End of Lies

by Sara Dailey

  The look on her stunning face took my breath away as something real and equally mind blowing flowed between us. Cami dropped her eyes to my chest, breaking the intense connection between us, but I wasn’t letting her off the hook. She had to have felt our undeniable chemistry too, so I took a chance and leaned in to whisper in her ear, “Look at me, Cami.”

  She took a deep breath and stepped out of my arms. “Are you trying to make a move on me, Gavin?”

  There was a glint in her eyes, and I could tell that see was teasing me, so I went with it. “Hell yeah, I am. Baby, I’ve got moves you’ve never seen,” I said, making her laugh out loud.

  “Really? Do those moves include quoting Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding?”

  “Huh?” I asked, feeling totally lame for unknowingly quoting fucking Julia Roberts! Real smooth, man.

  “Never mind, lover-boy. I’ll be right back,” she said with a flirty smile as she turned to leave.

  Cami returned not a minute later with her plate of spaghetti and two bottles of water.

  We ate our meal with a weird silence filling the air. I tried to focus on the food in front of me, but it was hard to keep me eyes off of her, especially when I’d catch her eyes on me every now and then when she thought I wasn’t paying attention. Whether she knew it or not, she looked like she wanted to jump over the table and devour me, which, in turn, made me hard as a freaking rock. I had to fight off the urge to shove everything off the table, spread her body over it, and taste every inch of her. Food be damned.

  Every time our eyes connected, she’d smile and look away as if she was suddenly shy. The sweet, vulnerable Cami was such a contrast to her usual feisty self, and it was hot as hell, but truth be told, it confused the shit out of me too. Not that I cared. Confused or not, I wanted this girl. No, I needed this girl.

  All too soon, lunch was over and Cami was taking our plates back to the kitchen. The fear that she wouldn’t return punched me in the gut, so I followed her even though I knew I shouldn’t. Surprisingly, Cami didn’t yell at me for leaving the safe room. She did, however, shoot me her famous dirty look. I asked to help her with the dishes, but she refused.

  “I’ve got it. There are some movies in the drawer under the TV in the safe room. Why don’t you pick one out for us,” she suggested. A huge goofy grin appeared on my face, and I couldn’t have fought it if I’d tried.

  “Any requests?” I asked.

  “I trust you,” she said with the sexiest damned grin I’d ever seen.

  “Some movies? Holy crap,” I said under my breath as my eyes scanned over hundreds of DVDs. I was trying to decide between a romantic comedy or a horror flick, both excellent choices for sitting really close together on the loveseat.

  “Texas Chainsaw Massacre or The Notebook? I haven’t seen either one,” I said holding up both DVDs as Cami walked back into the safe room.

  “No scary movies! We could make our own with a video camera right now. Don’t you think?” she said as she settled down on the loveseat and tucked her long legs up under her.

  “Yeah, I guess we could,” I barely whispered as I put The Notebook in the DVD player.

  I could hardly concentrate on the movie with Cami sitting so close. I would shift in my seat just to touch her, and when she would move and accidentally brush against me, I thought I just might die from the need to touch her again. I wondered if that was possible, if any guy had ever died from being so damn horny. I bet some poor sucker had.

  I probably should just turn in my man card now, but at some point, I got completely sucked into that damn movie, and by the time the credits began to roll, I was one hot mess. I tried to cover it up. I tried to wipe the moisture from my eyes without being seen, but it didn’t work. It was just one teeny-tiny tear that escaped, but dammit if she didn’t see it!

  “Awww, you big baby,” Cami teased. When I looked at her, her face was streaked with tears of her own.

  I gave her a playful shove then pulled her in for a hug. I was completely surprised when she didn’t push me away.

  Laughing at herself as she wiped her eyes she admitted, “I guess it got to me too, or maybe it’s just all the stress. And I’ve seen this freaking movie like five times!” Cami looked up at me, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching up and wiping her tears away.

  Time slowed as we sat there together. Cami bit down on her bottom lip just before she grabbed my neck and pulled my lips to hers, shocking the shit out of me. I wanted to be smooth, to kiss her gently and not like a sex-crazed teenager, but seriously, I had no swag when it came to this girl. So, I just gave in and went with what felt real. And in that moment, frantic need took over.

  Lucky for me, Cami seemed to feel the same way. The built-up sexual tension between us sent both of us into a frenzy of touching and kissing and exploring. Cami whimpered once when I left her lips and again when my mouth trailed down her neck. The damned loveseat was entirely too small. Cami obviously agreed because the next thing I knew she was straddling my lap.

  My breath caught in my throat when I opened my eyes to see Cami’s mouthwatering cleavage right in front of my face. I captured her lips again as I let my hands run up her tank top. As I gently cupped her full breasts, Cami’s head fell back giving me access to her neck. It was my turn to whimper as Cami readjusted herself, pressing against my erection. Needing to touch even more of her, I lifted the thin tank over Cami’s head, revealing a white and hot-pink polka-dot bra underneath. Damn!

  My breath hitched in my throat and for a moment, I just stared at her perfect tits, but Cami grabbed my face and forced my mouth back to hers. My hands acted on their own as they pulled her bra down, so I could run my fingers over her hardening nipples. When Cami rubbed herself even harder against me, I knew that this loveseat would never work. I wrapped my hands under her ass and stood, lifting us both off the couch. Within seconds, I’d carried her into the bedroom of the safe house.

  Immediately, Cami pulled my shirt off and pushed me back on the bed. Standing there in her bra, which was already halfway off, and those itty-bitty shorts, she shot me a sexy smile before she leaned down to kiss me again. As Cami climbed on top of me, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her body against me. I rolled our bodies over so that we were lying on our sides, and then our eyes connected as Cami’s hand slid down my stomach, causing me to shiver. I stopped breathing when she reached down to unbutton my jeans, but in that same moment, sirens began blaring throughout the estate. We both jumped so high I had to grab Cami before she fell off the bed.

  “What the fuck?” I panted.

  Cami’s eyes went wide just before she shot up from the bed and ran to the couch to grab her tank top. “It’s the emergency sirens again. That can’t be good. I better go,” she called before she ran out of the room without looking back.

  CHAPTER 21

  Kendall

  Standing on the steps of the lodge, I watched as the CH search team dragged Jake Larson in my direction. His body was limp, yet he didn’t look injured, which meant he hadn’t been beaten for his crime against the Crescent Hills Pack…yet. My initial reaction to this sight simply piqued my curiosity, but the eerily triumphant look on Nathaniel’s face made my skin crawl, and I quickly realized that these men had something far more sinister in store for poor Jake than a simple beating.

  My entire body my jerked when a voice rang out over the intercom. “All Red Ridge Members, immediately report to the grounds outside of the lodge. I repeat, immediately report to the grounds outside of the lodge.” No, they wouldn’t! Slowly, I began taking steps back toward the lodge’s door, away from the scene that would be unfolding before my eyes any minute now. Everyone here may think of me as an evil bitch, but even I didn’t want to watch this.

  A hand reached out and grabbed my arm. “Where do you think you’re going? This is just about to get good.”

  Drew’s wicked grin only served to worsen the sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. “What’s going on? What are you
going to do to him?” I asked, unsure if I actually wanted to hear his answer.

  He dropped his hand from my arm and shrugged as if something like this happened every day. “Guess you’ll just have to wait and see. It should be a pretty good show, but I wouldn’t stand too close to the action. It might get a little messy.”

  It didn’t take long for the members of the Red Ridge Pack to assemble around the stairs leading up to the lodge. For the time being, Jake Larson was kept out of sight as they were directed to gather in a half circle in front of the building. They whispered among themselves, but all chatter ceased as soon as the doors of the lodge opened and Nathaniel and Brian dragged their semi-conscious pack member, who was bound and gagged, down the stairs and threw him to the ground at their feet.

  Gasps and cries erupted from the crowd, but the Crescent Hills Pack was prepared. Its men lined the angry throng, armed and ready to attack if anyone stepped out of line. Nathaniel turned around and walked back up to the third step before he turned around again to address the group. “First, let me say, this is not something that I wanted to see happen. It was my hope that we could come together peacefully and work together as one. I am not a violent man, but I cannot ignore insubordination. My pack has done nothing but treat you well. We have promised to work together as one, to come together and join forces to become the most powerful wolf pack in New Mexico. All we have asked is that you give us time. Time to work through the transition. Soon, you will be given the opportunity to choose to stay here and join the Crescent Hills Pack or leave. The choice will be yours, but until then, you need to know what will happen if you choose to break my rules. Jake Larson chose to escape, and for that, he will be punished, and his family will be detained. If you choose to be a renegade, be prepared to face the consequences.”

  Nathaniel nodded his head at Brian as if to give him the go-ahead. Clayton walked over with some rope in his hand, and together, they picked up Jake, dragged him over to a nearby tree, and strung him up by his bound wrists. Jake hung from a thick branch as Brian began his brutal assault. Punch after punch, kick after kick, Brian beat Jake to within an inch of his life. Blood poured from a deep gash above his eyebrow, and though his head hung lifelessly to the side, I would have guessed his entire face was already bruised and swollen. I’d be surprised if his cheekbones, nose, and jaw weren’t all broken, along with every single one of his ribs.

  It was a gruesome sight, but what really made my stomach churn was the look on the faces of the people who I had once considered my family. Some looked on wide eyed as if unable to look away while others covered their eyes to shield themselves from the nightmarish vision. Many held each other for support as tears rained down their faces. A few dropped to their knees and sobbed into their hands. The unfamiliar feeling of guilt was too much for me, and I found myself looking away.

  After a few of the longest minutes of my life, a deep voice among the crowd rang out. “Stop! For heaven’s sake, please stop!” It was Gage Isaacks. “We will listen. We will follow your orders. You have our word. Just please stop before you kill him.”

  Somehow Brian, in his murderous rage, heard him and halted in mid-punch. He turned his attention to Nathaniel to look for further instruction. Nathaniel nodded once, and Brian stepped away but didn’t untie him from the tree.

  Standing before the crowd, still on that damn third step, Nathaniel said, “I hope you all heed my warning. Jake will remain here to remind you all to do as you are told. That will be all. Go back to your homes. You are dismissed.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Cami

  I couldn’t believe my eyes, couldn’t believe the bloody scene unfolding right in front of me. People say that shit all the time, I couldn’t believe it, blah, blah, blah…But, I really couldn’t. I’d seen some horrid things since the CH Pack took over our estate, but this? To force us to stand here and watch as they brutally beat Jake half to death and then to leave him hanging lifelessly from that tree? When was it going to end?

  Or, more importantly, how was it going to end?

  After we were dismissed, I just stood there, unable to convince my feet to move. I watched as my pack mourned with their families and made their way back home together. I was alone. My parents were still locked away with Phillip in the cell beneath the lodge, and all I could do was pray that they were okay. There was nothing I could do, and in that moment in time, I’d never felt more helpless.

  But that was exactly what the Crescent Hills Pack wanted. They wanted us to feel helpless. That was how they planned to break us. They needed to make us feel as if we needed them. Only then would a pack as strong as ours be willing to “join forces” as Nathaniel so eloquently put it.

  And Holy Mother of God, it was working! He was breaking our pack! My eyes roved over the people of my pack as they slowly walked down the road to the homes. They were huddled together in little groups, holding each other in comfort with their shoulders hunched and their tears flowing. The realization of it all struck me so forcefully that bile rose up in my throat, and I had to fight back the urge to vomit right there. We weren’t big, strong werewolves anymore. We were weak and vulnerable. Marcus Walker would flip the fuck out if he saw this shit.

  Suddenly, my feet had no problem moving. I needed to get to Gavin. Less than an hour ago, I was wrapped in his arms, ready to…who knows what I’d been ready to do if those sirens wouldn’t have sounded, but somehow, he made me feel things I’d never felt before.

  Even with all of this madness going on around us, he awakened feelings inside of me that I didn’t quite understand. He made me feel less alone. Like someone was here for me. He made me smile, made me laugh. He made me forget.

  Within minutes, I flew threw my front door, locked it, and dashed into the closet of my parents’ bedroom. My fingers fumbled over the numbers as I punched in the code, and as soon as I had the door open, Gavin was standing there waiting for me. His eyes were filled with so much sorrow and pain and anguish, and I knew they were reflecting everything I was feeling in that moment. He had seen it all on the surveillance videos, and along with all the pain, I could see the hesitation in his eyes as well. I could tell he wasn’t sure how I was going to handle this. He wasn’t sure what I needed right now.

  Without breaking eye contact, he took one small, seemingly uncertain step toward me, but I knew exactly what I needed even if he didn’t. I needed him. I threw myself in his arms and held on to him as if he was all I had left in the world. His entire body engulfed me as he let out a sigh of relief. “I’m so sorry, Cami. I’m so sorry.” Gavin breathed into my hair and kissed the top of my head.

  I buried myself in his chest just needing to be close to him. His long, strong arms wrapped tightly around me made me feel safe even if I was anything but. “Your alpha is trying to break us. That’s been his plan all along. He wants us weak and helpless, so we will just roll over and let him take over. And it’s working.”

  Gavin pulled away, but only so he could look down at me when he spoke. “I know, Cami. Nathaniel is ruthless and cruel. He always has been. And you’re right. He wants your pack broken, and he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. But you know what’s been bugging the shit out of me? How he figured out that Jake escaped so quickly. I mean Jake couldn’t have been gone long, right? It’s like somehow my pack knew almost immediately.”

  “I know! I had that same thought! How could they have known?”

  Turning his attention toward the surveillance screens, Gavin asked, “Is there any way to rewind the video or whatever and see if we can find out what happen when Jake escaped? We can look back and see when and how he left and then when the CH guards showed up.”

  I popped up on my tippy-toes and planted a kiss on Gavin’s lips. “You’re brilliant! You know that?”

  A huge grin broke out on his gorgeous face. “Yeah well, that’s what they tell me.” He chuckled at his own joke, and it made me laugh. Somehow in the midst of this massive shit-storm, this guy could still make my insides a
ll fluttery and lighten my heavy heart.

  Simultaneously, we untangled ourselves from each other’s arms and scrambled over to the chairs in front of the large screen. I grabbed the remote and scanned over the buttons but didn’t see anything other than the same old buttons we had used to shift between the different cameras on the estate.

  I looked over at Gavin, who was running his hand over a panel on the table below the screen. “Look, I think I found something,” he said as he tried to get his fingernail under the lip of the rectangular panel.

  How the hell had we not noticed that before? After a few failed attempts, I dug my nail beneath the lip and pushed it in and pulled up. It was kind of like pulling off the battery cover on the back of a TV remote. With the panel open, a whole new array of buttons where available for us to explore.

  Gavin looked my way, his eyebrows raised sky-high. “Holy shit. Guess there’s more to this system than we thought.”

  After at least an hour of trial and error, we finally figured out how to play back the video and found Jake’s house from earlier that day. We played the video at a slow, fast-forward speed until the CH guards showed up at his house for a random search. As soon as the guards left, we located Jake and watched as he slipped out of the mudroom door, and then seven minutes later, the guards showed up at the door again for another “random” search.

  “What the hell? Why did they go back?” I asked, more to myself than to Gavin. It’s not as if I thought he’d have an answer.

  But, Gavin was a whole lot smarter than I gave him credit for because actually he did have an answer. Or, a theory anyway. “Okay, so Jake’s a tough guy, right? Kind of the rebel type?”