Chapter 8
He's taking too long to return. Nearly ten minutes have passed and during that time, Lianna left the home theatre room and returned.
There's a gloating air about her as she saunters back inside, returning to her spot on the floor next to me, making little effort to hide her sidling closer to me.
"Knock it the fuck off, Lianna," I growl, the warning clear.
I can hardly tolerate her and her incessant desire to convince anyone who will listen that we're dating or destined to be together. She's been obsessed with me since last year when I gave into lust and took her up on her unspoken offer to fuck the daylights out of each other.
She likes the idea of me and her. I don't think she cares about me as a person, more interested in my rank within the pack and what my family's status can do for her. I'd often hear her – before I stopped going to her for favors – bragging to her friends the next day whenever he hooked up.
It's not the same as it is with Ash who does love me. It's in the way he looks at me, when he speaks to me. He cares about and respects me.
She makes a daring move, despite the obvious warning, leaning close until her breasts brush my arm, lacing her painted fingernails around my arm. Her voice drops an octave, heady with desire and lust.
"I've missed you."
The tension grows inside the home theatre room. It's suspiciously silent beyond the sounds of the final battle in the movie. Sure enough, Asher and Carter are no longer engrossed in it. Carter looks at Lianna with disgust, Asher looks like he wants to attack her.
Laken is half-distracted, waiting with bated breath to see what I'll do. Dale, the ever-stoic motherfucker that he is, remains focused on the television though I'm certain he's acutely aware of what's happening.
Here's the thing. Me and my friends – we're protective of one another. Especially with mates entering the scene, our protectiveness is no longer limited to the four of us. It's extended to our mates and anyone who seeks to disrupt the mate bond is ultimately viewed as foe.
"I don't," I snapped. "You were a good time and you've exhausted your novelty."
It's harsh but it's the truth and fueled by the fact that I'm a man of principle. I will never betray the mate bond. Never betray Jace by entertaining another.
Lianna, daring as she is stupid or brave, runs a finger over my chest, drawing circles in a suggestive gesture. "You don't mean that. I'm the best match –"
"If you want to keep your fingers, get them off of me." The threat lands. All desire wipes from her face, the realization dawning that this isn't some kind of roleplay where I play hard to get.
She hesitates, and when I find that she's taking too long to get away from me, I disentangle and get to my feet, resisting the urge to outrightly shudder in revulsion.
I don't do infidelity, the principle hammered into me the second I understood the concept of a mate, the mate bond, and that one day, I will meet the one meant for me. Now, with the bond manifested, anyone who makes advances and isn't Jace, revolts me.
"I'm going to find Jace. He's been gone too long."
Mild irritation sets its course, not only at Lianna for her bold flirtations but because of the idea that something might have happened to Jace. I worry that the migraine has returned with a vengeance but if it were unbearable to the point of him passing out, I would know.
Earlier, I felt his pain. The desperation to make it go away. The fear that assailed him. It's what had me racing downstairs to find the lone card of Ibuprofen.
Weres typically have a high pain tolerance, and most human ailments don't affect us. Still, we aren't invincible, prone to stress, and headaches and fluctuations in blood pressure levels because of it. We bounce back faster but headaches are an annoyance we can gladly do without.
The knock on the bathroom downstairs which he most likely went to goes unanswered.
I try the door handle, and it opens, revealing a space with no one inside.
I round to the kitchen, tilting my head up and sniffing the air.
There's a faint trail of his scent leading to the kitchen, but it disappears as I cross the threshold.
The first thing I notice is the wet floor and the puddle of water; the soaked light blue curtains plastered to the sliding doors.
What the fuck?
"Hey, is everything okay?" Ash queries from behind, poking his head around the wall, peering into the kitchen. "Found him? I paused the movie."
"He's not here." The dread that laces those words as realization sets in has my heart hammering in my chest. The weather outside is terrifying, the rain ice cold, the winds howling and just as merciless as the torrent.
Thunder booms and claps, lighting flashes illuminating the kitchen with an eerie flash of white and blue, the glow from the battery-operated lantern on the counter getting lost in it.
"What do you mean?" Asher steps up beside me. Behind him, I recognize Carter's footfalls. They're both sniffing the air, trying to catch Jace's scent.
"He's not inside the house."
"No way," Carter retorts. "He'd have to be crazy to go outside in this storm."
"No, he's right, Carter," Ash says, moving into the hallway hoping to catch Jace's scent. "I don't think he's inside."
By now, the others have entered the kitchen. "Where the hell is he?"
Control lapses manifesting in a bout of anger as the primal instincts rise to the surface, like hot blood bubbling just beneath the skin.
The hostility catches them off guard. They become wary unlike Lianna who has the audacity to carry on with her boldness, successfully irritating the shit out of me.
She steps forward and hugs my arm. "Baby, calm down –"
"Fuck off, Lianna! Where the fuck is my mate?"
My tone is accusatory, and I don't care to hide it. I've been aware of her pathetic little schemes and games all afternoon, her not-so-subtle attempts to stay close to me. I haven't missed a single thing, especially those malicious glares she was bold enough to direct at Jace.
My Jace.
My fucking mate!
"Sky," Dale warns, putting a hand on my shoulder, "calm down. We'll find him. Check for his scent again."
It's not easy to do but for Jace's sake, I grapple with the animal instincts threatening to take over knowing that letting it consume me would do no good. I take a deep breath to stay in control and sniff the air, catching nothing but rain and cool air.
His scent is practically drowned out even in an enclosed space. That can only mean one thing: He's not been inside for a while.
"I'm not getting anything."
"Neither am I," Asher comments, worry flashing over his face.
This is what I respect about Ash. Though he's in love with me – and my acknowledging Jace as my mate hurts him – he possesses such a big heart that he's willing to put others before his own feelings.
Willing to stick to principle over feelings.
"Split up," he instructs.
I'm already halfway into the hallway when the doorbell rings, echoing through the house like church bells in the distance. Sudden and eerie.
"No fucking way," Ash murmurs next to me but I'm already crossing the threshold into the living room, dashing across to the door.
Unlocking the bolts, I throw it open only to be met with the sight of Jace shivering and trembling, his teeth chattering as he keeps his arms wrapped tight around his torso.
He's soaked completely. His clothes are plastered to his body like a second skin.
His cheeks are pale as is the rest of him.
"Get some towels or something," I hear Ash dishing out the orders, but his voice sounds so far away beneath the steadily mounting rage, drowning out sound, painting my vision red at his trembling body.
I reach out, pulling him inside without a care that water goes flying everywhere, tucking him close to my chest. Carter comes forward, draping a thick blanket over him, Asher and Laken coming over with a bunch of paper towels they stole from the kitchen, doing their best to sap up as much of the water from his hair and clothes.
"I-I couldn't get i-inside." He's so cold he can barely form words. "I kn...I knocked. You didn't hear me."
I already know the answer but unless I hear it from his own mouth, I dare not make a move.
"Who did this to you?"
Angry candy-apple eyes promising the wrath of immeasurable proportions tilt upward, locking onto me with so much fire, with so much hatred that it steals my breath. I hate that look. Hate that it's directed at me, that he thinks I had something to do with this.
"Ask your girlfriend."
The calm that comes over me is unsettling. It's like a puzzle piece falling into place, painting the perfect picture of what comes next.
My voice is too calm when I speak, alien to my own ears.
"Ash, take him upstairs. Get him dry clothes. Carter, Laken, get him something warm to drink."
Asher, sensing the shift in demeanor, that there is no room for opposition, takes Jace away.
I wait until he takes him upstairs, wait until the bathroom door there closes with resounding confirmation.
Carter and Laken are already inside the kitchen.
Laken is heating the water for a cup of tea, Carter rinsing out one of the unused mugs from the cabinet.
Dale watches me closely, tense, but he doesn't try to stop me as I zero in on Lianna. The shift in her attitude from bold to meek is immediate.
"Sky, wait –"
She chokes, whimpering, my hand clasping tightly around her throat and her back and head hit the wall behind her.
"Sky! You're hurting m –" She chokes harder, coughing, her eyes rolling to the inside of her head as she gasps for air, clawing at my arm when I tighten my grip.
"Do you have a fucking death wish?"
It would be so easy to crush her windpipe. Easy to make it look like an accident.
So easy to obliterate her pathetic reputation in Marcana, or whatever reputation she thinks she has.
"I didn't –"
"He didn't lie, Lianna," I say, my voice dangerously low, the promise of killing her absolute. "You were the only one who left the room after he did. You locked him outside. You locked my fucking mate out in the rain."
"Sky – I didn't know!" Lianna chokes, her face reddened and turning purple as she continues gasping for air.
"Sky!"
The unspoken command doesn't come from Dale. It comes from my father who storms into the living room from the hallway, most likely after being holed up in his office for the past hour.
"Let her go," he commands.
My breathing has turned shallow, the primal instinct to eliminate a direct threat to my mate hovering beneath the skin. I want to snap her neck so badly. I want to break her hands, all of her fingers one by one for what she did.
"No."
"Sky," Dad repeats, firmer than before, taking on the authoritative edge of his rank. I don't falter. Instead, my grip tightens.
"She locked him outside," I tell him, the words a jumbled-up mixture getting lost between the killer instinct and a growl. "I should kill her."
"She's your subordinate. If she defied you, then she will be dealt with according to pack law," he reasons but as logically sound as his word are, they barely register, hardly making a dent in deflating my desire to see this insubordinate Were dead.
"Jace is upstairs. Focus on him and let me handle Lianna. "
Lianna's face is purple but at the mention of Jace, my grip loosens enough for oxygen to return to her lungs. She gasps loud and big, slumping against the wall, hands gripping my wrists as I'm the only thing keep her from falling to a heap.
I lean in close, keeping her head jammed to the wall. "Stay the hell away from me in the future. Stay away from Jace or I will kill you."
Stepping away, Lianna crumbles to the floor. Red still filling my vision, I watch as Dad helps her to her feet, gets her an umbrella and tells her to go home because the longer she remains, the less he'll be able to guarantee her safety.
She leaves without complaint but shaken up and with tears in her eyes, a bruise from the imprint of my hand beginning to redden her throat.
"She knows now that she's wrong," Dad says when he comes back inside. "If she doesn't make a scene, it should be fine."
"She should be punished," Dale replies in my stead. I'm still too angry about the incident and I don't trust myself to say another word about Lianna. I might just give into my desire to chase her down and punish her myself.
"She went after his mate," Dale adds on. Out of all my friends, he's strictest about the mate-bond and all that goes into defending the honor of one's mate. With the way he treats Laken, it's not surprising that he holds the rest of us to that regard.
"A serious offense," Dad says, "without a doubt. Luckily, no real harm was done."
I turn to the others as Dad brushes by, patting me on the shoulder as both a way of saying to stay calm and to refocus on Jace. He disappears into the hallway before calling out, "Try to not attempt homicide in my house again."
"Who the fuck invited her?" I interrogate.
"Well," Carter drawls, stirring a cup of hot tea, "according to what Dale said, she insisted on tagging along when she heard you asked us over. She was with Jessi when you called. And you know, she's obsessed with you." He pauses, looking me up and down. "I don't get the appeal."
His jab at my ego lightens the mood, a lot of the earlier rage dissipating.
"Sleep with me and then you'll know."
"Ew!" Carter exclaims, laughing hysterically. "That's disgusting! You're not even what I'd go for if I had to choose a guy."
Our bickering halts with Ash's appearance. "Is that tea ready?"
"I'll take it to him," I say, taking the warm beverage from Carter as Ash disappears out the front door explaining that Jace asked him to get something from his car.