Zeezee rolls her eyes as I suppress the urge to do the same. Leaning up in my seat, I whisper over to Darrel, “Can we go before I kill half of my back-up?”
“Your wish is my command,” he says as we carefully make our way over the uneven ground.
Aaron surges ahead of us, making my mother whoop and laugh, but Darrel keeps on a safe, steady pace over the broken ground until we’re on the mostly intact main road heading toward Jacob’s property. Right before we take the turn into the driveway, Aaron slows down dramatically and lets us pull ahead.
“Halt!” someone cries, just before the earsplitting crack of a gun shoots off from the direction of the driveway. Before we even manage to stop, three men dive in from both sides of the hedge, pointing what looks like semi-automatic rifles at us. They each sight down scopes, pointing at Darrel, Aaron, and the van. “Stop now, or we take all six of you out.”
We roll to a stop, inches from the men, and I hop off. “Seven of us.”
“What?” one of the men says as he continues to track Darrel with his scope.
None of them even glances at me, making me think they probably don’t register me as a threat. Looks like the men did assume Lance took out all the soldiers they sent after me. That plays in my favor quite nicely, thank you very much.
“My father is here somewhere—he’s needed as a witness for me to…you know, surrender to your alpha body and soul and all that shit."
“Her father is needed for the submission, so please don’t shoot him when he hops out of the bushes,” my mother adds as she too jumps off Aaron’s bike. Reaching over, she taps Aaron’s shoulder. “I hope we do that again. I want to get to know my sons.”
I grit my teeth at her before returning my attention to the men.
The soldier pointing his gun at Lance says, “What are you hiding in the van?”
“Nothing.” I wave to my sister, who throws open her car door so fast, I see the man aiming at the van squeeze his trigger finger before releasing. Holding up my hands in a surrender posture, I say, “If you just don’t shoot us, we’ll all walk up and leave our vehicles here.”
Again, I can’t help marveling at how unnatural these wolves look compared to the Knight brothers. They look like something filled their skin with too much gel, making their swollen muscles full to the point of bursting. The definition in their faces and sharp lines between their individual muscles look almost painted on.
Werewolf number one takes a two-way radio from his utility belt, brandishing it menacingly before calling over, “Come in, this is Mike. We have the alpha’s wife, and we’re taking her up with witnesses from her pack.”
A crackling comes over the feed, but I can’t manage to listen to anything. Two words have lodged in my brain, sticking like a giant burr. Alpha’s wife. Jacob’s wife.
It didn’t occur to me until this second that I’m by law still his wife—obviously, he still thinks I am too.
The soldiers take five minutes pointing their guns at us to finally drop their aim and nod toward the road. “You’re coming with us.”
Hence us standing here...
I suppress snapping a smart-ass retort and just follow. Lance and Aaron stand on one side of me, Darrel on the other, as the soldiers all do this crab walk type of march before us. Five feet in, my father is suddenly walking beside Darrel. I don’t say a word, and Man-Eater One, Two, and Three don’t even seem to notice. A wall of vegetation strangled by a twisted mess of thorny blackberry stalks looms up to both sides of us. The gravel road is dusty and steep, heading down a hill, veering right and left, then emptying out into a wooded area.
Just as Aaron described, a marsh surrounds the property on one side, and the sulfurous air is thick with mosquitoes and gnats. Rotted out old trunks crumble into the murk, but otherwise, the view remains unobstructed for what could be miles. With the wall of blackberry on one side and marsh on the other, they only really need to guard the woods, and I can see that’s where several deer hunting towers point. A three-story ranch-style house with wooden slat siding looks miserable under the dense cloud cover, especially as six armed werewolves stand on the wraparound porch.
Standing in the driveway alone, Jacob Knight’s bright blue eyes shine as he glares directly at me. It’s like he doesn’t see anyone else; his sole focus is on my face. He’s both so much bigger and smaller than I remember. In actuality, I think he really is bigger. His muscles strain against his skin, like his epidermis is a few sizes too small. He wears a black T-shirt and jeans, and every sharp ridge of muscle shows through the material.
Something about him standing there with armed men behind him and us walking up the dusty road gives me the inappropriate urge to say something old western—like, “This town ain’t big enough for the two of us, Jacob Knight.” But again, I have to squash my impulses because I’m supposedly here to surrender.
Breaking from his gaze, I glance toward the left side of the house where Aaron said they kept Mack, but there’s no seeing past the house or the werewolves stationed around it.
“So many guns,” I say as I return my gaze to Jacob. “Am I really so scary? I thought you wanted me to come?”
“No one harms or restrains those two women or the red-headed male.” Jacob gestures to my family before he turns to me. He raises a hand tipped with claws and beckons me with a lazy wave. “Why don’t you come a little closer, my wife.”
Feeling a yanking sensation in my belly, I take a step closer. “I’m good right here, honestly.”
The two guards beside me lower their weapons, both sighting me down the length of their gleaming black barrels.
Jacob bares sharpened teeth. “Aim that somewhere else, you fucking idiots.”
They automatically do, both aiming at my petite mother, who for some reason is busily rummaging in her bottomless pink bag. “Yes, you can aim your guns at me.”
“I just told you not to aim at the women! Aim at the ground!” Jacob roars. “And Scarlet, come here and submit. Now.”
His words bind around me, just as I knew they would, and my feet start walking toward him without my consent.
“Sure, no problem.” I shrug.
Trying to summon the kind of calm my mother and sister are somehow flawlessly managing, I stroll down the gravel road where Jacob waits, arms outstretched, like he expects a hug.
“Submit to me as a wolf,” he adds. “You’ll first submit my alphahood and Six Rivers to me, then you’ll submit to me in every other way.”
His words give me a mangled mess of relief and trepidation. The only way for me to signal Oxonos is to strip in front of God and country before shifting. But if Oxonos doesn’t show up, we have to enact plan B, which is basically everyone attacks before Jacob can force me to hand over alphahood.
When I’ve made it halfway and have my shirt over my head, I hear a scuffle behind me right before a strong hand wraps around my wrist.
“She’s fine where she is,” Lance growls menacingly—completely breaking protocol. The glowing golden eyes of his wolf stare at Jacob with an alpha’s challenge.
Pulling down my shirt, I spin to face him, panic surging up in my chest. Jacob’s will is dragging me, giving me this strange, stretched feeling. I jerk at Lance’s fingers, trying to get some relief from the pain, but Jacob’s will only tugs again.
“Let go, Lance—I can’t breathe.”
Lance takes a few measured steps forward, giving me just a little more leeway. “Release her and fight me. Unless you’re too much of a coward to face your younger brother.”
“No, Lance.” Gasping for air, I breathe, “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay. Just let me go.”
“We need a new plan,” Lance says, his voice a snarling, barely understandable mess. “This one is no good.” His arm wraps around my waist, and I hear a low, answering growl come from Jacob’s direction.
Bad.
Very bad.
“Scarlet, I release you,” Jacob roars.
The pressure drops away,
and I gasp for air, but I’m far from feeling relieved. If I try to strip and change under any circumstance other than me giving Jacob my complete submission, it will be taken as aggression. They’ll start shooting before I manage to get my pants off, and if I change in my clothes, I’ll get tangled up and unable to fight. Why the hell didn’t I plan some secondary signal for Oxonos?
We have contingencies for if Oxonos never shows up or someone gets shot—but we do not have a contingency for Lance losing his shit. Not even close.
“Little Lance—you and your brothers always did want to be just like me, didn’t you? So happy to take my sloppy seconds.” Jacob’s voice turns deadly. “And now you’re all here to take my pack and sleep with my wife.”
Lance looks right past me, gaze all for his older brother, as his eyes ignite to a brighter yellow. He snarls a mouth of ivory fangs, looking more beast than man.
Widening my stance, I push my shoulder into Lance’s chest and grip around his waist. “You’re staying here!”
“I challenge you, brother,” Lance says as he begins to unbutton his shirt. “I challenge you for the right to rule these pathetic wolves you’ve gathered and to negate any claim you believe you have on Scarlet.”
“Then your challenge is to the death!” Jacob declares.
“No.” I try to call up my wolf so I can bring her into this fight, but when we connect, I find her brimming with pride. She couldn’t be happier at what Lance is doing, and she’s not going to make a move to stop him.
Crap on a stick.
Chapter Thirty-two
Scarlet
“Lance—stop,” I grit out. “Listen to me.”
Lance ignores my plea for him to stop, scoops me up like a child and deposits me in Darrel’s arms. In how hectic the moment is, I hadn’t even noticed Darrel sneaking up on us, and obviously neither did our guards because they bark out an order for Darrel to get back.
The moment I’m out of Lance’s way, he begins to strip, and Jacob matches his movements. Lance throws off his shirt, showing he’s even more covered in tattoos than I first anticipated. Twisting black and red designs fill every inch of his chest, back, and arms, and when he takes off his jeans, they cover down to a V shape on his back over his butt.
In comparison, Jacob is completely bare, and I see way more of him than I want to. His body is even bigger than I thought, massive. He’s easily twice as bulky as Lance.
As Darrel continues to back away, clutching me in his arms, I point up into his face. “Darrel, put me down—we need to get things under control and defuse this situation.”
Darrel shakes his head, continuing to back away. “Having you between them is a really bad idea right now, Scarlet. This one is a long time coming—it was inevitable; I should have planned for it.”
We all should have seen it coming, damn it. I’m so utterly stupid for thinking I could march Jacob’s three brothers in here after they suffered years of abuse and exploitation at Jacob’s hands and expect their wolves not to take over. I should have snuck away this morning and confronted Jacob myself, and now we’re all at the point of disaster, and it’s my fault. The moment Darrel sets me down, he wraps his arms around me from behind, pressing my back to his front and squeezing me around the shoulders.
His scent envelops me, soothing my wolf, but I’m not fooled that this is some casual hug. I lean until I can see him and glare up. “Are you holding me or restraining me, Darrel?”
He cocks his head a little to the side, giving me an apologetic grimace. “Holding, protecting…and just a little bit restraining.”
“The first two are okay, but you better stop doing the third if you want to keep your arms.”
“I’m also distracting the hell out of Jacob in the hopes that he’ll have his attention torn between us and Lance. My guess is that Lance will only be distracted if it looks like we’re fighting or I’m hurting you, so if you really want out of my arms, tell me and I’ll release you right away.”
I lean my cheek against his chest. “You don’t think this will distract Lance’s wolf?”
Darrel leans down, pressing his cheek to my forehead. “If it looks like I’m comforting and protecting you with my body, I think it’ll soothe his wolf. It soothes mine when I know you’re safe. They’re changing now, and Jacob can’t stop looking at us.”
I glance over just in time to see a snarl rip across Jacob’s lips. He’s already changed most of the way to wolf. His blue eyes hold such malice, they slice me to the core. And looking into his hate-filled gaze, I realize something: Jacob wants to kill me. He doesn’t just want to debase me, to make me submit to him, body and soul—he wants to own me fully, bring me low, then destroy me. It might take him years to fully kill me, but eventually, he’ll give in to his urges.
“If I hadn’t ripped out his throat that day, I’d probably already be dead.”
“My brother has always been a coward,” Darrel says into my hair. “Obviously, you terrify him more than anyone ever has.”
I turn fully in Darrel’s arms to look up into his face. “Me?”
“You’re a female alpha—he probably saw it every time your wolf was in your eyes. He did everything he could to put you under his power, and when that didn’t work, he spent years making himself physically stronger and formed an army before coming to challenge you. And he’s had every opportunity to confront you while you’re alone and vulnerable—on the roof, in the shelter— and probably countless times before then. He could have walked up and demanded you submit. Instead, he’s sent others and kidnapped someone you care about to put you in his power.”
Turning back to look at Jacob and Lance as their bones contort and fur ripples across their skin, Darrel’s words make a strange sort of sense. “Jacob banished or imprisoned those he believed were a threat. But he tried to keep me with him—”
“He tried to bind you under his power,” Darrel says, and it’s true. Jacob was willing to make any deal to bind me under his power, and I submitted, but my wolf refused and never would. It was the moment she and I split, becoming two warring entities in one body instead of one.
Fully transformed, Jacob’s gray wolf towers over Lance’s sleek brown body. Imagining Jacob’s wolf as the size of a grizzly had been an egregious underestimation. He looks more like a burly Kodiak. Lance might stand at a height with the black bears that live around here. They’re both massive compared to my wolf, but their size differences are marked. They circle one another slowly, lips snarling and fangs bared.
My heart beats against my ribs as I wait for them to attack.
Darrel leans into my ear and breathes, “Your family and Aaron are going after Mack.”
“I can’t watch,” I say loudly, and with the excuse of being distraught, I turn into Darrel’s chest.
Pushing my cheek into his chest, I squint past my eyelashes to see without me or the guards noticing, Aaron and my family managed to creep into the woods. I just see a flash of movement, then four figures dart from behind a wide redwood trunk and disappear behind the house.
The three men guarding us watch the fight with a disconcerting, fevered intensity. One of the men even has his tongue hanging out from his mouth. The other guards around the property seem trapped in a similar hypnotized state.
Darrel leans down, his whiskery beard rasping against my skin. “Jacob can’t stop looking at us.”
I reach up, running my fingers over Darrel’s jaw. “When you said it soothes your wolf to know I’m safe, did you mean you like me?”
His fathomless blue eyes meet mine. “You didn’t get that?”
“I suspected, maybe,” I say as I shift both my hands to wrap around the back of his neck. “But your brothers just make it so much more obvious, and I didn’t know if you were just treating me so sweetly because that’s who you are.”
“Scarlet, I was interested before I had any inkling you might be my true mate,” he tells me.
“Good,” I whisper. “Because I want to do something to help Lance
and hurt Jacob’s chance in the fight—but I didn’t want to do it if it would be unwelcome.” Gripping his shoulders, I jump up onto Darrel’s body and wrap my legs around his waist. Right away, his hands go under my but, supporting me.
I pull myself against him, arch my back, and whisper, “I’m going to kiss you now, if you’ll let me.”
Darrel’s mouth crashes down on mine, powerful and yet soft as he kisses me deeply. His tongue licks across my bottom lip before slipping between mine. Darrel tastes like something both sweet and a little spicy, delicious and addicting in a way I don’t expect.
His facial hair tickles against my skin, and I can’t help wondering what it would feel like if he kissed me in more intimate places. But it’s more than just the amazing feeling of him that has my mind going to more intimate situations. I barely know Darrel, but I’ve never felt so connected with someone with just one kiss. Kissing Mack had been freeing. Aaron’s kisses tasted of excitement and danger. Kissing Lance had satisfied a dark desire within me I didn’t even know existed. But kissing Darrel, it’s like coming home. It satisfies my soul and sends tingling pleasure throughout my whole body, and suddenly I don’t care that we’re surrounded by man-eating sociopaths who may or may not be watching us.
Breaking away, I look down at him and whisper, “Wow.”
“I know.” He squeezes me tighter against him, and I tighten my legs, wishing there was no space at all between us.
A cry comes from behind, and I turn around, remembering the life or death situation Lance is facing right now.
Jacob’s massive form sprawls out on the ground on his back, with Lance on top of him. Lance’s jaws close around Jacob’s muzzle, renting a cry from his brother again. The bigger wolf shakes off Lance, managing to roll to his feet. The moment Jacob stands, he looks back to where I’m wrapped in Darrel’s arms and snarls.
Lance comes down with a vicious swipe across his brother’s face, and the two start to circle again.
“I feel like a horrible person for wanting to kiss you more right now,” I manage through labored breaths. “But it looks like it’s working.”
Dirty Alphas Page 25
