Page 18 of Scorned

Chapter Ten

Levi

“She doesn’t know,” I mumbled to myself as I left the door to the medical room slightly ajar.

The back wall, its panel of windows shattered, let the humid night air into the hallway, carrying with it the musky scent of the forest. My wolf essence itched to run, to leave these troubles behind. But I’d vowed to keep her safe, and I wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving her to my two buffoon brothers again.

“You found her,” Kane said, not as a question but as a fact. “No worse for wear I hope?”

“No thanks to you.” I turned toward him, glaring. “Or you!” I said to Johnny as he walked out of the den with a glass in hand. His other hand, I noticed, was wrapped in some of my medical linen.

“We knew you’d bring her back.” Kane motioned for me to follow him into the den but didn’t wait for my response, just turned his back and walked away.

Johnny lifted a shoulder, having sense enough to look contrite. “Sorry, bro. Kane told me to let her go.”

As if he never disobeys Kane.

“What happened to your hand?” The medic in me took over. There was blood seeping from his wound.

He took a gulp of his drink, ice clanking against the glass, then lifted his injured hand. “She bit me.” He laughed. “Which I definitely deserved. I completely fucked up my rescue attempt at the meeting.”

“You were there?” I’d only heard the short version of Kane’s story when he’d brought Charlie into the mansion, unconscious, her burned flesh reeking of magic infection. I hadn’t had time to ask questions. I’d had to work fast to remove the residual spell and help her werewolf physiology kick into hyper healing mode.

“Uninvited guest, but yes, I made it there. Shook things up and probably ruined some of Kane’s business plans in the process.” His grin slipped away. “Got hung up with some security, so I was a few minutes behind Charlie. Didn’t get there fast enough before the collaring.”

“Of course, he collared her, that fucking sadistic bastard.” I wouldn’t say his name out loud. He didn’t deserve the deference. He was a poison…a blight. Sal Larsen was one of the vilest werewolves on the planet.

Johnny motioned for us to go into the den, his expression resigned.

Kane had his back to us as usual, staring out of the window at who knew what. “We have her now, just as you wanted, Levi.” I knew by his tone that he wasn’t happy. Whatever shitshow had gone down at Larsen Corp must have royally pissed Kane off. He hadn’t wanted to rescue Charlie in the first place. He’d balked at my demands to buy her out from Sal to save her from the fate he had planned for her. Like Johnny, Kane didn’t have conscious awareness of her nightly calls. Both of them were too much in the present to allow the unconscious mind to slip through. But I knew they were there. I could scent them in her dreams, see their marks along her skin, even if they had no memory of their time with her.

It might have taken nearly three years, but I’d finally figured out who she was, and I’d known instinctively that she was in danger. It had taken less than a day to understand from whom and how. Sal wasn’t exactly lowkey when it came to his diabolical plans.

What I hadn’t understood was, why? Why had Sal wanted her out of the picture so badly? Now I thought I did. She could shift into a beast—or at least, I thought she could. I’d seen it, however briefly, in her partial shift while we were in the forest. She was reining the beast back, but there had been the beginning of a shift—part wolf, part human. She’d stood several feet taller than me and had been gloriously massive with the promise of more, so much more. The power she’d radiated could topple any hierarchy. Sal must have already known about her ability—or at least, he must have suspected it. The question was, did he pawn her off on us because he thought she’d destroy our pack from the inside, or did he truly think selling her to the highest bidder would get her out of his life for good?

Questions for later.

I suspected that Charlie had no control when she was in that form, and she was obviously scared of that version of herself. The way she’d fought to maintain a hold had been clear in her eyes. She wanted the beast side of her gone, out of the picture and not causing problems, and the beast side wanted to kill me. It had taken everything in her to fight the beast back, stopping the shift so she could somehow cage it. That much was obvious.

“I said, we have her now!” Kane roared as he turned to face us, rage and frustration glaring holes into our foreheads. “What do we do with her?”

“I know this situation has caused some trouble.” I raised my hands as if I could calm him. His wolf was close to the surface, his amber eyes glowing like lava. He was lashing out, losing control himself, much like Charlie.

“Some trouble?” The rings on his fingers glinted as he ran them through his hair, leaving it spiky, making him look unhinged. “It nearly started a war.”

“But it didn’t. Sal made his peace, and he has to be happy with the sum he received for his sister.” Johnny looked at me with a shrug. “We walked outta there without any hassle.”

Kane gave Johnny a deadly glare. He hated it when Johnny downplayed his overreactions.

Johnny made an ‘oops’ face my way then beelined for the bar.

“She wants us all dead,” Kane continued as he pointed toward the door, toward Charlie, his anger more contained. “The look in her eyes.” He swallowed. “She knows we paid for her. You might be convinced that she’s beckoning us to her but if you’d seen her expression? Man…I’ve never seen such furious rage. This isn’t what she wanted, no matter how good our intentions were.” He moved to his leather chair and slumped down, the weight of our world on his shoulders. He might be alpha right now, but it wasn’t the role he was destined to play, and if I was right and Charlie was who I thought she was, it wasn’t his role at all. “I would have thought, if what you say is true—that she wants us, has been calling to us—she would have been grateful, even happy to be with us finally.”

I laughed at the same time Johnny did. So typical of Kane to think a woman would grovel at his feet.

“Dude, that’s one woman who will never submit to you, not like you expect her to.” Johnny cheered us, ice clinking, when we both snapped surprised looks his way. “I talked to her on the ride from the airport, thought I’d try to stop this stupid plan of yours before it got too serious. No woman wants to be bought.” He leveled a hard side eye my way. “Offered her a choice to come train our pack.” He lifted his hands when Kane growled. “She declined. Told me to shut up.” He chuckled. “I like her. She’s sizzling.”

“Did she recognize you?” In the forest it had been clear to me that she had no idea she’d been beckoning me, us, but somewhere in her subconscious she knew I was familiar. When it finally clicked, it had been like watching a film clear from her eyes. Then she knew exactly who I was—the man of her dreams—and I wasn’t going to lie, my heart had flipped over itself when she’d realized how connected we already were.

“Nah, it was obvious she had no clue.” Johnny shook his head. “I thought maybe you were full of it, because she was so cold. But I wasn’t about to leave her to her fate with Sal, and I knew she’d be pissed once she realized Kane had thrown some money at her brother to set her free. She—”

“He’s my stepbrother.” Charlie’s smoky voice cut through Johnny’s next words, and we all looked at the door, startled to find her standing there. “And I want to know who the fuck you three assholes think you are.”

“Told ya,” Johnny drawled, taking a gulp of his drink. “She’s fire.”

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