CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When payback comes, it's both swift and merciless.
Whether it's because I ran off and spent hours hiding in the forest, or because of what I said to the pack about Dayne having a nap, I can't say.
It starts with me being ripped from a not entirely unpleasant dream of me sitting on a throne, with a tiara, watching a naked Dayne digging holes in the front garden in nothing but a frilly apron.
I have no idea what the holes are for, but I'm not letting him off the hook. I even have a jewel-encrusted whip in hand for when he slows down, which he does a time or two, and I have no compunction about using my pretty whip to speed him up again.
It's immensely satisfying.
Then the piercing, shrill sound of an alarm penetrates and I'm jerking awake with the knowledge Dayne-because who else is it going to be? -is holding his phone against my ear, and it's doing untold damage to my eardrums.
I peel my face from my pillow to blink at the evil thing Dayne is waving in front of me.
It's his phone, and it's telling me it's four in the morning.
That's all I need to know.
I bury my face back in the pillow and squeeze my eyes shut.
"Rise and shine. We have a pack event tonight you need to prepare for," Dayne announces cheerfully, sounding like he's been awake for hours.
I imagine that's going to involve a lot of cleaning, which doesn't seem entirely fair since I gave the guy a blow-job that shattered his self-control. Surely, at the very least, I deserve a lie-in?
"What was that about a blow-job?" he asks, sounding amused.
Shit. Did I say that out loud?
"I didn't say anything," I mumble into the pillow as I drift back to sleep. "You're hearing things."
He whips the covers off my body and it hits me I'm naked when cool air kisses my skin. Since I distinctly remember pulling on a t-shirt before crawling into bed last night, I know I shouldn't be naked.
After lifting my head, I turn and blink at the sight of my bare tush. "What happened to my shirt?"
"I took it off you."
"I'm sorry, but what?" I ask, sitting up. Since it doesn't look like Dayne is going to be leaving me in peace, I might as well get up.
"I want you naked in my bed."
It looks like my reward for giving Dayne a blowjob is a thousand-fold increase in him being an alpha dick. Fucking fantastic. Great job, Talis.
"So, you just took my shirt off when I was sleeping?" My anger is rousing me faster now than any alarm ever could. "What gives you the right?"
"You're my mate, Talis. That's what gives me the right," he says, his tone brooking no argument.
"But I was sleeping." I consider him now as he stares down at me from the side of the bed when a thought crosses my mind. "What else did you do to me while I was sleeping?"
His gaze slides down my body, and despite my intention to stay cool and untouched by his heated look, I feel my nipples bead and interest stir. "Did you have something in mind?" His gaze fixes hungrily between my legs.
"No," I reply without hesitation, pressing my thighs together, the scent of my arousal making me into a liar. "Nothing."
"Well, if you're sure…" He shrugs, lifting his eyes.
Wait. Was that an offer? Was he offering to return the favor?
"Wait, what did you-"
While I'm still trying to wrench my mind from the mental image of Dayne with his face pressed between my legs, material hits me in the face, and I stop talking long enough to peel it away.
The frills tell me what it is before I take a single look.
It's the apron.
The dreaded frilly apron is back to torment me.
"You can start with the bathroom. Wearing that."
I stare at the apron because it's not safe for me to meet Dayne's eyes. Not with the slow-burning fury I feel rising.
It burns through my arousal, leaving not even a trace behind.
"Don't worry about the breakfast."
Okay. So, at least, I'm not making breakfast. Maybe he does know how to be reasonable.
"You'll be too busy weeding the back clearing. I'd say that's at least a four-hour job."
Hours later, at the pack BBQ, I'm so close to losing a grip on myself that I'm trying to stay quiet, trying to stay out of the way.
I still can't understand why Dayne is forcing me to do a seemingly endless list of tasks like this when I haven't done anything to deserve it. Uncle, at least, had a reason-even if it was a thin one-for punishing me.
Not for the first time has Dayne decided I haven't quite done enough despite me spending more time cleaning up before and after the BBQ than sitting.
Finally, I sink into a folding chair beside him since he won't let me sit with Jenna or Regan. I'm exhausted, and all I want-all I need is just five minutes off my feet and then I can try to find some excuse to escape.
If, he'll even let me.
Not even thirty seconds after my butt hits my chair, Dayne is telling me to go inside and get him a blanket for his knees. Apparently, his jean-clad legs are getting cold. Him, the man who radiates heat, is cold.
I thrust the blanket at him and drop back into my seat, but that's a mistake. To let him see how much I resent him ordering me about like this is a mistake.
"I treat you the same as I do all my submissive wolves."
Really? I don't you him demanding Jenna do anything.
His statement makes me want to grind my teeth. But conscious he's observing me with undisguised interest, as if waiting for me to say something, I stay quiet.
"You are a submissive wolf, aren't you?"
More of the pack shift their attention away from each other, toward me. Their curious eyes pin me from all directions.
"Yes."
"Then I shouldn't need to tell you that a submissive wouldn't be holding my stare for as long as you've been doing. Now, do I?" His mild tone contrasts with the reprimand he's giving me in front of the whole pack.
Forcing my gaze away, I rise from the folded chair I'm perched on.
Today has been one of those days that keeps on giving, and although it's not even nine yet, I've had more than enough of it. "I'm going inside. To bed."
"Grab me some food on your way."
After the amount of BBQ he's eaten-and trust me, I would know better than anyone given it was me doing all the fetching-I gape at him.
Maybe he didn't hear me, I think. So, I decide to repeat myself. A little louder this time. Just in case. "I'm going to bed."
"You'll be passing the kitchen on your way," he says. "A barbecue chicken sandwich will be fine."
I blink at him as he dismisses me to pick up the thread of his conversation with Luka. Something about investments, buyouts, and bad debt. Again. It's all he and Luka ever discuss, and what little I understand does nothing more than bore me silly.
It's like he's forgotten I'm even here. And it is… so unbelievably rude, all I can do is glare at him. I'm supposed to be his mate. Luna of the Blackshaw Pack, and he's treating me like this?
For a second, standing here, I visualize it. Me kicking the chair legs out from under him and the back of his head hitting the ground. Hard. Maybe him even losing consciousness for a few seconds.
It's… it's fucking beautiful, so much so I find I've taken a step toward him before I'm fully conscious of it. And that's when he casually glances at me, a bottle of beer halfway to his lips.
"Oh, and another beer as well. I'm running low."
I realize then sending him crashing on his ass is not enough. Not nearly enough. I'm going to take his bottle and grind it into that arrogantly beautiful face of his first. And only then-
"You okay there? One eye is twitching. You got something in it?"
"No." It comes out as a whisper. It's either that or scream.
My hands form tight fists, which is a dangerous move with him watching, so I force my fingers to uncurl. And like I'm in a daze, I retreat.
One foot in front of the other.
Just walk away, Talis. If you do what you're thinking, he'll kill you. No. He won't have to. He won't even need to lift a finger. The rest of the pack will make sure you're dead before your body hits the ground. So, keep going.
You're nearly there. All you have to do is-
"Grab one for Luka as well. He's about to run dry," Dayne calls out from behind me.
I stop.
It's one thing getting him food or beer or whatever the fuck it is he wants. But now I'm the pack's fucking waitress too? No. Just no.
I close my eyes.
Breathe, Talis, just breathe.
Air is forced in and out of my lungs. An action that should come easily takes conscious effort. More than it's ever involved before. But it's working. My tightly coiled muscles begin to relax, and the tension in my shoulders ease.
"And some coleslaw. Homemade. With my sandwich."
That's it.
I spin around with a snarl on my lips. I'm already reaching for my top to yank it off because I'm going wolf and ripping his throat out. A bottle to the face won't suffice.
But they're all staring at me. The pack, that is.
Watching and waiting for… something.
Freezing under those stares, the rage bubbling up inside me just… fizzles out because for a beat I'm transported to my old pack, where my uncle is calling the rest of the wolves over to demonstrate what happens when they don't fall in line. I'm lying on the ground with my uncle's boot on my neck, gasping for breath, and no matter how hard I struggle, how hard I fight, I can't get up.
All because I dared to argue back.
So I lie there, surrounded by my pack, who smirks down at me, unable to see my uncle because his foot won't let me. And I can't close my eyes because that's a form of escape, and escaping is a foolish hope that's long been beaten out of me.
Snapping back to the present, something else rises to replace my anger. I try not to think about that, but I don't have to. Not when it's starting to swallow me whole, just like always.
My eyes are on Dayne now. Never taking his sight off of me, he shoves his beer to Luka and slowly rises to his feet. His face is granite hard. Expressionless. But he's pissed. More than pissed. It's reflected in the flashes of enraged wolf in his ice-blue eyes.
He takes a step toward me.
"Talis?" His voice is a low rumble of sound, more wolf than man.
I make an incoherent garble in the back of my throat. Almost like a whimper, but not quite. At the noise, he comes to a sudden stop as if he's run into something.
When I dare to peek into his eyes, it's his wolf looking back at me. His silvered gaze glitter with rage.
The rising panic I've been trying to choke down surges up. Overwhelms me.
Screw the sandwich. Screw everything. I bolt for the trees.
I run with everything I am. I hold nothing back.
Tearing through the woods, my steps are surefooted. I dodge every branch, weave, and dip and charge so fast, I don't even feel the air on my face.
The only thing I hear is my heart beating. Pounding in time to my steps.
Right up until the moment I realize it's not my heart at all, but footsteps behind me.
Dayne.
There's no doubt in my mind it's him, something my nose is all too eager to confirm. But I don't slow or stop. I'm close to the lake now.
All I have to do is get past it, and then I'll be in thicker woods which will slow Dayne down since he's so much bigger than me.
Then I can escape. Leave.
On the heels of my thoughts, my feet are leaving the ground.
Dayne's arms are tight around me, so tight I know I can never break free of his unbreakable grip. That doesn't stop me from struggling, from fighting him.
He's lifting me higher as I scream and kick and try to wrestle free.
My hair is whipping into my eyes, blinding me, into my mouth, silencing me.
Then I'm in the air, free, but I can't run, not when I'm falling. Not when I'm suddenly choking.
Dayne just fucking threw me in the lake.
Fighting my way up, I break the surface as my soaked jeans work to drag me back down again.
He's standing with his arms folded over his chest, impatience stamped across his face like I've been forcing him to wait for fucking hours when his dumping me in the water and my rising couldn't have taken over thirty seconds.
I open my mouth, then stop, closing it again when I realize I don't know what I want to say.
Whether it was his intention or not, his tossing me in the lake has succeeded in chasing away my terror.
So, we stand there, him and I staring at each other. Him on dry land. Me soaking wet in the lake.
"What did you think I was going to do?"
His quiet question surprises me, and I frown at him in confusion as I raise my hand to smooth strands of wet hair from my face. Then I understand what he means.
"Stand on the back of my neck." I'm amazed at the way it slips out. Like it's no big deal. Like it didn't nearly break me to fucking pieces whenever my uncle did it to me.
I wait for the denial, the accusations I'm a liar, surprise. Any kind of response except the one I get.
Nothing.
Dayne's eyes are as blank, as unreadable as stone without the faintest hairline crack in it. This is the expression I hate the most about him. It's so impenetrable, I know I will never be able to break the surface and learn what kind of man he is. If there is more to learn about him, that is.
But I have my doubts about there being any more to him than what he shows me. His being the cold-blooded alpha the biggest clue that what I see is what I get.
His expression reminds me that even though we're supposed to be mates, he's as much of a stranger to me as someone I might sit next to on the bus.
Scratch that. I'm likely to get more out of the random guy on the bus.
"Your uncle?" His voice is gravelly like he's got something in this throat.
"My uncle."
His lack of response is starting to scare me since it puts me in mind of the quiet before the storm, and back in the Merrick pack, there were plenty of storms.
The quieter my uncle was, the more I had to be worried, because it was the biggest sign he was working himself up to something particularly nasty.
But instead of scurrying for cover or making myself the smallest target as I normally would, I stand taller, forming tight fists, glaring at Dayne. The nails of my fingers dig so hard into my palms they hurt.
"I will fucking kill you if you ever try," I snarl.
I suddenly notice the silence, a sharp awareness in the direction I just ran from. I half glance that way, mentally counting down how long I ran, how far.
Can the pack hear me from there?
Fuck. They probably can.
"As you should," Dayne says as his eyes flare bright-hot, nodding approvingly. Then he holds his hand out to me. "Come here."
I drop my gaze to his hand, and I take a step back. "No."
"Talis," he growls low in his throat. "Come the fuck here. I won't tell you again."
Something in his voice, in his eyes, tells me he's being more serious with me now than he ever has before.
I come.
And he gets to work stripping me. Waiting until he's a few buttons down on my blouse and hopefully a little less angry, I clear my throat before speaking. "Uh, Dayne. What are you doing?"
He doesn't answer.
After stripping my blouse off me and tossing it to the ground, he grabs the hem of his t-shirt and tugs it over his head before he meets my eyes. "What does it look like?"
My eyes widen in burgeoning realization.
Uh. Okay.
But I don't stop him. I don't do anything except let myself be distracted by all that rippling hard muscle on show since he doesn't appear to be in a talking mood.
Once he has both of us naked and on the ground, I remember something important. At least to me. "Um, the pack. They can probably hear us from here, right?"
He covers me with his body, and my nipples bead at first contact with his chest. Seemingly distracted by my neck, Dayne lowers his mouth to my mate bite and gives it a firm lick. My gut clenches and liquid pools at how sensitive the bite has become.
"Probably," he mutters.
My hands come up to his chest. Not quite pushing him away. "Maybe we could find somewhere they might not hear us?" I suggest.
Lifting his head, he gazes into my eyes. "No."
Then he's back to licking at my neck and shoves a muscled thigh in between my legs. Opening me up to him. Exposing me. Cool air kisses the sensitive skin of my inner thighs and I suck in a breath. "No?"
When he bites down, I arch my back instinctively. But this is only the beginning. He makes it his mission, his goal to make me scream loud enough I'm sure people in town can hear me.
And I love every single second of it.