Seven Years (24 page)

My heart did a flutter, and I tore open the seal and pulled out the card.

Nashoba,

I could give you a garden and it would pale next to your beauty.

So let me give you the world.

Lorenzo

“Holy shit,” I murmured.

No one had ever given me anything like this before, and then the note? Once the shock dissipated and I sat down, I realized that as beautiful as they were, the gift didn’t floor me like it should have. Lorenzo didn’t know a damn thing about me if he thought he could woo me with flowers. The note was the only thing that earned him brownie points, because you had to respect a man with a poetic heart.

Last year on my birthday, I drove with Maizy out to a diamond mine. They plowed up the dirt every so often, and you could rent a shovel and other supplies and dig in the dirt looking for treasure.

Supposedly, small diamonds were found all the time. The only thing we found were a few rocks that we brought home as souvenirs. It was the best time, and I packed a picnic lunch on the way home after picking up a few things at a local supermarket. Maizy had wanted to give me a diamond for my birthday and was upset. I reminded her that expensive things didn’t make people happy, thoughtfulness did. And
she
was my diamond because I’d gotten to spend my entire birthday with her.

Still, the flowers
were
beautiful, and I wasn’t about to be ungrateful for such an extravagant gift. I wondered how he managed to bypass the camera outside, but Lorenzo seemed like the kind of guy who could get away with anything. Probably had the flower delivery guy talk the landlord into letting him in.

I admired the delicate petals for a few minutes before changing clothes and pulling out the phonebook for a listing of hospitals. I made a few calls, but due to certain laws, I couldn’t obtain any information since we weren’t related. I collapsed on the sofa and nodded off for a few hours.

After I woke up, I tried calling a few more places. They would have admitted Charlie by now, so perhaps they’d moved him to another facility. His sister was from Ohio, but I had no idea if they shared the same last name. I had searched on the Internet but came up with too many listings. Without knowing her first name, it would have been a waste of time.

A light knock tapped on the door and it swung open. “How many times have I told you to lock your—” Naya gasped. “Honey! Who are the gorgeous flowers from?”

She practically squealed, running in short steps across my living room to the table. Naya had just gotten off work and hadn’t taken off her impossibly high gold shoes.

“Someone adores you enough to send you all these? Oh, you need to marry him right this minute,” she went on, burying her nose in a bouquet. After circling around the table to admire each one individually, she finally stood back and soaked it all in.

“I’m quite sure I’m not going to marry a man over a silly display of peacockery,” I added.

“Pea-whatery?”

A grin slid up my cheek. “When guys think they can show you all their fancy feathers and you’ll just fall at their feet.”

“So he’s thoughtful
and
rich?” She looked skeptical that I could reject the two things at the top of her checklist for the holy grail of a perfect man.

“He’s got money.”

Her eyes brightened. “How much money? I call dibs if you throw this one away, but don’t you dare or I’ll tie your shoelaces together and hang you from the nearest telephone wire.”

She lifted the card and I tried to grab it from her.

“Lorenzo. Is he Spanish? I love Spanish men.”

“You love
all
men.”

“Italian?” she asked hopefully.

“No, I think he’s Native American.”

***

It didn’t sit well with Austin when Lexi went home alone. While there were still surveillance cameras, he couldn’t get to her quick enough if something happened, and they weren’t watching her twenty-four hours a day. Worry nestled in his head like a seed and began to take root until he finally told the boys he was heading out there for the night. He didn’t plan on going up to her apartment, just sleeping in his car and keeping an eye on things.

During the drive, he thought about her situation at the store and located another candy shop in town. He talked with the owner about cost-related factors and inventory. Then he noticed an enormous display of suckers. They were Lexi’s favorite—round and colorful with an assortment of flavors from watermelon to gourmet coffee. A mischievous grin surfaced because Wes had once revealed how he bribed his baby sister.

Her birthday was tomorrow and Austin had been thinking about getting her something special. He never bought birthday gifts for anyone; it’s not something the Cole brothers did. But Lexi always loved her birthdays and he wanted to do something special to make up for lost time.

“Do you make arrangements?” Austin inquired. “I mean, can you take some of these and make it look like… hell, I don’t know. Something girly?”

“Certainly,” the man replied with confidence. “I have several containers in the back with foam, unless you want them tied in small bundles. I can do lots of creative things with these—you’d be surprised.

“What about a bouquet?”

“I designed one for a wedding two years ago, believe it or not,” he admitted with a chuckle. “Let me know what you want, or how many, and I’ll put something together.”

He sure did.

When Austin arrived at Lexi’s apartment, he was beaming with pride. He couldn’t wait to see the look on her face when he gave them to her, not just because of the way they were arranged, but no one would have thought to get her something like this.

Austin walked quietly up Lexi’s stairs with the heavy bouquet in his right hand. The man had done an excellent job, somehow attaching them to a ball in the center so that they stayed in place and gave it a handle that he could hold on to. It looked just as good as any flowers, and a delicate white ribbon wrapped around the bottom. The man urged him to fill out a card, but Austin found out he had more to say than what would fit on a small note card. He ended up writing his message on a sheet of paper that was folded up and burning a hole in his back pocket.

“Lexi, these are just the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen!” he heard a woman exclaim through the cracked door.

Austin eased up at the entrance, holding the bouquet behind his back. He peered in and his jaw slackened when he saw the obscene amount of roses all over her table. The woman in the tall shoes he recognized as her neighbor.

“Lorenzo,” Naya said, holding a card. “Is he Spanish? I love Spanish men.”

“You love all men.”

“Italian?”

“No, I think he’s Native American,” Lexi replied with her back to the door. She touched one of the flowers. “They are pretty, aren’t they?”

“Pretty penny,” Naya agreed. “And the note! Totally swoon-worthy. I can’t imagine a man topping an offer like this, Lexi. You should take it. If he’s good-looking, then that’s just icing on the cake, but you already have my approval,” she declared, placing her hands on her hips and jutting them out.

Lexi shouldered her and they both admired the roses. Austin’s nose filled with the smell of defeat and he stepped back.

One of the suckers clacked on the concrete beneath him and Naya said, “What was that?”

“You left the door open,” Lexi chastised. “Always lecturing me about locking up and you get all swept up by flowers and lose your mind.” They giggled and Austin quickly backed away, hurrying down the stairs.

His chest actually hurt. Like someone had a grip on his heart and was strangling the breath from his lungs. It felt like the walk of shame across that lawn as he heard the door shut behind him. Austin squeezed the handle to the bouquet even tighter and wanted to throw it, but it would have scattered a hundred suckers across the lawn, leaving evidence he had been there.

Instead, he tossed the cheap bouquet in the passenger seat and moved his Dodge Challenger into a less obvious parking space. As he watched Naya leave her apartment, Austin glanced at the candy beside him and then back at her window. The lights eventually dimmed and he rolled down the car window, wishing he had a shot of something strong.

It was a stupid idea to give her cheap candy. They weren’t kids anymore and she would have been insulted.

Lexi deserved to be taken care of. There was no rule that she had to be mated to the Packmaster or anyone else in a pack in order to be part of the family. It didn’t stop how fiercely protective he felt of her. How when another man’s eyes roamed across her body, Austin wanted to rip them from the guy’s sockets. Lexi wasn’t abrasive like many of the female Shifters, and that made her vulnerable. Growing up in a pack (and within the Shifter culture), a woman learned how to talk to men and get what she wanted. Ivy was an exception with her shyness, but he could sense a tough girl beneath her quiet exterior.

His father had warned him that a pack without balance turns on itself, and women provide the harmony necessary for a family to sustain itself over the years. Austin hadn’t been raised in a pack environment. His parents had forbidden them from going rogue, and the only way to leave the family unit was to join a pack or become a bounty hunter. Too many bad things happened to rogue Shifters. When Austin stepped up in his alpha role, his parents made the decision to move on. It wasn’t ideal for parents to be under the leadership of one of their children.

The idea of having Lexi’s family living with them, even if they weren’t Shifters, was appealing. Someone also needed to protect that little girl, and he didn’t have a good feeling about leaving her and her mother alone. Bringing them into the pack was exactly what his men needed to shape up.

Damn Lorenzo
. Even early on, he was always a man who did anything it took to get what he wanted. Now that he was advancing on Lexi, Austin was feeling more possessive and territorial.

He turned off his radio since the noise was distracting. The CD player was a nice addition to the car. The guy who sold it to him had a gift and could have converted a car into an airplane if you gave him enough money. He’d installed a CD player along with new speakers and did a little work restoring the body to maintain the vintage appeal.

Austin slid down in his seat when Lexi emerged from her apartment and noticed a piece of candy on her doormat. She glanced around before hurrying down the sidewalk that led to the mailboxes. While she checked her mail, Austin leaned down to read his text messages, not wanting the light from the phone to draw any attention to his car. He sent one to Reno to make sure they had everything under control at the house with Lynn. After several minutes, he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

A few fireflies lit up and Lexi paused on the way back, scooping her hand in the air to catch one. He laughed quietly, eyes sliding down to her hips as she jumped in the air and the bottom of her shirt came up just enough that he could see her belly button.

Then he shifted in his seat, because the thoughts racing in his head were sending blood to all the wrong places. He needed to stop thinking about her in a sexual way.

That’s when he glanced to the right and saw something out of place. An expensive Jaguar blocked the fire hydrant—a car that had no business in this thirty-year-old complex. The driver appeared to be sleeping, and knowing a Mage was hunting her father, Austin launched himself out of the car to confront him.

After Naya left, I went to check my mail and found a lollipop outside my door
. She wasn’t into eating candy, so it was an odd thing to find. I shrugged it off, but on the walk back to my apartment, I stepped on something hard and bent down to pick up another one. It was my favorite brand, and I looked around in bewilderment without knowing what I was really looking
for
.

Candy Claus? Sent to deliver all the good Shifters a bucket full of sweets in the middle of summer?

I laughed and swung open my door, stepping into the living room. My bedroom light cast a dim glow in the apartment and the smell of flowers filled my nose. When I turned the first lock, a shadow moved behind me. My heart did a flip-flop and I got that prickling sensation you get when you’re not alone.

“I missed you,” Beckett said, wrapping his arms tightly around my body from behind.

I squirmed, trying to break free, but his pythons were constricting. He loosened them just enough so I could turn to face him.

“You’re drunk,” I accused, smelling it all over his breath and seeing the glazed look in his bloodshot eyes. Not to mention his eyes were bruised; someone had finally given him a dose of his own medicine.

“Like what your boyfriend did to me? See what kind of man you got? What the fuck are
those
?” Without removing his eyes from mine, he pointed his heavy arm at the roses.

My mouth wasn’t working and all I could do was open it and shake my head.

“You belong to
me
, Lex. Not some pussy fucking roses man,” he slurred. “You got flowers and I got eighteen stitches in the back of my head,” he spat angrily.

“Those flowers aren’t from him, Beckett. Please, go home and calm down. You’re worked up and I don’t want to fight.”

His slobbery mouth kissed my cheek and his broad chest pinned me against the door so I couldn’t move.

“You can’t tell me what I fucking need, because I need
you
. I’ll forgive your slutting around, but you tell that motherfucker you’re coming home with me,” he said against my cheek. “Pack up your shit; this game is over. I fucked
one
girl, big deal. I could have fucked a whole lot more if you want to know the truth. But you were always the one I wanted to come home to.”

My chest tightened and the heat made it difficult to breathe, as if I’d been running a marathon. Beckett had never behaved this way toward me and I was scared, but still unsure of his intentions. I thought I knew this man. He’d never once raised a hand to me or threatened my life if I left him. Those were the Lifetime movies I’d catch on the weekend and thank my lucky stars that I wasn’t with a psycho like that.

Beckett was barely lucid as his rough mouth moved across my jaw, whiskers scraping like sandpaper against my skin. His breath smelled of whiskey or something much stronger than the beers he usually preferred.

“Please,” I begged, pushing against his solid chest. “Just go home and sleep it off and I promise we’ll talk.”

But his lips began mashing against mine in another sloppy kiss and I turned my head again—my heart pounding wildly as he pressed even tighter against me.

“Stop,” I mumbled. I could feel my wolf pacing anxiously, but I shut her out because of fear.

Fear I would shift and lose control, and who knows what I’d do to him. My heart hammered against my chest so rapidly I could feel it in my throat.

“I can’t breathe, Beckett. Let’s not do this. We can sit down and talk it over,” I offered, trying to rationalize with him.

When he didn’t move, I got scared. Real scared. The kind of fear you only experience in moments when something is about to happen.

Something bad.

“You’re mine, Lex.
Mine
.” His hand slid up my shirt and gripped my side, short nails digging in deep.

“No, Beckett, stop!” I pushed against him and twisted the skin on his bicep.

His hand cupped the back of my neck and he stepped to the side. With brutal force, he threw me forward as hard as he could.

I flew across the dining table and shattered two vases, sending flowers and water all over the place.

“You like your flowers now, you
bitch
?”

A vase toppled onto the floor when I turned over. I was lying in a bed of soft rose petals and shards of glass, water soaking through the back of my shirt. Beckett yanked me by my hair and slammed my head against the table. Then he grabbed my ankles and tried to drag me to the floor. I kicked so wildly he stumbled backward when my foot struck him in the groin. I didn’t even think to scream; I was too busy fighting for my life.

I rolled off the table to run to the door when he swung me by the arm and I slammed against the corner of the wall. Pain sliced through my shoulder and I cried out.

The violence pouring out of him stunned me. Beckett seized my upper arms and shoved my back against the wall.

His voice broke when he kissed my cheek again. “You’re my girl, Lex. We go together. You put up with my shit, and I know we could have worked it out.”

Then he was crying against my face. Actual tears, and it made my legs tremble so fiercely that I came close to fainting.

Beckett had never once cried in my presence.

It wasn’t the kind of tears you shed for a love lost; it was a raw emotion I’d never seen in him before.

Ominous.

When his large hands wrapped around my throat and constricted my breathing, I suddenly knew why he was crying.

“
Can’t breathe, stop
,” I mouthed, trying to pull away and hit his arms. I was too weak—too dizzy. He squeezed harder and tightened his grip.

Then he let go and I gasped for sweet oxygen, falling to the floor.

“Why did you do this to us? We had a good thing and you go and date a piece of shit who gives you fucking roses! You think I couldn’t have given you roses? You never
wanted
me to buy you flowers!”

He scooped up a handful of stems from the floor and hurled them across the room. I coughed, still gasping for air, feeling like I might vomit. “No…
please
.”

An obtrusive noise filled my head, but I couldn’t be sure if it was my heart beating against my eardrums or something else.

Beckett fell over me and kissed my mouth so sweetly I almost didn’t realize his fingers were wrapped around my throat.

“You made me do this,” he whispered.

Something switched off in his eyes. The emotion evaporated, replaced by a vacant, soulless stare. I clawed at his face and the pounding at the door grew louder until I heard the crack of wood.

The last thing I saw was Austin Cole, standing in the doorway looking as handsome as ever. He’d never know how beautiful his eyes were to me—like glaciers on a cloudy day. His dark hair was wild and messed up, just the way I liked it.

But his expression was savage.

Bright flashes of light filled my vision and darkness closed in, but I knew the Grim Reaper would have nothing on the menace Austin carried in his pocket.

I let go of Beckett’s face and reached out to a beautiful black wolf with my trembling arms.

And then it went dark.

***

Austin approached the suspicious car in Lexi’s parking lot and confronted the sleeping man, ignoring his ringing phone. It was Reno’s ringtone—“Thunderstruck” by AC/DC.

That’s when he recognized one of Lorenzo’s men, probably sent to watch Lexi. Some fucking joke as the guy was asleep on the job. They got into a heated argument and Austin abruptly stepped back and looked around. Something felt off. The hairs on the back of his neck rose up and he looked toward Lexi’s apartment window.

Austin lifted his nose in the air—an alpha could pick up scents a regular wolf could not. It was nowhere near the capacity a Chitah had, but sometimes intense emotions bled into the air. Austin could taste the sting of adrenaline in the wind, blowing from the direction of her apartment.

The Shifter became a memory as Austin ran toward the stairwell. The closer he got, the more intense the feeling. Alarm ran up his spine and he leapt up three steps at a time.

That’s when he heard a man shouting from inside her apartment.

Naya peered out of her door with earbuds in her ears. “What’s going on?”

“Back inside!” he snapped, summoning all his alpha energy. Naya slammed the door and Austin turned the knob to Lexi’s apartment, but it was locked.

One singular word almost triggered him to shift involuntarily, but he had to maintain control of his wolf or he’d never get inside.

The word was “no.” Then he heard Lexi say another word that made his animal thirst for blood.

“Please
.”

He turned around and back-kicked the door twice, but it wasn’t enough. He almost rammed it in with his shoulder but gave it another solid kick instead.

The door crashed in and the first thing he saw was red petals strewn all over the beige carpet. Then everything in his peripheral became fuzzy when he spotted Lexi lying on her back with the human on top of her, his hands squeezing her slender throat.

The throat he once tenderly caressed with his knuckles on the night Wes died. Austin had wanted to kiss Lexi at least once in his lifetime before he left town. He had dropped by to pick up Wes and when he found out he wasn’t there, Lexi followed him out to his car. Maybe it was the way the warm evening wind picked up a lock of her soft brown hair, or the gentle way that she laughed when he pinched her side to make her smile. Austin knew he might never see her again. He cupped her face with his large hands and tasted her lips for the first time. She barely kissed him back, but there was something between them that felt so right. Years went by and no kiss compared.

“
You did this
,” Beckett growled, oblivious that Austin had broken into the room.

Austin erupted with fury and dove forward. A shadow of black fur streaked across the air and it was a vicious attack. He gave himself up completely to the nature of his wolf, relinquishing all control.

The human never stood a chance. Austin’s wolf savagely sank his sharp teeth into Beckett’s throat and ripped it out. Flesh peeled back and blood poured free.

It was over in seconds.

Austin shifted back to human form and immediately crawled naked to Lexi, checking for a pulse. He wiped the blood from his face and blew a few breaths into her mouth, just to make sure she was still breathing on her own. She was, thank Christ, and the coloring in her face slowly returned.

“Still alive,” he whispered, throwing on his clothes. Then he landed on his knees in front of her and cradled her head. “Lexi, I need you to shift,” he said insistently. “Can you hear me?”

She was barely conscious. Alphas could force a Shifter to change into their animal, but not so much the other way around as that would require cooperation from their human. Austin summoned the Breed magic within him and whispered in her ear, “
Shift
.”

In a flash, her wolf materialized.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, gritting his teeth. The pain in his chest was insurmountable. So much rage that he wanted to bring Beckett back from the dead just to kill him all over again. Choke the bastard and let him get a taste of his own wickedness.

Austin scooped the wolf up in his strong arms. Her breathing was labored, but the shifting had healed her to some degree. He hustled down the stairs to his car and carefully placed her in the back seat, leaving behind Beckett’s body in the destroyed apartment.

Lorenzo’s man spoke frantically on his cell, shouting a few curse words. After closing the car door, Austin fired off a growl that sent him hauling ass.

Austin barely remembered the drive home. A firestorm of emotions overwhelmed him, from shame to rage, and then complete and utter devotion to this woman. In that moment, he knew with absolute certainty he wanted to protect her for the rest of his life. Whether she decided to take a spot in his pack or as his mate, it didn’t matter. He was willing to die for her. If Lexi didn’t make it through this, Austin would never be able to forgive himself.

His stomach twisted into a nervous knot as the wind from the open windows created a vortex within the car.