Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
The low murmur of voices drifts my way.
Stirring, I blink my eyes open and pull the sheets up over me. The last thing I remember was being by the lake, slowly collapsing onto soft grass with Vaden’s cock pulsing inside me.
Somewhere between last night and now, I’m back in our cabin. It’s weird that it went from being Vaden’s to ours, and I can’t quite pinpoint when that happened.
A door snicks shut, and footsteps head toward me.
Vaden, wearing only sweatpants, walks into the bedroom and smiles when he sees I’m awake. He slips under the sheets and gathers me against the warmth of his chest. “Morning, beautiful. Didn’t mean to wake you.”
I automatically snuggle up to him. “You didn’t wake me. Who were you talking to?”
“Dayne.” He makes the same contented sound he made as a wolf and hauls me even closer.
“Oh. Surprised you weren’t growling and arguing.”
He kisses my hair. “It took a great deal of self-restraint, but I kept things polite. I didn’t want to wake you.”
“He said he liked you last night after you left the meeting. I’m not sure if I was supposed to tell you that, but he didn’t order me not to.”
He snorts. “He doesn’t like me, Jane.”
I lift my head and meet his gaze. “He said he respected you for coming here, facing him down and being ready to start a fight with him that you had to know you would lose. And he thought you could be friends one day.”
Vaden stares at me, disbelieving. Then he turns to look at the bedroom door he walked through just seconds ago. “He said that?”
I rest my head on his chest. “He did.”
He wraps his arms around me, his silence thoughtful. “I called him a psycho when I first met him.”
“He seems pretty sane to me.”
“His reputation was not great. It took my sister a long time to convince me that the things I thought I knew about him were rumors.”
“What were the rumors?”
“That he slaughtered half his pack, including the previous alpha.”
I freeze.
Then I remember the man who took scrambled eggs to the face and barely flinched. The man who grumbles and growls but can’t stop kissing the woman he loves, or trying to look out for his pack—even me, a stranger in his midst.
“I don’t believe that,” I say.
“You’re smarter than I am, Jane, because I refused to believe Averie when she tried to convince me I was wrong about him.
” He lets out a sigh. “And I don’t hate him as much as I want to.
He does things in his pack in ways that my dad wouldn’t have done in Pack Rowe, but that doesn’t mean his way is wrong.
Just different. I’m learning that I’m more set in my ways than I thought. ”
“What was he saying earlier?”
“They’ve been working on the plan. It was… reassuring. They barely slept all night, coming up with ways to keep you safe. I almost feel sorry for the men who are about to step into a trap they won’t see coming. We have another meeting at the house later to set it in motion.”
“I don’t feel sorry for them at all. I hope you rip both their throats out.”
There’s a brief moment of silence, then Vaden laughs as he rolls me onto my back. He grins down at me. “I think you’re more bloodthirsty than I am.”
I wrinkle my nose. “Nope. I don’t think so. They’re never going to leave, so they need to die. I’m just being practical.”
If being on the run has taught me one thing, it’s when to accept what can change and what will never change.
He studies me for a beat, his expression unreadable.
“What is it?” I ask.
“You told me you were falling in love with me last night.”
My cheeks burn, and not just because of what I admitted. About what we did in public, the fact that I screamed, and the possibility that somebody at the house probably heard. “I did say that.”
He tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, though his gaze never leaves mine. “I can’t help but wonder if you waited to say that when I was a wolf and couldn’t say how I felt back.”
He’s right. I waited until he was a wolf before I risked telling him how I felt about him. Because I’m scared. No, I’m terrified this won’t last. Not wanting to admit my fear, my eyes drift over his shoulder.
“Jane?”
The soft tone in his voice pulls my attention back to him.
He’s so very serious as he bends his head and touches his lips to mine. “I’m not leaving you. I remember what you told me about your life before me. About foster care. Nothing about the way I feel about you is the least bit temporary. You’re my home, and I’m yours. Okay?”
With tears burning my eyes, I nod. “I’m trying to remember that, but sometimes I get scared it will all go away again.”
I’ve had too many years of getting used to being moved on to the next home, the next job, the next place where I wouldn’t be able to stay too long, or the men my boss sent to silence me would kill me.
But I think I have a home here.
I have something I never believed I would ever have. Love, a family, and a place to belong. And I’m terrified that it will all go away again.
“None of this is going away,” he says softly, doing a damn good job of reading my mind. “I love you, Shelby. I always will.”
My heart feels so full it could burst. “I love you too, Vaden.”
He’s bending his head to kiss me when I remember something else from last night.
“You bit me!” My fingers skim my neck, finding the grooves and tracing them. I stare up at him, my stomach in knots. “Am I going to be a wolf now?”
His eyes sparkle with mirth. “No, baby. That was just the wolf in me wanting to claim his mate. I have to be a wolf when I bite you for it to take, and I would never do that without your express permission. That would only come after we talked about what it would mean for you to become a shifter.”
I relax. “Oh, that’s good. For a second there, I thought I was going to start sprouting fur.”
He studies me through hooded eyes. “The bite will fade, but it felt good to put it on you, Shelby. I like you wearing my mark and knowing any shifter who sees it knows you’re mine.”
With the way he’s looking down at me, my body remembers just how hot that bite was. I never imagined someone biting me would be so arousing, but it was seriously hot. His teeth in my throat, his cock pounding inside me, his hands gripping my hips and holding me exactly where he wanted me.
I would absolutely not mind if he wanted to do it again.
His nostrils flare, and a low groan rumbles from his throat. His cock hardens against my leg. “My mate is having interesting thoughts that intrigue me.”
He can smell when I’m aroused.
Shit. I’d forgotten that.
Rubbing my thighs together, I clear my throat. “We, uh, didn’t need to be anywhere for a while, did we?” I ask.
A slow, pleased smile stretches across his face. “Did my mate have some way to pass the time?”
I circle his hard body with my arms and legs, pulling him down onto me. “I might have one or two ideas.”
After spending several blissful hours with Vaden in his bed, talking, eating, and making love, we’re in the Blackshaw farmhouse, where we’ve been for the last hour, and everyone is serious.
It’s the usual faces for this meeting in the basement: Dayne, Talis, Jeremy, Vaden, Dean, and Gavin.
Dean, sitting in the chair beside me, dials the number on the burner phone he bought for this specific task.
We’ve been over what I need to say ten times, but he still tells me. “Keep it short. Keep him wanting more.”
“The shorter the string, the more he’ll pull on it,” I repeat.
He grins as he hands over the burner phone. “Atta girl.”
As the phone rings in my ear, I take a moment to wonder how Dean got my former boss’s personal cell number.
“Yes?”
“Sean Linklater,” I say.
“What do you want?” he says impatiently
I recognize his voice from when I heard him talking in his office that night before my life became unrecognizable.
Steeling my spine, I tighten my grip on the phone. “This is Shelby. Shelby Templeton.”
He’s silent for a beat. “How did you get this number?”
“You sent two men to kill me, and they failed. Walter Douglas, Jermone Ingles, and you. I know what you all did, and I have proof. If you want to stay out of jail, you’ll have the two men you sent after me meet me tomorrow night at 10 pm at the address I will text you with two hundred thousand dollars.
If they’re not there, I’m going to the Wall Street Journal. “
He’s speaking when I hang up.
Vaden squeezes my hand. “You did great, baby.”
Dean nods. “Excellent.”
I hand him the phone so he can send Sean a text with the address where we’re meeting tomorrow. “Are you sure he’ll be—”
The phone starts ringing in Dean’s hand.
He grins at me as he ends the call and resumes typing. It’s not far. At the edge of the Blackshaw property, where no one can see or hear us.
The phone rings three more times, and no one answers it.
“Now we keep our eyes open until then and be ready to set our trap,” Dayne says.
“I almost feel sorry for them,” Talis says.
I snort. “I don’t.”