Cade (Alexander Shifter Brothers Book 2)

by Selina Coffey

  But there was a straight shot down the alley to freedom. I paused just long enough to level a kick at his ribs and then I ran like the damned wind, down into the lights and the crowds on Eighth. To my right, nothing. To my left…oh, god. I knew those black eyes, and they weren’t Dominick’s. I turned right and ran like my life depended on it, which it probably did.

  And I actually thought I was doing well for a while. I mean, I thought maybe they didn’t want to attack me in the crowd, and if I could just keep going long enough, they’d decide I wasn’t an easy enough mark and let me go. It was only two streets later, dodging each of them as I caught sight of them in the crowd, that I stumbled into the dark old parking lot and realized what had actually been happening.

  They’d been herding me.

  I hadn’t gotten away from James at all—he’d just made enough marks that anyone who saw me knew he could hurt me. Anyone like, say, Dominick, who was staring at me in horror. And as he looked at me, the cloud cover broke. Just for a moment, just enough.

  Moonlight flooded the parking lot and caught Dominick’s eyes. Slit pupils flashed in the darkness and I think I screamed. My conscious mind finally understood what my animal brain had been trying to help it figure out all this time: this wasn’t the Mob. This was something far, far more dangerous. As Dominick stretched up towards the sky, his head thrown back, his lips clamped closed to keep his mouth shut on a howl.

  Werewolves. Fucking werewolves. My brain didn’t even try to deny what it was seeing this time. And from the growl behind me. I knew the rest of them had arrived for the fight.

  Shit.

  Chapter Five

  The growls came from behind me, and for a moment, I froze. But if the night had taught me anything, it was that they were going to do what they damn well pleased, and that they weren’t overly concerned if I lived or died. I snatched the mace out of my purse and turned, baring my teeth in a snarl. Which was pretty funny, considering they all now had long teeth like, well, wolves. I thought I could make out which one was James, and he was advancing on me with something I could clearly tell was a grin. He was going to enjoy this.

  Screw him.

  Dominick took him out with a roar, coming from alongside me to bowl James over. There was a snarl and a yowl, and I stumbled back into the darkness. I yelped at the tangle of fur and the snapping of teeth, but this wasn’t the fight—not yet. They all drew away to circle, Dominick keeping himself between me and them.

  We don’t think he wants you to get hurt.

  My throat tightened. I knew that they’d be doing this whether I was here or not, that they’d been looking for him all this time, and yet… I felt guilty. My fingers tightened on the mace, and I felt my lip tremble. I didn’t think either of us were getting out of this, and the stupid part? The part that didn’t make any sense?

  I wished we’d actually gotten to talk more. The slit pupils didn’t even matter, the hint of sharp teeth that my brain knew were there—none of it was important. I bet that Dominick was lazy in the morning, that he’d hold me in bed and nuzzle the back of my neck until I drifted back to sleep with him. I bet he liked long walks in the woods.

  And I was never going to know. I sniffled and swallowed hard, trying to get ahold of myself. I was sure as hell going to do some damage on my way out.

  “So, Dominick.” James’s voice came out all growly. I could barely make out the words, but I knew why he was speaking in English—he wanted me to hear what was going on. “I told you we’d find you.”

  “Took you long enough.” Dominick’s lips curved in something that might have been a smile, if there weren’t quite so many teeth.

  “We could have found you any time we wanted,” one of the others hissed.

  “That’s why you resorted to using humans, right?” Dominick gave a bark of a laugh, but the sound changed to a snarl soon enough. “You never cared who you got involved.”

  “And you care too much.” James stood up to his full height, which now appeared to be much, much more than 6’2”. “Too much about them, not enough about us.” He swung his snout back to look at me as he thudded down onto four paws again.

  I swallowed and backed away.

  “You think if we go around killing humans, no one will notice?” Dominick was trying to reason with him, and that gave me a bad feeling.

  It turned out I was right on that count, because James was done listening. Two of the others converged on Dominick and James leapt right for me.

  I pulled the tab back and sprayed the mace, trying to hold until he got close enough, and he gave a howl of displeasure, swiping over my head as I ducked. I was only just quick enough; I heard the claws come out as the huge paw whistled over my head, and my body went into overdrive. Wolves. Sharp teeth. Claws.

  I was soft and squishy, and every part of me knew it. I rolled sideways, having the presence of mind to kick at the other dark shape I could see through my narrowed eyes, and I heard a yelp of pain. A hiss as they circled around me.

  Dominick came out of nowhere. Even in the dim light, as he catapulted into them and the group rolled away, all teeth and fur and growls, I could see that his coat was brindled, his snout proud, his ears up like a German shepherd. He was snarling, a low rumble that sent every sense into high alert.

  No one thought to warn me about this, I thought stupidly. It occurred to me that my family was just going to think some crazy person with a knife got me; no one was ever going to think it had been werewolves. Then my mind started working again. I only had a little bit of mace left, and no one was giving me the slightest attention; it would only work if I could get it in their eyes.

  And they were going to kill Dominick if I didn’t do something, which, considering that he’d obviously risked his life to help me, wasn’t something I could allow. Shit.

  Well, I had tiny scissors in my little sewing kit. They weren’t much, but it was literally all I had left at this point. I fumbled in my purse, clamped the scissors in my hands, and tried to pick my moment in the tangle of fur and snapping. Then I plunged them down on one of the werewolves’ spines. Did werewolves get paralyzed the same way as humans? I could only hope. And from the wolf’s scream of pain, I was pretty sure I’d done something useful.

  It turned on me with its teeth bared, staggering sideways, and the rest of the wolves didn’t even give it a second glance; they were still focused on Dominick. It was bleeding and they didn’t even care. For a second, I felt really bad for it.

  Except, I didn’t feel bad enough to stand there and die when it came at me with a snarl. I batted its mouth sideways out of instinct more than anything else and pummeled at its throat with one of my fists when it bowled me over. It was limping pretty badly now, but I was still terrified. The speed with which it moved, even injured, was pretty frightening. All I could hope for now was to cut its jugular or something, if wolves even had jugulars. Maybe its windpipe. The scissors were in my hand and I lashed out like a crazy person, flailing and snarling as much as it was, trying to distract it by throwing as many punches as I could. I curled into a ball to avoid the snapping of its jaws, waiting for an opening, and finally I found one. As it pounced, I wrapped my arms around it and dragged it down.

  One last punch, and I hit my goal—at least, judging by the amount of blood I was covered in. It screamed and I did, too, turning my face away so I didn’t have to see what it was I’d done.

  Oh god, oh god.

  The rest of them hadn’t even noticed, damn them. I took a moment to try to hold my stomach down, and then looked over to where Dominick was fighting off the others.

  The sight of it took my breath away. They were moving so fast that all I could see was a blur, every one of them getting out of the way of teeth and claws just at the right moment, or taking hits that would have killed any human outright and shrugging them off. And Dominick? Dominick was even faster than the others, a sort of brown-and-black streak of shadow, twisting and snapping.

  Well, I had thought maybe he’d
been in a fight at some point. It looked like he knew his way around fights pretty well, in fact. He reared up on his hind legs and brought both of his forepaws down, catching James across the shoulder and the face. A roar—which of them, I wasn’t sure—and James crouched, leapt to catch Dominick in the midsection.

  There were still two left, circling like panthers, waiting for their moment to leap in and finish what James had started, and I was furious. Maybe Dominick could have taken on two of them, but there were still three of them left.

  I picked up a rock and threw it, catching one of the lackeys squarely in the side. As Dominick reared up again, I threw myself forward, swinging a fist wildly. Like hell I was going to let this man die.

  I should have run, I thought, when the beast turned on me. Oh, well. So much for good sense. We were down the rabbit hole now. I rolled sideways, giving a muffled yell of pain as I made new bruises to add to my collection. Pavement isn’t exactly comfortable.

  Behind me I heard a scream, and there was no mistaking it—I’d heard that sound when I killed one earlier. I went hot, and then cold. I was going to be sick, and if I was sick, I wasn’t going to survive this. Unless I threw up in the werewolf’s face. That was a funny thought, and it gave me just enough hysterical energy to throw another punch. I was trying not to think who might have died. If that scream had been Dominick, I was about five seconds from dead myself.

  But just as the wolf pinned me down, its breath hot on my face and its teeth bared in a demonic grin, a brindled shadow knocked it sideways off of me. Teeth and claws whistled through the air and I pushed myself up just in time to see Dominick roll to his feet and shake himself off.

  I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked around in shock. The parking lot was silent now, apart from the distant roar of people and sirens and music—never too far away in New York. But none of the shapes on the pavement around me stirred.

  As I pushed myself to my feet, the parking lot went dark, clouds covering the moon, and the last wolf staggered to his knees, shrinking back into a dark-haired man with a navy sweater, bleeding from a cut to his face.

  “Dominick?”

  “Thank God you’re alive,” he managed. Then he passed out.

  Chapter Six

  “I thought I might find you here.” I bent to push a beer across the table.

  “What’s this for?”

  “You bought me a beer the night we met, remember?” I slid into the booth, next to Dominick, brushing my ponytail over my shoulder. “Also, you know, the saving my life thing.”

  “You mean, in the fight you wouldn’t even have been in if it weren’t for me?” He looked over at me, black eyes sad.

  “Is that why you haven’t been in here?”

  He’d been avoiding me. I managed to get him to a bar because he refused to go to a hospital, and he’d insisted that I go home, lock the door, and sleep with my phone by my bed. Actually, he suggested a gun, but I didn’t have one of those. And it had been five weeks since I’d seen him. In fact, I’d given up until I saw him slip into the bar near my house, his eyes taking in the Wall Street guy I was chatting up.

  The Wall Street guy hadn’t been pleased when I ordered a beer and ghosted out, but I didn’t feel too bad. He’d been kind of a jerk. Something something investments, something something yachts. When Dominick walked in, Wall Street guy was just telling me how he was taking up helicopter flying, like he wanted me to think he was a bad boy or something. I refrained from telling him that I’d done much more badass things than he had in his life.

  Like fight werewolves, for instance. Although I wasn’t keen to do that one again.

  “Yeah.” Dominick looked up at me. He was twirling the beer between his fingers, looking a bit nervous. It was adorable.

  “You know if it hadn’t been me, it would have been some random person off the street, right?” I’d been thinking about it a lot, trying to keep myself from feeling guilty. It was ridiculous to feel guilty for killing someone who’d tried to kill me first, but that didn’t seem to stop me. And when it got really bad, all I could tell myself was that they’d wanted to use someone to distract Dominick, and it just happened to be me. For some reason, that made me feel better.

  It seemed to make him feel better, too. He nodded and took a sip of beer.

  “So, uh…why’d you come back?” I leaned back in my chair, trying to conceal how nervous I was. My heart was pounding and I held my own beer in a death grip.

  It was kind of ridiculous that after a werewolf death match in a parking lot, I could still get all unnerved by flirting. But what can I say? I had a crazy crush. I felt like a high schooler waiting to see if someone wanted to go to prom with me. I couldn’t even look at him.

  “I think you know why.”

  I swallowed hard. He wasn’t nervous anymore. That voice was like velvet, sliding all over my skin, making my spine tingle. I felt my lips part, and knew I was blushing.

  “Do I?”

  “Look at me.” He said it mildly enough, but it was definitely a command. He waited until my eyes snapped back to his. “I came to see you.”

  That was the sort of polite thing that would normally make me roll my eyes, but this man was far from just polite. There was a promise in those words, and it made me shiver in the best way.

  “Oh,” I managed. I couldn’t seem to think of anything to say.

  “That is, you know…if you want to see me.”

  “Why would I buy you a beer if I didn’t want to see you?” I rejoined.

  He grinned, and I melted.

  “Come with me.”

  I remember him reaching out to take my hand, and the next minute we were in the back of the bar and I was up against a pillar with his teeth at my neck and my fingers slipping inside the waistband of his jeans. The other bar patrons might not have appreciated it, but I couldn’t have cared less. I was wet already, and it was only when his hands came up under my tank top that I had the presence of mind to suggest we go somewhere else.

  “I live…” I lost my breath in a little moan when his teeth nipped at my neck “…right upstairs.”

  “Do you.” His back arched when I raked my fingers down it. “Is that important?”

  I drew back so sharply I nearly banged my head on the pillar. Then I saw the corner of his mouth twitching.

  “You are such an ass.”

  He laughed, and like hell I was going to let him leave after that. So I hooked my fingers into the waistband of his pants again and pulled him back for another kiss, one hand brushing against that bulge in his pants, my mouth opening under his. I laughed when he groaned against my mouth, and my fingers skimmed over the tip of his cock. I moaned in his ear when his fingers slipped up under my skirt to trail over my panties. I could feel him trying to control himself, and I wasn’t about to let him win that fight, but damn if he wasn’t holding his own.

  “Don’t make me beg,” I said in his ear, gasping when his hips pushed against mine.

  “No?” He pulled away just long enough to raise an eyebrow at me, and his thumb skimmed across my nipple. “Because that was pretty much my plan?”

  I was going to come right in this bar, and if I was going to, then he was going to, too. I bit my lip a little.

  “Please?”

  That broke him. We were out of the bar in a second, him dragging me behind him, me fumbling for the keys and us tumbling into the apartment. I didn’t check to see if my roommate was home. At that point, I don’t think I remembered I had a roommate.

  And I only had time to get his zipper down before he pulled me down onto the bed with him. His fingers pushed my panties aside, playing between my legs while I squirmed and whimpered and finally sank down on his cock, gasping at how wet I was. He gave a groan, fingers digging into my hips, and I rocked against him. His nails dragged down my back and across my ass, and I was riding him like I couldn’t get enough—because I was sure I never would. When his fingers brushed against my clit, I was over the edge in a second, gaspi
ng his name and clenching around him.

  It was a few moments before I could remember how to breathe, and I heard him laugh; dammit, the tremors weren’t even over and I already wanted more.

  “My turn,” he said, that sexy voice making my nipples harden.

  He rolled, pinning me onto the bed, those black eyes staring down at me. I could feel him holding himself back. Waiting.

  “Please,” I whispered again. I could picture everything I wanted, and the words were on my lips, but when he started moving inside me, slowly, everything went out of my head. I writhed on his cock and begged for more, whimpering as he moved faster, wrapping my legs around his waist and jerking my wrists against his hands. He didn’t even have to try to keep me pinned there, and goddamn if that didn’t make me melt.

  By the time he came, I’d been begging him so long that I’d forgotten any word besides please. He knew just what to do to bring me to the edge, and the bastard knew just when to stop, too. He laughed when I whimpered for more, and that laugh made me clench, tangling my legs in his and tilting my hips for more. When at last I felt his pack quicken, the rush of anticipation made me lose my breath.

  I had never come that hard in my life. My toes curled, my vision went dark, and I could feel him shuddering while he came, too, sliding into me to the hilt, one hand pushing my leg up over his shoulder. All I wanted was more—to have him deeper inside me, for him to keep fucking me like this. I remember begging him not to stop.

  When I finally opened my eyes, his were still closed. He bent his forehead against mine and I could feel the tremors in his arms as he tried to keep himself from collapsing on top of me. Somewhere in all of that, his fingers had intertwined with mine, and I squeezed gently against his hands.