“You know why we’re here,” Rodrigo said, his usually friendly demeanor gone. “Hand them over, Alpha.”
Lljuffa had her eyes trained directly at Grant. “Alpha, please cooperate.”
“You can’t!” Jade said, clutching at Sebastian’s arm, her eyes glowing an eerie green. “You can’t take him!”
Rodrigo nodded to one of the men, who approached Sebastian. He pointed a weapon at him, and when Jade tried to put herself in front of her mate, Sebastian’s eyes changed to their burning gold color, indicating that The Beast was ready to rip out of his skin.
“Stand down!” Grant ordered.
“Take him!” Rodrigo hissed.
“Lljuffa, Rodrigo,” Grant said in a warning voice. “Do you have the resources to keep Sebastian from shifting? Can you stop him from shifting and tearing this whole building apart? I keep telling you; you have no jurisdiction over him. He’s not pledged to you or to me. But, if you insist on taking him, you can bet I will fight you with everything I have, not to mention his own resources. You don’t want this type of war on your hands.”
Lljuffa’s icy eyes hardened, but she gave a short nod. Sebastian’s eyes returned to normal, his body relaxing as Jade collapsed against him in relief.
Rodrigo’s face fell. “Fine, but the warlock is coming with us. He must pay for his crimes against the Lycans and suffer for his collaboration with our enemy.”
“No!” Meredith protested. “Alpha,” she looked over at Grant, pleading to him, “don’t let them take him. You know he’s not a bad person!”
“He’s our prisoner,” Grant said.
“A prisoner?” Lljuffa asked in a mocking tone. “Then why isn’t he in a cell?”
Grant’s jaw tightened. “He is pledged to me—”
“Stop it, Grant!” Lljuffa cut him off. “You know that’s a flimsy excuse. His pledge means nothing. He is not a Lycan. The warlock or Creed, it’s your choice.”
“Neither,” Grant said, standing up. “If it’s a war you want, it’s a war you’ll get, Lljuffa.”
There was an audible gasp in the room, and the air went heavy until it was so thick it was like breathing molasses. Meredith was choking, her inner she-wolf begging to be let out. Everyone around her was already on the verge of shifting.
“Stop,” Daric said. “There is no need for violence.” He stepped forward, and Meredith grabbed onto his arm. “No, min kjære,” he whispered. She looked up at his blue-green eyes and his handsome face. He seemed to be silently pleading with her to trust him. With a slight nod, she let go of his arm, her heart thumping against her chest. She hoped what she had read was right.
“I will come with you peacefully,” Daric said, stretching his arms out. “But only if you take me personally. I will not go with your goons.”
Lljuffa and Rodrigo looked at each other.
“Fine,” Lljuffa relented. “Come with us, warlock.”
The two Lycans reached out to him, but he grabbed them first. His fingers wrapped around each of their arms, his body stiffening as the visions flooded his mind. They didn’t make sense. It was like two competing channels on a television screen. Letting go of one arm, he hoped he had picked the right person. The visions cleared again. A rooftop on a moonlit night. A man in the hat in front of him. Hands pushing him over the ledge and a desperate scream. The sound of flesh and bone hitting the pavement.
When he released the hand, he looked up slowly, tracing the path upwards to the face of the person who killed Archie Leacham. “You. You did it.”
Rodrigo’s eyes flashed with panic for a moment, but the Lycan composed himself. “Are you coming with us now, warlock? Or,” he looked over at Meredith. “Will there be violence?”
“I’m not going anywhere, cur,” Daric said in a menacing tone. “You killed Archie Leacham. Why?”
“Who?” Rodrigo asked smoothly without missing a beat. “I don’t know what you’re talking—Fuck!”
Meredith didn’t know what came over her, but all she could think and see was red. She pounced at Rodrigo, somehow grabbing a letter opener on Grant’s desk as she leaped over it on her way to the other Lycan. Bringing the slim metal tool to his neck, she twisted around so she was behind him and her other arm was around his waist. “You slimy son of bitch!” she shouted. “You killed Archie! You killed our dad!”
As the Lycan enforcers advanced towards Meredith and Rodrigo with their weapons raised, Killian and Connor hunched in on themselves, and their wolves burst from their bodies. Killian’s animal was pitch dark, like his hair, with eerie turquoise-colored eyes. Connor’s, on the other hand, was light gray, but a monster and feral-looking. The animal had to have been over eight feet tall on its hind legs, and his face bore the same scar as his human form. Large teeth were bared, growling at the enforcers, who were all now on the verge of shifting as well.
“Stop!” Lljuffa ordered. “No more shifting! I forbid it!”
The enforcers looked confused and backed away from Meredith and Rodrigo.
“Stand down, Killian, Connor!” Grant barked. The two wolves slunk back but remained in their Lycan forms.
“Get this crazy bitch off me,” Rodrigo moaned as Meredith pressed the tip of the letter opener deeper into his skin.
“Tell us why you killed him!” she hissed.
“You all are insane! I didn’t kill anyone!”
“I saw it, in my vision,” Daric said. “You can’t deny it.”
Rodrigo looked around, “What are you waiting for? You all would take the word of a warlock and his stupid whore Lone Wolf over mine! He’s lying! He didn’t see anything! Why would I kill anyone’s father?”
“Because he knew what you were doing,” Quinn answered from where he was sitting, his voice edgy, but eerily cold. “It was you. All these years. You orchestrated everything.”
“I don’t—”
“Shut up!” Meredith pushed the knife harder, breaking the skin, so a drop of blood formed at the tip.
“You knew Archie. You were his contact in the Council. He came to you for help and told you what he’d discovered.” Quinn stood up, taking his computer with him. He went to Lljuffa, showing her the screen. “You tried to erase his messages from your phone, but I found them. And you’ve also been accessing the files of the registered Lone Wolves around the world.”
Lljuffa’s face went pale, then her eyes grew hard as diamonds as she read from Quinn’s screen. “Rodrigo…this…why?”
“Yeah, tell us,” Meredith snarled. “Did you kill my biological dad? To wipe out our clans?”
“I…” He relaxed against her. “Stefan threatened me. He made me do it! Please!” he begged.
“You’ve been planning this for over twenty years,” Quinn said. “I found your private files, traced where you copied them from the main Council server to your laptop. You have files of over thirty Lone Wolves going back for the last two decades. All of them abandoned after their families and clans were wiped away, or other clans refused them. You bribed Meredith’s Alpha so she’d be sent away, didn’t you? I bet I could find the payment for that.”
Meredith’s blood froze, and her heart beat against her ribs. “No…”
“Shut up!” Rodrigo screamed. Feeling that Meredith’s grip loosened, he wrenched away from her, grabbing the knife from her hand and turning it on her.
“No!” Daric yelled.
“Uh-huh, warlock,” Rodrigo warned. “Don’t even think about it. My lovely Lone Wolf, why couldn’t you have just let things be?” His eyes were wild, looking at everyone in the room. Lljuffa stood there in shock, while Grant remained very still. Everyone in the room remained rooted to their spot. “Archie came to me with what he had found out. That old fool. All this time he suspected something was going on and he was right. Too bad he came to me about it, thinking I was going to help him. I had to kill him of course, and made it look like a suicide. Thanks to Stefan, covering up my tracks was easy.”
“Why?” Grant asked. “Why were you tryin
g to make more Lone Wolves?”
“The Lone Wolves were going to make the perfect soldiers,” Rodrigo explained. “With no clan or no Alpha ties, they would have been receptive to Stefan’s mind control spell.”
“Rodrigo!” Lljuffa gasped. “All this time…”
“What, you think I worked, clawed, and killed my way to becoming a High Council member for the fun of it?” He laughed. “Yes, I’ve been working with Stefan all this time.”
“To wipe out our kind?” Grant said. “You would do that?”
“Stefan’s not going to destroy all the Lycans,” Rodrigo said. “Just the ones who would refuse to bow to him once he conquers this world.”
“And I suppose you were going to be his right-hand man?”
“Of course! He promised me,” Rodrigo replied. “I would be Alpha and leader of all the remaining Lycans.”
Daric let out a laugh. “And you believed him? Stefan is not one to share power. He would have killed you, too.”
“You’ll never find out now, will you?” He looked at Meredith and wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her close. “I’m going to leave here now. If any one of you tries to stop me, I’ll slit her throat.” He gave her a lascivious look. “Maybe I’ll keep her for a bit. She looks like she’ll be fun in the sack.”
“I will strip every last bit of skin from your body before I let you touch her,” Daric threatened.
“Oh yeah? I don’t see how—Fuck!” Rodrigo let out a pained howl as a large, gray blur leaped from behind him. He screamed in agony as a massive paw swiped at his back. Jade had shifted into her wolf form and knocked him down. Rodrigo rolled away, and the gray wolf landed on all fours, fangs bared.
Meredith sprang into action, giving her best friend silent thanks as she dove towards Rodrigo, making him shriek in pain as she landed on top of him. “Murderer!” she screamed as a fist landed on his face. Her hands curled around his neck, fingers squeezing tight, all the while it seemed like the oxygen was being sucked out of her own lungs. She couldn’t breathe, and pain gripped her body. Her vision blurred around her, except for Rodrigo’s face as it turned blue. The she-wolf was demanding to be let out, to rip Archie’s murderer to shreds. She sent it a warning growl. No, she would have to do this. She wasn’t going to let the she-wolf take over the responsibility and pain and get the blood on her paws. Not this time.
“Meredith. Meredith!” Daric’s voice somehow broke through to her. “Stop. Don’t kill him.”
Her fingers loosened, and Rodrigo began gasping, but he was too weak to fight her off. There was something sticky on her knees, and she realized he was bleeding out fast.
“Don’t do it, Meredith,” Daric said softly as he knelt beside her.
“Why not?” Her fingers tightened again. “He killed Archie. He destroyed my life. All our lives.”
“And he will pay for his crimes. But Archie would not have wanted you tainted with blood and guilt.”
Tears began to flow down her cheeks, and Meredith looked back down at Rodrigo. No, she had to kill him. Make him pay.
“Please, Meredith,” Daric said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Killing him won’t bring your father back.”
She let out an agonizing sob and fell to the side. Daric caught her and embraced her, drawing her into his arms. The dam of her emotions broke and rushed out—rage, pain, regret, relief—and she continued to weep and rail at him, beating her fists on his chest.
“Let go of me!” Meredith struggled when Daric picked her up.
He ignored her and held her tighter. “I’ll take care of her,” Daric said to no one in particular as they left the office, and Meredith’s protests grew louder.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Daric carried Meredith all the way to his room, ignoring all the stares and looks from the people around them. He trusted that Grant and the others would be able to clean up the mess from the confrontation with Rodrigo, so he left them. Meredith was his number one priority, and she was hurting right now.
“Put me down, you brute!” she hissed. He complied, but not until they reached the shower. He dumped her into the stall and turned the shower on full blast. The cold water hit them both, making her shriek, but he remained still. She cursed and slammed her fists into him, unleashing her fury and screaming bloody murder.
“Are you done yet?” he asked when she took a pause. He switched the shower to blast them with warm water.
“No,” she protested. “I want that bastard dead for what he did. Why did you stop me? I had him!”
“I didn’t stop you,” he said. “You stopped all by yourself. You realized I was right.”
That only seemed to rile her up. “I’ll kill him now. Let me out of here!” She scratched at him, but he caught her wrists.
“You won’t. You can’t,” Daric said, slowly pushing her back against the wall.
“Oh yeah? Just you watch.” She tried to go around him, but he blocked the shower door. Finally, she let out another pained cry. “Please, I have to do it. For Archie.”
He shook his head. “Both you and I know that he would not have wanted you to live your life with the heavy weight of having taken a life.”
“How would you know?” she bit back. “And why do you care? Don’t you want to kill Stefan, too? If that was him in there, would you have stopped me? Stopped yourself from killing him?”
He let out a long sigh. “That’s different. I already have blood on my hands, and let me tell you, the guilt of killing weighs on me every day. I cannot bear the thought of the same thing happening to you.”
“Why?” she asked. “I’m already tainted. Archie is dead because of me, and only I could make it right!”
“You are not tainted!” he protested. “You are pure and beautiful and everything that’s good in this world.”
“Just let me do it! He was almost dead anyway, and the Council will probably demand he be put down for his actions. I’ll save them the trouble.”
“No.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I love you,” he said quietly, cupping her face in his hands. “I told you, I would give my last breath to protect you. Even from yourself.”
Before she could protest or even process what he said, his head lowered to hers for a kiss. His lips caressed hers gently, and she sighed, feeling the tension leave her body. She wrapped her arms around him, bringing him down to deepen the kiss. Meredith moaned into his mouth, pressing her body against his.
“Please, Daric,” she begged. “I need you.”
He slowly stripped her, leaving her clothes in a wet pile on the floor. She was not as patient, ripping his T-shirt over his head and unbuckling his belt with her trembling fingers. Shoving his jeans and underwear down in one motion, she got to her knees in front of him.
“Meredith,” he managed to choke out as her luscious lips wrapped around the tip of his throbbing cock. He braced himself against the tiles, pumping his hips in and out of her delectable mouth. She swallowed his length, taking as much of his cock into her until the tip hit the back of her throat, then pulling back and sucking on him until his knees trembled.
“I can’t…” he growled and pulled her up, even though his dick protested at the loss. He didn’t want to cum in her mouth, not this time.
“Inside me,” she ordered.
He raised one of her legs, hooking it over his arm. Taking his cock in his hand, he pointed the tip at her entrance, which was already slick with her juices.
“Now. Please.”
Daric grunted as he pushed into her in one motion, making her moan. She was tight and slick around him, and it took every ounce of his control not to cum inside her. He moved, slowly, taking deep breaths. She mewled in pleasure, pushing up against him as he thrust his cock deep into her. Daric reached between them, caressing her slick folds where her pussy lips gripped him. His fingers found her clit and stroked it with his thumb.
“Fuck!” she shouted as her body tensed and an orgasm washed over he
r. Daric felt her cunt walls constrict around him, making his cock leak. Not yet, he told his body. He wanted to savor this moment and make it last.
Meredith grabbed onto his shoulders and hoisted herself higher, wrapping her legs around him, bringing him deeper into her. He let out a low, guttural sound as his cock bottomed out in her.
“God, I can feel every inch of you,” she moaned. “C’mon, Daric. Fuck me. Fuck me harder.”
“Fuck,” he cursed softly and began to move inside her, dragging his cock along her tight passage. “You’re so wet for me. Only for me. You’ll only have me, only take my cock from now on.”
“Yes…fuck, yes!” She pumped her hips at him, seeking out the friction that would bring her over the edge.
Daric pressed his forehead against the wall behind her. “You’re mine,” he growled into her ear. “Come for me. Come around me, have your pretty little cunt milk my cock.”
She gripped him tight, pushing her hips forward as her orgasm blasted through her body. Unable to stop, Daric felt the wave of his orgasm pulsing through him, making his cock twitch and shoot out his cum deep into her, marking her and making her his. No, she had always been his, he knew that. From the moment they met, he knew this she-wolf was made for him.
Her ragged breath began to even out, and he disentangled her legs from him, and her feet dropped to the floor with a wet slap. She reached over and turned the water off, then looked up at him.
“Daric…” she whispered, reaching up to trace his jaw with her fingers.
“Let’s get dry,” he said, grabbing the towel behind him. He opened up the fluffy fabric and wrapped it around Meredith, drying her off. After using it on himself, he tossed it aside and carried her outside to the bedroom. She giggled when he picked her up, a lighthearted sound that made him smile.
As they lay down on his bed wrapped around each other, she looked up at him with her amber eyes. “Daric…what you said earlier…”
“Yes?”
“Did you mean it?”
“Of course. I love you.” He didn’t anticipate those words coming out of his mouth. They just did, and he didn’t regret it. “You don’t have to say it back.” Yet, he added silently.
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