Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) (15 page)

I held his eyes, unblinking and
unflinching.
 
“There are still three other
females fighting for it.
 
Nothing to accept yet.
 
And as far as I know, Jade doesn’t have a clue what she’s signed up
for.
 
She might step down when she does.”

He
laughed,
a full-bellied
laugh.
 
“Jade doesn’t give up,” he said,
and laughed again.
 
He sounded so much
like Dominic, it was a bit … weird, and it added a whole shitload of questions
to the rising pile in the back of my mind that centered on Jade.
 
Again, I found myself wondering,
Who
was this girl?
 
And how
deep of a connection did she
have
with my beta?

Mr. Shaw’s laughter died down, and he gave
me a somber look.
 
“Be honest with me,
kid,” he said, sounding a little deflated, “does she have a chance or should I
be packing her up and taking her away?”

It was a fair question, and I had to really
think about it before answering.
 
“If she
left now, she’d have Erika following her.
 
It was a struggle to get her to leave Jade’s side last night.”
 
I paused, collecting my scattered thoughts,
and scrubbed at my face, before looking back at him.
 
“I think she has what it takes, sir.”

Mr. Shaw considered my answer.
 
He folded his arms over his chest and one
eyebrow rose.
 
“And how do you feel about
my baby girl?”
 
There was no nonsense in
his tone as he asked the question, and I got the feeling that there was only
one right answer.
 
Too bad I didn’t
really know what the right answer was.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said with a shrug.
 
“Alpha pairs are about strength and dominance
and leadership.
 
How I feel, or who I
want, doesn’t make a difference in who will win.”

“You don’t know who I am, do you, son?” he
snapped, and I got the sinking feeling that sticking with the truth of the
situation wasn’t the right answer.

I shook my head from side to side.
 
“No, sir.
 
Should I?”

“He works for you, dumbass,” Dominic said,
as he padded down the stairs.
 
“Who do
you think I called yesterday when you were stupid enough to tell the whole town
who you are?”

Every muscle in my body coiled like a
spring.
 
“You,” I said, snapping my gaze
back to Mr. Shaw.
 
My nostrils flared as
I sucked in breath after breath but all I got was wolves and humans.
 
No trace of cougar.
 
Nothing but human was coming from this
man.
 
“You can’t be.”

Mr. Shaw chuckled.
 
“Nice little trick, isn’t it?”

~ JADE ~

The doorbell rang
again, in three short and shrill bursts.
 
I could hear Dominic laughing and the deep rumbles of Dad’s voice, but
yet, the doorbell was still ringing.
 
I
secured my towel around me, tucking it tightly, and whipped the bathroom door
open.
 
“Answer the door,” I yelled, and
with a glance down the hall, just to make sure no one was there, I slipped out
of the bathroom and headed for my room.

I didn’t get far.

Someone cleared their throat, and started
shuffling up the steps behind me.
 
I spun
around, figuring it was just Dominic.
 
I
was about to give him an earful about the door, but the words clogged in my
throat.
 
“Aidan,” I said, and I hated how
my voice squeaked on his name.
 
I sounded
like an awkward teenager, and I was sure I looked it, too.

He wasn’t smirking.
 
His jaw was locked tight, but he didn’t look
unhappy; annoyed, maybe.
 
He reached the
top of the stairs and just stood there, staring down at me.
 
And right then, I didn’t find him
intriguing.
 
It was a weird feeling, as
if something that should be there was just … gone.
 
I figured that it was because I knew who he
was now.
 
The mystery was gone, and in
that moment, all I saw was barely concealed power and authority, and it made me
shiver.
 
My stomach constricted, twisting
tight as a corkscrew, and I chewed on my bottom lip nervously.

Aidan took a step forward, and I almost did
the same.
 
Almost.
 
His fitted gray T-shirt hugged his muscled
chest and sculpted arms, and as I looked at him, I suddenly felt alive, as if
someone had flicked my power switch to on.
 
All I could think about was touching him.
 
An urging need ran through me.
 
It was primal, deep-seated and more than a
little bestial.
 
It was nothing like the
butterflies or even the birds that I usually felt when he was near.
 
This was so much more that it consumed me
like fire consuming a fluttering piece of paper.
 
My skin burned, and my heart pounded.
 
I wanted to know what that power felt like
under my fingertips.
 
His eyes raked over
me, and he licked his lips, and Jesus, but my knees started to tremble.
 
He had that look in his eyes, the one he had
had when we first met, as if he saw nothing but me.
 
It was so intense, as if I was the only thing
in the world that was worth looking at.

And that’s when my senses came back to
me.
 
I flushed.
 
It burned over my skin like a fever, and I
reached up, pulling my towel around me tighter.
 
I blinked and I took a step back.
 
He took another step toward me.
 
Everything about his tense posture urged me to move away, but I
couldn’t.
 
Dominic slid his hand to the
small of my back, pressed his lips to my ear, and whispered, “He’s testing you,
Jade.
 
Don’t back down.”

I jumped then.
 
I hadn’t even seen him approach us.
 
I had heard him downstairs, and I knew he
must have walked right by both Aidan and me.
 
“You didn’t tell me he was here,” I hissed back.
 
My heart was racing, and my knees, still
shaking.

“Well, I am,” Aidan said, “and we need to
have a chat.”
 
He shifted his hard gaze
to Dominic and said, “You’ve got to stop helping her.
 
She needs to win this one on her own.”

“I don’t think I want her to win,” Dominic
said, his voice full of defiance.
 
His
hand pressed a bit harder on the small of my back, and I slapped it away before
he forced me to move closer to Aidan.

Aidan
laughed,
a
shocked and strangled kind of sound.
 
“Not your call, Dominic.”

“What the hell are you two talking about?”
 
I snapped, but they ignored me.
 
I looked between the two of them.
 
Aidan stood a bit straighter, and so did
Dominic, rolling his shoulders back and puffing out his chest.
 
Aidan’s chocolaty eyes brightened, and a
golden ring shimmered around the edges.
 
He growled.
 
Yes, growled.
 
It was deep and low and rumbling, and it made
me shiver again.
 
The power behind that
sound was intoxicating.
 
Alluring.
 
And
something deep within me responded to it.
 
I wanted it.
 
I wanted that power
more than I wanted to breathe.

The face-off didn’t last long.
 
Dominic slunk back a step and dropped his
gaze, but the tension lingered.
 
Silence
fell over us, thick and awkward, and with every passing second, I became hotly
aware that I was standing in the hallway wearing only a towel, and Aidan was
staring at me as if I was some hot fudge sundae that he really wanted to lick.

“Aidan, let my daughter get dressed,” Dad
hollered up the stairs, breaking the seriously uncomfortable tension.

Aidan smirked then, and winked at me.
 
“Sure thing, Jeff,” he yelled back in a way
that was far too friendly.
 
He turned
from me then and started down the stairs.
 
Dominic followed him, his eyes on the ground and shoulders still
hunched.

“Stop right there,” I said.
 
Aidan glanced over his shoulder and
smirked.
 
“How do you know my dad?”

He chuckled.
 
“Again, I ask you, can I not know people just
because I’m new?”

~ AIDAN ~

I think walking
away from Jade was the single hardest thing I had ever done.
 
I had expected her to be dressed, not almost
naked.
 
That little white towel had left
little to the imagination, hanging just below her bottom, and cinched tightly
over her chest.
 
Each silky curve of her
body begged me to get closer, and see if her skin was as soft as it
looked.
 
All I could think about was
seeing what was underneath that thin cloth.
 
I had never wanted something so badly.
 
Never.

And that scared the hell out of me.

Wanting wasn’t in the cards for me.
 
Not until she won.
 
Not until she was mine.
 
And my gut was telling me that once she knew
the score, she’d happily step down.
 
I
had seen it in her eyes.
 
The loathing.
 
The hatred.
 
I was
certain that’s what the look had been.
 
The girl who had been haunting my every move had been unattainable
before and she had just moved even further out of my reach.

Dominic followed me down the stairs, not
saying a word, and her father stood at the bottom eyeing me suspiciously.
 
I waited for the soft click of her door and
looked the man straight in the eyes, and said, “We’re not going to tell
her.
 
She won’t stand a chance if she
knows.”
 
And then I spun on Dominic.
 
“If you go against me again, I will strip you
of your title and kick you out of this pack.
 
I’m not playing your games anymore.”

Anger flared in his eyes for about half a
second, but it quickly vanished when he noticed I was serious.
 
Clearly playing nice hadn’t worked yet, and I
was done.
 
Done with
all of it.
 
If this pack was going
to continue to push me, I was going to push back.
 
Especially now.
 
With Jade’s transformation, I couldn’t risk
her inner-wolf losing respect for me.
 
I
wouldn’t risk it.
 
If that happened, if I
couldn’t maintain a position as her equal, even as a hated equal, I’d risk
losing the entire pack.
 
And I wasn’t
ready to lose yet.
 
Not when it meant
another male would take her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, dropping his
eyes to the ground.

Jeff turned gray, all the blood rushing
from his face, and he sucked in a loud gasping breath.
 
“You can’t keep this from her.”

“She won’t fight for me,” I said calmly,
even though saying it out loud sent rage coursing through me.
 
“I’m pretty sure your daughter hates me,
Jeff, and you know what will happen if she doesn’t fight.
 
It’s not just my pack I’m worried about.
 
Now that the news of a new alpha is out, your
pack will be hovering, and she needs to be focused.”

“Are you kidding me?”
 
Erika’s voice screeched through me, like rusty
brakes on a car.
 
“She’ll fight for
you.
 
She wants you.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked, well
okay, I demanded, and Erika flinched.

“Jade didn’t show up at school,” she
said.
 
Her voice was whiny and she
sounded as if she was going to cry.
 
She
lifted a stack of books and stepped closer to me as if she thought I hadn’t
noticed them.
 
“I brought her homework.”

I just stared at her and gritted my teeth.
 
My own scent wafted around me — pungent and
commanding.
 
I pulled on my alpha wolf,
pushing it forward, channeling it into my human form.
 
The vibe was unmistakable.
 
I might as well have ripped off my shirt,
beat my chest and yelled,
‘I am
alpha
.’

“Aidan, we get it,” Dominic said with a
slight tremor to his voice.
 
“You’re the
alpha.
 
Could you tone it down a little?”

I didn’t have a chance to respond.
 
“Erika?” Jade snapped.
 
I swiveled and looked up the stairs, and for
a second, I started to smile, but it died fast.
 
Her scent was just as strong as mine was, and it came close to
overpowering me.
 
“Seriously, you have a
lot of nerve,” she spat.
 
“Get the hell
out of my house!”

“Um … I’m just … homework,” she said,
jutting a stack of books out.
 
Her arms
were shaking, the books sliding around in her hands.
 
“Please don’t hate me,” she whispered.
 
“I won’t be a problem.
 
I promise.
 
Just … I can’t live with my alpha hating me.
 
Don’t make me go.”
 
She started inching toward the stairs,
keeping her eyes averted from Jade, and it made my blood boil.

“Erika, she is
not
an alpha,” I said more harshly than I had intended, but with
Jade so close … projecting so much authority, I just couldn’t pull it
back.
 
“She’s not even part of
my
pack.”

Erika stopped at the base of the stairs,
but didn’t turn back to me.
 
She curled
her shoulders over, and dropped her head, as if she hoped that I wouldn’t
notice her.
 
“Jade and I have some
business to deal with.
 
She’ll see you
tomorrow,” I said
as gently as I could, which still turned
out to be sharper than
I wanted, and Erika shuddered, but she still
didn’t move.
 
I turned to Dominic.
 
“Take her home.
 
Don’t come back here tonight.”

“No,” Jade growled from deep within her
belly.
 
She fixed an icy stare on me and
held it for a long minute.
 
When I didn’t
flinch, she said, “We have no business.
 
Erika, come up here.
 
You can help
me with my homework.”

Erika started up the steps and Jade smiled
at her encouragingly before she glanced at her father.
 
“Dad, if Mac comes home send her up,
okay?”
 
And then she shifted her gaze to
Dominic, and said, “Oh and Dom, I’m starving.”
 
Her tone was sharp, commanding, and impossible.
 
I loved it and loathed it.
 
She smirked at me, clearly pleased with
herself, and started to turn her back on me.
 
She hadn’t even made her first shift and she was already falling into
the ranks with ease, as if she had been there all along.

Dominic’s laugh pulled me out of my
stupor.
 
“Sure thing, boss,” he
said.
 
“One Lucy’s
Griller coming up.”