Trial by Moon Page 7

  I’m starting to like the way he looks at me.

  He knows it, too, and smiles. “How go the interviews?”

  “Terrible.”

  His eyebrows lift.

  “I’m not digging up much dirt on you,” I clarify.

  “Interesting.”

  I can feel his guardedness this time, too. Whatever our temporary bond is, it appears to be getting stronger. I’m restless for his touch to calm the world that seems to be crashing down upon me every other second. My headache is worse after the brief reprieve in the janitor’s closet, and I’m aroused to the point I can’t stand my own scent.

  The man who made me laugh last night is gone, replaced by a cunning, intense stranger. I don’t understand how someone can be so complicated.

  “Have you asked any questions not pertaining to your father’s death?” he asks.

  I bristle. “Of course. I have two purposes here.”

  “You have one and a distraction.”

  “You’re calling my father’s death a distraction?” Startled by his bluntness, I’m starting to wonder who the fuck I talked to last night if it wasn’t him. I had all but forgotten his rude departure after we fucked yesterday, but I’m recalling it more clearly now.

  His guard is so up, he makes mine look like tissue paper. Is this left over from whatever he and Jenny Lake Porn Star were discussing?

  “It is, if it masks your ability to choose a leader for the Community.”

  Anger makes my head pulse, and I wince, pressing the meat of one palm to my left eye, which feels like it’s going to pop out of my head any minute. “You’re worried I won’t consider you worthy now that I know you’re a fucking drug runner?” I snap.

  “I don’t need you to gauge my level of self-worth. My clan voted for me to pursue the leadership position, and I have no confusion about who and what I am,” he replies. “But I do think you Kingmaker’s prefer to sit on a hill and judge us instead of trying to understand us.”

  “Maybe it has something to do with you supernaturals killing us!”

  “Ah. It’s working. You can read the book.”

  “I got to the part where you killed my great-great grandfather.” I glare at him.

  He shrugs. “I’ve drawn the short straw twice in my life. Once when I killed him and once two days ago when I ended up having to go first with you.”

  Are we speaking two different languages? What the fuck is he talking about? Whatever it is, I’m close to boiling, too confused to understand whatever it is I’m missing. I’m also … stung by the idea he’s with me because he drew the short straw. Why that matters, I don’t know. It shouldn’t.

  “Fuck!” I mutter and grip my head. “I can’t fucking think straight!”

  “Want me to help?”

  “Help? You just insulted me in every way possible and now you want to help me?”

  He chuckles. “I meant what I said but perhaps I came across a little harsh. You Kingmaker’s don’t consider yourself part of the supernatural world, and I don’t think you personally realize the impact of what you learn and decide over the next few weeks.”

  “I’m not part of your world.”

  “You are. You’re the eleventh clan. You think you’re part of the human world?”

  God, with his scent and intensity heaping on top of the rest of my sensory issues, I’m almost to the point of hyperventilating.

  “You have no idea the privilege it is to be a supernatural or the honor it is to become my mate, if only for a week.”

  He’s angry. Not the kind of irritation I experience when I trip over something but angered on a deeper level, similar to how I feel about my father’s death.

  My instincts are ringing, my wolf side howling, but I can’t see straight let alone figure out what the hell they want to tell me.

  “Wait. Just … stop there and let me … fuck.” I manage to make it to the wall and lean against it, near the point of vomiting again.

  I’m too overwhelmed to sense him approach. I don’t register anything until one of his arms goes around me, and he draws me into his body, away from the wall supporting me. I strain initially then melt as my senses fill with him.

  “The correct answer, when I ask if you want my help, is always yes,” he growls. “It’s a formality among civilized people, not a request.”

  I rest my head against his chest, breathing in his scent. He stabilizes me within seconds, protecting me from the onslaught of reality. I grip his shirt and sigh. “I don’t want your help,” I reply stubbornly and then close my eyes. A fire blazes to life at the base of my belly and soon fills me with fevered awareness of his solidness, heat and the thin layers of fabric separating me from his skin.

  “Shut up,” he says gruffly. “Just focus on me.”

  I do so out of necessity. When my trembling stops, and my headache peels away, I release my death hold on him. “You’re being an asshole to me today.”

  “This coming from a Kingmaker?”

  I glare up at him, at once arrested by his intent gaze and the shading of his jaw and neck. He brushes a thumb across my lips, eyes glowing, and rests his palm against my cheek.

  I hate how little I want to resist his alpha possessiveness. He can do anything to me right now, and I’d let him. The worst part is he knows it.

  Some of the tension in his body relaxes, and the tightness beneath his eyes smooths out.

  He slides his thumb into my mouth. I suck on it, loving his flavor, and swirl my tongue around it.

  “Good girl,” he says with a smile. His thumb leaves my mouth, and I have the urge to lick him, to replace one of his flavors with another. “Run with me tonight.”

  It’s another of his sounds-like-a-request-but-isn’t.

  “I thought you only turned during the full moon,” I reply.

  “It’s our favorite night, when our magic is strongest, but we can turn a few days before and after. Any night when there’s moonlight really.”

  I recall running too well and how I’d been able to escape everything when I last ran with him.

  And then I recall him being a dick two seconds ago. I can make sense of my instincts once more, now that I’m in full body contact with him.

  “Jenny’s supposed to be your mate,” I guess. “That’s why you’re pissed at me.”

  His mood shifts, grows guarded again. “I’m pissed because I’m babysitting a fucking Kingmaker who thinks she’s too good to be one of us.”

  “And because Jenny Lake is supposed to be your mate,” I snap, not taking his bait this time. “This trial is fucking that up.”

  “You’ve got a drop of sense after all,” he replies, the predatory gleam back in his eyes.

  “If you don’t stop it, I’m going to roll around in cinnamon rolls before you fuck me next time.”

  He snorts and then starts to laugh. “I never should’ve told you that.”

  “No, you never should’ve been a dick to me!” I’m about to say more but he claims my lips in another of his powerful, hungry kisses that leaves me breathless, speechless, mindless. I temporarily forget my hurt at how abrupt he’s being, forget the tiny voice inside me that’s reminding me how right my father was about never lowering my guard to the supernaturals.

  Instead, I drink Ben, smell him, lose myself in everything about him.

  When he withdraws, I can hardly think let alone move and rest my cheek against his chest.

  “Yeah,” he says huskily. “I was going to choose her as my mate the week your father died. After his death, I was voted one of the three candidates.”

  “You love her?” I ask dreamily. “Can werewolves love?”

  “Your father fucked your head up, Leslie. You’re no different than me.”

  I don’t agree but sense it’s not the right time to voice it.

  “There’s little room for love when it comes to duty,” he adds. “She’s loyal and good at managing my wolves. She’s my second in command. It makes sense.”

  “Then you can
mate with her when this is over.”

  “Because any woman with any shred of honor will stand aside and happily watch her lover mate with someone else?”

  He has a point. I don’t want him sticking his awesome dick into any other woman for the week, and I barely know him.

  “You don’t have to fuck me,” I suggest. “We can stop.”

  “I’m compelled to you like you are to me.”

  “You mean it’s not normal for a werewolf?”

  “Not like this, no,” he says. “You’re my mate, if only for a week, and I need to fuck you as much as I need to breathe.”

  If I were the romantic type, I’d be in heaven for a few seconds. He goes from being a jerk to melting me with sweetness. I can’t figure him out, but knowing this is beyond his control does shed some insight. We’re both on new territory. He’s resisting, albeit far less than I am.

  “Your father’s death fucked up the lives of a lot of us,” Benjamin says.

  “Then why did one of you kill him?” I ask and open my eyes, gazing up at him again.

  “I didn’t. That’s all you need to know.”

  I believe him but I don’t know exactly why. It’s not the wolf in me this time. Perhaps because he’s genuinely upset about not mating with Jenny Lake, about my father’s death ruining his plans.

  I study his strong features, aware of his hard cock at my lower belly and the muscular hug keeping me on my feet.

  “She’s not right for you,” I say without thinking. “You were settling.”

  “How the fuck does Ms. One-Night-Stand know a thing about relationships?” he challenges softly.

  “You’re right. I do think all supernaturals are assholes. You’re not helping their case!” I push at him.

  He doesn’t let me go. “You. Are. One of us,” he says with tested patience.

  “I don’t belong anywhere, Ben,” I snap and cease struggling with an exasperated sigh. “You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t get it that I can’t ever be a real human, can’t ever live among supernaturals? Where the fuck does that leave me? My father’s death fucked up your life, but he was my only friend, too! I don’t have a pack or a company or even relatives who will talk to me, because I’m a Kingmaker and I’m forbidden from telling humans what I am.”

  Where all that comes from, I don’t know, and I’m immediately horrified to have admitted the truth to him.

  “Let me go!” I order him. I manage to twist in his embrace. He wraps both arms around me tightly and holds me.

  “Calm down,” he whispers. “We’re both upset.”

  I can’t shake him if I want to. I focus on balancing out again. Lecturing myself silently about revealing too much to a stupid supernatural, I’m liking this adventure less and less. One day as a werewolf is enough. As usual, whenever my world starts to spiral out of control around him, Ben anchors me back to reality. Gradually, I relax against him and rest my head back against his shoulder. He nuzzles me, cheek to cheek, and then buries his face into the nape of my neck. It feels like an apology. At least, my wolf thinks so, but that bitch is quick to forgive Ben for everything.

  “Run with me tonight,” he murmurs again. His hot tongue flickers out to taste my skin. “I’ll fuck you into oblivion after.” He rubs his erection against my ass, and one hand goes to the mound of my pussy. He palms me, and I wriggle against him.

  My body ignites with need. It’s as much the knowledge I’m never quite right unless we’re together as it is the memory of our wild fucking. “Okay,” I reply, unable to resist the draw of either.

  “I’ve got three more meetings today, and you need to finish interviews.” His hand shifts upward from the part of me aching for his touch. “My driver will pick you up downstairs at five.”

  I start to protest when he releases me, wanting to feel him inside me now.

  “Later. I promise,” he says with a low chuckle. “I love how you melt when I touch you.”

  The reminder of how vulnerable I become in his arms disturbs me. I don’t like feeling that way.

  This time, I’m the one who walks out without another word.

  I flee the tenth floor as fast as possible and then return to the fifth, where I’m conducting my interviews of his company’s officers. I hide out in the janitor’s retreat for an hour to help stabilize. The effects of his touch seem to be holding. No migraine returns, and I feel like there’s a layer of something between me and the sensations of my world.

  Coping better, if frustrated I’m no closer to the truth about anything despite talking to him, I return to the interview room at three to find Jenny Lake Porn Star present and waiting. I perk up, hoping I can learn more about Ben from the person he trusts most in the world.

  “I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” I say and slide into my seat across the table from her.

  “No.” She doesn’t look up from the screen of her phone, where she’s texting someone. “Ben’s so funny.” She smiles and then sets the cell down.

  I don’t like that. Something is off about this bitch.

  Chalking the weird sense up to the werewolf side of me that hates any woman who’s ever touched Ben, I flip open my notebook and pick up my pen.

  “Okay let’s start with your official job title,” I say.

  “Chief Operations Officer.”

  We go through the boring questions. I scribble a few notes but not much and instead, spend most of the conversation watching her watch me. Until this moment, I don’t really think I understood that I, too, am a predator, if only for a week. I’ve never had the urge to hurt or hunt anyone – but I do her, and it’s not entirely my wolf side talking. Jenny Lake Porn Star looks at me like she’s already planned my death and is simply waiting for the right moment to strike.

  It’s a weird sensation, and I realize how different she and Ben are in that regard. His intensity isn’t … lethal. He’s wary and guarded but not plotting my murder. To Jenny, I’m already dead and buried somewhere where even Ben can’t find my body, and she’s getting ready to knock on his door for a fuck.

  “Is that it?” she asks with cool politeness.

  I’m staring at her, completely lost in my head and senses again. “Sorry. This werewolf thing is new to me,” I apologize. “I’m so easily distracted.”

  “Understandable. It takes a strong mind and stomach to be a wolf. Not everyone’s cut out for it.”

  Zing. I ignore it. “Onto the hard questions,” I say. “Can you describe Ben’s leadership style?”

  I’m not surprised to hear even an angry she-wolf tell me that Ben is the bestest, most amazing boss ever.

  “… and lover,” she finishes with a sigh that’s borderline dreamy. “But you know that already.”

  “Moving on,” I reply.

  “I can smell him on you. Do you have any idea what it’s like to sit across from you and know he’s fucked you?”

  Startled by the emotional intensity of the quiet words, I sit back.

  “We were meant to be mated.”

  I clear my throat, uncertain what to say. I’ve fucked more guys with girlfriends and fiancés than single, but I never once thought about what I’d tell their women if we ever had a civilized discussion. Usually, they’re screaming at me. “Look, this is between you and him,” I say. “I’m not trying to interfere.”

  “Not trying to interfere,” she repeats, face flushing. “You fucking Kingmaker’s are all alike. Fucking self-righteous mutts. You don’t care whose lives you ruin.”

  I’m pretty sure she means it as an insult, but I can’t help laughing. I am a mutt – and I don’t care. “I’ll be out of your hair in a few days,” I assure her. “Then he’s all yours for eternity.”

  “Assuming he’s not exiled or mated to you or made the Community leader.”

  How does everyone know what’s going on but me?

  “It’s taken wolves thousands of years to get to this point. I’m proud of Ben for being the first ever selected for the trials by the Kingma
ker, but I wish your fucking father had chosen another wolf,” Jenny adds bitterly. “Why my wolf?”

  Don’t. React. My wolf wants to unleash on Jenny, and I’m struggling, too, after how she talks about my father. Ben is right, however, in that I don’t know the first thing about confrontation as a werewolf. Can Jenny turn wolf and eat me right now? If she tries, can I turn, too, and defend myself?

  “I’m not going to be sidelined by a mutt for any amount of time,” Jenny continues. “I’m meant to be at his side, not you. You’ve ruined everything.”

  “Can we just get through this?” I pick up my notebook and pretend to study the page I’m on, as if I’ve got questions written there. “About the other business. The drug running. Why the hell is someone so successful involved in drugs?”

  She blinks and then scrutinizes my features. “Who told you about that?”

  “The last guy I spoke to,” I reply.

  “It’s none of your fucking business why I’m running drugs on the side. You have no right to judge me, Kingmaker or not!”

  “No, I meant …” I drift off, understanding crossing my thoughts. “You mean you’re running drugs? Ben isn’t?”

  She grinds her teeth together so hard, her jaw pops. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one runs drugs here.”

  “Except you just admitted –”

  “This interview is over!” She slams her hands down on the table and then leans over threateningly. “If you ever, ever, breathe a word of this to Ben, I will rip out your throat and gut you while you still breathe. You’re his favorite for a week, but I’m a fucking wolf the rest of my life. I will track you down, no matter where you go.”

  She storms out.

  I stare after her, stunned. Even my primal side is surprised.

  “Good job, Leslie.” I uncovered a secret – but it’s not Ben’s and not one that’ll help me on my path of self-discovery or in my duty.

  I have no idea what to do about it, either. Tapping my pen on the notebook, I shake my head and stand.

  I’m fucking fed up with werewolves for today. I text the driver and tell him to pick me up now rather than later.

  As I walk to the elevator, I’m struck by a thought.

  Ben claimed to have drawn the short straw to murder my great-great grandfather, which implies there were multiple players involved in plotting that murder. Coupled with my father’s apparent knowledge he, too, would one day be murdered by a supernatural, I’m starting to see a different picture. His death was premeditated, planned, if not scheduled.