Marc (18 page)

“You came.” Her head moved in denial.
“You did. And I loved it. Come for me again, love. Come so I can fill you with
my seed and mark you as mine for all time.”

He licked along her throat to her
pounding pulse. He wanted to take her there, bite her so that his mark, the
imprint of his teeth, would be where he could see it. Moving in and out of her,
he felt her tighten around him. When he scraped his teeth along her vein, she
curled her nails into his shoulders, pulling him to her. When she screamed
again, her entire body gripping him, he sank his teeth into her flesh and felt
his cock empty in her as his body took her over and over.

His bite wasn’t finished, and he tore at
her skin. His canines dropped, and he knew that his cat was taking his due. As
soon as her blood filled his mouth, he jerked his head and tore deeper, knowing
that he was leaving a scar that would be there for all time.

When she went limp beneath him, he
lifted his head from her throat and licked the wound. It would heal very
quickly, and he couldn’t wait. Watching her face for any signs that she was in
pain, he lifted himself from her and picked her up.

Taking her to their bedroom, he laid her
gently on the bed. Covering her up, he kissed her and smiled when she did. Rolling
to her side, he left her to close up the house. He was nearly to the living
room again when he heard his phone ringing. He answered Khan’s call as he was
putting out the candles.

“You do know that you’re supposed to ask
for permission before you mark her like that, don’t you?” He asked him then.
“Not the way it works, but you have my permission.”

“Thank you. And I didn’t do it on
purpose. Well I did, but it wasn’t planned. I didn’t realize you could feel
that.”

“Neither did I. But then we’re all new
to this mating business.” Khan was quiet as Marc took his clothes to the
laundry room and set the alarm. “She hasn’t pledged to me yet.”

“I know. And when she does it tomorrow,
be surprised, will you? Oh, and this thing with Dad is going down tomorrow. She
has it all worked out with you guys, right?”

“Yes.” Khan laughed. “She’s sort of
vindictive. Remind me never to piss her off. And Monica said to tell you that she
has something for Jonny from Jack. She won’t tell me what it is.”

He sat down on the couch after finding a
robe in the laundry room. “She asked me about what happened. I told her
everything.”

“Good. Now she can heal. Do you think
she’s going to be okay with this thing tomorrow after what happened?”

He didn’t know and told Khan that. “I’m
thinking that getting back at Dad will be great for her. I know it will be for
me.”

Khan agreed and after a few more words,
they hung up. Marc was crawling into bed with Jonny when she spoke to him. He
nearly went back downstairs.

“I want you to order one of those rings
that go on my clit too. I think that would be fun.”

Chapter 18

“I don’t want you to move away.” Everyone
looked at Jonny, and she flushed. “Look, this is really stupid. You had to know
that your house was falling into the basement. The guy said that it had been
eroding for over fifty years. Who doesn’t notice that their house is eroding? I
think even I would.”

“We raised our children there,” Corrine
snapped at her. Not that Jonny didn’t blame her. She’d been getting more and more
upset as the night went on. These people just seemed to like to bicker.

“And they want to give you something in
return, and you got your feelings hurt and now you want to run away.” Corrine
stared at her, but George hopped out of his chair and stamped to her.

Jonny stood, too, and let a little of
her cat go. He was bigger and much larger, but she wasn’t going to back down.
Not anymore. Not from anyone. He stopped and looked at Marc, who growled low.

“Sit down, George. She’s right.” George
turned to his wife and started to speak, but she stopped him. “I am hurt. A
great deal. And we did know the house was falling down. Just last summer you
told me you didn’t think it was going to last another winter. But it did and
now….”

“Now what, Mom?” Marc asked her. “Now
what? You’ll need to tell us or none of us is going to be happy with this.”

“Now you’re all finding mates and you
don’t need us.” Jonny snorted and she glared at her. “You do that a great deal
when you have something to say. You’ve had no problems speaking your mind all
evening, just say it.”

“You thinking they don’t need you is
just stupid. Christ, woman, if they don’t, we women certainly do. I can’t make
a frigging pancake, much less flip one. And I don’t know how many times I’ve
heard Monica say she was going to ask you for advice on something. Even
Caitlynne goes to you for help. And Jack? That woman practically lives on your
front porch.” She looked at George. “And you. You’re needed for your sage
advice as well. Not that I will believe a single word that comes out of your
mouth, but there you have it.”

George grinned, then flushed when she
winked at him. That man was going to pay. She wanted this settled and then to
move on to the more important fun of the evening. Even Corrine was in on this
thing.

“He wants me to have a new home.”
Corrine glared at Khan as she spoke. “What on earth am I to do with a new home,
I ask you? I can barely keep the one I had.”

“Yeah, well hire someone to help you. I
had to, you made me.” Corrine opened her mouth and Jonny snorted again. “I
didn’t even get to hang around tonight and have some of his…some…. I don’t know
what it was, but it sounded good. And there is not one speck of dust or any
dirty clothes anywhere in the house. Mrs. Cable had it cleaned and shining before
I got my lunch finished. And you should have tasted that chicken thing he made
for me. To die for.”

“Mom, I think what she’s trying to tell
you is to let us build you and Dad a new home and stay here with us.” Marc put
his hand over her mouth before she could tell them the dinner tonight was going
to be beef bourguignon. “She’ll behave if you stay.”

Corrine smiled at him, and she looked at
George, who nodded. “We’ll stay. And let you build us a house, but we all know
that she won’t behave. We wouldn’t have it any other way. She’s just too rotten
to even try.”

Jonny wasn’t sure if she had just been
insulted or not, but let it go. They were staying and that was the end of it.
She didn’t even have to ask her parents to get involved. They were having too
much fun buying things for their new house with the check they’d received.

It had been more than she’d ever thought
it would be, nearly eight million dollars. When she’d asked Marc about it, he’d
told her that the government gave them a percentage of what Roy and the others
had cost them over the years.  And the reward for any information on the
capture and conviction of Anthony Kidd had been five million alone. She’d
looked it up. That part had been right, but she never could find anything on
the other part.

She looked up when Khan sat next to her.
“You did that well. I owe you. I would have just demanded and yelled.”

“You always yell and demand. You rarely
get things to be the way you want them, but you still do it. The only person
you don’t yell at is Monica. I think you’re afraid of her.” Khan looked around
and saw Monica wasn’t in the room and told her he was, a little. “Good. She’s a
little meaner than you are in a sneaky sort of nice person sort of way.”

She looked at Marc, who winked at her.
She’d told him that she was going to pledge to Khan today, but was a little
nervous about it. Marc had told her what he’d be able to do for her, and she
thought that him finding her at any cost and being able to bring her cat and
stuff was okay, but she didn’t want him to have access to her noodle. There had
been enough probing around in her head. She looked at the doorway just as
Walker came in, and when he nodded, she looked at Khan.

“Show time. You ready?” He nodded and
took a deep breath. She knew he wasn’t thrilled about his part. He was sort of
the catalyst to the whole thing to making it work. She watched him as he
struggled to do his job.

When he wrapped his arm around her, she
smiled at him. She didn’t even have to look at Marc to know that he was coming
toward them. As was Jack. They both stood before them about the same time, and
then Jack reached up and wrapped her arms around Marc in a sort of attempt to
stop him from hurting Khan. Oh boy, the fun was beginning.

“Let him go.” She stood just as Khan
did. “I said to let my mate go. If you don’t back off now, it’s within my
rights to kill you.”

George started toward them, worry on his
face. Corrine stepped out of the room. Her part was to come later. When Jack
slapped her, Jonny lunged, and it was a free for all.

~~~

Khan had tried his best to hold his own
with the two women. They were having fun, too much as far as he was concerned. He
stood on the deck and watched the two of them go at each other. His dad and
Marc stood to his right, Dylan to his left.

“Aren’t you going to do something? One
of them is going to get killed. Then what the hell are you going to do?” Khan
looked at his dad. “Do something, you’re the leader.”

“Neither of them have pledged to me. I can’t
do anything, their mates have to. Besides, this is sort of your fault. You’ve
been telling Jonny for weeks that she would have to kill anyone who touched her
mate. If one of them is killed, it’s your fault.”

“Good God, I was kidding with her. She
certainly didn’t take me seriously, did she?” Khan nodded to the women in the
yard still snapping and fighting each other. “Oh my. What have I done?”

Dylan leapt over the railing as soon as
Jonny drew blood from Jack. It wasn’t really anything more than a tiny baggy of
blood that Walker had taken from her that morning. No one was really going to
get hurt doing this, but the scent stirred his blood as well. As soon as Dylan
had grabbed Jonny, Marc shifted and jumped into the fray. They were moving so
quickly it was hard to tell who was who, other than the males were bigger than
the females, and Jack and Jonny were fighting better.

Dylan lunged at Marc just as he nipped
at Jack. Khan was pretty sure that Jack could have handled him on her own, but
that wasn’t the plan. The whole thing was going just as she’d planned right
down to his mom coming out and telling someone to stop it. Then he watched in
pretend horror as Jonny bit at Jack’s throat and tore it away.  While she lay
there “dying,” Dylan knocked Marc down and “snapped” his neck.

Khan glanced to the garage where Reed
was doing the sound effects and winced. That had been as loud as a fucking gun
going off, and he saw that the limb that he’d used for the bones breaking were
huge. The kid never did a damned thing in moderation. His dad sat down hard on
the step as Dylan and Jonny stood over their victims.

Walker came out of the house and ran to
them. He had his bag with him, and Caitlynne was right behind him. The two of
them looked up on the deck and shook their heads.

Khan looked at his dad when he started
to clap his hands. He looked at Jonny, then back at him. His dad started
laughing and was soon leaning back on the stairs to catch his breath. Marc and
Jack sat up, knowing the gig was up.

“You didn’t really expect me to believe
this, did you?” Khan looked at his mom, who shook her head. “No, no she didn’t
tell me. I figured it out on my own. I knew the moment that you stayed up here
on the deck that it wasn’t real. You should have helped them, your brothers at
least, and I know for a fact that Jack pledged to you last month. I may be old,
son, but I’m not stupid.”

“You prick.” Khan looked at Jonny as she
came toward them, pulling her shirt over her nudity. “You mean old prick. You
knew and you let this go on. Jack fucking bit me.”

“Of course she did. You guys did an
outstanding job. It was Khan’s fault all around. He should have helped, and he
didn’t. He would have, too, but…. Damn, girl, this was a hell of a payback. But
you knew I was just funning with you, right?”

Jonny walked by them and into the house.
Marc followed her and mumbled “thanks, Dad” as he walked by them. His dad
looked up at him, looking confused. So was Khan. He thought she would have it
out with him. They both looked up at Monica when she came out of the house.

“They’re leaving. They said to tell
everyone goodnight.” His dad stood up and looked at Monica when she started
talking to him. “Jonny said if you needed anything to let her know. She said
she was going to start working Monday and would speak to you about something
then.”

“What the hell do you mean they’re leaving?
We were having fun. You go and get them right now and tell that little girl to
get back out here.” Monica shook her head and looked to the drive when the
crunch of gravel sounded. “They really left?”

“Yes. What did you expect, you old fool?
That poor girl didn’t know anything about us or even her own kind, and you go
and stir up trouble for her. Then she tries to come up with this elaborate,
beautiful plan, and you mess it up for her. Couldn’t you have acted the least
bit impressed?” Khan’s mom smacked his dad on the shoulder. “And now look what
you’ve done. They’re gone and pissed at you again.”

“But she seemed to be fine with it.” His
dad looked at Khan. “You knew I was just kidding. I kid around with everyone.
It’s what I do.”

“Well, you’d better fix this or so help
me I will.” His mom poked his dad in the chest. “And trust me, you won’t like
the way I fix this.”

“I’ll call her right now. I’ll fix this.
I might have gone a little too far with her, her being a novice and all. But
she did a fine job on getting you all to work together. Fine job.” He pulled
out his cell phone and began to search for her name. “She’s the best thing for
Marc. Who would have thought he’d fall so hard for a lovely girl like her? Not
that I didn’t think he would, it’s just that I thought his heart was closed and
she just went right in and opened it right up. I don’t seem to have her number.
Can I have it?”

“Got you.” They all turned to look at
Jonny, who was standing behind his dad. “See, you do like me.”

His dad grabbed her then. Dropping his
cell phone, he pulled her into his arms and held her. Jonny was so stunned
looking that Khan nearly laughed. His dad told her he was sorry, and that he
didn’t just like her, he loved her. Khan then reached for his mom. She leaned
her head on his shoulder and smiled up at him.

“I helped her with this part. Just in
case the other didn’t go as planned.” Khan kissed his mom on the forehead.
“She’s a wonder, isn’t she? I wanted to smack her earlier, but she’s right. We
should have known we couldn’t live there forever.”

“She seems to be good for all of us.” He
looked toward his other two brothers, who stood alone. “Do you think that their
mates will be just as stubborn as ours are, or do you think they’ll be more
timid? I don’t know if I can take another strong female in this family.”

“I think that Reed’s mate will take him
out of his shell and bring him away from his computers and back into our lives.
Not that he’s not here, but he does have his head buried into some sort of
electrical equipment all the time.” Khan nodded.

“And Sebastian? What do you foresee in
his life? A female to bring him out of his computers too? Though he’s not as
bad as Reed, he does tend to zone out when something electronic is brought to
his attention.”

They watched Sebastian hug Caitlynne
when she made a comment about his shirt. It was as loud as Reed’s snap had been
with colors, enough to make a crayon company jealous. And where did he even get
those shirts anyway? It seemed that every time he saw him he had on one that
was brighter and uglier. And the last time he’d had on a suit, the shirt and
tie had clashed so badly that Khan had begged him to take the tie off even
though they’d been at a formal function.

“No, Sebastian’s mate will be someone that
won’t be easily swayed by him, I think. She’ll have to be strong because of his
quiet reserve, Sebastian is a strong man and stronger in his ways. I think his
mate will be someone that he will cherish, but she won’t have it. He’s the most
romantic son I have, and she will probably hate it…for a time anyway.”