Aaron's Kiss Series Boxed Set (Books 1 - 7) (54 page)

“Yeah, okay, I’ll do that. But the mate part might be a moot point if I have to stake him later tonight.” She looked up in alarm. She did not know if these people, these wolves, knew about Aaron and his Kiss. But Bradley simply threw back his head and laughed. She flushed a deep, hot red. Damn it, she really needed to start thinking before she spoke.

“Yes, we are aware of each other. And good luck with your mate. I’m sure he’s as sorry as they come. Until then, Pete, I’d like to have a word or two with you about Eon in private, please.” He’d asked politely, but she could hear the tension in his voice.

“Oh God, what’s he done now? I swear whatever it is, I can fix it, but if it’s something he’s said, well, maybe I can just cut his tongue out. He’s really a good kid. He just doesn’t think before he speaks. Of course, I guess I do the same thing sometimes, but...well, that doesn’t make it right, but it could be my fault. Probably is, so whatever he’s done, I’ll...I take full responsibility, all right? You just have to let me make sure he finishes his education. I know he doesn’t act like it, but…”

Bradley was laughing at her. She might have noticed it sooner, because if the tears streaming down his face where any indication, he had been laughing for some time. But they had been walking down the hall to a nice office and it was not until she sat down across from him that she realized it.

“Think you could let me in on the joke maybe?”

He didn’t answer right away because Daniel Taggert walked in and shook hands with Bradley. This was bad, she just knew it. Whatever Eon had done, it was bad.

“First, I want to tell you what I am. I know you are aware that I’m a shifter and a were, a werewolf actually. But I’m the alpha, the leader of this pack. All the men you met today, Daniel here included, answer to me and only me. Daniel has a unique situation in that he works for Aaron and does answer to him in business matters, but to me for pack issues. Nothing, and I mean nothing, goes on within my territory that I’m not made aware of. That being said, Daniel came to me the other day about Eon. I’ll let him explain.” Bradley leaned back in the big office chair and nodded to Daniel.

Pete just knew she was not going to like this, but Eon was her friend and she would stand up for him no matter what. If he really had done something so dreadful that they felt she needed to be told in private, well, she would be there for him and fuck these people.

“Pete, how much do you know about his background, Eon’s I mean? Do you know his parents maybe or—”

“Look, I’ve always been a straight to the point sort of person. You know, rip the fuck...flipping Band-Aid right off and get on with it. If his mom is back again and trying to say he’s done something wrong, well, he hasn’t. I know him as well as anyone. I keep an eye on him. If she’s asking for money, he doesn’t have any of that either, at least as far as she’s concerned. If she just wants him back, well fuck her, she can’t have him. I have custody of him until he’s eighteen and that’s another five months. He’s mine. So whatever it is, tell me.”

“You have custody of him? You can’t be much older than him, for Christ’s sake!” Bradley exploded at her.

“Well, the courts didn’t see a problem with it. He just needed to get away from that bitch and they knew it. I just have to make...what the fuck? I don’t have to explain my actions to you or anyone else. Tell me what it’s going to cost to fix and I’ll work something out.” Pete stood up and grabbed her bag that she had put on the stand next to the door when they walked in. She noticed that Daniel was looking at his boss, the King Ding-dong or whatever. She did not care if they could talk that mind thingy or not. As soon as they were done here, she was going back to Dominic and snuggling.

“Pete, I don’t think we’ve handled this very well. Eon hasn’t done anything wrong. He’s a were, or at least part were. And as for his mother, well, I thank you for rescuing him from her if what you’re saying is true about her, and I’ve no doubt that it is. He’s a late bloomer, probably because he isn’t a full blood.” Bradley went onto explain. “Daniel came to me about him last week and asked my advice. I told him that he needed to discuss this with you before he talked to Eon. I take it that he’s right, and Eon doesn’t know.”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t think he’s...hummm changed into anything either. I think I’d notice if he got fuzzy and howled at the moon once a month. Are you sure? I mean, could it be that he, fuck, I don’t know, hangs with, like, dogs or something?” She was grasping at whatever she could. Eon was a werewolf. A friggin’ werewolf?

“No, I’m sure. He has a scent about him. I’m surprised you haven’t noticed it being that you’re a supe too.”

Daniel grinned at her. This was too much. Pete lowered her head into her hands and rested her elbows on her knees.

“Okay, it’s been a weird few days, Mr. Alpha. I’m a wood nymph who is or isn’t mated to a vampire. My friend is the cousin of the Queen of Magic and my work buddy is a werewolf. My brothers wanted to have a kid with me and let me see, did I forget anything? Oh yeah, I may or may not work for a pack of werewolves.” She looked up at Bradley from between her fingers. “I think I need a drink.”

Bradley winked at her and stood. “You’re doing just fine. Better than most would, I think. I’m sorry, Pete. I wanted you to know before anything happens. If it’s okay with you, I’ll talk with Eon myself. As for the rest, trust me, you have good friends who’ll see you through. And I’d really like it if you’d think of me as one of those friends.” He walked with her to the door.

“What about Aaron? Who’ll tell him? Oh, I guess he knows, huh? Good, it must have burned his butt not to have control over something first.” She laughed when he did.

“I don’t suppose you have any unattached sisters just like you around, do you? If you do, I’d really like to meet them if you don’t mind.”

They had met up with Sara and Shade who were watching some shopping channel with Shelia in her office.

“Nah, just maniacal brothers. But you’re welcome to chew on them if you’d like.” After it was out of her mouth, she realized what she had said and how it could be taken. Sheesh, she thought, she really needed to leave.

Bradley laughed again and assured her if she needed any help with them, just to let him know. He said that Aaron had told him what was happening with her family and he would be honored to be around to assist. She assumed at first he had meant at the house, but she was not so sure about anything anymore. She had become an honorary pack member when she saved the company money and made the donation to Becca’s Place. And like the vampire Kiss she was now a part of, pack took care of its members.

Once outside in the sunshine, Pete felt as if she could breathe again. She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sun. The sigil moved slightly and she felt some of the leaves turn toward its rays. It’s not as if she hated being in a closed office, but she much preferred to be outside, rain or shine, it didn’t matter.

“Pete?”

She knew Shade was there watching her. She had even felt the pretty woman send her tiny jolts of comfort during the meeting inside. Pete just needed a moment.

“Yeah, Shade, I’m almost done. Don’t you just love the sun? I think I’m going to take my bike and go for a really fast run before the day is out. Would you mind taking my bags back to the estate? Dominic is already ticked off at me, though I’m sure he’ll be that way a lot if we stay together. I might as well get the—”

Shade cut her off. “Pete, did you really donate a million dollars to the Becca’s Place?”

Pete turned to look at Shade. Now she was really embarrassed. She figured Shade had gotten the amount from someone in the room who knew about it too. “I never wanted anyone to find out. That’s what anonymous donations are supposed to be, anonymous, you know? The money I got from the Mackey Corp. was sort of found money, something I hadn’t counted on. The job I’d done for him was a community service thingy. I wasn’t supposed to be paid. But when I fixed what I’d been told, I gave them some advice on a couple of other things too. The judge said it was all right that I take the money.” She turned back to the sun. Pete found it easier to tell her the rest without looking at her right now. “I met the kids, Becca and Brent, once a long time ago. I was on call for a cable company then and a call came that the cable was down in that apartment. The kids watched me work on their cable while the mother lay on the couch comatose. The woman was so stoned that she didn’t even realize I had taken them out of the house, fed them, and brought them back. We were gone for a good two or maybe three hours. She didn’t notice her own kids missing, Shade. I could have been anyone! When I read about what happened to Becca in the paper a few months later, I was heartbroken for you and Brent. He’s a great kid, by the way. So, in my own way, I’m helping little Becca when I didn’t before.”

Shade, crying, hugged Pete again, and Sara joined them for a group as they stood there on the busy sidewalk. Funny thing was, Pete was not at all embarrassed this time. She felt really good, and knew that she would have to take this job, if for no other reason than to help Shade and her house.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Dominic was waiting in the deserted kitchen for Pete when she returned. Her arms were loaded with shopping bags and there were still more in the car. The three of them had decided to celebrate Pete’s job by doing some serious shopping.

Dominic didn’t say a word, but stared at her for several seconds just taking her in. Then he scooped her up into his arms, threw her over his shoulder, and took packages and all down to what he now considered their bedroom. She didn’t say anything to him as everything passed by them in a blur upside down.

“You’d better have a good reason for—”

Dominic didn’t let her get any further, as his mouth covered hers in a devastating kiss. He simply held her close to his body, hugging her, needing her touch as he needed anything else. He pulled back slightly, looked in her eyes, and felt humbled by what he saw there.

“I sorry, so very sorry. I missed you. I was an ass, an overbearing, arrogant ass.”

Dominic had had most of the day to think about what he had demanded of Pete, and what she had said in return. When he had tried to contact her several times throughout the day, he met with resistance. Even their bond was blocked from him communicating with her. It was then that he decided that he could not—no, he would not demand and dictate to her again. She was too stubborn and too strong to piss off without pain. And he had been in pain all day.

“Me too, Dominic. I have to tell you something. I...I love you. But I don’t want anyone in my life who feels that I’m too stupid to make decisions on my own. I took precautions before I left the house this morning, and that’s why I asked Sara and Shade to go with me. Of course I had to pay a price; they took me shopping for clothes. But I can’t live with you if I have to worry that every time I make a decision, I have to worry about how you will react. Understand?”

“Shopping? Like shopping for the nice little number you teased me with today shopping? And by the way, that was the worst kind of cruel, letting me see you all decked out, and then wiping it out. Cruel, baby, that was just cruel. Let’s look at what you have here; maybe you could give me a fashion show.”

He looked at the names on the bags and felt his cock harden. Oh yeah, there was definitely going to be some modeling tonight.

“Focus, you baboon. I’m talking about our future together. Will you put that down and listen to me?”

He continued pulling out item after tiny item. The colors alone were erotic enough to have his cock harden more, but the sets, both top and bottoms, being so tiny and so...lacy had his mouth watering and the thought of it being next to her skin, his hands pulling them off her, tasting what he revealed when he ripped them from her...Christ, he was not going to last long once he had her beneath him, he thought. He stopped his plundering, looked at her, and smiled.

“I’m not a baboon, but I do love you. I will try and I mean really try, not to piss you off again by being an ‘arrogant ass,’ as you so eloquently put it. All right? Now, go put this on. I wanna rip it from your delicious body.” He handed her the skimpiest garments in the bag.

“No more ripping. This stuff is expensive! Oh yeah, I have a job I need to tell you about.”

“Later, baby, tell me later. And I’ll rip and replace, how’s that sound? You know you love it when I get all caveman-ish.”

He watched as she looked at the green pieces in her hand then back to his face. Her eyes had turned to shimmering silver and glowed with need. His own eyes had turned as well; red haze surrounded her. He ran his tongue along his teeth as he felt his fangs lengthen and stretch. “Hurry,” was all he said, and she bolted to the bathroom. She would be lucky if he didn’t need to replace all of the purchases before sunrise at this rate. And he was waiting by the door, naked and ready for her, when she came out dressed as he had requested.

~~~

“I’ve been looking over your list about your brothers, Pete, and I must say again how very well put together it is. Anyway, I think that you may have overestimated their abilities a little. I would say that their power is based on black magic, as you have stated, but they don’t have much in the way of natural talent. And in the magical world, that is very important.”

James and Savannah had worked on the list for most of the day. And they had both decided that based on what they had witnessed the day before; Pete was much stronger than all of her brothers put together. Her talent was the combination of both parents having natural magick, even if one of them was using black at the time.

“But I thought that black magic was extremely powerful, and that the more one used it, the stronger that person became. At least that’s what it seemed like when I was living with them. My brother Zeus could shift into a bird of prey, I think it was a falcon. He couldn’t hold it for very long, maybe a couple of hours at the most. Then Heph could teleport, again not far, maybe ten miles at a time and as far away as he’d ever gotten was maybe fifty miles before he’d had to call Mother and have her come and get him. And if any of them used any of the extreme stuff, they would be down for a couple of hours. Depending on the amount of time it was used it could be a couple of days.”

“Your brother Heph, you mean as in Hephaestus the god of fire? Your mother named your brothers after Greek gods? Well, she certainly had a very high opinion of her breeding capabilities, didn’t she? You have to tell me all of their names. This is just too good not to investigate more closely. When you listed them on the sheet, you didn’t put their birth names, just nick names. Why not?”

James did not have many names in his “Big Book of Beings,” as he had titled it, so she had not thought to do it any differently than he had.

“Not just the gods, but the Olympians as well so their names are Apollo, Ares, Hephaestus, or Heph for short, Hermes, Cronus and Zeus, and that’s in order of birth. I don’t know the last one’s name, but it’s probably Hades or Poseidon or something equally stupid. You didn’t list the names in your journal; I figured it was because of some power it gave you if you had their name. I guess I was sort of thinking like Rumplestiltskin, where his name meant power to the one who knew it.” She blushed.

“But your name, it’s not a god or an Olympian. What kind of name is Piccadilly?” Savannah asked her.

“I’m not named after a ‘whom’ but a ‘what.’ The Piccadilly Inn in Fresno California. She claims that’s where I was conceived. Probably behind the place rather than inside of it, if her track record is any indication, and I have every doubt she had a room there. So my name is Piccadilly Fresno Bartholomew. My brother Apollo started calling me Dilly Bar when I was about three, I guess, and it stuck. I changed it to Pete because it was so far from both my real and their nick name that it felt good.” She shrugged, thinking that if she never heard the name Dilly again, she would be very happy.

“What an unfortunate name, but Pete is nice. I must say that Pete suits you much better than Piccadilly. And that’s a good theory about the little man and his name, I like it. But it was simply a matter of not being able to pronounce their names in a language we would be able to understand, not to mention spell. Why, one gnome’s name was Peellalitamanishundish. He liked to be called Fred if you can believe that. Gnomes can be incredibly stupid. But Fred was very polite. I liked him,” Elizabeth told her as she joined the group, Mel close behind.

As always, they were in the kitchen, and Dunc and Penny were making large sandwiches and pouring drinks.

“You’re making that up! Peelatitdasastupidname, or whatever it was, being called Fred. Mother, you need serious help.” But they all got a good laugh out of it.

Mel kissed her mother’s cheek. Pete watched the family interact with each other, Dunc and Penny fuss over them all. Had someone told her that she would be sitting in a room full of vampires and having fun, she would have probably laughed at them. Yet, here she sat.

“Back to your brothers. Yes, they are strong, but black magic isn’t a renewable resource like your magic is. Black magic, or tainted magic, only works through spells and potions. Also, it takes from the earth as a whole. The user needs to keep taking and taking and sometimes resorting to theft to keep up their appearances of being strong. White magic, or pure magic, on the other hand, borrows, much like the bargain you set up before you helped Sara. You made a fair trade where you both exchanged something that had value or worth only to you. I would image that you might have known that naturally, instinctually, because of the purity of your heart.”

Pete flushed. She didn’t know how she knew to do that, he was right. But him telling her that her heart was pure…well, hardly. She had plenty of bad thoughts.

“Your magic is also pure. In the sense that it borrows, not steals from the elements around you like black does. But people who steal and steal what they use and not give back will only burn out eventually. Or have it turn back on them. The power of magic is always the same for both dark and white magic; it returns tenfold. What you take must be returned unto the lender ten times to whatever extent of resources you use,” James explained to her, looking up notes in his book as he did.

“So how do I beat them? Because I will not go back with them to be their breeder, or anything else they might have in mind,” she told the room in general.

Pete had been practicing her magic with Queenie all evening after they had returned from shopping. While Pete was getting stronger, she did not know if she could take on her family and defeat them.

“The only person you are going to be breeding for is me, woman. And it won’t be just you trying to beat them. We’ll all be there for you, with you.”

She looked over at Dominic and smiled. The thought of spending eternity with him simply made her toes curl. She felt him move through her and smiled again at the images he sent to her by their special connection. She suddenly wondered if eternity was going to be long enough. Daniel Taggert came into the room just as Dominic was finished talking.

Pete and Daniel had just completed the security changes that Pete had suggested yesterday. The changes were simple but very effective. The system could not be cut into without triggering several others and it was nearly impossible to disable the gate surrounding the mansion by cutting into the electrical wiring because they had rigged the harness to overlap at random junctures, sometimes going for several sections together. It could go for several sections before it had its own grid, or several miles. Keeping electricity going to the areas was a major problem with this much equipment running. If the power were cut to the house and the security camera, normally one would not be able to see anything.

However, with the system they had installed, this was no longer a problem. They had had the cables dropped off and with the help of a couple of weres at the power plant, they had the power grid turned off long enough to work on it without a lot of others knowing anything about what they were doing. That was the thing about covert security, the more people who knew about it, the less effective it became.

“They’re here,” Daniel said with a grin. “They arrived in town about twenty minutes ago. They are staying at that inn on Market Avenue. Their car, surprise, surprise, is a total piece of crap and probably won’t take them back to their home, at least not without a major overhaul. So for them to confront you, they’ll need to walk here, teleport, or take a cab. Jim, the owner of the inn, would probably believe they’d hitch a ride, that’s how stupid they are. He said that he had to explain to them eight times that they couldn’t each have a room as the inn only had four rooms total and two of them were already occupied. When he told them he would not kick the other two couples out, they told him he should have more respect for his betters. Then proceed to tell him how he should have special rooms set up for special guests like them at all times.”

“Better than what is what I’d like to know. Did they say anything else?” Pete was almost afraid to hear what he’d say next.

“Nah, not really. Said they were here to pick up their long lost sister and take her home with them. Oh yeah, and you’re nuts,” he told her with a cocky grin.

“Excuse me? What do you mean I’m nuts?” She waited for him to explain while he got a large roast beef sub off the seemingly never empty tray Dunc had brought in.

“Yeah, it seems they’ve got a court order saying that you need constant care and that you are incapable of making any decisions on your own. That a woman by the name of, get this, Aphrodite is your legal guardian. Now if I were the judge and heard all of those names together, I’d have all of them committed, not you. Aphrodite, isn’t she some sort of god of dirt or something?” If Daniel had not been so helpful, she might have gotten up and smacked him.

“She’s the goddess of love and she’s my mother—Aphrodite, not my mother. Who the hell would give them a court order? What the hell am I supposed to do now? Every cop in town knows who I am. Shit! I won’t be able to move without someone trying to arrest me and to hand me over. I wonder if the stupid woman remembers that I took care of her more than she did me when I lived at home.”

“They won’t be able to get you here, love. And I’ve talked with Bradley. It seems he has a brother and a few other pack members on the local force; they know to keep you safe. But that doesn’t solve our problem. They are still going to be out there waiting. They can’t leave because of their transportation issues, and as you have pointed out, I don’t think that they’ll leave without you at any rate. You’ve become the sole reason for their woes of late, I imagine. We’ll need to decide to either confront them or ignore them. Pete, you know them better than any of us. What do you think we should do?”