Protection: A Bad Boy Stepbrother Romance

by Wood, Vivian

  Jace collapsed against her heavily, breathing hard. They lay in silence for a handful of minutes, trying to regain their breath or must enough energy to talk.

  Jace broke the silence with a loud swear. He pulled away and looked at her, then grabbed her chin and turned her head. Another curse escaped him as he brushed his fingertips over her neck. Tessa sucked in a breath as he did it, confused.

  “Ow! Quit!” she protested, slapping weakly at his hand.

  “Jesus. God damn it all,” he growled, releasing her chin and pushing off her body.

  “What is your problem?” she asked languidly, unable to bring herself to care about much of anything.

  “Just get dressed,” he mumbled, snatching up her bra and panties and tossing them at her.

  “Nice. This is great,” she muttered, pulling the panties on and fastening the bra. Tessa glared at him as she snatched up her other clothes from the floor.

  Jace had pulled on his jeans and shirt in silence, a deep frown on his face. He’d really screwed up now. He’d initiated the mating ritual without asking. Shit, he hadn’t so much asked her out on a real date yet. And now time was ticking; Tessa had to complete the ritual as soon as possible or suffer the consequences.

  When Tessa found out what he’d done, she would be repulsed. What had Jace been thinking, mindlessly giving her the bite? All he could remember was a flash of possessiveness, an irresistible need to make her stay with him, to make her commit. Which was insane, because she wasn’t the one with the commitment issues.

  His own fears had once again made him weak, and this time it had hurt Tessa. He should have told her he respected her, told her what an amazing Shifter she had become. But no, not Jace. He could never make it that easy on himself, or on Tessa.

  Jace let out another string of curses. He didn’t even have the damned ring he’d ordered. He was counting on having something sparkly to soften the blow when he explained the permanence of mating between Shifters.

  “Does this mean we’re on speaking terms again?” Tessa asked, only half joking.

  Jace stopped and looked at her for a moment. She looked confused and a little hurt. His stomach twisted sourly as he realized he was causing her pain. He had to go get the ring and do this properly before he ruined everything.

  “I have to go do something. Stay here until I return.”

  Jace opened the door to his office and stepped outside, taking a deep breath. Then he simply took off without another word. He half-jogged to the exit and disappeared, leaving Tessa standing alone in the doorway.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Watching Jace flee the building, Tessa felt hot tears stinging her eyes as she tried to keep her lower lip from trembling. She was pathetic, and she hated it. She shouldn’t care about his rejection, wouldn’t care.

  Spotting a ladies’ room at the end of the hall, Tessa slipped inside to try to make herself presentable before she had to face Kat or Shaw or anyone else.

  Flipping the light on, she walked to the sink and gasped as she caught her reflection in the small mirror. The side of her neck bore a perfect set of crimson marks in the shape of a bite. The wound was neat and clean-looking, but when she touched it fresh blood welled to the surface.

  Jace had friggin’ bit her. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and sought her wolf. The wolf was satisfied, and didn’t seem to want to answer Tessa’s summons.

  Digging in her purse for the scarf she’d borrowed when Kat has rescued her from the infirmary, she looped it around her neck to cover the bite mark. The scarf was still just as hideous, but Tessa wasn’t about to walk around with the wound on display for everyone to see. It seemed private, somehow.

  Jace’s command for her to stay put rankled, making Tessa aware that he was all too comfortable ordering her around again. Doubt filled her mind, plaguing her with uncertainty and cruel thoughts.

  He switched from hot to cold with such frequency that Tessa couldn’t assume that he even liked her. For all she knew, Tessa was just one of many girls that Jace chased around. She pushed aside a little voice in the back of her mind that insisted that couldn’t be true.

  Tessa needed someone to talk to, and this time even Kat wouldn’t do. She needed help catching up her own thoughts and needs. She needed to make sure that she was making the right decisions. She needed to talk to Camilla.

  When she returned to Camilla’s room in the infirmary, she found Camilla wide awake. True to her word, Kat had stayed by her side. The Shifter female was filling Camilla in on what she’d missed in the last week. Tessa’s heart swelled, thankful beyond words that her new friend would be so thoughtful and considerate of Camilla’s needs.

  “Tess!” Camilla shouted, the second Tessa entered the room. Kat shuffled out of the way and Tessa flung herself on her sister. Steeling her nerves, Tessa promised herself she wouldn’t start sobbing again. This was a happy reunion, and everyone had come out of it safely.

  Kat cleared her throat.

  “I’ve caught Camilla up on all the action as best I can, I think,” Kat ventured.

  Tessa released her sister and turned to Kat, overwhelmed with gratitude.

  “Thank you so much, Kat. I know you’ve been here for ages, so I can take over if you want.”

  “And miss the gossip about Jace? I think not,” Kat said, pulling up a chair on the other side of the bed.

  “Kat wouldn’t tell me anything about you and this Jace character other than to say that she approves of him. I’m going to need some details, Tess,” Camilla said, giving Kat a wink.

  Tessa’s face colored, and she was at a loss for words.

  “I’m not— I don’t know what’s going on with us. I don’t know what to tell you. Besides, you must have a million questions about Shifters and the Den and this whole life…” Tessa trailed off.

  “No, I think I’m pretty good. Between James’s version and Kat’s version of everything, I think I’ve got my bases covered,” Camilla said with a nonchalant shrug.

  “Aaaaaand you’re not freaking out right now?” Tessa asked. “You can tell us if you’re freaking out, you know.”

  “Please. You might’ve had your head stuck in the sand all this time, but I’ve always known we were different. I just didn’t know how different we really are,” Camilla said.

  “Cami…” Tessa said, eying her sister.

  “She’s fine,” Kat cut in. “So out with the gossip. Did you find Jace?”

  Tessa’s blush was an answer in itself, and Kat and Camilla burst into giggles.

  “Tessa the virgin finally let a guy warm her up? I can’t believe it,” Camilla said, her tone teasing.

  “Come on, like you’ve ever… done that,” Tessa retorted, embarrassed.

  “Uh, yeah. Ages ago, Tess. Remember Julien from St. Katherine’s Prep School?” Camilla said with a smirk.

  “The French exchange student? Camilla, you didn’t!” Tessa protested, but she was hard-pressed to keep a serious expression.

  “Anyway, back to you. How was it? Was it romantic, or was it wild? I bet it was wild, he sounds like kind of a heathen,” Camilla teased, making Tessa’s cheeks flame.

  “We’re not talking about this,” Tessa insisted.

  “At least tell us if you two have worked things out,” Kat said. “I want a happy ending. I want you to stay with us, both of you.”

  Tessa sighed and her shoulders sagged a bit.

  “I’m not sure. After we… he just sort of ran off. I’m not really sure what I did wrong,” Tessa replied slowly.

  “Just let me know when you want me to kill him, Tess,” Camilla offered.

  “I’ll help you, Camilla. I’ll be damned if Jace Copeland is going to drive off a couple of females I actually like,” Kat said.

  “I was hoping… if Shaw lets me, that is… I was planning on staying with the pack anyway,” Tessa said. Kat clapped her hands and cheered, but Camilla gave her an appraising look.

  “What about Boston?” Camilla asked.

>   “What about it? I feel safe here, and I like the people. That’s more than I can say about our collection of frenemies in Cambridge,” Tessa said, crossing her arms.

  “What about all your save the rain forest charities? What will you do down here for work? You’ll go crazy without something to do,” Camilla pointed out.

  “About that…” Kat started in.

  “Yes, about that,” Tessa cut in. “I’m going to be working with Kat. She basically runs the whole pack, and I’m sure she could use a hand.”

  Kat gave Tessa a grin, and shot Camilla a speculative look.

  “I could use more than one, actually,” Kat suggested.

  Camilla rolled her eyes with a laugh.

  “Jeez, my first day here and I’m already being drafted into service. Well, I am pretty awesome…” Camilla said, pretending to admire her nails.

  “So you’ll stay?” Tessa asked.

  “At least until you’re settled. We don’t have to decide our entire future right now, Tess.”

  Tessa laughed and gave Camilla another hard hug, then leaned over and hugged Kat. The girls all laughed, relaxing.

  “I can’t help but think this is the start of something either very great, or very terrible,” Kat said, her eyes gleaming.

  Tessa caught Camilla’s eye and winked, smiling. She couldn’t disagree with Kat; life would only get more interesting from here out.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Jace roared, sweeping a hand across his desk in anger. Papers flew everywhere, and plastic shattered as his laptop hit the wall. That laptop was his prized possession, but none of it mattered.

  He had well and truly ruined things this time. Gripping the velvet ring box in one hand, he contemplated throwing the thing out the window. He unfurled his fingers, placing the delicate box on his desk.

  His fingers shook as he thought about what he’d done. He’d given her the bite, unable to help himself. Rather than flat-out demand that she finalize the mating, he’d wanted to do it right. Woo her, ask her for her hand in mating. Maybe even tell her his feelings.

  So he’d left. When he’d returned, the office was empty, and he knew he’d failed her again. He hadn’t said the right words, hadn’t made her feel safe, the way she made him feel.

  He growled a curse, angry that another barrier had cropped up between them. It was too much, too painful. He needed her now.

  Tessa would come back. She had to come back. Jace was certain. He didn’t know much about what happened in a one-sided mate bond, but he knew that the afflicted partner couldn’t last long without the other. The question was more what condition she’d be in by the time she returned.

  The mating bond had to be completed by both parties, or rejected. If things went awry, the bond’s magic could be destructive to one or both Shifters involved.

  He couldn’t just sit here and wait. If she was already damaged by the time she came back, Jace wouldn’t be able to live with himself. He’d brought this on her without asking her permission, and hadn’t been able to tell her why she shouldn’t run. That slowly she’d begin to suffer in his absence, or even that her mind might fragment in slow increments.

  “Are you alright?” came a soft voice from the doorway.

  Jace looked up to find Cera just outside his office, arms full of papers and rolled maps. Her wide eyes were taking in the wreck of his office, concerned.

  “What’ve you got?” he asked, sidestepping her question.

  Cera entered the office and looked around, then dumped everything onto Jace’s now-cleared desktop. She pulled up a chair and began sorting everything into piles, explaining as she went.

  “Okay. Shaw filled me in on what’s going on. He asked me to help you formulate a plan to protect the Den. I didn’t really know what we’d need, so I brought everything: elevation maps, floor plans of the Den, old tax record blueprints from the compound the Legion is occupying, aerial maps, and a printout of every single document we had that could be remotely related,” Cera said, pointing to each as she organized everything. Pulling out the aerial map, she flipped to the page that covered the Den.

  “I figure our best chance is to hole up in Arcady, right outside of the portal. They can’t get into the Den, so we can focus our efforts on dispatching as many of their men as possible,” Cera said, sounding for all the world like an Army major.

  “That would be true, but you’re forgetting something. The Legion has some way of getting into the Den. They’ve done it before,” Jace said.

  “I’ve always assumed that the Legion just waited around until they got someone under their thumb, and then got them to invite everyone in,” Cera said, her brow wrinkling in confusion. “That’s not a problem I anticipate here. This is a small pack, as close as a family. We would know if someone was planning to betray us, don’t you think?”

  “No, we wouldn’t know at all. I’ve now lived in close quarters with two separate Shifters turned by the Legion. I had no idea with either one, and I’m the god damned head of security,” Jace said, his voice bitter with self-reprisal.

  “Okay. So we’ll set up a ring defense around the Den’s portal, and still focus on taking down the Legion’s troops. We can adapt the same strategy—” Cera started again, stubborn.

  “Let me tell you what will happen with that plan. They will arrive at the best time to throw us off our game, probably dawn or dusk. They’ll hit us with some flash grenades and lots of knockout gas, and that’s just the appetizer. They’ll take anyone they want back to their labs, and let the rest of us burn along with the whole of Arcady and the Den. I’m going to tell you right now, if you end up at their compound, you’ll wish you’’d have burned,” Jace said, his tone and expression chilling.

  “So, what? You’ve already given up? We all just run?” Cera asked, her tone taking an angry edge.

  “No,” Jace said as he looked up at her. “I’m saying the opposite. We have to turn the tables, be the aggressors instead of the victims. We have to take the fight to them.”

  Cera was speechless for a long moment, but she grasped his meaning soon enough. Flipping to the map of the Legion’s lab, Cera frowned.

  “I know our chances on our own land are slim, but the Legion’s land is even worse,” she said, passing the photo over to Jace. Jace picked it up and studied it for a full minute, then slid it back across the desk.

  “You mentioned blueprints of the Legion’s compound?” he asked. Cera nodded and selected one of the rolls of paper, spreading it out over everything else. Together they studied the floor plan.

  “Doubtless they’ve upgraded the security, changed things here and there. But we’ve got their little henchman locked up here, and he can tell us how to get in and out safely, I expect,” Jace mused.

  “I hear he’s not much of a talker,” Cera said.

  “He’ll talk,” Jace said without elaboration. “I’ll need you to come up with the best way to get us close to the Compound. Round up Declan, he should be able to provide us with a distraction, give us a chance to slip inside.”

  Cera nodded, already caught up in her plans.

  “Where will you be?” she asked.

  “I’ll be getting to know the new guy,” Jace answered, and then he was gone.

  Cera looked up, blinking. Had Jace Copeland just made a joke? She shook her head. Surely she’d imagined it.

  Chapter Forty

  It only took Tessa a few minutes to catch Kat and Camilla up on everything that had happened over the last few hours.

  Tessa told them about James’s warning about the Legion attack, about the scolding from Shaw, and gave them a censored version of her trip to Jace’s office. Kat listened throughout the whole tale, saying little.

  “So now I have no idea where we stand. It’s the same thing over and over again. We kiss, he runs. I don’t think I can do it anymore,” Tessa surmised.

  “You two are so far into the mating ritual, it’s a done deal. I doubt either of you will back out now,” Kat said.


  Flashing Kat a disgruntled look, Tessa got up and dug around in her purse for the hair pick she always kept on hand for hair emergencies. She started running it through her hair, but it kept catching at the scarf she’d perma-borrowed from Emmy. Tessa frowned, but didn’t remove the scarf.

  “Take that hideous thing off already,” Kat said.

  “It’s, uh, cold in here,” Tessa lied, continuing to fuss with her mop of blonde ringlets. The room was silent for a long moment.

  “Tessa, you’re not a very good liar,” Camilla said.

  Tessa shot a frown at her sister, but kept working the comb through her hair even though it was pretty much detangled by now.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Tessa bit off.

  Cool air hit Tessa’s neck before she even realized that Kat had moved. The scarf vanished, and Kat was staring at the barely-closed set of teeth marks.

  “He did this to you?” she asked, her voice soft as she reached out to touch the wound. Tessa reared back, not wanting the bite touched, even by her friend.

  “I’m fine,” Tessa replied as she backed away.

  “Did you ask him to do this?” Kat asked, her voice still soft but now underlined by anger.

  “It was the heat of the moment. I doubt he knew what he was doing,” Tessa said, turning to put the comb back in her purse.

  “Tessa, look at me.”

  Tessa looked at her friend, surprised by how upset the other girl was over something so silly. Kat opened her mouth and closed it, clearly trying to find the right words.

  “I know this sounds crazy, but I have to ask. He bit you like this and he didn’t explicitly ask you if it was what you wanted?” Kat asked.

  “I told you, it isn’t a big deal. It hardly even hurt,” Tessa said as she settled herself back on the bed.

  “You don’t understand, Tessa. He’s completed his half of the mating ritual without your consent,” Kat said.

  “What? What does that mean?” Camilla broke in, her brow furrowing.