Scarred (28 page)

And boy did I want to be.

Knowing that I was lying to him hurt me more than I could have imagined. Seeing him put up that hard exterior we'd worked so long to break down hurt even more. I watched as our relationship took a giant leap backwards, and I felt helpless to stop it. I knew that he'd all but told me that the rules no longer applied to me just the night before, but I couldn't risk it. Telling him was endangering him, simple as that.

Ares was looking for even the slightest fuck-up to take us both out. I wasn't going to hand it to him on a silver platter. Scarlet and I were going to have a serious heart-to-heart about Matty. Maybe if we could take care of the situation discreetly, Sean would never even have to know about it. My stomach knotted at the thought.

I went to say something comforting to Sean, but he put his phone up to his ear as my words started to come out.

“Yeah? Sounds good...you did? Oh...okay. Just lay low―I'll be down ASAP,” Sean said, his expression going from pleased to concerned lightning fast. “You need to play this off right. If somebody catches on, it won't be good.” He hung up and turned his forest green stare to me. “I'm headed back down to Langley. McGurney got into the file. He's freaking out. He thinks someone is tailing him now. I've got to go neutralize this shit,
now
.”

I didn't bother to ask for clarification. Whenever Sean started swearing, it wasn't good.

“Go find Cooper. Deal with that situation, then find your phone,” he said, sounding more like my boss than my boyfriend. “I need to be able to get a hold of you.”

“Okay,” I whispered. “Be careful, Sean.
Please
.”

“I'd tell you the same, but I doubt you'd listen.” There was a sting to his words, but he crushed me to him, hugging me tightly. He released me enough to plant a hard, desperate kiss on my mouth before pulling quickly away and heading down the street.

“Do you want me to drive you home?” I called after him.

“No,” he said flatly, throwing me the car keys. “Go home. Talk to Cooper.”

He was angry; that was abundantly clear. He knew I was lying about something, but my concern was just how much truth did he know behind my lies. Had one of his boys already found my phone? Did he know Matty Changed? Did he have someone following me, filling him in? Just how much info did he have at his disposal when he interrogated me?

I let out a deep breath as I walked around to the driver's side of the TT. I couldn't patch things up with Sean at that moment, so I decided to go for fixing things with Cooper,
if
he would even talk to me. He was gonna be pissed for sure.

On the drive home, it dawned on me that,in all that had happened, Scarlet seemed to be alarmingly missing in action. She loved being the peanut gallery,
especially
when Sean threw a little 'tude around. She always had something to say when it involved him. Cooper was a close second, so I was amazed that the tension with one and the promise of a fight with the other had done nothing to rouse her.

Given that I'd been basically naked when I woke up at Matty's, and given her clearly satiated full moon sex status, I'd have been a fool to not know what happened between them. What I didn't understand was why she, like Matty, appeared to be in a post-coital coma. As much as I loathed the idea, I was going to have to ask Cooper. The thought made my skin crawl the whole way home.

* * *

“Don't you understand that when somebody yells fire you should run
out
of the building, not
into
it?” Cooper yelled, still squeezing me to death in his arms. “I swear you have no survival instincts whatsoever. What the
fuck
were you thinking?”

“Well, he called and—”

“That was a rhetorical question, Ruby. It's obvious that you
weren't
thinking,” he said, his hands on my shoulders pushing me away to arm’s length. “The Change is dangerous. Lots of people die in the process. Those who make it tend to cause a whole lotta damage in the process.”

“Thanks,” I said sarcastically. “It would have been
awesome
to know that before now.”

“I told you it was dangerous!”

“Right, but you never told me the
why
behind it,” I argued. “Then you get mad at me for not making better decisions. I'd like to make them based on the facts, not just on your two-bit summary,” I spat, frustrated with the situation. “You say I'm the worst werewolf ever because I know nothing about my kind, yet you are the one who's most guilty of not telling me anything about it. How is that fair, Coop?”

He pressed his lips together tightly then sighed. “It's not,” he said curtly.

I was prepared to fight with him, so his answer had me totally discombobulated.

“Wait...it isn't?” I asked, searching his face.

“You're right,” he replied, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “I can't have it both ways. You want to know stuff, so from now on I'm going to tell you, good, bad, or otherwise.”

“Thank you,” I said softly.

“Oh, don't thank me yet,” he scoffed. “You haven't heard anything. You may be sorry you ever asked.”

“Well, I don't need to know about Changing anymore. Got to see that one up close and personal, and it was
not
pretty,” I said jokingly. He cringed in response to my jest, and I wanted to hit myself for being so insensitive. Cooper had Changed not so very long ago. He himself had gone through what I'd just witnessed, having been infected as well. The pain was obviously still fresh in his mind. “I'm sorry, Coop. It must have been awful for you.”

“It was. I try not to dwell on it much, though. It's over now,” he said solemnly.

I walked over to him and took his hand.

“What happened to you, Cooper? How did you end up like this?”

“I guess it's time I told you. You really should know,” he said, leading me over to the couch. “I was selected,” he said, falling back onto the sofa. “Gregory hand-picked me to be in his pack.”

“Is that normal? For someone to be '
selected
'?”

“No, but there was nothing normal about Gregory.”

“Fair enough,” I said, trying to smooth down the hairs that were standing up at the mention of his name.

“His pack was powerful, as you well know, but they weren't an inconspicuous group,” he said, his eyes softening slightly. “But I guess you know that too. He wanted someone who was a little more
All-American
to send out into the general public.”

“But why did he need that? The compound was virtually self-sufficient.”

“I've told you before that he used me for bait.”

“Right, but for what?” I asked, thinking that he may have been right about me not really wanting to know.

“
Women
,” he said, expressionless. “He wanted females for the pack. They tend to not survive the Change well, even if they're genetic werewolves, so he wanted to increase the odds by having me bring back the prettiest and strongest I could find.”

“But if those women went missing, didn't anyone take notice?”

“No, because I was smart enough to target runaways and transient professionals...anyone whose disappearance wouldn't really be noticed, or could have other plausible explanations, like a missing hiker being attacked by some wild animal.”

I could see how much he detested himself for what he'd done. His self-loathing coated my aura.

“Anyway,” he said, continuing on, “I'd find them and bring them back to the compound. Some I would infect; others Gregory would take himself. He exploited my looks and my easy way with the ladies. My whoring tendencies. If he liked what I brought him, he'd keep them around until they Changed, if not...”

“What?” I asked, pulse quickening. “What happened to them?”

“
Midnight snack
ring any bells?”

It did. And not pleasant ones. The sounds I'd heard coming from the kitchen that night in the compound while we were escaping were beyond traumatizing. I tried to block it out.

“I can see that it does,” he said, eying me. “So that's how I spent my werewolf days before you showed up. You changed everything for me.”

“You changed everything for me too,” I said taking his hand again and giving it a squeeze. “So Gregory was the one who made you?”

“No,” he said quickly. “He
never
Changed the males. He made one of his lackeys do it instead. Usually, it was the one with the long black hair, Bryan, who did it. Gregory didn't want to run the risk of making a male as strong as he was.”

“Well, I guess that would make sense. He was a tad bit paranoid,” I said sarcastically, trying once again not to think too much about him.

“No, he was smart and ruthless. He wasn't taking any unnecessary risks,” he said, holding up the back of his right hand for me to see. There was a tiny scar on the knuckle of his index finger. “Gregory didn't want me to be marred, so he told Bryan to make the bite small and inconspicuous. This is what he gave me.”

I ran my finger over the marking, gently. It was so small—so benign. It was hard to fathom that tiny little scar was the source of Cooper's demons.

“How long did it take?” I asked, still fingering the thickened tissue.

“Four months.”

“What?” I gasped. “How do you know that? How
could
you know that? It would have been healed so long before that; there would have been no way to figure out that the two incidents were related.”

“Yes. I could,” he said calmly.

“But
how
?”

“Because the wound doesn't heal until you Change, Ruby,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It remains red and raw until it’s complete. I'm pretty sure I'd notice a wound that wasn't healing over the course of four months,
especially
when it's on the back of my hand.”

“And you didn't think that was strange?”

“Of course I did, but I was on my own, without health insurance, so I let it be. It's not like I would have thought it had to do with something supernatural.”

“No, I guess you wouldn't,” I said, feeling foolish. “So, on the night of your Change?” I asked, coaxing him to continue the story.

“Bryan came for me. They'd been watching me for all those months on the full moon to see if I was Marked. When it was clear that I was, he brought me to the compound to complete my transformation there,” he said, looking away from me. “It was excruciating. I
begged
them to kill me.”

I thought of Scarlet's offer to kill Matty again and realized that maybe it was far more merciful than I had imagined at the time.

“When it was over,” he continued, looking at me this time, “I killed everyone in the room with me.”

“
What
...?” I whispered, my hand covering my mouth.

“I have no recollection of it, but afterward I saw the room—the bodies. I was filled in on the details later. Gregory was so pleased; he actually smiled the entire time. Sick fucker.”

“That's why you were so worried.”

“Yes. I've witnessed many other Changes, Ruby, from a safe vantage point, of course. The ones that made it through all have similar stories to tell,” he said quietly. “You should be dead right now.”

21

Once the wave of nausea passed, I found myself at a loss for words, however briefly. A deluge of them soon followed.

“Holy hell, Cooper! You didn't think that might have been pressing information to share with me?”

“I thought you'd gotten the message to stay away!”

“And you were willing to bet my
life
on it?” I screamed. “You call me thick all the time, Coop. You know I follow instructions like a two-year-old on a bad day. What. The.
Fuck
?”

“I'm sorry—”

“I'm
sorry
? You do realize that you could be standing over my coffin saying that, right?”

“I fucked up!” he yelled, springing up from the couch.

“Yeah, you did,” I spat, getting in his face. “To say the least.”

“Listen, you're alive. That's what matters right now. When you hung up on me, I went postal. I had to protect you...keep you safe—”

“Information like ‘he's likely to kill you’ would have kept me safe, Cooper.”

“Don't you think I know that now? You have no idea the lengths I went to to try and get to you,” he growled, breathing down my face. “I stole a fucking car, Ruby. Smashed the window out right in the middle of the goddamn street! I drove like a maniac down to Boston, like I had any idea where I was going. Hell, I called Alan to try and see if he could find Matty's address for me.” He stalked away from me, pulling at his hair viciously. “I couldn't get to you...”

“I'm okay, Coop,” I whispered, realizing that he'd had a scary night too. I lowered my gaze and leaned in closer to him.

“I spent all morning cleaning up...” His words trailed off when his voice started to fail him.