by Celeste Raye
“Jake, we need to know what you’re going to do with that woman.”
He wasn’t ready for that. He didn’t want to talk about Alexis. Somewhere, he’d figured out that Alexis was the key to it all. He was going to marry her. She really called to him and settled him in a way that Jake had never felt before. He never wanted it to end, and Jake knew that as long as he was stern with his plans, they should listen. He was to be the leader after all.
“Well, you want me to be wed, and I think that she will do just fine.”
Silence took over. Jake immediately knew that something was wrong. His father had a face of distorted fear, and Jake just sighed. He should have known that it wouldn’t be easy. Why did it matter who he married?
“You will do no such thing! She is the enemy; her family is poor. There is no way that she would be a benefit to the Rebel Bears. Your wife should be a gain, not a loss.”
“I don’t see her that way. She is who I want, and Alexis is who I will have.”
“Not while I am on this side of the ground.”
That made Jake stop. Jake had seen it going so differently in his head.
“Father, you're unreasonable. You told me yesterday to pick one. So, I did. Why does it matter where she comes from? Her father’s crimes are not her own.”
“It wasn’t her father that went out to attack one of our shipments. It was Alexis. She would have been dead if you would have followed protocol. Now, you need to fix it. It’s time to take her out, Jake. She is of no use to us. It’s for the best—for all of the gang, not just you.”
He was berating him in front of everyone. Jake was to be the new leader, and now, he was being talked to like he was still a child and not a man. He couldn’t stand it anymore and rose to his feet.
“Alexis is who I will marry. You will have no say in it.”
“The leader of the Rebel Bears will not be someone married to a woman of no consequence. You need to go and think about this all, Jake. You’re making decisions that you’re going to regret later. I thought that you had learned to temper those emotions.”
He heard a tidal wave of nervous titters from the rest of the people there, and Jake had had enough. He couldn’t believe this is what he had to deal with. There were so many people around and he had just been smacked on the nose in front of all of them.
Jake went straight for Alexis. He didn’t care what was said before; he was going to do anything that he wanted, and at the moment, he needed to get his hands on her. But when he got to the door, he immediately stopped.
He heard his name being called by Fred. He asked him what was going on and Jake moved away from the door. He didn’t want Alexis to hear what he was about to say.
“I just got out of a meeting with Dad. He’s on a warpath, and I’m in the middle of it.”
“About the ceremony?”
“You know about it?”
Jake hated that everyone was talking about his business. It was his choice when and if he wanted to get married.
“I sure did. We all did, and if I heard right, he wants you married in three days.”
Jake agreed. “Yeah, next full moon. He brought some chicks to the dinner last night. I’m supposed to pick one.”
“And did you?”
“I want Alexis.”
He shook his head. “Dad isn’t going to be okay with that.”
“I know. I know.”
Jake looked down for a moment. “I know that he’s not okay with it, but he’s going to have to be. I’m not going to bow down to this demand. I already have done that enough. Soon, I am going to end up like Donovan.”
Fred smiled. “Heaven forbid. Donovan’s heart is in the right place, but he has that blind loyalty down pat. Sometimes a person doesn’t deserve it, even family.”
Jake was quiet for a moment longer. He was processing his brother’s pull to his side. It was good to hear, but hopefully unnecessary.
“I agree. I don’t want it to go that far, but things are going to change.”
“What if it means that you have to marry one of his choices, to get the throne, to do what is needed? Could you sacrifice like that?”
Jake’s first reaction was that he couldn’t. He didn’t want to give Alexis up, and only when he imagined that she would be kept on as his mistress did that work for him.
“If he let me keep Alexis, I wouldn’t care. I would marry who I had to, but I doubt that she would go for it.”
His younger brother scoffed. “She’s your captive.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want her if she doesn’t want me. Force is never the answer.”
“I would never force a woman, but there are better and easier ways to get what you want out of them. They respond better to having pleasure given and then taken away. I can get anything I want if I tease them enough.”
Jake just shook his head. “No, I don’t think that will work. She won’t want to share.”
He was now playing out the different scenarios. He knew only one thing: he had to make it work. He wasn’t going to lose Alexis, no matter what.
Fred just laughed. “Sounds like you have some decisions to make, but you have to make them. If you want to take over, you have to do this one last thing for Dad.”
Jake could do that, if it was only one more thing, but would Dean really give up all of the power that he had? It didn’t feel like he would. He was obsessed with everything in his control. How would he be able to manage if he couldn’t control everything? Jake didn’t think he would make it.
“I don’t know, Fred. What if this is just one more thing, in a long line of ‘one more things’ that he is going to ask of me? Who’s to say that he won’t stay on longer? It’s not like he wants to give it up.”
“You just have to chill. You’re letting them get under your skin. That’s all it is.”
Jake hoped that Fred was right. He told him that he would talk to him later. Alexis was right down the hall, and if he was going to have to get married in a couple of days, he wanted to make sure that he got his fill of her—if that were even possible.
When he got to the door, it wasn’t locked like it usually was. He played it off like there were a million explanations, but there was this seed of doubt that was planted in his stomach. He pushed open the door and proved that it wasn’t. She was gone, and after a moment, he saw a note.
Jake didn’t know what to say or what to do. He stood there with the letter in his hand, unable to open up and see what it was going to say. It didn’t matter what it said. Alexis was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alexis was hit from behind by Jake’s brother. He apologized for what he had to do, said something about it wasn’t personal, but Alexis felt like it was. She didn’t care what his orders were. He was betraying Jake, but Donovan felt like he was helping him.
Alexis would have thought it were funny if she wouldn’t have woken up in the back of a van with several other women. She didn’t think she was going to have that discussion with Dean that was so important.
She tried to talk to a couple of the women that were around her. They were human, most of them, but they all seemed out of it. Alexis didn’t feel too bad, but she could see that she was probably the only one hit in the head and knocked out. She could feel the bump and the hard blood that had dried in her hair. No one else seemed to have those marks, so she figured they’d been drugged.
The van must have driven for hours, and that was the only the time that she was awake. There was no telling how long Alexis was out. A few of the women were starting to come out of whatever cloud they were in, but they still seemed distant. It wasn’t long before they were wanting another fix.
The van stopped, and a man with a few syringes came to the back door, and the women half-jumped him to get whatever it was that he had. Alexis didn’t move forward. She actually shirked further into the back because whatever it was that was in that needle, she certainly didn’t want any of it. It would probably make it all go away, the fear she couldn�
��t help but feel. All of it would be gone, but then so would her mind, and Alexis knew that she was going to have to figure out how to get out of there.
When the van door was closed, she breathed a sigh of relief. She crept up to it quickly, hoping that she would catch it unlocked and be able to jump out the back. It didn’t seem like the guys were too worried about them, especially when they thought that all of the women were blitzed out of their minds.
The door was locked, and she whimpered into the darkened back. It wasn’t good. She was stuck in the van, going to God only knew where.
“Did you talk to her and get the information that you needed, Father?”
Dean looked to his second born and smiled. “Yes, I did. She will help us take out the rest of her family.”
“And Alexis? Where is she now?”
Dean cocked his head to the side. “Why are you worried about it, son? Don’t tell me that you fancy her as well? I don’t know what it is with that woman, but she isn’t all that pretty. I’ve seen prettier humans that are far easier to deal with.”
Donovan wasn’t sure why his father was getting so suspicious. He had delivered Alexis, just like he had been asked to, but it hadn’t felt like the right thing to do.
“I do not feel anything for her, but Jake does. I wouldn’t think that he’s going to take it too well if something has happened to her and you’re responsible.”
“What do you think I’ve done?”
Donovan wasn’t sure. Dean was lying, he’d watched him expertly do it before, over and over again. He’d get this look in his eyes, and Donovan could see it now. His father had done something terrible; he just knew it.
“You know Jake isn't going to forgive you if you did something to her, right? I'm telling you now, this is different with her. She isn't like the other girls that he hangs around. He actually likes this one, maybe even loves her.”
“He hasn't known her long enough for that. You're worried about the wrong thing. All you need to be worried about is what is going to happen next.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What do you think it means? Your brother is going to freak out, just like you said he would. So, what are we going to do about it?”
“I don't know what you're saying. It sounds like you're telling me that I'm going to have to make a choice between you and my older brother?”
“If Jake is going to pick Alexis and he's going to turn his back on the Rebel Bears, what do you expect me to do? Do you still expect me to make him my successor?”
“He is your successor. You have been getting him ready for this his whole life.”
“Yet you are the one that has always been on my side. Maybe we need to look into that further. It doesn't have to go to the oldest one; it just has to go to the oldest one that's alive.”
Donovan's head snapped up and he looked at Dean. He couldn't believe what his father had said, and he knew that there was more to the story. What in the world had he done to Alexis if he was talking about killing his own son?
“What did you do, Father?”
“I did what I had to do. We couldn't have her around here. What would people think? We had to get rid of her, and we might as well get something of value out of it, right?”
Donovan had heard that excuse before, and he knew that there were some parts of the operation that his father kept most people clueless of. Donovan had always thought the world of Dean, so he never questioned anything. He was his father's enforcer, and for the first time in a long time, he wondered if he was losing his soul in the process. Now, he might lose his brother too. Was it worth it?
“I don't think you quite understand what will happen next. You will not only lose Jake, Dad. Fred will easily go with him. You know that the two of you have never seen eye to eye. Charlie is the same way. They idolize Jake. He's always been there for all of them, for all of us. Do you really think that they're going to turn their backs on him now? You're going to lose all your sons, Father.”
“What about you, Donovan? Will you follow their lead, or will you stand by my side and become my successor?”
Donovan was saved when someone knocked on the door and needed to speak to Dean urgently. He was going to stick around and see what was going on, but Dean demanded he leave. He said something about figuring out what he wanted to do and that they would talk about it later.
“Are you sure you don't want me to stay and help with this endeavor as well? Considering I might, you know, take over.”
“You're not ready for this part of it, Donovan. In time, son, in time.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jake was beside himself. The note was only a few lines and it basically said that she couldn't stay there. She had to go back home and try to pick up the pieces of her old life. Alexis also said that she would be moving away and that he should not try to find her.
Although Jake had never seen her handwriting, it was hard to believe that it was hers. It seemed too choppy and more slanted then most female writing. Whatever it was, it was just enough words to break his heart. He hadn’t known that his heart was on the chopping block.
He sat there on the bed for several minutes, maybe more, folding the paper over and over again in his hands, until he finally threw it in the trash. Jake did not want to keep that as a souvenir. It was a moment in time that he was sure he would never want to remember again.
Less than an hour ago, he had been fighting with his clan to accept the fact that he wanted to marry her, not realizing that she wouldn’t go for it. She had run away, leaving it all in his lap. He didn’t understand how she could do such a thing.
So, the only thing that there was to do was drink. Jake started the next morning, and he didn't quit for at least a couple of weeks. The marriage that his father had pushed for never happened. He just drank and screwed a lot of faceless women that he would never see again.
Jake tried his best to forget about her. It was a lot more complicated to do, though, than he would have hoped for. After refusing to even talk about marriage or the succession, Jake just kind of did his own thing. His brothers tried to revive him from his funk, but there was nothing anybody could do.
He got to the point where nothing mattered. He had been that way before, but it was worse because he knew that there was something else out there.
Before, it hadn't been so bad. It was just the way of life, the feeling of emptiness so familiar that it had to be right. Now Jake knew that it didn’t have to be that way. When he was with Alexis, he felt full. There was no emptiness, and for a short time, everything fell into place.
“You really have to pull your shit together. Dad is not going to wait around forever for you to get it straight. I know that you miss Alexis, but you have to move on.”
Jake told his brother that the best thing he could do was leave, but Donovan wasn't budging. He was standing at the door of his room, his foot against the wooden frame so that it couldn't be closed.
“We have a run to do. We have to go to pick something up from the dock, and I need you to come with me. Charlie and Fred are busy, so it's just you and me.”
Jake had just woken up, so he was probably soberer than he was ninety-five percent of the time. Even with his head clear, the last thing Jake wanted to do, was more dirty work for Dean. He refused several times until Donovan lifted up the mattress on one side and dumped him on the floor.
“I don't know what the hell that woman did to you, Jake. I have never seen you like this before, but you have to snap the hell out of it.”
Jake groaned and flipped the mattress back on the frame. Anger ran through him, and for several moments, he wanted to attack his brother. It wouldn't have been the first time he felt that way, but it was the first time he could visualize it so perfectly in his mind.
“I think it would be best if you just leave, Donovan. If you know what’s good for you.”
“I'm not afraid of you, Jake. I know that you could probably kick my ass, but I also know you'll feel b
ad about it later and make it up to me, so get your ass up and let's go. I can't stand to see you like this anymore.”
He looked at Donovan and asked him why he cared.
“You got what you wanted, didn't you? You wanted to lead this, and since I'm on the outside, I'm sure that he will make you his successor. I don't even know why I should go on a run. This is your gang now.”
“I never wanted to lead. That's what you don't seem to get. I like being second. It's so much less stress, and I don't have to make all the big decisions. This is not what I wanted. I want you to get your ass up and come with me. It doesn't matter what Dad thinks of you. In the end, all that's going to matter is what the rest of the Rebel Bears think. That is going to make the vote.”
“We haven’t had a leader by vote in a very long-time, brother. Why do you think that's going to change?”
Donovan shrugged his big shoulders, but there was something in the way that he looked at him. Jake was now curious, and he asked his brother if he had switched sides.
“There are no sides, Jake. Were all family here. We're all in this together.”
“If you don't realize that there are sides yet, Donovan, you're not much use to me.”
“I will make my decision, and I will choose a side if I have to. I am just trying to make it so I don't. I don't want to have to pick between you and Dad.”
Jake was serious now, and he looked at his brother with clear eyes.
“So, who are you going to choose if it comes between us, though? Where does your loyalty lie then?”
Donovan didn't answer; he just told Jake to hurry up and said that he would be waiting in the hall. Jake was still naked from his escapades the night before. When he looked down, and just shrugged and put some pants on. Whatever was waiting for him at the docks had to be better than him sitting around the compound drinking again. He knew that his brother was right. It was time for him to get his act together.