Big Bad Bite Read online

  “I have missed you for far too long, my striped temptation. Tell me; is your husband here with you in America?”

  Her head dipped, a tear slid down her cheek, and her breath hitched. Owen placed his finger underneath her chin, pulling her face up so that they made eye contact once more. The act was so intimate that Jenna had the urge to look away. She felt as if she were watching something much more private than a conversation between a woman and a man. The way they looked at each other, held each other, you knew Vera trusted Uncle Owen unequivocally, just as you knew that he considered her something far more precious than any fine china or glass sculpture. He held her as if she was his salvation, and he was a man tired of living without it.

  “Tell me my sweet, what has he done this time that makes you cry? If he’s hurt you, I’ll end him. This time you will not stop me.”

  She shook her head faintly, “It’s not that, moy Owen. Egor is dead. Here in America, I am to live.”

  “Finally free”, he growled.

  “Svoboda,” she nodded her head in agreement.

  A gagging sound filled the room. Jenna looked towards the sound to see Alec bent over at the waist, his body jerking with dry heaves. He looked up when he realized the room was too quiet to see us all staring at him. Holding up a hand as if to assure everyone he’d be ok, he croaked, “Sorry. Just give me a minute. I just started to puke a little in my mouth when the old people started eye fucking each other. There are just certain things a man should never see his grandmother do; this is one of them. If they’re done, then I’ll be ok in a minute. Although, I might feel better faster if Jenna would come pet me a little."

  Jenna chucked the first thing her hand could find on the conference table at him. It happened to be a half full cup of coffee, but she wasn’t fast enough, so she missed hitting him by about a centimeter. What she did do, however, was make one hell of a mess all over the floor. One she stared grumpily at, like it was all the puddle of coffee’s fault she hadn’t been able to hit the big headed bastard, instead of the fact that he was who knew how old, with more speed, strength, and agility than she would ever have. That alone made her want to try and hit him with another coffee cup. She might never make contact, but the act of throwing shit at him, causing him to jump around the room like a scaredy cat, would surely brighten her day.

  Moving her glare from the puddle of coffee to the arrogant feline across the room, she almost lost her temper again when she saw the man smiling at her. Just like a sneaky feline to play games when it was inappropriate to do so.

  Uncle Owen’s irritated growl silenced the snickering of every other person around her. “Let’s get this started with already. Clay, go track down Adam. I’ll want to touch base with him after I speak to Mr. Ivanov. Amy, please get something for Jenna to clean this mess up with. Then make sure no one else comes up to the second floor until I say otherwise.”

  Amy ran at wolf speed, zipping out of the room and back within seconds, a towel in hand for Jenna. She handed it over before zipping out of the room again, shutting the door on her way out. Jenna squatted down to mop up the puddle of coffee while Uncle Owen waved at everyone else to have a seat at the table. When she was done cleaning up the mess she’d made, she sat down too.

  Her Uncle once again sat at the head of the table, except this time when she looked at him; he was stroking his chin in interest and looking at Alec.

  “Tell me, Mr. Ivanov, what do you know that it was so important that you could only tell me in person?”

  “You sent Kent and Jenna to find out if anyone had heard anything around Wilmington about rogue shifters, or ones who were out to cause trouble. The thing is, what I heard wasn’t something that I heard in Wilmington. It’s what I overheard in Germany that I thought you should know about.”

  Jenna’s interest was caught like a fish bite on the breakfast buffet of worm-ala-hook. Germany. That’s where the Corvus Pack was based.

  Alec continued, “You see, I fight in the Black Rings. It had me on a circuit country hopping not too long ago from Brazil to South Africa, then on to the European countries before hitting China and Australia. One of those stops was Germany, where I fought just outside of Frankfurt, near one of their pack properties. So just after I’ve beaten this big ugly German wolf to smithereens, the place goes nuts. The beer is flowing, and let me just say, those Germans know how to have a helluva good time. The party is in full swing when I make my way to the bathroom and pass some interesting whispering going on in a corner.” Alec taps his ear. “Everyone always underestimates how good feline hearing is since it’s supposedly not up to par with you mutts.” Logan growled, but Alec ignored him and continued, “So anyways, this whispering catches my attention because its two hot chicks and one of them sounds scared shitless. The blond, well she’s practically crying while arguing with her little brunette friend about how what they’ve done is going to catch up with them and get them killed.

  “Normally I wouldn’t bother eavesdropping on the rest of it, cause frankly, if they’re dumb broads who have done something to go and get themselves killed, that’s not my problem, but what the blond said next is what kept me nosey. She goes on to mention that they’ve kept him down for too long. She’s not sure if what they’re doing could be slowly killing him or not, and she’s terrified of what will happen to her if someone walks in there one day and finds him dead. The brunette tells her that she’s being ridiculous. There’s no way what they’re giving him could kill him, and even if it did, it would just mean that Lars took over the pack.”

  Uncle Owen’s face became inscrutable. None of it made any sense to Jenna, but she knew from the blank expression on his face that he was starting to add shit up. More than likely what he was adding up spelled to trouble.

  Uncle Owen asked Alec, “Was that all that was said?”

  Alec shook his head ‘no’. “The last bit didn’t make much sense to me until now. The brunette told the blond that she needed to keep her shit together for a little while longer. Scolded blondie that the plans were already in place, the teams would be leaving soon to start their tasks, and that they had to stay strong because soon the New Age would be coming.”

  He shrugged his shoulders at our baffled faces, “Whatever that means. I have to admit though that it sounds a bit disturbing. So like I said, none of it made any sense to me before, so I kept my trap shut about it.” He picked his hand off the table and waved it in Jenna’s direction. “Then your sweet little niece here comes to ask questions, tells us about your eight dead wolves and where they came from, and let’s just say things start clicking into place for me. How about you, Pack Master Davies? Anything clicking into place for you?”

  Uncle Owen’s face was still a blank mask as he stared at no one in particular, deep in thought. His fingers, however, were drumming away at the tabletop. Creating a steady beat in the otherwise silent room. Several minutes passed, and Jenna was starting to wonder if she was going to have to snap her fingers in front of her Uncle’s face to bring him out of his self-imposed catatonic state. If it hadn’t been for the fingers still thrumming away, she would have thought he was pretending to be a human mannequin or something.

  Suddenly his fingers stopped, turning his head from looking at nothing, to Alec, he quietly asked, “You obviously want some compensation for this information. What exactly are you hoping to collect?”

  “Right now? Nothing specific. However, one day I’m sure I’ll want or need something, and if I come to you and ask for help with it, I want your reassurance that you’ll aid me.”

  “You can’t ask for an open ended favor. I need to make sure that nothing hurts my family or my pack.

  Alec shook his head, “I’ll never ask you anything that would put your loved ones, or those who are your responsibility, in jeopardy. That’s a promise. With that stipulation, do we have a deal?”

  Uncle Owen tipped his head to the left and regarded him cautiously. Looking at him in a deep probing manner, Jenna wondered if he was trying
to read Alec’s intentions. Or maybe read the story of his soul, as if it could be written there on the skin for those who knew how to read it correctly to see. It was an extremely unnerving phenomenon, and Jenna would bet it was one of the skills he used often to keep his status as Pack Master. Finally, Owen came to some internal conclusion and nodded his head in Alec’s direction.

  “We have a deal. Thank you for the information, as well as keeping it to yourself from now on. I imagine I’ll hear from you when you’re ready to cash in that favor. Till then, I would ask that if you happen to come across anything else that you might think of use to us, that you let me know immediately.”

  Alec crossed his arms over his barrel chest, “You wouldn’t happen to feel like sharing what your thoughts about all of this is, would you? I normally wouldn’t bother with anything that doesn’t involve something important, like me, but from what I’ve heard between those two German wolves and what Jenna told me today, I’ve got a crap feeling about all of this. I don’t like shit sneaking up on me in my own backyard.”

  Jenna snorted, “I’ve seen your backyard, tiger. It’s huge, but last time I checked nothing happened there.”

  Alec shot her the stink eye before baring a little canine action. “I consider Wilmington as a whole my backyard because it’s where I like to play. Ergo, shit happened in my backyard.” He looked back to Owen with the tiger blazing in his eyes, “There’s no reason for you to push us out of whatever this is if we’re willing to help.”

  “And are you willing to help, young Ivanov? Even if it is a wolf matter?”

  He shrugged nonchalantly back at the wolf, “If it’ll help keep problems out and the humans stupid, sure. I bet if you ask Gage real nice, he might be willing to help you too.”

  Gage leaned over and slapped Alec on the back of the head with a blow that would have killed a human. Alec just looked at his brother annoyed, “Don’t hit me asshole. We both know I’ll crush you into smithereens. Besides, you know you want to be in on this too. You’re too nosey of a bastard to not want to know what’s going on.”

  Gage growled, “That doesn’t mean you get to volunteer me moron. Unlike you, I have important shit to do.”

  Alec cocked a knowing eyebrow at his brother, “Are you currently involved with anything?”

  “No.”

  “Have you recently been asked to start a new mission?”

  “No.”

  “Then shut the fuck up, Gage.”

  Vera said something in Russian to her grandsons at the exact moment Jenna’s phone rang. Kent glanced down to his phone expecting a ring as well, in case it was work calling, but his stayed silent as Jenna checked the caller ID, then smiled. She answered her phone.

  “Hey, Mama.”

  Her mother cut her off, “Are you at work?”

  “No ma’am. I’m-“

  Her mother cut her off again, “Are you in public?”

  Jenna sighed. She knew where this line of questioning was headed and now was not a good time. “No ma’am, but now’s not-,” suddenly she had dial tone. Shit.

  From the resigned look on Uncle Owen's face, she guessed he knew what was coming too. Before she could voice a word of warning to the three tigers, one demon, and one half-brother that didn’t know what was about to happen, her mother physically popped into the room, landing out of sight of the three tigers on the desk behind them.

  Her hands were fisted on her hips, and she looked mad enough to spit nails. With her standing on top of the desk, full of angry attitude, in that moment she reminded Jenna of a pirate on board her ship facing down a foe across the water. Larger than life, intimidating as hell, and ready to charge the enemy. Or in this case, ready to take Jenna to task for not coming home to assure her mother that she was truly ok after getting a grazed by a bullet and showing up in the newspaper.

  She’d appeared so quickly, that even though she was in Kent and Logan’s line of sight, they hadn’t had a chance to notice her before she started yelling.

  “Jenna June O’Conner, if you think you can blatantly ignore me, you have another think coming young lady!”

  From the moment the ‘j’ sound in Jenna came out of her mother’s mouth, the unsuspecting victims of her appearance jumped. Gage reached for the insides of his pants waistband at the hips, where she glimpsed a flash of metal in the form of knives, a second before they occupied both of his hands. Kent and Logan both jumped to their feet in defensive positions as if they would have to defend themselves against an attack, while Alec let loose an eardrum shattering roar as he underwent a startled change. The bones in his body were already breaking and rearranging by the time he dropped to the floor. His clothes were halfway shredded on his body, with tatters lying on the floor. The sounds of pounding footsteps thundered up the stairs to the second floor in such cacophony that it sounded as if a damn army was approaching the room.

  The room’s door burst in and half a dozen wolves including Amy, Clay and Adam, sprang into the room, ready for a fight. Great. Here were six more people present to witness her utter humiliation as her Mama let her have it for not running home to her the first time she got one tiny gunshot graze away from home. Looking up to the ceiling in hopes of finding some divine deliverance, she had to admit to herself that perhaps asking back at the club how much weirder her life could get was a bad, bad idea. It seemed she had tempted fate and now that cruel bitch was laughing at her in maniacal glee. Returning her attention back to her mother, who still stood confidently on top of the desk as if she didn’t have a roomful of shifters and one twitchy demon ready to tear her apart, Jenna gave into the urge to face palm.

  Really, there were times in life where you were totally allowed to face palm because nothing else seemed to do. Now was one of those times.

  Alec in tiger form, and one of Adam’s three wolves she wasn’t acquainted with in human form, took menacing steps in Mama’s direction. Jenna’s body tensed at the perceived threat towards her mother, but she didn’t move. Instead, she tried to warn them.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  The words were too late. Her mother threw both hands in the air, palms facing outwards in an ‘I Surrender’ gesture, except she wasn’t surrendering. No, she was adding to Jenna’s, as well as Alec’s and the unknown wolf’s, humiliation. The leanly built older wolf, along with the close to a thousand pounds tiger were now levitating at least three feet off the ground. The wolf thrashed around as if he could put himself back on the ground, where according to his frightened face he desperately wanted to be, while Alec seemed to be doing the opposite and locked every muscle in his body so not move at all. He didn’t look irritated so much as pissed for being incapacitated.

  Before anyone else made idiotic moves towards her mother, Jenna tried to diffuse the situation again. “If everyone would calm down for a second then maybe I could get through introductions before someone gets hurt. Everybody, this is my mother. Mama, this is everybody. Now please put the wolf and tiger back safely on the ground.”

  She knew people were staring at her with the whole shock and awe factor going on, but she ignored it. She was busy having a staring contest with her diva of a mother, who had yet to land the two floating bodies in her control. Jenna growled in exasperation.

  “Mama, please. Put. Them. Down.”

  Her mother huffed, “Why should I? How do I know they won’t try and come after me again?” The Irish lilt she was so adept at hiding was out in full force with her anger. This group was in serious trouble now. Kelly O’Conner was all geared up to rip into every single person in the room, and she had her mouth halfway open to start on it.

  Uncle Owen cut her off before she could get started, “Kelly, I assure you no one will attack you now that they know you’re Jenna’s mother. You can’t blame them for their reactions to you teleporting in uninvited.”

  The curly haired blonde scowled. “Uninvited, am I? I’ve got news for you Owen Davies, wherever my daughter is, I most assuredly am invited. And ju
st where the feck have you been? Not that I expected much from the Davies after she was born and Da died, but I thought surely you would at least stick around to see her.”

  Uncle Owen’s expression turned black. His wolf eyes bled through, and he snarled, “Put them down, you infuriating woman!”

  She dropped the two men unceremoniously before disappearing off the desk and reappearing right behind Jenna. Gasps sounded around the room as Jenna turned to face her mother, who placed loving hands on her shoulders.

  “Oh my wee lass, what have you done? You’ve been in town less than a week, and you’re sitting in a room full of people you should have never allowed yourself around. Your Uncle Rick is going to hit the roof. Don’t worry though. We’ll squirrel you away somewhere safe, and this little nightmare will pass. If we leave now, we can have your house packed up and have you home before the morning.”

  In a flash, there was a fierce heat at her back and a muscled arm clamped across the front of her chest. Adam’s body was literally vibrating with rage. “No. She’s not leaving. Ever.”

  Her mother dropped her hands from Jenna's shoulders, and her O’Conner blue eyes flashed in warning. “I’ve got news for you young one, I’m her mother, and I’ve kept her safe for almost twenty-four years. If I need to hide her in Siberia to keep her safe, I will.”

  Adam’s arm tightened painfully across her chest, causing Jenna to wince. “You will not hide her from me. If you try, I will track her to the ends of this Earth to find her, and you will regret the day you took her away from me. As far as I’m concerned, there shall never be a day that passes from here on out that I do not know where she is and that I can reach her easily. Do you understand me, little demon? Mother or not, I will do what I must to keep her.”

  “Don’t provoke Kelly, Adam. Not if you like your house intact. And Kelly, you’re not taking Jenna anywhere. On that, Adam and I agree. Her time hidden away is over. She has more than you and Rick for family, and it’s time that she knows them. Her half-brother Logan is standing right next to her. Would you really take Jenna and keep her away from her own blood?”