Her Forbidden Alpha (3 page)

“Let’s move,” Darius said.

Killion opened the door and Darius went through, carrying Aislinn in front of him. The kitchen door opened into a clearing behind the church with woods a good fifty feet away. The parking lot lay to the left. Thirty or forty Humans Firsters with machine guns stood in a large semi-circle, hemming them in from every side.

Darius walked toward the parking lot. He hated using Aislinn like this, like a human shield. It went against every instinct in him, which screamed that he should protect her, not haul her directly into harm’s way. He trusted that the man who had acted so protectively toward his daughter earlier that day wouldn’t open fire on her, but with the General, who knew? All the more reason for them to act fast.

“Hold fire!” The General’s voice boomed across the clearing.

Aislinn stopped struggling. “What did you do, Father?” Her words weren’t loud enough for the General to hear, but Darius heard them. Had her father not let her in on the whole plan?

Grouped behind Darius, his wolves moved toward the SUVs while Darius walked sideways in front of them.

The General spoke through a megaphone. “Let my daughter go and we’ll let you leave in peace.”

Right. “You poisoned our food,” Darius shouted.

Aislinn gasped.

Darius continued. “We can’t trust you. She comes with us. It’s the only way we’ll know you won’t kill us where we stand.” He didn’t promise to let her go afterward, although he knew he should have. But he’d never let her go and he couldn’t bring himself to say he would.

The General put the megaphone down but Darius could still hear him swearing. “We should have killed them when they got out of their vehicles,” he said.

Everyone had told Darius he was a fool for trying to forge a peace with the Humans Firsters. Well—they hadn’t said “fool.” No one was stupid enough to call the Pack Alpha a fool. But they’d certainly suggested the idea had no merit.

Seemed they were right and he was wrong. He hated being wrong just as much as he hated failing.

When they neared the SUVs, the Humans Firsters who stood in their way didn’t move. After a tense minute of staring at each other, Darius said, “You can’t kill us all quickly enough. You open fire and I promise you’ll be the first to die.”

One of them moved, then another, until the wolves pushed between them. All of the wolves twisted in place and walked backward so they could watch the Humans Firsters who followed, spilling into the parking lot.

They reached the SUVs and five of the wolves climbed into the closest one. The vehicles were up-armored and could withstand a fair amount of weapons fire. Hopefully enough so they could get out of the Wooddale in one piece.

The other wolves continued toward the remaining SUVs. Darius nodded at the driver, who started the vehicle and peeled out kicking up a cloud of dust.

The humans immediately fired on the SUV. The General yelled orders but few seemed to be listening to him. With everyone focused on the one SUV as it plowed through the crowd of soldiers and screeched onto the street, the other wolves were able to jump into the last two SUVs and start up.

Darius shoved Aislinn into the back seat of one vehicle and climbed in after her, slamming the door. “Go!”

The driver took off. Unlike the other vehicles, they passed out of the lot without a single bullet pinging against the side of their SUV. In seconds, they thundered down the street and steamed out of town. They wouldn’t be safe until they’d reached pack territory but the immediate danger was over—Darius hoped. Humans First might have set up some sort of ambush or roadblock but they wouldn’t have bothered if they thought the poison and the firepower would do the trick.

Aislinn suddenly jumped for the far door, climbing over Killion in the process. Killion grabbed her and held her back. “Let me go!” she screamed.

His heart clenched at the sight of his mate trying desperately to get away from him but he quickly stifled it. He grabbed her around the hips and pulled her back against him. “You’re not going anywhere.”

Aislinn froze. Darius took the opportunity to slide his arms fully around her waist and pull her onto his lap.

Ah, Gods, to be able to hold her. He buried his face in her neck.

“What is this, Darius?” Killion said. “Why don’t we just let her go?”

“Mate.” When his voice rumbled out of his throat, he realized how close his wolf had come to the surface. He had to get it together. As Alpha, he provided the stability—or lack thereof—for the pack. All his wolves could feel his turmoil, and that was the last thing they needed right now. It was a magical thing, one of the few magics the wolves had.

“Oh, shit,” Killion said.

“What?” Aislinn said. “What does that mean?”

“You’re mine.” His voice sounded only slightly more human. “You’re meant for me.” Darius squeezed her tighter, her soft body taut against him. Her scent surrounded him, and even though she tried to hold herself away, she felt so right. He could almost feel the molecules of his body adjusting to be in sync with hers. And no matter what he tried, he couldn’t help but get hard.

Vi, sitting in the front, sighed loudly. She might be a tough warrior, but everyone knew she was a sucker for romance.

Would his little mate be like that too?

He sat breathing in her scent, trying to make that good enough for now when all he really wanted to do was seduce her and claim her and make her his own forever. Then he realized a long time had passed and she hadn’t spoken. Neither had anyone else.

“Say something,” he whispered in her ear.

She didn’t speak. A few seconds later, Killion said, “Her father’s the General.”

“I know.” Darius didn’t want to think about that. In the back of his mind, a thought poked at him. Something about the mating fever clouding the thoughts of any wolf who’d found his mate but hadn’t claimed her yet.

“Her father killed our parents,” Killion said.

And that was what he hadn’t want to think about. He felt like striking out at Killion but knew it wasn’t his fault. “She’s not her father,” he snapped. But he didn’t know that, not really. He knew nothing about her at all.

“We’re nearly at the airport.” Ollie was driving.

Darius needed to be alert and that meant he needed to let Aislinn off his lap and back into her own seat. But first, he whispered in her ear. “Don’t waste your energy trying to run.” His wolf protested as he slid her into the middle between him and Killion. It bothered him that she still hadn’t said a word. “Any signs of the Humans Firsters?” Darius said.

“Nothing.” Ollie signaled for a turn.

Killion pulled out his cell and made a call. “Jennalynn. Any signs of trouble?”

***

Aislinn’s head spun so fast from one thought to the next that she couldn’t get a handle on any of them. She’d heard the dark wolf call her his “mate” but that couldn’t be right. And had they really just taken her from the compound? He refused to let her go and just what was she supposed to do about that? And through it all, the most amazing thing was that she wasn’t afraid.

She didn’t know when that had started, either. Seeing the wolves hurting—maybe killing—Humans First soldiers in the rec hall had been horrifying. Yet as soon as Darius had taken hold of her, she’d known he wouldn’t hurt her. That’s what had given her the courage to try to get away from him. Even when he dragged her out of the building, she’d been more afraid that one of the men she knew would accidentally shoot her than that the big wolf would do anything to her.

And later when he’d pulled her onto his lap…oh. ‘Safe’ didn’t come into it. Neither did ‘fear.’ All she’d felt with his face tucked into her throat and his arms around her waist had been a lust that eclipsed anything any man had ever made her feel before. The rumble of his voice when he’d said “You’re mine. You’re meant for me.” had made her melt.

But the other wolf was right. She was the General’s daughter. And apparently her father had killed their parents. How could Darius even consider taking her as his mate in light of that? He had to let her go. And that was what she wanted—right?

“No signs of any Humans Firsters,” Darius’ brother said as he slipped his phone back into his pocket. “They must have assumed they could take us down at the church and not put a backup plan into place. That right?”

It took Aislinn a second to realize he was talking to her. “How would I know?” Her throat felt dry.

“You’re the General’s daughter,” he said. “You poisoned the food for him. Why wouldn’t you know his whole plan?”

Chapter 3

“Poison?” Aislinn pulled back only to bump straight into Darius. “You said something about that before. What poison?”

“The poison lacing the food you served us,” Darius said.

“There was no poison in that food.” Was there? She suddenly remembered Margaret and Ruth whispering in the corner and adding things to the different dishes. But poison? She’d just thought they were spicing things up a little.

“There was poison.” Darius’ voice held a growl.

And then, for the first time, she felt a little afraid of him. She pulled away from him, as though the extra centimeter would make any difference. “If there was poison, I knew nothing about it.” Her voice sounded small.

“You served it to us,” Darius’ brother said.

She might be afraid, but she was tired of them accusing her of something she didn’t do. “If I knew about the poison, why would I come back out to wait on you? I would never poison someone, much less an entire peace delegation, especially when I’d been so looking forward to—” She’d been going to say she’d been looking forward to seeing real werewolves for the first time, and she’d been hopeful that they could find peace. But none of that seemed like a good thing to say at the moment.

“Right,” Darius’ brother said.

At the same time, Darius said, “You’d been looking forward to what?” He put his hand on her shoulder. Her skin warmed quickly, almost as quickly as her fear receded.

She didn’t want to answer him, so instead she turned toward him and repeated, “Why would I come out to wait on you if I thought you’d been poisoned?”

After a heartbeat’s length of silence spent studying her, Darius said, “What was it you said when you came out of the kitchen that last time?”

“I don’t remember,” Aislinn said.

His fingers moved against her shoulder. “You said something. The other woman said something to you and you answered her. What was it?”

Who had she been talking to? Oh, wait—it was Ruth. “In the kitchen, when I said we should go see if you needed anything, one of the other women told me the General didn’t want us to. That was ridiculous, because my father had told me to take good care of you. So I insisted. As we entered the room, Ruth and I were still arguing about it.”

“Yes, that’s it.” His eyes nearly glowed. “You really didn’t know, did you? Tell me, Aislinn—why wouldn’t your father tell you about something important like that?”

She sucked in her breath. “He’d know I wouldn’t approve, that’s why. I wouldn’t help him.”

“Why did he need you to help him anyway?” the woman in the front said. “He could have introduced anyone to us as his daughter and we’d never know the difference.”

The General’s perfidy became clear to her. “The guards would know. He wanted them all to think I supported him in this. He can’t stand for anyone to think there’s dissension in his own house.”

Darius leaned closer to her. “And is there?”

She couldn’t tell him that. Could she? Maybe she could hedge a little. “I wanted peace. Doesn’t look like we’ll get that now.”

“But that wouldn’t be dissension unless you knew he was up to something,” Darius said.

Aislinn dropped her gaze. “He expressed very vocal doubts about the peace negotiations. I was surprised when he agreed to them, but I guess I should have realized he had an ulterior motive. I was just so glad that he’d agreed…”

“As was I,” he said softly. “So glad I actually thought we might be able to make peace even though I should have known better.”

Was he admitting a failing? Alphas didn’t do that, not according to anything she’d read. But the expression on his face looked…soft. Tender. And the way he gazed at her…

The SUV screeched to a halt.

Darius’ face immediately hardened. “Trouble?”

“No trouble,” the driver said. “We’re at the plane.”

“Move out.” Darius took her arm. “You’re with me.”

She could have guessed that much. That whole “don’t even try to run” thing was a big clue.

He let the others leave the SUV first then pulled her out. He wasn’t rough about it—he was helping her almost more than keeping her going.

The SUVs had stopped on a large paved area that she quickly identified as a runway. A hangar lay behind them and not far away sat a small white plane, glinting in the sunlight.

As soon as they were away from the SUVs, Darius pulled her in front of him and pushed her along with his hands on her shoulders. That didn’t seem smart, considering her legs were shorter than his. “I’m going to trip you,” she protested.

“You’re safer in front of me.” As they walked—almost jogged—toward the airplane, his gaze darted from one spot to the next, all around them. She’d seen that alertness in the Humans First men. He was looking for danger.

Then they reached the steps. He lifted her up to the top before she’d even had a chance to do it herself. Then he crowded in behind her, ducking his head to avoid hitting it on the doorframe. He rested his hands on her shoulders again. “Take a seat.”

Any seat? She spotted a free aisle seat near the back but hadn’t taken more than two steps toward it before he pulled her back toward him.

“Here.” He propelled her toward an empty row at the front and stood at the end while she sat by the window. “Everyone ready?”

The door made a sucking noise as it closed. Darius took one last look up and down the plane then sat down beside her and put on his seatbelt. “Got your seatbelt on?” She hadn’t even had a chance to answer before he reached across her and stuck his hand down the side of the seat, brushing against her hip and the side of her thigh in the process.