A Wolf's Pride (39 page)

“
Thank you
Ryan. This means a lot to me. I just want you to get
better.”

I want to get
better too. I want to get better so I can wrap my hands around that
bitch’s throat and choke the life out of her.

Ryan,
his wolf began.
Lately
you’ve been ignoring my advice, are you going to ignore me on this
as well? Are you going to let that bitch live?

As far as I’m
concerned she’s already dead. It’s just a matter of time before I
carry out her sentence.

Chapter Thirty
Three

Ryan lay in
bed, staring angrily at the ceiling while his fingers tapped out a
steady beat against the mattress trying to rid his body of pent up
energy. Energy that even in his injured state, he should have been
using to deal with Lucinda. His thoughts were centred on her to the
exclusion of almost everything else. He and his wolf were once
again in agreement; Lucinda had been spared punishment too long. It
was judgement day for that bitch and she was going to be found
guilty he had no doubt of that; he would allow no other outcome.
The scenarios for her punishment were running amok in his mind,
taunting him in his bedridden state. When Sebastian had told him
earlier that Lucinda had been caught he had sprung from the bed,
uncaring and barely aware of the strain he was putting on his
injuries. The woman who had tried to kill his mate was nearby and
in serious need of punishment. Now, instead of meting out that
punishment he was confined within the walls of his suite and
trapped within his bed.

“
I shouldn’t be
here,” he grumbled.

From her seat
on the edge of the bed, Chloe let loose a wry chuckle. “That’s
funny. I thought that the universal location of a sick person was
bed. You’re exactly where you’re meant to be. Now are you going to
eat or not?” she prodded gently. He had refused to eat the food she
had brought back from the kitchen despite the effort she had put
into procuring it for him.
I’m sure if I
told him just how much trouble I went through to get it, he’d eat
it but by the same token it would just add another set of people to
his ‘I need to hurt them’ list. No, it isn’t worth saying anything.
I promised those guys I’d be quiet.

“
I’m not
hungry,” he replied, his eyes never leaving the ceiling. His
growling stomach instantly made a liar of him.

Reaching for
his hand, Chloe gently linked their hands together. The feeling of
her soft skin touching him immediately gained Ryan’s full attention
and he turned his deep brown eyes on her. Chloe’s heart fluttered
in response to the searing look he was giving her, even hurt, her
reaction to him was powerful. Shaking herself, she pushed her
body’s reaction to him towards the back of her mind, focusing
instead on the task at hand.

“
Liar,” she
chastised. “Please Ryan, eat something.”

“
How can I eat
at a time like this? Lucinda tried to kill you angel. I can picture
it in my head, her arms around your body, squeezing you much too
tightly, the careless way she probably threw you aside…It’s driving
me mad.” His brown eyes were suddenly flooded with amber as his
breaths came in increasingly short bursts. “I can still see you
falling through the air, hear you calling out to me in
desperation.”

She squeezed
his hand lightly in reassurance. “Sebastian caught her, she’s not
going to be able to cause any more trouble.”

“
She shouldn’t
have been able to cause trouble in the first place,” he growled
angrily, his thoughts merging more and more with that of his wolf.
“She was in the dungeons, she shouldn’t have been able to get
out.”

“
I hate to
break it to you Ryan but if your dungeons are anything like human
jails then its possible for people to escape, you did.”

“
Our dungeons
are nothing like your jails. They’re built to hold wolves in. The
walls, floor and ceiling are covered in thick, heavy marble. If you
were to somehow manage to tunnel beneath the marble, there’s
another layer to prevent escape, this time made of silver, which is
deadly to our kind. The marble layer is thick but the silver is
thicker. If a wolf were to tunnel through that they would burn,
blister and eventually weaken to such a degree that they wouldn’t
be able to lift their arms above their heads let alone escape. The
door that leads in is again made of marble and silver, silver on
the prisoner side and marble on the outside. The only way to get
out is with external assistance. Lucinda was sentenced to remain
within the dungeon until her mate came to retrieve her, she still
has no mate so someone had to have let her out.”

“
You’re really
worried about this aren’t you?”

“
Of course I
am. If someone let her out the first time they may try to do it
again. I need to deal with her before she can try to make a break
for freedom. She’s a Lady of the North East clan, she holds power
and her father dotes on her. There’s nothing he would deny her.
Even now they could be thinking up another plan for her to
escape.”

“
Ryan is there
nothing I can do to take your mind off of this? Worrying isn’t
going to help and there’s nothing you can do in your condition. If
you want to deal with her then eat, grow strong again.”

“
I can’t think
about food right now.”

“
I made your
favourites though.”

“
I’m sorry
angel.” He turned away from her though his grip on her hand didn’t
loosen as he unconsciously stroked the back of her hand with his
thumb.

“
Why is it that
I have to be saddled with men who are the very definition of
stubborn? Am I cursed or something?” she groaned.

Ryan turned
back towards her, the wheels in his mind turning rapidly. “I think
there’s one thing you can talk to me about to get my mind off
Lucinda.”

Her strained
expression immediately became one of hope. “What is it? Tell me,”
she demanded excitedly.

“
Who’s Gary?
What did he do to you?” She froze, the smile on her face dying a
quick, instantaneous death. “Chloe? Angel? What’s
wrong?”

“
How do you
know about Gary?”

“
You’ve
mentioned him a few times,” he answered hesitantly, forcing his
body to sit upright. Her face had paled and her heartbeat was
beginning to slow. Something was wrong. “Chloe, we don’t have to
talk about this. I don’t need to know.”

“
You changed
your mind quickly.”

He reached
across the short distance separating them to cup her cheek gently
in his large palm, forcing her to look at him. “You don’t want to
talk about this. Your body is telling me that loud and clear. Just
the sound of his name is distressing you, I don’t want to be the
cause of any more of your pain.”

His words and
his touch warmed her and her mind shed the quagmire of past pain
and injustice, reaching for the promising future Ryan offered.
“Gary is responsible for this pain not you Ryan. It’s okay, I’m
fine now. If you want to hear about Gary then I’ll tell you about
Gary.”

“
Are you
sure?”

“
I’ve kept this
to myself for long enough. There are no secrets between mates
remember?”

He beamed at
her despite the sad atmosphere that had crept into the room at the
mention of Gary’s name. “Right. There are no lies, no secrets, only
complete honesty.”

She sighed
heavily, her breath leaving her body on a long shuddering exhale.
“Gary was my ex. We were together for a year and I really loved
him. I could see us having a future together.” Ryan growled angrily
at her words, the very idea of his mate spending her life with
someone that wasn’t him causing him to see red. “Don’t worry Ryan,
I can’t see us having a future together now, hence the ‘ex’ part of
that sentence.”

“
What happened
to make things change?” he pressed.

“
He cheated,”
she answered simply. “Although looking back on things now I should
have seen that one coming months before it actually did. I loved
him but I don’t think he ever really loved me back in return. I
think he was in love with an idea of what I could be, what to him,
I should be. He was so wonderful in the beginning but then after
about five months things changed. He was constantly harping on
about my weight, telling me how I could afford to go on a diet.
I’ve never considered myself skinny so I agreed with him but diets
and me don’t get along. They either don’t work or they are so
restrictive that I break from them within a week. When they didn’t
work, Gary told me I wasn’t trying hard enough that I wanted to
be,” she gulped, “fat.”

Ryan could
feel his claws itching to break the skin, itching to be free so
that damage could be wrought on this Gary, it was only the feel of
Chloe’s soft hand within his own that kept them in check. If he
were to sprout claws, Chloe would be hurt. Chloe’s presence didn’t
however stop fangs exploding in his mouth.

Kill him
Ryan,
his wolf advised.

He’ll have to
take a number after Lucinda but I’ll find him and teach him a
lesson. How dare he call my angel that?

“
The less
intense diets didn’t work so he suggested that we move up the
scale. I wasn’t so sure but I wanted us to go back to the days when
we were really happy and he wouldn’t be happy until I’d shifted a
few pounds so I agreed. I hated those days with a passion. It was
like I couldn’t eat anything. Gary watched every little thing that
went into my mouth. I was starving! I ended up fainting at work
from hunger but still didn’t lose enough weight to make him
happy.

“
Things just
went down hill from that point onwards. My family were furious.
They couldn’t believe I’d let myself get into such a state. I
didn’t tell them that I was doing it at Gary’s behest but I think
they knew. From that point onwards we argued all the time. There
were the occasional good moments but most of the time we were
yelling and screaming at each other. Him shouting at me to try a
different diet and me screaming that I wasn’t going to put my
health at risk again. When we went out he was always looking at
other, skinnier, more attractive women. He never spoke to them when
we were together but he would look at them then look at me and the
food I was eating…The look he gave me was like a slap in the face.
It was as though he were telling me that if I kept eating he would
leave with one of them and that’s exactly what he did.

“
We’d been
together for almost ten months when I noticed he was acting
strangely. I’d lost some weight and thought that maybe he was
planning a surprise for me. He was. He asked me to marry him. I was
shocked but I loved him, I said yes. Things got better for a while
but then I noticed he was acting suspicious again. I’d asked to
meet his family, we’d been dating for almost a year, we were
engaged for crying out loud and yet I’d never met them. He said no.
When we broke up he confessed that he was too embarrassed of me to
take me to meet them,” she sobbed, wiping away the tears that had
fallen with her free hand. “I came home early one day to find him
and my, much thinner friend, tangled up in our sheets doing the
horizontal tango. I was heartbroken. The rest as they say is
history. Gary and I broke up on less than friendly terms and I
refused to date for the next few months, that is until you forced
yourself into the picture.”

“
You don’t
think of me in the same category as him do you?” he spat, genuinely
appalled at the very idea.

“
No,” she
laughed, a smile appearing on her face in place of tears. “You and
him are made of completely different cloth.”

“
Why? Because
I’m not human?”

“
Well there’s
that.” An angry frown appeared on his face and Chloe laughed harder
in response. “There’s also the fact that you’re honest to a fault.
No matter what you do, you come out and tell me, no lies, no
secrets and no deception. Plus, there’s that strange belief you
have that my body is somehow perfect, without a single
flaw.”

“
It is,” he
interrupted, his eyes wandering over her frame in a heated
caress.

“
And you care
about me Ryan. I can feel how much you care in every single action
you take. Every time you touch me, talk to me, I can feel how
important I am to you. Then there’s the fact you saved my life. If
actions speak louder than words then that single thing is screaming
how much you care so loud that it’s deafening me.”

“
What I feel
towards you is more than care angel, much more. Simple care
wouldn’t have made my heart stop when I saw you fall. If I only
‘cared’ for you then your tears wouldn’t feel like knives to my
heart, your smile wouldn’t warm me as though it were the sun. Care
isn’t a strong enough word to describe how I feel and soon I hope
you feel the same way about me.”

Her cheeks
flushed as she lowered her eyes, deliberately avoiding his intense
gaze. His words were heartfelt and she knew his eyes would no
longer be amber but that seductive shade of brown that would draw
her in and force words from her lips she wasn’t ready to
say.
I have a feeling Ryan that it won’t
be too long. I wouldn’t have done half the things I’ve done in the
last two days if I only cared about you. I’ve shot straight past
care territory and landed on dangerous ground.
Shaking herself, she smiled warmly at him. “Are you ready to
eat now?”