by Ebony Olson
Kicking the door with the back of my heel, I forgot I was barefoot. Cursing when it stung, I limped back inside. I was so damn close. An alpha male would hate for a female he wanted to choose a lesser man. It was the perfect way to piss Dale off enough that he might let me leave. So damn close.
Chapter 9
Jeremy wouldn't let the glaziers come in the house, he made them walk around, and he stayed clear of the door. Taking my stuff into my bedroom, I continued working in there. An hour later, there was a knock on the door. Huffing, I closed my computer and inched the door open to Jeremy's handsome face.
"Can we talk?"
"Just give me the bill, please."
"We've got it."
"Okay." Not even arguing with them about paying for the window repair, I went to shut the door.
"Damn it." Shoving his foot in the door, Jeremy pushed it open, forcing his way inside, then slamming the door behind him. "Enough!"
Whimpering, I backed away. What on earth made me think a place with no neighbors was a good idea? No one could hear me scream here.
"Goddess, I'm not going to hurt you, Vera, so can you stop cowering?"
Shuffling further back, I shook my head.
"Call him and tell him you'll stay. End this nonsense."
Backing into my bedroom, I moved to try and shut the door. Stopping it with ease, Jeremy forced it open. Grabbing me, he set me against the wall. Tucking up in his hold, I covered the sensitive targets of face, neck, and abdomen by curling on myself.
"Vera." Voice soft, Jeremy tucked my hair behind my ear as he breathed over my head, followed by a long inhale. "Vera. Take a breath and look at me?"
Sobbing, I shook my head. That's how they open you up. They use soft words and feign sincerity. You let your guard down for a minute, lift your eyes, and they punch you in the face or grab you by the neck. I didn't beg. I learned long ago that begging makes it worse. It either urges them on or annoys them more. Either way, the result was more pain for me.
Pressing his body forward, Jeremy slid his arms around me and cuddled me, rubbing my back as he soothed me. "I hate seeing you unhappy and scared. I know you could be happy here if you gave it a real chance. If you gave us a real chance."
Hiccupping between sobs, I gasped for breath to respond. "Is that what you wanted to say?"
"It will do for now."
Pushing against his chest, I removed him from me. "Can you please leave?"
With a huff, Jeremy stepped back and turned to leave.
"Jeremy," he looked back at me, "I'm sorry I got you hurt."
Frowning, Jeremy tilted his head, then his brows lifted. "You know?"
Hugging myself, I slid down the wall.
"Vera, it wasn't your fault." Crouching down in front of me, Jeremy patted my hair as he soothed. "The guys shouldn't have chased the buck here."
"You still got hurt because of me." I felt so guilty.
"So, make it up to me. Stay."
Lifting my red-rimmed eyes, a spark of anger flashed in my chest. "I don't get a choice in that, do I?"
Lowering his head in defeat, Jeremy exhaled roughly. "We would all do anything to keep our mate once we found her, Vera. A love like that is a once in a lifetime thing."
"I don't know what love is."
"Then stay and find out." Peering at me from below his heavy brows, Jeremy stood. Caressing my head, he left.
Checking the time on the clock, I crawled to my bed to get my phone. "Vera?" my lawyer answered the call once her secretary put me through.
"Make the deal."
"Vera, are you okay?"
The sob came unbidden, and before I knew it, I was crying outright.
"I can call the police?"
The police and the monster they could bring back into my life were the last things I needed. "No. Just make the deal."
"I'll call his lawyer now."
Thirty minutes later, Melissa emailed me to let me know they'd accepted my terms. Dragging myself into the shower, I dressed for bed, then curled under my blanket with Netflix.
Dosing when I heard the knock at the back door, I considered getting up to answer it. Changing my mind, I closed my eyes. An emotional wreck after the day, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to Dale. Instead, I drifted off to a place where men didn't control me, beat me, or hurt me while claiming to love me.
Strong hands caressed down my body. A hungry mouth created a wet path down my midsection. Then Dale's afternoon shadow scratched across my tender folds.
"I've wanted you from the moment we met."
Biting my lip, I clutched my fingers in Dale's thick dark hair. My hands tingling with the contact.
"I'm going to make you cry my name so you will think of no other man but me."
My temperature was rising, my body aching for him. A lash of his tongue, I cried for mercy. Growling, Dale lapped at my heat. Moaning, I squirmed beneath him, biting my lip to resist crying out his name until it mattered.
A growl echoed through my room, startling me. Opening my eyes expecting Alpha, I shrieked to find Malcolm standing over me. His eyes were angry, his hands busy winding his belt around his fist, so the buckle hung down.
"Did you think I wouldn't find out you were still alive, Viridia?"
Whimpering, I shuffled up against the bed head as he shook his head.
"Dreaming of another man? First, you try to kill me, then you betray me."
"Malcolm..."
"I loved you, and you attacked me!" Raising his arm, Malcolm swung it back down with all his strength. As the buckle connected with my ribs, I heard a loud crack and pain lanced through my side. I screamed.
The pain startled me awake, and I struggled to breathe. Touching my side, I panicked when my fingers came away with blood. Staring wide-eyed at my fingers, I checked my room. It was empty, everything as it had been, but breathing hurt and I was bleeding where the buckle connected.
Struggling through immense pain, I made my way to the bathroom and lifted my singlet top. Black bruising covered the side of my ribs, and a cut was weeping. Strangling down my scream of anguish, I moved gingerly to my bed to find my phone.
"Vera?" Jeremy's voice came over the line, half asleep.
It was hard to stop crying long enough to talk. "I, I think I need a doctor."
Wide awake now, Jeremy's voice lost the sound of sleep. "What?"
More sobs burbled from my throat. "He found me."
"Are you at the cottage?"
"Yes."
"We'll be there in a moment."
Dropping my phone, I huddled against the side of my bed. My instinct was to apply pressure to the bleeding, but if I'd broken a rib, I didn't want to risk displacing it.
"Vera?" Dale's voice called from the back door. "Shit, it's locked. Vera?"
Drawing a breath to call back, pain seared through my side, and I cried out in pain instead.
"Vera!" Dale sounded frantic. "Give those to me."
A moment later, Dale was running into my room, his pants on and sans shirt. Bob and Jeremy behind him. "What happened?"
Lifting my singlet, I watched them all gasp in surprised horror. "He knows I survived. I dream real. In my dream, he found me and beat me with his belt."
Forehead drawing down, Bob tilted his head. "Are you sure you didn't fall?"
Dale held up his hand. "Vera, does he know where you are?"
"He'd be here if he did."
Accepting my explanation without hesitation, Dale nodded. "He'll be looking for you now." Dale looked to Jeremy. "Call Jonathan and get him to come over."
Stepping out of the room, Jeremy pulled out his phone and started talking.
Bob frowned. "You believe Malcolm did that?"
"Lycan females have a history of the goddess walking their dreams. Sometimes what she shows them comes back to the waking world with them."
"I always thought I must have dream walked, or he drugged me before hurting me, so I thought I was dreaming. But the first time I woke inju
red was the week before Malcolm became alpha. I didn't tell anyone because who would believe that insanity?"
Bob paled. "So, Malcolm beats her in her dream, she suffers it for real?"
Dale nodded and came to my side. He lifted my singlet and examined the wound. "You said he used a belt? Do you think he broke your rib?" I whimpered. "Okay, our doctor is on the way, Vera."
Sobbing into my bedspread, I gripped it in my fist. "How did this happen? I was so careful covering my tracks."
Putting his arm around me, Dale was careful not to put pressure on my injury. "I don't know." Holding me, Dale repositioned my face to his chest. Crying into his shoulder, my breath hitched on the spikes of pain from my ribs.
The doctor came an hour later. Jeremy letting him in. "Sorry, I was at work when you called. What happened?" Jeremy filled him in, then the doctor came to sit by me as Dale extracted himself.
"I'm Jonathan, the pack doctor, can I have a look?" When I nodded, he lifted my top to examine me.
Inhaling his scent of earth and musk, I exhaled and cringed. "You're pack too?"
"I am." Feeling around my injury, Jonathan concurred the rib was likely fractured. Turning his head to look at Dale, the doctor raised a brow. "This is your mate, right?" Dale nodded. "And she's full-blooded?"
"Can you not smell her?" Bob asked, exasperated.
Jonathan tapped his nose. "I was dealing with a blue bloater when you called. All I'm going to be smelling for a few days is a dead, drowned guy."
"She's full Lycan," Dale confirmed.
"Well, that's easier. Just bind with her, and she'll heal overnight."
Jaw tense, Dale gritted his teeth. "I won't do it without her permission."
Jonathan seemed lost. "What do you mean? She's your mate, protocol requires you to mark her and bind your life to hers. As a full blood female, you should have done it on the first meeting, since they are all the more precious."
Glancing up to meet Dale's eyes, I noted the rigidness of his posture, almost as if he was the one in pain. This is what he meant by protocols, and by not recognizing him. "It's okay."
"It's not okay, Vera. Once I mark you, bind with you, that will marry us. You aren't ready for that yet."
"Dale, I would agree to a mass orgy with you all right now if it stopped the pain."
"That's exactly what I mean. This is a lifelong bind, Vera. You can't agree to it just to heal a rib. Tomorrow morning, your rib would heal, but our mating would stay. If you had sex with Bob or Jeremy again, our laws entitle me to kill them."
"Wait, what?" Jeremy's eyes popped wide open.
"We didn't have sex," Bob defended, looking very guilty.
"I can smell both of you all over her." Dale pointed to Bob. "I could smell your combined scents of lust by the back door. And you, I can smell all over her and this room." He jabbed a finger at Jeremy.
"I didn't have sex with her!" both men defended. "I haven't even kissed her," Jeremy argued. Bob fell quiet and took a step back. Jeremy looked at Bob with wide eyes. "You kissed her?"
"She kissed me. You've smelled her. It's near impossible to resist her."
Dale's jaw was grinding hard, but I was resisting laughing, mainly because it would hurt even more.
"Take it outside." Directing them with a finger jabbed towards the door, Jonathan glared at them all. The three men complied.
"So, rest and pain killers?" I asked the doctor to focus my mind elsewhere.
"Not your first fractured rib?"
"Not by far." Though, not as often as you'd think. Broken bones meant longer recovery time, and Malcolm wasn't that patient. Malcolm was very good at only causing soft tissue injuries. The others who occasionally got to beat me weren't so refined in their beatings.
"If you aren't willing to let our alpha mark you, then I'll prescribe some pain killers for you..."
"They don't work. I'll make birch leaf tea, it's the most effective for relieving this sort of pain."
Jonathan took out a pad and gauze. "I'll clean this wound up and dress it and get out of your way then."
Grimacing, I lay as still as possible while Jonathan worked. "How come you weren't at dinner on Saturday?"
"I was on duty." Cleaning the wound, Jonathan met my eyes. "Why won't you mate with Dale?"
"Trust issues. Plus, I thought I was human until today." Jonathan frowned. "I only found out we are our own species today. Even when I realized Dale was old, it didn't occur to me, that if I'm the same, I'd also age well."
Jonathan started packing up his gear. "I'm going to give you some life advice. Since I'm your doctor, you should take it. Allow Dale to mark you. Besides the healing ability it will give you, it will protect you. Worry about the mating stuff later."
"Dale and I aren't going to happen. The last thing I need is another alpha male who thinks he can control me."
"But he's your mate? Surely you feel the connection, the draw to each other?"
Thinking of how my body tingled with his touch, and my dreams of Dale, I turned my face away. "Perhaps, I'm broken?"
"Passion finds us all, eventually."
Chapter 10
"Would you like me to stay?"
Eyeing where Dale stood by my bed, I concentrated on trying to relax with each breath. "No. Could you ask Jeremy to try and source some birch leaf for me, please? I'll need it for pain."
"I'll make sure you get it tomorrow." There was a pregnant pause. "Why did you kiss Bob? Are you attracted to him?"
"Am I female and have a heartbeat?" Bob was gorgeous. He had nothing on Dale, but still. Any of this pack could be models, and most were.
"I see." Shoving his hands in his pockets, Dale glared at the floor, his anger flaring.
"No, you don't."
"Then make it a little less obscure for me, Vera. Why does Bob appeal to you over me?" His anger ramping up a notch, hesitating, then backing down, like Dale was struggling to control it.
"He's not an alpha."
"You can't paint us all with the same tainted brush, Vera."
"You imprisoned me in my home. You painted yourself."
Dale was quiet. "You are my mate. I've been struggling for months to cope with the fact that you aren't feeling what I'm feeling. The idea of letting you up and leave my life-"
"So, trapping me here was the solution? Taking away my free will, giving me no other option but to do what you wanted. That was the best way to deal with your feelings?" God forbid a man actually considers how I felt.
"It's the solution I had available to me. We prepared the injunction to stop you buying the land. Cameron came to the hospital to give you the last chance to sell the property. If you still refused, he was going to serve you with the injunction. When he saw you and caught your scent, he called me and told me you were one of us."
"So, you allowed me to buy the house so you could draw me into your pack?"
"It was obvious you needed a place to go, Vera. If I didn't take you in, another pack would have stumbled across you and taken you instead." He shifted his stance and avoided my eyes. "I didn't mean to attack you that first night. The wolf was in control when you scared away his dinner. It wasn't until I was standing over you that I caught your scent and realized you were my mate."
Dale moved closer to where I lay on the bed. "When I saw your body covered with those bruises, I was furious. It was the only reason I held back from shifting and marking you then and there."
"Thank you for having enough control to resist that," I whispered, a little terrified of how bad my first night here could have been.
"Thank you for agreeing to stay."
"Jeremy convinced me to stay, not you. Thank him."
Dale stopped moving closer. "Should I ask how Jeremy convinced you?"
Tears threatened to spill with the admission. "He showed me how weak and vulnerable I am. That's not going to change by going somewhere else."
With his brow's pinching above his nose, Dale looked confused.
"Goodnight, Dale. Loc
k my door on the way out please." My eyes fluttered closed, unable to stay awake any longer.
A few hours later, the pain in my ribs woke me. Making my way to the bathroom, I washed my face clean and then made my way out to the kitchen. Feet stopping, I stared at the image before me.
Dale stood looking out the kitchen window wearing only a pair of tracksuit pants. When he lifted the coffee cup to his lips, all the muscles in his back shifted. His olive skin was glowing in the morning light. I almost felt the need to take a photo of him because it was that perfect a pose. Frowning, I glared at his back. He chuckled.
"You knew I was here?"
He finally turned around with a satisfied smirk on his face. "I always know when you are near. Can't you tell when I'm here?"
When I shook my head, Dale's smile dropped, his eyes blinking several times. Going to the fridge, I dug out some aspirin, dissolving four into a glass of water.
"Jeremy's having trouble finding a store that sells the birch leaf."
Glancing at him, I noticed the way he stood. Feet apart, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the coffee mug. He looked just as delicious from the front. Biting my lip, my eyes traced the gullies and rises of his abdomen. Snapping out of my trance, I caught Dale smirking as he lifted the mug to his beautiful luscious lips.
"Oh, my god! You used to model, didn't you?"
Dale seemed amused. "Yes. That's how I got into the business."
Shaking my head, I went to my notepad at the table. "Can you put a shirt on? This isn't a photoshoot."
"You have any men's clothes here, do you?" Dale raised an eyebrow.
"Your house isn't even a kilometer away."
"Now, how would that be fair?" Dale moved closer to me while I wrote on the notepad, his voice dreamy and full of all things naughty. "Why should I wear clothes when you aren't?"
Peering down at myself, I frowned in confusion. "I'm in my pajamas."
"So am I," Dale smirked. "Kind of."