Chapter Twenty-seven #2
Ripper smoothed a soothing palm up her spine.
‘She offered to replace it. I said no.’ Had it been anyone else, he would have allowed it.
But he wouldn’t accept something from a werewolf who felt she had a claim to him – it would have been as good as acknowledging the claim as legit.
‘I told her you’d likely have some potion that would clean it. ’
‘I do.’ A flatly spoken confirmation.
‘I also made it clear you belong to me now.’
There was no shift in Emberlyn’s expression. ‘What did she have to say to that?’
‘She claimed it can’t be possible; believes I love her. I disabused her of that mistaken belief fast, and I warned her – as well as the women who’d helped her toilet paper Logan’s house – that you were to be left alone or they’d be temporarily banished from the clan.’
An almost infinitesimal pinch of softness flickered in Emberlyn’s eyes for the briefest moment. ‘You would really do that?’
‘Of fucking course I would, baby.’ He burrowed his hand in her hair.
‘While I don’t believe she would risk that happening and so should therefore leave you alone, I’m not so confident she’ll cease being a general pain in the ass.
Hence why I’ll be leaving her punishments to Kerr and Crew from now on.
Any direct attempts I make to deal with her would be counterproductive – she wants the attention.
’ He caught her face in his hands and snared her gaze with his.
‘Never again will I be called away from your side to deal with her.’
Still no real change in Emberlyn’s expression. ‘Hmm.’
‘You’re scaring me just a little.’
‘Why?’
‘You look eerily calm. I can’t sense any underlying emotions in you at all. If I didn’t know you, I’d swear you weren’t one bit affected by any of what I just spilled to you.’ He nipped at the corner of her mouth. ‘But I’ve come to learn that the calmer you look, the more pissed you generally are.’
‘I would like to choke her,’ she told him matter-of-factly, completely serious.
He blinked and dipped his chin. ‘Understandable.’
‘And curse her soul to never be reborn.’
‘That’s . . . You could do that?’
‘Of course not. It was just an idle remark.’
Ripper wasn’t so sure he believed that. ‘Can we move on from talk of her now?’
‘Sure,’ she easily agreed, her tone still flat.
Yeah, his baby was nowhere near the realm of ‘calm’. In her shoes, he wouldn’t be, either. He’d want to skin alive anyone who dared act as if they had rights to her. And after what went down at Bellcrest, Emberlyn wasn’t liable to quickly dial back her anger.
Wanting to give her time, he held her close and silently reminded her he was there – nuzzling her face, trailing his fingers down her throat, rubbing at her nape, sweeping his hand over her hair, dabbing a featherlight kiss on her temple, stroking his palm up and down her back.
The tension began easing out of her muscles in such tiny increments he wouldn’t have noticed if he wasn’t so wholly focused on her.
A line briefly dented her brow as he once more petted her nape. ‘You’re scent-marking me again. And you’re being all touchy-feely. I’m not a werewolf; these things don’t soothe me.’
‘Sure they do,’ he said, tracking the path of his fingers as they weaved into her hair. He fucking loved her hair. It was soft and sleek and stunning with its iridescent tint. ‘Everyone needs touch sometimes, even you.’ He caught her chin with his hand, dipping his face to hers. ‘Kiss me.’
‘No.’
Ripper almost smiled at the grouchy response. He tugged at her lower lip with his teeth. ‘Kiss me.’
‘No.’
He pinched her nipple, making her lips part on a gasp. He sank his tongue into her mouth. Kissed. Nipped. Licked. Sipped. Until finally she relaxed against him and kissed him back. ‘Now, let’s go deal with those fucking assholes who thought to dare harm you.’
As she turned the corner onto Bennet’s street, Emberlyn noticed his yard was now empty of people. In fact, the street itself was quiet. His nosy neighbors were nowhere to be seen – their doors closed, their windows shut.
She couldn’t claim to have wrestled back all of her anger just yet, though that was partly because CeCe’s little stunt had fueled said anger. That bitch had thought to mark Ripper’s possession like she had every right; like he was her possession.
And Ripper . . . he’d threatened to temporarily banish CeCe and her friends from his clan if they didn’t leave Emberlyn be. And he’d meant it. He would honestly do that. It touched her on a level he probably hadn’t anticipated.
So many times she’d dealt with bullshit from the coven. None had ever truly been punished by Reena. Emberlyn had become far too used to having to dish out her own brand of justice – no one else was going to do it for her.
But Ripper would.
He would place her feelings before those of his wolves. He would never expect her to let things slide for his sake. And now here he was, determined to ‘talk’ with every witch that had been part of the earlier scene, despite the fact that she’d already handled it.
She understood his need to make his own point. It wasn’t even solely a personal need; wasn’t only born of his protectiveness toward Emberlyn. It was a political necessity. Like her, he could never afford to look weak or be seen to not deal with any offenses.
Still, she would have preferred that he’d stayed out of it. Not merely because confronting the assholes could worsen the overall situation, but because she didn’t want him to be further dragged into this mess.
Too many times lately he’d felt compelled to ‘step in’ on Emberlyn’s behalf. Would he not eventually reach a point where he tired of it? He was an Alpha. He had a clan to manage, businesses to oversee and any related issues to address. He didn’t need to be dealing with her messes on top of that.
It was Sunday. A day of rest, for the most part. And if it wasn’t for his involvement with Emberlyn, he could be resting. Instead, he was here.
Things weren’t normally this bad – both Millicent’s will and the rebellious faction had triggered a lot of the recent problems. But Emberlyn would never truly be left in peace by the coven as a whole.
Maybe she could convince him to let her handle things from here on out . . .
Doubtful.
He was an Alpha. They were freaking renowned for swooping in, taking over and fixing the problems of those they felt an attachment to.
As she parked outside Bennet’s house, Ripper looked at her. ‘Want to play “bad cop, worse cop”?’
She might have smiled at that if she wasn’t still wound so tight. ‘Should be fun. Which one of us is “worse cop”?’
‘This time round, me. It’s only fair. You’ve already had your fun with these assholes.’
True.
They exited the car and, with Ripper in the lead, advanced up Bennet’s path. As this was mostly her wolf’s show, she hung back slightly when he knocked on the front door.
Bennet answered after only a few moments – his recently shiny-black hair now a dull gray, since she’d undone her spell. His gaze darted from Ripper to Emberlyn, a frantic glint flickering to life in its depths.
He swallowed hard, inching back a little. ‘I . . .’ And that was all that came out.
Ripper watched him, his stare unblinking and flinty; menace cloaking his large frame. ‘I have a question for you,’ he said, his voice low, danger looped through each word.
Bennet jammed his hands in his pockets. ‘If it’s about the Rabid, it ran off before—’
‘The Watchers filled me in on the details,’ Ripper told him. ‘I just need to know why you thought you could get away with what you did to Emberlyn.’ A query laced with ire.
Bennet, well, it turned out that he was dumb enough to raise his chin defensively. ‘I wasn’t one of the people who circled her,’ he proclaimed, as if that meant no anger should be directed his way.
Unbelievable.
Ripper moved fast. So fast he was almost a blur. He fisted Bennet’s long-sleeved tee, yanked him outside and then slammed him against the wall beside the front door.
Bennet expelled a pained cry, his eyes wide with shock. He flinched as Ripper went nose to nose with him.
‘You yelled at her.’ Ripper’s words were low. Ultra-soft. Coated in rage. ‘You insulted her. Laid unfounded accusations at her door. Insisted that the Watchers should detain her. And you did nothing when the others came at her.’
Bennet shrank in on himself, his face ashen, breathing so fast he was close to hyperventilating.
Snarling, Ripper sliced out his claws and held the tips against Bennet’s chest. ‘Tell me how that makes you innocent.’
‘It-it doesn’t,’ Bennet stammered.
‘You have a woman of your own. What would you do to a man who put her through that shit?’
Bennet squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away. ‘I-I don’t know.’
‘Probably nothing,’ Emberlyn hedged. ‘He’s only brave when he has backup, Rip. I’m pretty sure the only reason he held onto his daughter earlier was because he figured I wouldn’t hurt him.’
Bennet’s eyes popped open and landed on her. ‘That’s not tr—’ He made a choking sound as her wolf snapped a hand tight around his throat.
Ripper’s upper lip quivered. ‘I didn’t say you could talk to her, did I?’
His face going redder and redder, Bennet flapped his hands near the large palm still squeezing his neck.
‘You might want to let him breathe, Rip,’ she said.
‘Why?’ A careless question.
She pursed her lips. ‘I actually can’t think of a reason.’
‘You didn’t answer my question before,’ Ripper said to him. ‘What made you think you could get away with it?’ He loosened his hold on Bennet’s throat.
The witch coughed and heaved in mounds of air.
‘I-I wasn’t thinking anything,’ he eventually replied.
‘Not really. M-my emotions were running high – my daughter had been attacked, my whole family was a wreck over it and all I could think was that she could be dead. At the time, it just felt like only Emberlyn could be the culprit.’
Ripper squinted. ‘At the time? Not now?’