CHAPTER FOUR
My fist hovered in front of the door. I should knock.
I really should.
It took me an hour to walk up that drive, so I was now late according to Marriage Match’s guidelines. There was a hefty penalty in the contract. It would deplete my savings if Mr. Wood complained to the company.
My fist jerked, knocking on the door.
I stared at my hand, my brows puckering.
What the fuck was that?
I blinked in confusion but slowly lowered my hand.
Well, I had knocked…without thinking.
Apparently, my body knew what to do even if my mind didn’t yet. This needed to happen, no matter what. It was the law.
I waited with my suitcase at my feet.
No one came to the door.
I sighed and knocked on the door again.
The mansion—it was bigger than his neighbor’s—sat on a hill with a forest surrounding it. A maze of shrubs sat to the left of his house, a little sign next to the lush entrance indicated it was actually a “maze.” I stayed clear of that, not wanting to get lost. There was a pond to the right of the mansion with a stone gazebo near the water’s edge. The mansion itself was made of brick, and only brick, each one at different angles—a beauty of the design. Lights from inside shone through the floor to ceiling windows, lighting up the yard, spotlighting an enormous and intricately carved brown bear in the center of a fountain not far from the front door.
The place was beautiful. Majestic.
And, obviously, too damn big for the man to hear a simple knock on his door.
“Hello!” I banged on the door this time.
And…finally.
The great door opened.
The sexiest man alive stood in the doorway.
Wearing a pair of grey pajama bottoms.
And…holding a beer in his hand.
And…glaring into my eyes.
“Can you not understand a hint?” he growled, sneering down at me. “When I don’t answer the first damn time, I don’t want to answer!”
The door slammed in my face.
I jerked back a step. Husband from Hell alert.
I stepped forward and banged on the door.
I yanked my hand down and stared at it in front of my face. That was getting a little weird. Once was odd, but twice was plain spooky, an unsettling chill raising the hairs on the back of my neck.
The door flew back open, and I jerked my hands behind my back as Mr. Wood glared daggers at my eyes. He leaned down, placing his face directly in front of mine, and hissed, “Get. Off. My. Property.”
I swallowed and lifted my chin. “No.”
I was only shaking a little.
His dark brown eyes narrowed to thin slits. “Would you like me to escort you off my property? I’d be happy to help you, though you may not appreciate my hospitable ways.”
Trembling where I stood, I bent down and grabbed my suitcase. I made a shooing motion with a shaking hand in his direction. “Move out my way, Mr. Wood. I wasn’t sure what to expect meeting my future husband, but I sure as heck didn’t expect this. Your behavior is humiliating me.”
Brown eyes blinked slowly. “What?”
“I don’t know if I’m not exactly what you wanted, seeing me in person, but you paid a lot of money for this match.” I ducked around the side of him, sliding inside his home, when he stood there like a statue, blinking like a dumbstruck fool. I turned and talked to his back since he hadn’t moved from his frozen position in the doorway. “I would like to start out on a better note than what just occurred.”
Nothing. He didn’t even breathe.
I held out my hand, waiting. “Hello, Alaric. I’m Faith Peyton, your fiancée. It’s lovely to meet you.”
He reared around from his position, all six-feet-two inches of his massive physique looming over mine, and roared, “What?”
“Uh…” I quickly took two steps back.
He hollered, “Is this some kind of a sick joke?”
“No, no.”
“Do you have any idea what kind of hell I’ve been living in lately?” His beer bottle flew across the room with a mighty heave, the brown glass shattering all along his dark wood paneling. The chandelier overhead hanging from the carved beams of the rafters shook as he stepped closer to me. “I can’t handle any more shit blowing up in my life! You need to leave. Now.”
My lips pressed together into a thin line, the words flying out of my mouth automatically—having rehearsed these words today on the boat. “I’m sorry for your loss. Mr. King was a magnificent—”
“Get. Out!” He shoved a sharp finger at the door.
“Okay,” I whispered. “We can try this again tomorrow.”
His dark brown eyes widened incredulously, his entire frame beginning to tremble in fury. His voice was a pure growl, hard to understand. “Are you daft, woman? I am not your fiancé. I have never had a fiancée. And I’m about to lose my shit—even worse than I already have. You don’t want to see me lose my shit. No one does.”
“I’m leaving.” I skittered around him toward the door. “I think there’s been an error with Marriage Match’s service. You obviously weren’t the bidder.”
“Fuck no, I wasn’t.”
I dropped my bag a step from the door and turned around. A coy smile played on my lips. “Or maybe you are, and you’re playing with me. Are you the playful type, Alaric?”
His nostrils flared and his fists clenched at his sides. He was ready to explode, all of his muscles tensed and ready to pounce. “You have until the count of three before I physically remove you from my property.”
I stepped toward him. One step. Two steps.
I whispered, “Play with me, berserker.”
His eyes sharpened on mine. “What did you just say?”
I hummed and swayed my hips, sauntering to stand directly in front of him. My body pressed against his, and I leaned up on my tiptoes. My lips touched the softest mouth ever, and I whispered, “You want me, don’t you?”
His eyes flicked red. Then back to brown.
He shook his head hard, like he was shaking off a thought, and shoved me back a step. Alaric rumbled, “Get the fuck out.”
“But I want to play,” I crooned and dodged his pushing hand. I glanced at him over my shoulder. “Catch me if you can.”
I raced off toward the hallway on the left, my feet taking me on a fast flight past room after room. I laughed merrily when he roared in anger far behind me, back in the entryway.
“You can do better than that!”
A crash thumped behind me.
The crack of glass breaking.
A roar…a wild animal’s roar tore through the air.
I stopped dead in my tracks and held my head.
What is going on? Have I lost my damn mind?
My head pounded with an instant headache, and my eyeballs felt sharp as razorblades—so sharp it was as if they were cutting my eye sockets.
I froze when sudden heat blew against my back.
My neck. The top of my head.
My curls flew forward, brushing across my cheeks.
I dropped my hands and slowly…oh, so slowly…turned around. I screamed, and my hands flew out in front of me for protection. I gasped for air and mangled the words, “Oh my god! Oh my god!”
Alaric stood in front of me.
His eyes were red, completely red. Like a bloody wound dripping down his face, his eyes swirling around and around, hypnotizing in their terror. His massive hand held a knife up above his head as if he had stopped in mid-hack at my back. His muscles quivered under his skin, rolling like a lazy river, each lap with a glow of red.
He stood frozen, heaving in great gulps of oxygen.
My own chest pumped up and down. Up and down.
I kept my hands between us up, ready for his strike.
We stood there.
And stood there.
A minute passed.
We didn’t move.
I wasn’t going to risk moving, my heart beating a brutal rhythm inside my chest. If I did, he might attack.
If I were going crazy… Well, he was already there.
Time kept ticking away. And still, we held firm.
His front door opened and shut from far away.
I blinked and sucked in air. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from crying out for help. It took all I had to stay silent and not move, my legs beginning to ache.
“What in the hell,” a masculine voice muttered from the entryway. “Did I miss a party or something?”
Another ten seconds passed by.
My eyes darted to the side, peering past the creature that was in front of me, to stare down the hallway where a shadow appeared.
The shadow stopped in its tracks, staring at the scene before it, taking in the Alaric-creature and my frozen form. It talked—the man talked—in a furious whisper, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Then he retreated silently back into the entryway.
Tears formed in my eyes. He couldn’t leave me!
But he wasn’t.
More quiet words from the entryway, “Theron, I need you at Alaric’s. He’s gone berserker. There’s a woman here too.” A silent pause. “And where’s Cass?” More silence. “Okay, call him…just in case.”
The front door opened and closed again. Another voice, a confident male voice, like melted silver rolling in water. “Really, asshole? You didn’t trust me to see this coming? Fuck, you hung up already.” Another quiet moment. “Yeah, it’s me. I’ll take care of this. Go eat your damn pizza.” Another pause and a snort. “Don’t lie to me, Dad. That shit stopped working when I had my first vision of you stealing the last piece of my birthday cake. So fuck off.”
“Cass, can you handle this?” the first guy asked.
“Alaric is already handling it. Give him a little more credit. It’s been a hundred years since he last went berserk. He’s learned a little more by now…and he’s met his mate. The berserker smelled it, even when he couldn’t normally. He won’t kill her. Although an interesting fact is that the berserker even knew about the scent factor. That hasn’t come up until recently for our people.”
A hum. “That means he’s been watching.”
“Correct.” Far too chipper. “And a little scary.”
“Wait. Wait. His mate?” he backtracked.
I blinked in confusion and peered up into the Alaric-creature’s swirling blood-red eyes. He still wasn’t moving, though sweat was beginning to drip down his temples. One tiny bead hung on the edge of his jaw.
Drip.
It fell to his shoulder…and steamed away.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
I wouldn’t wrestle the knife from him.
Those rolling muscles were bad news.
The second voice…Cass muttered, “Pick your jaw up, dipshit. Can’t you see a trend is happening? You’ll be next, Wolfe. Just wait and see.”
“Fuck that!” Wolfe, the first man, growled. “I’m going to take a vacation. A long ass vacation away from any females.”
Cass snorted. “No, you won’t.”
A long, too long, pause. “You’re probably right.”
“I know I’m right. Just like I’m right that Ms. Peyton is going to fall on her ass from exhaustion if we don’t go take care of this.” Two shadows appeared at the end of the hallway, one waving his arm at us. “See what I mean? She’s looking quite faint, don’t you think?”
Wolfe chuckled quietly. “Quit being an ass.”
“But it’s so much fun.”
“Anyway! How do you want to handle this?”
In broken spurts, the Alaric-creature hissed, “Knock…me…out…”
My shoulders tensed with each word.
The shadow waved his arm again. “I told you. Alaric is handling it perfectly fine.” A white light appeared in his outstretched hand, a ball rotating in circles and growing bigger. “He even told us how to do it.”
The white light grew brighter. And brighter.
So brilliant that I moved one hand to shade my eyes.
Boom.
I grunted as a heavy ass Alaric-creature flew into my body. Down and down we fell, our limbs intertwined as his blood-red eyes closed. I screeched, trying not to touch his flesh. But the man was already unconscious before we hit the floor.
My head banged on the hardwood, even bouncing once. The world tilted on its side, and my brown eyes rolled into the back of my head, black spots darkening my vision. It was naptime.