Werewolf Wedding(37)

And I’m not above admitting that I hated myself a little for having those thoughts. Just like the white splat of hair on Dane’s head was adrift in black, so were my feelings. On the one hand, I couldn’t stand that I would even consider anything that this murderous, kidnapping lunatic had to say.

On the other? Ugh, it just made too much sense not to be true. I held my breath until it burned the fibers of my lungs like hellfire. “Who are you?” I snarled at Dane, surprised at my own ferocity. “What gives you the right to kidnap me and my friend and mess with our lives?” I took a step closer to his smug, obnoxious ass. “Huh? Got some kind of rivalry with your brother that you can’t let go?”

I stuck a finger in his chest, which he looked down at with a dismissive grin. “Who am I?” he asked mockingly. “What I am is the more important point. You’re inferior, you’re a weak, pathetic human, and I am lycan.”

The way he said that word – lycan – got my cheeks burning. I hated him so badly at that moment that if I could have killed him, I probably would have. He snatched my finger off his chest and bared his teeth. “You’re nothing, Delilah. Your friend is nothing. You’re just pawns in a three thousand year old game of politics.”

Jeannie and I exchanged a glance. “Okay,” she said, “so you’re some kind of furry James Bond villain who is planning some kind of world domination? And your brother is the good-guy version of you?”

Ignoring what she’d actually said, Dane turned those stormy eyes in her direction. “This one, I like,” he said. “This one I really like. The mouth on you, girl, I could do without, but I like the way you think.”

With that lightning speed that I’d grown accustomed to, Dane suddenly had Jeannie by the neck. “Your mouth has gotten you in trouble before, hasn’t it?”

“Plenty of times,” she croaked, as he squeezed. “And... gotten me out... more.”

The look on the wolf’s face was so blasé, so uninterested in everything going on, that he really could have been a Bond villain. He had the detached cool of someone who just didn’t give a shit – or at least, didn’t anymore. I’d seen the look on his face before. When you’re trying to prove you don’t care, or you’re too cool for whatever’s going on, it was that look.

I knew it so well because I’d worn it for so long.

Seeing that, I knew he had a weakness, even if I couldn’t nail down exactly what it was just that moment. There were cracks in the armor of cool, though, and that was the most important thing.

“What’d he do to you?” I asked, trying to figure out where exactly the hole was, and then stick my finger in it as deep as I could manage. “He must’ve done something personal for you to care this much.”

Jeannie made a little squeaking noise. Almost immediately, he forgot all about her and let go of her neck. She collapsed to the ground, taking a bunch of long, slow, deep breaths, like she was checking to make sure she still could.

“My brother could never do anything to me,” he said. “He’s as weak as you, as hopelessly sentimental and useless.” The snarl in his voice told me there was a lot more to it.

Hoping maybe I’d lucked into that wound without even trying, I prodded harder. “What was it? Daddy like him more? That why he got the company and you got... what, exactly?”

“The hell would you know about it?” he hissed, waving a hand. “You humans are all the same. You get one hint of our world and suddenly you’re experts. Get one taste of my brother, and you think you’ve got a handle on the entire hidden world, hum?”

He snorted a derisive laugh.

If I’d found the wound, I missed the mark. Either that, or he really did care as little as he acted. Maybe this guy was just a wild sociopath who would do anything at all to hurt his brother, no matter what. He grabbed me by the neck, but didn’t lift me like he had Jeannie. Instead he just turned my head side to side, like he was inspecting me. “You’ll do,” he finally said, after a long, thoughtful sniff of my neck.

His eyes bored straight through me, capturing my soul with their danger. He continued after a moment’s pause. “I was worried I’d have to find my own mate, you know. To beat my brother to the punch. That’s the challenge – you’re sure he didn’t mention it?”

I just stared straight ahead. Even if I was just a pawn in a game, this guy was a class-one whackjob. And I wasn’t going to give him anything more than he already had.

“I guess I should explain before I take you,” he whispered into my ear. His voice was low, almost so soft that I felt it more than heard the words. I felt myself shaking despite trying to steel my courage.

The thoughts running through my mind ranged from the ridiculous to the practical, but at that second, the only thing I wanted was to get away. I wanted Jake to burst through the door in a dramatic rescue that ended with a kiss... and an explanation. That’s not real life though, and as much as I couldn’t believe it, I was living in reality. A reality with werewolves, pack politics, and with me right in the middle of it.

“We made a bet, my brother and I,” Dane hissed, next to my ear. He kissed my neck, then my earlobe in a way that at once made my skin crawl and made me imagine things that made me angry for imagining. “It’s a tradition. Whenever two rival alphas have a problem with each other, a mating challenge is issued. It sounds very thrilling and all, but it’s really very simple.”