Chapter Ten
Marcus
The supermoon was in four days.
Somehow the hunter convinced me to infiltrate Silas’s party. More importantly, she’d coerced me into allowing her to go with me.
Correction, us.
I needed to grant Latoya temporary freedom for this plan to have even the smallest chance of succeeding.
But succeeding at what? Getting a bunch of letters and numbers from a fucking cell phone? How did any of this matter when, even if it didn’t fall apart, I still lost the moment Joanna performed that damn spell?
I’d held my breath most of the interrogation, fearing… fucking hyacinth. But the moment Joanna mentioned scrubbing my scent—her scent…
There was no making up for the time I’d lost.
She held my forearm with an iron grip as we trudged through the tunnels. I’d said nothing when we entered the darkness because I smelled the tears brimming in her eyes.
The cry was silent and short-lived. Within minutes, her bottom lip stilled. She swept the trail of tears from her cheeks as if she suddenly remembered my heightened senses. It made me furious, and my wolf growled when Joanna tried to bury her sadness deeper.
“You think she’s insufferable now?” she asked flippantly. “Be thankful you didn’t know her during puberty.”
I flexed my fingers, keeping my gaze straight ahead.
“She got her period for the first time the day after Halloween and told me it was her dying because I wouldn’t share my chocolate bars,” Joanna chuckled.
“I didn’t believe it, of course. But I didn’t know what a period was yet.
And when I used the bathroom after her, I noticed the pad in the garbage.
Plus, all day my mother had been waiting on her hand and foot.
” She sighed, another bitter laugh breaking through her breath. “I gave the bitch all the candy I had.”
After we finished Latoya’s interrogation, Maya hurried ahead to talk to Grace, providing me and Joanna the privacy I soon wished we didn’t have. I didn’t want to say the wrong thing, and I was angry enough to curse the hell out of her. So, I held my tongue until we reached the main hall.
“Oh, hi, Joey.”
Joanna had released my arm the moment the darkness in the tunnels eased, so her arms were now free to wrap around the werewolf that called her name.
Lucas stood still with his hands at his sides, but his conspicuous racing heart was proof he didn’t hate the embrace.
My wolf snarled within me.
Joanna pulled away and tousled Lucas’s coffee-brown hair. “That hug lasted a whole three seconds longer than the last one. I’d say you’re starting to like me, Lucas,” she said in a singsong voice.
He fought the small smile tugging at his lips. Meanwhile, I fought the urge to rip him limb from limb.
“Why aren’t you at training?” I demanded.
Lucas’s mouth returned to its usual straight line. He took a step back, acknowledging me for the first time. “Alpha,” he greeted, his voice low and subservient. “I’m on my way there now, sir.”
“I didn’t realize you could afford to be late,” I declared, crossing my arms. “Considering you’re the only one of my wolves the hunter has had to slap the shit out of.”
Joanna’s bulging eyes darted to me. “Don’t be a dick.”
Lucas was a young wolf, a few months shy of twenty. Before the atrocity in the Den, he’d never witnessed slaughter, never smelled the bite of stolen life. He watched his family destroy itself that night—spilled blood desecrating the sanctity of the cave as fire threatened to consume it all.
He’d frozen, trapped by the encroaching flames. And Joanna risked her life to save him.
After I’d demanded she take cover.
Then Leo used her distraction to his advantage… almost killing her.
I marched toward Joanna, my anger threatening to boil over. “You love reminding me you’re not a member of my pack, Joanna? Well, guess what,”—I stabbed a finger in Lucas’s direction—“he is. So, when I tell him to do something, he fucking does it. Just like, when I forbid him from doing something—”
Joanna raised an open palm in the air, halting my rant. “I get it now.” She turned to Lucas, and her voice softened. “This isn’t about you,” she informed him. “Tell Grace I said hey.”
Lucas wasted no time, bolting without a glance back.
I grabbed Joanna’s hand and pulled her toward my office. She fought as I dragged her behind me, using all the curses under the Moon. But once she realized she was drawing attention to us, she quieted.
I swung her into the room and slammed the door behind us, locking it quickly. The sound of her gun leaving its holster cut through the air, and I knew she had it aimed at my head without my having to turn.
I snorted with amusement, though my anger had yet to subside. “Put that away unless you intend to use it, Sullivan,” I scolded.
“Drag me around like that again, and trust me, I will.”
I whipped around… and regretted it immediately.
Joanna stood with her shoulders back and her chin high. Fury burned in her beautiful brown eyes. Her tight grip on the gun was confident and sure.
Any rational werewolf would’ve been worried…
Instead of aching to be engulfed in her flames.
Instead of wanting that firm grip around the base of his cock.
I frowned, shaking my head to clear away the agonizing distraction. I took my time approaching her, stopping only once the barrel of the gun rested against my forehead. “It’s a bad idea,” I mumbled.
“I think it’d be an honor to play a part in Maya skipping beta and rising to alpha.”
I shoved the gun away from my face. “Joanna, unless we’re trying to provoke one another, werewolves aren’t known for stealing from each other.”
Her eyebrows rose as she scanned my face. After a pause, she sighed and holstered her gun. “And what does that mean, Marcus?”
“That means you’ll never be as safe as you are right now—with my scent on every inch of your fucking body.”
Her jaw dropped, and the rousing sound of her racing heart made my pants a little tighter. She cleared her throat. “That may be true, but Toya is right. We don’t know how those wolves will react to our complication, and I don’t intend to fuck around and find out.”
My wolf growled. “Toya? Really?” I snapped.
Joanna shrugged, staggering to the couch and dropping with a deep sigh.
“She tells you one sad story, and that’s it? She’s forgiven?”
Joanna propped her arm against the back of the couch and turned to face me. “Say my name, Marcus.”
I paused. “What?”
“Say my name,” she repeated.
I rolled my eyes and stormed over to my desk. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“There it is.” She tilted her head with an arrogant grin on her face.
“You’re whining about how I address my sister when, even after your tongue has diligently explored ‘every inch’ of my ‘fucking body,’”—she used air quotes for emphasis—“you refuse to address me the way I’ve asked you to, a million times. ”
I sat in my office chair and studied the hunter as she made herself comfortable. She lay down on the couch—her head on the armrest, legs crossed, and her cap covering her face.
“I refuse to believe you trust her,” I muttered. “You aren’t stupid.”
Joanna slid the cap down and stared up at the ceiling.
“From the time I turned sixteen, the only constant in my life was birth control,” she joked.
“I thought I was cursed ever since Dad got sick. Because one by one… I lost them all.” She rubbed her eyes.
“When you think about it, even James left me to die before having a change of heart.”
The muscles in my body locked up with rage.
“But I can’t imagine knowing my sister was alive and not being able to run to her. That sounds like torture,” she said quietly, voice thick with emotion.
I leaned back in the chair, my expression softening. “She’s not you, Joanna,” I declared with a shake of my head. “You’re loyal and resilient. And you would’ve made things right.”
She let out a derisive snort. “Uh-huh.”
I sat up, drumming my fingers on the desk. “Did hearing about the transformation bother you?” I asked lowly.
Joanna’s eyes snapped open. “Bother me?” She shot up onto her knees. “That was assault, Marcus. I’m not bothered. I’m fucking furious!”
“What—Joanna,” I stammered. “No—I didn’t mean—” I slammed down on the desk, jumping to my feet. “Fuck! Do you really think I’m that despicable?”
Joanna’s gaze dropped to the floor. Her shoulders slumped, and she sat on her heels.
I stared down at my desk as my wolf paced. “I meant… learning what the first shift is like for a human…? Did that scare you?”
She regarded me with a contemplative frown.
My wolf whimpered, and my chest tightened.
Joanna shook her head. “With all this shit—the uprising, Latoya, the restoration of your Den—we’ve had little time to talk about… that.”
I forced myself to hold her gaze, even as I noticed a quiver of revulsion course through her body.
“Thank you for not asking me again.” She nervously fiddled with the cap in her hands. “I was worried that—”
“I thought we were going to die, Sullivan.” The words bore a nonchalance that surprised even me. “I was only trying my luck to determine the likelihood of fucking you again.”
Lies, lies, all fucking lies.
Joanna’s eyes grew wide. “Excuse me?” she sneered.
I kept my face blank. “You heard what I said.”
“I must not have heard you correctly because it sounded like you were talking shit.” She rose from the couch. “Ignoring the fact that I was human the first time we fucked, am still very human now, and you’ve had no issues—”
“Joanna—”
“No, enlighten me, Marcus. Because I assumed you knew what this was.”
“A werewolf and a human having meaningless sex.”
“Yes! Why say shit to try and change the damn rules now?” she challenged.
“Because, Joanna. Even with your power, the things I wanted to do to you—what I still want to do—would’ve broken you.”
The best lies are the ones with some truth, and the truth was this: the things I dreamed of doing to Joanna Sullivan would’ve left her unable to walk straight for days.
Goddess, help me.