The thing was she hadn’t consciously approached this whole mess from that perspective. But now that he put it the way he had, this idiot who thought he could throw a woman around to intimidate her, she couldn’t help but wonder if he had a point.
It was like he could see inside her somehow.
Instead of giving her a warm feeling, like somebody understood her for maybe the first time ever, she went cold inside. What was wrong with her? When had she become so easy to see through? How was she slipping?
She hardened herself. This wasn’t the time to start asking questions, to do a little soul searching. Not with 250 pounds of angry, red-faced man pressing her against the wall.
“Well?” he asked, still smirking. He leaned in even closer until he filled her entire world. There was nothing but him. Zane. Stupid name. Zane, overpowering her. Zane, who made it impossible to do anything but breathe. She sure couldn’t move. There was no hope of getting past him, one hand to either side of her. His forearms alone were practically thicker than her thighs, and there was no sign of him backing off.
She stuck out her chin, refusing to crack. She was no stranger to intimidation, and that was all this was. Everyday intimidation. Pitiful, really. “Well, what? What do you want me to say? That I’m scared?”
She stuck out her lower lip, pretending to be on the verge of tears. “Do you want me to say I need you? That you’re my only hope of survival? Woe is me? Please be my protector?”
“I could throw you out of this house right now, lock the door, and pretend we never met,” he growled. “You know that, right? Have you already forgotten how freaked you were after crashing? How you begged for help?”
“I’d just crashed a car, and there was a hurricane bearing down on us. Yeah, I needed help.”
He nodded, lips pursed. He had a nice mouth. A shame it had to be wasted on such a piece of garbage human. “You’re not in a hurricane now, and your so-called injuries seem to be healing nicely.”
So-called. Her teeth ground together. So he didn’t believe she’d actually been hurt. “You’re right. I took out a makeup kit and put bruises all over my face and body just for effect. You got me. You revealed my grand scheme.”
“But they’re healing,” he insisted.
“Yeah. They hurt like hell, but they’re healing.”
“So you could leave and be fine. I mean, we don’t owe you anything further.”
She snickered. “Yeah, right. You don’t owe me anything. There’s the fact that I saved your life and that little genius girl you were protecting. I could’ve let my colleague do what he was planning to do, what he was ordered to do—me, too. We were both ordered to kill anyone we met up with, and he would’ve done it. I promise you that.”
“He never had the chance.”
“And why is that?” she challenged. “Huh? What stopped him? Oh, right. It was me. I stopped him. So yeah, you still owe me. You’re gonna keep owing me until you decide your life isn’t worth living or I made a mistake or something like that. You owe me protection for what I did for you.”
It was like a game of chicken. A huge game of chicken where two grown adults stared each other down, daring the other one to move aside. She refused to break eye contact, staring up at him, blinking only when she absolutely had to.
He straightened up, giving her space. Her impulse was to slip past him, to place as much distance as she could between his body and hers. That was the wrong impulse, however, and she was smart enough to know it.
If she fled, even to the other side of the room, he’d know she was afraid of him or at least intimidated. Either way, it was no good. She couldn’t do it. She had to stay still.
So she did, leaning against the wall like she was actually relaxing instead of trying to think of her next move. What could she do to prove he wasn’t getting to her, that none of this mattered?
Because it already mattered too much. Anything she did or said in defense of the fact that it didn’t would be a lie. She knew it.
What mattered was he knew it, and she knew he did.
“I need to get you out of my face,” Zane grunted before turning away and slamming his way out of the room. She winced when the walls shook thanks to the crack of the door against the frame. It was loud enough for Marnie to call out something, like a warning or a complaint.
And Aimee smiled even as she slumped against the wall, her muscles going slack after the strain of holding herself perfectly in place, but she smiled because at least Marnie was able to warn one of those jerks against destroying her house and that meant something.
It only took a moment or two to recover herself—and when she did, she couldn’t help but go over and over Zane’s reaction when she said she knew everything about them.
What did it mean?
Chapter Five
“Hey. What do you think you’re trying to do around here?” Marnie stood in front of him with her hands on her hips, halfway up the stairs. She must’ve either been standing there trying to listen to what happened in the guest room, or the sound of him almost breaking the bedroom door sent her up the stairs on wings. He’d never seen a human move that fast.
He was still too pissed to apologize—in fact, he was so pissed it was probably a bad idea for him to be this close to her. She hadn’t thought things through before facing him head-on that way.
He guessed it was natural. She hadn’t been around them very long yet. In time, she’d learn it was best to steer clear when Zane had his blood up. The wolf couldn’t always be trusted to make good decisions.
“Why don’t you go up there and tell her to stop being like she is, then?” he muttered, careful to keep his voice low so Aimee wouldn’t hear.
She frowned. “I don’t mean any offense, really. But—”
“Don’t you know everything that comes before the word ‘but’ is bullshit?” he chuckled in spite of himself.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. But really. You sound a little immature when you talk that way. I’m sorry, but it’s true,” she insisted, though she should’ve known better. That much she should’ve known.
She knew who they were, what they were. Didn’t she know better than to tangle with a wolf? She was supposed to be so smart.
“And you need to not break my house,” she added, shooting him one last dirty look before stomping down the stairs. He rolled his eyes skyward. Two women in the house were two women too many. At least Kara was at her parents’ summer home and Serenity was in the city, far away from them.
“You know, she makes a point.” Logan sauntered from the living room and looked up the stairs, grinning, hands on his hips.
“Nobody told me you were here.”
“Funny. I remember a time when nobody had to tell us if one of us was nearby. We felt it ourselves.” His eyes crinkled at the corners like they did when a person smiled, only he didn’t seem happy or even amused. “I said I was coming back, didn’t I?”
Zane shrugged, palms up. “What can I say? I’m a little distracted.”
“Newsflash: we’re all distracted,” Logan fired back. “Since when did this become your personal problem? I’ve never seen you like this before.”
It was like a punch in the gut. That was exactly right—it was rare for Logan to say something that hit him so hard, so squarely. It almost knocked him off the stairs.
He took his time getting to the bottom, thinking over what Logan had just reminded him. The fact that he even needed to be reminded was startling enough, disgusting enough.
The fact that he was taking this to heart was even worse.
“What’s going on, brother?” Logan clapped him on the shoulder, squeezing hard, focusing on Zane with that way of his. He knew how to look at somebody like they were the only person in the entire world, like their problems were all that mattered.
Zane’s instinct was to tell him it was nothing, that he was fine—just a little pissed over almost getting hit by an SUV in the middle of a hurricane.
What came ou
t when he opened his mouth was different. “She almost killed me. I guess I’m taking that a little harder than I expected. What can I say?”
“I thought she was the reason you didn’t end up dead.” Logan half-guided, half-shoved him onto the couch before sitting in an armchair next to it. He wasn’t in the mood for excuses or lies, that much was obvious, but then that was usually the case.
“This last time, yeah.” Zane leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He held his head in his hands and realized he’d never felt so lost. “But not the time before that, the explosion.”
Just saying the words was like tearing out a piece of his soul. This wasn’t the sort of thing they did, this sitting around and sharing and opening up thing. It wasn’t their way. This wasn’t a spoken rule—it hadn’t ever been discussed out loud, but certain things didn’t have to be said.
Funny, but now that he’d said it, he experienced the physical sensation of a weight lifting from his shoulders. Maybe there was something to be said for opening up sometimes.
Understanding dawned on Logan’s face. “Oh. I didn’t think you’d taken it so seriously.”
“I don’t know why I did. I don’t know why I can’t shake it. I wasn’t anywhere near the house—I mean, I was on my way to it, crossing the street, but it wasn’t like I was inside or near enough to even be injured.”
Logan leaned in, brows drawn together over troubled eyes. “How close were you, exactly? You avoided giving me a straight answer when I asked you at the time.”
“I was close enough that the force of the blast knocked me to the ground if that gives you an idea, but I didn’t exactly measure the distance between me and the front door.”
“Has she admitted to being the one who set that device?”
He shook his head, angry again. He could see her smirking face in front of him, the expression she wore when he asked her these questions like this was all a game. “She refuses to answer any serious questions still. She’s like somebody who’s been trained in spycraft—it’s gonna take a lot to break her.”
“For all we know, that’s exactly how she was trained,” Logan reminded him, growling as he sat back. “We can’t put anything past these people. What sort of people would they engage? Who would they go to first?”
Zane was hardly in the mood to get into profiler mode since successful profiling required a clear head. His was anything but. “Nobody foreign,” he muttered, almost begrudgingly. He didn’t want to talk about her. He was sick to death of her.
But that didn’t matter. “No, they wouldn’t go outside the US. They would want expertly trained people who know how to work discreetly. Outside the FBI, the CIA.”
“But trained in a similar fashion,” Zane followed up. “For all we know, their special skills could’ve been acquired after they were recruited from one of those agencies. Additional training.”
“Good point.” Logan picked up the phone, and Zane knew there was only one place he would call just then. The man didn’t exactly have a personal life—none of them did.
No, that wasn’t true anymore. Three of them now had personal lives because they’d found their mates.
“Put together a list of any females who would now be between the ages of twenty-five and thirty—” He looked to Zane and shrugged. Zane shrugged back. It was as good a span as any. He doubted the girl upstairs was older than thirty anyway unless she’d aged miraculously well.
“—who left the CIA or FBI abruptly. People who bowed out after a year or two, maybe three.”
Zane could hear Val from where he sat. “You think she’s government?”
“It’s just a theory,” Logan corrected. “She isn’t exactly forthcoming about herself.”
“Gee,” Val snickered. “And this work is usually so easy.” Zane chuckled. Val always could make him laugh.
“That’s more like the Zane I know.” Logan slid the phone into his pocket.
Just like that, Zane stopped chuckling. “Right. Because I’m the court jester, I’m here to entertain everybody even when I feel like doing anything but.”
“Nobody said that.”
“You may as well have.”
“I knew you were upset. We all know you’re upset, and the thing is,” Logan reminded him, “you agreed with me. You told me why just now. I know we got off track, and I accept responsibility for it. We started off talking about you. That’s something I need to work on. I don’t necessarily have to jump on every impulse I experience.”
“Wow, it’s like were both learning so much about ourselves,” Zane snickered. He wasn’t normally sarcastic—at least, not sincerely sarcastic, not bitter the way he was now.
“All right. So, you take it personally that this woman may or may not have almost killed you.” Logan rested his chin on his fist, propped up on the arm of the chair. It struck Zane then that his team’s leader was truly and thoroughly exhausted. It was rare for any of them to reach that point—their stamina, along with so many other things, had improved to practically supernatural levels when they were turned into shifters.
“Wouldn’t you?” Zane asked, wide-eyed.
“Zane, how many times have you almost died? Let me put it another way since the turn of phrase doesn’t exactly apply to us. How many times have you escaped being wounded or been wounded in a way that would’ve killed you if we were still human?”
Zane shrugged. “I have no idea. I’ve never counted if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I don’t even need a specific number, just a rough estimate. Has it ever happened? And if so, around how many times?”
“At least a dozen,” Zane shrugged.
“And how many out of those times did you take it personally? How many times did you let it get to you the way this one is getting to you?”
Maybe Logan wasn’t the only one nearly exhausted because Zane could’ve slapped himself for having walked right into an obvious trap with his eyes wide open. “None. You know the answer is none.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. What makes this so different than the other times?”
Zane wasn’t exactly in the habit of going through all the times he’d almost died or could have died if he were just human again. “These aren’t exactly things I like to look back on,” he muttered.
“Join the club,” Logan assured him. He wasn’t about to back down, but that was nothing new.
There was nothing to be done but to think about it. So, he did. He looked back on all his wounds—gunshots, broken limbs, a few stabbings. All of it was routine; all of it was easily healed. “There was nothing out of the ordinary about those wounds,” Zane observed to himself, thoughtful.
Logan kept his thoughts to himself, so Zane kept going back through his memories. “I mean, all of those wounds came from the work we were doing. We were in a fight. We drew our weapons. Whoever we were dealing with refused to back down quietly. Not that that’s anything new.”
“True,” Logan murmured.
“Maybe that’s it.” Zane turned to look at his leader. “I wasn’t actually on a mission, for one thing. It’s not like I knew what I was walking into. I wasn’t expecting half the house to suddenly blow out.”
“That makes sense,” Logan allowed.
But that wasn’t all of it. “I think the other thing is if I had just been thirty seconds faster, I might’ve been standing on the front porch. I might even already be in the house. The coroner’s report said Dan’s head was torn from his body from the force of the blast.”
“I read that, too.”
“Not the sort of thing we can recover from, is it?”
“I guess not,” Logan murmured, looking down at the floor. “There are limits to even what a shifter is capable of.”
“I think that’s what’s getting me the most.” Zane stood, driving his fist into his palm, the wolf panting, snarling in his head. It wasn’t rage or bloodlust that made the wolf act this way though.
It was fear. Cold, hard fear. He hated it, loathed it with eve
ry drop of his strength. It made him weak. Pathetic.
“It’s all right, you know,” Logan assured him, breaking through the noise in Zane’s head.
“What is?”
“Finding out you were afraid.”
“I wasn’t.” It came out too sharply, almost viciously, and Zane’s heart sank to hear it. Not one of his prouder moments, not by a long shot.
Logan frowned but otherwise let it pass. “Freaked out, then. It freaked you out, learning that you could’ve died in that blast. I think we’ve all sort of disassociated ourselves from any weakness or fragility. I know I told myself when all of this first happened that I would never take it for granted. I didn’t want to become cocky, too sure of myself. We all know that’s a recipe for disaster right there.”
Zane only nodded. He didn’t trust himself to speak with his wolf on the verge of letting Logan know exactly what he thought about his choice of words.
“Maybe we all need to take a step back and think about that,” Logan mused. “Though I think with most of the team having found their mates, they’re already thinking along those lines. Now, they have something to be afraid of, afraid for, and a reason to maybe take fewer chances too.”
“We can’t afford to take fewer chances.”
“Do you think you need to tell me that?” Logan asked, and there wasn’t so much as a hint of humor in his voice. “I guess that’s just how it is when mortality is right in front of you. It doesn’t even have to be your own mortality. It can be the mortality of someone else, someone you love. It frames everything differently, casts a light on the things you might have turned your back on like the fact that part of us is still human. We are still men. There are certain things a man doesn’t recover from, such as being decapitated. It’s still possible for us to die.”
He gave Zane a look that was a little too close to pity for Zane’s liking. “And you learned firsthand. No wonder you’re a little tense.”
“Could you not patronize me?”
Wolf Shield Investigations: Boxset Page 77