Black Dalliances (A Blushing Death Novel) (4 page)

“Baby, I don’t know what you are but you’re no werewolf. You smell like Pack but not one of us.”

Confusion and worry slowed his words as if he was thinking too hard.

I eased down on my belly, laying my head in his lap. His fingers laced through my fur in a sensual stroke that pulsed with possessiveness as he hugged me. I liked it.

“Your fur is the most beautiful shade of gold. Even brighter than your hair,” he said, still caressing me in long, languorous strokes. “Pat will need to know,” he muttered.

I couldn’t help but whine. I didn’t want to hurt him and my gut told me Patrick would take this as an affront, not at all the way I wanted. We didn’t need another obstacle to overcome.

“No, baby, no secrets,” he chastised, continuing to stroke down my back.

God that felt good.

“Pat’ll understand. Eventually.” Patting my rump, he said in a much happier voice, “Go change back, and I’ll give you the credit card to buy furniture.”

My ears perked up and I swung my head up. My tail thumped on the floor in quick rapid strokes, and he laughed.

I took off to the bathroom like a shot where my clothes were folded neatly on the floor. There was furniture to buy and an entire house to furnish. No time for lollygagging.

Chapter 2

I was pretty sure one of my ribs cracked as he squeezed me. Air left my lungs in a hard, painful rush.

“Kurt,” I grunted. “Can’t breathe.”

His arms slackened, dropping me back to the floor. “Sorry,” he chuckled, stepping back and giving me space. Kurt wasn’t the tallest werewolf I knew, but he certainly was the bulkiest. Coming from good German stock, his angular features and stocky build made him look more like a cement block walking around than a cuddly werewolf. As Beta, Kurt was fierce and demanding. As my friend, he was kind, gentle, and understanding.

“It’s fine,” I replied with a laugh, tugging my tank top back down around my hips. “I don’t need those ribs anyway.”

“I’m just glad you’re back. I know Jade’ll be glad to see you. Have you called her yet?”

His steady voice was thick with reproach, and I fought not to shy away. I was supposed to be the leader here . . . right?

“Not yet. It’s been kind of crazy in the last twenty-four hours, and I didn’t have enough time to set aside for her to yell at me,” I answered with a smile. “I have to buy furniture and I figured if I took her with me, she wouldn’t yell at me in a public place.”

“If you think being out in public will keep her from yelling at you, you can think again.” Kurt laughed.

“Yeah, I know. I was hoping maybe she’d go easy on me.” Readjusting the shoulder holster clinging to my now-broken ribs, I fidgeted with the leather. I wasn’t used to wearing one anymore and every move I made irritated my skin with the friction. It’d been over five months since I’d had a holster on and what once felt like a part of my body now seemed awkward and unfamiliar.

“You let me know how that works out,” Alex snorted from her perch on Patrick’s desk. With acid-wash jeans, and a T-shirt that read “Dead Head”, she smirked at me.

I met her vampiric gaze and snorted. I’ll admit it, I rolled my eyes at the pun.

At least some things hadn’t changed. I’d never hear her say that she was glad to see me or that she’d missed me but I could see it in her relaxed posture, the easy slant of her shoulders, and the glint of joy in her dark eyes as they flashed against the bubblegum pink of her hair.

“I’m pretty sure I already know how it’s gonna work out,” I said with a smile. A genuine smile.

I found myself smiling a lot lately and couldn’t help myself. More comfortable in my own skin, I didn’t feel lost anymore. Most importantly, I didn’t feel like I had to hide.

Patrick sat behind his desk, watching all of us with a blank expression. His broad shoulders and alabaster skin were so familiar to me but even in the emptiness of his glare, I felt the distance he was trying so hard to hide. Since I’d been back, I hadn’t been alone with Patrick. I hadn’t run my hands through the thick, coarse, black hair. I hadn’t touched the smooth, cool skin. My gut shouted at me that he was avoiding me on purpose, that he didn’t want to be alone with me. I hoped my gut was wrong but it very rarely was.

His dark eyes bore holes through me, glaring at me as if he’d never seen me before and wouldn’t like to again. His rejection jabbed like a kidney shot to my stomach and my breath hitched in my throat. I darted my gaze away, unable to meet the unrestrained anger shining in their obsidian depths. His emotions were closed off to me, hiding behind an iron wall he’d managed to construct between our psyches. But I didn’t need the empathic link we shared to see the hurt and
hatred
in his eyes.

“So, where were you?” Alex asked. A slight hitch in her voice made her words quaver and I was sure everyone else had heard it, too. Evidently, I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Patrick’s glare.

“I, ah,” I started, a little flabbergasted by Patrick’s expression and unable to focus on Alex’s question. The unbridled emotion radiating through his dark eyes caught me off guard as the void of his emotions rankled. I turned, searching for any port in a storm.

Dean stared back at me in support, giving me silent encouragement.

Shaking everything else off, I started again. I couldn’t make anything better or get things back to normal without a few rough spots. In the back of my mind, I understood that. But the hatred I’d seen in Patrick’s eyes hurt more than I’d ever believed possible.

“I drove for a long time. A day here, a couple of days there. I finally ended up crashing at my cousin‘s in Vegas,” I said, hoping no one heard the hesitation in my voice.

“So it was all sunshine and Peña Coladas?” Alex asked, an uncomfortable grin twitching the corners of her sly mouth. Her tone sounded forced, even to my ears.

Sunshine and Peña Coladas?

My mind wandered back to Vegas, and a dark cloud settled over me. Soraida’s skinned body hanging, displayed in Marabelle’s torture tomb like a prized kite; the terror on Enza’s face when she saw what I was and what I could do; and Cordero Salazan’s body lying lifeless and covered in blood flashed through my mind. I thought about the electricity burning through my body from the car battery. I could still smell the faint scent of burning flesh, lingering in my nose as if still fresh.

Sunshine and Peña Coladas . . . not so much
.

“Dahlia?” Kurt asked in a soft, soothing voice.

“Hmm, what?” I glanced up. Everyone was staring at me for some sign that I was okay. Everyone but Patrick. His focus was on the contracts on his desk.

“Fun, did you have any fun?” Kurt asked with a suddenly concerned expression furrowing his brow.

“Fun? No,” I whispered and started talking. I told them about finding blood in Soraida’s house, about meeting Ev, and about Raiden and Georgie. I left out the bit about being beaten and left for dead in the desert. I had to explain my shift to Patrick in private. But I told them about the Vegas Pack and noticed a few concerned glances float between Dean and Kurt as I continued.

Several pairs of eyes darted around the room, unable to meet mine as if they were afraid to move. I took a deep, cleansing breath and raised my eyes to all of them. I let them see me and that the pain I’d felt before I left was gone. I was better and could see confirmation reflected in the satisfied smile on Dean’s face.

“Did you know all of this?” Patrick bit out, anger dripping from each syllable as his hand clutched dangerously tight around the fountain pen in his grasp. Staring holes through Dean with the focus of a predator, Patrick’s gaze narrowed on his friend.

Dean glared over at Patrick, sitting back on the black velvet couches and crossing his arms over his chest. Dean didn’t answer to Patrick, and I was sure he wasn’t going to placate him either by the thin grim line of Dean’s lips. A low, menacing growl permeated through the room and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end.

“Some, yes,” Dean forced out. His teeth were clenched and a hard growl shaped the words in his throat. His voice resonated low and dangerous across my skin as the air seemed to be sucked out of the room. Tension boiled through the air and a clash of power both frigid cold and scorching hot hummed and clashed.

A knock at the door sounded through the silence and I almost jumped out of my skin.
SHIT!
I reached for the door automatically still trying to keep my heart from pounding out of my chest. Anything had to be better than the testosterone-surged power battle making the room infinitesimal and my muscles tighten in preparation for a fight.

Yanking the door open, I hoped to clear some of the thick air from my nose and fan some fresh air in the office. Nova stood there, gracing me with a wink and one of his megawatt smiles.

“Good evening, my little flower,” he whispered, knowing full well Patrick didn’t like him flirting with me. But I understood something about Nova that Patrick didn’t. Nova didn’t flirt to assert his authority or even to get into a woman’s panties. He just couldn’t help it. Flirting was who he was, almost like breathing. His dark hair and bright blue eyes, made him a target of female affection wherever he went. He had to learn to flirt or perish. It’s just who he was. He’d never talked about how he’d ended up in Patrick’s care and I had the feeling someone had used him horribly once. But he hid all of that behind lighthearted flirting and a bright smile.

Nodding up at Nova, I stepped aside. Saeran, with his moss-green skin and hair the color of wildflowers, entered. Following the Fae King was his nephew, Fergal, a shimmering bronze god with the hard amber eyes of a warrior.

Saeran, the King of the North American Sidhe, greeted me with a welcoming, genuine grin that spread across his lovely face and lit him from within. His daffodil-yellow eyes glowed with the uncanny emotion of delight. Saeran and Fergal had dropped their glamour, standing in all their Fae glory. Wild, untamable magic prickled along my skin, reminding me how Fae magic turned my stomach with the uncertainty and chaotic nature of its power. Now, it clashed with the growing unease of the already growing power in the room and I fought to keep my heartbeat under control.

“My dear, I’m so glad you’re back from your . . . sabbatical.” Saeran coughed, hiding his amusement.

Saeran’s nephew, Fergal, stepped up beside his uncle and flung his shimmering copper hair that he kept in a thick braid over his shoulder. His body was firm and sculpted like the warrior he was. His face, however, was grim and held none of the happiness I saw in Saeran’s gaze. Fergal nodded in a silent acknowledgement, following close behind his sovereign and uncle without a word as he moved into the room.

“Thank you, Saeran,” I said. “It’s good to be home.” I closed the door behind them.

“You look as if you’ve found new life.” His voice was light, filled with warmth that was too familiar for my tastes. I barely knew him, especially not enough to trust him at my back. “I am glad to see you looking so well.”

“Yes, well,” Patrick interjected sharply. “We should get down to business.” Hunched over the desk with his hands flat on his glass top desk, Patrick glared at the entire room, daring anyone to challenge him. His shoulders squared and stiff, his eyes were hard as they turned to me. “Thank you, Dahlia, would you mind excusing us?”

Staggering for a moment, the world slowed down to a crawl as every heartbeat echoed in my ears. Dean’s steady thump. Kurt’s escalated, racing pulse. Fergal and Saeran’s slow, even beat. And my own blood thundering in my ears. The entire room seemed to gasp as one at Patrick’s dismissal of me.

Dean rose from the sofa in a quick fluid movement but I held him off with a quick shake of my head. I couldn’t allow him get between me and Patrick, or to be more specific, me and Patrick’s anger. Straightening my back and forcing my shoulders back, I lifted my chin in defiance. I wouldn’t let Patrick see how much he’d hurt me.

“Sure,” I managed to say without making it too obvious I was pissed. My chest tightened and my teeth ground together as I forced myself to move. “I have some errands to run anyway,” I finished with an old familiar smile, malicious and dangerous. The smile that never quite reached my eyes. “Saeran, it was lovely to see you again.” I took a step backward, toward the door. As long as I faced them, I wouldn’t cry. I wouldn’t dare let the entire room see me cry.

The cold metal of the handle pressed against my backside, frigid even through my jeans. The chill of it soaked through my clothes, spreading gooseflesh across my skin and stopping me cold. Reaching behind me, I clutched the handle in my hand and gripped it with all my frustration. The entire room watched me go but I wouldn’t allow them to see me with my tail between my legs.

I jerked the door open and stepped through, sliding it shut behind me with a soft
click
. Frozen to the spot, I stood for a long moment. My heart pounded against my ribs and my mind raced. I wondered if I was really stepping out of a dream or if I’d actually just been shut out.

“Pat?” Dean growled on the other side of the door, his voice rumbling across the wood frame like thunder in a valley.

I was sure they didn’t know I was still there and that I could hear them. My shifter abilities had given me light feet and silent movement. My heartbeat would get mixed up with the others. As long as I kept my breathing even, they wouldn’t know.

“Is there something we should know about?” Saeran followed, real concern making his voice sound unsure.

“No,” Patrick snapped.

“Yes,” Dean spat at the same time.

“There’s nothing,” Patrick hissed, silencing everyone.

I could usually pick up on some of Patrick’s emotions as they leaked around his psychic barriers. I searched the frigid power rippling from the office for signs of his anger, pain . . . anything. Patrick had gotten just as good at shielding his feelings as I had over the last several months. There was nothing there left of him.

“What’s wrong with you?” Dean growled. Honest concern made his voice sharp. Worried for me. Worried for Patrick.

“She left us!”

“She’s back,” Dean soothed.

“For how long?” Patrick snapped in reply.

Vitriol dripped from that one question, making my stomach turn with regret and guilt. I’d done that to him.

“I don’t trust her,” Patrick finally said.

The room was silent enough to hear the soft tick of Alex’s heel at she tapped a quick beat on the leg of the desk.

“I can’t rely on her again,” he said, barely above a whisper.

I’d heard enough.

Traipsing as silently down the stairs as any practiced shapeshifter, I felt the first hot tear scorch a line down my cheek. Patrick’s tone carried a finality I wasn’t sure I could overcome. I understood his anger but he’d said all of those things in front of Saeran and Fergal. Outsiders. For the first time in twenty-four hours, I thought maybe it would’ve been better for everyone if I’d stayed gone.

“We
will
talk later,” Dean growled, and Patrick heard the warning in his friend’s tone.

Patrick waved him off. He wasn’t about to talk to Dean about Dahlia, not when he could smell the large man’s lust filling the room with a heavy musk. The odor was strong enough to drive a man to violence.

“Saeran,” Alex cooed, “we are pleased that you have come. The coordination of your move from Ciro’s protection and his territory will be a smooth one.”