Part 2 (1/2)

She made a sound, trying to push herself up.

”You and me are having a talk once you're sober.”

She tried to say something but was having trouble forming words so I hauled her to her feet then hoisted her up, cradling her in my arms and walking to the truck. I'd have tossed her over my shoulder if I was sure she was done puking, but I wasn't.

”Aria, where am I taking you?”

”Hmmm?” Her head bobbed to the side as soon as I set her down in the pa.s.senger seat.

”Home. Or a hotel maybe? Where are you staying?”

”Oh.”

”Aria? Try to focus.” I patted her face, but she gave a little snore.

c.r.a.p. I didn't want this. Not now. I wasn't ready to face this yet. I wasn't ready to face her because with her came a past I would never be ready to face.

”Aria,” I tried again, but nothing. ”You'd better not puke in my truck.”

She was out. I strapped her in, shut the door, and walked over to the driver's side. Before climbing in, I listened, hearing the calls again. We weren't alone; s.h.i.+fters roamed this terrain. h.e.l.l, most of them frequented my bar. That's why the no-weapons rule. That and no fighting or you're banned for life. No exceptions. I wasn't dealing with any gang rivalry, and that was what life had become for the packs. We lived like street gangs. Or they did. I'd left after the killings. I had no pack anymore, even if they still claimed I belonged to them.

It should never have happened - Bryan's brutal killing, his mom's murder. I should never have left them unprotected. I'd done my job well. Too well. I was a hunter of people and I'd hunted them. After more than fifteen years in hiding, I'd found the Hales.

I hadn't realized I'd been played until it was too late. I'd been betrayed, but that was cold comfort. I hadn't known what the pack would do, but, in the end, I'd gotten them killed just the same.

And I'd neither forgive nor forget that betrayal.

I glanced at Aria pa.s.sed out drunk next to me.

Maybe it was time to make amends.

Or maybe it was time for vengeance. The latter certainly held more appeal than the former.

The truck bounced over a pothole on my way out of the lot. Aria's eyes were closed, and darkness shadowed them. Her hair was longer than it had been, and she'd dyed it jet-black. It was a light shade of brown naturally. She'd changed, a lot, and I couldn't help that my gaze settled on her chest for a moment longer than necessary as her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bounced along with the truck. I reached one hand to pull back the collar of her jacket and glimpsed the tattoo there again. The black rose. She must have remembered that detail from the night of the murders, and that worried me.

I searched her face again, trying to see the hints of the girl I'd known, remembering how she used to follow me around like a lost puppy. The memory made me smile. I'd liked her. I'd liked her family. They'd treated me like I belonged with them, like I was one of them. They'd trusted me and cared about me.

I'd taken advantage of that trust though, taken advantage of them. Of her. My friends.h.i.+p with Bryan had become more than I ever imagined it could be when I'd been sent to find him. To bring him home, as I'd been told. Lies. All lies. I'd been a fool, and the Hales had paid the ultimate price for my foolishness.

Bitterness gnawed along the edges of the guilt that was my life. That and the unforgivable betrayal by blood.

Was I weak for not having avenged their murders? For not having gone after the one who had put the hit out? I'd killed the two who had carried out the killing, but they were following orders. I didn't regret what I'd done to them, not for a second. h.e.l.l, they'd enjoyed what they'd done to Bryan, tearing him apart. At least his mother's death had been quick - a blow to the head killing her instantly. Maybe she hadn't even seen it coming, seen them coming. But it was naive to think that last part. Of course she would have seen. They would have relished the scent of her terror.

Again, I questioned their intention. Had she just come home at the wrong time or had she been a target all along?

Not that it mattered anymore. They were dead all the same.

What if Aria had been there? What would have happened to her? The thought made me sick. The image of her lying there like them, covered in her own blood - no, I couldn't do that. I couldn't think about that.

What if I'd been at the house instead of in that hotel room with her? Could I have prevented it? Could I have saved them all?

A snore drew my attention to the present. Aria's face relaxed as she slept, her mouth open, her breathing soft. She hadn't been there. She hadn't died. That was what I needed to focus on now because, if she'd found me, there was a chance they'd find her, and I was no longer sure what my pack was capable of. She wasn't a danger to them, but she was daughter to a traitor. And powerful blood ran through her veins.

Pulling into the driveway of my house, I stopped the car, listening to the sounds in the wild. They were always there, always keeping vigil. They stayed away, though, after I'd proven what I was capable of. What I was more than willing to do. The rage of those first months after the betrayal hadn't died, it only slumbered. It would always lie beneath the surface, and that was a good thing. In this life, you had to be ready to kill. You had to be unafraid to slay your enemies, no matter who they were, no matter if the same blood ran through their veins that did yours. Family didn't matter anymore. Loyalty did. I didn't give a f.u.c.k about family.

I went over to Aria's side of the truck and slid her seat belt off, lifting her slight weight into my arms, the feel of her head resting against my chest distracting as I carried her into the house and up to the spare bedroom. I laid her on the bed, and she didn't stir, just remained sleeping, which only proved my point she had no idea what the f.u.c.k she was getting herself into.

”Aria.” I shook her. ”Wake up, Aria.”

Nothing.

”You need a shower. You stink of vomit.” She did, but her response was a quiet sigh.

Well, I couldn't let her sleep in those clothes. Didn't want to get the smell of it on my sheets.

Sure, that's it. You want to keep your sheets clean, not leer at her naked, jacka.s.s.

I cleared my throat, very aware of that little voice. I told it to f.u.c.k off anyway as I pulled off her boots, noticing where she'd sewn the seam to keep her switchblade. Finding it in my pocket, I pushed it back into her boot and set them aside, sliding her socks off before moving to her jacket. These were the things that were innocuous: her jacket, her boots, and her socks. But then she was lying there in a tight-fitting T-s.h.i.+rt and tighter black jeans, and I had a hard time remembering her as she was before everything changed, as Bryan's kid sister.

”Aria,” I tried again, although I had to admit it was a whisper.

Nothing. Not the slightest stirring. I lifted her slightly and pulled her T-s.h.i.+rt over her head, although the vomit was mostly on her jacket and jeans and not her s.h.i.+rt. The tattoo I'd glimpsed was fully bared then. I stared at it, at the black rose, the petals falling, crumbling as they hit ground by the gravestone. A dark skull, its eyes hollowed out, hung like the moon above the scene. She'd decorated herself with death, and the thought of it made me ill. It was wrong, even if it was beautiful. The black rose: a symbol of death. A death to come; a death delivered. It was macabre symbolism I'd grown up with.

And it turned my f.u.c.king stomach.

I didn't need to read the date along the rose's stem; it was one I would never forget.

I didn't allow myself to linger on the lace of her bra. Not yet. That would come. Instead, I brought my attention to her jeans, noticing the physical change inside myself, the stiffening of my c.o.c.k, the tightening of my muscles as I dragged the denim down over her hips and thighs, tugging them off each foot, taking the time to turn them right side out again and setting the jeans with her T-s.h.i.+rt and jacket before returning my attention to her.

Still sleeping. Although I didn't have a light touch, I took in the length of her now. Allowed myself to feast on the soft, pale, perfect flesh, the mounds of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s hidden behind the thinnest barrier of lace. Pelvic bones jutted from her flat belly, the navel small, indented. She was skinny, too skinny. My gaze moved down toward the mound of her s.e.x, and I swallowed, remembering how sweet she'd tasted. And even though after that night I'd vowed never to touch her again, the draw was undeniable, the pull to her just as powerful now as it had been then.

She made a noise, mumbling something just then, and, for a moment, my heart pounded, the idea of being caught studying her nearly naked form, shaming me. But she didn't wake. Instead, she rolled over onto her side as if to offer me a different perspective. One I appreciated very much. In fact, that glimpse of her a.s.s had me reaching to adjust my c.o.c.k.

I needed to get out of here.

Pulling off my T-s.h.i.+rt, I slipped it over her head, tucked her into bed, and walked out, tossing her things into the was.h.i.+ng machine downstairs on my way out the back door. I locked it behind me, only because of my houseguest, and stripped off my clothes on the back porch. I lived alone, the location of my house more remote than that of the bar. The mountains were my backyard, and although the pack kept an eye on me, they'd keep their distance. Cain had ordered it. I may have been ruthless, but he was worse. Cold blood ran through our veins. It was the only way to explain how he'd done what he'd done. Not once but twice. I was too young when his first victim, Derek, had been killed, but even that knowledge taunted me. The girl in my house, she and I had histories that wound around one another. Our families were more bound than she knew, than she'd ever find out, if I could help it.

I needed to think. I needed to figure out the story I would tell her. I needed to give her something, needed to give her just enough to get her gone. Scaring her wouldn't work. Her showing up at the bar proved that. I had to think. Best place to do that was beating a trail as I ran beneath the light of the moon.

Naked, I walked off the porch steps and blended into the dark night, s.h.i.+fting to the calls of other wolves in the wild, waiting, watching, ready to strike. I ran fast, disappearing into the dense thicket of woods, needing the exercise to clear my mind, wanting the hunt, needing the metallic taste of blood on my lips, the dark stain of it on my body.

I was a s.h.i.+fter. A killer. I needed to remember who I was and what I was capable of whenever the pull to the girl pa.s.sed out in my house came.

I had to remember she needed protection from me as much as she did them.