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“Easy,” came Eiji’s deep, commanding voice, and she sagged into his embrace.
The man from the car tossed out an insult she ignored and jumped back into his car. Soon traffic moved forward, but Shae clung to Eiji with all her waning strength.
“You lied,” she muttered against his throat. “You said I had a choice.”
“We’ll talk about it when we get back to the house. Where are your shoes?”
“I don’t know.” Tired beyond reason, she couldn’t muster more than a sulky answer and slapped his hands away when he tried to carry her. She followed him to his Jeep, parked nearby, and climbed into the passenger seat. By the time they reached her rental, which took no more th
an a few minutes, she was nodding in and out of sleep.
Eiji touched her cheek, and she jerked away. His mouth tightened. “What happened tonight?”
She left the Jeep and walked up the steps to the door. He came behind her and wrapped an arm around her waist to lift her aside and then unlocked the door himself. A cold chill ran along Shae’s back, and she cast a glance into the street behind her, toward the bushes and in the shadows. Nothing stirred. The moon came out from behind some clouds to mock her. Where had its bright light been when she was alone on that canal road? Then again, the moon gave no comfort. The pale chunk of rock belonged to the wolves.
She stomped past Eiji in the entrance and went to the kitchen to find a drink. A glass with a splash of rum and pineapple juice and a few cubes of ice, and she found her backbone again. She slammed the glass on the counter and turned to Eiji just entering the room.
“Explain to me why I had to learn the hard way that Darryl can control me any damn time he’s good and ready. Why didn’t you warn me, and how can I fight it?”
He pierced her with those eyes, and she found herself wondering what he looked like shifted. “You can’t fight it. Right now, you belong to him.”
Chapter Eight
Eiji fought panic and rage. He smelled him all over Shae as if they’d lain together. She’d told him Darryl didn’t have sex with her the night he bit her, and Eiji knew it to be true. He would have picked up the scent without trouble. However, now she carried a bit of the man inside her. She would always reek of his enemy unless she mated, and he had spoken the truth. She belonged to Darryl.
“Oh hell to the no! I’m not having that.” She made herself another drink. He knew if he attempted to stop her, she would fight him, so he stood where he was. Her big brown eyes accused him, and that was enough to fuel his guilt. “You need to stop holding back, Eiji. Tell me everything, and don’t start spouting that crap about making me your mate, because it’s not going to happen.”
He hitched his shoulders and moved to make tea. “Tell me everything that happened tonight.”
“Isn’t it obvious from this getup?” She snatched at her dress with derision curling her full lips and then, in an impulsive move, drew the offending garment over her head and threw it on the floor. Eiji’s cock hardened with the first sight of her bare breasts and the scrap of material that was her panties. She didn’t seem to notice how she affected him or whether it was appropriate for her to strip there in the kitchen. American women.
“Did he hurt you?” he broached to get her talking again.
“He humiliated me.” And then she sniffed, fighting tears.
He threw the teakettle aside and shoved a chair from his path, overturning it. When he drew her into his arms, she came without a fuss, still struggling to remain strong. He carried her to the bedroom and held her tight to his chest. He wanted to go on holding her, but instead, he laid her down on the mattress and took a seat beside her. Shae gave him a look filled with hatred, and she climbed up the bed until she reached the headboard. She dragged a sheet and blanket with her and tucked them beneath her chin after she’d drawn her knees up to it.
“He had full control, and I didn’t realize it. I thought I got a crazy idea in my head to go out and have some fun. I selected my clothes, my shoes, even where to party. Something should have told me this was all strange since I never even knew that place existed.”
Eiji remained silent, allowing her to share her tale.
“I pushed up on him all night. I let him touch me as we danced. I would have gone further and done whatever he wanted, and now that I think about it, all his boys were laughing at me. The girls were jealous, maybe ’cause they wanted his low-life ass, but it was one of them that warned me about what was going on.”
“How did you get out?”
Her eyes widened as she stared at him. “Wait, because I shouldn’t have been able to? Is that what you’re saying?” Before he could answer, she went on. “One of the guys had to talk to him about something. That took his attention, and he was done with me for the moment.”
Eiji nodded. “To control another in his pack takes concentration of his power, and it does drain energy.”
“Power?” Shae repeated.
He hesitated. Eiji had known all of this could happen, but he never expected it to happen before she made her choice. He knew he’d had a few more days before she changed for the first time and Darryl would return for her. He had hoped to have that time to explain the reality she faced.
“The alpha of a wolf pack has the ability to control his people to a certain extent, to influence them, to strengthen them, and even to heal them.”
She gasped, and in her distraction, the sheets slipped. He couldn’t stop his gaze from lowering to her bare breasts. The dark area around her nipples called to him to trace it, to taste her skin. He had never lain with an African American woman before, but Shae had quickly become an addiction, one he found no reason to deny himself. That is, unless she mated with Darryl. He could not let that happen, even if he did tell her she had a choice.
“You’re telling me an alpha wolf can make people do whatever he wants? That’s…that’s…” Her chest rose and fell at a rapid pace, and her lips parted, her voice weak as if she had to force it to work.
