Werewolf Wedding(51)

Dane, I remembered. I hadn’t thought about him, or what he wanted me to do since... Oh my God, he sent me here. He dropped me off and told me to come in here and flaunt my matedness in Jake’s face.

I felt my face go cold and my palms get all wet and slimy. “Ugh,” I grunted. “I think I have a memory.”

“From the look on your face, that’s a lot like being constipated,” George said.

Jake laughed in a huge burst, but then immediately went quiet again, like he was ashamed at having laughed at a constipation joke. “Anything important?” Jake watched my face for a moment and then his grew stern. He threw his hands above his head, exasperated. “What won’t he stick his fingers in?”

George gave Jake a long glare with an arched eyebrow. His face turned bright red as he realized what he said. “Er,” he stammered. “I mean whatever. Ha, ha, yes I said something that could be vaguely sexual. Very good.”

“Just sayin’,” George said.

The memories were coming back at first in a slow trickle and then a flood. “We were at your mom’s house for enchiladas and he had just marked me, so—”

“I’ll rip his throat out,” Jake said. It was cold, calm, and absolutely terrifying that he didn’t carry on or shout or yell or anything else. Just flatly stated he was going to rip his brother’s throat out. “That’ll solve this thing once and for all.”

“I,” I started before trailing off. “Yes, well I guess it would. But I don’t think that would help anything except you to feel better. There has to be a better way than murder.”

“Better way? He forced you to mate. He claimed you out from under me, he screwed up the—”

Then the worst of it hit me. “The challenge?” I asked sharply. “He said something about that, too, which I just remembered along with the rest of this bullshit. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it?”

George sat up stiffly. Jake opened his eyes wider than I’d ever seen. His nostrils flared, and for a second I thought he was going to throw his desk out the window. “It isn’t what you think,” he said. “It’s not a game. It isn’t because I don’t love you.”

Now I was going. It’s one thing for me to feel like someone’s screwing around with me, but it’s another entirely for them to do it, not come clean, and then act like I’m too dumb to understand what’s going on. “Oh it isn’t?” I asked, hands on hips. “Then please, Jake, explain what it is.”

“Jeez,” he said, “this got out of hand quickly. What say we have another sandwich?”

“No.” I put my foot down, and when I finally did that, I always meant it. Usually. “I got dragged into a pissing fight between a pair of brothers that resulted in me and my best friend being kidnapped and then me being dragged around like a puppet for a few days until he dropped me off here to taunt you. He still has Jeannie and he has Barney and they’re all holed up in that mansion.”

Jake took a step forward and opened his mouth to speak.

“I’m not finished,” I said, cutting him off. “What the hell gives you the right to mess around with my life and never tell me anything? I should’ve known,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes even though I was more pissed-as-hell than sad. “I should’ve known that some mysterious billionaire waltzing into my dumb-ass life, and acting like I cast some kind of spell on him—I should have known you were full of shit from the first second.”

“No! No, it isn’t like that,” Jake protested, trying to grab me. “It isn’t like that at all, just let me—”

I dodged his grabby hand. My cheeks and my neck just kept getting hotter with each passing second. “I want answers,” I said, pushing harder. “I don’t deserve this shit. I don’t deserve to be thrown into a world that I know absolutely nothing about, and then be expected to just swallow the fact that the guy who told me he couldn’t live without me was just trying to win some dumb f*cking bet!”

At that point, George pushed herself off the desk. “That’s not like you, Jake,” she said. There was disappointment dripping off her tongue. “I’m... I need some time to think about all this. And you need some time to explain to her what the hell was going through your head.”

She paused on the way out the door and turned back to us like she had something else to say. Instead she just looked at Jake for a moment and smiled sadly as she shook her head. “Not like you at all.”

“Wait!” he shouted. “Is this really how this is going to work? Dilly, you know I mean what I said. You know I love you, you know I—”

“I do?” I asked. “It’s been two weeks since we met. Three weeks, whatever. I got carried away. I got swept up in a fantasy. And now I’m paying for it with my sanity, and my life, apparently. I’m owned by some * with an overinflated sense of self-worth who wants to start... I can’t believe I’m saying this shit – a war between humans and werewolves? What f*cking planet is this? What the hell is going on? I never thought I’d say this, but I’d rather be carving a damn dolphin statue than dealing with you and your brother.”

“Wait.” Jake grabbed my wrist this time before I could twist away. He wasn’t hurting me, but he wasn’t letting go, either. “You have to at least give me the chance to explain. You can give me that much, can’t you?”