Big Bad Bite (23 page)

Before she could say a word, or even blink an
eye, Adam had her in his arms and was zooming her to some unknown
location. About three seconds later the blurring landscape stopped,
and she was standing in a shower she’d never seen before. She
turned her head in the cranky wolf’s direction to ask what the hell
was going on, but ended up getting a mouth full of water for her
effort since he’d turned the shower on to a freezing cold spray
that pounded her with pressure and instantly soaked her to the
bone.

He barked a cross, “Wash it off”, before the
shower curtain fluttered as he zoomed out of the bathroom.

Jenna stood there, standing in the freezing
water, shocked now mentally and physically from the cold, trying to
figure out what the hell just happened. Thankfully, someone showed
up so that she could yell at them and ask why. Amy. She stood
watching Jenna through the small sliver opening between the inside
of the bathtub and the other side of the shower curtain.

“What the fuck was that about?”

“Well, you came home smelling like a stray
cat or two. He considers you his – so he doesn’t like you smelling
like any man but him. Hence the reason you resemble a soggy piece
of laundry right now. I can understand you being a little surprised
by his reaction to the smell on you, but if you didn’t know it by
now, I’d hope like hell you just figured it out. Our males tend to
be a bit possessive. You have no idea how amazed I’ve been by how
patient Adam is being with you about all of this.”

“Patient? Patient!” Jenna waved her arms in
the space around her as she stood shivering and sputtered, “You
call this patient? I haven’t even known him a week, and you think
he’s being fucking patient?”

Amy looked at her as if she ought to have her
head examined. “Well, yeah.”

*****

Things were not going as planned, and that
royally pissed him off. Normally he was flexible, willing to bend
instead of break when he had to improvise to get what he wanted. In
this instance though, he found himself much closer to breaking
because the stakes had never been higher for what he was trying to
achieve, which were two exceedingly crucial things. The first was
his sanity. Obviously, that was an extremely beneficial thing to
maintain if you expected to keep breathing. This was not a dog eat
dog world. Reality was much harsher than that. This was a world
were at the first sign of weakness, a pack of rabid wolves would
hunt you down to tear you limb from bloody limb, leaving the scraps
of your body left for the scavengers to consume.

The reason he felt like he was on the brink
of losing his sanity? Jenna. Who was the second thing he was trying
to achieve. His entire life, Adam had fought to control his beast
and to keep his life. It wasn’t exactly a secret being a shifter,
and living among them, that if you were unable to keep your animal
contained, you would be put down quickly and silently. The entire
Other
species as a whole had survived by keeping their
anonymity.

Sure, there had been slip ups in the history
of the world. Random shifters, demons or vampires who had let their
supernatural presence be known among the humans. Why else would
there be so many stories or legends about them? Many of the older
incidents ended up with that particular
Other
achieving
Godlike like status, and becoming a deity among that race of
humans. But for every instance of supernatural slip up in history,
you had a thousand dead
Others
behind them to remind you why
if you wanted to keep breathing, you needed to learn to play by the
rules.

The most fundamental rule of the shifter kind
was keeping your shit together and not losing control. Adam was
dangerously close to letting the chains slip and giving his wolf
the freedom to go ape shit. Allowing that to happen would be a damn
travesty since he’d managed since childhood to beat everyone’s
expectations of failing with his wolf so close to his human
surface. Most of his life he’d spent living under a microscope,
constantly watched to make sure that his wolf was kept locked down,
and using the developing power of his wolf’s dominance to help make
them Alpha, and thereby keeping them alive. Adam McPhee could not
allow himself to be a man who lost control of his wolf, which was
what he was on the edge of doing at the moment.

The trigger to his spiraling downfall was
currently freezing her ass off and sputtering in his shower. No,
Jenna had not set out to purposely rile his wolf, but she’d done so
inadvertently by being so challenging and not submitting to his
dominance, and in extension the hierarchy of the pack. From the
second she’d refused to look away from him outside of the house her
SWAT team had invaded to nab the man he’d sought to bring in for
pack justice, she’d caught the interest of his wolf. His beast had
finally understood why it had never been interested in keeping a
constant bed partner or settling down with a mate, because none of
the females he’d encountered had been strong enough for them.

Whereas the human side of him had taken one
look at her and seen a petite, dangerously curvy, potential bedmate
that made him harder than stone, his wolf had finally seen the
potential of a strong female to handle their domineering attitude
without running away screaming in tears. That moment in time had
become, what Adam realized now, the first break in his defenses of
keeping his wolf locked down. With every minute spent in her
presence since then, his wolf had become more and more approving of
the strong female wolf. Determined that they alone, were strong
enough to bring her to heel without breaking the fierce spirit that
glowed within her. But Adam had been intensely skeptical at his
wolf’s insistence of claiming and keeping, Jenna.

His human side had tried to rationalize with
his animal side that sure, she was insanely beautiful, and
presented what could be one hell of a fun challenge, but he wasn’t
sure he was ready to claim any woman as his mate. After all, he was
only sixty or so in human years. Most of the
Other
species
didn’t meet their mates so early on in their lives. They still had
plenty of time to have fun before they settled down and started
making pups. His wolf didn’t want to hear the human logic though.
He didn’t want to hear Adam’s reluctance of taking a mate, or even
his ideas of taking things slowly so the human half could be more
sure of the animal half’s proclamations.

The wolf’s obsession became stronger each day
since they’d met her, and took considerable glee in pointing out
what it considered to be all of the traits that made her the
perfect mate for them. Not only was she strong in mind and body,
but she was loyal to her family, which meant she’d be loyal to
their pack. She was inexperienced, but passionate, the wolf
whispered to him. She just needed someone to show her the joys of
how and when the wolf liked to play.

Above all else, she was a unique treasure. He
didn’t need the wolf to show him that there would never be anyone
quite like Jenna, due to her hybrid genetics. The fact that she was
one of a kind in their supernatural world was a gift. To the wolf
she was a priceless jewel that the wolf wanted to possess. To be
the only one able to keep her all to themselves, always for them
alone; protecting, loving and nurturing her till the end of their
days.

With every point the wolf made, he made a
larger crack in the defenses Adam used to keep him under control.
Jenna’s mother had been correct earlier when she had stated it was
an obsession. It was something a shifter never wanted to be accused
of. The idea that the animal half had become so infatuated with
something that it threatened to break free and claim their
possession, was damn near the beginnings of a death sentence among
their kind. Adam’s wolf had become enamored with Jenna, and was on
the warpath to either convince their human half that they had to
have her, or the wolf would batter his fleshy cage walls until he
emerged in control of them once and for all.

The wolf told him that he would make Jenna
theirs at all costs. Adam couldn’t help but wonder if it was going
to end up costing them their lives. Now that Kelly O’Conner had
announced to the others that Adam was indeed becoming obsessed with
her daughter, he was going to have to throw aside his plans of
wooing her slowly to keep her comfortable with what was happening
between them. The eyes of his Pack, and worse yet, Pack Master
Davies, would be inscrutably on him for the first sign of losing
control. He was going to have to do his best impression of dating
her in warp speed to show her that he and his wolf alone were the
ones who could be her and her wolf’s partners for the rest of their
days. He didn’t have much choice in the matter anymore, but to
succeed in making her his mate as quickly as possible.

Every day his wolf wasn’t able to touch her,
hold her, to make her theirs, was a day closer to their doom. One
day closer to Adam losing his sanity to the wolf’s attempts to
break him in order to gain what he considered his. He didn’t have
the option of failing because failing meant certain death in the
claws and teeth of a pack of angry wolves.

*****

Jenna was muttering curses as she followed
Amy, cold and naked, out of the bathroom she’d been dumped in by
Adam, and into a bedroom that was undoubtedly his because it was
saturated in his scent. The strong smell of the room alone almost
made her knees buckle under a surge of arousal that hit her like a
bullet striking its target. It was quick and deadly, and she wasn’t
sure she’d ever recover from it. It took all she had to stop
herself from dropping onto the man’s bed, rolling around in that
luscious smell that was unique to him, and practically creaming
herself over it. Amy was kind enough to pretend that she couldn’t
smell Jenna’s arousal filling the room like a flippin’ perfume
grenade had gone off.

The gorgeous redhead walked over to her
brother’s closet and pulled out one of Adam’s shirts to toss at
her. As Jenna slipped the soft grey cotton t-shirt over her head,
she saw Amy digging through a dresser for a moment until she pulled
out a pair of navy blue sweat pants.

“Here, these are the only pair he has left
that still has the draw string in them. You know how people always
say that their dryers steal their socks? Well apparently our dryer
steals the strings out of Adam’s sweatpants, because they always go
missing after he washes them a few times.”

Jenna dragged the baggy pants up to her hips
before pulling the string as tight as she could and tying it to
keep them where they belonged. At her waist, not falling to her
ankles like they were want to do if it wasn’t for the atrocious
knots Jenna tied in the strings. She looked back at her friend to
find Amy looking at her intently, if not a little worried. The last
of her strength seemed to drain out of her, and she plopped her
butt down on the end of Adam’s bed.

“Can you explain what’s going on Amy? You
obviously know something that I don’t about the way Adam’s acting,
and to be really honest with you, I’ve had it up to here with
surprises in my life and trying to figure them out.”

Jenna held her hand in a flat imaginary line
over her head to demonstrate her words. The infuriating Alpha’s
sister nibbled on her bottom lip seemingly unsure if she should say
anything.

“I don’t know… maybe you should talk to Adam
about this…”

Like a rubber band that had been stretched
too thin, Jenna’s temper finally snapped. “Don’t give me that shit,
Amy. I know he’s your brother, but I kind of thought you were my
friend now too. How much more shit should I have piled onto my life
before everyone starts to think twice about adding one more problem
to my growing list?”

Amy bared her teeth as her canines started to
elongate. “You have no idea what Adam’s going through right now! I
might like you Jenna, we may be friends, but he’ll always be my
brother, therefore Adam comes first. I know it’s not your fault,
but you’re driving him crazy, and now I spend my days worrying if
he’s going to lose control of his wolf and have to be put down.
This situation he’s in is something you caused, whether you knew
you did it or not.”

She was flabbergasted. “How the hell is it my
fault if Adam can’t control his wolf?”

Running frustrated hands through her hair,
she looked up to the ceiling before snarling, “There are times I’d
really like to castrate your Uncle for your lack of knowledge of
our kind. It’s ridiculous and dangerous.” Her hands fisted in the
length of her hair as she started taking deep breaths to calm
herself. Eventually she slowed her breathing, and then looked back
to Jenna. “Did you hear your Mom accuse Adam of being obsessed with
you?”

Jenna shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s no big
deal. Mama was just being her usual dramatic, overprotective self.
It’s not like Adam is stalking me or anything.”

The left side of Amy’s mouth tipped up in an
ironic half grin. “No, he’s not stalking you. Yet. The problem is
that you don’t understand what was really being said because you’re
so in the dark. The fact that your family didn’t teach you these
things while growing up is seriously insane girl. They left you at
a severe disadvantage, even if they had the best intentions about
it.”

Amy walked over and sat next to Jenna on the
bed, “You see the thing is, saying someone is obsessed in the human
world you grew up in, and saying their obsessed in our world have a
similar context, but run on drastically opposite sides of the
scale. I’m sure you’ve seen a case or two being a cop where a man
is infatuated with a woman, whether she returns his interest or
not. Well, in Adam’s case, it’s a bit more dire. With shifters such
as Adam, where his animal is much more powerful, dominant, and if
not properly controlled, a danger to others, those animals can
become attached to something or someone in a way the human side
can’t manage. This kind of thing is so rare that many don’t know
how to deal with it. There’s just something about you that Adam’s
wolf has decided is perfect for him, whether Adam likes it or
not.”