by Sayde Grace
“You really want me to add breaking my steering wheel to the list of things I’m going to whip your pretty little ass over?” Jasper growled outside the window.
Sidda turned her head slightly. Towering over the car, Jasper stood with his arms crossed over his chest and a nasty bump on his head. No wonder her knee hurt.
“Get out of the car, Sidda.”
“No. Go away.”
“Sidda.” He growled menacingly, and her wolf trembled inside her. “I can smell him on you. Get out of the fucking car now.” His voice dripped with accusation.
How dare he? Sidda’s head snapped up. Her anger soared to new heights. He had the nerve to take that tone with her after everything he’d done? “Jasper, leave me alone.”
“I warned you.” He leaned down, and before she could scream at him to go away, he’d ripped the door off the car and had her by the ankles, dragging her out of it.
“Jasper! What the hell are you doing? Let me go, you bastard.”
“No. Now shut up.”
“God, I hate you. Please just let me go. I don’t want to be around you or see you, hear your voice, nothing. Just stop, leave me alone.”
To her surprise, he dropped her ankles and stared down at her. She crab-walked backward to the car. Her back hit the metal hard, causing it to bend and creak.
His eyes bore into hers. Deep regret filled those beautiful green eyes. “You’ve chosen? You’ll believe a bastard like Stephan over me?”
“Why should I believe anything you say to me? You lied to me. You said you loved me and that you wanted a life with me as your mate, but you already had a mate.”
“No, I didn’t. I was forced to start the Marking Bite as a child. I never finished it. Vivian was believed to be destined to be my mate, but I knew, always knew, that there was someone else out there. I didn’t—”
“You never told me any of it. And she’s been in Romania with you this whole time, hasn’t she? That’s why you never came home and why you stopped talking to me. What happened? She didn’t want to come here with you, so you figured you’d claim the next best thing?” Sidda turned from him. Screw this, screw him and her both. She inhaled and on the exhale spun to tell him to go to hell, but her phone lit with a new text message. Sighing, she glanced down at it.
A picture of Ms. Joy, her mother, Doc, and Cole at the movies surrounded by Dane’s wolves met her eyes. The message was simple. Save me before I destroy them. Shit, Stephan had them the entire time he’d been talking to her in the bar.
A car pulled up to one side of the parking lot. Her eyes took in the driver’s profile. A strong hard-edged profile met her before those violet eyes flashed in her direction. He was forcing her to chose right now! Damn, she hated male wolves. All assholes. She glanced at Jasper, who stared at the car.
“He’s got our family,” Sidda whispered.
Jasper growled and glared at her. “I won’t let you go. You know you aren’t getting in that car. I’ll kill him and everyone else who tries to take you from me.”
“Jasper, he’s got them, all of them. He told me I had to stop him before he destroyed everything I love. I have to.”
“I am your Alpha. I will handle this.” His hoarse tone made her back stiffen.
The human side of her, the one that she’d always relied on, surged forward. He might be her wolf’s Alpha, but he wasn’t going to control all of her.
“Jasper.” She grabbed his hands and focused with all of her mind on returning the sleep favor he’d bestowed upon her so many times recently.
His body began to relax, his mind opening fully to hers.
“Sidda, what the hell are you doing?” He snatched his hand away but slumped against the car.
“I’m saving everything I love, even if I’m still pissed.” She leaned forward and kissed his cheek, sending the last of the power she could summon into him. His eyes rolled back, and she helped him into the car.
His hair dropped over his forehead, and she tucked it away. With one last kiss to his warm skin, she turned and walked away from the wolf she loved.
Chapter Seventeen
“You see, already you’ve calmed my beast.” Stephan put down his phone. “They are all safe.” Sidda slid into the passenger seat of his car. She shook her head before their gazes locked.
“This is insane, and we both know it. I can’t control your wolf.”
“It’s not insane. If you only knew how I felt right now, you’d understand.”
Sidda pulled her phone from her pocket. “You’d better hope they’re all right.” She punched in Cole’s speed dial number.
“Or what?” Stephan mocked her.
“Or I’ll break your nose, dipshit.” A flash fire of anger scorched her. She hated being mocked by anyone.
“Sidda, Sidda, Sidda. It’s not wise to threaten me.” His sing-song voice grated on her nerves.
“It’s not wise to be in the damn car with you either, but here I am,” she muttered more to herself than to him.
Beside her, Stephan gave a snort of laughter but quickly reined in his humor. “Who are you calling?”
“My brother.” Close enough, Cole had always treated her as a sister, and god knows, she loved him like one. “I want to make sure you aren’t lying.”
Sulfur filled the small space. “I may be a lot of things, but a liar I’m not. I said they are safe, and they are.”
Sidda gaped. “You used them to get me in this car and away from Jasper. You could be lying.”
The phone rang once before Cole’s carefree voice filled her ears. “What’s up?”
Sidda glanced at Stephan.“Where are y’all?”
“Home. Where are you and Jasper? There’s some guy and girl here. The girl’s hot. She looks just like you but blonde. I’m kinda excited.” His laughing voice did nothing but remind her of who the blonde was and why she’d come.
“Sidda? You all right?” Cole’s voice slowly turned concerned.
She cleared her throat, wiping the tears forming in her eyes away. “I’m fine,” she lied. She was a damn mess. “Listen, I need you to get the guy that’s there. Has he talked funny and referred to me as Alpha?”
“Yeah.” Cole hesitated. “But…”
“Shut up, Cole, and listen. Get the new guy, whatever his name is, and drive out to Ven’s bar.”
“Why the hell do I want to drive all the way out there?”
God, Cole would shit a brick when she told him what she’d done. “You need to pick Jasper up. I knocked him out. Now just go get him. I’ll call you later.” She hung up. Sidda had no desire to explain anymore.
Sidda took a deep breath before turning her phone off. Cole would just call her over and over until he found out what the hell was going on.
“What did you do to Gandillion?” Stephan eyed her.
“I don’t know. I wanted him to black out so he couldn’t try to stop me, and when I touched him, he did.” It wasn’t entirely the truth. She’d done a little more than that, but she didn’t want to reveal how strong the bond between Jasper and her had grown.
“Interesting. We’ll have to test that power and see if it works on other wolves. First though we need to get home. For now that home is Dane’s. Soon, after our Marking Ceremony, we’ll build our own home together.”
Panic welled in her. She couldn’t go to Dane’s home, and she damn sure couldn’t build a home with Stephan. She wanted to turn back the clock and run far away with Jasper. Who cared if he’d bitten someone before her? She loved him. She fought back the bitterness. That wasn’t entirely true. She did care that he’d marked someone else. But she wasn’t what Stephan thought. She had no special ability to stop him from doing anything.
“Look, I know you think I was made for you, but I’ve mated with Jasper, and we are bonded.” She hoped her even, calm tone would help him understand that she was Jasper’s.
Stephan glanced at her, his eyes turning black. “You can’t be fully bonded. He already has a mate. Maybe you feel
a bond for him because you are pack members, but that is all.”
For a second she thought of arguing with him, but maybe having him and Dane believe she and Jasper hadn’t bonded would work in her favor. There was a chance Jasper would never speak to her again after she’d turned his power against him, but she had to save their family. She hoped he understood. But then, by now, he was probably with the blonde, her half-sister, who she’d knocked out. Yet he’d tracked Sidda down, still confessing his love for her.
She shook her head. There was no hope now. He’d believe she picked Stephan over him, and he’d never forgive her for that. The angst in his face when he thought she believed Stephan instead of him nearly made her wretch from the whiskey was now burning in her stomach.
Wanting to get her mind off her heart-ripping pain, she changed the subject. “Does Velham know you’re bringing me to his home?”
A muscle twitched in Stephan’s jaw and sulfur filled the air. “It doesn’t matter. You’re my mate.”
Sidda wanted to ask more about the tension that filled his body but let it pass. Stephan wasn’t exactly stable when he was mad. Hell, he wasn’t stable on a good day from what she could tell. “What about rooms? I can’t stay in the same room with you. I don’t know you.”
He laughed, a small bitter laugh. “No, I didn’t figure you would be willing to stay with me. And I’m not monster enough to force you…yet.” His gaze raked over her body. A shiver of unease crept along her spine. He meant to have her soon, and he was just crazy enough to believe it possible. But it wouldn’t happen. “I’ve had a room made up for you next to mine. But soon you’ll share my bed. Sidda, I was dead serious earlier. You calm me and make the forest call fade.”
“What the hell are you talking about now?” Sidda dropped her blocks, hoping to reach out to Jasper to sense his health. She’d whammied him hard earlier, both with her knee then with his own power. Silence met her. Crap, he was still out cold.
Stephan turned off the radio, which had been playing a soft country song. “Sometimes the forest calls to a wolf. It begs for the human side to fade and allow the wolf to run wild in the forest. Ever since I was ten, I’ve felt it calling to me. Dane took me in, taught me how to suppress it, but he swore to me my mate would ease it all the way. That he’d make me a mate who would do that.”
Make him a mate? Dane Velham had convinced a child he was crazy and then convinced him he’d cure it all by “making” a female for him. The bastard had made Stephan what he’d become and had controlled him for years with the promise of something he could never have. Sidda’s heart went out to the innocent child Stephan may have once been.
“So do you feel it when you’re near me?”
“No. The call disappears the instant I’m near you or your mother.”
“So my mom really is alive?” Sidda sucked in a gasp of burning air when he nodded.
“I won’t say anymore about her until Dane sees you.”
“Screw that. Tell me why he’s kept my mother alive all these years and why the hell he threw me in that damned dumpster outside the warehouse.”
“What?” Stephan growled, jerking the car off the road.
“My mom found me in a dumpster outside a warehouse. She’d heard Dane tell someone to just throw me away.”
“Goddamn it.” Stephan slammed his fist down on the steering wheel, nearly busting it in two. “That fucking bastard.” His hands trembled. “We have to get home now. I need to speak with Dane.”
The raw emotion swirling in the violet depths of Stephan’s eyes spoke to her wolf. This was a pack mate hurting, and her wolf reached out to him. Sidda wanted to jerk away from the thought of helping him, but her wolf pushed her away, and before Sidda knew it, Stephan relaxed. The odd sensation of rightness floated over her, and she stared out the window confused. What the hell had just happened? Had she bonded with him because he’d felt such strong emotions over her or had her wolf simply helped calm a pack mate?
Sidda didn’t want either possibility to be real. Stephan was a monster, Dane Velham’s second. The wolf who killed others for a living.
Clearing her throat and mind of the situation, she turned back to face him. “What about other pack members? Will anyone else be there?”
“A few here and there. Only Dane, me, you, and his sons live there.”
Sons? She had siblings? More than the one Jasper had mated with. Damn it! Rage built within her again, and she fought the urge to let her angry tears stream down her face.
“It will pass.” Stephan reached across the car to place his large callused hand over hers. “The rage of betrayal will never go away, but in time, it will fade some.”
“Betrayal? What do you know of betrayal?” Her bitter tone was harsher than she’d intended.
“It’s my middle name.” He quirked a cocky grin which reminded her of Cole in a way. “Here we are.” He pointed to a large iron gate.
Pulling to a stop, he rolled his window down and punched in a code. The gate swung open, and Stephan straightened in his seat. The Gone with the Wind mansion in front of them screamed money and power. Two things she’d never had, two things that slightly intimidated her.
Stephan turned toward her. “Dane will use his power against you, but you’re stronger than him. Even he would not have been able to stop me in my rage from killing your family tonight if you’d refused me. But you could have, and you did. Never forget that you have the power to keep me from destroying everything. That power alone is something I doubt anyone else would be able to gain without killing me.”
“Would you have truly killed them?” She hoped to see some regret in his eyes, some sign that let her know he wouldn’t have. I Instead, his eyes faded to black.
“Yes. Without question. Unless there had been children.”
“What? You’d kill someone just to prove a point to me, but you draw the line at kids?”
“Yes. Children are innocent and should stay that way. Death is not innocent, Sidda, nothing about it is.” His voice held a softness that made her wonder if he regretted his past actions.
“What about those babies at the warehouse?”
“All the children at the warehouse that weren’t what Dane sought were taken to orphanages.”
“Not all. We found leftover files and rotted bodies.”
Stephan shook his head. “No.”
“You weren’t the one to murder those people and babies?” Sidda wanted to believe it had been Stephan. It was easier to hate everything about him when she thought he was truly a monster. But, in the last two hours, she’d learned enough about him to know Dane Velham was the monster and Stephan just a pawn.
Stephan coughed, clearing his throat. “I was gone. I had been sent to ease a rebellion in New Mexico at the time. When I came back, Dane had moved your mother and brothers to the house.” He ran a hand across his face. He sighed and shook his head. “You really saw babies?”
“Bones still wearing white shirts and diapers with snapped necks is what I saw.” Just thinking about those babies had the whiskey rushing up her throat.
“Deep breaths. Don’t worry, Sidda, I’ll get to the bottom of this soon enough.” He growled the last part of it, and Sidda knew without a doubt he would.
Damn, it had been so much easier to hate the monster.
“And this should prove to you that you are my mate. The only one who can make me think clear, past the rage.” His voice sounded so sure.
Sidda didn’t understand. She wasn’t a savior or some damn miracle worker. She wasn’t anything special, but the fool had fixated on her and believed she held power over him, which was all that mattered. If she could keep him happy, he’d leave everyone she loved alone and alive.
“Stephan, you do realize I think you’re crackhead crazy, right?” So maybe she had to work on her shut-your-mouth switch, but his laughter filled the air.
“Yes, most people, including me, think I’m crackhead crazy. I am.”
“Well, at least we agre
e on one thing.”
Stephan eased the car to a stop. The door to the house opened and out walked the one man she’d been dreaming of killing. Dane Velham smiled brightly when she slid out of the car. Her father.
“Welcome home, my daughter.” His black eyes bore into hers, and she fought every instinct within her not to reach out and choke him.
Stephan grabbed her hand. She flinched slightly at his touch, but knew between touching him or Velham, she’d much rather touch Stephan. “Dane, this is Siddalee Brighton, your first offspring, and, quite possibly, the most powerful she-wolf ever.”
Dane grasped her free hand and yanked her to him. Killing rage built in Sidda. He touched her. The filthy bastard had touched her and called her daughter. A part of her wanted to give into the urge to vomit, but she wasn’t weak. If anything, she’d prove to him she was the wolf who would take everything away from him, including his life.
Dane’s other hand tipped her head up so he stared directly into her eyes. “She is a fine she-wolf. I’m proud to have her as a daughter.”
Sidda barely kept from growling at him. Her body shook with fury, but she held it in. Stephan had stepped to Sidda’s side and gently pulled her from Dane’s grip. Sidda bit the inside of her cheek until the metallic taste of blood filled her taste buds. God, she couldn’t wait to kill Dane Velham.
Chapter Eighteen
Jasper shot up from the couch. Son of a bitch. He was at the house on the couch! Damn Sidda. When he got his hands on her, he’d strangle her stubborn ass.
“Easy. She knocked you out twice in one night. Your head has got to be killing you.” Cole’s voice brought Jasper from his rage.
“How did I get here?” The last thing he remembered was Sidda trying to get away from him.
“I got a call from Sidda about one this morning saying to get back to the house, pick some huge ass guy up. Turns out to be Ivan, a werewolf from Romania.” Cole raised his eyebrows, but Jasper ignored the questioning glance. “She said to head over to Ven’s Bar out in Bumfuck to pick you up.” Cole shook his head.