by Dannika Dark
He smirked. “You know what they call an accusation without proof in our world? Slander. And there are heavy consequences for ruining an immortal’s good name.”
A loud motor purred in the parking lot and abruptly cut off. When the door slammed, McNeal whipped his head around.
“We’ll deal with this later. You better think real hard about where your father is, because things could get messy.”
Faster than I could track, McNeal ran off. Just a blur of movement down the stairs and across the lawn. I felt dizzy and gripped the railing.
“Alexia!” a man shouted, footsteps climbing up the stairs.
It was Lorenzo.
He cupped my chin in his hand and tilted my head up. “Are you unharmed?” Then he looked over his shoulder. “I saw the Mage; do you know him?” His eyes narrowed to slivers and I shook my head. “Sit,” he said, coaxing me down on the step.
“He’s after my father.” My hands wouldn’t stop shaking and my cheeks felt flushed. “What are you doing here?”
“I got a man on your house and he gave me a call to let me know you were back. I heard you went to negotiate with Ivan. If that’s the case, he’ll have your mother back faster than we will. Cole must have paid him a fine penny for that favor. My men got as far as a gas station outside of El Paso but lost the trail. He’s been stealing cars and changing directions—giving us a run for our money.” Lorenzo’s voice softened and he caressed my right cheek. He drew in a deep breath and his eyes hooded. “You’re okay?”
“I don’t know what I am anymore,” I replied in a distant voice.
“Beautiful?” he murmured against my cheek.
Lorenzo sat to my left with his right elbow propped on one of the steps. With his left hand, he tenderly caressed my cheek, then my neck, and suddenly his fingers were traveling much, much lower. Over the curve of my breast, down the slope of my flat stomach, and then he brazenly cupped his warm hand between my legs.
“Nothing is more damaging to my willpower than seeing a woman in her prime. This’ll be your first time in heat, won’t it?”
All I could feel was the warmth from his hand, and my body quivered from his touch. Sparks shot through me and I closed my eyes, listening to the sound of his hypnotic words. The inflection in his voice had power and reminded me of how Austin spoke. It made the wolf inside me want to submit.
Over my sweatpants, his thumb slowly began to stroke in tight, small circles. I arched my back in response, unable to control the effect Lorenzo had on my body. The craving was beyond what I’d ever experienced before, and all he was doing was touching me.
Barely.
“I can make it feel so good your first time,” he said in a low, rough voice in my ear. “You’re going to want to bend over for me, because the instinct will be strong to be taken from behind. It’s deeper that way.”
My breathing grew heavy while his thumb continued circling. Images of bending over for Lorenzo flooded my mind, him slowly stripping down my sweats to my ankles and, oh God. His mouth was against my ear and I was getting close… too close.
“I’m an experienced alpha, Alexia. I know how to handle you properly. I know what will make you feel good and ease your discomfort. I know how to draw out the pleasure.” Then he breathed in deeply. “You’re so close,” he said in a broken whisper. One that barely maintained control. “Come with me, Nashoba. Come into my pack. Come into my bed. And then just come for me.”
His thumb changed direction and I muffled a cry, my body trembling as I gripped the railing with my right hand. His fingers didn’t stop, his knuckles putting pressure against my core while his thumb rolled in mind-blowing circles.
“That’s it,” he said, softly kissing my jaw. “Stretch out and let me take care of everything.”
It was too much and then I panicked. What the hell was I doing on the stairwell letting a guy I barely knew bring me to orgasm? Even worse, I was on the verge of experiencing one that was so intense that I was liable to scream. Imagine explaining that to the cops.
I flew forward and ran down the stairs. I staggered across the grassy lawn, panting as he strode up behind me. My heart thumped against my chest with such intensity that I could barely hear myself talking.
“What are you doing to me?” I said in quickened breaths.
He held his arms out, palms up. “Showing you what I have to offer.”
“Why me?”
“You’re different, Alexia. You don’t act like the other bitches.”
My face tightened. “Don’t call me a bitch.”
His brows pinched together as an indulgent look crossed his face. Lorenzo closed in and threaded his fingers through my hair on one side. “If you don’t like the word, I’ll stop using it,” he said with a heated breath against my ear. “But you’re still the only bitch I want coming in my bed.”
Two seconds later, all hell was about to break loose when Austin’s car roared around the corner.
He didn’t bother to shut his door, just ate up the lawn with one hell of a stride. Made me want to curl up beside him.
I knew that look on Austin’s face and he wasn’t about to have words with Church. He was about to break bones.
These were two alphas, and I didn’t know the rules when it came to fistfights.
“Evening, Cole,” Lorenzo greeted him. “Still mad about Winnie, I see. She made a great bitch, but I had to pass her off to one of my packmates. Turns out she wasn’t up to my speed.”
So that’s what it was about. Bad blood my ass; Cole hated Lorenzo because of girl trouble.
Austin took my left hand and held it tight as Lorenzo posed a question.
“You have no official claim on her, Cole. So tell me what your intention is?”
I looked up expectantly.
“She’s always been my pack,” Austin said in slow, threatening words. He surprised me. I thought he’d pull a Beckett and go at Lorenzo with fists flying. But he maintained his composure and stayed in control, which made him even scarier.
Lorenzo brushed his long, straight hair away from his eyes. “Tell me why a Shifter was living with a human family.”
“That’s why I’d like to find my father,” I interrupted. “Only he knows where I came from.”
Some of that fire extinguished from Lorenzo’s eyes and they skimmed over me. “You don’t know your real parents?”
I shook my head. Austin inched so close I could feel his body heat.
“How old are you?” Lorenzo asked.
“Twenty-seven.”
Lorenzo reached in his shirt pocket and lifted a box of cigarettes, pulling one out and lighting the end with a red plastic lighter. “That’s interesting.”
Austin picked up on it too. The way Lorenzo said it wasn’t conversational; it was the way you sound when you know something.
“What’s interesting, Church? She’s not yours.”
He chuckled and savored another drag of his smoke. “Perhaps she is, more than you know.”
I yanked my hand free and stepped forward, feeling Austin hook his arm around my waist. “What do you mean by that?”
Lorenzo nodded, staring at the stars with a contemplative look on his face. “My uncle was a Packmaster years ago. There’s a family secret we kept for a long time, but he’s dead now so it doesn’t matter. My aunt had a baby and then a few weeks later, she was murdered and the baby went missing. There were territorial disputes over a large piece of property at the time and two names were on the deed—my uncle’s and an old friend of his. We were told the baby was found dead and my uncle buried her on that property, where our pack belonged.” Lorenzo drew in a deep breath and sighed, tossing the cigarette in the grass. “One night, I overheard my father talking and found out that my aunt had been cheating on her husband—the Packmaster. The baby was not his. To add further insult, the father was a drifter from up north—not one of our people.”
“What does this have to do with anything?” I said, hoping he’d get to the point.
> “My father suspected he had hired someone to take out his wife and baby, then pinned it on the neighboring pack. Two problems solved. No more cheating wife and no infant to remind him of the affair, and an end to a dispute which had been going on for decades. My uncle challenged and killed that Packmaster, reclaiming his property. We sniffed around that land over the years. Never picked up the scent of a dead baby.”
His eyes lowered and memorized me on the way back up.
“Uh-uh,” I said, shaking my head. “You think that was me?”
“Little Talulah, all grown up.”
I gasped, and Austin pulled me tight against his chest.
“She’s a grown woman. I don’t need to remind you of that,” Austin warned.
“Alexia is ours.”
“You mean… you’re my cousin?”
The horror. Oh, God. I’d been felt up by my cousin.
Lorenzo laughed. “By family and pack, but not by blood. My father and uncle were blood relations. My aunt—your mother—was married in from another pack. She had a baby by a nobody, which makes us related, but not related.”
My face heated and I looked away. Maybe we weren’t really related by blood, but it still felt wrong in all kinds of daytime-talk-show ways.
“Hang on to her as tight as you want, Cole, but just remember she’s a Shifter of free will until she signs with a pack. If she wants to come to my bed… then I’m not going to stop her. Goodnight, Alexia,” he said with a soft growl.
I turned to Austin. “What’s a Mage?”
Chapter 19
When Austin found out about the Mage who had threatened me, he crashed on my couch. I received a brief education on some of the Breeds that lived in our world, and the Mage that was after my father had the ability to manipulate energy. Dangerous didn’t even begin to describe their kind. All this was difficult to process and sometimes when you become so overwhelmed, you just learn to accept truth without explanation. What other choice is there?
Austin called Reno to review the video and apparently, he knew a guy who could do a facial-recognition scan.
Whatever that meant.
Needless to say, Austin wasn’t happy when I told him I wanted the cameras out of my apartment because it was invasive. The last thing I needed was for Austin to get a call while he was having a beer, detailing how I was making out with someone. That was the downside, because thinking about a houseful of men sitting around a computer and watching me dry hump someone on the sofa was too much.
Not that I dry humped my dates, but a girl has to put her foot down when it comes to her privacy.
I woke up on the bathroom floor because I’d been afraid to sleep in the same room with Maizy. I was certain my wolf wouldn’t materialize, but Austin had me paranoid about it.
“Why do you got all those marks on your arms?” I heard Maizy ask.
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and dragged myself into the kitchen, where I poured a short glass of cranberry juice and greeted my guests with a sizeable yawn. Maizy sat on the cabinet wearing her pink unicorn nightgown, watching Austin make pancakes.
“Because I like to doodle,” Austin said in a teasing voice.
Maizy giggled and I leaned over the stove. “What is that?” I glared at the misshapen batter.
“These,” he said, flipping one over carefully, “are my specialty flapjacks.”
“He’s making me a kitty,” Maizy explained excitedly.
I glanced at the batter again and noticed the tail. “Very sweet.”
“Looks better than your dragon.”
I narrowed my eyes and shoved his arm. “Austin Cole, you leave my dragon alone. I was five when I made that cup and you’re how old? I think my artistic abilities excel in comparison.” I leaned over the pan and touched the ear. “It’s all crooked.”
He snatched my wrist. “It’s a work of art. Why don’t you put on some clothes?”
There it was again—that husky morning voice oozing with sex. It made me want to snuggle against him. Sometimes I wondered if there was a power in his voice because he was an alpha.
“It’s my house,” I argued. “If I want to prance around in my underwear, I will.”
Maizy giggled and when she started humming the kissing in a tree song, I lifted her off the counter. “Go watch cartoons, sweetie.”
She jogged into the living room clutching a little stuffed dog I kept around for her. Maizy also had her own drawer of clothes for her visits, although Auntie Naya had a whole wardrobe for that child. Naya treated her like a girly girl and Maizy adored her. The last time they went swimming, Naya bought her a pair of pink sunglasses shaped like two hearts. Maizy wore them for two weeks until they finally broke when she fell asleep with them on.
Austin scooped up the pancake and put it onto a plate. “You want me to make you one?”
I cracked a smile. “You want to cook me breakfast?”
While wearing no shirt and doing his infamous lean against the wall, holding a spatula in his right hand. He had great arms. Cords of muscle that roped around, but not the kind my meathead ex had with the bulging veins. Austin was built like a man should be, all the way down to the V-cut that peeked out of his jeans, which were slung low on his waist.
Damn, that lean.
I grabbed the pitcher of batter and made an attempt to do something creative in the pan.
Austin came up behind me and peered over my shoulder. He took my hand and guided the drizzle that shaped into a snake. Then I realized he was trying to do his own rendition of my version of a dragon.
“Cut it out,” I said with a soft laugh. He used a knife to shape the legs. His left hand slid around to my stomach as his chin rested on my right shoulder. Then his breath grew heavy and he suddenly stepped back.
Austin tossed the knife into the sink and raked his hands through his hair. “You’re right,” he said. “You can’t stay at my house. Not right now.”
I turned off the burner and moved the pan. “I’m glad we see eye to eye. What’s really bothering me this morning is what Lorenzo said. I don’t know anything about pack rules, but why would his uncle have murdered his wife?” Then I thought about it. “My mom.”
Austin had a pensive stare that made me uneasy. “The greatest shame on an alpha is for his woman to go to another man’s bed. Having his baby? Even worse.”
“Divorce?”
“It’s not the same with us as it is humans. When we choose a mate, we mate for life. Some alphas have more than one mate, and that’s their prerogative, but loyalty is expected on both ends.”
“He’s hardly loyal if he has more than one wife.”
“If it’s consensual, it’s loyalty. If he strays outside of his females, it’s infidelity. His pack won’t respect him if his woman doesn’t.”
“That’s really scary, Austin.”
“It goes on in the human world,” he said indifferently. “It’s not commonplace, but I see his motive. Had it been proved, he would have been put to death. That would have shamed his entire pack, so maybe that’s why they covered for him and kept it a secret.”
I stared at his abs and began daydreaming about how close Lorenzo was to having his way with me. My mind drifted back to what the Mage said about Wes. Austin had taken care of the killer years ago, but not the man who put a hit on him. And if my father stole diamonds, why did he come back? My head was swimming.
“Did you hear me?”
“Huh?” I glanced up at Austin’s messy bedhead as he was raking his fingers through it. He yawned and casually leaned against the sink.
“I was just asking if I could take you to The Pit for dinner. It’s been a while since I’ve gone there and I’d like to take your mind off all this. You got nothing to worry about with your mom; I trust Ivan will keep to his end of the deal. We can talk about old times.”
Then I got nostalgic. Me tagging along with Wes, Austin, and two more of their friends one Friday night at The Pit. I felt like I was part of the cool crowd. Wes had this th
ing about keeping his cigarettes under his shirtsleeve and when we sat at the table, I snatched the box and pulled out a cigarette. It broke when Wes grabbed it from my hand. His friend Randy complained, “What are you, her dad? Let her have it. She’s a big girl.”
So Wes let me have my first cigarette. He admitted later on he wanted me to get sick smoking it so I’d never pick another one up again, which is why he kept telling me to take another long puff. It worked. Fifteen minutes later, I ran outside and threw up by a newspaper stand. Then I started to cry. I was only fourteen at the time, but I felt humiliated in front of his friends.
I crouched down on the curb, hugging the yellow stand and crying relentless tears. I was too embarrassed to go back inside and I had no other way home. All I could think about was hearing them laugh as I bolted from the table, and it burned me because for a split second, I thought they had accepted me. Stuff like that’s a big deal when you’re a teenager—it’s your whole world.
There was one person who didn’t laugh.
I’d made it two blocks when Austin pulled up in his Camaro. He helped me inside the car without saying a word and drove me home. I’d always assumed Wes had sent him after me, but now I wasn’t so sure. In retrospect, there were a number of memories I had of Austin looking out for me, I just never thought of it that way at the time.
“Well?” Austin asked, setting the spatula on the counter and wiping up a splatter of pancake mix. “Unless you’d rather go somewhere else.”
“I need to find out if Naya can watch Maizy for a few hours.”
“Bring her,” he suggested. “If they still have crayons at the table, she’ll have something to do.”
“No, I’d rather her stay with Naya. I won’t be able to talk to you about certain things with her there. She’s been asking where her mommy is and I don’t have an answer. I just don’t know what to say.”
Maizy suddenly ran into the kitchen half-dressed with her blond hair in wavy tangles. Her pea-green summer dress was open in the back due to a stubborn zipper.
“Lexi, can you fix me?”
“Sure, sweetie. Turn around.”
“Can we go to the pool?” she asked hopefully.