All Eli knew was that it was killing him, not being in that bed with her, holding her against his body, where he wanted her.
And where she’d always belonged.
Chapter 3
After a horrible night’s sleep, and a scalding shower that’d barely made her feel alive again, Carla had changed into one of her last clean pairs of jeans and a T-shirt. There was only so much cash she’d been willing to spend on clothes from the money she’d stolen off the Whiteclaw, and so her wardrobe was limited at best. Life would have been a lot easier if she’d had her stupid wallet on her when she’d been kidnapped, but hey, at least she’d had her cell phone. And she’d thankfully had another bra and pair of panties in her pack for this morning, as well as a hairbrush. So while she wouldn’t be winning any beauty contests at the moment, it was nice not to have bed head.
Eli had woken her up with a touch on her shoulder about thirty minutes ago, just after six a.m., and told her he would be waiting outside the room while she got ready. He didn’t mention anything about their argument from the night before, and neither did she. In fact, she didn’t even look at him. She could forgive herself for her momentary lapse last night, but that was her only pass. From now on she needed to stay sharply focused. She had her eye on the prize—being free of him once and for all—and she wasn’t going to let her stupid hormones ruin it for her.
No matter how crazy desperate for him those little suckers turned out to be.
And I doubt going without will kill me, she thought dryly, running her brush through her hair. If that were the case, I’d have dried up and died a long time ago.
A glance in the mirror over the dresser showed that she was still sporting a few yellowish bruises, had dark circles under her eyes, and the tight pinch of fatigue in her facial muscles. She might be only twenty-eight, but she felt eighty. Damn near looked like it, too. But what the hell? It’s not like she wanted him to be attracted to her. Zipping up her pack, she tossed it on her bed and joined him outside.
As they walked to the crowded diner next door, where they were meeting the others, he asked, “You ever hear from your mom?”
Nicole had finally given up on the pack a year before Eli’s banishment and left Shadow Peak, claiming she needed to find a place where she could make a new life for herself. “No,” Carla replied in a flat tone, wondering if her mother had ever managed to succeed with her dream. If so, she was obviously too content there to worry about contacting the daughter she’d left behind.
He didn’t say anything more, and the guys kept the conversation light when they joined them for a quick breakfast. Afterward, they all headed back to the room she and Eli had shared to discuss the situation in private. Once everyone was settled, Eli explained to her what the men already knew: that his father had had a maniacal plan to take over the Silvercrest. A bloodthirsty plan that had resulted in a significant loss of life, had shattered the pack’s sense of safety, and left an entire group of teens—as well as most of the residents in Shadow Peak—emotionally traumatized. As a result, the town had been left without its leaders, and the Bloodrunners were now handling all elements of security for the pack.
Since it was up to Carla to bring them up to speed on the rest, she explained everything that had happened with the Whiteclaw pack over the past weeks, starting with how Eli’s brother, Eric Drake, had met Chelsea, the human he’d recently married, while she was searching for her younger sister, Perry. Making a bad choice, Perry had gone chasing after the wrong guy and ended up falling in with the Whiteclaw pack who lived to the south of the Silvercrest, and who were now controlled by a man named Roy Claymore. With the Runners’ help, Eric had been able to prove that the Whiteclaw had partnered up with the Donovans, a corrupt local Lycan family, on a number of illegal activities, the most horrific being one that involved human girls. With the Donovans’ support, the Whiteclaw had been drugging the girls and pimping them out for Lycan gang rapes. The drugs not only acted as an aphrodisiac on the girls, but also impaired their memories of the attacks. And Claymore was using tapes of the assaults to later blackmail the participants into aiding the Whiteclaw.
She then told them that the Runners had managed to close down a strip club in Wesley, a human town not far from the Silvercrest’s territory. The Whiteclaw had been using the club to find the girls, and closing it down had only increased Roy Claymore’s power hungry desire to destroy the Silvercrest and take their land. Something Claymore felt would be easy to accomplish, given the state the pack had been left in after Stefan Drake’s failed bid for power.
Later, after an attack that some of the Whiteclaw and Donovan wolves had made on the Runners in the Alley, they learned that the Whiteclaw had also developed a “super soldier” drug that not only made them violently strong, but also camouflaged their scent. Which meant they were damn difficult to defeat.
The atmosphere in the room had been grim during her telling, but the group’s tension only increased when she explained about the plans she’d overheard before making her escape after her and Elise’s kidnapping.
“The Whiteclaw were hoping to blackmail the other packs in our region into helping them by providing foot soldiers. But they haven’t secured the kind of numbers they were hoping for, so they came up with a new plan. They’ve used a sizable portion of the money they’ve made from the gang rapes to purchase help from someone in your line of work. A man named Jack Bartley.”
“Son of a freaking bitch,” Kyle muttered.
“You know him?” she asked.
“We’ve gone up against him before,” the merc explained. “He’s human, but he’s a maniac. Has a small army under his command, and they’ll do anything for the right price.”
“He’s human?” she murmured with surprise.
Kyle grimaced. “Well, most of him is. It’s rumored he has shifter blood somewhere in his family tree, which is how he knows of our existence.”
“You were right to be worried,” Sam murmured. “Bartley and his men will spell bad news for your pack.”
She wanted to argue that they weren’t her pack, they were Eli’s, but bit her tongue instead. She didn’t need to make herself sound any bitterer about the pack’s longstanding treatment of the Runners than she probably already had.
“When you went up against him, did you win?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Eli muttered from his position against the wall, his muscular arms crossed over his chest. His dark brows were knitted with tension. “But it was at a cost. We lost one of our best men. A guy who would often come and work with us when he needed to earn extra money for his wife and kids. Bartley got his hands on him during the op, and by the time we found him, all that was left was a bloody pile of tissue and bone. They’d skinned him alive.”
“Jesus.”
Holding her worried gaze, he said, “He can be stopped, Rey. We just need to outthink him.”
“Can you do that?”
He jerked his chin toward his men. “These guys can.”
“So these different drugs—the ones they were giving the human girls and the ones that they use on themselves to improve their abilities—are still in production?” Kyle asked from his seat on the foot of the bed. Lev had positioned himself up by the pillows, his back braced against the cheap headboard, while Sam had his shoulders propped against the door and James sat in the desk chair. Carla sat on the foot of the other bed by herself.
Answering Kyle’s question, she said, “As far as we know, production has been halted. We have a Fed named Monroe dealing with the drug labs out west, where it was all being made. Monroe’s sister is married to one of the Silvercrest males, and the Fed is someone we consider a friend. But there’s still the problem of the drugs they have stocked in Hawkley.”
“Why did they target my sister?” The quietly spoken question had come from Eli, and she took a deep breath before turning her head to look at him again.
“They wanted to make a dig at the Runners, and saw Elise as an easy mark. We never should hav
e let her stay up in town by herself, because it drew their attention.”
He made a low sound of agreement, but she could tell he knew there was more to the story. Things she wasn’t telling him. But he didn’t push, and she wondered if he was dreading the explanation as much as she was dreading having to be the one who gave it.
“It’s getting late,” he suddenly muttered, pushing away from the wall. “We can talk things over some more when we stop for lunch, but right now we need to get on the road.”
Fifteen minutes later, they had their gear stowed in the backseat of the truck James and Lev were driving, the rest of the group loaded into the other one, and were heading back down the highway.
With Sam and Kyle in the front seat of the truck she and Eli were in, Carla didn’t speak to him during the journey, though she’d carried on some light conversation with the two mercs. For such ruthless badasses, they were nice guys who even managed to make her laugh a few times, while Eli glared out his window, lost in his own thoughts. The hours went by faster than she’d thought they would, and before she knew it they’d reached a little town the men had stayed in before, where they planned to stop for the night.
They ate together at a great little diner that made killer fried chicken, then grabbed rooms at a local motel. Six of them, at her insistence, which had caused the men to slide curious looks between her and Eli. He went off with Kyle to meet up with a local weapons dealer they’d done business with on several occasions, hoping to score a small arsenal that they could take back to the Alley with them, and refused to let her come along. So she was left sitting alone in her room, with nothing but her thoughts for company. It was still only nine and she was too wound up to sleep, so when Lev knocked on her door and asked if she wanted to grab a drink at the pool hall around the corner, she was glad for the distraction.
They ordered a pitcher of beer, picked out their cues, and before she knew it, she’d laughed her way through three games and they were starting on their fourth.
“No, no. You’re going at that shot all wrong,” Lev drawled, coming up behind her and leaning over her back. “You’ve got to move this hand here, and this one here,” he told her, rearranging the placement of her fingers on the cue.
“Thanks,” she said with a smile, when she made the shot. “That was—”
“Slivkoff!”
She jumped as Eli’s guttural shout silenced the noisy pool hall, the back of her head connecting with Lev’s chin. He swore as she quickly turned to apologize. “Sorry!”
“No problem,” he murmured, casting a funny look over the top of her head. She couldn’t tell if he was about to laugh...or run for cover.
Sensing Eli was close, she turned and found him rounding the pool table, heading right for her. Once again, the scowl on his gorgeous face matched his tone as he growled, “What the hell do you think you were doing?”
Huh. Was it just her, or did he ask that question a lot?
Squaring her shoulders, Carla slowly arched one of her eyebrows. “What did it look like I was doing? Lev asked if I wanted to play some pool.”
His nostrils flared as he stared her down. “And that meant you had to rub your little ass in his groin?”
Lev started to argue that point, but she lifted her hand to silence him. Setting her cue on the table, she took a deep breath, crossed her arms over her T-shirt covered chest, and tried not to let Eli see how furious he’d just made her as she carefully said, “Considering the bimbo blonde who was passed out in your lap last night, I don’t think you can cast any judgments here, Eli.”
He opened his mouth, then obviously changed his mind about whatever he was going to say, because he snapped it shut again. A muscle was starting to pulse at the edge of his jaw, his pupils were nearly blown, and his teeth were clenched so hard she was surprised they hadn’t cracked. Carla recognized the signs of him struggling with his temper, and couldn’t help but shake her head at his outrageous display of jealousy. After ditching her when he was banished, he didn’t have any freaking right to get pissed about anything that she did!
“We’re getting out of here,” he finally muttered, jerking his head toward the door. “Now.”
She could have argued with him, but since he’d already ruined her fun, she didn’t see the point. Instead, she gave him her snarkiest smile and said, “Sure thing, boss man.”
Lev was grinning like a jackass when she turned to tell him goodbye, so she socked him in the shoulder, which just made him laugh. Turning her back on the goofball, she wondered if he’d set this whole thing up just to make Eli jealous, and if so, why?
Whatever Lev’s reasons were for asking her to play pool with him, it had definitely put Eli in a bad mood. Not that he’d been anything but irritable the entire day. But now she could feel him seething behind her as she headed back to her room, his glare all but drilling holes in the back of her head. Not to mention her ass. When she reached her room, he managed to push his way in behind her before she could slam the door in his face, which had been her intention. After the way she’d broken down in front of him the night before, the last thing she wanted was to be alone with him.
Instead of moving deeper into the room, Carla leaned back against the door after she’d shut it, and crossed her arms over her chest again. The graze on her side from the bullet was no longer hurting, thanks to her healing abilities. It’d already scabbed over and probably would have been gone in a day or two, if she weren’t so run-down at the moment.
“Did you get the guns?” she asked, watching him pace along the foot of her queen-size bed, his big hands braced on his hips. He was dressed like the badass mercenary he was, wearing black boots, a faded pair of jeans that perfectly molded his muscular thighs, and a black T-shirt, its short sleeves stretched tight around his powerful biceps. Wherever you looked, his tall body was hard and sinewed and ripped. Even his hair-dusted forearms were mouthwatering, with heavy veins and ridges of muscle pressing against his scarred, golden skin. Then there were his thick wrists. And those big, masculine hands...
“Yeah, we got them.” He sounded distracted, and she could sense his agitation and his...hunger. She just couldn’t tell who or what it was for. Her? Food? A fight? Or some woman she didn’t even know? The bond wasn’t strong enough to give her any definitive answers—just annoying enough to mess with her head.
Pushing her bangs out of her eyes, she went for the safest topic she could think of to take her mind off her nerves. “I noticed that both of the trucks were missing from the parking lot. Did the guys go out somewhere?”
“Yeah,” he muttered without even looking in her direction. “They’re out finding women.”
“Ahh.”
He stopped in the middle of the floor and shot her a piercing look, the lamp on her bedside table casting a soft spill of light over his right side, while his left was bathed in shadow. Voice low and rough, he asked, “Given their agenda for the night, why do you think Lev was here with you?”
“How would I know?” she snapped, throwing her arms out wide in a gesture of frustration. “Maybe he just liked the idea of spending time with a woman he knew wasn’t going to have sex with him?”
He didn’t make any verbal response to her outburst. He simply folded his arms over his broad chest, the black cotton stretching tight across his solid pecs, and glared at her.
“The truth is I don’t know what he was thinking, Eli. I just know that you’re acting like an ass.”
Moving with the slow, predatory precision of a hunter, he lowered his arms and came toward her, his heavy-lidded gaze so hot she felt scorched. “You keep pushing me like this, Rey, and I’m gonna start thinking you want me to do something about it.”
She shook her head. “Am I even meant to know what that means?”
He came even closer, until she had to tilt her head back in order to hold his gaze. “It means that if you think you can get my attention by flirting with my men, you’re going to end up getting a hell of a lot more than you bargained for
.”
Pushing off from the door, she jabbed her finger in the middle of his chest. “Back off. You have no claim on me, so stop the act. I’m not buying it.”
“You think it’s an act?” he rasped, the softness of his voice giving her chills.
“I know it is!”
He had her backed against the door before she even knew it was happening, pinning her there with his big, muscular body, his rigid erection pressed hard against her stomach. Cupping her jaw, he tilted her head back even more, and put his face right over hers, so close their noses were nearly touching. “This feel like an act to you, Rey?” he asked huskily, his warm breath coasting over her lips.
“Don’t even think about it,” she warned. Though the effect was kind of ruined by her quickening breaths and flushed cheeks.
His eyes were still angry and hot, but the corner of his mouth kicked up in one of those deliciously wicked, crooked grins that had always made her melt. “Baby, I can’t seem to think about anything else.”
“Try—harder,” she sniped. “Because I’m seriously not interested in being your sloppy seconds, Eli.”
It seemed to take him a moment to figure out what she was getting at, and then his expression darkened. “I didn’t touch the blonde,” he told her, biting out each word.
A harsh, humorless laugh jerked up from her chest. “Oh, really? So she just happened to pick your random lap to pass out in last night?”
That muscle started to pulse in his jaw again, the day’s growth of stubble looking damn good on him. “What she was doing there isn’t any of your business.”
“Exactly!” she yelled, shoving hard at his shoulders. “So get the hell away from me!”
Catching her wrists, he pinned them against the door on either side of her head, the tight tips of her breasts pushing into his muscular chest as he pressed even closer.
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