"You're lying," she accused, tension evident in every muscle in her body, the taut expression on her face.
Zeke fought to keep his expression neutral. It was clear she wanted to fight her way out of this problem the same way she fought the man whose blood she'd scrubbed off in the lake. The same way she'd fought off death at the hands of the betas who'd chased her here.
But there was no fighting this truth.
"I'm not lying," he assured her. He didn't lie—ever.
And Darcy knew it. He watched her expression slowly change as she evaluated her situation. No—not her situation, but him.
It was obvious that his very existence scared the shit out of her, and he'd done nothing to put her at ease. He'd shown his temper, but not the reason for it; he'd offered no explanation for how he'd treated her, tossing her in the damned woodshed and demanding she keep her distance.
Still, Zeke couldn't have made it any clearer that he didn't want her around, so why would he lie to keep her from walking away?
Darcy seemed to come to a decision—one that didn't make her any happier. She glanced over her shoulder before speaking.
"Even if I really was an…if I was special," she said in a low tone, as if afraid someone could overhear. "There's no possible way you or anybody else could know."
Zeke bit back a snort of derision. That's what everybody thought.
But everybody was wrong.
"There is," he said. "And I can."
"How?"
"You aren't the first unawakened omega I've met, Darcy." Hell, she wasn't even the second. He'd detected another just a few months ago at the local bar. He hadn't been certain then and had waited too long to warn Troy, but he was one hundred percent sure now.
Darcy narrowed her gaze. She didn't like what she was hearing, but Zeke knew his words were chiseling away at her doubts.
"If that's true, and I am what you say I am, then why haven't you dragged me to your bed and made me your sex slave?"
It was becoming harder and harder for Zeke to reign himself in. Darcy didn't realize the danger in talking that way, didn't recognize the fire that rose up in Zeke's blood at her words.
He wondered if that was what she'd been fantasizing about when she touched herself—him holding her down, forcing her legs open, taking her hard and without mercy, again and again until she finally cried out his name.
Fuck.
Zeke balled his hands into fists at his side. He had to get himself under control. Somehow, he had to find a way to banish thoughts like that for as long as Darcy was anywhere near him.
Because any other option threatened disaster.
"The last thing I want is to awaken another omega," Zeke said forcefully. "But trust me when I tell you this—I'm the only alpha who feels that way. If you leave the safety of my property, another alpha will find you, and he will touch you. And once he touches you, you'll be panting through your first heat before sunrise, begging for it, unable to stop. That's a promise."
The fear in Darcy's scent spiked to raw terror. Up until this moment, she'd thought he was the most dangerous thing in these woods.
She had no fucking idea.
As moments ticked past, Zeke stayed rooted to the spot, unmoving, watching her process this new information, seeing her cycle through fear to determination. She might be reckless, and she might be foolish, but she wasn't a coward.
"Why don't you want to awaken another omega?" she demanded. "What happened to the first?"
Zeke’s mouth tightened. It figured that she'd get stuck on the one thing that didn't matter, and that he probably shouldn't have admitted. "That's none of your business."
"The hell it isn't," Darcy said, her eyes bright and calculating now, coming a step closer. "If I am what you say I am—"
"An omega." He'd force her to hear it, even if she refused to say it.
"If I am…that—then I deserve to know what the fuck you did to her."
"I didn't do a damn thing to her," he retorted.
"Really?" Darcy was obviously unconvinced. "Then where is she? I thought that once you guys screwed an omega, you never let her leave. Or do you have her stashed around here somewhere? Do you have another shed hidden in the forest? Did you bring me here because you're planning to start a harem?"
Fury rose up inside Zeke, but he didn't mind. Anger had its uses, chief among them giving him something to focus on other than that old, buried pain—the embers of which she was doing her damnedest to stir up all over again.
"If I wanted you as my omega, there wouldn't be damned thing you could do to stop me," he said through gritted teeth. "I wouldn't wait to get you in my bed. I'd take you right here, right now. I'd fuck you so hard you wouldn't remember your own name."
Darcy blanched, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of admitting he'd scared her. "Is that what you did to this other omega? Is she right there in your house, too weak to run away?"
For fuck's sake.
Zeke didn't owe anyone an explanation for something that had happened over a decade ago. But he wasn't going to have his pride dragged through the dirt, either—especially not by a temperamental pink-haired spitfire with a death wish.
"That omega is no one's concern. Not mine, and sure as shit, not yours."
Something in his tone must have tipped her off to the deep well of pain inside him because her scent shifted from anger and curiosity to sympathy.
"Something happened to her, didn't it?" she asked.
"You don't know shit."
"Maybe," she admitted, her tone softening even more. "I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings."
He'd heard the same empathy in her voice on the road this morning when her concern over his injuries had made her set aside her own situation. Her focus on him made Zeke uneasy.
This time he didn't bother stifling a derisive snort. Hurt his feelings? That was a fucking joke. "I don't need your pity."
His words didn't have the desired effect. In fact, she edged a little closer, like she was approaching a skittish dog.
It made Zeke want to break something. Even after his clear warning, she was still playing with fire.
Maybe she couldn't help herself. Just as she hadn't been unable to turn away from watching him at the lake.
Just as she couldn't keep from calling out his name as she made herself come.
"Not one step closer," he growled.
Darcy froze. In the middle of the small clearing, moonlight shone through the treetops, silvering her face and making her eyes shine with compassion.
"Did she do something to you? Is that why you're so prudish?"
Zeke sighed and gazed up to the heavens. He could think of a thousand ways to silence this exasperating woman—some using his tongue, some using his cock.
"I'm not a prude. I thought I made that clear when I said I could fuck you into the damned ground."
"Fair enough," she conceded, though he could tell she wasn't convinced. "So that's why you won't come near me? Because you're stuck on another woman you can't have? I mean…that's kind of sweet."
Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality that Zeke didn't like one fucking bit.
"No. It's because awakening my first omega almost cost me everything. She stabbed me in the back, and I'd rather throw myself off a damned cliff than go through that again."
Darcy looked startled, her smile slipping. Good. He was finally getting through to her. The last thing either of them needed was for her to be walking around with some tragically romantic fantasy in her head.
She was an omega. That didn't just put her in danger—it made her dangerous in ways she couldn't even comprehend.
He had done his damnedest to protect her from the truth. But she'd dragged it out of him anyway, relentlessly keeping at him until she got what she wanted.
Just like Stephanie had.
Zeke felt the dark place beckoning him, trying to drag him down again.
It wasn't the first time. Hell, it wasn't even the first time this month. T
here was only one solution when the black moods came, trailing broken promises and bitter memories behind them—sleep it off, and start again tomorrow. It was all he could do.
He turned around and headed for the cabin, but only got a few steps before Darcy called after him.
"Um…Zeke?"
He stilled, his body rigid, but didn't turn around. "What now?"
"It's pretty cold tonight."
"So?"
"You ripped the door off the shed."
Fuck.
Zeke groaned inwardly, cursing his loss of control earlier. It was cold out—and it was only going to get colder as the night wore on.
But Zeke wasn't in any shape to make repairs tonight. And he sure as hell didn't have the self-restraint to let this woman stay in the house with him.
"Fine," he growled. "You can sleep inside the cabin tonight and I'll stay in the shed. But just remember that I can sense every damn thing you do."
"Thank you," Darcy said in a small voice. She followed a few steps behind him as he started moving again. "And I promise I won't make a sound. You won't even know I'm here."
Zeke ground his teeth.
It was way too late for that.
Chapter Nine
On almost every morning of her life before coming to the Boundarylands, no matter what she'd been doing or how hard she'd partied before falling asleep, Darcy woke up secure in the knowledge that she'd seen much weirder shit on the job than whatever had happened the night before. Working the front desk in a busy city police department tended to do that to a person.
This morning, however, that wasn't the case.
Last night was the new gold standard of weird nights, the one by which all others would be judged.
Miraculously, Darcy had managed to get some sleep, curled up in the massive leather chair in front of the fireplace. She hadn't wanted to risk sleeping upstairs in Zeke's bed. Somehow that felt too intimate. Besides, down here, the embers of the fire hadn't just kept her warm. They'd also given her the illusion of safety.
But in the harsh light of a new day, reality slammed back with a vengeance, and Darcy didn't think she'd ever really feel safe again.
Things had been bad enough when the Baron brothers were the only imminent danger she faced. But now there was an even bigger and more immediate threat. Unlike the two dirty cops who wanted to kill her, this new enemy wasn't threatening to end her life, but to change it.
To change her.
She wasn't scared of running, or hiding, or starting her life over. Changing her hair and clothes and even her name didn't matter because Darcy knew who she was at her core.
At least, she thought she knew.
It had taken Zeke all of four words to shatter that illusion.
You're an omega, Darcy.
Darcy had no idea how to fight off an enemy that silently lurked inside her.
By comparison, staving off Robert and David—hell, even dispatching Scott—had been easy. Darcy knew how to run, how to hide, how to fight for her life and win.
But she had no idea how to battle herself. She didn't have the first clue how to guard against her own nature, against the bomb that had been buried so deep that she hadn't even known it was there.
If only she had never come here, the fuse might never have been lit, and Darcy might never have known what she was. But last night, the same stranger who had saved her life had told her truths only he could see.
It was pointless to try to convince herself he was lying. Anyone could see in Zeke's troubling storm-cloud eyes that he never lied.
Looking back, Darcy felt like a fool for not figuring it out sooner.
It had been there from the start, from the first time she laid eyes on him—the strange tingling sensation that started low in her body and spread like lightning along every nerve, burning molten pathways all the way to her fingers and toes. It was as though the laws of physics shifted when he was near. She was pulled toward him like a compass to true north.
Even when she was running away.
The feeling was subtle enough that she'd been able to deny it…for a while. But now that Darcy knew the truth, she couldn't focus on anything else. How was she supposed to stay here in the Boundarylands until it was safe for her to go back? How was she supposed to endure day after day of this feeling?
But feelings were one thing. This new physical reality was another. Darcy had no idea how she was going to avoid an alpha who was living only a few feet away. It was terrifying, knowing he could change everything about her with one touch, one accidental brush of his hand.
She had started to pace, shivering in the chilly room, when the sound of heavy boots alerted Darcy that Zeke was coming up the porch steps.
"I see you've come to your senses," Zeke said as he came into the house. "It's a good thing you decided not to take off in the middle of the night. I found grizzly tracks by the smokehouse."
Grizzly tracks? For the love of God, this place was the worst. Darcy would take an old-fashioned drive-by shooting over a fight with a bear any day. She wondered if Zeke was fucking with her.
"Can you please get the fire going again? I'm freezing," she said, doing her best to seem unfazed.
"There's plenty of wood," Zeke said. "Build it yourself."
"I don't know how."
The look he gave Darcy made it clear he didn't think much of her excuse. "It's not hard. Make a lean-to with kindling, wad up some paper and shove it in, light it, and wait until it gets going before you add any logs. You can work on it while I fix the door on the woodshed."
Darcy watched Zeke check the old coffeepot on the stove.
"You don't know how to make coffee, either?" he demanded.
She couldn't make a fire. She couldn't make coffee, at least not without a Mr. Coffee. Darcy hadn't felt as useless in a long time, and she didn't like it one bit.
But even worse was the way he was looking at her, like he was the big, bad wolf and she was standing there in a little red cape. No. That wasn't quite right—as though she was only wearing that little red cape.
Suddenly, Darcy felt a rush of hot damp between her legs. Jesus. She'd never been so wet, and he hadn't even touched her.
"I'm don't think it's a good idea for me to stay in your shed any longer," she blurted.
Zeke's expression changed instantly, the heat leaving his eyes, his shoulders sagging in defeat.
"So you haven't come to your senses after all," he grumbled. "You still want to leave."
"God, no."
There was no way Darcy was fool enough to think that she could make it out on the Central Road on foot—between the grizzlies and what Zeke had told her about his horny alpha brothers, she wouldn't last more than a few minutes.
"Well, there's no way in hell I'm going to let you take over my house."
"I don't want that either."
"Then what do you want?" he asked with a dangerous edge to his voice that set off another embarrassing gush.
"How far does your land extend?" she asked, trying to ignore the fact that her pants were close to soaking.
"Five miles to the west," he answered. "Another two miles both north and south."
More than twenty square miles. That sounded like a decent buffer.
"Are there any other structures further out on the edges of your land?"
"Other than the smokehouse and the skinning shed, no. But you're better off in the woodshed."
"Really?" Now it was Darcy's turn to be indignant. "Because it certainly didn't seem fine last night when you stormed in and ripped the door off."
Zeke scowled, his mouth flattening in a hard, unforgiving line. "As long as everyone behaves, the shed will be fine."
He wasn't going to give in on this. Fine—she'd come at this another way.
"All right," Darcy said. "So what exactly does behaving mean? What am I not supposed to do? I know masturbation offends your delicate sensibilities, but what else will earn me a visit from the midnight prude police?"
"D
arcy." There was a warning in Zeke's tone.
"Is it only physical acts or are dirty thoughts off-limits, too?" she continued. "Because I've never had much luck controlling those. And what about erotic dreams? I mean, it hardly seems fair to hold me responsible for what my subconscious mind is doing."
Zeke's growl of frustration put a stop to her little speech, rumbling the floor beneath her feet.
"Are you deliberately trying to rile me up? After everything you learned last night, is this what you want?" Zeke gestured to the front of his pants.
Darcy froze at the sight of the enormous bulge, his cock straining against the fabric—and it was still growing. It pressed against the zipper, practically begging to be freed.
She realized that her mouth hung open and snapped it shut, but she couldn't tear her eyes away from that cock. Just like the rest of him, it was so damn big—so damn perfect.
"I'm not trying to do anything,” she said belatedly. “This is what I've been trying to tell you—we can't even have a conversation like normal people without going off like firecrackers."
Zeke shook his head, his nostrils flaring. "I can control myself if you can control your mouth—and keep your hands off yourself."
Goddammit. Which one of them was being pigheaded now? "But for how long? How long is it going take to fix my car?"
The corner of Zeke's mouth twisted in a sneer. "A month at least, maybe longer."
A month?
"Shit, Ezekiel," she said, her voice shaking. "We didn't even last twenty-four hours. What's going to happen the next time one of us can't control ourselves? Or the time after that? Or the time after—"
"Enough!" His roar echoed through the house, rattling the walls and windows, making Darcy jump. "There will be no next time."
It was pretty obvious that the conversation was over. Zeke's words hung in the air as he turned around and stormed out the door.
That damn woman was going to drive Zeke out of his mind.
Hell—he was already halfway there.
It had been four hours since he'd stormed out of his house, and he was still burning with anger and unsated lust. It didn't matter how long or far he walked on his property. Didn't matter how many traps he checked.
Zeke: The Boundarylands Page 6