Feral Passion (15 page)

Sorrow.

The emotion burned inside him, almost made
him fall under its staggering weight inside his heart. How he would
get over this, he didn’t know.

All he knew was that he couldn’t go back to
his home, and he couldn’t allow his nephew to take him. Too many
questions, memories, pains, all in one place that he knew would be
his destruction.

He took his hands off of the sink, the
clenching starting to make his hands ache.
Jared got dressed slowly, methodically. The movements of his body
reflected on how tired, worn out, and saddened he was. He could
tell, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Would Mary agree with his nephew? he
thought. If they knew how they lived, would he be forced out,
kicked out of the
pacchetto
,
and have to go back to the one place he desperately
didn’t
want to go to.

“When he’s done changing, just come down to
the front desk and we can check him out. . .” a muffled voice said
as he opened the door.

His nephew was leaning against the bed, arms
crossed over his chest. Beside him was a lithe blonde man, whose
eyes were as hard as rocks. Just staring at the man gave him
chills.

“You’re late,” Jared said gruffly, hiding the
emotion in his voice.

Raffaele looked just as Antonio had, before
the decline. Strong, dark, and dangerous. A force that no one
wanted to mess with for fear of losing their lives. Jared could
remember the smile in his eyes, the knowledge that life was great
and he had the whole world ahead of him, when he had been
young.

But that had been before Antonio’s paranoia,
before Raffaele had the innocence forced out of him by what he had
had to do. At first, he had had the choice to refuse, to say no to
the man that they all called leader.

Jared had always thought that he did it for
his mother; to stay with her while his father had left her slowly,
painfully.

If Raffaele had said no, he would have
been kicked out of the
pacchetto
, banished and dead to them all. the
refusal of the leader was sometimes close to being punishable by
death, if the request was great enough. The decline in sanity that
Antonio had gone through had led him to believe that he had power,
he couldn’t lose it, and he would be damned if he did.

So Raffaele had had no choice but to listen,
and only to stay with his family.

And Jared knew how much it had cost him when
Antonio had taken a too-great risk.

It had cost them both.

Chapter 24

Raffaele stared at his uncle when he walked
out of the bathroom, shoulders slump and olive skin pale. For the
first time, he wondered what his uncle had gone through in the past
years, where he had lived and how he had managed to survive.

Without the help of Mary and her welcoming
pack, he doubted his uncle would have made it very long. When you
lived for so long around family and power, the loss of it was
damaging.

He wouldn’t know personally, but he could bet
that the lines under Jared’s eyes said how tired he was.

Raff felt a pang in his chest, pushed it
away. His uncles living conditions were not his concern—just the
death conditions. Although he felt for the poor bastard, he wasn’t
going to stop his plan to take his uncle’s life. It may not happen
now, or months later, but he knew it would happen.

He would take his uncles life.

Next to him, Chase stiffened as he realized
what Raffaele was thinking. Sometimes, the blonde had that ability
and only when it was when he was at his most dangerous. He couldn’t
tell exactly what Raff was thinking, but he got the gist of it.

The elbow to his ribs made him growl, and his
uncle looked up with bitter confusion.

Everything about the man was bitter, he
thought as he looked at him. The way his eye brows drew down, the
way his shoulders curled defensively. The way his hands were
clenched down at his sides.

The blue eyes that matched Raff’s held so
much disdain in them that he could feel it from where he stood. His
once giant frame was shrinking in size, the weight of the horrid
emotion pressing him down.

“How are you feeling.” The question left a
bitter taste in his mouth while his uncle shrugged his thinning
shoulders.

Without giving a verbal answer, Jared limped
to the bed and sat down. Raff frowned, thinking that maybe he
shouldn’t be so. . .cold. Then again, he had reason to be.

“Who’s your friend?” he asked, nodding his
head to Chase.

The blonde stepped forward with a charming
smile, the nurse exiting the room quietly.

“Chase la Pierre,” he said, holding out a
hand.

Jared reached out to return the shake, eyeing
him curiously. Raff felt when his eyes flicked to him, but ignored
it. He forced himself to.

“French?” he asked, lip curling.

“Only from my mother’s ancestors. I think one
of them had their named changed when he moved to keep himself a
secret.”

The old man’s face tightened, causing Raff’s
eyes to narrow on him. “What have you been going by?” he asked,
leaning forward.

Jared’s mouth tightened even worse than it
could have. “Jared Franco.”

“Why.”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.” His
head shook.

Jared might be his elder, might be blood, but
he was still the leader, even if he was in a different domain. “I
think you need to re-think yourself.”

“Boy,” he growled, eyes flashing as his teeth
blared. “Remember that I am still older than you.”

Raff got in his face, hands fisting.
“And
you
remember that I have
the
power
.”

He was just about to do something he knew he
would regret when hands grabbed onto his shoulders, pulling him
back. He shook off the forceful grip, a thick hand wrapping around
his uncle’s neck.

The memories, the pain, the pure
unadulterated
fury
, all came
back to him in a rush. His chest felt tight, the air around them
becoming heated yet freezing with the anger.

His uncles eye’s bugged, then rage clouded
them and he in turn snapped out a hand, wrapping it around the
thick length of his nephew’s throat, the other one coming up to
execute a hard hit to his head.

“Raff, man, c’mon!” Chase whined,
irritated.

He ignored the hands that once again tried to
grab onto him. “Uncle, you’ll do well to remember that I have a
license to murder.” Partly joking. . .

Mostly not.

Jared let out a growl as Raff’s hand
tightened. “And you’ll do well to remember that I’m one of the best
fighters, despite my age.”

The growled in unison.

He was just about to bring his hand down
across Jared’s back and bring up his leg to push him to the ground
when he heard a horrified gasp from the door way. Expecting it to
be a nurse, he paid no attention as he showed his uncle who was
dominant.

Smack
.

Right on the back of his head. And hard.

He let out a rumble, forgetting about his
uncle and turning around. He heard a thump as Jared hit the ground,
a thump that resembled his heart in his chest when he realized that
it hadn’t been a nurse at the door.

It had green eyes, flowing dark hair, and a
hit the force of a semi-truck.

“Jared!” Mary exclaimed, rushing to help him
off the floor.

Cold blue eyes shot to Raff, and he could
only smile with disdain as he hid the regret he felt for Mary
seeing his anger.

The look she gave him mirrored his
uncle’s.

Chase groaned beside him, eyeing her.
“Is
that
the Mary you’ve been
obsessing over?” he asked, shock underlying his voice. He sounded
dreadful, as if he hoped not.

He was glad that Mary was so focused on
getting Jared up, despite his protests. Raff nodded slightly, not
even bothering to deny Chase’s question.

“Are you sure you can’t share?” he asked,
stage-whispering. At that, Mary’s head snapped in their direction,
confusion written across her face, then anger taking its place.

“What is
wrong
with you?” she asked, appalled. For once,
instead of being pushy and rude, his uncle was letting her take
care of him.

And shooting Raff smug, angry looks the whole
time.

Raffaele said nothing, only glared at the
floor. What could he say to her? That he had been close to killing
his uncle, someone she must obviously care for?

He growled under his breath, jealous of the
man that she was helping. It could have been him, he thought. He
could be having soft caring hands, touching his skin, caressing
him. . .

Raff gripped his hands at his sides, wanting
to murder his uncle despite Mary, who was checking his neck and
sighing angrily.

“Why would you do this?” she asked,
exasperated. Mary rounded on him, leaving Jared to fend for himself
for a while.

He avoided looking at her, shoving his hands
in the pockets of his slacks and leaning against the wall.

The faint scent of heat drifted over him, and
his body tightened.

Chase started laughing, going to Jared.

“Well?” she asked, planting her hands on her
hips. Her eyes spoke anger, but her body was telling him something
else.

He started to smile darkly.

The clack of heels sounded, then a clean,
manicured nail pointed him in the chest. “Don’t smile about
something like this!” she exclaimed, fury radiating off of her.

Raff brought his eyes up slowly, trailing
them over her figure.

“Ms. Waters,” he said chidingly.

“What?” she snapped, taking her hand back. He
regretted the small loss of her finger on him, as silly as it was.
Mary took a step back, taking the heat of her body with her.

But the arousal had worsened.

“You have beautiful eyes,” he murmured partly
to himself.

It was true, he realized. The brightness, the
greenness, called to him. When he looked into her eyes, he thought
of forests, of running to meet her, searching and finding the one
that he had been looking for without knowing. Small dots of gold
flecked around her pupil. He could only imagine what it would be
like to wake up to those beautiful, peaceful eyes every morning. .
.

Except right now, they weren’t so peaceful.
In fact, he was pretty sure that while he was imagining her spread
out before him, she was imagining chopping his johnnies off.

She let out an outraged gasp, even as her
cheeks flushed a deep red, those bright green eyes not hiding her
thoughts on the matter.

“I. . .What?” she asked, then shook her
head, resuming her furious questions. “No! Don’t even, I
cannot
believe
that you—you
of
all people
—would do this to
your own uncle.”

How she had connected it, he had no clue. It
must have been pretty obvious, though.

Raff shrugged his shoulders, ignoring the
thoughts of her as he said bluntly, “You don’t know me, so don’t
act like you do.”

That took her back a step, causing her to
quiet. Giving him a lingering look, she turned from him and he felt
his heart almost. . .stop. The distance that was being placed had
been visible, painful.

“I expect to see you in a couple of hours at
the counselors,” she said, subdued.

Raff watched her leave, heart in his throat.
For the second time that day, Chase wasn’t his usual laughing self.
Instead, he was giving Raff looks that said he had messed up.

Big time.

Jared, who had been sitting quietly as she
had expressed her anger at him, was staring at his nephew with
something close to disappointment, bordering on anger. He was used
to people being mad at him, lived off it, thrived off of it. But
the looking, coming from someone he had thought of as a father for
his last years of childhood, took him back and made him feel like
he had been punched.

Just as he had made Mary feel.

Shoulders slumping slightly, he got up from
the wall, his movements reflecting that of his heavy heart.

“I knew you had some problems with
women,” Chase started. “But I didn’t think you would be
this
bad.”

Raff ignored his words, feeling a pang.

He had fucked up, without even having a
chance.

Chapter 25

Mary swallowed her tears down with a choke,
walking out of the hospital as quickly as she could.

She could see his eyes, hear his voice, know
that he didn’t want her to know him...Her arms crossed over her
chest as the frigid air hit her. The coldness outside matched what
she was feeling on the inside.

The phone in her pocket was screaming at her
to be held, demanding that she call Ulrich and...what? Tell him
that he had been right about Jaques, that it would have been better
had she kept herself extracted him?

She snorted bitterly, unlocking her Audi and
climbing inside. Yeah, that would go well. The minute Ulrich heard
the tearful, choked voice that she knew she was sporting, he would
be all over Jacques’ ass, teeth and claws bared.

As much pain as she was feeling, as much as
she was embarrassed for having assumed and felt anything, she
wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

One of the many prom rejections had ended
with the man in the hospital, bleeding internally and hating their
family with a passion. Yeah, she would be foolish to mess things up
worse to have her brother involved.

Her phone buzzed as she was backing out, but
she ignored it, blinking with something like...shock.

Was she actually crying over Jacques, the man
who had made one comment to make her feel as if she were more than
just a leader, the words spoken so tenderly and sweetly that it had
made her...blush?