Deadly Mates (Deadly Trilogy) (5 page)

~ JADE ~

School was
well ... it was school.  Nothing spectacular.  I knew I was supposed to be learning something, but I couldn’t focus.  All I could think about was that Aidan had been sending
our
wolves out to track the cougars — to track my dad.  I should have been okay with it all.  Clearly my dad was evil.  He’d even said that he was going to be using me at some point.  But even if I knew all that, there was this little nagging voice in the back of my head that kept reminding me he was still my dad and no matter what I tried, I couldn’t shake it.

The walk to school with Marcy had been insightful if nothing else.  She’d warned me that most of the pack members that should be in school wouldn’t be.  Aidan had them all running on fumes.  From what she’d said, he’d turned into a bit of a slave driver over the last few days, but the pack had really warmed up to him.  They respected him, trusted his judgment.  Although, she also let me know that even if they respected him, they were also getting fed up with his short fuse, especially the females.  Personally, I couldn’t picture Aidan with a short fuse.  He’d always been so laid back and carefree.
Well, at least most of the time he was.

Marcy spent most of the walk and all of lunch trying to convince me that I needed to talk to Aidan.  Really talk to him.  I hated to admit it, but she was right.  The thing was, yesterday hadn’t gone so well when I saw him.  Just thinking about the broken look on his face when I
walked away with Jared made my chest squeeze and my breath shorten.

And that feeling led
me to another issue.  The one I’d been trying to pretend didn’t exist.  Was I lying to Aidan about Jared because it was needed? Or was my subconscious trying to inflict some kind of petty revenge for all the lies he’d told me?

Yep, t
he whole situation really sucked.

Word had spread about me joining the enforcers and as the day went on, I
heard a few whispers about Jared and me.  Really, I should have been happy that people were buying it, but I wasn’t.

Instead, it only made me feel sick.  God, I hated lying.  Nothing,
nothing
, good ever came from a lie.

Dominic hadn’
t shown up yet.  But then, I guess I’d never really believed he would.  I knew he would be with Aidan, but still, I’d hoped to see him nevertheless.  I’d fought with Dominic before.  Hell, I’d even shunned him for two years.  But still, after patching things up with Marcy, I wanted to see him, too.  I wanted to make sure he was okay.

I shifted in my chair and glanced at the clock: 1:49.  Six more minutes until gym, until laps.  Oddly enough, for the first time in my life I was looking forward to the running.  I felt restless, confined.  Running would help — hopefully.

And after gym, I would go see Aidan.

I hadn’t quite figured out what I
would say when I got there, but I knew, just knew, that I needed to tell him how I was feeling about the whole dad situation if nothing else.

The six minutes dragged.  When the bell finally sounded, I hastily shoved my books in
to my backpack.  I was just about to stand when the classroom door opened.  My senses came alive as an aroma assaulted my nose.  It was musky and woodsy and sharp, and on top of that, I could smell the wolf.  A wolf that I was sure I didn’t know.  My inner-wolf perked up, and my heartbeat doubled.

I slid out of my chair, a soft flare of adrenaline pushed through my veins.  Unease started to claw in my chest like an animal trying to break free, and a
slow growl started at the base of my throat, working its way up.  The room fell silent, completely silent.  I breathed in the scent again and I caught something else.  Dominic.

But there was something … off.  I could feel it, knotted and tangled in my gut.  My classmates were rushing into the hallway, most likely to get out of my way.  My skin was crawling with shivers.  I didn’t wait for everyone to clear out.  I couldn’t.  My inner-wolf pushed me, begged me to move.  I quickly shouldered my bag and headed out the door.

Dominic stood beside a man who was casually leaning against the lockers.  If I had to guess, I would have said he was in his early forties.  He was short, an inch or two shorter than my five-foot-six, but he was thickset — sturdy looking.  His head was clean shaven, and as he looked at me, I caught a fleck of gold in his eyes.

“Dom, who’s your friend?” I asked, eyeing him closely.  He didn’t answer, didn’t even bother to acknowledge that he’d heard my question.
Instead, he just kept that infuriating expressionless mask of his in place.

I took a step toward him and as I did, the man’s nostrils flared and then he smiled a surprisingly friendly smile.  “
You.”  His voice was raspy and he was pointing a stubby finger at me.  “You’re coming with me.”  He didn’t take the chance that I might not agree.  Within a second, he was across the hall, grabbing my wrist and yanking me forward.

“
Let go of me,” I growled.  A fast shiver cut across my skin, and my inner-wolf brushed against my chest as if she were asking if she could come out and play.  I pushed the sensation back, and pulled on my alpha scent, focusing on everything Jared had taught me.  I imagined it thick and heavy and suffocating, and as I did, my imprint began to heat up like a flare of a match tip.

He shuddered, o
nly slightly, and the friendly smile melted away.  “That’s really not a nice way to greet a guest.”

“
Wasn’t meant to be,” I said and yanked hard, pulling my wrist from his grasp.

The man chuckled, not a nice sound.  “
Apparently.”  He snatched my hand again, yanking me forward as he started down the hallway.  Students jumped out of the way, pressing against the lockers and trying darn hard to pretend they didn’t notice us.  “The alpha asked me to retrieve you, but he didn’t tell me how to do it.  Rein in that scent of yours, kid, or I’ll drag you out of here and tie you up in the back of my truck.”

I tried to yank free again, and snapped, “I’d like to see you try it.”

“Jade, Aidan sent us to get you,” Dominic growled.  “Give it a rest.”  He wouldn’t look at me as he fell into step beside us.  He was nervous — I could smell it — but I couldn’t tell if it was because of me or the dumbass that was holding onto me.

I gritted my teeth.  I was pretty sure it was true.  Dominic wouldn’t have been there if it weren’t.  Obviously
, he wasn’t being forced into helping, but really, wasn’t the dragging thing a little extreme? 

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded, letting my scent fade a little, as he pulled me through the doors into the harsh sunlight.  A cool breeze cut through my hoodie as he tugged me toward the parking lot.

“That doesn’t really matter,” he said.  It wasn’t unkind, just cool and brisk as if he’d written me off as a low ranking pack member (although clearly from the way he’d shuddered under my alpha scent, he knew I wasn’t).

“
You do know who I am, though, right?” I asked, a little baffled.

He chuckled, stopping beside a steel gray pick-up truck.  “Sure do,” he said and winked.
  “You’re the alpha’s mate.”

I laughed. 
Hard.  I didn’t mean to, but it bubbled up and out before I could stop it.  “Clearly, you have no clue who I am.”  I poked him in the chest with my free hand.  “I’m the mate of an enforcer.  The head enforcer, actually.  And I’m also the alpha female of the pack in town.”

The man was totally unfazed.  He pulled the door open and Dominic jumped into the back of the extended cab, before he finally let go of my wrist, gesturing for me to get in.  “
Exactly what I said, you’re the alpha’s mate.”

A growl rattled around
in my chest.  I opened my mouth, ready to tell him again, when Dominic said, “Jade, get in the damn truck.  Don’t make me call him.  Trust me, right now, this is the better option.”

I snapped my gaze to him, taking in the hard lines on his brow and the bruises under his eyes.  He looked like crap.  He held my glare, unrelenting.  For about half a second I was tempted to tell him to make the call, but I didn’t.  Right then, I didn’t think I could handle talking to Aidan in a civil way, so I bit my tongue and hopped into the truck.

The man slammed the door as soon as I was in and then made his way around to the driver’s side.  When he was in the truck and his door was shut, I swiveled, looking him straight on, and asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“Home,” he grunted, starting up the truck and shifting it into gear.

Home,
I thought.  Relief swelled in my chest.  At that moment, home was exactly where I wanted to be.  I would take a hot shower, calm down, and then go and see the jackass who had me pulled from school.  Yep, home was perfect.

The drive took less than five minutes and for those five minutes I sat rigid in my seat, my gaze fixed to the floorboards.  Dominic didn’t try to talk to me, and neither did the man driving, and I was seriously glad for it.  The last thing I wanted was to have to talk.  Frankly, I was just too busy stewing over being dragged out of school.

I didn’t look up until the truck came to a stop in the driveway and when I did, my jaw clenched tight.  As it turned out, the bald man did take me home; it just really wasn’t the home I wanted to go to.

~ AIDAN ~

Jade was, to put it mildly, pissed off.

I was sitting
on the couch, my legs stretched out and arms folded behind my head, trying to stay awake as I waited for the inevitable when she burst through the door.  She looked like she was ready to punch someone, most likely me.  She stalked toward me, Tommy and Dominic trailing along behind her, neither of them looking impressed.

I
had kind of hoped she would have calmed down a little by the time she got here, but by the look of her, she hadn’t.  I’d known she would be fuming.  I’d expected it.  But the thing I hadn’t expected was that even though she was furious, her skin didn’t shudder, her eyes didn’t flare.  She was in control of her inner-wolf.  Completely in control.  I hated to think it, but whatever Jared had been doing with her was helping.  And that thought made my blood boil.  I knew it was a lack of sleep and stress that was making me so edgy, but knowing it didn’t make the thought of Jared helping her any easier to swallow. 
It should have been me.

She stopped a few paces away from me and as her eyes swept over me, a layer of ice settled in her glare.  “You ever hear of a phone, jackass?”

I kept my expression blank, which was harder than I thought it would be. 
Home.
  The word filled my mind, my body, as I took her in.  Her long, brown hair was loose, hanging around her shoulders.  As my eyes raked over her, my skin warmed, my heart raced.  She was in jeans and that plum hoodie she always wore, nothing out of the ordinary, but on her, well, everything looked good on her.  Her scent, fruits mixed with almonds, made my inner-wolf stir, and a deep-seated craving spread through me.  She was mine.  My inner-wolf agreed, echoing my thoughts,
Mine.

I pulled in a deep breath, letting her scent reach every nerve within my body, and then I met her cold gaze.  “Jade, sit down.  We need to talk.”

Jade’s jaw dropped a little, and the layer of frost that had settled over her eyes thawed slightly.  Her nostrils flared.  She was breathing me in.  Her inner-wolf heard the command in my tone — in my scent — even if she didn’t want her to.

Dominic made a sound.  It wasn’t quite a laugh, but I was pretty sure that’s what it was supposed to be.  It was choked, gurgled, as if he
had tried to swallow it.

Jade ignored him, but his laugh seemed to clear her head a little.  She swallowed hard and fixed a lukewarm glare back in place.  “Talk,” she said, putting her hands on her hips, drumming her fingertips impatiently.  “Come on, I’m dying to hear what reason you could possibly have for sending Dom with a complete stranger to drag me out of class — literally drag me — when it was your idea for me to go in the first place.”

I smirked.  I couldn’t help it.  Jade was just so damn cute when she was pissed off.  Her peach complexion was slowly turning to an adorable shade of pink.  “Actually, that was Dom’s idea, not mine.”

I held her glare in total silence until
Chris shattered it by clearing his throat.  Jade shifted her fuming gaze to him.  She started to vibrate a little.  Adrenaline most likely.  Her fingers stopped drumming; instead, they trembled slightly as she pressed them against her hip bones.

“So this is the girl,” Chris said, bemused.  “This is your mate?  Really?”  He folded his arms over his chest and chuckled, leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen.

“I’m not his mate!”  Jade pivoted, and I caught another shudder of her skin, as she faced Chris head on.  “Who the hell are you?”

I chuckled softly.  I knew it was completely horrible, but part of me was seriously glad that she wasn’t as in control as I initially thought she’d been.

The glad feeling was short-lived.  Her scent flared and I almost flinched — almost.  I glanced around the room, taking in the smirks from Tommy and Chris, and Dominic’s scowl.  Suddenly, my stomach twisted and sank.  Maybe having them all here wasn’t such a great idea.  She looked as if she were ready to launch herself at Chris.  But I knew that Chris and Tommy needed to see what I was dealing with if they were going to help at all, and as for Dominic, well, if I was being honest, I had kind of hoped having him here might chill her out a little.  I knew she was mad at him, but they had a history.  One that I had really hoped would bring her down a notch or two.  And, yeah, I probably should have called her instead of sending Tommy, but I knew she wouldn’t have answered.  I’d barely gotten a response when I told her to go to school, and she hadn’t answered a single one of my calls since she became alpha female.