“Since the attack, I seem to be a little bit more possessive of Eve. It’s hard to control at times.”
He sensed Noah’s nod. “You’re going to have to deal with your feelings, Jason. Make sure you do your best to keep them under control so we don’t have more problems on our hands.”
“I’m doing the best I can,” Jason said, but he heard the defensive tone in his voice and sighed. “I will try to keep myself in check. It’s getting harder though.”
“Of course it is.”
He glanced at his cousin and noticed he was smiling as he drove down the road that led into town. “What do you mean by that?”
“Since she’s our She Alpha, she will bond with each of us. When you got hurt, she wouldn’t leave your side. You might have been out of it, but the wolf in you recognized that, and knew that she was there for you.”
“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about,” Jason scoffed. “If she does have some kind of feeling for me, it is because I’m one of the pack.”
“I hate to tell you, cuz, but the woman would not budge from your side. She sat there for days. You know she growled at your mother when she tried to come in there and relieve her.”
That surprised him. “And Mom let that happen. I can’t see that happening.”
Noah chuckled. “Your mother and my mother know that Eve is the mate for us, so they will defer to her in those kinds of cases.”
“And the empathy she’s feeling…We have to tell her soon, Noah.”
His cousin’s smile faded. “I know but I can’t come up with a way to tell her to save my life.”
“Have you talked to Ethan about it?” Noah asked.
“Yes. He wants to tell her everything, that her body is going to go through a slow process, and once we claim her, she will be able to change to a wolf.”
“Good lord, she’ll freak.”
“That’s what I said. He said we should appeal to the scientist in her, but that might be her downfall. It would have been so much easier without this shit going on.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but there was a gathering of leopards in the road.
“What the fuck?” Noah said. He put the truck in park and waited. They were the superior shifters, and they were in charge, but Noah wasn’t stupid. There were at least twenty shifters there. Then they saw Alejandro break away from the crowd and walk toward the SUV.
“Dillon. We found some more wolves, not shifters.”
“Shit. How many?”
“Three. They’re still warm.”
They slipped out of the car and followed Noah there. The moment Jason stepped up, he felt the growl emanating in his chest. He fought it back. The fresh scent of blood in the air had his hackles rising. He rolled his shoulders trying to calm himself, but he knew he was on edge. He just didn’t know how to do deal with it, or how to control it. He had to keep himself in check or there might be a problem with the leopards.
Alejandro gave him a look that told him he knew there was an issue. He didn’t look the least bit threatened. “Tone it down, Dillon,” he whispered. “Not everyone here is your friend.”
“Can you all take care of this?” Noah asked.
Alejandro nodded. “No problem. It seems to be a day of attacks.”
He sounded as weary as the rest of them felt. He couldn’t remember a day that had gone by without something happening, and Jason just wanted it to stop. It kept them from spending time with their mate, from making her theirs.
Noah turned to head back to the SUV.
“Hey, Alejandro, why don’t you come by the house for dinner tonight?” Jason asked.
Noah glanced at him and then at Alejandro.
He hesitated then said, “Sure.”
“6:00 p.m.”
When they were back in the SUV, Noah asked, “What the hell was that about?”
Jason didn’t take his gaze from the leopards as they started to clean up the mess. “He knows something. I feel it, but he can’t say anything surrounded by those damned cats.”
Noah nodded. “Maybe he’ll trust us enough to tell us. Oh, and you’re calling the house to tell them they have to cook for a damned cat.”
* * * *
The need to kill was so overpowering, it was keeping him awake at night. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a good night’s sleep.
No matter what he did, he couldn’t get his mother’s voice out of his head. She was there with him every day, every night.
Killing was the only time he felt whole. Feeling the warm blood slide over his flesh was so empowering, he felt as if he could take on the world.
He needed to hunt, needed to kill, but he knew the Dillons were out. Alejandro wasn’t keeping the damned cats in check. And that damned accountant kept getting in the way. If he hadn’t been there, he would have killed all of them, but the attack had gone completely wrong.
He had to be patient. Revenge was best served cold. And he would do that, serve it over ice and watch the Dillons suffer.
The bears arrived first. Eve was sure it had nothing to do with etiquette and everything to do with showing a united front. It was all very silly in her opinion. They knew Alejandro wasn’t involved with the problems. He had come to them. Eve had found most of the shifter men to be territorial, but she did not understand the bears. Maybe it was because the cats were not indigenous to the area. Of course, Alejandro did not help his case when he showed up.
“It is so nice to meet you under different circumstances,” Alejandro purred. Eve couldn’t help but smile. A few months ago she would have been too embarrassed to say anything. She would have stuttered something, and then probably made an excuse to run away. Living with six wolves helped her with that apparently.
“Likewise.”
“I hope that it hasn’t been too trying for you.” Even though she knew they had been there for years, he had a slight accent that hinted at Mexican beaches and warmer weather.
“No, not really,” she responded.
“You can let go of her hand now,” Jason said.
He flicked his eyes in the direction of Jason, but he said nothing until he was looking at her again. “So territorial, these wolves.”
“Yes, and I would be happy to show you an example of what we do when we feel like that.”
He gave her hand one more kiss. The rumble in Jason’s chest had her face turning red.
Alejandro moved away and she gave Jason a look.
“What?” he asked.
“Don’t ever embarrass me like that again.”
“He was trying to get to you.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He was trying to get to
you
.”
He showed no reaction to her statement.
“And I will point out that he succeeded.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and said nothing else. Inwardly she sighed and let the subject drop.
She was slightly worried about Jason. The head wound had been bad, worse than a lot of them realized. She and Ethan had talked it over before deciding not to say anything to the family. Jason’s loss of consciousness had been worrisome, and the change in his personality could be attributed to it. Ethan was convinced that Jason might be reacting to the attack because of the feeling of vulnerability. Since Ethan had been attacked months earlier, he was likely to know. She would have felt better if Ethan was there to observe him more closely.
Still, Jason’s personality had changed. He wasn’t himself at all. There had been a laid-back quality to him that the others could never really show, and he had liked to joke around, but not now. He was moody and secretive. He had also gotten more territorial. They had acted that way to an extent, but Jason was getting to the point that he was going head-to-head with Noah.
“I think we need to get this meeting started.”
Noah looked at the big cat. “What is it that you wanted to talk about?”
“I believe we have a traitor in our midst. It might be one of us, or an outsider, but there is a cat involved.”
There was some grumbling from the bears until Noah gave Vic a look that warned him to control his shifters. The complaints settled down. She noticed the only one of the bears who had not said a word was Gabe. Not that he ever really said much.
“Is that why you’re here by yourself?” Noah asked.
“I’m not here by myself. I’ve got my men around the area. They know about the meeting.”
“Only your closest advisors, right?” Vic asked. “That tells me you don’t trust some of your cats, and I know you don’t have anyone on your own council who’s related to you.”
He shot Vic a look. “If they were your family, would you trust them?”
The stark honesty surprised Eve. She was still learning her way around the group of shifters, but she knew that none of them liked to show a weakness. Not that they were different from the human species of men. Their DNA made them want to conquer, to be the ones in charge.
“Of course not. Everyone knows not to trust a cat.”
The look he shot Alejandro had the breath tangling in her throat.
“And what of your cousin, the one who lives by himself? There’s been talk that he might be involved.”
“I’m right here, you jackass,” Gabe said with little heat.
Vic smiled. “You know that Gabe isn’t involved because he doesn’t give a shit about the politics of it.”
The humor in his voice seemed to ease Alejandro’s irritation. “That’s true enough.” He looked at Noah. “I need your help to get the cat.”
“And why shouldn’t I make you do it yourself?”
He looked at Eve. “You have a lot more to protect right now than I do. I can keep my spot on top of my council, but you might lose something more precious.”
She thought Noah might get a little irritated with Alejandro, but he conceded with a nod.
“Not to mention that you probably have a traitor in your group as well.”
Eve didn’t know what happened, but one minute Jason was beside her, and the next he was jumping in front of Noah and attacking Alejandro. He got one good punch in before Noah grabbed him and pushed him back.
* * * *
Jason could feel something crawling under his skin. It was driving him insane. His primal urges had been bad when he was surrounded by other shifters, especially when Eve was in attendance. Now, though, he felt out of control. It was as if that one little word or action could set him off. He had a hair trigger of a temper now, and he had never been that way before.
“Jason,” Eve said from him behind him. Noah’s arms were still wrapped around his chest. The only thing he needed to do was rip the fucking cat from one end to the other, and he would be fine.
She slipped in front of him and placed her hands on his cheeks. “Jason, look at me.”
Her voice was still soft, but there was a thread of steel in it. He tore his attention away from Alejandro to look at her. Her eyes implored him to calm down. He felt something move over him. He resisted it. Everything in his nature told him to take the bastard down. But now that he was looking into Eve’s eyes, he felt his blood cool down a bit.
“Stop.”
It took all his control to pull the urge to kill back down. The beast in him snapped and snarled and for the first time in more than a decade, he almost lost control of his shifter self. But, Eve continued to stroke his face and speak softly so he could concentrate on that and only that. His wolf began to step down, allowing Jason to take control again.
“Great, now that little wolf boy is under control, can we get this thing started? I don’t have time to fuck around.”
“What do you have to do, Gabe? Run back up on your mountain and hide?” Noah asked.
He and Eve paid no attention. He kept looking into her blue eyes and listening to her voice. Finally he could draw in a deep breath and get his body completely under his control.
Noah glanced at him, and Jason knew he was worried about him. Jason didn’t blame him. He nodded to his older cousin, the Alpha, and they got back to work. They all sat down at the wide conference table they kept off the living room for meetings like these. It was usually just wolves, but now they all were trying to figure out just what was going on. Things were just not normal at the moment.
“We have something going on that has more to do with the wolf pack than any of the rest of us,” Alejandro said.
There were a few grunts of approval from the other shifters, while the wolves didn’t look too happy. But, as Jason turned the comment over in his brain, he realized Alejandro was right.
“No, wait. He’s right. We do have a problem right now, and they are aiming at the wolves.”
There was brief silence. Then Eve settled her hand on his knee. “Explain to everyone.”
He read in her gaze that she knew what he was thinking.
“From the start, this has been about us, about the Dillons in particular. We have an issue now because we don’t know who the cat was working with. She had to have a wolf working with her, for her, someone. She was vicious, but she wasn’t the best at making plans. Or in the execution of them. Her greed, her anger, and her depravity overrode most of her better judgment—what little she had.”