Circle of Lies (Red Ridge Pack) (22 page)

47.

Aiden

“What the hell did you say to her, Becca?” I demanded when I finally caught up with her and her crony in the middle of the commons. I’d heard the story from Sammy, who’d seen the whole thing, and I was fuming.

Becca stopped walking and swung around to face me. Shari came to a halt as well. She took one look at my face and scrambled, leaving her friend standing alone, but Becca didn’t seem fazed. She actually looked a little proud of herself.

“I did that girl a favor. You should be thanking me,” she said, taking a quick glance around to make sure no one was watching us and lowering her voice so that prying ears wouldn’t hear. “Do you really think for one minute that you can have a relationship with a human?”

I said nothing. How the hell was I supposed to respond to that?

“Omigod, you did. You actually thought Marcus would let you carry on this little fling with a domestic. That’s sweet—but come on, get real. Aiden, it would never be allowed. You have to realize that. Just look what Marcus put Cade through, and Alli’s only half human. Do you really want to subject that poor little girl to the wrath of our alpha?”

It was clear that Becca was really pulling out all the stops. There was nothing that she wouldn’t say to make me break things off with Teagan, but her words were also making me think.

“You know what?” Becca went on. “Why don’t we just pretend that whatever you and that girl had going on—”

“Teagan,” I interrupted.

“Okay, you and
Teagan
had going on, never happened. We can fix this, Aiden. Take me out this weekend? I can make you forget all about your poor little Teagan. It’ll make Marcus happy. I’m
allll
wolf.”

Was she serious? My eyes widened as she took a step closer and placed her hands on my chest. She
was
serious. Holy hell, I couldn’t handle this right now. The chick was absolutely crazy if she thought I’d leave Teagan for her, especially after everything that had happened before.

“Becca, are you hearing yourself? Are you so delusional that you think I would ever go out with you? You’re a hateful, evil bitch that has to make others feel badly about themselves so you can feel good. You better pray that when I catch up to Teagan she realizes how full of shit you are, because if you hurt her, there will be hell to pay.” Without giving her a chance to respond, I turned and hurried down the hallway. I had to find my girl.

She was nowhere to be found. I tried calling her again and again, but she didn’t pick up. I couldn’t figure out where she might have gone.

“Hey, did you talk to her?” Alli asked as she met me at the car after school.

“I just tried her phone again. Nothing. I wish I knew what Becca said.”

Alli bit the inside of her cheek. That meant she was trying to keep herself from talking.

“What do you know?” I demanded.

“I really don’t want to be the one to tell you,” she replied, leaning up against the car.

Every muscle in my jaw tightened. “What did she say, Alli?” I asked through clenched teeth.

My sister moved from the driver’s side over to where I was standing. She looked around quickly before spewing all the dirty details she’d gotten from Cami. After the first few sentences, her words were drowned out by the sound of my heart pounding in my ears. My sister was still talking, but I couldn’t hear a thing. My anger and hurt were destroying my hearing.

I could only imagine the look on Teagan’s face when Becca confronted her. The image broke my heart and made me want to rip Becca to pieces at the exact same time.

“Aiden.
Aiden.
Are you listening?” Alli asked.

“Yeah?” I said. I’d finally heard. But then my thoughts got in the way again.

I tried to calm myself down before I did something I’d regret, but it wasn’t working. My vision tunneled, and I was only vaguely aware that Cade had walked over. He tried to talk to me, but once again I could only see his mouth moving; I could only hear the sound of my racing pulse. Rage was building inside of me, and if I didn’t get out of there fast, the students of Red Ridge High were going to get an eye-full.

Suddenly, Cade was in my face. He grabbed me by my jacket and shoved me into the backseat of the Jetta then got behind the wheel. Within seconds we were speeding out of the school parking lot and heading toward the estate. I just sat there watching the clock on the dashboard, and as each minute passed I grew more and more desperate to change. But I knew I wasn’t in control and was trying to fight it off.

“Want me to pull over?” Cade asked, looking at me in the rear view mirror. All I could do was nod.

As soon as he stopped, I jumped out of the car.

“Aiden, wait! Do you want me to come with you?” Alli yelled.

“No. I need to be alone,” was all I could manage before I took off into the trees.

The change came more quickly this time, almost instantly. There was no pain, no panic, just a sense of release. I needed to run. I longed to run until my legs were shaky and numb. I needed to rid myself of the rage inside me before I went to find Teagan. She didn’t need to deal with me or my anger issues; she needed to know that everything Becca said was a lie. Now more than ever she needed to know how I felt about her.

By the time I slowed down, I could tell I was close to home. I could smell the estate, the familiar scents of the pack. I was feeling better, more calm and in control. I took a moment to wander though the underbrush, allowing the cool December air and fresh smells to ease the anger and tension from my body. I only hoped that when I turned back this tranquility would stay.

Suddenly, a giggle from my left startled me, and before I knew what was happening I went from wolf to bare-ass-naked human. When I stood up, I saw two people heading my way.

“Holy shit. Aiden?” Luke asked.

I ripped a leafy branch of the closest tree and used it to cover myself. I could tell Luke was doing his best not to laugh at me, which I truly appreciated since Cami was laughing so hard I thought she might pee herself.

“Looking goooood, Aiden,” Cami said when she finally managed to compose herself.

“Gee, thanks,” I replied. There wasn’t much more to say.

Luke handed me the blanket he carried. As I wrapped it around my hips, I noticed he and Cami were looking at each other like I’d caught them doing something naughty. I wondered what was going on. Together, we headed back onto the estate.

“Hey, Aiden, we would appreciate it if you wouldn’t tell anyone that we were out here. Cami’s parents don’t know about us,” Luke admitted as we left the woods.

“Of course, but what’s the big deal?” I asked. It’s not like either one of them was a human.

“They’ve known me my whole life. Let’s just say they think she can do better. I don’t blame them, either. I guess I deserve the reputation I have around here. I wouldn’t want my daughter dating me either.”

“Well, they won’t hear it from me,” I said.

We said our goodbyes as soon as we got to the lake. By then I was so cold that my teeth were chattering uncontrollably, so I held on to the blanket and ran all the way back to our house.

“What in the name of Christ happened to you?” my grandfather asked as I came flying through the front door. He was standing next to Cade and Alli. They looked at me apologetically.

It seemed like this was always happening lately. I’d come home, hoping for some quiet time, only to find that the family had guests. It was just my mom’s parents this time, but they didn’t fail to give me a you-still-can’t-control-yourself look. I felt like shouting, “Yes, I’m naked. Yes, I shifted on accident in the middle of nowhere! Still want me to be your damn alpha?” Instead, in all of our best interests, I ignored the entire crew and went straight to my room.

On the way upstairs I could hear my grandfather telling Cade there was no way I could handle being the head of the pack. Awesome. Just freakin’ awesome. My own grandfather was already planning to back Cade. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be alpha or not, but I at least wanted my grandparents to support me.

Alli had put my backpack and phone on my bed. I grabbed the latter to see if Teagan had finally called me back. Nope.

Pushing my anger and anxiety aside, I sent her a text:

Aiden: Baby, I’m so sorry about
Becca. Please call me. I need to hear your voice. I love you.

Then I waited for a reply.

When I’d woken up this morning with Teagan snuggled up next to me, I thought that this was going to be a perfect day. I couldn’t have been more wrong. After an hour of staring at my phone, I had a feeling that she wasn’t going to respond.

48.

Teagan

The sound of the slamming front door jostled me awake. Somehow, I’d managed to drown out all thoughts of Aiden and Becca and allowed sleep to take me away. Unfortunately Aiden had haunted my dreams, and when I woke I had to restrain myself from immediately digging out my phone from the hidden depths of my purse. If he’d called, I didn’t trust myself enough not to return it, and if he hadn’t, I wasn’t sure I could handle the disappointment. So instead I vowed to stay away from my phone for the next twenty-four hours.

All the commotion going on in the kitchen made it clear that my father had a visitor, and an uneasy feeling washed over me when I heard the voice of his new friend, Peter. Something about that guy screamed
creeper
.

Even though I was supposed to be at school, my car was in the driveway, so surely Dad knew I was home, but he didn’t come check on me to see why I was in my room instead of class. While that shouldn’t surprise me, it kind of did. Apparently he had more important things to attend.

Tiptoeing out of my room and down the hall, I made my way toward the kitchen. There I peeked around the corner and watched as Dad and Peter laid a huge poster board with newspaper clippings, charts, graphs, and sticky notes across the kitchen table. Next they laid out 4” x 6” pictures as well as some note cards, the latter which they aligned neatly beside the pictures.

It looked like a giant school research project, sans a laptop, but since my father had barely finished high school before enlisting in the military I couldn’t begin to imagine what these two were up to. They chatted quietly amongst themselves and examined their work. Then Peter carefully unfolded something he dug out of his pocket, a crinkled piece of notebook paper. Together they glanced over the information.

My dad shuffled though a box and pulled out some blank note cards. He took the paper from Peter’s hand, sat down, and began taking more notes. Peter stood over his shoulder and watched.

Of all the insane things I’d witnessed my father do, this topped the charts. It only took about five minutes before my curiosity got the best of me, so I wandered in leisurely as if I hadn’t been standing there spying. “What’s all this?” I asked.

Immediately my dad tried to shield their little project. Peter stood back, though, and with a wicked grin he waved his hand across the table as though to proudly present the work.

Dad reluctantly removed his body from the kitchen table, taking his cue from Peter. He stood up, but he wasn’t first to speak. Evidently, he was going to let Peter do the explaining.

“Teagan, it’s good that you’re here. There are some things we should all discuss, and it does involve you, darling. Come on over and take a look,” my dad’s young friend announced.

My stomach clinched.
Darling? WTF.

My gut was warning me to stay away, but I needed to see what this was all about. I didn’t know why, but I had a sneaking suspicion that it had something to do with Aiden.

The suspicion was quickly confirmed, for I saw Aiden’s picture sitting there near the poster along with snapshots of Alli and Cade picking up Aiden’s car which appeared to have been left by the side of the road. Below that were pictures of Becca and Shari walking across a parking lot. But it was the bottom picture that set my cheeks aflame. That one had Aiden and I kissing outside my house.

Instinctively, I backed away from the table. “What the hell is all of this? Why do you have pictures of me and Aiden and his family and his friends?” Had Peter actually been stalking us?

He moved toward me and attempted to rest his hand on my shoulder, but I was faster and dodged his don’t-worry-I’m-friendly gesture. He dropped his hand to his side and explained, “It’s not what you think, Teagan. We—”

I cut him off mid-sentence. “Not what I think? I have absolutely no idea what to think about all of this. This is crazy!”

“Just come over here and look at the poster, Teagan. You need to know what you’ve gotten yourself into. Prepare yourself. This is no joke. These people, your boyfriend… They’re not human. You may not believe this now, but they are werewolves, Teagan. All of them, and I can prove it. Just take a look,” Peter explained.

Werewolves? Oh my God. They were crazy. My father had officially become mad—as in deranged, off his rocker, insane in the membrane. Werewolves? I thought again. This was all too much.

Incredulous, I glanced at Peter and then my dad. My eyes shot back and forth between the two of them, but they weren’t laughing. This wasn’t a joke. Holy shit, they were serious.

After a few seconds of dead silence I asked, “Have you two gone completely nuts? Werewolves? You really expect me to believe these people are werewolves? All of them? You expect me to believe that such creatures even exist? I mean, I like Jacob Black as much as the next girl, but really? What next? You going to tell me that you’re were-hunters?”

Peter stared at me, and I could see a manic look in his eyes. “Teagan, this is no laughing matter. Yes, these people are werewolves. I know it’s hard to believe, but just take a look at our research. The proof is there in black and white. These people are killers, and your father and I plan to expose them for what they are. People in this town need to know that those crazies hiding out there in the woods, even their kids at your school, are vicious animals.”

This rant was spoken with complete and utter seriousness. My father, on the other hand, just stood there looking as dumbfounded as I felt, so I turned my attention to him. “Dad? What do you have to say about all of this?”