Her screams fill the deathly silent room. I can’t tell if there are any concerned wolves out there for her, because I’m not watching my surroundings.
That’s up to the guards around the dance floor. But no one has said anything, yelled or broken rank against their Alpha, since Bohm tried and failed.
I stand up watching her body shake uncontrollably.
I look back over to Paris and his two lieutenants. His mouth is gaping open and he’s breathing heavily. I don’t know if it’s shock or anger. I can’t really tell. I walk around Gabby, who’s pinned to the dance floor in a spread eagle position on her back, crying and bleeding before everyone.
I walk down towards Paris, Aksel and Bodil’s wolves remain guarding Gabby. Nick and Conall walk just behind me as I approach the Manhattan Maen, Alpha, pack leader. My boyfriend.
Boden and Gage move apart, creating a hole in the wall for me, to walk through, right up to the Alpha’s table. Booker the lycan wolf moves by my side with me up the small step towards Paris’s area with the boys.
“Are you fucking mad? Do you have any fucking idea what you’ve just done?” Wiatt yells at me, suddenly unable to hold back any longer. But I’m only looking at Paris, who has remained silent throughout. I turn my head to Wiatt.
“Get out.” I snarl at him causing Booker to growl at him, bearing his teeth in a menacing snarl.
“This is the Alpha’s table,” Wiatt continues to yell at me. “If anyone’s leaving here it’s...” He stops when Paris holds up a hand.
“I know this is the Alpha’s table Wiatt. That’s why I’m here. So if you’re in, sit down and shut up. Or are you out?” I say at him while holding eye contact with Paris. He gets it, I know he does.
Wiatt looks from me to Paris and sits down quietly. Addison follows his lead and sits down quietly beside Paris on the opposite side of the table to me. At the same time Paris sits down. He hasn’t broken eye contact with me yet. I sit down, with, Nick and Conall all standing guard behind me.
We’re all seated and silent. Addison speaks first.
“How the hell did you do? She’s pinned to the god damn floor. It’s an eclipse, you shouldn’t have the…” He waves a hand at me as he speaks, “Ability or strength to be able to do that.”
I turn my head to look at Addison, darkly.
“There is so much you don’t know about me Addison. I’m a Breukelen wolf, we were schooled differently in how to get through an eclipse than the Maen wolves.” I turn my attention back to Paris, who’s looking deadly serious.
“Leave us.” Paris says to Wiatt and Addison, with a turn of his head, his eyes still on me.
“No.” Addison states firmly, glaring at me. “I’m not leaving you alone in her company. She’s dangerous.”
“Which is the point she came here to prove. Now leave us.” Paris say calmly as Addison huffs his disbelief at what he’s hearing. See, I knew he got it. The two males leave us, brushing past Nick and Conall aggressively, on purpose. Both Nick and Conall remain stoic and unimpressed with the baiting. They know the plan and they will stick to it, for me.
“I wish my mother was here to see this.” Paris says sitting back casually. “She’d be impressed with you now. Probably even think you were worthy of her son.”
It’s my turn to remain silent. This is awkward. But I knew it would be. I knew it would come to this confrontation eventually. It has to, to reach a conclusion.
“So, how does this end?” Paris asks me softly. “Are you just going to let Gabby bleed to death out there. Are you going to be a killer, is that it? Playing in the big leagues now, with the Alphas? You have got to follow through if you’re going down that path or it’s all for naught.”
“You should know.” I say before I realize I’ve even said it. Instantly regretting the words. I see a small muscle pulsate in Paris’s jaw.
“I do know.” He throws back at me. “It comes with being who I am. But that’s not you.”
“I’m a Breukelen, that was made abundantly clear to me, when your pack witnessed Gabby stabbing me and dragging me out of here. No one stopped her or helped me.
They need to know what being a Breukelen means.” I say, trying to remain calm, even though saying those words makes me angry.
“So you thought you’d get her back in a similar manner? Is that it? What happened to an eye for an eye and the world goes blind?” He asks, leaning forward and placing his hands together on the table top.
I look at those hands and back up at his face.
“Nobody here has gone blind. In fact, I was rather grateful for the audience. I need them to see this. I need them to remember this. They will think twice about me now. Besides, you and I both know what I did here was damn generous to her. She hasn’t been abandoned. She’s surrounded by her pack.” I say leaning forward towards him. “And we had her for a day before this, so if I really wanted to, I could’ve done much worse, already.”
He pulls back and sits against the booth, I straighten up too.
“I have no way of knowing you haven’t, do I? Other than to take you at your word. Which right now, how do I know I can trust? You didn’t tell me you planned to do this. You’ve played this out with your entire pack, like a declaration of war on mine. Do you know what that means to me? What I have to do in my position as Pack Leader?”
“You have to make a decision. I get it. I was, I am, prepared for that.”
This causes him to raise his eyebrows in surprise and he leans forward again onto the table, this time, it seems he’s a little frustrated with me.
“Did the claiming the other night, mean anything to you? Did it mean anything at all to you?” He asks his voice low and angry at me. I lean forwards again towards him, across the table top.
“Yes, it meant a great deal to me. It meant, I can’t be with you, if Gabby is just going to be allowed to come at me, whenever she likes to try and pull us apart. It meant, that to be together, we can’t be played by other wolves.
They can not be allowed to use our packs against us. It means, I’m a Breukelen werewolf first and foremost and your girlfriend second.”
“Really? Because I was wondering if this was your attempted way of breaking up with me, since you know I won’t give you up easily.” He says, his voice getting harsher. “Because you’ve put me in a god damn awkward position here. You are asking me to make a choice between you and my pack. Gabby is part of my pack, a wolf who comes under my leadership and therefore, protection.”
I gulp down a vat of nervous saliva. I know what I have to say here. I don’t want to. But I will.
“I’m not asking. I’ve already accepted you’ll choose the pack.” I swear it feels like my throat is closing up on me, like anaphylactic shock. I put a hand to my throat.
“And just for the record, I didn’t start this war. She did, your pack wolf did, when she attacked me, a guest if anything else, in your territory, in defiance of her own pack leader. This is the follow through. We’re not being lax about it here.” I said the words, but the reality is I haven’t accepted it at all. His eyes follow the movement of his hand.
“No you haven’t but nice try. How’d that feel coming out of your mouth?”
“Like charcoal.”
He nods his head. “Up until then, you were doing really well with the whole playing Alpha thing.” He says in a low voice. A small smile quirking at the corner of his mouth briefly.
“The hand. A bit of a stupid, impulse.”
“You’re only tell.” He says back at me. “So I think we can both agree, this thing isn’t over then.”
I grit my teeth hard. “The hell it isn’t. This is the deal, so listen up.” I hiss at him lurching forward slightly and reigning back in my anger at his disregard for all that I’ve pulled off here, under his nose.
“You can either let Gabby lay there, until the pain is too great for her and she says sorry to me, or you can leave her there until the end of the shifting time of the eclipse. Whatever comes first.”
“And if I don’t like those options?”
“This is not a negotiation.”
“I can see that.” He mutters back at me. “But if I declare war against the Breukelen?”
“Every Breukelen here is prepared for that. Including me and this time, you can believe me when I say the words.” I say at him heatedly. Paris nods his head and looks away and out towards the wall of Breukelen, surrounding the dance floor.
Damn. I just played my last card and it’s about to be thrown back at me. Part of me had hoped it wouldn’t, that he really wouldn’t. But he’s an Alpha, Paris has to. A part of me knew that would be the only outcome here. Shit. I have to hold onto my anger, otherwise I’ll start crying. Shit.
“When I said this thing wasn’t over yet, I meant, us, between us. Not the Gabby thing.”
I look a little surprised. Is he playing with me now? Cause that would be far crueller than being staked to a nightclub floor with some knives and sai.
“So if we leave Gabby there, she could bleed to death before twelve hours is up.”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t get anything vital in her.”
“’Pretty sure’ isn’t much to go on.” He says in a low voice to me.
I sigh heavily. “The sai aren’t silver, they’re just silver coated. The Bowie’s not silver it’s metal.”
“And the super nasty looking knife?”
“A Breukelen special, griffin knife. Uh, no, that one is silver an it’s going to hurt pulling it out, as much as it hurt, going in.”
Paris nods his head in understanding. “So if I agree to let her stay there, pinned for the full twelve hours, or until she says sorry to you,”
“Whatever comes first.” I cut in.
He waves a finger at me. “Second tell, too eager. Don’t be eager, don’t offer excitement, otherwise you’re negotiations are over. Because I know you got nothing else, this is what you came here for.” He says. “I got your emotional response. It’s all I need to know to work you out of your game plan.” He says. “To have the upper hand.”
“Believe me, this is not a negotiation.” I say again in a soft voice. “This isn’t a hustle. This is the deal in how we do things, as Breukelen. Why do you think all the Alphas here with me are letting me proceed with this? Because they believe in my plan and in me to carry it out, completely.” I sit back against the booth back, watching him. “Without hesitation.”
Paris smiles as me and gives a small shake of his head. “Damn you are impressive.”
“It’s why you dated me.”
“Am dating you.” He fires back. “Still dating.”
“Your pack needs to know, that regardless of what they personally think of me, and whether they accept me, that they have to pay attention to me and respect that I’m dating their pack leader. I’m his pack mate. And neither he, or I, are weak and will be taken advantage of by them. Ever.”
He smiles broadly at me. “Highly impressive.” He says softly. “You solve the problem for both of us, by allowing me to keep my standing, by agreeing to make an example of Gabby as a means to her punishment, for her defiance of her pack leader by starting this. And by allowing my pack mate, to perform the punishment herself. So everybody wins. How did Bodil and I miss that?”
I shrug my shoulders. “So impressive.” He mutters leaning forward again and before I know it, he’s moved with more speed than I would’ve thought possible. Maybe he just caught me off guard.
Paris reaches for me. Grabbing me by the shoulders and pulling me across the table top. My legs kick out, knocking the shot glasses over, sending them flying everywhere. A wolf snarls and Booker leaps up onto the spare bit of seat next to Paris, snapping at him just as I land in Paris’s lap.
“Booker, right?” He says softly, looking at the lycan wolf, leaning back out of reach of Bookers snarling fangs. The lycan presses his large paws on Paris’s chest and produces his claws slowly. First, last and only warning. If Booker the lycan were to tear Paris’s throat out now, he’d die a very horrible, human death.
“Yeah.”
“Thought I recognized him. Chill, I just want to kiss her. She’s kind of turned me on.” Paris states, loosing his grip on me, as I sit in his lap. Booker doesn’t move a muscle.
“Please tell him I just want to kiss you.”
I look at Paris who’s still eyeing Booker off.
“Booker!” I yell at him. “Step off, its fine.” I say and ignore the wolf turning into Paris as he puts his hands on my face, and pulls me in to kiss him. He’s desperate to feel me again, pulling me into his chest and devouring my mouth, heatedly. I feel the lycan wolf back down and out of the booth as Paris and I consume one another’s lips.
“Okay, I agree to leave Gabby there until she learns her manners, or the twelve hours is over, whatever comes first. Nobody will go near her, I swear. The Breukelen are welcome to stay on as guests of the Manhattan Maen. No harm will come to them. But you really have to tell me how you did that little strength trick, during an eclipse.”
“Pack secret.” I state smiling back at him.
“Huh. See about that.” He mutters kissing me again before pulling apart and looking out of the booth.
“Addison!” He commands the other Alpha male. Addison walks back over, stopping before Nick who’s still holding guard outside of Paris’s table. “Nobody touches Gabby until she says sorry or the shift time is over, whatever comes first. Make it happen.” Addison nods his head and walks off again.
“Wiatt!” Paris yells at his brother, who comes over quickly. “Get us a couple round of drinks here and for the Breukelen, they are our guests tonight and nobody is to touch them.”
Wiatt nods his head and moves off. “And for god sakes, somebody get Bohm an icepack.” He says off hand, seeing Bohm holding his tilted head back, as his nose continues to bleed.
“For what’s it worth,” I state looking at Paris. “I don’t think she’ll hold out for twelve hours.”
Paris looks out at the dance floor. “Gabby’s got a lot of pride.” He says back at me. “Not that it can’t be shot down a notch or two.” He mutters, glancing over his shoulder “Play the damn music again!” he yells in the direction of the DJ booth.
“Come on.” He says dragging me out of the booth and holding my hand. Walking me out past Conall and Nick who I assure everything is alright, out onto the dance floor, where Bodil and Aksel’s wolves sit either side of Gabby’s pinned body, guarding her.
“Who are the wolves?” He asks leaning into my ear, as we get closer.
“I don’t think you’ve met my brother Aksel yet,” I say pointing to the werewolf on the left. “And Bodil, you know, when she’s not, you know, furry.” I say pointing out the other werewolf.
He nods his head and still holding my hand walks around Bodil to look down at Gabby, who is crying softly now. She sees through her tears to look up at Paris and I, side by side.
“I told you once before, this is my wolf.” He says slipping an arm around my waist. “You come at her again,” He says letting go of me and crouching down beside Gabby. Her eyes track his movement as he puts his hand on the taped griffin knife handle.
My mouth drops open to protest, that we had an agreement. But he yanks the knife out of her suddenly causing her to scream out in fresh agony. As the wickedly designed silver knife, cuts her as it is pulled up.
“Then you better come at me, too.” He states plunging the knife back into her foot.
Gabby doesn’t even try and not cry out. It’s impossible to withhold the onslaught of pain that’s being inflicted on her. Her agony is heard over the sound of the music. It can not be ignored or drowned out in such a small venue.
Revenge Page 5