Angel Blackwood (38 page)

I scream as he narrows his
eyes, showing me his canines.

I lurch backwards, making a
move to open the door behind Talon. I hear glass breaking behind me
and then feel the cold wind hit my bare legs as the door is
opened.

I reach for the other
door handle and yank at it, but a pair of warm hands grab my calves
and pull. I cry out and force myself to turn over and kick as hard
as I can. I hear the sound of air leaving Tyler’s lungs followed by
a loud roar. Talon then reaches for me as I’m just about to make it
out of the door, but I quickly yank my arm away. He manages to
latch onto the jacket I’m wearing, so I wiggle my way free of it.
The sharp gravel on the ground digs into my bare feet but I can’t
stop running.

I think the
term,
the straw that broke
the camel’s back
fits my
current situation. This particular secret that I’ve held onto is
their last straw, they’ve completely lost it and now they’re going
to kill me.

Funny how a few hours ago I was
running for my life from a crazy werewolf who could have so easily
killed me, yet he let me go. Now I’ll most likely end up being
killed by my own mates.

Maybe this is karma for all the
lies I’ve told and all the secrets I’ve kept; Karma sure has got a
funny way of biting you in the ass.

I look back just in time to see
Tyler racing in my direction; Talon is still trying to get out of
the car.

“Angel! Goddammit! Get back
here!” Tyler yells, but I run harder. The black shirt of Drake’s is
clinging to my body and the heavy rain prevents me from seeing
clearly. Looking back, I trip over my own two feet, crying out as
my knees hit the gravel. I try lifting my body up but my legs are
weak. I try twice more but I can’t do it. My body is quitting on me
even though my mind is not ready to give up; it has me crying out
in sheer frustration. I look down at my bloodied knees and sob
harder before trying one last time to get up.

I can’t, my body is beat.

I cover my face and cower away
when Talon’s feet come into view.

“Please don’t hurt me… Please.”
I start bawling, slithering away from him on the gravel ground not
caring that I’m ripping my skin up even more.

I continue to beg,
refusing to look at him. My hands are shaking as they cover my face
from the harm I am expecting. I hide my tears from him as I curl
into a ball, my body shaking as I cry.

Warm hands around my forearms
have me flinching. They slowly curl tighter and force my hands away
from my face. I look through teary eyes at Tyler’s pale face,
making those blue eyes of his shine so bright.

“I’m not gonna hurt you, baby,”
he says so delicately.

He gently pulls me against him,
but I’m still frozen with fear.

He places his face into the
crook of my neck and whispers into my ear, “Hold me… Please, wrap
your arms around me, baby.”

When I don’t move he lets out
another painful sounding, “Please, Angel.”

I slowly wrap my arms
around his torso. When I realize he isn’t going to harm me, I
squeeze him tighter.

“Shh… Shh…,” he coos,
placing one of his hands at the back of my head and running his
fingers through my hair.

Talon stands behind me,
shielding me from the cold wind that the rain has brought with it.
His warm hand gently rubs my back as my cries die down.

“We didn’t mean to scare you,
Angel,” Talon says.

Tyler’s hand finds my chin,
forcing me to look at him in his eyes. He wipes away the tears that
have combined with the drops of rain.

“I was angry, but I’d
never hurt you, sweetheart… Never,” he says, looking me dead in the
eye.

“That’s what I was afraid of…”
When his eyebrows scrunch up I try explaining further without
spluttering.

“I was afraid that your wolf
had taken over, that you didn’t have control.” My explanation seems
to do the trick because the wrinkle between his eyebrows disappears
and understanding forms on his face.

“I am
always
in control, Angel. No matter how angry I am… I am and
always will be in control of my wolf. I know how strong I am and I
know that you will
never
have to worry
about me losing control when it comes to my wolf,” he says firmly.
I believe him.

The rain begins to die down,
we’re all soaked and even though the twins body feels warm, I’m
freezing cold.

I turn to look at Talon as his
sad face appears to my side.

He brushes his thumb across my
cheek and I close my eyes, relishing in the affection coming from
him in this moment.

“Let’s get you home. You’re
freezing, babe,” Talon says, pulling me from a reluctant Tyler and
into his arms.

Talon keeps me warm on his lap
in the backseat, surrounding me with the heat of his body as Tyler
drives us home.

I’m not sure when I fell
asleep, but I wake up looking into Kate’s pretty face.

I look around at my unfamiliar
surroundings. Why the hell would Tyler bring me anywhere near
Kate.

“Hey,” she says quietly, giving
me a small smile.

“Where am I?” I say, trying to
lift my body up. My entire body aches and I can’t sit up. I look
down noticing that I’m dressed in warm flannel pyjamas.

“You’re at my apartment.” She
looks down at me inspecting the clothes I have on. “Oh, I didn’t
want you getting sick, you were soaked. I helped dress you.”

“Helped?” I frown but she
misunderstands.

“Talon wouldn’t leave your
side. I made him close his eyes though, don’t worry,” she says
sweetly.

I want to hate
her so bad. I want her to be mean to me, say ugly things or even
hurt me. Something to make me hate her, but I can’t when she’s
genuinely so goddamn
nice
.

“Why did they bring me here?” I
ask, managing to sit upright by leaning against the wooden
headboard.

The room is
baby blue. Everything is in its place, nothing out of the ordinary,
even the frames on the walls are in the perfect position. The
fluffy bedding that surrounds me matches the colors in the room and
I know without a doubt that I’m in her room; in
her
bed.

“I’m studying
to be a nurse.”
Of course she
is.

“
You had cuts
and bruises all over you, so I helped clean you up.” She moves to
sit on the bed next to me.

I look to the
door.
I swear to God if Lucy
walks through that door, I’m jumping out the fucking
window
.

Kate’s little giggle has me
frowning at her. “Sorry, I don’t think you meant to project that. I
promise Lucy is nowhere in sight.”

I look down at my fingers,
still trying to wrap my head around why the hell I’m sitting in
Tyler’s girlfriends bed.

“Didn’t you know?” she
says.

“Didn’t I know what?”

“They broke up a few days ago,
Talon and her are no longer an item,” she says, sounding as if
we’re at a slumber party. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to hear it,
but it still doesn’t change shit.

“Thank you.” She has me looking
up at her confused.

“For what?”

“For not telling Tyler
that I rejected my mate.” She looks down at her manicured fingers,
a visible shudder leaving her body.

“Okay,” I say.

I shake my head, move to pull
the covers and attempt to get off the other side of the bed.

“I’m not doing this with you,
Kate. Thank-you for helping me, but I can’t sit here with you and
do this right now.” I’m just about to lift myself up when she comes
around the bed.

“You need to rest. Please, just
have a seat, Angel.” I look into her eyes. “Please, Angel,” she
pleads.

I sit down and rub my eyes with
the palms of my sore hands.

“I know you are Tyler’s mate,”
she says, sitting next to me.

“And you still chose to help
me. Why?” I ask in frustration. I don’t want to sit here
chit-chatting with the woman my mate is choosing over me.

“Because
you’re his
mate and you’re the Alpha’s daughter. Listen, Angel. I want to
apologise for the way we’ve been acting in front of you. I can’t
imagine the hurt you’re feeling by seeing your mate with someone
else. I wanted to end things with Tyler the moment I found out
about you, but he insisted on having time to figure things out.”
That little piece of info has me clutching at my chest, her mouth
drops open and she covers it.

“Shoot, I’m so sorry. I… I
swear it isn’t as harsh as it sounds.” Her posture and the way
she’s acting tells me that she’s being honest. She didn’t mean to
hurt me, but it doesn’t stop her from talking.

“He loves you too, Angel. He
loves you so much, I can’t begin to understand how hard this must
be for him. He tells me he loves me, but he doesn’t look at me the
way he looks at you.” She scoots over to me and quickly wipes away
a stray tear from her cheek. She gives me a little smile even
though I can feel her hurt.

“Sometimes I get glimpses
into his thoughts and all I see is your face.” She’s smiling even
though the tears fall from her cheeks. For fuck sakes, now the
woman has me feeling sorry for her. I have to blink away my own
tears.

“I know he’s going to choose
you in the end, Angel. You two belong together. All I ask is that
you allow me to spend the little time I have left with him.” She
wipes away her remaining tears.

How can she ask me this? Does
she honestly think I will freely give my acceptance for her to be
with my mate until or if he decides to accept me as his mate.

Chapter 2
1

Tyler POV

“They find him?” I ask,
consumed with a burning rage. He’s dead. If the Alpha doesn’t get
to Drake first, I’m going to make sure his death is slow and very
painful.

Nixon rushed over to
Kate’s place as soon as we told him about what happened at Point
Bright. He’s the reason we knew to look there first. We saw that
little waterfall she always projects when she’s blocking us out and
we knew that he knew where it was. He was adamant on coming along,
but Talon and I refused. Angel is our mate, our responsibility and
if it wasn’t for us, she would never have felt the need to run
away.

I’ve never seen Nixon as
angry as he was, I swear he was close to ripping Talon and I a new
hole. When he saw Talon carrying a passed out Angel, all that anger
dissipated. When he heard about what Drake had done, well, all that
anger came back at full force. The only way to calm him down was to
make an agreement. When Drake is found, all three of us together
are going to take him from Jax and give him our own style of
punishment. Turns out Nixon isn’t really fond of Jax either, so
he’s more than happy with the plan.

“No, nothing yet. Ronny says
they’ve searched the entire territory. She thinks he must have
crossed territories or moved to a neutral zone,” Nixon says,
throwing his cell phone onto the table and letting out a sigh of
frustration.

“If he thinks a neutral zone
can save him, he’s got another thing coming,” Talon growls at my
side, downing the rest of his beer.

“That crazy fuck is dead,”
Nixon grunts. I’m starting to like the man more and more. If he and
I had met under different circumstances we would of most probably
hit it off from the start, but seeing as I’ve seen the way he’s
held Angel and been there for her when I wasn’t, there’s a certain
amount of animosity between us.

“Do you two honestly think it
was a good idea bringing her here?” Nixon asks, glaring at me.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t such a
great idea bringing my mate to my girlfriend’s apartment, but we
couldn’t take her to her father in the state she was in. Alpha was
tearing the pack house to pieces when he found out Angel had left,
he’s been issuing out orders for everyone to find her. I’ve only
seen him scared like that one other time, and that was the night we
had to rescue Angel in the woods of Point Bright; the night we
thought she was going to die.

If Alpha saw the damaged that
was caused while she was in the care of Jax, he would bring all
kinds of hell down on that place. We can’t afford to go to war with
our neighbouring pack, especially since we’re having an issue with
rogues in the surrounding areas.

Kate is the only nurse I know
that has enough loyalty to me, ensuring she won’t go telling the
Alpha.

“We will take her back to the
pack house as soon as she wakes up. I just needed Kate to clean her
up a bit. If her father saw the state she was in before, he
probably would have killed us too.” I fall back onto the sofa
running my hands through my hair.

This entire situation is fucked
up.

We’re her second chance mates.
We’re her last chance at having a true mate. How could she have
kept that from us?

“The dreadful
things you have said to our mate…”
Gunner, my wolf makes his voice heard inside my head. He
doesn’t need to say the words, I know what I’ve done and the things
I’ve said to her. I’m ashamed of the way I’ve behaved and of the
way I’ve treated her. Gunner has been rather quiet these last few
weeks, so has Jett, Talon’s wolf. We think it’s because we haven’t
accepted our mate yet. No one knows this because we’ve kept it to
ourselves, but we haven’t been able to shift. I feel trapped and
claustrophobic. I want my wolf to run free, but he’s punishing me
and in turn, he too is suffering.

“I’m going to check on her,” I
say, standing up. Nixon is right at my side.

I open the door slowly and find
Angel sitting on the side of the bed with Kate at her side. Kate
quickly wipes away her tears. I’ve only ever seen Kate cry once and
that was when she found me kissing Angel; Kate hates looking
weak.