by L. P. Maxa
After that, Jace and Jasper’s mom and stepdad came into town. The four of them sat at Dom’s house for hours talking. Corey got the impression that there were a lot of apologies, regrets, and tears.
Their mom, Susie, was the complete opposite of her ex-husband. She was petite, blonde, and heart-meltingly kind. Corey was so glad she got to reconnect with Jace. That woman was going to make all the difference in his life. She assured Corey and Dom that Jace would never step foot in his father’s house again, and that she was speaking to a lawyer to look into pressing charges. Susie wanted to go after Franklin for both neglect and abuse; she was like a mama lion on a mission.
After meeting her and her husband Charlie, who was every bit as fun and loving as Jasper had led Corey to believe, she finally felt like she could take a deep breath and relax. Susie and Charlie were going to get Jace the help he needed during the summer when he was home with them, and he promised to meet with Corey while he was here at St. Leasing. Plus, Jace decided to sit out the baseball season this year. He didn’t think he was in the right frame of mind to play.
Riley’s mom and stepdad came by too. They took him for lunch and then back to his dorm. He’d been so happy to see his mom. His relationship with his stepdad seemed kind of strained. Like his stepdad was trying too hard to make Riley like him, and Riley was being a typical asshole teenager.
Corey made a mental note to talk to him about that next week, and find out what was going on. She wasn’t about to let more issues slip through her fingers like she had with Jace and his father. This whole shifter father-son relationship stuff seemed pretty complicated. When she asked Dom about it over dinner, he told her that after you go through your first shift, you automatically feel like you should be in control of your own life. Like you grew up overnight. The problem was, with the first shift comes a crap-load of hormones and testosterone. So even though you feel like you have complete control ninety percent of the time, it’s the ten percent when you don’t that can really screw up your life. He said it was almost a constant power struggle between father and son, which is one of the reasons that a lot of wealthy shifter families sent their kids to boarding schools like St. Leasing. They let someone else butt heads with their sons on a daily basis.
It was Sunday evening. Dom and Corey were sitting around the kitchen table with Linc, Keller, and Baze eating dinner. She looked over at Dom when he cleared his throat obnoxiously loud. “So, uh, who’s going to go talk to the dean tomorrow morning about everything that went down this weekend?”
“Why do we have to even tell him? We handled it.” Keller shoved a whole roll in his mouth.
“First of all, we have to tell the dean. Susie and Charlie want to press charges against Franklin, and the dean would find out when he got a call from the lawyer. Then he would be pissed we never said anything. Second of all, for the love of all that’s holy, Keller, stop talking with your mouth full. You’re spitting bread everywhere.” Corey needed to put the guy in a shock collar and zap him every time he misbehaved.
Linc took a huge bite of mashed potatoes, grinned at Corey, and started talking around his food. “She’s right, we gotta tell McCormick. But I can’t do it. The guy has it out for me ever since I slept with the school nurse a couple years ago.”
“She was his niece, ass hat. And after you banged her in the supply closet she became so infatuated with you she wouldn’t do her job. He had to fire her.” Baze sounded like he was still pissed off about it. “Now there’s no nurse and every time someone needs a damn Band-Aid or ibuprofen they come down to the athletic building. I have to play nursemaid to those little babies. Dean McCormick hasn’t hired another nurse because he’s trying to punish you. But I’m the one that gets shit on.”
Corey looked across the table, catching Dom’s eye and trying to hide her amused smile. Damn. A couple years? The dean holds a grudge.
Keller shrugged. “I can’t do it either. I can’t stand to deliver bad news to the guy. Last time I went to tell him we had to buy a new bus, I chickened out and made Dom do it. I feel like I’m breaking my grandpa’s heart every time McCormick looks at me with those disappointed puppy-dog eyes.”
Baze glared across the table, looking at her mate, silently begging him to volunteer. “What about you, Dom?”
“Sorry, man. Can’t do it. Under any other circumstances I would. But McCormick thinks Corey and I are mortal enemies. I can’t go in there and tell him that Corey saved the day. He’d never let me hear the end of it.”
Baze slapped the table, clearly irritated. “Okay. Fine. I guess I’ll do it.” He growled. “You all are a bunch of assholes. I am so tired of having to man up and do everything around here. Just because it takes more for me to blow my lid doesn’t mean I should get the shaft all the fucking time.” Baze stood up quickly, knocking his chair over in the process.
“He’s right, you know. You guys made him go meet Franklin at Jace’s, he had to get down and help me clean up Jasper, and he was the first one to run to the car when we got the call from Riley. He’s always doing the dirty work.” Corey grabbed Baze’s arm to keep him from leaving. “I’ll go with you to talk to the dean. I need to be there anyway. I’ll meet you outside the admin building tomorrow morning, okay?”
“Thank you.” He bent down and kissed the top of Corey’s head then flipped Dom the bird when he heard him snarl. “The rest of you are a bunch of whiny babies. And I’ve had my fill this weekend. I’m going home. Don’t call me unless the sky is falling.” With that, he walked out and slammed the door.
“He is so touchy sometimes,” Keller said around a mouth full of chicken.
Corey kicked his shin under the table and smiled when he yelped.
Chapter Forty
Corey
Corey shot upright and clutched her chest. Holy crap. That was the craziest nightmare. She’d watched Franklin torture and kill Henderson over and over again in her dream. It played on a loop. She tried to wake herself up in her nightmare and Franklin kept laughing at her when she failed. Except Franklin had the head of a wolf so it was more of a howl than a laugh. Super creepy. She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths trying to calm herself. She looked over at Dom sound asleep next to her. Weren’t shifters supposed to be hyperaware and vigilant? He slept through her tossing and turning and through her jolting awake. Corey eased back down on her pillow and grabbed her phone to check the time. When she lit up her screen, she saw she had a text from Riley that was sent only minutes ago.
Riley: Mrs. Cooper, I need your help. It’s Jace and Jasper. Meet me outside, it’s urgent. I’m out back.
Corey stole another glance at Dom. He was snoring. She knew he would be furious if she went outside to meet Riley by herself. But this was Riley. He wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her. And if he was up dealing with the twins and texting her at two o’clock in the morning, it must be important. Maybe they had had another fight? Or maybe Franklin had tried to hurt Jace this time? She needed to find out what was up, then she’d come get Dom. Besides, if it was something stupid, a nonemergency, Dom would be pissed at the boys for texting her and dragging her out of bed. Her mind made up, she texted him back.
Corey: I’ll be out in a minute, kiddo.
Corey pulled on some jeans and a hoodie then tiptoed out of their bedroom. She had her hand on the back door when something caused a chill to run up her spine. She turned and went to the hall closet, grabbed her pink nine-millimeter and tucked it into the waistband of her jeans. Just in case. She stepped out onto her back patio and stopped. She did what she had seen the guys do many times before: She closed her eyes and tried her damnedest to sense anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. Either everything was fine or she had zero shifter powers. You’d think having nonstop sex with one would afford her a little supernatural ability. It was so dark out tonight, there was absolutely no light from the moon. She used her phone flashlight to make sure she didn’t trip. She crossed the patio and stopped when her feet hit grass.
Core
y: Okay, come meet me over here. You’re nuts if you think I am going to come hang in the woods in the dark. I know what goes bump in the night.
Corey stashed her phone back in her pocket. Then scanned the tree line waiting for Riley to come out. What she saw made her stomach drop. Someone came out of the woods semi-carrying, semi-dragging someone else. “Oh my god, Riley, what’s going on? Is it Jasper? Did Jace go off again?”
Against her better judgment, Corey ran out to help. As she reached them, the clouds parted and the moonlight revealed exactly what was going on. Franklin’s massive bald-headed driver was holding Riley’s phone with one hand and dragging Riley behind him with the other. Riley had never texted her. That asshole used Riley to lure her out here and she’d fallen for it. Like Dom said, always rushing into things without using her head. Now that she thought about it, the text had seemed strange. He would have called her if there had been a real emergency, like he had when Jasper was hurt on Friday night. And in the text he wrote Mrs. Cooper, he would have said miss.
Now that there was some light, Corey could see that Riley was bound and gagged but alive and twisting, fighting like hell to get free.
“You dumb bitch. What is it about this kid that would make you come to the woods at night? Bet your mate hates that. So trusting of other people, when you should trust no one.”
Corey turned and looked longingly at the house. Maybe she could make it back before he caught her. She was fast and he was built like a brick house.
“Don’t even think about it, girly.” He dropped Riley’s phone, grabbed a knife from his belt, and put it to Riley’s throat. “You make one wrong move, and I’ll slice this kid open.”
“Why are you doing this? What’s going on?”
“Mr. Franklin wants to send you all a message. He figured the best way to get his point across was through you. They all seem to love you so damn much. This one here,” he shook Riley like a rag doll, cutting him in the process, “fought tooth and nail. He begged me to kill him instead. I still might.”
Corey looked at Riley who was bloody from head to toe. His clothes were torn, his right eye swollen shut, and now fresh blood was running down his neck. “Don’t hurt him, I’ll do whatever you want. Please let him go.”
“You don’t call the shots here, bossy lady, I do. Now take your phone out of your pocket and throw it into the woods.” When she hesitated, he tightened his grip on Riley, making the kid turn blue.
“Okay. Wait. Here, I’ll do it.” She threw her cell toward the trees, the light from the screen illuminating the woods for a moment.
“You and I are going to go on a little walk. We’re going to have a lot of fun. Well, I’m going to have a lot of fun. Don’t you worry your pretty little head, though, I’ll return you in one piece to your precious pack here. Broken, scared, and bleeding, but in one piece.”
“Can you tell me why? Why is Franklin doing this? Is this about Jace?” Her heart was pounding. She was silently willing Dom to wake up, to get mad and storm out of the house looking for her. If Dom could distract this guy, even for a second, Corey could shoot him. She was an excellent shot and this dumbass never searched her for a gun. He obviously wasn’t from the south.
“Among other things. Since you’ve come to town, people are poking their noses in things they have no business worrying about. You and all these other idiots need to leave things alone. Stop looking. Stop making trouble. And I’m here to make sure that message gets heard loud and clear.” He threw Riley to the ground and grabbed hold of Corey’s arm.
Corey wanted to throw up. She understood all too well the kind of fun he had in mind. It made her skin crawl. She struggled and fought, kicking and punching and biting. Doing everything in her power to not let this man drag her past the tree line. She believed him when he said he would return her alive, and she knew she was strong enough to survive whatever he dished out. But was Dom? Was Riley? That poor kid was going to be able to hear everything that happened in those woods. She could hear Riley next to her pushing and pulling at the ropes around his hands. His muffled screams broke her heart. Suddenly she realized this giant ogre hadn’t even gagged her, he was too cocky. She screamed as loud as she could as long as she could. She was cut off by a hard backhand across the face. No one had ever hit her like that before. It hurt like a motherfucker.
“You crazy bitch. You make one more sound and I’ll make sure by the end of the night you are begging me to kill you.”
She knew that Dom had to have heard her, but they were already in the woods; she was too late. The slap to the face stunned her long enough for him to pick her up and carry her the rest of the way in. She knew that this man could inflict plenty of damage in the time it would take Dom to reach her. Franklin’s driver threw her on the ground, and she felt blood run down her leg when she landed on a sharp tree root. She need to slow him down, keep him talking and distracted. “What’s your name?”
“It’s Bull. Why does it matter? You want to make sure you’re screaming the right one?”
His words combined with his smirk made her gag. “No. When I call the police in a few minutes, I want to be able to tell them who the dead body belongs to.”
“You’re feisty. I like that.”
Corey closed her eyes and stilled her mind, reaching out her senses, trying to mentally see what was happening around her. She could vaguely hear Riley thrashing and struggling to get free, she heard a snake slither deeper into the woods, she heard Bull’s zipper as he pulled it down slowly, and then she heard the best sound in the world. Her backdoor creaking open. Bull got down and kneeled in front of her.
“Why are you smiling? Believe me, this is going to hurt.”
“I’m smiling because I’m about sixty seconds away from killing you. And I’m not sure what this says about me as a person, but it’s making me positively giddy.”
Bull chuckled. “Oh girly, I have big plans for that smart mouth of yours.”
Corey knew the instant that Dom figured out what was happening. He must have seen Riley on the ground and freed him because she didn’t hear his muffled screams anymore. In fact, she didn’t hear anything. The night had gone completely silent. No animals were moving. Even the wind stayed still. It was the calm before the storm, and the whole universe knew it.
Well, everyone except for Bull. He was still laughing. Poor bastard.
“Hey, Bull?”
“What? Is this where you get scared and beg for your life?”
She motioned to the edge of the woods with her head.
Bull narrowed his eyes at her, but then curiosity got the best of him and he looked in the direction she was talking about. He must have seen something because he slowly got up off the ground and palmed his knife. Corey couldn’t help but giggle to herself; he’d brought a knife to a gunfight. All she needed was his back completely turned to her so she could grab her gun without him seeing. A stick cracked under pressure a few feet away, giving her the opportunity she needed.
She lifted her hoodie, grabbed her pink gun, and flipped off the safety. She stood up and pointed her gun at Bull. She could kill him now, one shot to the head; he wouldn’t even know what happened. Nah. “Bull.” He turned, his eyes as big as saucers when he saw the girly-looking nine-millimeter pointed at his dick. “You are a bad man. And also a stupid man. I tried to warn you, but you didn’t listen.”
“You wouldn’t kill me. You don’t have the guts. You’re one of those all bark and no bite bitches. Now put the gun down and I’ll still let you live.”
Corey shook her head and smiled. “I have a nine-millimeter pointed at your dick and you are sorely mistaken. I was taught shoot to kill, not maim, but I feel like with you I could make an exception and do both. Now tell me, is Franklin connected to what happened to Henderson?”
He didn’t answer. He spit at her feet.
“You have terrible manners.” Corey squeezed the trigger and shot him right in the crotch. He screamed and doubled over in agony, falling to the ground.
Corey shrugged. She thought maybe she would feel a little bad after shooting someone’s dick off, but she really didn’t.
“Oh my god, Corey, you shot him?” Dom came charging into the woods and grabbed Corey, hugging her to him tightly.
“Of course I shot him. That’s why you stayed out on the edge of the woods, right? Thanks for distracting him for me.”
“I stayed on the edge of the woods because I didn’t know if he had a gun to your head or a knife to your throat. I was waiting for him to be distracted with you so I could come up behind him and choke him ’til he passed out. I can’t believe you killed him. Now how are we going to get answers? And what the hell were you thinking coming out here at night without telling me? Fuck. I want to strangle you right now.” Dominic was pacing back and forth, gesturing wildly, and his sentences were coming out as more of a growl than words.
“I’m sorry, I thought the boys needed me. At least I had the good sense to grab a gun. And I didn’t kill him, I shot him in the balls.”
Dom stopped in his tracks and faced her. “You shot a man in the nuts?”
“Yeah. So maybe you should stop yelling at me. I’m still locked and loaded over here.” She held up her gun for effect.
“You shot a man in the nuts with a pink nine-millimeter?”
“A nine is a nine, no matter the color.”
Chapter Forty-One
Dominic
“We should buy one big giant house and all live in it together,” Keller said as he threw his arms out and around Corey on one side and Baze on the other.