Interrupting the silent berating he was giving himself for letting his frustrations get the better of him, his cell phone beeped. Immediately he read the incoming message.
He’s always managed just fine in the past, no need to worry. ;) Dante ground his teeth so hard it hurt. Motherfucker. He’d originally intended to shove his cell back into his pocket and sling the whole thing from his mind now that he’d given his anger a small outlet.
No fucking way would he ignore that taunting response.
“Fine” is enough for you, is it? Never had you down as someone who settled for second best.
He waited impatiently for a response. It came a minute later, though it felt like much longer.
Beta or not, my sex life isn’t any of your business.
A fierce growl rumbled its way up his chest. Those words got to him again for a reason he had yet to understand. She’d wanted to provoke him, and she’d succeeded.
Everything about you is my business. Don’t ever forget that.
A voice in his head pointed out that wasn’t entirely accurate, but it was merely background noise to Dante right now. Her response made both him and his wolf bare their teeth.
Whatfreakingever.
Growling at her dismissiveness, he typed a reply.
Don’t blow me off, Jaime. You need to end this thing with the human before it gets complicated. If things mess up between you and him, it could be bad enough that those idiotic religious groups leap on it and start hanging around outside pack territory again. That’s the last thing we need right now.
He wouldn’t have thought that anything could have made him more pissed than he already was. He was so wrong.
Whoa there, Popeye, that had a hint of paranoia to it. Maybe you should quit the crack pipes. Gotta go.
He so wanted to spank that female’s ass—and hard. Maybe spanking that little attitude out of her would make her finally stop baiting him and rebelling against his every order. Maybe he should also kick his wolf’s ass for being unreasonably possessive of a female to whom he had no rights. His wolf growled at that. He was just as stubborn as she was.
Acknowledging, albeit rather begrudgingly, that she’d won that round, Dante fixed his attention on the work that awaited him, intending to ignore his wolf’s foul mood and the unfamiliar feelings needling his ego. He was not going to think about Jaime Farrow again tonight. Not even once.
The second she had sent her final message, Jaime switched off her cell phone and returned it to her purse, since the movie would be starting any minute now. What was wrong with that guy? She hadn’t realized he had such a hard-on for humans. Recalling that he had a few friends who were humans, she shook off the bigot theory. No, apparently there was another reason Dante had switched from being distant to poking his nose into her business and even attempting to interfere with her sex life.
“What do you make of it?” she asked Riley, who had read every message and had even tried advising Jaime on how to respond.
Riley swallowed the popcorn she’d been munching on before speaking. “The whole thing stinks of jealousy to me.”
“But that makes no sense.”
“He’s a guy, it doesn’t have to make sense.”
She had a point. In Jaime’s experience, when it came to male shifters it was often a case of
“logic optional.” Still, if Dante had had any interest in her, there would have been no reason to hide it. And then, there were the things he’d said to Trick about her. “It can’t be jealousy.”
“I find that hard to believe, but I’ve never even spoken to the guy, so I can only speculate. If you’re sure he’s not jealous, then maybe he just doesn’t like it that you’re not chasing after him anymore.”
“Objection, I never chased him.”
“Okay, maybe he doesn’t like that you’re not gazing dreamily at him anymore.”
“I did not gaze dreamily.”
Riley patted her hand. “Sure you didn’t, sweetie.”
“Patronizing bitch.”
“Giant-loving skank. Now shush, the movie’s starting.”
With a playful harrumph, Jaime turned her attention to the movie screen, ready to let it distract her from thoughts of his peculiar behavior. A minute into the movie, she groaned. The hero just had to be named “Dante,” didn’t he?
CHAPTER THREE
Black wolf. Mom screaming. Growls. Blood. Black wolf. Dad shifting. More wolves. Teeth. Claws.
Mom screaming. Black wolf. Black wolf. Black wolf. Black wolf. Teeth. More wolves. Dad roaring.
Growls. Blood. Blood. Blood.
Jaime sprang upright in her bed, panting, shaking, and sweating. Her heartbeat was loud and pumping aggressively. Snippets of her dream sailed across her mind, and grief ripped through her.
Her wolf was also distressed by this trip-down-memory-lane dream and was vigorously attacking the cage Jaime had confined her to, growling and howling and body-slamming the walls until the bars began to give. Jaime doubled over and cried out as cramps assailed her body and an ache pounded through her head. She fought the change, fought it with every bit of strength she had, fought to quickly repair the cage. She sent calming images to her wolf, hoping to reassure the animal that they weren’t in danger anymore, that it was over.
It was minutes later before her wolf began to settle and the bars finally straightened. Nausea suddenly struck Jaime, and in an agony that was becoming too familiar, she rushed to the bathroom where she vomited violently into the toilet. Even when there was nothing left in her stomach, she was racked by dry heaves.
Nothing Jaime had ever done had been able to heal her wolf. Nothing. She was still as traumatized as she had been at just twelve, when she had witnessed her parents’ murder. Her wolf—
frightened, anxious, angry—had surfaced to protect her. It hadn’t been until three weeks later that Jaime had been able to shift back into her human form. Her wolf had been too distressed and defensive to ease back or understand that the attack was over.
That night had left her wolf damaged. She acted like an abused animal—she was distrustful, easily provoked, and quick to anger. Coexisting with such a prickly, unpredictable wolf weighed hard on Jaime. When she was angry, it fed her wolf’s temperamental streak. When she was anxious, it increased her wolf’s restlessness. Such strong emotions gave her wolf strength, and that strength could easily be used to surface in spite of Jaime’s protests.
Whenever Jaime had shifted, she’d done it alone, because when her wolf came in contact with another she wanted to do only one thing—attack. Her wolf thought she was protecting Jaime from a potential threat. So Jaime had always run alone in her wolf form and had never encountered a problem, until four years ago when she came across another wolf while on a run. The consequences had been bad enough that Jaime had seen no choice but to never let her wolf free again.
As such, she had formed a cage around her wolf. A cage that separated them so completely that Jaime’s emotions could no longer feed her wolf. A cage so impenetrable that it prevented her wolf from surfacing. Yeah that was unnatural, and yeah it meant she didn’t feel whole, but it was the only way to ensure that her wolf was constantly in the backseat.
She had known her wolf would fight her, had known she would want the freedom that any wild animal wanted, but Jaime hadn’t expected her to fight so hard and so relentlessly. And what was the worst thing that could happen if Jaime let down her guard and her wolf became so strong that she managed to get free again? She might never let Jaime come back. She could turn rogue, might lose her human half completely, and then she’d have to be killed.
Dante didn’t realize he was tapping his fingers impatiently on the table until Trick spoke.
“It’s not like you to be edgy. Or to pick at your breakfast. Or to keep looking at the door every minute or so.”
Dante’s eyes slammed on him. His voice was low. “I’m really not in the mood today, Trick.” Wisely sensing that pushing Dante would only earn him a black eye,
Trick sighed and dropped his smirk. “I’ll take pity on you. She didn’t stay out the entire night. She was home by eleven thirty.”
“Who?” His casual act might have worked if his fingers hadn’t stopped drumming. Both his ego and his wolf had been having a crisis all night long, wondering just how far Pretty Boy would get with Jaime. He’d wanted to ask someone if she’d returned last night, but that would have been revealing too much. Apparently, his body language gave his thoughts away anyway. Great. Trick might resist pushing now, but he’d certainly tease Dante mercilessly about it later.
He scented her before he saw her; that caramel-and-honeysuckle scent made his wolf growl and the knot in Dante’s chest ease—a knot he hadn’t even known was there until then. But as he looked at her face, it wasn’t lust that shot through him. It was concern. She was pale, there were circles under her eyes, and her usual enthusiasm wasn’t there. Immediately Dante’s hackles were up and his wolf was pacing.
She didn’t look at him at all as she took a seat at the far end of the table near Gabe and Hope —who, he had noticed, spent a lot of time together. Now that Selma was gone and Hope no longer had someone trying to dominate her into working against the pack, Hope was a much more pleasant member.
Dante watched as surprise, concern, and then realization flashed on Gabe’s face as he took in Jaime’s pallor. He also noticed that Jaime widened her eyes slightly at her brother. Whatever was wrong with her, Gabe knew exactly what it was, and he was worried.
Glancing around the room, Dante noticed that the rest of the pack seemed confused by her appearance and the lack of her usual sparkle. So it was a family secret. Huh. Well it wouldn’t be a secret for much longer. Dante would make sure of that. He had no doubt that she wouldn’t want to tell him, but he was Beta; he was responsible for his wolves’ well-being, and that meant he had every intention of finding out what was wrong.
“Bad night?” Gabe quietly asked Jaime.
Knowing what he meant, Jaime nodded. “I’ve had worse.” Okay, that was a lie, but she didn’t want him worrying too much.
“You’ve never been able to lie to me, so why are you trying?” When she didn’t answer, he sighed, but he didn’t push her. He never pushed her, and she adored him for that. “Maybe you should take the day off work, catch up on your sleep.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“How long has it been since your wolf last tried to take over? A month?”
“Shh. Keep your voice down.”
He flushed, looking a little sheepish. “You know, you could tell them all the truth.”
“And risk being cast out? No thanks. Having no pack or territory…I’m pretty sure that would knock my wolf over the edge. But if I wasn’t convinced that you’d follow me instead of staying here, I’d chance it.”
“They might not cast you out, they might—”
“Gabe, you’ve seen how overprotective Trey is of Taryn. He will not want an unstable wolf in his pack, especially since his mom turned rogue and he had to kill her. No, the best thing for me to do is keep my wolf buried.” That meant that people couldn’t sense her wolf’s dominant vibes, but they simply thought she was submissive. “I’ll be fine. I can keep a handle on her.” Gabe gave her a gentle smile. “If you think I don’t know that you’re planning to run off once you think I’m properly settled here, you’re dumb, sis.”
Jaime would have denied it, but Gabe was right, she could never get a lie past him. Although she would continue fighting her wolf every step of the way, she had every intention of leaving the pack if her wolf was close to gaining the upper hand. She wouldn’t risk turning rogue and hurting her packmates, not ever.
Ignoring Gabe’s further attempts to talk her into staying at pack territory, she went to work as usual. Caring for the dogs was therapeutic, in a sense. Not only because she could relate to them in a way that she couldn’t to any of her own kind, but because caring for them was such an important job that it allowed her to forget her problems for a while. It allowed her to forget just how worried she was.
She hadn’t corrected Gabe’s assumption that it had been a month since the last time her wolf fought for supremacy. In truth, it had been just eighteen days. In the beginning, she had been able to go without such an incident for up to nine months at a time. But her wolf had gotten stronger and stronger —most likely fueled by her anger at being confined. Now it had become a battle of wills between them. A battle that Jaime had to win.
When it came to the end of her shift, Jaime sat with Ben for a while as she always did. As usual, it was a few minutes before he relaxed enough around her to lie on her lap. It took even more minutes before he finally fell asleep. Even asleep he was restless, and she wondered if he had nightmares just as she did, wondered if they were flashbacks to a time that had changed him on such a fundamental level that he was no longer the animal he once was.
“What’re you doing?” asked a confused voice.
Oh, Dante had to come along when she stank of dog muck, didn’t he?
Jaime slowly raised her head, finding him standing there, looking as gorgeous as ever. Just like always, her wolf immediately stirred at his presence and his amazing scent. The ear protectors should have made him look at least a little stupid, but no. He arched an eyebrow, waiting for her answer.
“Ben always shakes like crazy when he’s nervous and anxious. I’m just trying to settle him a bit.”
Dante felt his brow arch even higher. “You’re sitting in a cage…because he’s nervous?”
“You’re watching me sitting in a cage…because, what?” For that matter, why was he even there at all? He’d never visited her at work before. He’d always purposely avoided her in general.
The sound of someone approaching snatched both their attention.
“Oh h-hi,” stammered Riley, staring at Dante with lust-filled eyes. Did she want Jaime to bitch slap her, was that it? Not that Jaime blamed her. Because of his size, females tended to have a conflicting reaction to him, feeling both intimidated and captivated. Who wouldn’t be intimidated by someone who looked as though nothing in the world could faze or scare him? Dante simply gave Riley a nod.
Carefully Jaime returned Ben to his little spot on the floor. When she turned back, it was to see that Dante was holding out his hand to her. She slipped her hand into his, and he helped her stand upright. “Thanks,” she uttered, wondering if he felt the surge of heat that she did when their hands touched. Going by his frown, probably not.
“I just wanted to ask if you were able to give Neo his shot?” asked Riley, referring to the Neapolitan mastiff that had recently arrived at the sanctuary. Blushing an unattractive beet-red color, she repeatedly glanced nervously at Dante.
“Yeah, he was fine.” Jaime locked Ben’s cage before placing the keys on the hook. “Pissed, but fine.”
“Great. That’s all, so I’ll, um, see you tomorrow, I guess.” With that, she scuttled away. No doubt her inner lioness was nervous around Dante, too.
“So, is there a problem or something?” Jaime asked him as they walked toward the exit, her body very much aware of him.
“I came to take you to lunch.” And interrogate the hell out of you, he wisely didn’t add.
Although he’d be lying if he said that he wouldn’t enjoy spending time with her.
Okay, that had been totally unexpected, in which case she couldn’t help feeling both suspicious and anxious. “Why?” He gave her one of his crooked grins that never failed to do interesting things to her body.
“That’s not usually the reaction I get when I offer to take a female to lunch.”
“Well, we both know you aren’t offering to take me on some kind of date. So what’s this really about?”
“I want to talk to you.”
Uh-oh. That did not sound good. “About…?” she prodded as they reached the exit. She took both sets of ear protectors and placed them on the shelf beside the doors.
“I’ll tell you when we get to the restaurant.” He
opened the main door but held up his hand, gesturing for her to remain where she was.
Jaime almost laughed at the way he scanned his surroundings, checking for any signs of a threat. Very Beta behavior. Once he stepped aside, she headed to the main building. “I would have thought you were too busy for this.”
He was, but this was important. She was important. “I have to eat like everyone else.”
“Fine. I just need to go change and grab my backpack.” He gave her a short nod.
The entire time she washed and changed, she wondered how she could get out of this pickle.
Spending time with the guy she was trying to get over was counterproductive. It would be like a recovering alcoholic sitting in a bar. Also, she was a little nervous about whatever it was he wanted to discuss. Not that she thought he could break her. Jaime was used to keeping secrets; she’d been doing it for a long time. But she wasn’t feeling great today. The last thing she needed was an interrogation.
As she exited the building, Dante’s eyes perused her body and a devilish smile surfaced. He knew that he should wipe it off his face, but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. She looked both surprised and confused, and may have been about to comment when they were both distracted by the sound of someone calling her name. Turning his head, he saw the guy from the diner jogging toward them. A low growl poured out of Dante. “Oh look, it’s your human,” he said with fake delight.
Jaime gave him a look that said “behave,” but she knew there was no getting Dante to do anything he didn’t want to. “Hi,” she said when Shawn was up close.
“Hi. Um, who’s your friend?” Shawn glanced nervously at him—which was understandable, since Dante was looking at him like he wanted to peel off his flesh like an onion.
“Yes, introduce us,” drawled Dante.
She had to resist releasing a cautioning growl as Dante entered her personal space like he had every right to. “Dante, this is Shawn. Shawn, this is my Beta.” They exchanged stiff nods. To Shawn’s credit, he tried not to falter under Dante’s unblinking stare. He tried.
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