by Alana Hart
“Aidan…”
He lifted his eyes, meeting hers. Her mouth parted, breath coming in small gasps, those deep brown eyes pleading. Pleading for what?
“Despite all the shit you went through, the best way to get you to respond was with pain,” he pressed his thumb hard into her palm. She cried out. “And fear.” His fangs slid from his gums. Four sharp fangs, like a wolf’s, touched his lips. Her eyes dilated, and she tugged at her hand.
“I’m—I’m not like that anymore. Aidan, stop.” She put a hand on his chest, pushing him away. But his reach was longer. He grabbed the front of her sweater and pulled her close, her elbow buckling between them.
She crashed against him, and he buried his face in her neck. Letting his claws out, he slipped his hand up the back of her shirt and dragged them lightly over her skin. She trembled, shoving her hands against his shoulders. When he pressed his lips to her neck she jerked against him, and when he set his fangs against the delicate skin, a strangled cry tore from her.
He needed to stop, not for her sake, but for his own. This was meant to hurt her, torture her, prove a point, but he was getting hard. He growled against her neck, dragging his tongue over the small indents his fangs had left. She shuddered, gripping his arms tight, dropping her head so he had better access to her throat.
Aidan trailed his nose along her throat, to her chin, over her jaw, breathing in her scent. His lips were on her cheek, close to her mouth, when he froze.
He lifted his head. She sensed his change, her fear piquing.
“What is it?”
“Motel,” he said and ran.
He heard her screaming for him as he tore through the woods, back down the path. Another growl rent the air, this one louder. Aidan ran faster.
He made it to the motel in time to see someone go flying out the door. It wasn’t Liam. The shifter crumpled to the ground in an unconscious heap as Aidan ran past.
Inside, he found Harry the girl perched on the arm of the couch, and Liam with his long arms wrapped around another shifter’s neck, squeezing. A cut over Liam’s eye was healing.
His brother glanced at him casually. “Fuckers found us.”
“Don’t kill him,” Aidan said. “He could have information.”
Liam shrugged and released the shifter. The man sank to his knees, coughing and gasping, his hand at his throat. He wore the same collar as the shifters from the first attack. Aidan crouched in front of the man, making sure that his hulking frame was all he could see.
“Who sent you?” he asked, his voice soft and calm, deadly.
The shifter laughed. “Ain’t worth my life to tell you,” he rasped.
“Someone’ll kill you if you tell us?”
“Aye.”
“Well if you don’t tell us, I’ll let him kill you.” He nodded at Liam, who grinned and waved at the man.
“I’m only here for the pup. Keep the bitch if you like.”
“I don’t appreciate you calling my friend a bitch.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you appreciate. I don’t bring that pup back, I’m a dead man.”
“Bring her back to whom?”
Liam snorted. “Whom.” He shook his head grinning.
The man smiled. “I ain’t telling you. You and you,” he jerked his head at Liam. “Both can go fuck yourselves.”
Aidan grabbed a fistful of the man’s shirt. A yell from outside caught their attention. Harry perked up. She jumped from the couch and ran to the door, but Liam scooped her up. Aidan took the shifter by the shoulder and hefted him to his feet. Pushing him ahead of them, they walked outside into the late morning sun.
In the space between the motel and the woods stood the other shifter, his claws out and pressed against Reagan’s throat.
Chapter Eight
Completely fucking useless, Reagan thought. That’s what she was. A useless, helpless human trying to protect a mythical creature while other mythical creatures were trying to take her away. Why hadn’t she just brought Harry to the Den when she discovered what she was? She could have knocked and left her on the doorstep.
But she meant what she said when she told Liam she was afraid it had been one of his pack that had given Harry to Hank. She wasn’t aware of anywhere else she could have come from.
She didn’t swallow for fear that the shifter would pierce her throat with his claws.
“Let my man go and give us the girl. You can have the bitch back in one piece.” The man behind her stank of blood and wet dog.
Aidan glanced at her. “Go ahead and rip her up. She’s just a human.” A pain much like a knife wedged into her heart. Well, good to know how easily he could let her go.
Liam snuggled Harry to his chest. “We got what we came for.”
“What you came for?” The shifter behind her shuffled from foot to foot. “Who do you work for?”
“Guy who bought this pup. Paying us to bring her back to him. Who sent you?”
Reagan stared between Aidan and Liam. Neither face revealed anything. Were they faking them out or had they really been sent for Harry?
“We were sent by—”
The claws on Reagan’s throat tightened. She screamed, but then the hand fell away without piercing her skin. She whipped around in time to see the rubber on the shifter’s collar melt. A silver wire sliced his skin and the oozing silver goo around the wire leaked into his neck. He screamed, tearing at his throat as it blistered and blackened.
Reagan stumbled away from him. The other shifter screamed as his collar broke. In a moment all was silent. The two shifters lay on the ground, their necks cut so deep they were nearly decapitated. They stared up at the bright, cloudy sky, eyes wide and dull, mouths open in a silent scream.
“Reagan,” Aidan’s soft voice drew her eyes from the horror. “We have to go.” Faces peered from the motel windows. Liam was already running around front with Harry in his arms. Reagan ran ahead of Aidan.
They were in the van, Liam on the bike, and pulling onto the highway when the cruisers blew past them, sirens and lights blasting.
Aidan drove for hours. Harry fell asleep. They stopped for gas as the sun started to set, and Liam came out of the gas station with food for Harry. A sinking feeling opened in Reagan’s stomach; she hadn’t thought to feed Harry.
Harry ate while they drove into the night, falling asleep as soon as she’d finished her gas station sandwich. Reagan didn’t think she could ever eat again, not after what she had seen.
It was almost midnight when they pulled into a parking lot. The snow had begun to fall heavily, blanketing the trees and ground. A dull sign called the place a motel, but Reagan saw a bunch of tiny cabins around a large, empty fire pit. It didn’t look like anyone was there.
“Where are we?” Reagan’s voice was hoarse from non-use.
Aidan cut the engine as Liam parked the bike beside him. “Connecticut. One of my uncles rents these cabins in the summer. No one’s here and no one will know we’re here.”
Reagan opened the door with a loud creak, the sound carrying in the hushed silence outside. She stepped down and lost her footing, her shaky legs giving out beneath her. She almost smacked her knees on the hard ground, but strong hands caught her under the arms. Looking up to thank Aidan, her voice stuck in her throat.
Liam pulled her to her feet and let go quickly, as if she were some nasty thing he’d rather not touch.
Aidan broke into the main cabin, grabbed three keys, and returned to Reagan, who leaned against the SUV, and Liam, who was holding a sleeping Harry to his chest. He handed them each a key.
“Cabins one, two, and three. Get some sleep. We’ll head to the Den tomorrow, but for now, just sleep.”
Liam took his key and headed to cabin one. Reagan didn’t protest to him taking Harry with him. She looked down at her key. Cabin three. Heaving away from the SUV, Reagan walked on wobbly legs to the cabin set on a small rise.
She didn’t wait for Aidan, but felt him walking behind her.
Her cabin, like the others, was tiny, with a miniscule porch; a chair and the door took up all space. It was cute, or would be in the summer. Right now it was an itty-bitty wooden box and the snow was coming down heavier. It caked in her hair and made her shiver. If Aidan noticed, he didn’t say anything.
She unlocked her cabin, the smell of must and old wood gusting out from inside. Aidan was still standing between the cabins.
“Aren’t you going to sleep?” she asked.
He shook his head, snow falling from his curls. “Going for a run. There’s no heat, but should be extra blankets in the trunk.”
She nodded, too tired and too drained to say anything.
He nodded back once, and then turned. She watched him walk to the woods, the moonlight the only light to see by, and then the darkness swallowed him up. With an exhausted sigh, Reagan went inside her little cabin.
There wasn’t a lot of room. A wide bed took up one wall, a small table and two chairs the other. There was a door at the back that led to a teeny bathroom. She found the blankets in the trunk by the door, took all of them to the bed, and climbed in, kicking off her snow-soaked sneakers.
Burrowing under the quilts and comforters that smelled like dust and dirt, she closed her eyes, and drifted into a fitful sleep.
It was freezing when she woke. Darkness filled the room, penetrated only by shafts of moonlight from the small windows. She shivered, her teeth chattering. It felt like she had only slept a couple hours, maybe, but she was too cold and miserable to sleep anymore.
She thought about going next door and asking Aidan for more blankets, but she didn’t want to wake him. If he had gone to sleep yet. For all she knew, he was still out on a run.
Reagan wrapped the blankets over her head, leaving space for her eyes. She watched snow fall past the window.
It was time to go, she thought. Harry was much better off with Aidan and Liam, much better protected, but Reagan wouldn’t be safe until she was far away from everyone she knew. There was no way Liam would let anything bad happen to Harry. Reagan’s fate, though, was better off left in her own hands.
But she would have to play it right. If she went back to Hank, she was dead. Maybe not right away, but over time he would kill her. She couldn’t take his cruelty anymore, and leaving this week had shown her that she could indeed leave him. If she could get to her sister’s in Hawaii she might be far enough away.
And, she thought, the fact that Hank had bought and planned to hurt Harry, a shifter baby, meant Liam probably wouldn’t let him live too long anyway. But if it wasn’t Hank who was going to kill Reagan, it was Aidan’s uncle Cormac. He’d already threatened her once, when she was a teenager, to stay away from his family. She didn’t know which was worse, an angry Hank or a disobeyed alpha.
Finally, she was shivering and her teeth were chattering so hard it was making her head ache and her muscles scream. She needed more blankets, or fire, or a volcano. She needed to be warm. The SUV, she thought, and could have cried. The others were fine. If they shifted into wolves, they’d be warm enough, but she didn’t have that power. She needed man-made heat, and the SUV was her safest bet.
Keeping the blankets wrapped around her, Reagan slid from the bed, giving a violent shiver when her socked feet hit the freezing wood floor. Aidan had the keys. She could tell him she was going to sleep in the warm truck and then, when no one would suspect it, take off once she was warm enough to move her fingers. They could call for another car in the morning.
Her sneakers seemed to have slipped into some void under the bed. After a few minutes, her toes were frozen and she gave up looking for them. Her breath gathered in a thick cloud before her face. She reached for the door, and it opened.
Her scream stuck in her throat as a huge body came through, nearly knocking her over.
Aidan grabbed her arms, steadying her. “What the fuck, Ray? I can hear you shivering from miles away.”
She glared at him in the semi-dark. “I’m c-cold. I d-don’t have f-f-f-fur you ass.”
He ran a hand through his curls, his eyes bright in the dark. “Jesus. Get in bed.”
“G-give me the k-k-keys. I’ll sleep in th-th-the c-c-car.”
“Like hell you will. I don’t get paid unless I deliver you to Hank.”
Damn it all. “I’m n-not gonna run. I won’t l-leave Harry. J-just n-n-need to g-g-get wa-wa-warm.” She was shaking so bad that her words were lost in the sound of her clicking teeth.
“Get in the fucking bed, Ray.”
“St-st-st—”
“Yeah, yeah, stop calling you Ray.” He took her by the back of the neck through the mass of blankets, and steered her toward the bed.”
“I’m c-cold,” she tired again.
“I’m going to sleep with you.”
She spun, making him smack into her. “N-no w-w-way.”
He grinned. “I’m not going to touch you, sunshine. Not unless you want me to.”
“I d-d-don’t.”
“Sure.” He pushed her onto the bed, and she scrambled away. He grabbed her before she could climb off the other side, and pulled her against him. He lifted the blankets, the freezing air biting her already frozen skin, and then spooned her, arms wrapped tight around her, his leg draped over hers. She couldn’t escape if she tried. But right then, she didn’t want to try.
He was so warm, almost hot. Damn shifters, she thought. She shivered more violently as his heat chased away the cold. With the blankets over them, his heat was trapped inside, like her own personal heated igloo.
Her teeth stopped chattering. Her muscles relaxed as heat seeped into them. She snuggled into him, wanting more.
His arms tightened around her. “Don’t do that.”
“Can’t help it,” she mumbled, finally sleepy. “You’re warm.”
“I’ll be more than warm if you don’t stop rubbing your ass against me.”
She froze, but she felt the length of him pressed against her butt. He was hard, and suddenly she wasn’t cold at all anymore.
“I think I’m warm enough. You can go.”
He laughed in her ear, deep and rumbly, making her stomach clench. “Stop being a pussy and go to sleep.”
She didn’t really want him to go. He was so warm and she was so tired. But having him behind her like this was too familiar, too comfortable when she shouldn’t be feeling that way toward him. She needed to get away from him. This man, who had once loved her, was going to deliver her back to Hank, the man who she thought loved her, but was really as bad as her own parents had been.
“Shush,” he said sleepily.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You’re thinking. Stop it.”
“I can’t help if I’m thinking,” she grumbled. “I can’t sleep.”
His breath was in her ear. “Do you want me to help you sleep?”
“No, thank you,” she said, but her heartbeat quickened.
“Then go to sleep.”
She tried. Reagan closed her eyes and counted sheep. They jumped over a fence, the sun setting behind them. But then a wolf popped up from the herd and started chasing the sheep. She tried again. This time she imagined a quiet place. A stream in the woods in spring. The sun shone through the trees, dappled against the muddy bank. Birds twittered overhead. Fish streaked through the water like silver darts. She sighed, letting herself relax. Footsteps drew her attention. A wolf trotted toward her where she dangled her feet in the cool water. The wolf shifted into a man. Aidan. Naked and tall and curly-haired. He came toward her, claws out.
She shook her head and tried once more. White space. Nothing around her. No sound. Just Reagan sitting on a white floor in white clothes, with no way to discern floor from wall. And then a tiny shifter pup ambled into view. It rolled on the floor, yipping happily. Reagan smiled, reaching for the puppy, but a larger wolf snarled and blocked her way. It turned and crept toward the playful puppy, jaws dripping with foam, fangs bared. Reagan tried to run to the pup, but she was stuc
k to the floor, unable to move, unable to help.
Aidan rolled on top of her. She laid on her back beneath him, staring up into those bright, blue-green eyes.
“Stop thinking,” he said.
“I can’t.”
His eyes dropped to her mouth. “Fine. I’ll make you.”
With one hand he unbuttoned her jeans and dragged the zipper down, all before she could lift her hand to stop him.
“Aidan—”
“Tell me to stop, and I will.”
“Stop.” Her voice shook.
He smirked. “Mean it.” He pulled her underwear and jeans off her hips. She grabbed his wrist before he could reveal any more of her.
She met those eyes and put as much fire in hers as she could. “Stop,” she said again, but as she said it, he pressed himself between her legs. He was hard again, or still, and the word lost its fire when she moaned.
“Come on, sunshine,” he said as he rubbed himself against her, his wrist still caught in her hand, his fingers trailing along the hem of her underwear, teasing the soft curls that poked out. “Tell me to stop. Tell me not to touch you here.” He slid his hand into her underwear, his wrist slipping from her grasp. He ran his hand over her mound. “Tell me you don’t want me inside you.” He slid two fingers into her, and she gasped, arching her back.
She wanted to tell him to stop, but this was Aidan, and it felt good. How long had it been since this sort of thing had felt good?
He smiled and bit his lip. “I thought your juices didn’t flow?”
She turned her head, looking away from those intense eyes.
“Well you were wrong there. Let’s see if we can get you to come.”
She jerked her head back to him, and struggled as he pulled her jeans and underwear away. She heard the rasp of his zipper a moment before he pushed between her legs and drove himself inside.
Reagan grabbed his shoulders, biting one hard against the pain. But it hurt a lot less than it usually did with Hank because she was wet. He slid in easily, pushing her open with that pleasure-pain she and Aidan used to live for.