“Ahh, my love, now you are just being mean.” Vasile whined, and to hear an alpha whine only made them laugh harder. Jen caught Decebel watching her, but he quickly looked away when she caught his eye.

  A loud slap brought their laughter to a halt. They all turned to see a shocked Dillon Jacobs standing with a red hand print across his face.

  “You can go to hell, Dillon Jacobs, and take all your damn smelly, flea-infested wolves with you.” Lilly turned on her heel, barreling through the waiting room door. They all jumped when it slammed closed.

  “Do all of you think we have fleas?” Decebel looked at Jen and Sally.

  “I think we just assume because of the hair and what not, that you, ya know, you might have a problem with the little buggers when you are in your wolf form.” Decebel’s face got more dubious with every word Jen spoke.

  “Well, crap! Everything else with fur has fleas, what did you expect us to think?” She snapped at him.

  Decebel’s only response was a slight lifting of his lips that might have even passed for a smile … maybe.

  Sally looked at Decebel with an obvious question written across her face. When Jen was no longer looking, Decebel winked at Sally, a silent acknowledgement that she knew something was up, and he wasn’t sharing.

  Vasile walked over to Dillon and took a deep breath. He placed his hands on his hips and looked at the ground for a long moment.

  “Are you sure this is still what you want to try and do?” he asked Jacobs.

  “I don’t know any more,” Dillon admitted. “Lilly’s angry with me, Jacque probably hates me, and your son would just as soon kill me as look at me. But, Vasile, she’s my daughter. She’s so young.”

  “She is young, and so is Fane, but that does not change the fact that they are true mates. His marks are on her skin.”

  “What?” Dillon’s head snapped up.

  “You didn’t know?” Vasile asked him.

  “No,” Dillon replied, shaking his head.

  “If you try to separate them, Fane will just come after her, and he will probably kill every wolf that gets in his way. He may be young, Dillon, but he is more dominant than any wolf I know, maybe even myself,” Vasile said.

  Dillon clenched his jaw and ran his hand through his hair. He felt like he had aged twenty years overnight. He still hadn’t told his mate what he was really up to. That conversation was going to add another twenty years to his ever-shortening lifespan. He took a deep breath, let it out, then looked at Vasile. “Let me think about it tonight. I’m tired. Everyone’s tired. Fane can stay with her tonight. Your wolves can guard her if that’s what you want. I will talk to all of you about it in the morning.” Dillon paused as he was opening the door to leave. “Tell Jacque goodnight for me. I have a feeling it wouldn’t be the best idea to go see her right now.”

  “Considering she’s probably thoroughly lip locked with white fang, then, no, it would definitely not be a good idea to go see her. Oww, WTH, Jen?” Sally rubbed her arm where Jen had smacked it.

  As Dillon stood like a statue in the open door, Jen glared at Sally. “Did you have to point out to him that his daughter was making out with a boy … alone … in a bed … alone?”

  “Jen,” Decebel grumbled, “you’re not helping.”

  Jen continued as if she hadn’t heard. “I mean, geeze, Sally, why not suggest he go give them a condom just to, ya know, be on the safe side? And while he’s at it, he could take a banana and demonstrate how to put it on, and—”

  “JENNIFER!” Decebel snarled.

  Sally and Jen both jumped and turned to look at him. They heard the guest room door clang shut. “What?” Jen growled right back.

  “I think he was just trying to say that we all get the point, Jen,” Alina said.

  “Oh, well, why didn’t you just say so? You didn’t have to snarl at me.” She huffed at Decebel.

  “I didn’t snarl at you.” Decebel’s voice was low and tight.

  “Yes. You. Did,” Jen argued.

  “I have to agree, Dec, there was definite snarlage going on.” Sally nodded her head.

  “Okay,” Decebel said calmly, “I’m sorry I snarled at you.”

  “My name.”

  Decebel cocked his head and looked at her quizzically. “What?”

  “My name,” she told him. “If you are going to apologize to me, then you need to say my name.” The look on Jen’s face was completely wicked.

  Decebel clenched his jaw. His eyes were beginning to glow gold, but he managed to say politely, “I’m sorry, Jennifer, for snarling at you.”

  Jen grinned and held up the phone she had been holding. “That’s going to be my new ringtone, the big, bad wolf apologizing to widdle ole’ me.” She batted her eyes innocently.

  Sally was coughing back a laugh, at the same time hoping Jen had not just prodded a sleeping lion.

  Decebel said nothing as he rose. He walked toward Jen, who had the good sense not to run from a predator, although her eyes grew a little wider. He stopped just beside her and leaned down so that his mouth was next to her ear. “A banana, Jen, really?” He whispered and then walked away.

  The door was nearly closed by the time her brain started functioning again. “Oh, come on! It was all I had!” she yelled, hoping his wolf hearing would pick it up.

  Alina and Vasile had sat quietly through the exchange. “Have I ever told you how glad I am that we don’t have a daughter?” Vasile asked her under his breath.

  Alina slapped his leg. “Hush, did you just see what I saw?”

  “Yes,” Vasile answered, sounding very tired. “I saw it. I haven’t decided what to do about it.”

  Alina looked at him dubiously. “Do about it? Alpha, you’re going to leave it be and let fate take its course.”

  “Mina,” Vasile started to argue, but Alina was already turning her attention back to Jen and Sally. Obstinate woman.

  “I will be home in a few days, Tanya,” Dillon told his mate over the phone. She had called his cell phone several times and sent him text messages as well, all of which he had ignored. And he’d kept their bond closed up tight. Needless to say, she was not happy with him.

  “Why can’t you tell me what you are doing? And don’t tell me it's pack crap, you always tell me what’s going on between the packs.” He could almost see her snarling at him as she spoke.

  “It’s not something to discuss over the phone, you are just going to have to trust me.” Dillon was losing his patience.

  “Dillon, just tell me.”

  “Enough!” Dillon growled.

  Silence came across the phone. All he could hear was her breathing. “Tanya, I’m sorry, love, I didn’t mean to yell at you. I’m just a little stressed at the moment. Will you please trust me? It wasn’t right of me to leave without talking to you first, but what’s done is done.”

  She didn’t respond right away, and Dillon was beginning to think she might have hung up on him.

  “I trust you, but you won’t do this to me again, mate. I am your Luna and deserve more than that.” Her voice was calm and unwavering. She once again showed why she was his alpha female. She was deceivingly small and quiet, but when Tanya needed to be an alpha, she had no problem delivering.

  “You are right, Luna. I won’t let it happen again. I love you,” Dillon told her just before he hung up.

  He stood in his hotel room, nursing the scotch he had poured himself. He had called Logan and told him to pull the wolves back for now, that they would regroup in the morning. Logan insisted on staying at the hospital just to keep an eye on the Romanian pack. Dillon told him to make sure he stayed out of sight and didn’t cause any problems. Dillon had underestimated Fane’s reaction to his announcement that he planned on taking Jacque home with him. He had no doubt what Vasile said was true, Fane would kill anyone or anything that kept him from his mate. Which is the way it should be, right? He would move heaven and earth for Tanya. The only reason he hadn’t told her about Jacque was because he knew it was going to be one more reminder she was not able to conceive. He didn’t want to cause his mate sadness. He didn’t want her to feel inadequate because she could not bear him any pups. Dillon didn’t care, he was perfectly happy with their life, or was, until he found out about Jacquelyn.

  In truth, he was once again being a coward, just like when he walked out on Lilly without a word. Now, he had left without a word to his mate about a child he’d just discovered. Dillon was afraid Tanya wouldn’t want him to have a relationship with Jacque. He had a lot of groveling to do when he got back. But first, he had to set things straight with Jacque and Fane. He didn’t want to lose her, but forcing her to come with him would not make up for seventeen years of absence. He realized now it would only drive her farther away. Dillon would tell her tomorrow that he had been wrong. Those were the hardest words for any alpha to say. It seemed like those were the only ones Dillon needed to say to the women he cared about.

  Logan stood in the parking lot of the hospital. He had been watching and listening for any information he could get about the Romanians’ plans concerning Jacque. They suspected nothing of Dillon or his pack, even after Sorin, Fane’s childhood bodyguard, had found the mechanism Logan had placed on Lilly’s vehicle. Vasile had decided it must have been the Coldspring pack retaliating and sent two of his other wolves out to meet with their new alpha. Of course, the new alpha had no clue of the mutiny taking place in his own pack, so Logan was safe on that end. His next move was going to be to call Dr. Steele, as Plan B would need to be executed. Fane would not be leaving Jacque tonight, so they would just have to get Jacque away from her mate for a moment. He pulled out his phone and called Dr. Steele.

  “Dr. Steele,” she answered.

  “Plan B.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Did you hear me?”

  “Yes,” she said finally. “It’s 5:30 p.m. now, so give me a couple of hours. I will have to wait until one of the labs is clear. Once I have her in the lab and under sedation, you can come help me put her on the gurney to wheel her out. I will have to get you some hospital scrubs to wear, so you don’t look suspicious pushing through the halls what will appear to onlookers as a dead body.”

  “I will wait for your call.” Logan didn’t wait for her response, he simply hung up.

  Taking a deep breath, he turned his face up toward the setting sun, feeling the heat even this late in the day. He hated the heat. It depressed him, even his wolf. He would be glad to get back to his mountains in Denver. An iniquitous smile stretched across his face and his wolf eyes glowed. He wouldn’t be returning to his mountains alone. That thought perked him and his wolf right up.

  OceanofPDF.com

  Chapter 10

  After Decebel had left the waiting area, Jen and Sally found a deck of cards and decided to chillax, as Jen liked to say.

  “So, do you think Fane and Jacque have …” Sally let the word draw out in a question.

  “Have what?” Jen asked as she looked at her cards. “Do you have a two of hearts?”

  “Go fish,” Sally said absently. “Have … ya know … done it,” Sally whispered, leaning across the table.

  Jen furrowed her brow, staring at the cards in her hand. “Done what? You mean, has he bitten her? Three of spades?”.

  “Go fish. No, Jen, that is not the ‘it’ people refer to when they are talking about ‘doing it’.” Sally was making quotations signs with her fingers as she spoke, which effectively gave Jen a look at her cards.

  “Six of clubs, excellent. Give it up, I saw it.” Jen held out her hand and made a ‘give me’ gesture.

  “It’s not even your turn, you cheat. Now listen to me.”

  “Sally, good grief. How you and Jacque have stayed so pure with me as your best friend, I’ll never know. Sex, say it with me. S-E-X,” Jen said, sounding it out letter by letter.

  “Shhh! Don’t say it so loud.” Sally looked around to see if anybody had heard.

  “Why? It’s not like people don’t know what it is, or don’t know that everyone is doing it. Now, give me your six of clubs, hussy.”

  “Fine, here,” Sally growled, slamming the card on the table.

  “Touchy, touchy,” Jen muttered as she placed her own six of clubs on top of Sally’s. “The answer is no,” Jen said absently.

  “Why do you say that?” Sally asked and then added, “Jack of diamonds.”

  “Damn,” Jen mumbled and handed Sally the jack. “I’m sure they haven’t done the deed.”

  “Why?”

  “One,” Jen said, leaning back in her chair, tilting her head to the side as she looked at Sally. “Jacque won’t allow anyone into her box until she’s married.”

  Sally sputtered. “Her box?”

  “What would you call it?”

  “Uh … uh … I don’t know, a v-jay-jay.

  “So much better.” Jen rolled her eyes.

  “Whatever. Anyway,” Sally said, “I know Jacque has her scruples, but it’s Fane. I mean, look at him. You’re telling me if you got that alone, you wouldn’t throw those ideas out the window?”

  “Do you really want to talk about what I would do if I got that,” Jen nodded her head toward the direction of the hospital room, “alone?”

  Sally shook her head and waved her hands. “Point taken. Okay, move along, what was number two?”

  “Two, Fane is too chivalrous with all that, ‘I respect your choice to wait’ crap. He might be able to seduce her if he tried hard enough, but he won’t. There’s no reason to. He knows he’s going to have her for all eternity or for a thousand years or whatever. What’s a few more days? And, finally, we’d know if they had.” Jen looked at her cards again as if she had just cleared up all the mysteries of the universe.

  “What do you mean we would know?” Sally asked her, laying down her cards. Jen lifted her eyes to Sally and slowly reached across the table and picked up her cards. She picked out the ones that matched hers, then laid them back down. “I have nothing you need, so go fish.”

  “Jen, I’m serious. How would we know? I don’t think Jacque would tell us, she’s too embarrassed about that kind of stuff. She never told us about what she and Trent did.”

  “Trent was not Fane,” Jen began. “We would know because it would be written all over her face. She would have the morning after glow, the little grin on her face of knowing that her innocence is gone, and she lost it to a freaking Greek god.”

  “Huh,” Sally said thoughtfully. “I’ve never seen that look on you before.” She looked at Jen questionably.

  “Of course, you haven’t, I’m a virgin. That and no Greek gods have offered themselves to me lately, though I haven’t lost faith.”

  Sally’s jaw dropped. “You’re a WHAT?” Sally’s words came out just as Decebel walked up.

  “Yes, Jen, you’re a what, exactly?” he asked her, voice as serious as ever, eyebrows raised.

  Jen glared at Sally. “One word, Sally.”

  Sally held her hands up in surrender. “Oh, believe me, I have not forgotten what you will do if I say a word when I’m not supposed to. I knew I should have gotten rid of those damn dolls,” she grumbled.

  “Hi, Decebel,” Jen said, grinning innocently and acting as if she had just noticed his appearance.

  Decebel narrowed his eyes at her, then his face resumed its normal stony appearance. “Vasile and Alina wanted me to invite you both to come eat with everyone in the hospital cafeteria.”

  Jen tossed down her cards. “I could eat. What about you, Sally?”

  Sally was still staring at Jen with shock-filled eyes. “You, you, Yoooouuu,” Sally kept saying to Jen, with different inflections in her voice.

  “Sally, let’s move past this and get on to more important things, okay?” Jen took her IV pole in one hand and Sally by the other. She began pulling the reluctant girl behind her.

  “What could be more important than the fact that you’re a mmrrm.” Jen slapped her hand across Sally’s mouth. She was trying to keep from losing her balance and knocking her IV over. She looked back at Decebel, who was watching in curiosity.

  “You will have to excuse us for a sec, Dec. She swallowed her tongue. I’m just going to help her cough it up. We can meet you down there,” Jen said sweetly while she continued to keep Sally’s mouth covered.

  “Okay then.” Decebel shrugged and moved past them. He looked back at them one time before turning and walking away, muttering in Romanian.

  “What is wrong with you?” Sally sputtered when Jen finally uncovered her mouth.

  “I have a reputation to maintain. You can’t just go flapping at the lips that I’m as pure as you and Jacque,” Jen said, hands on her hips, lips set in a tight line.

  “Oh, believe me, Jen, no one would ever confuse you with being pure, virginity notwithstanding,” Sally shot back at her sarcastically. “Out of curiosity, does Jacque know?”

  “No, and she doesn’t need to know. What’s the big freaking deal, Sally? So, I’m not as experienced as I let on. What does it even matter?” Jen was getting irritated at her friend’s curiosity in her sex life, or lack thereof.

  “It’s not really that it’s a big deal as much as it’s just … kind of disappointing,” Sally said, sounding deflated.

  Jen looked at her through half-hooded eyes. “Okay, so what I’m hearing you say,” Jen started, then paused, shaking her head in disbelief. “You’re disappointed that I’m a virgin? Did I misunderstand you? Is my hearing going bad or are you just that big of a dumbass?”

  “Okay, let me esplain it like this, Lucy.”

  “By all means, Ricky, esplain away,” Jen replied.

  “You know how when you are a kid and you see Disney World on T.V.?” Jen nodded her understanding as Sally continued. “It’s so amazing and bigger than life. They show you the fireworks above the big beautiful castle that every little girl dreams of living in, and you think ‘wow, I want to go there’.”