Jace (11 page)

He headed for the freezer.

“Where are you going?”

The panic in the question was much higher than the six feet between them warranted. “To get your dinner.”

“Dinner?”

He glanced over his shoulder. Her lip was back between her teeth. “Yes. Dinner. As in steak.”

The growl of her stomach interrupted the tense silence.

“I take it that’s okay with you?”

“Yes.”

He opened the door and pulled out a couple of rib-eyes. Wolves had a voracious appetite. He and his brothers kept the place well stocked just in case of visitors. When he turned around, Miri was right behind him, a broiling pan in her hand. He indicated the pan with an arch of his brow. “Did you miss the part where I was preparing you dinner?”

She cocked her head to the side. “Vampires don’t eat, do they?”

With a twirl of his finger, he indicated she was to head back to the table. “Afraid I’m going to ruin your meal?”

She didn’t budge. “Maybe.”

Instinct told him her reasons went much deeper. He crowded her backward, hooked his foot on the leg of the chair, and pulled it to the left before pushing her into the seat. “I won’t.”

She didn’t look any more relaxed when he took the steak out of the wrapping. He pretended to fumble the steak. She leapt to her feet.

He deftly tossed the meat onto the rack. “You have control issues, don’t you?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you know about control issues?”

“Allie’s been dragging all of us into the twenty-first century.”

Her hand clenched into a fist. “All of you?”

He turned on the broiler, opened the oven door, and carefully slid the pan in. “Yes.”

He turned to find her glaring at him, energy pouring off her in an angry wave. He leaned his hip against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “Any particular reason you look ready to commit blue murder?”

A blink, and that fast, she had her expression under control. Her chin came up. “None at all.”

“Uh-huh.” He waved his hand. “You might as well spill whatever it is before you explode.”

Her jaw set in a rigid line and her gaze avoided his. “I have no right.”

“Seems like I just gave it to you.”

“I mated you, knowing how it would be.”

He wondered if the stab of satisfaction he got when she admitted to his claim would ever go away. He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m tired. Paint a picture for me.”

“I knew you were vampire.”

She said that as if it explained everything. “And I knew you were wolf, but that’s not clearing up the gray area.”

“I knew you wouldn’t be faithful.”

It was his turn to blink. How had they gone from dinner to cheating? The only woman mentioned had been Allie… The anger started slow, unable to get over the initial hurdle of incredulity. She thought he’d slept with Allie? His brother’s wife?

He stared at her face, taking in the mutinous lines, the hurt, the forced acceptance. Emotion made the leap over shock, and right along with it came disgust. “You think I slept with Allie?”

The answer to that was a shrug that wouldn’t fool a two-year-old. Son of a bitch, she did.

“And you’re okay with that?”

“I knew what you were before I mated my life force to yours.”

Not “who” but “what.” “And you think I’m the type of bastard who leaves his wife to whatever fate has in store for her, and while she’s suffering, amuses himself by fucking his brother’s wife?”

Her expression paled. Her eyes widened and locked on his. Her talons extended. The scent of fear covered the heavy scent of cooking meat. She was finally catching on that he was pissed.

“Answer me this.” He took a step forward. “Does my brother know I’m screwing his wife? Or am I just slipping it to her on the side?”

Another step. Her chin came up, but she couldn’t hide the tremble in her lower lip. “He would have to know.”

He cupped her chin in his hand and asked her, “Then how is it I’m still alive?”

Her gaze searched his. “You’re vampire.”

The fine trembling shaking her voice vibrated along his fingertips. “Meaning what? I heal fast or he doesn’t care?”

“Vampires share their women.”

She didn’t look away as she said it. There was no higher pitch in her voice, no hesitation, just a flat acceptance of what she saw as the truth.

Goddamn. She honestly believed it. He placed his thumb over her lower lip, stilling the shaking she didn’t want him to see, focusing his attention on the small gesture, making sure to place the pad dead center of the sweet dip he liked to stroke his tongue around. Fury pounded reason, demanding an outlet. She had to scent it. Hell, she probably felt it. His energy was a wild thing clawing for release. It took everything he had to keep his drawl steady. “Tell me something: do vampires also beat their women?”

He noticed she wasn’t so quick to toss out that answer. Smart woman.

She hedged. “Why do you ask?”

“Just seeing what permissions I have before exercising my options.”

She tried to jerk her chin off his hand. She wasn’t successful. Becoming vampire had given him incredible strength and stamina. More than one little misguided wolf could ever overcome.

“I won’t let you beat me.”

“That wasn’t my question, though I don’t see how you intend to stop me.” He tapped her lip and tightened his grip on her chin, a silent order to give him what he wanted. She went still, accepting his physical dominance. The answer he was looking for came hissing out at him. “Yes.”

“So, pretty much, in your opinion, vampires are disloyal, cheating, amoral wife-beating creatures with no staying power outside the sheets?”

“Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone” being were. He’d run up against a lot of prejudice in his time, but this took the cake.

“We really didn’t talk too much last time, did we?”

She didn’t have to ask what he meant. “No.”

He pulled her lip away from her teeth with a slight downward pressure. The points of her canines caught his eye. He remembered the scraping across his skin promising, but never delivering, the bite he craved. “You knocked me for a month of Sundays. I couldn’t get enough of you. All I wanted to do was cherish you and make you smile every day.”

She blinked again, this time faster. The glimmer of tears reflected the light of the overhead lamp, making her eyes gleam.

“And all that time you thought I was the scum of the earth.”

Her “No” wrapped around his thumb.

“That’s what you just said.”

She shook her head. His thumb fell to the corner of her mouth. That soft skin he loved to caress.

“I didn’t know what to believe. There was what I’d always known about vampires and then there was you. I was trying to sort it out.”

“But you still believed I might turn ugly?”

She nodded, a flicker of shame crossing her features, followed just as quickly by anger. “A little. Before you left.”

He wasn’t going to argue the semantics of leaving again. Words weren’t going to fix that particular injury. “Yet you still mated with me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

He’d been hoping she’d decided he was different after all; it would give him a little something to hold on to. She knocked his hand aside and looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Her answer was short and to the point, devastating to his growing hope.

“Mating is not a choice.”

M
ATING
is not a choice.

Fourteen hours later, on their way to the Maple Street address for their daughter, Jace still couldn’t get the matter-of-fact way she’d said that out of his head. All these months, and he’d thought she’d chosen him, the same way he’d chosen her, regardless of convention or obstacles. He thought she’d fancied herself in love with him, had exploited that supposition to cement the bond between them before he had to leave so she’d be waiting for him when he returned. He’d never done that before. But, with Miri, Jace had wanted every bond locked down, every emotional tether forged. And now she was telling him it wasn’t love but fate. Cold, unemotional, nonnegotiable fate.

He glanced away from the road to where she sat beside him in the SUV, outwardly composed, her beautiful hair braided, the lustrous strands gleaming like satin in his night vision. His own lush little Madonna, who harbored on the inside a morass of emotion so strong he was having a hard time bearing the spillover without reaching over and holding her hand. But she didn’t want that. Didn’t see him that way. A husband held a wife’s hand. A mate, apparently, just fucked and protected her and if there were children, guarded them also. Even after hours of lying on the couch staring at the ceiling, contemplating that little tidbit, or maybe because of it, he was still angry.

Metal came together in a soft clank behind them as the weres assigned to protect them in case the Sanctuary had beaten them to Faith’s location shifted position in the backseat. Miri jumped. She’d been on edge since he’d sent her to her room alone. Clearly she’d expected him to jump her bones. Stake his claim. Not that he hadn’t wanted to, but he’d be damned before he’d come to a woman’s bed because she saw him as a duty to be fulfilled.

“We’re getting close. Pull over here and let me drive.”

Jace didn’t look back at Tobias. “I’ve got it.”

The SUVs in front and behind pulled into the rest stop. The back door opened. “That wasn’t the plan.”

It didn’t take more than a glance to determine that Tobias wasn’t going to back down. Jace shoved the door open. “You are one driven SOB, aren’t you?”

That twitch of the lips might have been a smile. “I like things neat.”

Around the other side of the car, Micah helped Miri out of the passenger seat. Despite the previous night’s sleep and food, her pallor had not improved. Strain etched fine lines by her mouth and around her eyes. She needed to feed, but she refused, still clinging to her were beliefs and customs. She closed her eyes and stood there, gathering her strength, swaying with the night breeze. A pale ghost haunting the hope that this time, at the end of the night, her daughter would be in her arms.

His anger melted away as her anguish reached out. It didn’t matter why she was with him, or what she believed. It only mattered that she needed someone to hold on to and he wanted to be that someone.

Miri opened the back door and slid inside. Tobias met Jace’s gaze over the hood of the car.

“She needs to feed.”

“Don’t tell me, tell her.”

“You’re her mate. It’s your responsibility to do what’s right for her, regardless of her wishes.”

“Force her?”

The big were didn’t even blink. “If that’s required.”

“Is that what you do with your mate?”

“I’m not mated, but were my mate suffering, I would put an end to it.”

Jace glanced into the car, took in the mutinous set of Miri’s chin, and sighed. “Talk to me when you have a mate.”

He ducked into the vehicle, swearing when his knees damn near bumped his chin. Miri glanced at him. “I’m not going to feed.”

He reached for her. “That’s the fourth time you’ve mentioned it. Do you think I’m hard of hearing?”

“No, but I get the impression you can be stubborn about accepting it.”

He leaned against the door and stretched his legs out to the other side.

She kicked at his feet. “This is my side of the car.”

He plucked her over so she leaned against his chest. “Not anymore.”

A slight shift and her shoulder dropped beneath his. The heel of her hand dug into his ribs. “I’m not comfortable.”

“Considering the list of crimes you’ve already stacked up against me, I’m not overly concerned.”

He tipped his hat down over his eyes.

“You’re going to sleep?” She sounded shocked.

“Yes.”

“We’re almost there!”

If she bothered to check his energy, she’d see that he was as on edge as she, but being were, she was probably checking with her senses. In the last fifty years, he’d learned to hide most of his emotions from that sort of detection. “We’ve got an hour.”

“How can you sleep?”

“Preparation.” He tipped his hat up. “Just in case whoever has Faith might have some objections to handing her over.”

“You might want to prepare yourself by feeding,” Tobias offered over his shoulder.

“You might want to mind your own business,” Miri snapped.

“As I’m half D’Nally, you are my business.”

Tobias was D’Nally? Shit. Jace hadn’t known that. “She’s Johnson now.”

“Not according to pack law.”

“Excuse me?” That was news to him.

“According to pack law, marrying Miri makes you a D’Nally now.”

That
he hadn’t figured on. “That has got to be sticking mighty hard in some craws.”

Tobias inclined his head, pulling the car out into traffic. “There are some who would like to remove the blight on the family name.”

“Are you one of them?”

Beside him, Miri stiffened.

“I’m waiting to see how it plays out.”

“You tell my cousin that I’m not going to tolerate any interference in my life,” Miri growled, rising.

Jace tucked her back in and removed her hand from his ribs. “I assure you, Miri, for all my immoral, characterless ways, I can take care of myself.”

“You’d do better to remind her of her place,” Micah said from the passenger seat, disapproval heavy in his tone. “She is an Alpha female, not Alpha.”

“The semantics of that escape me.”

Miri continued to glare at Tobias. “Leave it that way.”

“You know it can’t be left unaddressed forever.”

Jace pushed his hat back. “What exactly would
it
be?”

Miri pulled his hat down over his eyes. “Nothing.”

“You want me to accept ‘nothing’? Just when things are getting interesting?”

“You’ve mated with an Alpha female who holds the succession for the Tragallion pack should the current leader die. If that occurred, Miri and her mate—you—would go live with that pack and her mate—you—would be leader.”

Now that was news. “I can’t see that settling well.”

“A vampire has never led a D’Nally pack,” Micah added.

And that tradition would be broken when hell froze over. The message came through loud and clear. “Well, seems my wife has been keeping some pretty pertinent details of our marriage hidden.”

“I never hid anything.”

He cocked his eyebrow at her. “Just the fact that I could get the chance to lord it over a bunch of high-nose weres.”

“It just wasn’t important.”

“Why not?”

“Because you wouldn’t be interested.”

“It doesn’t matter if he’s interested,” Tobias injected, heading down the road. “There are plenty of weres looking to take the position from him.”

“Absolutely. Now that you’re back,” Micah agreed, “he’ll be challenged at every turn.”

“We won’t be living among weres.”

She said that as if it settled everything. Jace tipped his hat back down. “That’s not going to stop them from coming.”

She propped herself on his chest. He could feel her staring at him.

“Of course it will. There’d be no point.”

“You clearly have no understanding of men.”

“I understand wolves.”

“But you don’t understand men and power,” Tobias countered. “And killing Jace will buy someone a lot of power.”

“Why?”

“Because if anything ever happens to your cousin Travis, Jace will be leader of the Tragallion weres.”

The shock went through Miri in a sharp contraction of muscle. She looked at the car ahead where her cousin rode. She frowned at the lead SUV and then back at Tobias. “Is that why Travis happens to be on this mission? So something can happen to him?”

“He rides with us because his family, your daughter, has been taken and it’s his right to protect her.”

Miri didn’t look convinced. “You’ve never liked him.”

Tobias glanced back. “He is not an easy were to like.”

“Ian said you wanted to challenge Travis.”

Tobias didn’t look over his shoulder this time. “Ian has a big mouth.”

The discussion was fast disintegrating into argument. Jace flattened his palm on Miri’s spine under her coat and asked, “How many cousins do you have?”

“Just the two.”

“I take it there are no male heirs on his side?”

“Succession is through the females.”

“There’s got to be someone in place to step in.”

Micah cut him a glance over his shoulder. Light gleamed off the barrel of his specially designed pistol. “Yeah. You.”

“He doesn’t want the job,” Miri argued.

“You’re damn quick to pipe up with that.”

“You don’t like responsibility.”

“What in hell gave you that idea?”

Her look said it all. No doubt more of her “you’re a vampire” excuse that seemed to cover all eventualities.

“As long as you’re alive,” Micah continued, “you’ll always be a threat to the leader in that you could challenge his authority.”

“What if I just challenge him and then just lose?”

Miri shook her head. A tendril of hair fell across her cheek, dropping into the channel of the scar, filling it with darkness. She cut a glance toward Tobias. Her energy flickered. The big werewolf made her nervous When this was over he’d find out why. “A fight for Alpha is a fight to the death.”

Wonderful. He pushed the hair back, tucking it behind her ear, lingering in the soft skin behind. “So, it doesn’t matter if I want the job or not.”

“Pretty much.”

From under his hat brim Jace could see the tightening of Miri’s fine lips. He wanted nothing more than to pull her down and kiss her. And when new lines of strain took up residence beside the old, he wanted to kick himself. He was angry because she didn’t see him the way he wanted her to see him. Angry because she was scared. Angry, as if she didn’t have a right to be scared and full of doubts after the last year. The car hit a bump in the road. He took advantage of the jostle to wedge her tighter.

“It’s not a problem, Miri.”

“It is if they come after you.”

“That’s not our main worry right now.”

He could have shot himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Immediately her thoughts turned to Faith. The sadness, the agony of hope, the horrible loss leached the energy from him into the black hole of her despair. She needed her baby. He brought her head down to his shoulder. “Ah, sweet, we’re going to get her back.”

Her nails cut through his shirt, into his chest, tightening with slow precision as she struggled to maintain her composure in the face of her torment. So slowly he could hear the individual threads pop.

It was a losing battle. “What if she was sick?”

He pushed his hat back. “What makes you think she was sick?”

“Like Caleb and Allie’s baby. What if she’s sick? What if she needed me and I wasn’t there? What if there’s no need for us to be driving anywhere?”

“There’s a need.”

Her voice rose. “How do you know?”

He tried to hold her. “I know.”

She shoved him back. “You can’t.”

He probed her mind. She cursed and swung at him. Her elbow caught against his chest. Her arm jerked off target. All she succeeded in doing was knocking his hat askew as she whispered, “She could be dead.”

The car swerved. Micah cursed. Jace grabbed her shoulders and held her above him, shaking her a little until she looked at him. Her braid slid over her shoulder, slapping against his chest.

“She’s not dead.”

“Words,” she gritted out. “Those are just words.”

“No, I know.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I know you. I know how hard you love, and there’s no way in hell, as much as you love our daughter, that you wouldn’t know she’s dead.”

The weres looked at him, then at each other. If he hadn’t been preoccupied with Miri, Tobias’s nod would have worried him.

Miri drew a shuddering breath. “That’s just a myth.”

“Until you can look me in the eye and tell me you know in your heart that Faith doesn’t walk this Earth anymore, I’m going to keep looking.”

Her eyes searched his. She could have been looking for a speck of doubt, an ounce of subterfuge. Whatever she searched for, she wasn’t going to find it. His mother had always had a sense about her children, knowing when they were hurt, when they were safe. Miri was were, with more developed senses. No way was her daughter dead and she didn’t have an inkling.

She braced her palms on his chest. Her lips thinned and then relaxed. “She doesn’t walk at all. She’s a baby.”

He lowered her down until she supported herself. “You know what I mean.”

“I know.”

Another bump in the road. This one rocked her against him. He picked up the movement, stroking her hair as she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?”

“The closer we get, the more difficulty I’m having believing.”

“So am I.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

She whipped his hat off and dropped it to the floor. “How come it doesn’t show?”

Cupping the back of her head in his hand and stroking his thumb over her cheek, lingering on the scar, he said, “Because I’ve had a lot of practice facing down hopeless.”

Her lids flinched.

“And, baby, this isn’t hopeless.”

“Then what is it?”

It was a plea for something to hold on to. He gave her his hand. “Complicated. Damn complicated.”

“But you know she’s not dead?”

“Yes.”

“We’re ten minutes out,” Tobias interrupted.

Jace both felt and heard Miri’s panic. A quick hug and then he set her aside. “When we get there, I want you to wait in the car.”