Deadly Crush (Deadly Trilogy, Book 1) (25 page)

~ AIDAN ~

My office felt
empty.
 
It wasn’t, but it felt it.
 
The average sized, beige room felt huge and
dull and vacant.
 
Jared sat on the edge
of my oak desk with a smug grin, and Beck stood nearby fighting back a
laugh.
 
They were playing with her, I was
sure of it, just as they were toying with me, and they were enjoying every
second of it.
 
What I didn’t get was
why?
 
Why did the enforcers give a shit
about Jade?
 
And what were they getting
out of ripping us apart?
 
I couldn’t
bring myself to believe that Jared actually wanted her, or that she was
attracted to him.
 
I knew it was
possible; I’d seen them all over each other, but the thought of her with him,
or anyone else, made me feel sick.

Jade had been gone for twenty-eight minutes
and forty-two seconds.
 
Each minute that
passed by and she didn’t walk back through the door, my heart died a little
more.
 
I thought about all the lies,
about the way I manipulated her, and used her, and I figured I deserved the gut
wrenching pain that spread through me with every beat of my heart.

“Aidan, it’s going to be okay,” Marcy
said.
 
Except she didn’t sound too sure
about it.
 
“She’ll be back once she calms
down.”
 
She offered up a shaky looking
smile, as she pulled her knees to her chest, and rocked slowly, back and forth,
on the couch.

“Mac’s right.
 
Jade always comes back,” Dominic said.
 
It sounded like he was trying to convince himself
just as much as he was trying to convince me.
 
He paced the room restlessly, glancing at the door every few
seconds.
 
I didn’t need to ask what he
was thinking; I was sure it was the same thoughts that were going through my
head.
 
There was no way to cover up that
she stepped down.
 
Too many people had
heard her say it.
 
The games were … over.

“I can track her if you want,” Beck
offered.
 
I glared at him, and gritted my
teeth.
 
He was enjoying this.
 
Enjoying every second of watching me crumble
as I lost the only thing that mattered, the only person that brought an ounce
of good into this screwed up pack.

“No,” Dominic and Marcy shouted in unison,
before I answered, which was probably a good thing, because I wanted to say
yes.

“Dude, don’t drag her back before she’s
ready,” Marcy said frantically.
 
“If you
force her to fight now, she’ll never forgive you.”
 
She flushed and cut Jared a dirty look.
 
“Dammit, Jared!
 
What were you thinking?”

Jared shrugged his shoulders, in a bad
attempt to look innocent.
 
“Figured she
knew what was going on.
 
She did take
down three of them.”

“You damn well know she didn’t,” Marcy
snapped.

“Enough!” I yelled, glaring at Marcy.
 
I knew she was only trying to help, but I
couldn’t take the constant bickering anymore.
 
She started to cry and hugged her legs tighter to her chest.
 
“Mac, you should go,” I said, and scrubbed at
my face roughly.
 
“Trevor’s probably
waiting for you, and Jade already stepped down.
 
Doesn’t matter anymore.
 
Tiffany
won.”

“Aidan, she’s going to come back,” she
said, her voice hitched on her tears.
 
“I
promise.”

I tried to smile at her, but I was sure it
fell flat.
 
The reality was it didn’t
matter if she came back or not.
 
I
couldn’t restart the games.
 
I didn’t
have a choice.
 
Tiffany had won by default
when Jade walked away.
 
My fate had been
sealed the second she said she wouldn’t fight.

A phone rang, breaking the silence, and
Jared groped in his pocket, digging out his phone.
 
He looked at the screen and chuckled, before
tapping it and bringing the phone to his ear.
 
“Miss me already, little girl?” Jared said and smirked at me.
 
“Your house or mine?” he asked, and then
paused.
 
“Be right there, kitten.”
 
He chuckled softly, “Get used to it,
Jade.”
 
He hung up, and slid his phone
back into his pocket.
 
Looking at Beck,
he said, “See you in a bit,” and then he pushed off of my desk.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I growled,
pushing my chair back and standing up.
 
My hands were shaking with rage, and I pushed them down on the desk to
keep them steady.
 
I couldn’t believe she
called him.
 
She wasn’t wasting any time
replacing me.
 
Not that I was really hers
to start with, but right then whether I had been hers or not didn’t
matter.
 
Jared chuckled, obviously
enjoying my reaction and white-hot fury flooded over me.

“Enforcer business,” he replied coolly, and
padded over to the door, pulling it open.

“Screwing my mate isn’t enforcer business,”
I snarled.
 
I shouldn’t have said it, and
I really didn’t mean to, but it just came out.
 
As far as my inner-wolf was concerned, Jade was mine.
 
She always would be, and the lust-filled
scent that Jared was giving off right then, sent the beast inside me over the
edge.

“Jade’s not your mate, alpha.
 
Tiff is.
 
Beck, track down Tiffany and bring her in,” he said, keeping his eyes on
me.
 
There was a warning in his voice,
and his muscles visibly coiled, as if he was just waiting for me to step over
the line, and break a rule.

Beck chuckled.
 
“Sure thing, boss,” he said, and right then I
felt as if I was dead.

~ JADE ~

I waited
impatiently as Jared made the call.
 
He
had been waiting for us on my porch when Erika and I had emerged from the
forest.
 
For the last hour, I’d sat in my
bedroom and listened as they filled me in on everything they knew about the
cougars and the alpha female games.
 
The
gist was that the cougars were sick bastards and had been tormenting the town
for more than a hundred years.
 
Jared
said that about forty years ago the wolves started to fight back, which was
when the pack decided not to hide their presence in Dog Mountain.

As for the alpha female games, well, it all
sounded stupid.
 
I just found it hard to
believe that all these girls would fight for a guy just to become the alpha
female.
 
Erika said it had nothing to do
with the guy.
 
She claimed that love
didn’t matter.
 
Alphas were paired
together because of dominance, leadership, and strength.
 
She said that she didn’t even really like
Aidan, and she had been fighting for the pack, not for him.
 
I hated to admit it, but I thought she was
crazy.
 
How could she not like
Aidan?
 
And why did I still want him?

When Jared walked out of my bedroom to make
the call, I told Erika about the scent.
 
I told her what Jared’s had done to me, and what Aidan’s did to me.
 
I was hoping for some kind of explanation
from her, anything to make my cravings for the two men make an ounce of sense,
but all she said was that my inner-wolf had alpha in its scent, and when
dominant wolves of the opposite sex meet, it causes a different reaction.
 
She figured my inner-wolf was recognizing
them as potential mates.
 
She explained
that for most of them, the scent was crippling, basically telling me things I’d
already (somewhat) figured out, and not really helping with the things I
hadn’t.

Needless to say, the last hour had been …
tense.
 
I had a few meltdowns, learned
more about the pack than my brain could really absorb, and overall, came up
with a plan that would probably get me killed.
 
The whole time I tried to tell myself that this near suicidal idea had
nothing to do with Aidan.
 
It was for the
pack.
 
That was it.
 
But my heart (and my inner-wolf) wouldn’t
believe me.

Jared rubbed his sandpaper looking jaw as
he strode back into my bedroom, his cell phone still in hand.
 
“It’s done.
 
Tiffany has just accepted the position.”

“And even without the games I can still
challenge her, right?” I asked.
 
I was
more than a little glad that my voice was strong, and not showing the nerves
that were jumping around as if I had a circus of juggling acrobats in my belly.

He considered it for a moment and then
nodded.
 
“Yep, at any point an alpha can
be challenged.
 
It’s just harder to beat
them once they’re branded, which, by the way, is happening to Tiff right now.”

I threw my hands up in the air, frustrated,
annoyed, and more than a little confused.
 
“What the hell is the point of the games if she can be challenged at any
time?”

“It’s entertaining,” Jared offered
dryly.
 
I could have smacked him.
 
Entertaining?
 
Really?
 
I’d been put through hell
for the last few days to entertain them?
 
He started to chuckle, as he padded across the room, and sat beside me
on my bed.
 
“I’m just kidding.
 
The games happen when more than one female
wants to be alpha.”
 
He ran his hand up
my leg and winked at me.

“Cut the crap, Jared,” I said, slapping his
hand away from my knee.
 
“Will the plan
work?”

“Don’t know.
 
Never heard of a female winning and then not
taking the alpha male as her mate.”
 
He
leaned back on my bed, propping himself up with his elbows.
 
He hadn’t bothered to put on a shirt before he
came over, and his abs flexed and rippled as he got comfortable.

“But is there a rule against it?” I asked,
forcing myself to look away from him.
 
He
may be a complete dick, but he was hot, and the last thing I needed was more
temptation.
 
His scent was more than
enough to drive my inner-wolf crazy, and the visual seriously wasn’t helping.

“Number three?” Erika asked meekly from the
other side of the room.

“She can’t screw him over if she doesn’t
claim her rights to him,” Jared snapped, glaring at her, and she pressed
herself further into the corner, hiding behind my dresser.

“Stop freaking her out,” I hissed, giving
him a dirty look.
 
“If I win today, she’s
going to be my beta, so be nice.”

He rolled his eyes, and rubbed his jaw, as
he looked me over.
 
“I really don’t know
about you joining my team, little girl.
 
No offense, but you don’t have what it takes.”

I stood up, spun around, and put my hands
on my hips, glaring down at him.
 
“No
offense?
 
Really, that was an
offense.
 
I’m seriously offended.
 
Did you miss me taking down three
challengers, one of which when I was still human?”
 
And
hadn’t he just told me that I’d be good at it?

It felt weird admitting it out loud and
even weirder knowing what I had done.
 
But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t all a little amazing, though.
 
I’d beaten three werewolves that I hadn’t
even known why I was fighting in the first place.
 
And right then as I glared down at the
enforcer, who only a few hours ago had me sweating with fear, I was pretty sure
it was going to my head — a little.

Jared didn’t move.
 
He stayed on my bed and grinned at me.
 
“The enforcers go up against alphas, too, not
just pack members.”

“Tiff is the alpha right now,” I scoffed, “and
I’m going up against her.”

“You’re too soft, Jade,” he said with a
chuckle.
 
“You care too much.”
 
He glanced over at Erika then, and I had a
pretty good idea what he was talking about.
 
Maybe I was too soft.
 
Erika had
put me through hell and back, but even with that, I hadn’t been able to walk
away when she needed help.
 
Did that make
me soft or just a good person?
 
I wasn’t
entirely sure.
 
I didn’t really feel like
a good person right then.
 
Not while I
was planning to attack someone and fighting until only one of us was left
alive.

I narrowed my eyes.
 
I wasn’t going to back down on this.
 
As far as I was concerned, the enforcers
needed just as much work as the rest of the pack.
 
They were all screwed up, and I figured the
best way to try and fix them was by becoming one of them.
 
Well, that, and if I actually won, working
with them would give me a distraction, and I was pretty sure it was a
distraction I’d need if I wanted any chance at staying away from the alpha
male.
 
“If I win, you take me on your
team and train me.”

“If you lose and survive it, I’m taking you
as my mate,” he countered.
 
“You will not
compete in the next round of games after we take her out.”

I didn’t think about it because I knew if I
did, I’d back out of the deal.
 
I nodded,
a stiff bob of my head, and said, “Fine,” as quickly as I could.

“Jade, don’t make a deal with him,” Erika
said, still cowering in her little corner by my dresser.
 
“Rule number four: You can’t screw over an
enforcer.
 
You won’t be able to back out
of this.”

“Rule number one: Always obey your
alpha.
 
When I win, he won’t be able to
back out either.” I shrugged, and cut her a straight-faced look.
 
“It’s a fair deal.”

“But he can just deal with this himself,”
she said, her voice rising, and pitching.
 
“We have proof.
 
The enforcers can
handle it.
 
You don’t have to challenge
Tiff.”

“Erika, stop,” I said, forging calm into my
tone.
 
“If I don’t, then it leaves the
door open for the games to start again.”
 
I sighed, and shook out my trembling hands.
 
“I want this to end.”