Past My Defenses (Taming the Pack series) (Entangled Ignite)

by Wendy Sparrow

  He settled beside her, under the covers. Five minutes later, he lay there…breathing evenly, but clearly still awake. His eyes were even open.

  “I thought you were tired,” she whispered.

  “I’m exhausted. I’m just waiting for you to fall asleep. I guess I’ve gotten used to your snoring.”

  “I don’t snore.” Okay, she might, but why did he have to keep mentioning it? A decent guy would let it go, but no, he kept bringing it up.

  He laughed.

  Huffing out an irritated breath, she turned away from him, causing the handcuffs to rattle.

  “Also, I’m curious how you’re going to get out of those,” he said. “It doesn’t involve breaking my bed, does it? I like this bed. I made it myself. I could replace the wood, but…”

  “I’m not going to break your bed.” Of course she wouldn’t. She was already fond of this bed herself. She’d like to have more fond memories in the future, but even the possibilities presented made her a fan of this bed. She turned back toward him to find his eyes focused on the handcuffs, but they dropped to meet hers. “You made this?”

  “Yeah, my dad is a carpenter. Well, he is now. He used to be in the military—he’s the one who taught me how to shoot. Anyway, I worked with him while I was going to school to be a ranger. It wasn’t originally going to be this big, but I figured why the hell not. And then I found out how expensive California king mattresses and sheets were…and that’s why the hell not.”

  “I like it.”

  He grinned. “Me too.”

  “You should go to sleep.”

  “You first.”

  She sighed and closed her eyes. This was so not going according to plan. She should’ve known he’d be stubborn on every point. First, she worked on slowing her breathing, without going to sleep herself. She felt him relax beside her, but he didn’t go to sleep. He really was waiting for her to start snoring. Oh for the love of… Okay, fine. She dropped her mouth open and let her breath hiss out, scraping against her throat. It sounded…awful, and she couldn’t imagine actually doing this for hours, without breaking her windpipe or something.

  The bed dipped as he sat, reached into the bedside table, and got out earplugs. Even though it was irrational, it pissed her off, and she stopped snoring.

  He froze.

  She started again. Seriously, she couldn’t possibly do this all night. Even faking it—hurt.

  He was sound asleep within a minute. Unbelievable.

  She stopped snoring, and he jerked awake.

  Ah hell.

  “Vanessa?”

  She started the fake snoring again. Well, this screwed up her plan. She might as well start real snoring apparently.

  “You don’t snore…my ass,” he muttered under his breath and turned onto his side.

  She glared at the back of his head and then it came to her—a brilliant solution he’d provided himself. Nice. The only problem was that she’d have to shift and shift back quickly due to the handcuffs. It was easier at night, but this still might be tricky.

  She’d have to do it soon—this fake snoring was killing her. He was asleep immediately again. Jerk. She did not snore like this. She shifted back and forth fast enough that she caught the handcuffs, and there was only the slightest break in the fake snoring. He stirred, but didn’t wake.

  Moving slowly and still fake snoring, she leaned across him and grabbed his phone from his charger. A moment later, the recording of her took over the job, and she set it to loop.

  Okay, she was absolutely not that loud—that was impossible. No one could be that loud. It would provide a good cover for her little trip out, though, and she’d be back soon, and he’d never know. Hopefully. Hopefully, he’d never know. Because if he did, he might not forgive her. That made her pause on her way out of the bed. She stared over at him in the moonlight. He looked good at night. He looked like forever. Like somewhere she could stay. Someone she wouldn’t always need to run out on to be able to think.

  Then again, he’d moved her in because he thought she was fragile—and he made her feel fragile. If he saw her like that, he wasn’t seeing her. If he thought their relationship was all about him taking care of her…well, she’d made it to twenty-five on her own. She wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life needing him there to protect her from the big, bad world—and he’d think that until this was over.

  Until he’d gotten here, she felt like a part of that big, bad world—that’s what she liked about running. It was wild and uninhibited. She felt like she was the wind. Still, she hesitated at the door out of the room. That moment, it held her, trapped her. She watched him sleeping—the even cadence of his breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, and his scent in the air.

  Mine.

  For just a moment, she didn’t feel trapped, she felt free…until she remembered someone out there wanted her dead. And even if Dane wasn’t trying to trap her, she was trapped inside this house. This was a gorgeous cage and really, Dane was trapped with her, but she couldn’t let someone out there dictate her every move.

  If she didn’t get back before he woke…

  He was exhausted, though. She’d be back. She would.

  At the door, she realized she had another problem. She wasn’t going to leave Dane sleeping in an unlocked house, but if she locked the door, she wouldn’t be able to get in, either. The cat door. Crap. She went down to the mudroom, trying not to breathe, and slid the panel up. She’d used this once before…it was no big deal. It felt demeaning now, but maybe that was her conscience eating at her.

  She was doing this for both of them, though.

  Five seconds later, her clothes dropped to the floor, and she was through that wretched door and out into the night.

  It was harder to hold human objectives in a canine brain—the drive to hunt was the same so she focused on that and prayed she wouldn’t run into Jordan out around her house. He’d be as pissed as Dane, maybe more pissed. He might even hold it against Dane.

  The altered consciousness pulled her deeper. Hunt. Search for enemies.

  Dane. Mate. She turned back and looked at the dim light of his house. Home. Mate. The pull made her hesitate. Mate. Mine.

  Hunt. She turned and sprinted toward the light she’d always used to find her way. Her territory. Her place. Her night. When she got closer, she picked up the scents of other Lycans. Travis. Ross. Jordan. Liam. Harris. Pack. They’d come and gone. She paused under a tree and dropped down to watch her porch.

  The moon rose and moved, and she sat there still…until a new scent hit the air. Dane. He was out there. Moving. Mate. Instinctually, she bolted toward him. Protect. Mate. He was moving away from her old den and moving fast. She chased him. A new smell had joined his. A Lycan—a Lycan, unfamiliar and familiar—was out here with Dane. It wasn’t until she got closer that she realized Dane’s scent was too cold and not recent. Even before she found the stick with his T-shirt wrapped around one side of it, she knew she’d been lured in and tricked.

  In her altered consciousness, there was enough of the human within to think, “Oh hell no,” just before a streak of dark fur leaped from the bushes, its teeth going to her throat. Vanessa had been drawn to the Glacier pack because there was no hierarchy. In her previous pack, she’d had to fight to retain status, to stay above the Omega, and the constant scrapping served her well now. She dropped rather than fight, a move that cost her—the teeth tore at her trapezius muscles, ripping flesh. The other Lycan felt a momentary surge of confidence that this had been much easier than expected, and loosened its jaw to grab a stronger grip, and that’s when Vanessa bolted.

  Sometimes, you just had to run.

  …

  He really shouldn’t have drunk so much with dinner. Dane groaned awake. He was finally getting sleep, and he had to pee. Great. Perfect time to go for healthy hydration. At least Vanessa was still asleep. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and rubbed his forehead tiredly.

  Wait. Why was her snoring still
from beside him not from behind him? He turned to stare at his phone, where he saw the video file playing.

  She didn’t.

  He still swung to look at the empty bed. The handcuffs were placed neatly on the other bedside table. He swore and jumped to his feet. He was going to tie her to the bed. Or he’d stick her in the cage downstairs again.

  In the distance, a howl chilled his blood, and he ran, slamming into the wall as he slipped in his haste to get downstairs. Something deep within him recognized Vanessa no matter what form she was in. That’d been her, and she was in trouble. He grabbed the shotgun from his gun case, and he loaded it as he was charging back upstairs. His shotgun had a mounted night scope, and he aimed out into the darkness—watching for movement.

  Another howl. A sick feeling hit his stomach. Fear built fast and vile in his gut. She was coming and something was chasing her. It was another two minutes—the longest two minutes of his life—before he saw the movement of bodies sprinting toward him, but he didn’t dare fire until he knew which was Vanessa. A blur broke through the forest, heading for the mudroom, followed by another. He started firing on the second wolf. His first shot hit the ground, the second a tree it had ducked behind, and having to pump in between cost him time. Dammit.

  Vanessa slammed through the door to the mudroom.

  His third shot must have hit the ground again—there wasn’t a cry of pain from the other wolf or the crack of wood. He fired two more shots off because he was so pissed. But the other Lycan was long gone.

  Five shots and not a hit on the thing chasing her. Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.

  He stood there scanning the forest with his scope—not just to make sure it was gone, but to temper the rage built of fear inside him. His hearing wasn’t as good as Vanessa’s, but he heard the whimper from the mudroom, and jerked his gun down and slammed back inside.

  If she was hurt, he was going to kill her.

  …

  She left a streak of blood across his floor as she shifted to her skin-wear the moment she cleared the door. Immediately, ignoring the hot pain from her shoulder and the burn of her lungs, she jolted forward and slammed the pet door’s panel down and closed behind her. Outside, she heard gunshots as Dane fired on the other Lycan…and the retreat of padded feet.

  Her side was bleeding from where a broken branch had caught her and carved a deep scratch, and her shoulder had a deep bite mark that had torn as she’d escaped, but neither made her pull her knees to her chest and cry.

  When she heard his footsteps at the top of the stairs, she almost went to hide. She jerked away from his hand when he knelt beside her.

  “Easy…easy…let’s see what happened,” he said. She heard the buried anger, smelled the fear in his scent, but felt the tenderness in his touch and relaxed. “There’s blood all over underneath this mud. How bad is it?”

  “Not bad,” she whispered. Clearing her throat, she fought back the shaking. “A bite to my shoulder, and then a tree caught my side.” That was louder, more confident. “The tree gouged me deeper.”

  “Figures,” he muttered, brushing away leaves from her side. “You only seem to struggle with the small things…cats…trees.”

  She laughed shakily. It was hard to tell if she’d ruined everything with him when he was acting this concerned.

  “Let’s go get you in the shower, and we’ll see how bad it is after,” he said, helping her up.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as they went upstairs. He couldn’t know how rare it was for her to say that. It was a deference she’d only paid to Alphas and her parents.

  It might have helped the mood for a longer time if the sound of her snoring on a loop hadn’t hit him at the same time. He’d opened his mouth to say something, but then his jaw tightened, and he shook his head and led her into the bathroom.

  She winced when he slapped the lights on before stalking back to turn the sound off on his phone. She went to the shower and turned the water on and stepped in before it had even warmed up so he wouldn’t see the tears streaming down her cheeks. She needn’t have worried because he dropped some new underwear and a tank top on the floor and closed the door to the bathroom. She stayed in the shower a few minutes after she was clean until she was sure she wouldn’t burst into noisy tears.

  After she’d quickly towel-dried her hair and put on the tank top and underwear, she followed the scent of pissed-off male through the house down to the mudroom, where she saw him mopping up the blood on the floor with a somber look on his face. She paused at the bottom of the stairs and nearly bolted back up. Then the remnants of Lucifer’s stay hit her and she sneezed.

  “I’d planned on bandaging you down here where the light is better, but maybe we should do it in the kitchen.” He didn’t even look at her, but grabbed the first aid kit off the table and gestured the direction she had come.

  She nodded, even though he wasn’t looking at her, and turned and went back the way she’d come. When they went into the kitchen, he flipped on the lights again, and she winced and closed her eyes.

  “Lights bother you?”

  “A little—just at night.” Also, she didn’t want to face him in this bright stark light where it was obvious she’d been wrong…where all her excuses sounded stupid, even to her. She hopped onto the counter and lifted her tank top so he could look at her side.

  “The tree definitely won,” he said. “I could take you in for stitches.”

  She shook her head.

  “Or we can butterfly it here, but either way, it’ll scar.”

  “That’s fine.” The blood had seeped through her tank top. She’d need to change again. Not that she was given to self-pity, but she really deserved a good long scar for tonight. It might be all she had to remember this relationship by.

  Neither of them talked as he bandaged her side. She even bit her lip to avoid whimpering when the alcohol stung. She might have been able to judge his mood better if she’d tried making eye contact, but she couldn’t. She’d made more eye contact with Jordan, when she was meant to be showing deference, than she was right now.

  “Are you current on your shots?” he asked as he was looking at her shoulder.

  She nodded.

  He sighed. “I don’t know how to ask this without sounding offensive, but I don’t really care…have you been vaccinated for rabies too?”

  She bit her lip harder and nodded. Then she looked away and closed her eyes tight.

  “I’m guessing no doctor for this wound either?”

  Swallowing, she shook her head again.

  He worked fast and gently, and she kept her eyes tightly closed so she wouldn’t cry…and she didn’t until he finished and leaned forward and kissed the outside of the bandages on her shoulder. The tears spilled down her cheeks.

  “No, honey, don’t cry,” he said.

  She swallowed and nodded, wiping at her cheeks.

  “Did you recognize what…who it was?”

  “No,” she said on a sigh. Then she looked around for her phone. “I need to call in.”

  “Call the police?”

  She grimaced. This was about to get even worse. “I need to call in to our…group.”

  “You need to call Jordan is what you’re saying?”

  There wasn’t any good way to say it, so she slid off the counter and went to walk by him, but he stepped in front of her.

  Vanessa looked at him and wished she hadn’t. She would have rather remembered him as he was before all this happened—when they were joking about handcuffs—and he could see them together, not like this. His eyes were hard, and his jaw was so tight a muscle twitched near his eye. “Tell me one thing, Vanessa, if he’d asked you to stay inside tonight, would you have stayed?”

  She looked down. It wasn’t a fair question. Deference and obedience to an Alpha were more instinctive and less work. The give and take of this…it was different.

  He walked away, and she spun back to the counter and found her purse. He was back by the time she pulled he
r phone out. He had a box in his arms, and he opened the cabinet and started packing all her meds into the box.

  “What are you doing?” she asked in a whisper.

  “I’d rather have you with him and safe than have you with me.”

  She took her phone with her into one of his empty spare rooms and shut the door and was grateful his hearing wasn’t as good as hers…because she just texted Jordan while she cried. She wasn’t weak. She wasn’t crying over a four-day relationship.

  An hour later, Jordan let her into his large rambler.

  “So, this relationship is going well,” he commented.

  “It’s not his fault. This isn’t a reflection on him not being good enough,” she said. He was good enough—he was good enough that anyone else wouldn’t have pulled the stunt she had tonight. If anyone deserved to die so this scent-match would end, it wasn’t Dane. She’d screwed up.

  “Actually, your human has risen in my estimation.”

  “Yes, well, I’ve dropped in mine and his.” She set her box of stuff on table. This was what it boiled down to. She was a pathetic nomad with a box of meds and a trunkful of air purifiers, and she chose this over staying with Dane.

  “Well, we all make stupid mistakes. I sent a potential mate out on a patrol that could have gotten her killed but luckily, only got her matched off. I’ve also been screwing a psychopath for several years, so there’s that.”

  It made her smile. Tilting her head, she said, “Your kids would have been real nutjobs.”

  He nodded and grimaced. “So far, this is a morbid slumber party. Tell me about the Lycan who attacked you.”

  She dragged both her hands through her hair with a groan. “I know their scent…I know that I know it, but it’s different now or it’s different then. They’re masking it somehow.”

  “So, they’re from here?”

  She shrugged. “Or from my last pack…or from one of the packs around.”