by Alisa Woods
Gage nodded, and the pack dispersed, heading inside for food or whatever the beginning of their weekend would look like, now that the fighting was over and a plan formed.
Mace stalked off, his betas lingering behind, following the rest of the unmated wolves into the main house. It twisted Jak’s stomach in knots to think of Mace walking into his house and finding Arianna waiting. It took everything he had not to follow after and make sure she was all right. But that would tip his hand far too much. He had to trust in the fact that Mace was a lot calmer now than when he arrived… and that Arianna was smart enough to take care of things on her end.
Meanwhile, he had some wolf hunters to catch.
Arianna slipped on the little black dress she knew Mace liked best.
She had seen the pack cars winding down the long drive through the forest that surrounded the Red pack estate, but Mace hadn’t yet arrived home. Whatever was keeping him at the main house, she knew he would be ready to kill something when he got home.
She didn’t want it to be her.
The shower had washed away all traces of Jak, but his scent would be forever etched in her mind. The way his fingers had touched her, the way he had filled her… he had brought her a pleasure like nothing she had ever felt. She had used her own hands before, of course, especially after a vigorous session with Mace, but that had been more like… relief than anything else. With Jak, it was entirely different. He had awakened something inside her, something deep and primal and… hot. Dampness pooled between her legs…
Stop thinking about Jak! She smacked herself on the face and stabbed an accusing finger at her reflection in the bedroom mirror, trying to rein in her treacherous thoughts. The soap and the fresh clothes wouldn’t help if she kept getting aroused—Mace would scent that in an instant, and there would be no way to explain it without giving herself away.
Without giving Jak away.
If Mace found out, she knew what he would do, and it ran pangs of guilt through her. What had she been thinking, kissing Jak? And then boldly grabbing him, urging him on? He had been nothing but kind to her, and now her lack of restraint, her inability to control herself around him had put him in terrible danger. The guilt sliced twice as hot, now that she was back in Mace’s house, his presence clamping down on her even while he was still in the main house…
She had betrayed her alpha.
Her wolf was cowering, tail tucked between her legs, whining in terror of the impending return of her alpha. But in spite of knowing in her mind that making love to Jak went against everything she knew—breaking pack law, going against her alpha’s wishes—a glowing spark inside her heart refused to believe it was actually wrong. How could something so beautiful, that felt so amazing, be bad? How could the sweet way Jak looked in her eyes while he confessed to thinking about her be wrong? Her heart knew those things were filled with goodness. Even under the heavy weight of her mating bond to Mace, her brain still worked… and it knew what she and Jak shared was precious and rare and good. Her whole body ached to have his hands on her again. She craved all of it: the mind-blowing pleasure, the tenderness of his touch, the grin on his face as he watched her squirm…
Her face in the mirror was pinking up, and the heat between her legs was growing… Arianna smacked her face again then dashed down the stairwell to the first floor. When she reached the kitchen, she splashed her face again and again with cold water from the tap. She had to stop thinking about Jak… or she would get him killed.
Just as she was drying off, the front door swung open hard and banged against the wall. Mace stalked in and slammed the door closed again. Arianna’s heart thudded in her chest. Her best chance was to go on the offensive.
“Mace!” She hurried up to him, stopping just short of throwing her arms around him. He wouldn’t like that. “I’m so glad you’re back!” She tried to sound desperate and panicked and all the things she should be after just having survived an attack by bounty hunters.
His face twisted up, the skulking glower transforming into a look that said he thought she was crazy. “You appear to have lived.”
“I was so scared.” It was hard to conjure that sound of fear into her voice, even though she’d been scared to death when the attack had actually happened. Jak’s tender concern and passionate touch had erased all of it from her mind.
Don’t think about him!
Mace’s skeptical look had turned into a frown. He raked his gaze over her skimpy black dress. “Is this what you wear to school now?” There was a dangerous, leaden note under his words.
“No, no.” She held up her hands, trying to look innocent. “I just couldn’t stand to have those clothes on me anymore… they reminded me of the attack. I put this on because I thought you would like it.”
The tension eased from his shoulders. He gave a short nod and stalked toward the white leather couches in the center of the living room. “I need a drink.”
Arianna scurried over to the wet bar at the far side of the room. “Vodka, neat?” It was his favorite, but she always asked, just to make sure.
He snorted in acknowledgment and eased into the couch. She hurried back with the drink. As he gulped the entire thing down, she noticed blotchy red marks on his neck. They seemed to be the shape of fingers… her heart rate picked up again. Had he been in a fight? With who? What had happened? She shoved those thoughts aside before they could conjure a painful worry for Jak.
Mace wiped his mouth and stared at the fireplace across from the couch. “Jak is a real asshole.”
Arianna’s body jolted in place.
Mace narrowed his eyes. “He’s also fucking incompetent. Some guard! Letting hunters get within a hundred yards of my mate…” He set the glass down on the low table in front of them.
Arianna couldn’t help it. She had to say something. “It wasn’t Jak’s fault. They snuck up behind us, and—”
“Are you defending him?” Mace’s eyes turned to glittering coal.
Her heart seized. “I’m just saying, there’s no way he could have—”
She was cut off by Mace’s hand on her throat. He shoved her back onto the couch, his enraged face in hers… before she could think or respond… she shifted.
Her claws were out, but she was trapped in her clothes and under the weight of Mace’s body. Her wolf took over, squirming and pushing her way out from underneath him. She rolled off the couch, knocked over the table, scrambled to her paws, and stood, fur all bristled out, facing him.
The growl was out before she could stop it.
Mace’s eyes were wide. But the dumbfounded look on his face vanished as he shifted, fast as lightning, and pounced on her. Before she could blink, he had her pinned to the floor, her throat in his jaws. The weight of his body was nothing like the oppressive heaviness of his thoughts pressing on hers. His alphaness overwhelmed her, and her wolf instantly cowered, tucking her tail up and pulling her legs in.
You haven’t fought me in a long time, Arianna. In between the fangs clamped on her neck, his thick tongue lapped at her fur, tasting her.
Mace was in her thoughts—she realized with horror that she had far too many secrets to allow that for even a second.
I’m not fighting you, Mace, I promise, I promise. She focused her thoughts hard on that while pushing against him with her paws. Her own body was betraying her intentions, but she had to shift. Now. Before any stray thoughts could betray her. Even if that meant Mace’s razor sharp fangs would slice open her throat in the process.
She barely managed to loosen his hold before the shift turned her human. The delicate human skin of her throat tore, sending a gasp of pain out of her gaping mouth. She was still in his grasp, blood surging out of the gash. It ran hot down her neck, no doubt soaking the white carpet below her. She might bleed out, but at least now her thoughts and secrets were safely locked inside her head.
Mace released his hold on her then shifted back to human. Her hands flew to her neck, trying to staunch the flow of blood. Her skin was
slick with it, as was Mace’s face. He wiped it away but remained lying on top of her. They were both naked now, and his weight made it even more difficult to breathe. She coughed and gagged, his body holding her down as she convulsed. His hand closed around hers, holding her throat, like he was also trying to keep the blood from flowing, but she knew it was more than that: it was a reminder that he still held her life in his hands.
“Is that what you call not trying to fight me?” Mace trailed his other hand along her cheek. “I can’t wait to see what you do when you try.”
He leaned forward and licked the side of her face, running the tip of his tongue along her jawline and up to her ear. She shuddered under his touch.
“I… I’m not fighting you, Mace, I promise.” She could barely get the words out with his hand on her throat. “It was just a reaction. A left over from the attack.”
He ignored her, still nuzzling her ear. “It’s been so long since you’ve fought me, Arianna,” he whispered. “I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it.”
Her heart thudded even harder. She realized with a sickening drop in her stomach that his erection was throbbing against her thigh. Over the iron scent of her own blood, she could smell his arousal thick in the air. She almost gagged against it, but the mating bond fog was descending on her mind.
“A little time at school…” he whispered, his voice husky, “… a little excitement with some hunters… and you’re back to that feisty wolf I broke when you first arrived.”
Arianna’s stomach churned. Her alpha wants to play rough. So that’s what she would have to do. It wouldn’t be hard to fake a struggle against him… a panicky feeling in her chest fought against the haze clouding her mind. Get away, the flutter said, but her mind screamed, Lie still.
She bucked against him.
He grinned a sickly smile and dragged her free hand up over her head, holding it hard against the carpet. “That’s right.” His voice was heavy with lust. “Fight me.”
She struggled against him again, but he pushed her legs apart with his knees and slid into her. Her mind floated away as he thrust and grunted and took her body. Even with the mating bond hazing her mind, even with the complete submission of her wolf and her body to him, her thoughts were still free to fly somewhere else, somewhere distant… and to see Mace’s rough claiming of her body for what it was. This wasn’t lovemaking. Making love was what she and Jak had done in the back seat of his car. She clung to that idea, the pureness of it, like a light beam lifting her up and out of her body, leaving behind Mace’s grunts and hot breath on her face. What Mace was doing… her alpha was supposed to protect her from this, not force it upon her. Never in a million years would Jak do this, to her or any female.
Her alpha was… hurting her.
She hoped someday Mace would die for it.
Jak had been camped out for so long his back was getting stiff.
The address from the darknet thread was a seedy walkup apartment in one of Seattle’s rougher neighborhoods. One drive past the crumbling brick building, and he knew there was no way he could just hang out in his car until the bounty hunters decided to make a showing. He’d taken a risk his car would get jacked just parking for a few minutes while he banged on the door and peeked in the one front window. There was no one inside… or at least no one answered the door. Either they were stoned out of their minds or they were gone. And hunters weren’t known for being into drugs—they worked with too many shady characters to take the risk of not being sharp.
Jak was doing his best homeless person impression, including ragged clothes and a long trenchcoat to hide his weapons, huddling under a couple layers of cardboard in an alley across from the walkup. His vantage point was excellent, and absolutely no one looked at him, no on purpose at least. But it was quickly getting cold and dark, and his ass was numb from cuddling up to the pavement in the stench-filled alley.
All of it paid off right at sunset. As the sky flamed overhead, the two hunters, still sporting their gray hoodies, skulked down the sidewalk and up the four steps to the front door. One had a bandaged hand: the one Jak had crunched in his jaws when he disarmed the hunter earlier in the day. As they keyed themselves in, Jak sprang into action, crossing the street before they could make it past the threshold. He barreled into them, shoving them inside. If he was forced to shift, he wanted to do it off the street.
The hunter with the bandaged hand fell face first into the tiny living room while the other one rolled on his shoulder going down. Jak slammed the door behind him and tried to draw his guns, one in each hand, but the bandaged hunter swung up from the floor and charged him. Jak almost shifted, but then he would lose the guns. The hunter grappled with Jak, gaining a hand on the pistol and punching at Jak’s face with his wrapped hand. Jak’s shifter strength worked in his favor, but he didn’t understand why the hunter was tackling him. He had to know Jak could shift and rip out his throat. It made no sense to go hand-to-hand with a shifter, unless… it was a distraction.
Jak dropped his pistol, yanked the hunter close with his free hand, and pivoted to use him as a shield. Three soft pops sounded, and darts intended for Jak sunk into the hunter’s chest. The dart-gun-wielding hunter’s eyes went wide. He dropped to the floor, scrambling after Jak’s pistol, which had clunked across the dusty carpet. Jak’s human shield crumpled to his feet, and Jak lurched after his pistol as well, but the second hunter beat him to it.
A shot rang out, and hot metal tore through Jak’s arm.
He roared and shifted. His fangs ripped the gun from the man’s hand, along with a good chunk of his flesh. When Jak shifted back, he still had the gun in his mouth: he dropped it into his hand. His clothes lay in a heap next to the man, who was clutching his bloody hand to his chest while he cowered on the moldy oriental rug. Jak wiped a smear of the hunter’s blood from his face and glanced at the mess that was his shoulder: it was a clean shot through-and-through, and it seemed to have missed the bone. It would heal soon enough.
“You know, what?” he said to the man on the floor. “That really fucking hurts.”
The hunter just shook, clutching his hand closer.
“But I’ll get over it.” Jak raised the pistol to point at the man’s head. “You, on the other hand…”
“No, wait!” The hunter’s hands flew up, like he could ward off the bullet that way. “Come on, man, just tell me what you want.” He was shaking pretty good, and now that Jak had a look at him, he was about Jak’s age—twenty-four, give or take a year. Jak took two steps forward, the gun barrel drilling a line of sight into the hunter’s skull. He edged back, still on the floor, hands up.
“I want to know who hired you to bag a couple wolves at UDub this morning.”
The hunter swallowed and looked at his fallen partner. “Dude, she’ll kill me. You know how crazy witches are. She was just out for some blood, that’s all. Just bag and drain and…” He stalled out. “We would’ve let you go after that.”
“Sure you would.” These assholes would have let the witch carve up Arianna, and that made him want to pull the trigger right then. But he needed answers more than he needed to vent his anger. Jak stalked forward and pressed the tip of the gun against the man’s head. He shrunk back and trembled. “Now how about you stop shitting me and tell me the truth? Because I’d be happy to put a bullet in you. Or maybe shift and tear you apart one small piece at a time, if you really piss me off.”
“Hey, man, come on, be cool… I’m telling you the truth. I mean…” He swallowed. “Okay, okay, we weren’t just after your blood, we were going to bring you in. The witch was looking for parts. The girl’s heart in particular. It wasn’t personal, dude, I swear, it’s just… that’s what the lady wanted, and I’m not going to mess with a witch, you know?”
Jak understood that much. He didn’t know half of what witches could do, but what little he’d seen was brutal and painful, at least for the wolves involved. Witch magic was powerful and mysterious… and all that power tended to make t
hem a little crazy in the head. Like cats playing with mice, witches had their own reasons for tearing people apart. And they didn’t need a good one, either. They did that shit for fun.
But who was this witch? And how did she know about Arianna? Or Jak, for that matter…
“You know,” Jak said, “maybe I’ll just get on the darknet sites, post your address, and mention that you’ve screwed a witch out of her wolf score.” Someone already outed the hunter online, which meant he’d been in the business a while. If word got out he’d double-crossed a witch, maybe trying to sell his booty on the black market… well, Jak wouldn’t want to be him. “I don’t think it will take long for your witchy friend to find you. I’ll just sit back, watch while she fries you like an egg, then get what I want from her.”
“No! Wait… come on, man!” The hunter looked like he was about to piss his pants.
Jak eased back and shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me. I get the witch either way.”
“Okay, okay…” His hands were up again, imploring. “I can tell you her name. But you gotta give us time to clear out, okay? I mean, go ahead and go after her, I got no problem with that.” He pressed his hands to his chest. “Better for me if you take her out, right? Otherwise, it gets back to me, and I’m sunk. Just… give me and my partner time to clear out of Seattle. The witch community here… they talk, man.”
“Oh, I know they do.” Jak gestured to him with the gun. “Tell me her name, and I’ll take your proposal under consideration.”
The hunter grimaced. “She’s a really powerful witch, man. I’m just saying… you probably don’t want to mess with her…”
“Name.”
He swallowed then seemed to force the words out. “She calls herself Hecca. That’s all I know.” He was shaking his head, sadly, like he thought he had just signed his death warrant.
And it was quite possible he had.
Because Jak knew Hecca—she was one of the witches Red Wolf kept on retainer for their “special projects.” If she had betrayed the pack, there was going to be serious hell to pay for that. Possibly a full out witch-wolf war.