Half Truths (A Helheim Wolf Pack Tale) (36 page)

‘Do you know
what you taste like, Indi? You taste like strawberries and cream.’

Indi moaned
again, kicking him back into action. He made passes from her core to her clit,
slowly building momentum until she began to buck against him. Placing a hand on
her lower belly, he held her down as she came closer and closer to orgasm. But
he wasn’t going to let her have it. No, he was going to take her close to it,
but bring her back in again until he was ready for her to come.

Rhett slid a
finger inside her.

‘Oh God!’ she
cried. He began pumping into her while his tongue found something else to keep
it occupied. ‘More,’ she demanded. Rhett added another finger, sending Indi’s
hips off the mattress. ‘Yes.’ She shuddered. ‘Yes, that’s the spot. Yes!’

She tried to follow
the path of his tongue by rolling her hips, anticipating what Rhett was going
to do next with his mouth. She was getting close, and when he latched onto the
swollen knot of nerves, she screamed out his name. Her orgasm roared through
her. She clawed at the sheets, her legs scissoring frantically until she came
down from the high. Rhett sat back and watched her, drinking in the beauty of
her release.

Rhett shimmied
out of his jeans and crawled back onto the bed with her. Indi seemed to be
glowing. The dark bruises that had been under her eyes were gone, and she
looked healthy again.

Rhett swallowed,
catching his breath, and cupped her cheek softly. ‘You’re beautiful,’ he
murmured, kissing her before she could protest. She kissed him back fiercely
until Rhett could taste blood, and he realised it was hers. She must have cut
her tongue on one of her fangs. Rhett sucked at the blood in her mouth, feeling
it curl through his body and giving him just a glimpse of what it must be like
for her when she fed.

Indi pushed him
back into a sitting position and climbed into his lap, positioning her hips so
he slid right into her core. She wrapped her legs around his back and he gasped
when he was fully sheathed within her. Her core was slick and warm and he never
wanted to leave it.

‘You’re so wet,’
he moaned. The sound of Indi’s laughter was all that he got in return. She
started rocking against him. Her hair was hanging like a sheet of satin across
her back, and Rhett tangled his hands in it. Soon, his arms were slick with
sweat. Indi’s skin was glistening with it. Rhett ran his tongue along her
chest, tasting her. She started moving faster now, rocking her hips back and
forth, back and forth against his shaft. He could feel the tingle of orgasm
coming, tightening his balls.

Indi gasped and
that was it. That one sound made him come. The pleasure rolled over him like a
wave, stringing him out as Indi’s own orgasm clenched around his cock. For
every time Indi’s muscles clamped down on him, she milked him again and again
until they were both a boneless, sweating mass of twisted limbs on his bed.

She smelt like
him now; inside and out, and his wolf liked that. ‘Mine,’ his wolf rumbled,
transforming his voice. Indi smiled, her fangs peeking out from her top lip.

‘I’ve wanted to
do that for ages,’ she said, stretching out like a cat beside him.

‘Drink from me,
or fuck me?’ Rhett asked, kissing her lips softly.

‘Both. This is
how it’s supposed to be, Rhett. This is how it has to be,’ she said in a lazy
stretch, her eyes sliding shut.

Rhett woke the next morning with
someone pounding on his bedroom door. He looked to his side. Indi was still
naked, and as his eyes roved over her body, he remembered every illicit detail
of what had happened between them. He pulled the sheet up over her body and
slid into his jeans where they’d been left on the floor. When he opened the
door, Vaile was standing there. His nostrils flared as—no doubt—the smell of
sex was in the air.

Vaile gave
Rhett’s scored, bloody and rumpled body a once over before clearing his throat,
giving Rhett a rare smile. ‘Get dressed. Leona is downstairs. Antain’s ready to
see her, but we need to speak to him before she gets in there. I’ll give you
two minutes.’

Rhett nodded,
closed the door and pulled on a clean t-shirt from his drawer. He kissed Indi
on the forehead and hoofed it downstairs to his uncle’s office. He paused out
in the hallway, scenting something unusual near Vaile’s room. He inhaled again.
It smelled feline, but that couldn’t be right. In any case, he didn’t have time
to investigate it. 

He pushed
through the mahogany door of the office to find his uncle behind his desk with
a cup of coffee in his hands. Vaile nodded at Rhett, and Rhett closed the door
behind him.

‘Leona’s in the
living room with Colton,’ Antain said, reading Rhett’s mind.

‘And Sabel?’

‘Coming,’ Vaile
replied. He turned to Rhett’s uncle. ‘Alpha, Leona has come to you to ask for
your promise of protection, but there’s something you must know about her
first.’ Antain’s eyes flashed gold. ‘She is responsible for the murders of the
humans in the case that I’ve been investigating,’ Vaile said.

Antain’s lips
pressed into a thin line. ‘Are you certain?’

‘We have video
evidence, and eyewitnesses. When she gets in here, we’re going to confront her
about it, threaten that if she doesn’t tell us the truth, we’ll tell Marcus of
her deception and he’ll kill her for us.’

Antain sat there
for a long moment; his eyes shifting between Rhett and Vaile. Eventually, he
sighed. ‘Fine. Go get her. Let’s see if we can’t get the truth from her.’

Rhett pulled
open the office door, walked across the hallway to the living room and beckoned
Leona in. She’d been standing on one side of the room while Colton stood on the
other, just staring at her. ‘Come,’ Rhett told her, turning and walking back to
the office. When he re-entered the office, Vaile was standing to Antain’s right
behind the desk. Sabel was now stationed on Antain’s left while Colton came up
the rear.

Rhett parked it
on the sofa, leaving Leona shifting nervously from foot to foot in the middle
of the room; her anxiety palpable and making his wolf twitchy.

She licked her
lips, about to speak, but Antain cut her off with a voice that bordered on
arctic. ‘You’ve been keeping things from me, Leona. How am I supposed to allow
a wolf into my pack when she’s deliberately being secretive?’

‘I-I-I’m not,’
she stammered, looking wildly at Rhett. He kept his eyes on his alpha. Leona’s
head swung back to Antain when she realised she wasn’t going to get any help from
him.

‘No?’ Antain
asked, raising an eyebrow at her. Rhett had been on the receiving end of that
eyebrow a few times, so he knew how much you wanted to spill your guts to him
when he used it.

‘I-I-I—’ Leona
stammered.

‘You’re a
murderer,’ Vaile rumbled. His hand was on the back of Antain’s chair, squeezing
the leather until it moaned. Leona’s eyes widened; the whites showing in stark
contrast to her dark skin.

‘I’m not,’ she
managed after a second.

‘So you haven’t
been to the human club, “The Imp and Impaler” recently?’ Vaile asked again.
When he blinked, his eyes flashed ice-blue. Leona’s whole body went rigid. She
was wringing her hands tightly in front of her, keeping her eyes on the ground.

‘H-h-how do you
know about th-that?’ she asked. Rhett could see her eyes shining yellow from
under her lashes, but she dared not raise her head because both Antain and
Vaile would take it as a threat.

‘I’ve been
cleaning up after you for the past week. You want to explain yourself?’

As if Vaile’s
candidness was a priest in a confessional, Leona’s shoulders slumped and the
words fell out of her mouth. ‘Yes, I’m the one who has been killing the human
men at the club.’ She was shaking now—so much so that when her legs gave out
beneath her, Rhett jumped up to ease her down onto the couch beside him.

‘Why?’ Antain
asked smoothly. But his voice was very much like the calm water on a lake. It
lulled you into a false sense of security, but there was always a monster
lurking beneath the surface.

Leona looked up
at him and blinked—her eyes black again. ‘M-Marcus made me do it.’ Her
admission looked like it hurt her. Marcus had probably sworn her to secrecy,
and going against one’s alpha was never a good idea. She swallowed like she was
choking on the words. ‘He made me kill the humans, drain them and carve up
their chests with Eirawen’s mark to make it look like a vampire kill. Marcus
wanted you to look like you couldn’t control the vampires in your area. He
wanted the Seer to see that you couldn’t look after the félvair, so that she
would tell you to give her to Marcus.’

Antain cursed
into his coffee cup. ‘He did a damn good job of that then,’ he spat.

Tears sat unshed
in Leona’s eyes. ‘Will you still give me sanctuary? If Marcus finds out that
I’ve been talking to you, he’ll kill me.’ Her voice cracked at the end.

‘We should just
let him,’ Vaile snarled, baring his teeth at her. Leona tried to make her body
look smaller, tried lowering herself further into the sofa.

‘Vaile, enough,’
Antain snapped. He turned back to Leona. ‘If you still want sanctuary, we will
give it to you, but you
must
keep your end of the bargain in order for
that to happen. You need to help us get Eaton back.’

‘You can’t!’
Vaile boomed. Leona whimpered. ‘Do you really want a murderer in the pack?’ he
asked in a hiss.

Antain turned to
look at him. ‘We have all done things we aren’t proud of, Vaile. In fact, I
believe that perhaps even you are guilty of breaking the human rules
sometimes.’

Vaile’s face
clouded over, and pursed his lips into a severe, thin line. He folded his arms
over his chest and remained silent. Antain looked back at Leona. ‘If you want
sanctuary, tell us how to get Eaton back. Tell us what Marcus has planned for
her. Are they moving her soon?’

She licked her
lips nervously. ‘I-I-I don’t know. Marcus hasn’t discussed anything in front of
me for days. Like I told Rhett, I think he’s onto me.’

Antain sat
forward in his chair. ‘We
need
that information, Leona. Go back to
Marcus and get it. When you have it, call Rhett to set up a meeting where we
can go over a possible plan. Do you understand?’ Antain spoke clearly, slowly
like he was talking to a child. Leona nodded.

‘And when you
get Eaton back, I have sanctuary?’ she asked again.

Antain nodded.
‘If that is what you want, then yes.’

Leona gave him a
weak smile and left.

‘I don’t fucking
like it,’ Vaile said, rounding the desk. ‘How can we trust her?’

‘Loyalty isn’t
the issue here, Vaile. She is very obedient when she’s given orders, but she
also has a conscience and morals,’ Antain said, leaning back into the leather.
‘They are good qualities to have in a pack mate.’

‘She also looks
out for number one,’ Vaile snarled back, collapsing down onto the sofa next to
Rhett. ‘She sold out her alpha to help us. Who’s to say she won’t do that to
you in a few years’ time?’

‘Leona has been
with Marcus for nearly fifty years. Marcus turned her himself, but he is a
cruel master. If he’s forcing his wolves to do things they don’t want to do
then he’ll probably have more defections in the near future. Leona is the only
one brave enough to do so.’

‘I think she’s
hot,’ Colton added not so helpfully to the conversation. Everyone stared at
him, but he only shrugged and smiled.

Vaile crossed
his arms over his chest and sniffed. ‘I still don’t trust her.’

After the meeting with Leona, Vaile
went back up to his room—butterflies in his stomach. As he got closer to his
door, his heart began pounding erratically in his chest, and there was a part
of him that hated it and a part that loved it. He hated it because he wasn’t
supposed to be reacting like this—he was a beta for fuck’s sake. But the other
reason was pure and simple: he was head-over-fucking-heels in love.

He knocked
gently before opening the door. Larissa was asleep in his bed. When he’d
received the text from Rhett the night before, he couldn’t stomach the thought
of leaving her behind, so he’d brought her and Oscar home with him. He sat down
next to her, brushing some hair back from her forehead. She smiled; her eyes
still closed.

‘Good morning,’
she murmured, opening her eyes slowly. Her green eyes were bright.

‘Morning,’ he
rumbled back, leaning down to kiss her forehead. ‘Sleep alright?’

‘Yeah,’ she
replied, stretching. She hooked her arms around his neck and pulled him down
into a kiss that started off innocently, but escalated to so-fucking-hot in a
millisecond. Vaile growled—low and steady—and pulled the sheet from her naked
body. The scent of her skin greeted him, and hardened his cock. Larissa’s mouth
trailed down his neck; nipping at his skin playfully with her teeth. Her warm
fingers slid under the waist band of his sweatpants, reaching for his hard
cock, but he jerked his hips out from her grip at the last second.

‘We have to get
to work,’ he said down into her ear. ‘We can play when we get home.’ Larissa
pouted, making him laugh. ‘Come on.’

They didn’t even
last half the day. They were making love in the gym by lunch time. When they
got home, Vaile cooked dinner for them both and took it up to his room. He
would have to tell the pack soon, but Eaton was the priority right now. Leona
had called Rhett to say that she’d got the Intel they needed, so after he and
Larissa ate dinner together, Vaile was going to leave her and Oscar to watch TV
while he went back down to his alpha’s office.

Leona had to get the information
she needed and fast. When she arrived home, there were more than half a dozen
strange wolves setting up cots in the living room and the spare bedroom. Leona
didn’t know any of them, but when she walked into the house, they were all very
interested in her.