Page 14

Chapter

Fourteen

The security office door opened hard enough to slam against the wall. Adam stood in the doorway, his eyes flashing amber.

Brick immediately knew something was wrong.

“I was just coming to find you,” Brick said. “We’ve got a problem.”

“I know. I was coming to talk to you about it.”

“Wait, what problem are you talking about?” Brick asked.

“The male Holloway arranged to mate with Jade just called me and demanded a meeting.”

“What?” Brick nearly roared the word.

“He’s outside town. He’s waiting for me to bring her to him.”

Everything inside Brick went dark and cold. “How did he find her?”

“I don’t know, but we’ll get to the bottom of it.

” He gave Brick a long look and said, “He’s following protocol.

He didn’t come into our territory; he reached out, alpha to alpha, to right what he perceives as a wrong.

She was promised to him in an arranged mating, and he and Holloway are apparently both such enormous jackasses that they don’t believe females have the right to decide their futures.

As far as this Dane fellow is concerned, Jade belongs to him. ”

Brick snarled. “The fuck she does.”

“Hey, direct those fangs elsewhere, bro,” Adam said.

Brick hadn’t even realized his fangs elongated so quickly. Inhaling deeply, he rolled his shoulders and waited for his fangs to recede. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay to be pissed. But we have to be smart. We can’t risk the pack’s safety by refusing to meet with him. Jade is under the protection of the pack, and she’s not going to be leaving with anyone. But she does have to go with us and we do have to meet with him.”

He looked past his cousin toward the house. “We’re not fully mated yet.”

“I have a feeling this guy is enough of a dickwad to not care one way or the other. But we still need to deal with it according to pack protocol. I’ll make the arrangements to meet with him in an hour. You gather a security team and include Alli. She’s intimidating with a sword.”

“Will do. I… need to see Jade first.”

“Yeah, of course. We’ll meet in the kitchen in ten.”

Adam left and Brick turned to face Solan and Stewart, who were manning the video cameras. Solan nodded. “You don’t even have to ask. I’m there with you. Who else do you want on the team?”

“Leo, Dove, Linus. Maybe Joey? Stewart, can you call up team members to replace those of us who’ll be going?”

“You got it. Good luck.” He turned away and lifted his phone from the desk.

“Thanks. Both of you.”

“I’ll meet you at the house after I round up the others,” Solan said.

Brick rushed from the security office. Jade met him at the kitchen door, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Nothing, baby,” he said, hugging her tightly. “I promise I’ll keep you safe.”

“Can’t I just hide? Do I have to see him in person? What if he tries to hurt you to get to me?”

“He could come into the pack and hurt innocents trying to get to you. Adam’s right, we have to do this according to pack protocols.” He smoothed the hair from her face and kissed her gently on the forehead. “It’ll be okay. No one is going to take you from me.”

“We’re not mated yet.”

“You’re still mine and I’m still yours. We’re not going to rush into mating each other because he wants to show up and flex his muscles.

And he seems like the kind of male who wouldn’t care if we were mated fully or not.

He believes you’re property to be traded, not a person.

You can’t reason with those kinds of people. ”

“Fucker,” Alli said. She cracked her knuckles. “Please let me come along and bust heads if we need to.”

“Yes, please,” Brick said. “Do you have your sword handy?”

“You know it. It’s in the trunk of my car.”

Ten minutes later, the team of wolves going to the meet up were in Adam’s office along with Jade and Alli, who’d already fitted herself with a sheath for her sword that would allow her to keep it safely tucked against her back.

“Dane Malrick is the alpha of a small pack in North Dakota. He’s cousins with Alpha Holloway, who is Jade’s former alpha.

Holloway arranged a mating between Dane and Jade, but she was able to escape her pack before that came to fruition.

I’ve done some research, and while there’s not a lot on him or his pack, I found some articles about territory battles and humans getting caught in the crossfire.

Malrick doesn’t seem to care if people get hurt so long as he gets what he wants.

Half his pack came from him taking over another pack and killing the high ranked males and their families.

He’s dangerous, and while he’s agreed to meet in a neutral place, he definitely believes that I’ll be handing over Jade to him. ”

Jade shivered next to Brick and he took her hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Did he say how he knew where she was?” Brick asked.

Adam nodded. “I asked how he figured out she was here and he said that Holloway took a pack female’s computer and discovered she’d bought a bus ticket to Northern Ohio. There’s only our pack here, so it made sense that Jade would have come to another pack and asked for sanctuary.”

“Did he say if Evelyn is okay?” Jade asked.

“He didn’t, I’m sorry.”

Adam rose from behind the desk. “We’re meeting him in about forty-five minutes in the parking lot of a closed drive-in movie theater in Millbourne.

I’ll make it clear that Jade is under my protection and that she’s free to make her own choices about who she mates.

Jade, you’ll very clearly state that you and Brick are mates and you don’t want to be with Malrick. ”

The room was quiet in the moments that followed.

Alli cleared her throat. “Why does it sound like that may not be the end of it?”

“Because there’s no way to know how he’ll handle it,” Adam said.

“If he was willing to walk away from this arranged mating, he wouldn’t have come here.

I asked him why he sent people into our territory today to spy, and he said he didn’t know what I was talking about, that his people had staked out the major roads around our town but had not entered the territory even once.

I believe him, which means the binocular cover you found had to have come from someone Foley sent. ”

That was just what the pack needed, two damn problems.

“First things first,” Adam said. “We’ll deal with Malrick, and if he doesn’t want to take no for an answer, then we’ll make sure he does with fang and claw. Alli, Brick is going to trust you to have Jade’s back so he can fight if he needs to.”

“You got it,” she said.

“Good. Then let’s get on the way.”

Brick and Jade sat in the office when everyone else had filed out. She leaned into him, trembling. “What’s going to happen?” she whispered.

“The only thing I know for sure is that I’m going to be bringing you back here, okay?

” He pushed her gently away from him so he could look at her.

He wanted her to see the truth in his eyes.

“Jade, I’m crazy about you. It’s only been a couple of days, but I feel like I’ve known you forever.

If this Malrick guy thinks he can come and take you from me, he’s gravely mistaken.

I won’t let that happen. Trust me to keep you safe. ”

She gripped his wrists as tears slipped down her cheeks.

“I do trust you. I’m crazy about you, too, but I’m also crazy scared.”

“Fear is a good thing. It’s your body telling you to be ready for anything. But you can still trust me to keep you safe. And Alli with her sword.”

“She’s turning out to be a great person to have in my corner.”

“Definitely.” He kissed her once and then a second time, his wolf humming at the contact. “Let’s get this show on the road and get back home. The sooner the better.”

She nodded and they rose to their feet together and joined the others to head to Millbourne and face her demons head on.

He was determined to prove he could keep her safe because failure was not an option.

He was not about to lose the most important person in his life, and whatever he had to do to keep her by his side? He was damn well going to do it.

Brick scanned the oddly eerie surroundings of the abandoned drive-in movie theater. The town itself seemed deserted, not to mention the utter desolation of the drive-in, with weeds growing through the cracked asphalt and two huge rusting movie screens looming behind them.

The atmosphere was tense, the summer heat heavy in the air, and Brick couldn’t help but think it was a weird place for a meet up with a pack that clearly had violent intentions.

It seemed to scream “trap,” just the sort of place a lunatic who thought he could order someone to be his mate by force would choose for a meet and greet.

Jade was shaking so badly that she was visibly trembling, so while he kept a vigilant eye on their surroundings, he held her close. Alli was next to them, sword in a sheath at her back and her whole vibe one of don’t-fuck-with-me.

They’d brought eight with them, including Alpha Adam and Solan.

A line of vehicles arrived through the only road into the drive-in.

They parked away from their group, leaving a wide stretch of the parking lot between them.

A dozen males got out of the vehicles, and the one in the lead was clearly the alpha.

He looked so arrogant and entitled that Brick wanted to give him a good punch in the face on principle.

Dane stopped in the center of the distance between their vehicles and Adam walked up to him, with Leo and Solan flanking him.

“I’ve come for the female,” Dane said, crossing his arms.

Adam let out a low growl and then motioned behind him. Brick brought Jade forward with Alli trailing close behind, a smirk on her face that just dared someone to mess with her friend.

“You’ve had your fun,” Dane said. “It’s time to do what your alpha has ordered. You’ve been given to me in exchange for an alliance between our packs.”

Jade inhaled sharply but didn’t say anything.