by Gale, Avery
Chapter Twenty-One
Jameson stepped into their suite and blew out a sigh. He had known Kit was going to be off-the-chart steamed when he’d sent her upstairs to rest. He had reluctantly left her in their office to speak with her granny and then gone to Tristan’s office to monitor what happened. Watching Marcus treat her as a wayward slave had made him see red. He’d seen Kit use magic to lock the doors and had chuckled. Did she really think he and Trev didn’t have the doors set to automatically open as they approached? It really was a sweet bit of technology and they had been quite happy to have it installed on several of the doors around the estate.
When Kit hadn’t noticed him enter, he’d spared a glance at Marcus who had merely shrugged further fueling his frustration with his longtime friend. But when he’d made his way over to his mate and she’d still been so lost in her thoughts she hadn’t heard him, he’d actually become alarmed. He wasn’t going to stand by and let her push herself to the point of complete exhaustion, and that was the edge she seemed to be skating on.
He’d stepped back with Angie and still regretted how far that situation had gone south before he’d called her in. Jameson didn’t use his Alpha influence often and it was even rarer for he and Trev to tag team a pack member. And neither he nor his brother had enjoyed their little “sit down” with one of their favorite cousins. But once she’d calmed down enough to really listen to them, she’d agreed the power struggle she was engaged in wasn’t in anyone’s best interest. Pulling the “you’re hurting your mates, your patients, and yourself” card had been an act of desperation, but it had worked perfectly. Just the mention of hurting others brought the sweet submissive in Angie into play, no matter how much she hated it.
Jameson really had been pleased with the way their meeting had ended. Jameson had presented Angie with an offer of a position with the pack with a state of the art research lab built to her specifications thrown in to sweeten the deal. The catch had been that she only work a three quarters schedule and ironically, that had been a major sticking point for her. But Angie had finally agreed to scale back her schedule and prepare a compromise for her Alphas to consider. Sighing to himself, he was sure the coming confrontation with his mate wasn’t going to go nearly as smoothly.
When he finally looked around the room, Jameson noticed his brother leaning against the edge of the large window in the living room. He had a drink in his hand and nodded his head to the bar where another sat. “Better fortify yourself. Our sweet mate is madder than a wet hen as our dad used to say.”
“Where is she?” Jameson made his way to the bar and downed the scotch in two gulps, enjoying the burn as it spread out over his chest. “Are the twins here?” He didn’t want them exposed to the fight he knew was coming. Anytime Ryan sensed any distress in his mama things started moving around the room. And the more unhappy Kit was, the more things tended to topple to the floor and shatter. Adana, on the other hand, simply watched with detached interest unless he or Trev became agitated. Their little princess loved her daddies and anyone on the receiving end of their anger got a healthy second dose of pissy-pintsized witch for dessert.
The last time her grandma Carla had thrown barbs at him, Adana had managed to turn her grandmother’s hair a nice shade of moss green. Jameson was sure it was because Trev had been envisioning their caustic mother-in-law as a toad sitting in the lily pads out back, but he couldn’t prove it. “Letting your mind wander like that isn’t a very good way to show Kit how important is to stay focused.” His brother’s laughter had Jameson shaking his head. Hell, his brother was right. Here he was poised to confront their mate about how dangerous her distraction and fatigue was, and he wasn’t any better.
“There isn’t anything about this that is going to win me any points in the short run. Long term…well, I think she’ll see that we are right, but she isn’t going to be happy at first. And when she finds out her granny put a spell on the suite to restrict her magic for tonight, she is going to blow a gasket for sure.” The spell had actually been Ruby’s idea and he’d readily agreed that this one needed to be played out with their roles more traditionally defined. Kit didn’t use magic often in her everyday life, but when she became emotional random things tended to happen.
Turning toward the hallway, he asked, “Is she in the shower? I thought I heard it when I came in.”
Trev nodded, “Yes, and she’s obviously hiding.” Setting the crystal tumbler he’d drained on top of the bar, he moved toward Jameson. “Come on, the sooner we get this over with…the sooner we can get to the makeup sex.” Their chuckles both sounded hallow and a tread of dreaded concern moved through Jameson’s mind. What if she left them? He’d never survive the heartache. Most male shifters didn’t survive long after losing a mate, particularly when the mate chose to leave.
Stepping in to the master suite’s enormous bath, the first thing Jameson noticed was the steam was so thick he could barely see across the room. Then he picked up the faint sound of a sniffle, and his heart shattered. Stepping around the glass block wall and into the shower, he saw Kit crumbled on the floor facing away from him and her shaking shoulders let him know that she was sobbing but holding in as much of the sound as possible. Grateful that he’d already shed everything but his well-worn jeans on the way through their bedroom, he stepped into the shower and picked her up. He hated feeling her stiffen in his arms but hearing her whispered, “No, I don’t want you,” shredded the few pieces of his heart that hadn’t fallen into his stomach when he’d first heard her crying.
When she tried to pull away from him and scramble out of his hold, he tightened his arms around her. “Kitten. Stop.” He rarely used his compelling voice, but he’d certainly used it this time because her safety was at stake. Her skin was so slick from the water that he was worried about dropping her and nothing good was going to come from her falling out of his arms. She’d immediately stilled even though he could feel her mind pressing against his. Trev was holding one of the warm towels from the heated bar and tucked in around her.
“Trev, please take me. I don’t want to talk to Jameson.” Kit’s voice was starting to regain some of the heat he’d been expecting. He had been prepared to deal with a pissed off mate, not the defeated one he’d found on the shower floor.
“No can do, baby. This is about all three of us working this out. We love you more than life itself, but we won’t let you play us against each other. It isn’t in anyone’s best interest for us to do that.” Jameson gave his brother a quick nod letting him know he appreciated his comments. He sat on the small sofa facing the fireplace and settled her on his lap. He unpinned her hair and let the beautiful waterfall of dark red curls fall down her back. Kit still hadn’t met his gaze, instead she was staring into the flickering gas flames.
“Kitten, I know you are upset with me, so why don’t you tell me what the problem is and let’s see if we can’t work through it.” She didn’t respond for so long that he’d started to wonder if he wasn’t going to have to compel her cooperation. He had a very real aversion to using that technique and Trev had always steadfastly refused to ever employ his compelling voice. But Jameson didn’t plan to let this problem fester between them either. She could either answer on her own or he’d force the issue.
“You swore you would never hurt me…and you did.” He felt her body shiver and he wasn’t sure if it was from the conversation or if she was really cold. Jameson silently asked Trev to retrieve her robe. Once they’d gotten her covered he’d pulled her back onto his lap.
“Now, please explain what I did that hurt you, kitten. Because I don’t want to make any assumptions here. You are much too precious to both of us for us to risk misinterpreting.”
She finally turned to him and blew out a shaky breath. Sitting with her long, slender fingers fisted in her lap, she shot him a look that made him grateful her magic wasn’t available at this moment. “You sent me out of the room like an errant child. You basically told everyone in the house that you don�
�t value my input, the questions I wanted my grandmother to answer were of no consequence, and that you didn’t want me to be seen as a management problem to Marcus…who, by the way, was an arrogant ass.” This time when she tried to stand he let her—mostly because he was so surprised by her words. He barely managed to pull back his gut reaction, which was to roar out his disagreement with her assessment. This time he decided to try to see the incident from her viewpoint, but he was coming up empty.
He and Trev spoke quietly via their mind link and by mutual agreement, they agreed to give her a moment and they just watched as she paced in front of the living room’s large array of windows. They’d seen her do this several time when something that was bothering her. True to form, she paced quickly back and forth in front of the large windows muttering her frustration as if no one else was in the room. He wasn’t catching it all but he had heard enough to know she was royally pissed at Marcus and questioning his mother’s marital status when she’d had the “piss ant with the ego the size of the Great Pyramids”. He knew she was mentally processing what had happened and he didn’t mind waiting for her to see she was overreacting.
She came to a sudden stop and turned slowly to stare at him. Her hands were fisted on her slender hips and her eyes narrowed. “Overreacting? Are you fucking kidding me, Jameson?” Usually Kit’s strong emotions caused the candles in the room to suddenly burst into flames so they kept the room well stocked so she didn’t burn the mansion down. But this time every candle in the room melted in to a puddle before seemingly evaporating into thin air.
'Holy fucking meltdown. Did you see that? I thought her granny did a little hocus pocus to keep Kit’s magic in check tonight?'
“And you think I didn’t pick up Granny Good Witch’s trace magic the minute I stepped into the suite? Really? Spell me, you two are un-fucking-believable. Did you think I’d use magic on you?” Her voice was going up with every word she spoke and Jameson was getting worried that she was going to fly right apart considering how she was literally vibrating with rage. It was definitely time to regain control of this discussion.
“Kathleen, sit down and listen. Now!” She might have been righteously pissed, but he was still her Alpha and she sat down despite the fact she’d fixed him with her best eat shit and die expression.
“First of all, the spell wasn’t our idea so put that notion right out of your pretty little head. Second, you were sent up here to rest because I not only entered the room, but walked right up in front of you without you even realizing I was close. It is painfully obvious to everyone that you are physically and emotionally exhausted. I made poor decisions with Angie recently and I was determined to not repeat it with you.” Scrubbing his hand over his face in frustration, he stood and walked to the fireplace and leaned against the black onyx mantle. Almost immediately he felt a lot of his frustration drain away and the infusion of energy that followed was a welcome relief.
While he gathered his thoughts, Trev leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees and clasped his hands. “Kit, we watched from Tristan’s office.” When she gasped and started to stand he held out his hand. “Hear us out. We weren’t spying on you, we were watching over you. We are your mates, baby, and your safety is our chief concern. And to be perfectly honest, we know Marcus can be a real asshat sometimes and we were neither one particularly pleased that he’d stayed behind. We weren’t sure what his interest was, but as it turns out, we were right to be concerned.”
Jameson watched as Kit mulled over Trev’s words. He could almost hear the well-oiled wheels of her mind spinning rapidly as she tried to make sense of everything that Trev had said. The dark circles under her eyes told him just how little sleep she’d gotten last night after their run. She still hadn’t regained the weight she’d lost recently, and that only added to her fragile appearance and emotional vulnerability. “Kitten, we happen to agree with you that Marcus was out of line. His request that we take you in hand because you were disrespectful was out of line at the minimum and probably closer to completely inappropriate. Honestly, I’ve never known Marcus’s ego to be such a problem, but where you and your granny are concerned he just can’t seem to behave himself.”
Shaking his head, he remembered how outraged Marcus had been when they’d told him clearly that he’d been out of line and that they agreed with Kit. They had actually been quite proud of the way she’d handled the situation, but he wasn’t sure she was ready to hear that just yet. Drawing a deep breath, he decided to just spit out the worst of the information they’d gotten after she’d left the room and then work from there. “Kit, Marcus’s interest in all this is pretty significant. And Devin wasn’t delusional when he referred to Reagan as his sister-in-law.”
Her eyes had gone wide and he could see her gripping her knees so hard her knuckles had gone white. “What do you mean?”
“Damian and Marcus are brothers. Marcus is the light to Damian’s dark, although after his behavior tonight I’m not sure light is quite the word I would have chosen.” Jameson had just gotten the last word out when everything seemed to happen in slow motion around him. Kit sprang to her feet and she’d gone completely ashen as all the blood seemed to have drained from her face. Her eyes went wide and then rolled up so far all he could see was white. Before he could even take a step forward she was falling. Her knees had simply folded out from under her. Trev caught her just as her forehead hit the marble end table with a deafening thud.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Trevlon Wolf couldn’t remember a time when he’d felt more helpless. Even though he’d moved the instant he saw the blood drain from Kit’s beautiful face, he had still failed to prevent her from being injured. Cursing the repeat of his earlier failure, he stood by and tried to tamp down the urge to drive his fist through the nearest wall. For now all he could do was stand by and watch as Angie assessed the damage and try to focus on anything but drowning in the feelings of guilt that were crashing over him. God damn it to hell. This is the second time I’ve failed to protect her. How can she ever trust me again? Trev hadn’t intentionally broadcast his thoughts to his brother, but he hadn’t tried to hide them either so it wasn’t a surprise when Jameson leveled him with a look before responding.
‘We are both responsible…equally culpable. I knew the news was going to shock her. I should have been closer as well. How we continually manage to fuck up with the most important person in the world I can’t imagine. It is times like these that I miss our dads the most.’ Jameson’s feelings of loneliness bled over to Trev and he felt as swamped by the emotion as his brother.
Angie huffed out an exasperated breath and turned to them. “Would you two overbearing whiny asses mind taking it outside so you can speak aloud and stop bothering your mate? Your incessant chatter may not be out loud, but it’s still a pain in the ass.” Jameson blinked at her in surprise and Angie just shook her head as if she couldn’t imagine how he could possibly be so dim. “No, I can’t hear you…I’m just getting static, but I know Kit can by the changes in her heart rate.” Waving toward the door, she added, “I’ll be out in a minute to speak with you. And find Ruby, please.” Jameson was actually somewhat stunned when his cousin turned her back on him as if he’d been dismissed. Blinking back his surprise, he stalked from the room.
Angie wanted to giggle at the look on Jameson’s face. He’d obviously become comfortable in his role as the Wolf Pack’s Alpha and wasn’t accustomed to being sent from the room. When Kit’s cold fingers clenched her hand Angie’s attention snapped back to her patient’s ashen colored face in time to see her mouth “Thanks.”
“My pleasure. Boy, sometimes men just don’t get it. I assume they were playing the World Cup of the Blame game?” Kit didn’t open her eyes, but her smile said it all. When Angie had arrived the first thing she’d done was make sure all the lights were dimmed because the huge lump on Kit’s forehead told her the woman was going to likely wake up with a blinding headache and light was going to be excruciating. When Angi
e had checked her pupils Kit had groaned and tried to turn away from the light. “Sorry for that, sweet sister, but I need to make sure you are alright. That is a nasty bump you’ve got on forehead.” Angie had made sure she’d spoken softly and watched closely as Kit relax back into her pillow. “Your granny should be able to help since I don’t think you have any real neurological problems. I’ll send her in after I fill her in. We’ll talk out in the hall because I know your head must be pounding like a bitch.” Kit’s smile let Angie know she’d been right.
Kit leaned back against the cool cotton pillowcase and knew immediately it was Trev’s. From the beginning she’d been able to tell the men apart not only by scent, but their energies were vastly different as well. She wondered briefly if her life would ever be simple again. Before she’d mated, she hadn’t struggled with any of the problems she was facing now and it was often just as overwhelming as she’d feared it would be. She had avoided large gatherings of witches or shifters for years because she’d feared finding her mate. Then she walked into a mid-town dance club and was slammed full force into the very situation she’d sworn she’d never let herself get caught up in.
She was grateful Angie had dimmed the lights and was keeping everyone out of the room for a bit to give her a chance to rest. Obviously she’d spoken to Jameson and Trev about their mind link communication as well, because everything had been blissfully quiet for over an hour. The fact Marcus was Damian’s brother was almost too much to take in. She remembered Jameson saying something about him being light to Damian’s dark, but she wasn’t entirely convinced Marcus was exactly pure as the driven snow.
It was obvious her granny wasn’t overly fond of the man, and that alone was cause for concern. She’d never known her grandmother to misjudge anyone, so Kit wasn’t planning to let her guard down anytime soon. Reagan had mentioned something about his story to tell so evidently she knew at least part of Marcus’s story. She was sure her mates would have mentioned Damian to Marcus. They’d no doubt shared what had happened with Damian right after she’d first met the Wolf brothers, so why hadn’t he told them then the demon threatening her was his brother? Or had he and they’d failed to tell her?