by Rosko, Mandy
Dane said nothing, but he still looked furious as he continued driving.
And Anna was just as angry with him.
“This is how it is.” She wasn't a child. “Dennis is my mate. We had sex, and it was consensual.” She refused to let the people around her treat her like a little girl any longer. “I don't need a shrink and Garret isn't going to insist that this isn't real. It is real, and this is what's happening.”
Dane shook his head. He still looked anything but amused by this whole thing, but Anna was done caring about what he felt.
“You really think he's your mate?”
“He is.”
“Even after everything he did to your family? After everything he put Garret through?”
That made her hesitate. Not in her feelings for Dennis, but Anna had let herself forget about how much this would hurt her brother. He would be angry. He would deny it, but eventually, he would have to accept it as real, and even then, it would hurt him.
It would hurt him a lot.
“Well?”
Anna shook her head, crossing her arms. “He’ll have to get over it.”
Dane hesitated. “You do remember that Dennis killed your father, right?”
Anna cringed.
“I mean, of course you wouldn't remember it. You were a baby, but you know he did it.”
“Yes, I know. I didn't forget.” She did glare at Dane for the reminder, however. “This is still real, and I forgave him. He didn't mean for it to happen. He just wanted Derek to have a place to live.”
Dane shook his head. He said nothing else. But it was clear he wasn't about to be swayed. At least not now.
But then he spoke up again. “Your brother will never accept Dennis in the pack. Not after everything that happened. They won't ever be friends again.”
“Garret's a grown man. He can do whatever he wants.”
“All right, I just want you to be aware of what you're in for. That's assuming Garret lets the prick live.”
Her inner hackles raised up high at words like that. “He had better. Or I won't forgive him either.”
Harsh, but as the words left her mouth, Anna knew they were true.
Thankfully, she didn't have to say anything else to Dane because they pulled up to her house.
Dane had turned down the road leading home, and she’d barely noticed.
But then, in front of the house where she was raised, Anna felt a flood of relief wash over her. She felt as though she hadn't slept in a long time, and now she was home.
The place never looked better.
Miranda, her friend Lois, and even Katie were standing by the front door. They were clearly waiting for her, and though Anna didn't know Miranda or Lois all that well yet, seeing the three of them there made her heart swell.
She pushed out of the front door just as they ran to her, pulling her into a wide group hug.
“Anna!”
“Welcome home!”
“Are you all right?”
They spoke together, so quickly she could hardly differentiate between them. But these were her friends. Their scents were nice as they surrounded her.
“I missed you guys!”
And it was true. Though Anna had been trying to keep it together, she really had missed her friends. She had missed her family.
But they were here now. And it felt so good to have them; it was something she couldn't even describe. Much as she loved Dennis, and she did love him, he wasn't able to give her this.
Miranda held her hands at Anna’s face. “Are you all right?” The poor woman looked as though she was about to start crying. “We've been so worried about you.”
“I'm fine,” Anna said, feeling guilty for not being more scared when Miranda had actual tears in her eyes.
“Come on inside,” Katie said. “You can get into the shower, get changed, and you'll have us with you, all night if you want. We won't go anywhere.”
Anna turned and looked at Dane. The stupid bastard stared back at her with something of a smug expression on his face.
Only more dark and not quite as happy.
As if he knew being right would mean hurting her friends.
Miranda had been turned by Dennis and his men. Lois had been stalked for a little while, and Katie…
Well, she got the worst of it.
There was no way Anna would continue to have this kind of support when she was finished telling them what happened.
“Do you guys mean it? Do you really mean that you'll stay with me?”
Miranda blinked. “What sort of question is that? Of course we will. You're our friend, and you're my sister.”
Miranda sounded as if she was sincere.
And now Anna felt like such an asshole. “There’s something you guys should know. About what happened while I was gone.”
All three women looked as though they were ready to cry. Katie shook her head. "No, sweetie, you don't have to say a thing.”
Anna nodded. “No, you don't understand, I really do have to explain this. It's about Dennis.”
She should've expected the next response.
“What did he do to you?” Katie's voice was hard. Anna had never heard her sound like that before. It was kind of scary.
“You don't understand. He didn't do anything. I mated with him.”
That was a far stretch from not doing anything. When Miranda, Lois, and Katie all looked at her as if she’d lost her mind, Anna realized she could've handled that a little better.
“You mean…he did it against your will?" Miranda asked carefully.
Anna didn't understand it. She hadn't felt this badly when being questioned by Dane, but now under the stare of the women in front of her, she did feel guilty.
Especially for Katie, who stared at her as though she were a stranger.
Anna shook her head. “No…it’s…I felt it on him whenever he was around me. I guess I never noticed it because he'd always been fighting with Garret, so it wasn't as if there was ever a reason for me to be around him, and Garret always smelled like Garret.”
Katie shook her head. “Are you sure you know what you're saying?”
Anna couldn't be frustrated with Katie the same way she’d been irritated with Dane. Katie was essentially doing the same thing, not trusting that Anna was old enough, or wise enough to realize when she was being taken advantage of, but Katie had her reasons.
It didn't stop Anna from feeling bad about it.
“Katie, I didn't do this on purpose. If I did have a choice, I probably would have picked anyone else, but it's him.”
Anna paid careful attention to both Miranda and Katie. She watched their expressions. She watched the gentle way their eyes widened. Katie, in particular, seemed to suffer from a slow withdrawal. She fell back a step as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
Miranda slowly shook her head. “That can't be right. I mean…are you sure?”
Anna nodded. She struggled to keep from glancing down at her feet. If she was going to break this sort of news to these women, then she was damn well going to do it while looking them in the eyes.
“Are you angry?”
Lois rubbed her face with her hands. She seemed just as shocked, but Anna didn't know her well enough to know whether or not this would impact her in the same way it would Miranda and Katie.
Miranda rubbed her forehead, as though she was fighting off a coming headache. “No, I'm not angry. I wouldn't be angry with you over something like this. I mean…this means you can't help it, doesn't it? That's how this works, right?”
Sometimes Anna forgot that Miranda hadn't always been part of the pack. She’d slid right in as part of the family, but she was still so new to all of this.
Miranda didn't have much control over whether or not she was Garret’s mate either. Garret had known since Miranda was a little girl that she was his mate. But Miranda's father, wanting to keep his daughter away from a wolf he thought dangerous, had hidden Miranda from him.
Even with the years that passed, when Miranda finally met Garret again, both of them fully grown adults this time, there was no denying the instinct that had pulled them to each other. For that, Miranda knew exactly what it was that Anna was suffering from right now.
Anna didn't have control any more than Miranda did. She would just have to hope that fate knew what it was doing.
“I can't control it, but maybe it's just everything we've been through in such a short amount of time. I can already feel myself so close to him. I need him. If Garret kills him or hurts him, I don't know what I'll do.”
Katie shook her head. She backed away, rubbing her hands through her blonde hair. “Where is Jax?” she asked, hardly looking Anna in the eyes.
Anna pressed her lips together. She looked back at Dane, who answered for her.
“Jax is with Garret. They're going to bring Dennis back here soon.”
Now Katie really looked as though she was about to have a heart attack.
“I'm really sorry,” Anna said, reaching for the other woman.
Anna had known Katie since she was a little girl. She loved Katie the most out of all the omegas in the pack, even her new sister-in-law.
But Katie raised her hands up, preventing Anna from touching her as she turned around and headed back for the house, taking her warmth with her.
19
Dennis was the sort of man who believed in Murphy ’s law.
He was a bastard who'd just managed to avoid it for most of his life.
Decades of fighting with Garret, of raging against the pack that turned their backs on him, then raging against the ghost of his father after learning every terrible thing he didn't want to believe was actually true. Dennis had made so many mistakes. He'd thought he would do better, that he would be better than Garret's father, that he could take over after his own disgusting father had passed and make it right.
Even if it would be for other people, not for Katie.
He'd taken in other shifters, anyone he could find. Those thrown out by the packs who didn't want to deal with them. Usually aggressive males who needed a proper alpha to help them control their inner demons. Wolves that would refuse to cooperate in almost any capacity in polite society.
But Dennis had used them more than he'd tried to help them. He'd promised an easy life, land, and a permanent roof over their heads if they would just follow him. If they would just help him take what didn't even belong to him.
So when years went by and he still couldn't deliver on his promise, his own pack getting impatient, Dennis tried to make a deal. He'd tried to get Derek admitted to the pack, to be led by Gerard and Garret, safely away from the people Dennis no longer thought were so safe. When that didn't work, and when his own pack found out, Murphy ’s started to twist and turn into effect.
Laurence had been taking over long before now. Dennis was a fool to not see it sooner, and then things had to come to a head when Dennis tried to speed things up by kidnapping Anna.
Then Dennis realized he was mated to Garret's little sister.
What were the odds of that?
So now, he was here. Things finally seemed to come full circle. Removed from his own pack, without his son or his mate, and ever since Garret dragged him into the back seat of his vehicle, the man hadn't once taken his eyes off him.
Dennis sat in the back, bleeding all over the leather seats while Garret sat up front, but he was turned around, clawed hands gripping the front seat, eyes glowing a bloody shade of red, teeth exposed.
Dennis was too tired, in too much pain, and too worried about what he might find with Derek to care how Garret looked at him.
Though he was still a stupid bastard.
“What?”
Garret growled low in his throat. He was starting to look close to demonic with the way his face changed, and then fur grew.
“If you hurt her…if you touched her… I will rip out your fingernails and force feed them to you. Do you understand me?”
“Uh, huh.”
Maybe his flippant answer didn't bode well for his majesty, because the next thing he knew, Garret shot his hand out.
The pain was white-hot, sudden, and only after did Dennis realize his nose had crunched. He groaned, his head falling back, and he could taste the blood that slid down the back of his throat before he looked at Garret.
“You watch your fucking mouth.” He snarled; his fangs became longer in his mouth. “You filthy, cocksucking pig. I will end you for what you did to her.”
Dennis gripped his nose hard. He grunted as he pulled it back into place, exhaling carefully through his mouth when the pained popping sounded. He sniffed. “Fine, whatever. Just make sure you don't take your holier than thou aggression out on my kid.”
“You've got no moral legs to stand on after everything you did! You went after Miranda! You turned her! Then you kidnap my baby sister and think you can do…that to her!”
He clearly didn't want to say what it was he thought Dennis had done, and Dennis wasn't about to deny it. He'd had sex with Anna. If he tried justifying himself, Garret would lose his shit. He thought Dennis had violated her. There was clearly no changing his mind on that one, and since Dennis didn't want to get into a car accident before he made it back to his son, he had to hold his tongue.
Garret wasn't done, however. “I should kill you. I should kill you and throw that little bitch of a kid of yours back to Laurence. I wonder what they'll do to him now that you're not in charge.”
Dennis narrowed his eyes.
Jax briefly looked at his alpha. “Garret, come on—”
“No! I am fucking sick of being the bigger person here! After everything you did! After everything you put us through! Why should I? Why should I be better when I can make you beg me for mercy? I won't even have to hurt you. Too much. I'll just make you watch while I make your kid lick my floors.”
Okay. Now this was getting to him.
Patient. He had to be patient. Garret was a cunt, but there was no way he meant what he said.
Dennis hoped.
He sniffed and rubbed at his nose. He looked at the blood on his fingers, and while he was furious with the other man, wanted to attack him in return, he held back.
For Derek.
“I know you want to fight me. I can see it in your fucking eyes,” Garret said with a low growl. “Do it. I dare you.”
Coarse fur began coming in through the pores of his skin. He wasn’t just lashing out. He wanted Dennis to fight him.
It was apparently enough to make the dragon nervous as he drove.
“Garret, wait until we’re back,” Jax said, a note of urgency in his voice.
“I don’t want to wait,” Garret said, not taking his eyes off Dennis, his voice barely sounding human.
Dennis shook his head, and now he was glad because he found one more thing he could use to piss the guy off with.
“I won’t fight you. Not until I’m good and ready for it. Besides, I’m not about to hurt Anna’s feelings by getting back to your territory with you in a fucked up, bloody mess.”
Garret surged forward with a massive roar. He looked as though he’d lost his damn mind, and Dennis closed his eyes when those claws came for his face.
He didn’t feel them, but he did feel the slashing of the air an inch or so away from his nose.
Dennis opened his eyes, then blinked wide as he saw just how close he’d been to getting his face ripped off.
Garret snarled and slashed for his face, trying to blind him with those claws that looked a lot more like talons in that moment than anything on a wolf.
The only thing holding him back was Jax. The dragon shifter had an arm on the back of Garret’s neck, holding onto the fur in a tight grip. Dennis watched the man’s face from the rearview mirror as he grit his teeth and growled at the road ahead.
He was pissed. They all were, but at least Dennis wouldn’t be showing up to his new prison with his eyes gouged out.
There was something good to b
e said about that. And something funny, that Garret was being held back from one arm of one of his buddies. Apparently, Garret wasn’t as strong as he liked to make everyone think he was when he was furious about something.
“Garret! Knock it off!”
Jax’s fangs appeared out of his mouth, scales forming across his skin as his biceps seemed to get bigger. He finally pulled in enough strength to yank Garret back and shove him into his seat, but not without forcing the vehicle to swerve a little on the road.
Dennis clenched his teeth as he was forced to put weight on his leg just to steady himself, but then the car straightened out and they were smooth sailing again.
“I’m going to fucking kill him when we get back!”
“So kill him when we get back! Stop trying to get into a death match in the back seat! I’m fucking driving here!”
“They sounded like a bitching couple, but Dennis didn’t care about that. He recognized where they were when Jax finally turned down the nearly hidden road.
Of the territory that, decades ago, used to be Dennis’ home.
It didn’t feel that way anymore, and it hadn’t for a long time. He felt no attachment to this place, even though he’d been fighting for a piece of it for a long time.
Now that things had gotten so bad, the only thing that mattered was confirming that Anna was all right, and making sure Derek got a good warning not to go back home before Garret released him.
Assuming the prick would be man enough to keep his word.
Garret and Jax bickered as though they’d forgotten Dennis was even back here. Dennis even forgot about the pain in his leg as the massive house came into view. On the few times he’d seen the place since his banishment, he’d never been able to drink it in like this.
He could spot the window to where his childhood room used to be. He wondered who had it now. A servant, maybe? Or possibly no one at all. From what Dennis understood, most of the people who used to live in this enormous house went on to find homes of their own on or near the territory.
Times had changed drastically compared to ninety years ago.
But it was beautiful. The vines climbing the walls, the old brickwork, and even the windows of this home brought back memories.
