by Jade, Amelia
Willow was starting to wake up now, to realize just how badly she’d been played. The reason why he’d adopted her was still a mystery to her, but it didn’t matter. For whatever reason, it had all been an act. He’d never cared. All the memories she had, they were false. Lies.
The tears continued to come down her face as her life came crashing down around her. Everything she’d thought she’d known was going up in flames. Burn it all, she figured. It was time to start fresh. The blinders were off now. No more looking the other direction.
She walked over to the door and locked it. Then she started piling objects in front of the doorway, pushing furniture, whatever she could to block the doorway.
“What are you doing in there?” Deckard called, pounding on the doorway.
“Throwing a hissyfit and preparing to smash some shit, you arrogant micro-penis!” she hollered back, surprised at her own vocabulary. “Now fuck the hell off and let me rage in peace.”
There was no more calling from the other side. But moments later she heard a plethora of voices start cursing. Heavy footsteps pounded down the hallway, and suddenly everything was silent.
Willow sniffed in derision. “Well then. It’s about time they gave me the respect I deserve.”
The sudden noise of something bouncing off her window caught her attention. She ran over to it and opened it.
“Aid—Pleh!” She spat the pebble that had landed in her mouth back out. “What the fuck, dude? You just threw that in my mouth! You need to ask before you do that!”
Aiden stood on the ground, arm raised to throw another pebble. “Uh, sorry,” he said, caught off guard.
“Seriously? You’re going to let me get the better of you with one dirty comment? Let’s go, Rescue Boy. Get me the fuck out of here.”
Aiden shook his head. “Holy shit, I fucking love you.”
She hadn’t been intending to hear those words, but they were said loud enough she could pick it up. A grin spread across her face as she realized, right then and there, that she felt the same. This man, this incredible man. He was hers and she wanted to be his oh so badly. It wasn’t going to be easy, and she was going to need some time to adjust to the complete upheaval and betrayal of her past life. But if he would stick by her and accept her nervousness over trusting someone again, she knew they could create a life together that others would only dream of.
“Yeah? Well get up here and say that to my face so that I can show you my response.”
“You need to jump,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll catch you. But we need to go. Now . There is exactly zero time, Willow. Let’s go!”
Jump? It was two stories down. Two big stories. That was a long, long way to fall. She knew Aiden was strong, but the idea of just blindly launching herself out the window was terrifying.
“Um, are you sure?”
“Yes! Positive! There are things going on you don’t know about. We need to GO!”
His tone was urgent enough to spur her into action. Willow ripped the screen off with a burst of strength she hadn’t realized she possessed. Then, backing up, she prepared to jump.
“GO!” he shouted from outside.
She started to run forward at the same instant the door behind her exploded inward under a massive blow. A huge body—Rokk—came through the door. Furniture and objects sprayed outward in a half-circle as he bulldozed his way through. A spinning piece of a chest took her in the side, throwing her off balance.
“AIDEN!” she shrieked as she fell to the floor.
Rokk was on her in a second, picking her up and throwing her over his shoulder as he headed for the door. “I don’t think so,” he rumbled. “We have other plans for you. Let’s go.”
She beat and pounded on his back, but it was no use. The werewolf was far too strong for her to resist.
Behind her there was a roar and a huge figure came through the window, taking out the frame with it. Aiden thrashed his way into the house just as Rokk exited the room and ran down the hallway. Another shifter ran into the room to take him on. Langdon, she thought, but it was too fast for her to see. They retreated to Stephen’s study.
Stephen was there. His hands were a mess, covered in gauze that was soaked with red. Fury was etched in his features as he looked upon her while Flint wrapped the gauze around one palm then the other.
“I’m going to kill him,” her non-father snarled. “Slowly, and as excruciatingly painfully as I can, he will die. And you will watch.”
Rokk tossed her into a chair and then went to help Orren and Deckard, who were barricading the door behind them. They shoved a huge wardrobe in front of the door, then the massive oak desk, and piled other tables and chairs in front of it.
Orren tore up some floorboards and was in the process of wedging things tighter when a werewolf missile came hurtling through the doors, shattering the barricade in the process. The beaten and bloodied form hit the far wall, nearly going right through it before bouncing off. At first she feared that it was Aiden, but as the others reacted with anger and turned to face the door, she saw through the bruised and bloodied face that it was Langdon.
“Let her go.” The voice that came through from the hallway didn’t sound like it was coming from any human throat. It was too deep, snarly, and sounded like there were teeth in the way.
“Fuck you!” Flint shouted. “Why should we? There’s more of us than there are you. You’re screwed.”
She edged closer until she could see into the hole. Aiden was standing there, his features enlarged and filled with animal qualities. She gasped. He was holding his shifter-change in check, giving him some of the animal qualities while still in human form. His jaw was a little longer and filled with more teeth, his limbs more fluid, and long claws could be seen in place of his fingernails.
Oh, and there was midnight black fur everywhere. He still looked more human than not, but it was an unbelievable display of power that she knew very few could handle.
“Not nearly as screwed as you think,” the man-wolf hissed. She watched him reach into his pocket and remove a cell phone, waving it at Stephen’s pack.
“Oh no. What are you going to do, call the police?”
Aiden sighed visibly. “No, you gargoyle, it’s not what I’m going to do. It’s what I already did.”
There was a massive BOOM! from what sounded like the front door. The entire house shook.
“What was that?” Stephen asked, sounding a bit panicky.
“That,” Aiden said, supplying the answer, “would be the first half of the RRT that I summoned. The second should be here any mome—”
Willow screamed and dove for cover as the glass ceiling above them shattered and half a dozen figures came leaping down into her father’s study.
Twenty
Aiden
He hadn’t expected them to come from the ceiling of the office. It was a nice touch, he had to admit, but it was unexpected.
“Willow!” he roared, dashing forward even as she ran toward him, hands over her head to protect herself from the rain of deadly shards.
Reaching her side, he snatched her up into his arms and darted out into the house. Behind them the rest of the pack bellowed and took up pursuit. All around the house more sounds could be heard.
“Damn, they must have brought two teams. That’s some serious firepower.”
He swung around the corner, deposited Willow on her feet, waited a second with his head cocked, and then kicked out. Hard. His foot lashed out past the corner and took the lead shifter in the chest. The motion was so quick he never even saw who it was.
“Time to go!” he yelped, snatching Willow up and heading down the hallway, picking up speed as he went. The others were right behind and catching up. They didn’t have to worry about keeping a woman in their arms safe, so they ran with reckless abandon.
“You guys should try to escape!” he shouted back at them. “Priorities!”
The growls only grew louder.
“I don’t think they
agree,” Willow said as she bounced in his arms.
“You know, I think you’re right. You should try.”
“Go run and hide like the flea-bitten cowardly dogs you are!” she cried. There was a brief pause. “It didn’t work. I think they’re getting madder now.”
“Well, that happens when you call them dogs,” he said conversationally, turning a corner and heading for the staircase.
“It was just a joke,” she complained. “Can’t they—Ooph!—Hey, driver. Doesn’t this thing come with shocks or something? What’s with the rough ride?”
He snorted. “You took forever to get in the cab. It’s not my fault we’re behind schedule now.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs in a hurry, mostly because he took it in two bounds, holding Willow tight to his chest to try and minimize the bumping around. He was halfway turned toward the right when Willow hammered on his shoulder.
“GO LEFT!” she screamed.
Aiden didn’t hesitate, he just flung himself to the left. A split second later two wolves went sailing right through the space he would have been. Instead of landing on him and taking him to the ground, they both hit the hardwood floor. Paws searched for traction that wasn’t there. Amid yelps and snaps at each other they went down. Their momentum carried them into the wall that stopped them dead.
Aiden didn’t stick around to see any more. He was already tilting his body forward and accelerating once more. Stephen’s pack wouldn’t stay down, they would keep coming after him.
“They’re going to catch up,” Willow said, looking over his shoulder as he raced for the back door.
She was right.
“End of the line, please exit the vehicle to your left,” he said, and tossed Willow to his left.
“WHAT THE FUCK!” she yelped in midair, before landing on the couch he’d aimed for. “Ooooh, you’re so lucky, mister!”
All around them the house was shaking as the RRT closed in on them. He could hear shouts and noises. It felt like the entire house was being invaded. There were only three teams in the entire city. To cover a population of nearly a hundred thousand shifters among almost five million humans if you included the suburbs, that was not much. Had all three been tasked with hitting the pack house at once?
Aiden just needed to keep the two of them alive until the teams reached them. For once he was annoyed at the fact that Stephen’s house was so incredibly huge. But for now, he had to focus on stopping the rest of the pack.
The two wolves he saw first came at him, having recovered before the others could join them. He didn’t wait for them to reach him. He charged right at them, relying on momentum and inertia. He lowered his shoulder and simply plowed right through the first wolf. The second snapped at his leg, drawing blood, but they went past each other so quickly there was no time to do more than worry at the flesh.
Aiden dealt simply with the snarling wolf he’d shouldered. He fell on it with one knee. Bone cracked and he lifted a hand and drove it straight into the wolf’s neck. It yelped and flailed weakly, stunned by the blow.
“AIDEN!”
He turned at the shriek, realizing his mistake. By letting the second wolf past him, he’d given it free access to Willow.
“I don’t think so,” he growled, searching around for something to throw at the wolf as it stalked toward his mate.
It prepared to pounce, so Aiden sent the only thing within reach. Two hundred pounds of angry wolf went sailing through the air. He smiled as the stalking wolf went down. Hard. He ran forward, kneed it in the head as it tried to rise, and grabbed Willow’s hand, yanking her off the couch.
“What the hell was that?” she asked as they ran for the back door, almost there.
Oddly enough, he noted that it hadn’t been burst in yet. Behind them there were shouts as the RRT teams found the various members of the pack and rounded them up. Two snarls told Aiden they weren’t in the clear just yet.
“A detour,” he replied, not caring that the comment didn’t make a lot of sense. “Get behind me.”
Willow barely had time to comply before he spread his arms wide and threw himself through the glass, taking out as much of it as possible so that Willow didn’t get cut.
“GET ON THE GROUND!”
He turned to see a RRT member come at him.
“Hey, it’s me, Aiden. I called this in, I—”
The other werewolf hit him hard and dropped him to the ground. Aiden hadn’t been expecting it and was caught completely off guard.
“I SAID GET ON THE GROUND, YOU PIECE OF SHIT.”
“Are you fucking serious?” he snarled. “I’m Aiden. I fucking called this in. You were supposed to leave me unharmed!”
Beside him Willow was also forced to the ground. Seeing her facedown on the concrete patio immediately outside the door made his blood boil and he began to struggle. He kicked out at the nearest werewolf, pushing him back. With a low growl he snapped the bonds they’d been trying to get around his wrists and got to his feet.
“I’m. On. Your. Side,” he snapped as two more closed in on him.
“That’s not what we were told,” one of them said warily.
“Who the fuck told you? I spoke to Mack personally. He said he’d get word to you guys.”
Aiden’s stomach was already sinking before a familiar figure walked into his vision from the side of the house.
“You,” he snarled. “You’re the ass who didn’t tell them that I was one of the good guys.”
Rayne, Mack’s second-in-command, smiled happily. “But Aiden, you aren’t one of the good guys.”
“Bullshit. You know exactly what Mack told you. That he sent me here undercover to find out what Stephen was up to. Well, now we know! He was a blood smuggler. I found his lab. I reported it to Mack.”
Willow gasped from on the ground next to him. “He was selling your blood?”
“Not mine,” Aiden said angrily, never taking his eyes off of Rayne, who was dressed in a sweatshirt and sweatpants. Easily removable clothing. There was more going on here than he thought. Was he going to use this to kill Aiden, to claim he was killed during the assault on the house?
“Whose then?”
“He had thirty shifters he kept drugged in the other half of the building at work. I found it out today when I accidentally threw Patrice through the wall.”
“You threw...but…I don’t understand,” she said, finally getting to her feet as well.
“I’ll tell you later. First I need to deal with this douchebag who thinks he can kill me now and write it off as a casualty of the assault.”
Willow stepped up next to him, the anger practically pouring off of her. Aiden could just imagine the glare she was directing at Rayne. “Who the hell does he think he is?”
“My former pack’s Beta. He thinks he’s hot shit just because I never beat his ass the way he deserves.”
“You don’t have the balls,” Rayne shot back. “You don’t have it in you. You’re not Alpha material.”
Aiden fell silent, the last point hitting home. Rayne was right. He wasn’t an Alpha. He was—
“Yes he is.” Willow’s hand landed on his shoulder. “He’s far more of an Alpha than you’ll ever be.”
Rayne’s eyes grew huge as Willow, a member of Stephen’s pack and a woman no less, called him out and insulted him in front of the few members of the RRT who stood nearby.
“That’s enough. We’re done talking,” he snarled. “Now I’m going to deal with you once and for all, and then I’m going to handle your bitch.”
“Wow, that’s a cheesy line if I ever heard one,” Aiden fired back, trying to keep calm despite the insult to Willow. He needed to keep his head about him if he was going to win this fight. “Been practicing that one in the mirror? Hoping you’d get the chance? ‘Cause really, you should have tried harder if you wanted to sound badass. I could give you a few pointers if you—LOOK OUT!”
He pushed Willow to the side as Rayne came at him, shifting as he m
oved. Aiden took the first blow so that he could ensure that she was safe. In hindsight that might not have been the smartest move, but he could berate himself for being full of himself later. First he had to show Rayne just how badly he’d underestimated Aiden.
His body shivered, and as he pushed Rayne clear he fell to the ground in his wolf form. It was time to rise up and show the world what he was made of.
To show Willow what he was made of. That he could be the man for her.
Twenty-One
Willow
The two wolves stalked around each other in a circle for what felt like an eternity, feinting and dodging without ever really striking a blow. Aiden’s huge raven-furred beast against the nearly equally large white wolf that was streaked with dark gray.
When they finally closed with each other, it happened so fast she could barely keep up. The black wolf darted in with what looked to be another feint, but this time it never stopped. The other wolf was caught off guard and reacted too slow to get out of the way. Realizing it was going to take a hit, it accepted that fact and ripped a chunk of Aiden’s flank free. The dance repeated itself again and again. Neither side seemed to be gaining an advantage, though they were both covered in blood.
In the end, it was the smallest of mistakes that ended the fight. Aiden had been circling, pushing ever so much closer to his foe. The other wolf matched him stride for stride, when suddenly Aiden’s black wolf shot forward. To her eyes he appeared to be moving slower, as if he wanted to give time for the unknown fighter to back away.
Which is exactly what happened.
The white and gray wolf shuffled backward, preparing to swipe a paw across where Aiden’s face would be. Willow saw it all coming from a mile away, and she knew if she could see it, then both wolves could see it.
But what she and Aiden’s opponent had failed to notice was the ending of the stone patio. It was so large, over a hundred feet across, that they were just sort of used to it. But now it ended, and grass began. It was only a four- or five-inch drop, but when the white wolf put its weight on its back legs and they suddenly had to fall half a foot farther, it was caught completely and totally off guard.