Take Me (39 page)

He came within feet of them. She could almost feel his heat, smell his unique scent, but then the car pitched forward.

Zeke slammed the accelerator down and the car lurched fast. Her mouth dropped as she stared into Dom’s stunned, angry face in the side mirror. He came to an abrupt standstill, staring. So much emotion clouded his eyes she couldn’t begin to decipher all of it, but she’d seen one thing. She’d seen something which could not be unseen—his pain. She’d hurt him.

They locked eyes. He did not come after her and she did not tell Zeke to stop the car. They watched each other until they swung around the bend and she could watch no more.

She’d left him. They both knew it, and she wasn’t even sure why she did it.

Doubt.

Zeke reached over and gave her thigh a pat. Felicity jerked her leg away. “Ah, there, there, darlin’. Ole’ Zeke’ll take care of you now. You want away from Dom? Away from all this?”

His offer was like a prayer answered.

Felicity could stop all of this. She could get out of this car and go back to him. It wasn’t too late to fix this, to tell Dom that she had been acting irrationally but she felt better now. To tell him that she wasn’t terrified about all of this.

But it would all be a lie.

So, Felicity met a pair of bright blue eyes that wavered unsteadily with knowledge she did not quite understand, and nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

Zeke tossed his head back and laughed. The laugh sounded very much like he’d just gotten something he wanted.

Chapter 24

Everyone in the room stood still as if they were trying to become one with their surroundings by melding into it.

Tense didn’t begin to cut the atmosphere of Dominic Blackmoore’s office only hours after his
bruid
abandoned him at their mating ceremony. Even the air noticed the tension and slowed itself. becoming stifling. No one dared to breathe loud or speak up. Dominic’s brothers simply stared at the wall, at the floor, or at the ceiling, anywhere but in his eyes. Eyes that bordered on violence.

Dominic leaned forward, the leather of his desk chair squeaking as he grabbed the decanter and poured himself another glass. The thick, viscous fluid laced with spirits settled in his body like fire, a fire he stoked with each fresh swallow. His glass clinked on his desk as he slammed the empty cup down.

“I want her found.”

“I’ve already got a team on her,” Grayson said.

Dom stared into his empty glass, and then poured another. “You won’t be able to find her,” he found himself saying. It was as if none of this was happening and he was in someone else’s body dealing with the pain and loss. It couldn’t have been Felicity he saw
willingly
running from him. He’d seen everything he needed to in her eyes—the fear, the panic, the pain.

She left me
.

“Then why bother sending a team after her?”

“Because I said so.”

Vasilius sucked on the end of a cigar. A cloud of smoke billowed around him as he spoke. “We can never find the alpha when he wants to hide. We already know he’s ditched the car. One of the boys spotted it on the side of the highway.”

“I’ll get a team out there.” Grayson pulled out his cell and made the call.

Lucas pitched in his ideas; most of them filled with worry over her being alone with the wild alpha. A man whose sanity was in question.

Dom listened to all this but the voices sounded as though they came from the back of his head. From some faraway distance at the end of a long tunnel.

In his whole life, very few things had ever surprised him. He preferred life this way. Surprises meant he couldn’t prepare for what was about to happen. Unpredictability, not knowing, these were legitimate fears that could eat at him until it consumed him. To ensure that surprises, especially ones he was not capable of dealing with, didn’t happen he planned. It all stayed in his head, but it was there. A neat little plan with all the possible consequences to any circumstance that might warrant it.

Tonight, the night he’d mate with Felicity Shaw, his list had covered the possible consequences.

But not this kind.

His glass started shaking on his desk. He watched it with mute interest before finally pulling his thoughts away to find the cause of it. Looking down, he found his leg brushing up against his desk, and it was shaking so hard he’d been moving the desk.

He jerked his leg back and poured another drink. A light-headed rush swam through his head, muddying his thoughts, making them fuzzy.

He’d prepared for every possible outcome tonight. He’d been prepared for Helena which had been the obvious danger. He knew she’d most likely make good on her threat if only to piss him off, and so he found a way to trap her. He’d had his lawyer draw up a document cutting off her financially. With separation, the male had to pay his
bruid
a yearly allowance based off the life she’d been accustomed to. If he broke the contract, which he’d been prepared to do tonight, then she could sue him over it. However, after his lawyers were through with her she’d have no money left to hire her own.

He had planned to use the money against her if she dared to challenge Felicity. The only thing Helena valued above herself was money. Money was her power. He’d even prepared himself for the instance in case Zeke, or any other male for that matter, decided to challenge him for the rights to Felicity. He’d spent half the night training with his brothers, fighting until his knuckles bled and his ribs ached and bruised. He’d had to sit down, drink blood, and heal up before he returned to Felicity later that morning so she wouldn’t know. He didn’t want her to worry.

Everything had been planned and prepared for. Everything but this.

She was gone.

She left me.

Dominic gripped the glass, stared into the empty cup where drops of blood and alcohol coated the bottom in a thin film, and squeezed. He squeezed with all the anger shaking in his bones until, with a crunch, the glass shattered. Shards cut into his palm. Fresh blood spilled down his hands, mixing with the glass. He stared at the bright red mixture for a moment before turning his palm over and pulling out little dregs of glass rooted in his palm.

“Fucking hell, Dom.” Lucas strode forward, snatched a towel from the bar, and thrust it at him. “Clean yourself up.” He paused to unbutton the collar of his shirt with agitated jerks. Everyone was so dressed up. All for a ceremony that didn’t happen. “Listen, I know you must be freaking but we’ll get her back.”

Get her back. His mind slowly turned over those words like it was an object he could inspect. Get her back? Did he even want that? The answer came swift, hard, and resounding—yes. The word echoed in his brain, in his heart. Yes, he
needed
her back.

But she’d left.

Why?

The question haunted him, burned him down to his soul.
Why
had she done it? His mind tried to search for answers. Did she not love him? Was she too overwhelmed? Didn’t she know he’d take care of her? Did she want that damaged alpha instead? She couldn’t have wanted money because she didn’t make out with any.

So the question remained.

Why.

He did not have the answer but he was prepared to find out.

Wrapping the towel around his fist, he looped it and used his teeth to tug on the end until he’d made a knot.

“I’m going to find her.” He stood as he spoke, his words taking command.

He met each of his brother’s bewildered stares.

“You can’t.” This from Vas who looked at Dom as if he was an idiot.

“You wanna watch me?” Dom said, his voice dark.

 Vas threw up his hands. “Listen, she may be gone but in about, oh,” he glanced down at his watch, “Five hours polls will open.”

Dom drew himself up with a start. He’d actually forgotten. Amid all the insanity happening he’d actually forgotten that the election would start in a matter of hours. Dom’s gaze found a clock to ensure that Vas wasn’t pulling his chain, but of course, his brother was right.

Had it really been only hours since she left him?

A brisk knock sounded at his study door. His mother entered. Instantly, he knew something was wrong. Something
more
wrong than the fact that Felicity left him.

“What is it?”

She opened her mouth to speak and then snapped it shut. Walking over to the bar, she found the remote behind it, pointed it up to the TV above the bar, and turned it on.

A news report came on. A reporter stood outside the hall he’d been at with Felicity not that long ago. Paparazzi loitered at the scene making it look as if a major crime had taken place. God he hated them.

However, as the reporter started speaking everyone in the room stiffened, breathing seized.

“Yes, this is exciting news Cameron, not only do the reports say that Ms. Felicity Shaw fled from her own mating ceremony with Dominic Blackmoore, but now we’re receiving word that Ms. Shaw lied in order to get her position with the Blackmoore family.”

The camera cut back to a well-groomed man with white hair combed to the side. His even whiter teeth gleamed under the lights of the news studio amidst his tanned skin. “Yes, by our reports Felicity Shaw lied to get her job. That’s right, the reports are only now coming in from an anonymous source but our researchers are saying they are finding evidence right now that Felicity Shaw did not have previous experience stated on her résumé. So, tell me Stacy, if she did all this to get the job and she ended up with Mr. Blackmoore then what could have scared her off?”

The camera flashed back to the reporter standing outside the hall. “Well, some are saying it’s for fame others for her possible lover to the alpha Zeke Hunter. Some are even saying it’s because of Dominic Blackmoore’s previous relationship with Helena Blackmoore, formerly Helena Garret that caused her to run away.”

Back in the newsroom, white-teeth spoke. “What a shame to leave Dominic Blackmoore standing along on at his mating ceremony and with his presidential election tomorrow—”

The TV cut off. Dom’s mother pursed her lips. “Did any of you know about this?”

Voices rose, arguments grew heated like a dry logged tossed on fire. Dom kept silent, his eyes still locked on the TV. She’d lied on her résumé. The news was hardly a big deal. In fact, the news didn’t bother him at all, but ever trained to perceive possible consequences he knew he’d taken a hit. His whole campaign had just taken a massive hit.

“How bad is this going to be?” he asked.

The arguments subsided. Shaking his head, Vas took a long puff from his cigarette and blew it out in a puffy cloud. “Big, I suspect. Rather overestimate the damage than under. With her running like this, it’s already going to be the talk of the day. I suggest we make some statements about your broken heart, shit like that to get people’s sympathies up.”

Dom’s lips curled with distaste. Use her for his own campaign? “No.”

Vas lifted a black eyebrow as he tossed up his arm. “Well what do you suggest? You’re going to take a hit within hours of polls opening, Dom. Nothing’s going to stop that from happening.”

“That may be the case but I’m not using her like that.”

Vas wheezed out a long sigh. “Fine...fine...I guess we can...at least save face with the résumé bullshit. Say we did know about it the whole time. That she hadn’t lied. Cover up for it”

“I don’t care. Spin it if you have to, but I’m going after her.”

His mother’s head snapped towards him then she was stalking towards him, her heels clicking in hard snaps on the floor. “You need to be here. This election is bigger than you or her. It’s about your father’s memory. This is what he wanted from you, why you always worked so hard under him. Do not throw this away, Dominic. Do not. You need to get out there and speak to the people. We’ll get the speechwriters in here straight away and work something out. We’ll find a way to use this to our advantage. Vas made a great point. We can play on their sympathies for you.”

Dom felt his mother’s words like physical blows to his gut. He’d spent years working his father’s campaigns, helping him to read and write bills, and create decisions based off people’s values. They’d been a great team, but since he died, Dom had never been more ready to step up and take responsibility. He craved it like a much needed breath of air after holding it in for too long.

He turned to Vas and Lucas. “The résumé situation is not an issue. As for Felicity, no one needs to know what we’re doing. We’re not commenting.”

Lucas shook his head. “You don’t comment they’ll do the commenting for you. I know all about the media like this. Any chance they get to twist things and make it sound more controversial than it really is they’ll do it. They don’t care who they hurt or how far they have to stretch the truth. This could crush you.”

Dom was already yanking off his suit jacket, pulling off the bow tie, and taking off the suit he would have been mating to Felicity in. “Take care of it but do it any other way than I say and you’ll be dealing with me.”

With that, he strode out of the room slamming the door behind him. Outside, he refused his guard, got in his car, and drove. He drove to the part of the highway where the alpha’s car had been dumped.

He might not have the senses of a
were
whose nose could smell better than most dogs, but he had something else—Felicity’s blood. Having shared her blood he had a closer connection to her than if they were holding hands. No matter what happened, he’d find her and when he brought her back, whether kicking and screaming or calm and docile, she was going to be punished.

And then he was mating with Felicity Shaw.

Chapter 25

“What have I done?”

She’d meant to ask the question to herself, but the alpha’s exceptional hearing picked up her misery-driven question as easily as if she’d screamed it.

Zeke lifted his head from some brown leather journal he’d been scribbling in and grinned. When he grinned like that the dimple in his chin poked out as well as the ones in both of his cheeks. Felicity rolled her eyes and forced herself to look away. He was a handsome man, but she would not be won by his southern charm no matter how much of it he had in spades. Besides, he kept muttering to himself but none of it made sense and when he wasn’t doing that he was quiet. Too quiet. She couldn’t hear him breathe and when he moved he didn’t make a sound.