He opened his mouth, but he couldn’t make a sound pass over the baseball-sized lump in his throat.
Her brow furrowed as her smile twitched and then faded. “You don’t have to say it back. I know it’s rushed. I just wanted you to know, in case anything happens before…” She shrugged and swallowed hard.
“Um…” He let out a nervous chuckle. “We might not live to see tomorrow. No sense in rushing into anything.” Pushing to a sitting position, he leaned his back against the headboard. “Taking a mate is a big step. It’s not something to do because you’re scared.”
“I’m not saying it because I’m scared.” Hurt flashed in her eyes before she sat up and pulled the sheet to her chest. “I’m saying it because I mean it, and I wanted you to know.”
He chewed his bottom lip and stared at his hands clutched in his lap. He wanted, more than anything, to take her in his arms and tell her he loved her too. That they’d spend the rest of their lives together.
But he couldn’t make a promise like that unless he knew he’d be able to keep it.
When he didn’t say anything, she slid out of bed and put on a dark-purple satin robe, cinching it at her waist. “I’m not wrong. We are soulmates, and you may not love me yet, but if we have time, you will. It’s fate. And what we did last night…that meant something to me. It meant everything.”
He groaned and rolled out of bed to pull on his underwear. “I know. It was special to me too, and it’s not that I don’t love you.”
She crossed her arms. “Do you love me?”
“I…” His phone rang from the heap of clothes on the floor, and he cut his gaze toward it.
Odette narrowed her eyes, daring him to answer it. “What is it then? Is there someone else?”
The phone quieted, taking his one hope for a time-out from this conversation with it, and he hesitated. He wanted to tell her no, that she was the only one for him, but she took his immediate silence as confirmation.
Her mouth dropped open, her eyes widening in disbelief. “You’re seeing someone else?”
“No.” This time the answer came instantly. “I’m not seeing anyone else. My wolf…”
“Your wolf is seeing someone else? What? You’ve got a girl wolf out in the swamp that you screw when you go hunting?”
“No. That’s not it.” Frustration grated his nerves. He’d never been good at vocalizing his emotions, and his lack of eloquence wasn’t helping this conversation. “There’s something—”
His phone rang again, and he rose from the bed. “I need to answer that. It could be the alpha.”
“By all means.” She gestured toward the sound, her irritation obvious in her jerky movements. Could this situation get any worse?
He pressed the phone to his ear. “Hey, Luke. I was going to call you—”
“We’ve got a problem. Six people dead. Looks supernatural. Get your ass to the bar. Now.” The alpha ended the call. Yep, things got worse.
He raked a hand through his hair and turned to Odette. She stood rigid, her arms crossed over her chest, the power building in her aura causing his neck hairs to stand on end. The pull of death around her hollowed out the space, and for a brief moment, his self-preservation instinct persuaded him to run. But she couldn’t scare him into submission.
“That trick doesn’t work on me.”
She dropped her arms to her sides, her posture relaxing slightly. “I didn’t realize I was doing anything.”
“That was Luke. I have to go, but this conversation is not over.” He had to come clean about his problem, but telling the woman who loved him—who was convinced they were bound by fate—that there could be another would crush her. Hurting Odette was the last thing he wanted to do, but he owed her the truth.
He shoved his legs into his jeans and pulled on his shirt before taking her shoulders in his hands and kissing her cheek. “I will be back as soon as I can, but know this… I am not seeing anyone else. What we did last night was special, and I don’t regret a thing. But I do have a problem, and I will tell you all about it when I get back, okay?”
She chewed her bottom lip and nodded.
“Will you be here?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Sliding his fingers into her hair, he kissed her forehead. “Good. Hopefully this won’t take long.”
James parked two blocks from O’Malley’s and shoved his hands in his pockets as he trekked up the sidewalk to the werewolves’ HQ. The rain had stopped, and the morning sun hadn’t risen above the buildings, sparing him from its sweltering intensity, but enough humidity hung in the air to make his skin feel like he was walking through a sauna.
A thin layer of water and soap coated the street from its daily early-morning washing from city services, and a mass of dirt-tinged bubbles collected around a storm drain. Situated on St. Philip, O’Malley’s sat far enough away from the party end of Bourbon Street to avoid most of the mess and sour smells the tourists deposited overnight, but James welcomed the fresh scent of soap each day, reminding him every morning was a fresh start.
And he’d royally screwed his start to this morning.
A blast of cold air from above mussed his hair as he stepped through the pub door, but he didn’t bother smoothing it into place. He hadn’t even glanced in a mirror before he left Odette’s.
Amber gave him a solemn nod of her head as he stomped past the bar and pushed open the swinging door that led to the back rooms.
Six people dead? If the monster that showed up at Odette’s house last night was responsible and he’d missed his chance at stopping it… Damn him and his inadequacies.
Two exposed light bulbs lit the narrow, brick-lined corridor, and his shoes thudded on the concrete floor. He found Luke’s office door ajar, the lights inside turned off, and his stomach soured. The people invited to this meeting wouldn’t fit inside his office, so he must have summoned the entire demon-hunting team. Shit.
He used his shoulder to shove the heavy door to the meeting room open and strode inside. Yep, every werewolf on the team, plus a few extras, filled the folding chairs that sat in a semicircle around a podium. Cade acknowledged him with an eyebrow raise, and Luke nodded as James took a seat next to Macey, the alpha’s mate.
“Now that everyone’s here, we’ll get started.” Luke swept his gaze across the pack. “Like you were told on the phone, we’ve got six bodies with lacerations to the throats and chests that look like teeth and claw marks.”
Chase, the pack’s second-in-command and James’s old hunting buddy, stood next to the alpha. Colorful tattoos sleeved both his arms, and his eyebrow piercing glinted in the overhead light as he stroked his dark-brown beard. “They were all couples, three men and three women. Two couples were found last night and one the night before.”
James sank lower in his chair. Had the monster come looking for him and Odette the night before, and the unlucky couple had been its consolation prize when it couldn’t find them? No, it was possible the events were unrelated. He hadn’t seen hide nor tail of the monster the previous night. Then again, he hadn’t spent the night with Odette.
Luke looked at his mate. “Macey, what’s happening with the police?”
She stood and strode to the podium. The detective wore her long, blonde hair slicked back into a bun at the nape of her neck, and her bright-green eyes held a fierce determination. Though she was second-born and stood nearly a foot shorter than the alpha, she was a hell of a fighter and as tough as any shifter James knew. “At the moment, we have one witness, though her credibility is in question. The roommate of the second pair of victims claimed to see a deformed man climb in through the living room window and walk right past her to the couple in the back bedroom. She described him as tall and lanky, with longer-than-normal arms and a head that looked like it had melted onto his shoulders.”
Oh, hell. James pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. This was his fault. Every goddamn bit of it.
“But the markings, if t
hey were teeth marks,” Luke said, “didn’t come from a human mouth. If the witness really saw what she claims, the demon must have shape-shifting abilities. The teeth marks looked canine.”
“The witness had been drinking,” Macey added, “so I’m leading the investigation team toward dismissing her claims.”
“But it sounds demonic.” Chase crossed his arms and looked at Luke for confirmation.
“Agreed. After Cade’s report last night, I want to hear the rest of the story.” Luke’s gaze landed on James, and the hair on the back of his neck pricked. This wasn’t the first time he’d been in the hot seat with the alpha, but if he didn’t get his act together, it would be the last.
James held Luke’s gaze for a brief moment before glancing at Cade. “It’s not demonic.”
“So you saw it?” Luke crossed his arms. “Cade reported that you were giving chase to a demon, but you lost it in the cemetery. Then Macey told me about the murders, and I put two and two together. Tell me what you saw.”
Shit. Shit. Shit. “I saw exactly what the witness described, but it didn’t smell like rotting garbage; it smelled like swamp.” He described the pursuit through the park and into the cemetery, blaming his inadequacy on the monster’s incredible speed and not on the injury that slowed him down. “I should have taken it out last night, but I was sloppy. I’m sorry.”
“Do you have any idea where it came from?” Macey returned to the chair next to him. “What it’s after?”
He rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans. “It’s after me.”
“You?” Luke moved his hands to his hips.
“Me and Odette. It’s hard to explain, but we’re stuck in this cycle. In every lifetime, when we meet, this monster rises and kills us both. I don’t know how or why it happens, just that it does and it’s going to keep happening until we’re both dead or we kill it first.”
Luke held up a hand to quiet the murmur of the pack. “Then I suggest you kill it first.”
“I’m working on it. I need to get back to Odette. She’s taking me to her Mambo to do a past-life regression to figure out how the cycle started so we can end it.” If she’d even speak to him after the mess he made and left behind this morning.
The alpha nodded. “I trust you to do what needs to be done. Bryce and Chase are on first patrol tonight. I’ll take Cade on second. You keep me posted.”
Luke dismissed the meeting, but as the werewolves filed out the door, he held James back. “Is that scar on your neck from your altercation last night?”
Shit. He couldn’t let the alpha know how bad the monster had gotten him, so he instinctively covered it with his hand. “Nah, this is nothing.”
“If you need backup with this thing…”
“C’mon, man. You know me. I didn’t earn my status in the pack by needing backup.” He worked his ass off to prove himself worthy of his position.
“You’re right about that.” He nodded. “Go find out what you can. We’ll discuss the other thing that happened last night later.”
Did he mean the fact that he was sleeping with a client or that he’d nearly exposed the werewolves and had to act like a domesticated house pet to get out of the predicament? It didn’t matter; his ass would be grass for either one.
James ground his teeth and knocked on Odette’s door. She didn’t say a word when she opened it; she didn’t even look at him as she stepped aside for him to enter. Her posture ramrod straight, she closed the door and crossed her arms, the tendons in her neck protruding as she clenched her jaw.
He rubbed the back of his neck and looked into her eyes.
Her posture relaxed, and her eyes softened, her brow furrowing as she dropped her arms to her sides. “What happened?”
He lifted his hands palms up. “Either three other couples are stuck in the same cycle, or they got caught in the crossfire when the monster couldn’t get to us.”
She covered her mouth. “Six people died?”
“Two couples last night, one the night before. We have to stop this thing.”
She nodded and strode past him. “My phone is on the nightstand. I’ll call Natasha, and we’ll go do that past-life regression.”
He followed her into the bedroom. “Hold on. That can wait a few minutes; we need to finish our conversation from before.” If he could make himself spit it out and tell her the truth. His palms slickened with sweat, and he fisted them at his sides.
She snatched her phone from the nightstand and turned to him. “If people are dying because of us, we need to—”
“We need to talk about us. You said the loa told you we have to fix this together, so let’s fix us first, okay? Let me explain why I couldn’t tell you I love you this morning.”
She swallowed hard and gave her head a tiny nod.
Shit. If he wanted to admit his inadequacies to anyone, Odette was the one he could tell. Of course, he’d rather not admit anything, but he didn’t have a choice at this point. She deserved to know. He raked a hand through his hair. Might as well cut to the chase.
“My wolf is broken. I’m not a full werewolf, so I’m broken, and I don’t know how to fix it.” He dropped onto the sofa, leaning his head back and covering his eyes with his forearm, embarrassment making him wish he could disappear. “I’m sorry.”
The cushion next to him compressed as she sat down and rested a hand on his leg. “Don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong, and you’re not broken.”
He pressed his arm harder against his eyes. She deserved so much more than he could give her. She deserved someone whole.
“James.” She pried his arm from his face and held his hand. “I’ve seen you shift. You look like a full werewolf to me. Please talk to me.”
Lacing his fingers through hers, he chewed the inside of his cheek to keep his mouth closed. A battle raged in his mind, his thoughts volleying between laying it all out, baring his soul…or zipping his lips and keeping his problems to himself where they belonged. The concern in her eyes urged him to spill the truth, but… Where could he even begin?
She cut her gaze to the side. “Not now, Nicolas. Will you give us some privacy?”
“I forgot he was here. Was he around last night?” It hadn’t felt like they’d had an audience, but he hadn’t been paying attention to much else.
“If he was, he kept himself hidden. He’s usually respectful of my privacy, now that we’ve set up some ground rules.” She caught James’s gaze. “Please tell me why you think you’re broken.” She ran her finger over the spot where his pinkie should have been, and the scar tissue tingled.
He stared at their entwined hands. Odette had never asked him what happened to his finger. She’d simply accepted him, flaws and all. She loved him, and…damn it, he had to tell her. “My mom is human.”
“So is my dad. Him being mundane doesn’t make me any less of a vodouisant.”
He blew out a hard breath through his nose. “When only one parent is a were, there’s a fifty-fifty chance their firstborn will be a shifter. The chance is even less when one of the parents is human.”
“So, you’re rare. That doesn’t make you broken.” She offered a small smile, but he couldn’t hold her gaze.
“I don’t…” He closed his eyes for a long blink. He trusted Odette to his core, but it didn’t make the admission any easier. Opening his eyes, he squared his gaze on her. “I can’t heal as fast as the others. You saw the marks where the monster bit me when I came home last night. If I were a full werewolf, they’d have been healed before I reached the cemetery.”
Her lips quirked into a smile, and she pressed her fingers to her mouth.
“What?” How could she possibly find this amusing?
She shook her head. “You said when you came home last night. You came here.”
He’d admitted the one weakness he tried desperately to hide from everyone, and his confession didn’t faze her. Her acceptance warmed his heart, tightening his chest, and he chuckled. “I did say that, didn’t I? I gue
ss it’s starting to feel like home to me.”
Her smile widened, and his heart pounded harder. As he looked into her eyes, something unspoken passed between them. She wanted this to be his home as much as he wanted it to be.
Her lips parted on a quick inhale, and she straightened, composing herself. “Do all werewolves heal at the same rate?”
“No, but I might as well be second-born with the way I heal. This.” He tightened his grip on her hand and lifted it so she could see his missing finger. “When I lost it on a construction site, I should have been able to reattach it. My body should have stitched it right back on when I touched it to my hand, but it didn’t.”
He lowered their hands to his lap. “Luke was there, his eyes all full of concern, asking me why it wasn’t healing. I couldn’t let the would-be alpha see my weakness, so I dropped it in the cement mixer.”
She blinked. “You threw away your finger so Luke wouldn’t think you weak?”
His ears burned. “I know it’s stupid, but yeah, I did. I can’t say for sure if it would have healed anyway, so…” He shrugged. “My dad always told me to hide it, not to let anyone know I’m the weakest wolf in the pack. He kept me sheltered when I was a kid so no one ever saw me get injured. When I became an adult, I was tired of hiding, so I did everything I could to prove my strength. I joined the demon hunting team, volunteered for the toughest assignments. I’ve worked my ass off to prove I’m worthy of my rank, but nothing I do changes who I am. Are you sure you want to be soulmates with a broken werewolf?”
“It wasn’t stupid, and you’re not broken or weak. I understand not wanting to show weakness. I’ve spent my entire adult life hiding mine.”
“That’s not the only way I’m broken.” Now for the hard part. The reason he couldn’t commit to her, even though every fiber of his human being knew she was the one. “My mom, being human, didn’t take the mating bond seriously. Didn’t know what she was getting herself into. They weren’t fate-bounds, but my dad loved her. He still loves her, and I think somewhere in her twisted heart she loves him too. They’re still mates, but she disappears for months, sometimes years, at a time. She wanders. She cheats on him.”
A Deal with Death Page 15