by B M Griffin
“This is not happening,” he said, his face drawn tight as he tried to hold in his anger. Anger with Megan for being so careless with her own life, and anger with Shayla for allowing Megan to go through with her terrible plan.
“I’m not asking for permission,” Megan replied. “I am going to do this for my friends and for our pack. Adam is our beta and the pack needs him here alive and well - especially now. I would appreciate it if you would support me, but I am going through with it whether I have you by my side or not.”
Jared didn’t respond to Megan. Instead, he drew his gaze over to Shayla. “You’re not seriously going to let her do this? She could get lost in Hell for fuck’s sake, or worse.”
“It’s not my place to tell her what she can or cannot do, Jared,” Shayla replied. “She is confident that she can get down there and find him, and I know her well enough to know that there is no changing her mind once it’s made up. If she believes she can do this then I believe in her. I am going to be right by her side when she goes down there to have her back.”
Jared turned and took a few steps away from them. He needed to put some space between them because he could feel the anger building inside himself and he had to clear his mind for a minute to figure out what he could do to stop them. Why did they both have to have the strength to defy his Alpha command? It would be so easy to tell them to forget about this crazy scheme if they both hadn’t already proven they could overpower their Alpha’s orders if they chose to do so.
“Look, Jared,” Megan’s words interrupted his stupor, “we don’t have time to debate this. There is no telling what Kevin is doing to Adam while we stand here debating something that is going to happen.”
Heat rushed up his neck and he let his anger take over. He turned on his heel and closed the space between him and Megan. “You are not doing this! Dammit, Megan, I won’t allow you to put yourself at risk. You could die!”
“And so could Adam! We have to do everything in our power to get him away from that monster, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. You don’t get to demand I do or don’t do anything. Mate or Alpha, it doesn’t matter. I am the one who makes decisions for myself, and I am doing this. If you can’t accept that I’m the kind of person who won’t just sit back and leave my friends to suffer when there might be something I can do to help then you haven’t heard anything I’ve ever said to you. Maybe I was wrong - maybe we aren’t meant to be together because someone who loves me the way you claim you do would never try to make me be something I’m not!”
An ache settled around Jared’s heart and he took a small step back. He swallowed around the knot that had him feeling like he was close to choking on the guilt that was trying to rip through him. “Megan, I … I.”
“Don’t Jared. I’ve heard enough for one day.”
Without another moment’s pause, Megan wrapped her hand around Shayla’s forearm. Jared stepped forward, his arms out to reach for Megan, but he was too late. One second Megan and Shayla were standing in front of him, and the next they were gone. He turned around and yanked the door open so fast he heard the hinges squeal in protest. Jared ran through the house, looking through every room, every closet, every nook, and cranny, but they were nowhere to be found. Jared slammed his fist into the wall, busting a hole through it like it had been made of nothing more than papier-mâché.
Lou and Allen ran around the corner. “What happened?” Allen asked.
Jared felt the tears that were running down his face but he didn’t care who saw them. He turned away from the wall and looked at Lou and Allen, registering the shock on their faces when they saw the wet trail streaking each side of his face. “She’s gone. I pushed too hard and now, even if she survives what she set out to do, I’m pretty sure she is never going to want anything to do with me again.”
Lou patted his shoulder. “I don’t know what happened, but she loves you. We all see that, and you two are mated. She might need some time, but I’m sure she’ll be back.”
“Yeah, he’s right,” Allen said. “She won’t stay gone forever.”
Jared dropped his head. He couldn’t look at the two of them while they tried to give him hope that he wasn’t sure he should hold on to. “You didn’t see the anger in her eyes.”
“I don’t mean to be insensitive, but what did you mean if she survives? What’s she planning to do?”
Jared straightened up and roughly wiped the wetness from his face. “Get the pack leaders together. I need to update everyone.”
“Should we wake up Shayla for the meeting?” Lou asked.
Jared blew out a sharp breath. “No need. She’s awake and gone with Megan. I doubt either of them will be back soon.”
Allen looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Where would the two of them be going together with everything that’s going on? I can’t imagine Shayla wanting to be distracted from trying to find Adam.”
Right after those words left Allen’s mouth his eyes grew wide with recognition, but before he could comment further Lou said, “That’s where they went, isn’t it? To try to find a way to get to Adam, and you probably told them they weren’t allowed to go or some Alpha shit that neither of them were willing to listen to. Am I getting close to reality here?”
Jared ran his hands down his face in exasperation, then nodded. “Yeah, that basically sums things up, although I’ve learned the Alpha order doesn’t really hold much weight with either of them. If they want to get passed it bad enough, there isn’t any amount of Alpha power I can put into a command to make them obey. I’m almost positive. I did, however, tell them no without inserting my Alpha voice hoping they wouldn’t get as pissed over my response. Didn’t matter. They weren’t taking no for an answer. No matter how they received the request and Megan is pissed I even tried to say no.”
“Then we need to make this meeting happen ASAP,” Allen said. “We need to get our pack members back here, safe. All three of them.”
“Agreed,” Jared and Lou said at the same time.
****
Once everyone was present in the meeting room, Jared jumped right in explaining that Megan and Shayla had went off on their own to find Adam.
“What do ya mean they were going to find Adam?” Joanna squeaked.
“Yeah,” Kelly piped in. “We all saw that monster thing Kevin became drag him down to Hell or somethin’. Shayla’s powerful, sure, but I don’t see how she thinks her mighty flames are gonna help her travel to the pits of Hell.”
“They aren’t counting on Shayla to get them there,” Jared said. “Megan is convinced that she can because she quickly discovered she can travel anywhere she wants in a flash.”
“Are you trying to say that she can teleport or something?” Zack asked.
“Yeah, I guess that the best way to describe it,” Jared said.
Everyone started talking at once and Jared just wanted to bang his head against the wall. After several minutes of the loud rambling, with everyone trying to speak over each other, and the women and men arguing over the misogyny of a man telling his mate she could not do something, Jared had enough. He stood up and brought his fist down on the table so hard that the sound of the crackling wood beneath his fist reverberated around the room. Everyone went silent and all eyes were on him in an instant.
“None of this shit matters,” he motioned around the room at each of them. “What we need to focus on is getting our people back home and safe.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Allen said, “we all want to bring them home, too, but how do you expect us to travel to Hell to bring them back here?”
Jared gripped the back of his neck and blew out a harsh breath. “Trust me, if I knew that then we wouldn’t be in this situation. As it stands, I think Megan was right and she is the only one of us who has any chance following Kevin down to wherever he took Adam. With her gone, shit, I don’t know.” Jared felt hot tears filling his eyes. He’d done this. He had been too caught up in his need to protect his mate and forgot that Megan w
as more than that. Forgot that she was a person who deserved to be taken seriously. He should have believed in her and had her back when she said she wanted to try to bring Adam home. Instead, he’d been a complete caveman and drove her away. If she never comes back it would be his fault and his alone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Megan
Megan was angry and hurt. Jared’s refusal to even consider allowing her to help get Adam back had been a huge blow to her confidence in herself and their relationship. Of course, she wasn’t sure that she could go to Hell for fuck’s sake, but she damn sure knew she had to try. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she sat back knowing she was the only one in their pack who had the potential to save Adam but she did nothing out of fear. Add that on top of the fact that she had confided her deepest secrets and regrets with Jared about how her mom and grandmother died, she just knew that he would understand why it was important for her to never hide out when someone she cared for was in trouble. His demand that she not even try to get to Adam was a loud sign that he hadn’t truly heard what she’d said to him.
When Megan transported herself and Shayla away from Jared she hadn’t really planned where they were going, she just knew she had to get away from Jared or she was going to say something that she might not be able to take back later because she wanted to hurt him the way his refusal to believe in her had made her feel. Without a real plan about where she was taking Shayla, Megan wound up taking the two of them back to her house. Apparently in all that had happened some part of her just wanted to go home. The problem with going home was that it just reminded her of everything that had happened. She could still smell Jared’s scent in her bedroom, and her front door squeaked loudly in a way it never had before being ripped off its hinges by Demetri and his gang.
Shayla took her hand while she stood in her bedroom staring at the wrinkled sheets where she and Jared had made love for the first time. “He loves you, ya know,” Shayla said softly.
Megan squeezed her hand back. “Yeah, I know, but I need him to believe in me too. To understand I’m never going to be the kind of girl who wants to be taken care of and protected. I need for us to be equals.”
“Tell him that.”
Megan turned to face Shayla, a frown on her face. “I did and I thought he understood. Clearly, I was wrong.”
“Don’t give up on him. You never know how long the two of you have together. You can work through this. It isn’t easy to turn off the instinct to protect our mates. I mean, I gave myself over to Kevin to save Adam. Believe me, he still gets mad at me whenever he thinks about me doing that. Hell, I’m about to let you try to zap me underground into the pits of Hell to find him and I don’t have any clue what we are in for.”
Megan grinned and a small chuckle made its way up her throat. “Yeah, I guess we all do some crazy shit when it comes to the person we love.”
“Yeah, I’d say that’s an understatement.”
“So, you want to go back so we can get your man and take him with us? We might need a little extra muscle when we are underground fighting god knows what.”
“And what if he still doesn’t want to hear anything about me taking you underground to rescue Adam?”
“Then you grab him with your free hand and shoot the three of us down there anyway. If he is so worried about protecting you then you make him come along to help do just that.”
Megan smiled and grabbed Shayla’s arm, but Shayla surprised her by pulling away. “Something wrong?” Megan asked.
Shayla glanced down at herself, she was still naked after shifting during the attack. “You think we could put some clothes on before we go back? I don’t mind when we are fighting, but it feels strange to go naked for so long.”
Megan laughed, then grabbed them both a shirt and some shorts to throw on. Once they were dressed, Megan did not waste any more time. She held her hand out and Shayla grabbed on to it with a smile. In the blink of an eye, they were standing back at the pack’s house and Megan heard what sounded like a heated discussion coming from the meeting room. Shayla and Megan made their way toward the room and they closer they got to the door the clearer the voices and what they were saying became. The people in that room were talking about them, talking or arguing Megan wasn’t completely sure, but they were definitely the subject of the hour. The conversation they were having was so intense that nobody even noticed when Megan opened the door. The one thing that she hadn’t expected was to hear Jared tell everyone that she had been right.
She walked up behind him and ran her hand down his arm. She knew that he could sense it was her because his entire body relaxed under her touch. He didn’t say a word. He turned to her and grabbed her face between his hands. His mouth covered hers with a hard, intense kiss before she had a chance to do anything else. He kissed her with so much love that everyone else in the room disappeared around them until he finally pulled back and ended their kiss.
“You came back,” he said in a low voice. “I was so afraid I’d pushed too hard. That you wouldn’t come back to me.”
“You might make me angry, but you’ll never make me stop loving you. I could never stay away from you forever.”
Jared smiled so bright Megan swore that her knees buckled a little, but they were soon interrupted by the sounds of a few people clearing their throats, and one loud whistle who Megan knew before looking could have only come from Joanna.
“Woowee, you too are hotter than the sand in a Las Vegas desert in the middle of July,” Joanna said with a wink.
Megan stepped back from Jared and smoothed her hands down her shirt before she looked back at Shayla. Her friend smiled at her but she could see that it was forced and the pain she saw in Shayla’s eyes reminded her why they had come back to the house in the first place. They needed to get Jared and get on the move to find Adam. There was no telling what that asshole, Kevin, was doing to him and they needed to get him home sooner rather than later.
Megan turned back to Jared. “We need your help.”
“Of course,” he agreed immediately.
“We haven’t changed our plan, but we think it would be best if you were with us when we go down there.”
“I still don’t like this idea, Megan.” She opened her mouth to argue, but he shook his head and she paused. “Just let me finish, okay?” Megan nodded her head. “I don’t like it, but I think you’re right. You’re our only chance to get Adam back, and I am glad you came back to take me with you, but Megan, I need you to know that if we get down there and I think you are even remotely in danger, I’m going to intervene. I won’t stand by and let you get hurt. I can’t.”
“I understand, just know I’m going to do the same to keep you safe.”
Jared didn’t agree, and Megan saw the way his nostrils flared and knew he was not happy about her determination to keep him safe above herself, but it wouldn’t change her mind and he didn’t say anything to argue with her. At least he was learning not to try to hide her away for her safety.
After a moment he turned back to face the rest of the pack members in the room. “Allen, you’re in charge while we are gone,” he said. “I still want teams sent out to look for the location of Kevin’s pack. We don’t know that he still has Adam with him in Hell, or wherever, and it will be in our best interest to know where our enemies are hiding out.”
Jared turned back to Megan and took her hand, then he looked at Shayla and motioned for her to do the same. Once Shayla placed her hand in Megan’s free one, Jared met her eyes and took a deep breath. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Megan closed her eyes and imagined what she expected Hell to look like, but when she willed herself there nothing happened. She squeezed her eyes tighter and tried again, this time just thinking about going down below the earth and she thought about the extreme heat she was certainly filled all levels of Hell. Still, nothing happened.
“Are you doing it?” Shayla whispered close to her ear.
“I’m
trying but nothing’s happening. I think it’s because I’ve never been there so all I can focus on is what I imagine Hell is like. That’s not working.”
“So, it only works if you focus on something or somewhere you have personal knowledge of?” Jared asked her.
Megan shrugged her shoulders, frustrated. “I guess so. I haven't really tested it out a lot in the last 12 hours since my transformation, you know, other than going to places I’ve already been or that I could see.”
“If you can only go places you know,” Jared said, “maybe you can focus on a person you know and go to them.”
Megan’s eyes shot up to meet his then she darted her gaze over to Shayla. “Adam,” they both said at the same time.
With a hand squeeze from Shayla, Megan closed her eyes tightly and focused on Adam. She envisioned what he looked like, thought about his loyalty to the pack and his love for Shayla. Every little thing that she knew about him which made him the good man that he was. The man her best friend loved. It wasn’t long before Megan felt a pull at her core and she knew that they were traveling. She felt the atmosphere around them change a moment later. The air was thicker, making it harder to breathe and her chest felt tight with her labored breathing, and the smell of sulfur was so potent she wished one of her abilities were no longer needing to breathe for survival. The change in temperature had been expected, but knowing that Hell would inevitably be hot still hadn’t prepared her for the harsh reality of the scorching rays of heat prickling her skin, making sweat roll down her face and dampen her clothes.
Worse than the heat and stifling atmosphere were the sounds of pain and torture ringing through her ears in the form of screaming and sobbing from those facing their demons all around. She felt a strong hand grip her shoulder and felt Jared’s concern fill her mind.
“Megan, are you okay?” he asked.
She slowly opened her eyes, and his concerned gaze stared right back at her. She nodded but she couldn’t find the will to smile, not surrounded by such pain and sorrow. “I’m okay. Just takes some adjustment.”