then leaned in and pressed her mouth to Karma’s, forcing the oxygen remaining in her lungs into the other girl’s mouth. After pulling away, she wrapped Karma’s fingers around the bars of the weights and pointed up. Karma shoved off the bottom of the pool with her feet, and Andra did the same immediately after. She broke the surface of the water and gasped for air two seconds after Karma did.
“Time,” Ace said, without emotion in his tone. “Go run the last mile and you both are done with tread duty.”
Fury built inside her as she glared at him. Not because he was making them finish the punishment she had cost both her and Karma, but because he didn’t seem to care that both of them had almost drowned. He was still sitting in the chair, and in the same position he’d been in before she had gone under to save Karma.
Turning her head away, she swam to the steps, but she pushed her rage out full-force, knowing the bond would let him know just how pissed she was at him.
Andra felt nothing from him in return as her right foot found the first step. She let the weights fall to the top step and unfastened the bindings on her left wrist so that she could reach out and pull Karma to the steps.
Karma got both her feet on the steps. She jerked her arm out of Andra’s grasp and glared at her. “Don’t expect a thank you. I wouldn’t even be doing this if it wasn’t for you. Matter of fact, Rogan would still be alive if you hadn’t come here.”
With that, Karma grabbed her dumbbells and walked up the steps and out of the pool.
Chapter 20
Thursday, February 5th 2015 10:46 a.m. PST
Las Vegas, Nevada
Ace
Scratch the thought that putting these two together might be a bad idea. It was a fucking catastrophe waiting to happen.
The urge to jump in the pool and help Andra save Karma nearly shattered the hell out of my meditation bubble, but doing that would only hurt her in the long run. I knew that. She needed to realize that she could do it without outside help. In the future, she won’t hesitate or look for help when someone is in danger. Even something as small as this little episode will teach her that. She had to get over the fear that she would fail and tell herself that failing was never an option. Confidence is ninety-nine percent of being an Alpha.
I was almost positive by the look she gave me after surfacing that she didn’t agree with my strategy, but the meditation I’d done earlier still felt pretty strong, so I couldn’t hear her mental thrashings or feel her rage. I could see it, though, and I knew I’d get an earful later. I was looking forward to it, actually.
What Karma had said to Andra as they reached the steps pissed me off. Andra didn’t deserve that. It wasn’t her fault that Rogan got killed. I would talk to Karma about it later. Now, that, I was not looking forward to.
Karma used fights as foreplay. I already knew that if I got her alone and confronted her about what she said to Andra she would turn it into an argument. And she would expect me to settle it by pinning her against a wall and screwing her brains out. I was done with all that, and I was done with her.
Maybe I’d have Slade talk to her.
I grabbed two towels from behind the outside bar when I saw the girls round the last corner. I smiled when Andra put her hand on Karma’s back and shoved her forward as Karma began to slow down. Authority rang loud and clear from Andra as she ordered her ‘not to stop again, or else’. It made me proud that she wasn’t letting Karma dig her claws in without fighting back.
Once they arrived at the end of the track, instead of stopping and walking around to me, Andra dove in, causing me to blink a few times in confusion. Surely she didn’t think she had to tread water again. She’s probably just hot from the run. She swam the width of the pool under water and only came up when she was all the way across, directly in front of me.
She smiled. “We did it,” she said, panting for breath.
I reached down to offer her a hand up, but when she took it, she gripped my hand hard, then reached up with her other hand and locked her fingers around my wrist, jerking me off balance. I chuckled as I realized her plan, but she wasn’t getting me in that pool. Distracted by Andra, I hadn’t been paying attention to where Karma had gone until it was too late. Two palms spread wide across my should
er blades and shoved me forward. I screamed under water as the cold bit through my muscles and straight through to my bones. With it being early February, it was still a little too early in the year for swimming, even in Nevada. The temperature last night had gotten down to forty-five degrees Fahrenheit. The water was much colder.
“Fuck!” I shouted as I came up, gasping for air, just in time to see Andra bent over the side of the pool, trying to climb out, that perfect round ass in the air, just begging me to slap it through that thin, wet material. “Oh, no, you don’t!” I said as I grabbed her leg and hauled her back in the pool, and then shoved her head under the water playfully.
She swam out of my reach, then under me and, before I could get turned around to find where she’d gone, my shorts were being yanked down my legs. I fought against her hold on them, but I might as well have been helping her for all the good I did, because from one blink to another, I was naked in my pool.
She popped up at the shallow end laughing, with my orange shorts flying high in her twirling hand.
I gave her a murderous glare as I started for her. “Oh, you’re gonna get it.”
Karma was laughing, like a damn hyena, beside the pool. “Maybe the two of you are meant for each other,” she said, in between gasps of air. “You finally found a girl who can take your shit and dish it back to you.”
Before I could get to the steps, Andra had already climbed out and run over to Karma. Both girls were red-faced and cackling.
“How’s the water, Ace?” Andra said as I stared at her from under my brow. I realized then that my sunglasses and cap were missing. Damn, they must have gotten knocked off when Karma pushed me in. I’d make both girls go down and get them. They hadn’t won. This wasn’t over… by a long shot.
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