Chapter 17
what you need me to do, Logan. I don't need you to explain it twelve different ways." Dr. Cynthia Steele's frustration at the wolf showed clearly on her face.
"If something changes in the plan, if for some reason Fane is able to stay with her tonight, we have to have a plan B," he told her.
"Plan B is I come tell them that the blood tests I took from Jen are abnormal and that I want to take Jacque to the lab and draw more blood so I can compare the two. They will be focused on the fact that I've said Jen's blood is abnormal," she explained.
"And is it abnormal?" Logan asked her.
"That's patient confidentiality, Logan, you know I can't tell you that."
"You are helping me abduct a future Alpha's mate and you are worried about patient confidentiality?" he asked her disbelievingly.
"I don't have anything against Jen, therefore yes, I'm worried about her privacy. You only need to worry about Jacque."
"Fine," Logan growled. "Just make sure that one way or another we get Jacque away from those mongrels and that she is sedated for our departure."
Dr. Cynthia Steele watched the wolf leave her office. She wondered, not for the first time, if she was doing the right thing. Then she would see her brother's face in her mind. He had been so unhappy the last few years. She had known that his wolf was growing uneasy at being unmated for so long, especially an Alpha who could be more than dangerous. His death was a perfect testament to what could happen when a wolf went after a female that wasn't his true mate. So why was she helping Logan? It was obvious that Fane was indeed Jacque's mate. The truth was she was angry and hurt and Fane was the cause of that anger and hurt. She couldn't challenge Fane for killing her Alpha, but she could hurt him just the same. That's all there was to it. Fane had taken what was hers and now she would take what was his. The papers she held in her hand drew her from her thoughts as she once again went over the lab results that belonged to Jennifer Adams. Although Jennifer looked ordinary enough, but there was nothing normal about her blood, and she knew if Logan knew, Jacque wouldn't be the only female he would be trying to take to his pack.
"Dillon, just let him stay the night with her," Lilly was saying, "I don't see what the big deal is."
"The big deal, Lilly, is that she is only 17 and you're saying its okay for her to have a guy spend the night with her. What else are you okay with our daughter doing?" Dillon's nostrils were flaring as his frustration at the situation rose.
Jen, Sally, Vasile, Alina, and Decebel all sat in the family waiting area that had become the undeclared meeting spot. They all looked on as Lilly and Dillon squared off.
"Does he realize what a major no-no he just made?" Sally whispered to the group.
"Ahh, you are right Sally. He criticized her parenting. That was probably the dumbest thing he could do," Vasile agreed.
Alina patted her mate's leg. "I knew you were smart when I met you."
"Come now, Mina. Don't be too shy to admit that you were so taken with my good looks that you could not focus on anything else."
"He's remembering it backwards," she whispered conspiratorially to Jen and Sally. "The first time we met the only words he could say were Luna and mina, and even then he didn't say them in the correct order." The girls laughed with Alina.
"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 laughing to a halt as 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, slamming through the waiting room door. They all jumped when it slammed closed.
"Do all of you think we have fleas?" Decebel asked as he looked at Jen and Sally.
"I think we just make an assumption because of the hair and what not, that you, ya know, 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?" this remark had Dillon's head snapping up.
"You didn't know?" Vasile asked him.
"No," Dillon said, shaking his head in disbelief.
"If you try to separate them Fane will just come after her, and he will kill every wolf that gets in his way. He may be young, Dillon, but he is more dominant than any wolf I know, myself included," Vasile admitted.
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 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 very still 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?" she muttered.
"Jen," Decebel grumbled.
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 was at it he could take a banana and demonstrate how to put it on, and-"
"JENNIFER!" Decebel finally snarled.
Sally and Jen both jumped and turned to look at him and they heard the guest room door clang shut. "What?" Jen growled right back.
"I think he was just trying to say that we all got the point, Jen," Alina said gently.
"Oh," Jen said taken aback. "Well, why didn't you just say so? You didn't have to snarl at me," she huffed.
"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 snarlige going on," Sally said, nodding her head.
"Okay," Decebel said calmly. "I'm sorry I snarled at you," he told her.
"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, than 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 ring tone, 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 that Jen had not just prodded a sleeping lion.
Decebel didn't say anything as he rose. He walked towards Jen who had the good sense not to run from a predator, although her eyes did get 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 was walking away.
The door was nearly closed by the time her brain started functioning again. "Oh, Come On! It was all I had!" She yelled, knowing 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.
Aline 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, he thought to himself.
"I will be home in a few days, Tanya," Dillon was telling 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 not responded to. To say the least she was ticked off.
"Why can't you tell me what you are doing? And don't tell me its 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 just 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 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 would be 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 that she was not able to conceive. He didn't want his mate to hurt, to feel inadequate that she had not been able to bare 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. And now he had left without a word to his mate about a child he didn't know he'd had because he was afraid she wouldn’t want him to have a relationship with Jacque. He had a lot of groveling to do when he got back. 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 wasn't going to make her stay, he realized now, it would only drive her further away. He would tell her tomorrow that he had been wrong, and weren't those the hardest words for any Alpha to choke up. It seemed like those were the only words 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 to any information he could get about what Vasile or Fane's plans were regarding Jacque. They didn't suspect anything of Dillon or his pack, even after Sorin, Fane's apparent childhood bodyguard, had found the mechanism he 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 was going to have to be executed. Fane would not be leaving Jacque tonight, so they would just have to get Jacque to leave Fane. He pulled out his phone and mashed the number two where he had put the doctor on speed dial.
"Dr. Steele," she answered.
"You're going to have to get Jacque by telling them about her friend's blood. Fane is staying," Logan told her.
"Ok," she paused. "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 put on so you don't look suspicious pushing what appears to be a dead body through the hospital."
"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 towards 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, his wolf eyes glowing. He wouldn't be returning to his mountains alone. That thought perked him and his wolf right up.