Wolves' Bite [PUP Squad Alpha 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (6 page)

“Please, no,” Jennifer said. “Emmallina is just looking for her daughter. She trusts us to stay here. If you take me away, things might become more dangerous.”

“It’s what we’re trained for, beautiful,” Adam said, stroking a hand through her hair the way he’d done in their mating dreams.

* * * *

Jennifer struggled to remember the point she was trying to make. Adam’s touch felt so familiar that she was beginning to wonder if she was actually dreaming. That could be the only explanation for the men to be acting this way. But just in case this wasn’t another of her kooky dreams, she had to explain to them why they needed to stay.

“I need you to listen to me. Emmallina is a reasonable person. She’s horrified by what her daughter has done, but she needs answers. She needs to know if her daughter is alive or not.” She turned to Alex, hoping to appeal to the man she hadn’t been dreaming about. “Alex, if you take me out of here, any chance we have of understanding the big picture could be lost.”

“Damn,” Adam said on a small laugh, “you’re as stubborn as your sister—and as brave. The sooner we make you a wolf the better.”

Stunned to hear the words from her dream, Jennifer was about to launch into a round of twenty questions when Emmallina returned, this time with her husband beside her.

* * * *

Adam held his woman tighter. The mating dreams had been amazing, but the reality was so much better. Of course being trapped in the middle of tense negotiation wasn’t exactly the ideal place to declare his intentions, but now that he held her in his arms for real he was never letting her go again.

He had time enough to second-guess his agreement to stay at least a hundred times, so he was almost relieved when the pixie and her husband slipped back into the room. Interestingly the man gave Jennifer a look of relief.

“I’m so very glad to see you are feeling better, Jennifer, and I again apologize for my methods of getting these gentlemen here.”

“Why are we here?” Alex asked. His voice sounded neutral, but Adam knew the fire demon well enough to know when he was struggling to keep his temper. The little man bristled at Alex’s tone anyway, obviously as on edge as the rest of the people in the room.

“Dex,” the woman said in a pleading voice. She said nothing else, but whatever passed between them had the man sighing quietly. Looking like a tired old man rather than the miniature warrior that had stepped into the room a moment ago, the man hugged his wife close and turned his attention to Alex.

“We want to know what happened to our daughter. Connistanterina killed four human women without orders. We don’t know why.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe what he had to say next. “The PLA has no outstanding assassination orders for her or any of its other operatives. My wife and I thought she was having some sort of delusional episode but now you tell us replacements have been sent.” He rubbed a hand down his face in a very human display of exasperation. “I haven’t been able to get clear answers from the Ruling Body over what happened to Connistanterina, and now it seems I’m being lied to by the Pixie League of Assassins as well.”

The woman stepped out of her husband’s embrace and moved closer to Alex. “We know you’re protecting the other women that Conni targeted. Please, we just want to know what happened to our daughter.”

“I can’t tell you what happened to your daughter,” Alex said. “But I will discuss the situation with my commanding officer.” He glanced at Adam and Jennifer. “Let me take Jennifer home. I’ll return once I have some answers for you.”

The king looked apprehensive but after a quick glance at his wife, nodded his agreement. “I would appreciate it if one of you would stay as an act of good faith.”

Thomas nodded, and stepped away from Adam and Jennifer. A moment later Alex moved them into a slip path and nausea took over.

* * * *

Jennifer’s knees gave out. If she’d thought she’d felt awful after the pixie king dragged her through a slip path, she suddenly had proof positive that the trip could be worse. Adam wobbled as well, apparently as affected by travel sickness as much as she was. Considering that he’d traveled that way twice in ten minutes, she wasn’t at all surprised when Alex guided them to a sitting position on the ground in the shade of a tree.

Adam didn’t let go of her though, not even for a moment, but he did ease her down so that they were both lying on a soft bed of grass.

“Where are we?” she asked, too ill to look around. She’d gotten a brief glimpse of a dirt road and lots of trees before her vision had wavered and she’d been forced to close her eyes.

“About five miles outside of Sugarvale,” Alex said from somewhere above her. She heard him have a brief conversation on his cell phone before he stepped back to where she and Adam rested. “Your sister and Benjamin will be here in a few minutes.”

* * * *

“Why here?” Adam asked.

“Sugarvale had a few security upgrades while you were away,” Alex said as he sat on the grass a few feet away from them. “The wards extend five miles in every direction, even underground.”

“Is Kristen okay?” Adam asked. He felt Jennifer tense up in his arms, and he pulled her closer even as she tried to squirm away.

“Of course Kristen’s okay,” Alex said with a laugh. “Although with both a fire demon and an ice demon hovering over her it’s been an interesting few hours.”

His mate seemed to relax slightly at the mention of Dyson and Angus, but it was obvious she was still on edge. “Will Thomas be okay?” she asked without opening her eyes.

“Absolutely,” Alex answered, sounding confident. “Thomas is quite skilled when it comes to negotiation. You said it yourself. The pixie king and queen just want answers. Now that we know that the assassinations are not being officially sanctioned by the pixie king we have another avenue of investigation.”

“Thomas will be back soon, beautiful,” Adam said, sincerely hoping it was true. He knew his mate well enough to know that she took responsibility for the people around her—even the ones capable of taking care of themselves.

“Thank you for coming to get me,” she said as she tried to squirm away once again. “I’m sorry to be such a bother. I’m sure Skye can help me get home.” She sat up and moved away from him even though it was obvious she still wasn’t feeling well. “Thank you for your assistance.”

What the hell?

And then it finally struck him what was happening. Jennifer didn’t understand that the mating dreams she’d shared with them were real. In real life they’d spent only a few hours in each other’s company and most of that worrying over Thomas’s injuries at the time. If not for the mating dreams he’d be little more than someone she’d met briefly several months ago.

He reached for her hand, holding tighter when she tried to politely pull away.

“The dreams were real, Jennifer. Thomas and I meant what we said. You’re our mate and we plan to claim you.”

The dreams were real…

The words swirled around and around inside her head as each and every dream she’d shared with her men in the past few days replayed in her head. God, some of the things she’d said to them. If she’d known she
wasn’t
talking to herself she wouldn’t have said half of it. Heaven knew what they must think of her. She couldn’t have gotten more pathetic if she’d actually tried.

Adam sat up, swallowing hard as his face paled from the sudden movement.

“I’m sorry,” she said, backing away slightly. “I didn’t realize. I mean, I suppose I should have realized. The dreams, um, they felt so real, but well, you know, dreams are different. People do stuff and say stuff in dreams that they would never dream of actually doing in real life.” She must have sounded like a babbling fool, but the words just kept coming out of her mouth. “I mean, you know, it’s like some people dream of being superheroes but well, it’s not like they can fly in real life. So even if, you know, dreams are real they’re not actually real in the real sense of the word. If you know what I mean.”

Adam seemed shocked, disappointed, and maybe a little angry. She bit her lip to hold back the rest of her hysterical rant and prayed for some sort of intervention. Her
dream
lover looked ready to say something but cut off his words as her prayers were answered and a car came around the corner of the dirt road.

It pulled up beside them, and Skye was beside her in an instant. She was dressed in black leather with her head covered by a black helmet, but Jennifer would recognize her younger sister anywhere. She tried to protest when Skye lifted her like a child and carried her to the car, but the nausea and the memory of the hurt on Adam’s face made her rethink her natural reaction.

And even though she knew it was cowardly, she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep.

* * * *

Every instinct inside Adam growled at him to go grab his mate. He might have done just that if Skye hadn’t shaken her head at him. With the motorcycle-type helmet covering her face it was hard to interpret what Skye wanted, but he trusted the woman enough to follow her lead on this. Whatever was going on inside Jennifer’s head, Skye probably knew best how to handle her sister at this moment.

Jennifer’s denial of the closeness they’d shared inside the mating dreams not only drove a dagger straight through his heart, it also confused the hell out of him. He and Thomas had both known going in that she probably wouldn’t realize they were really inside her dreams, but he hadn’t expected her to claim that she was acting out of character because she’d thought it was fiction.

It was true that the kind of sex they’d enjoyed inside the dreamscape would probably damage Jennifer’s fragile human body in real life, but they’d had every intention of making her into a werewolf so it wasn’t an issue. As a wolf she’d be stronger, faster, and live far longer than as a human. It would give them a chance to have pups together. He’d even planned to speak to his pack alpha, Xavier, about making her a wolf in front of the pack. At the time he’d thought the traditional celebration would help Jennifer adjust to her new life and give her a feeling of belonging, but now he wasn’t so sure.

Was the thought of being turned into a werewolf frightening her? Or did she really mean she wasn’t the person she’d been inside her dreams?

Angry at himself for not being able to understand his mate’s reaction, Adam felt a burning need to run off his frustrations. “I’ll meet you at headquarters,” he said as Skye climbed into the backseat of the huge four-wheel-drive vehicle Samuel was driving. Samuel nodded in acknowledgement, the sympathetic look in his eyes unmistakable. Alex and Benjamin moved away, quickly discussing the situation before stepping into one of Alex’s slip paths and disappearing.

Even before the car was out of sight Adam had his clothes off and rolled into a ball. He dropped to all fours, letting the change into a wolf wash over him, clearing the confusion, replacing his chaotic questions with instinctive and simple answers.

Jennifer was his mate, and he had every intention of claiming her.

* * * *

Thomas took a seat on the floor, too worried about damaging the miniature, but obviously expensive, furniture to risk sitting on it.

The man sat on the sofa next to his wife. Thomas had never seen him face-to-face before, but he knew enough about the king of the pixies to know that he never showed weakness. For him to allow any show of emotion in front of Thomas spoke of how deeply affected he was by the loss of his daughter. Even in pixie terms the king was considered unshakeable. Their entire race was known for their focused and driven personalities. Hell, it was why the Ruling Body hired them as assassins in the first place. Sometimes it took a focused, tightly controlled, deadly reaction to calm a situation. Even most humans understood that.

If he knew his history correctly, the PLA had been specifically commissioned by the Ruling Body many centuries ago. Technically speaking they weren’t the enemy. They were supposedly on the same team as the PUP squads. Although, even before Connistanterina had begun killing humans, questions had been raised in recent years as to the integrity of the current assassins and the league that controlled them. There had once been a need for a league of assassins—perhaps there still was—but doing what was right was often a far cry from doing what was paid for.

“Do you have any idea why the PLA would be lying to you?” Thomas asked the king.

The man looked annoyed, perhaps already regretting his admission of moments ago. “No.” He looked Thomas up and down and then rolled his eyes as if dismissing his usefulness. “At this moment all I know is that someone is lying. Most likely you.”

“Why would I lie?” Thomas asked evenly. He’d been treated with disdain before, yet even now it didn’t worry him. He’d been on the PUP squads long enough to know his own worth. The visual and verbal dismissal of a stranger, king or not, wasn’t going to undermine his confidence.

“You have no reason to,” the queen said quietly. It was clear that she was struggling to remain in the role of supportive wife. Thomas knew very little of the woman other than she was married to the king, but it would seem that behind closed doors their relationship was much deeper than the royal image suggested. “Dex, please,” she whispered in a voice she probably thought too soft for a werewolf’s hearing. “He can help us find our daughter.”