Chapter 13: A Purpose in the World

Chapter 13

A Purpose in the World

We lay there for a long time, long enough that I hardly even felt sticky anymore, the sweat and come dry on my skin.

I missed it. At least I’d been feeling something.

Finally I had to break the silence, because Drew showed no signs of stepping up to the plate in that regard. Were all alphas this stony-silent when they got stressed? Or only mine?

No, not mine, not mine, and I backpedaled away from that thought with all my gears whirring frantically. Drew wasn’t mine.

And even dealing with our practical problems, awful as they were, sounded better than following that train of thought any further. I had enough emotional problems, thank you very much.

“What happens if you go to see them without me?” I asked, not all that hopeful about the answer but needing to try anyway, praying to find some middle ground between fleeing and giving in.

Because even given infinite time and a large pad of paper for making copious notes, I’d have been hard pressed to think of something more socially horrifying, and possibly fatal, than putting my skinny body in a tuxedo that’d make me look even more ridiculous and going to glad-hand a werewolf pack who wanted my supposed mate to marry their alpha daughter.

“They won’t believe you exist after all and they’ll take offense, or they’ll think there’s something bizarre about you and assume I’m willing to break the bond with you,” Drew said heavily, but without hesitation.

A miserable little laugh rose up and choked me. “There is something bizarre about me. I can think of a few things, actually.”

“That’s not what they’d be thinking.” Drew turned his head and quirked an eyebrow. “More like some extreme physical deformity. Some werewolves are really, really image-conscious. Like you wouldn’t believe. Not to mention the whole upper-crust society thing they have going on.”

Did being yawn-inducingly average-looking, and also human, count as “extreme physical deformity” in their book, though? Almost certainly.

“Your family has the same upper-crust society thing going on, Drew.”

He sighed. “Not like Victoria’s family. They’re old money. Some werewolf ancestor on the Mayflower, all that bullshit.”

I snorted, and Drew smiled. Well, at least my awkwardness got me that much. “There weren’t any werewolves on the Mayflower. I remember that from a history class I don’t remember taking. There was a vampire, though. I’m betting that was awkward.”

Drew rolled his eyes as his smile grew into a wicked grin. “I’d advise not mentioning that. They don’t have human ancestors, don’t you know. And since they can’t have it both ways, a Mayflower werewolf it is. It’s fucking stupid.”

And that grin was gone again, wiped away as if he’d never had a happy thought in his life.

“You don’t have to do this,” he went on quietly. “The offer’s still open to find you somewhere else to go without me. I’ll do anything and everything in my power to make sure it works out for you.”

For the first time, I seriously mulled that over, even though the thought of walking away from Drew left me…hollow. This sounded like a no-win situation to me, and Drew…okay, so he might not want to marry and mate this Victoria—and what a name, she sounded like such a bitch—but would it really be so bad? She was probably hot. Hotter than me, anyway, likely by an order of magnitude. A werewolf, and an alpha herself. Rich. Not crazy and damaged and useless.

But looking at Drew, I simply couldn’t abandon him to his fate, even if that fate sounded bearable. He’d put a lot on the line for me. The only thing he’d wanted in return had been an out, a pretend mate to keep him free of his uncle’s machinations. And if he couldn’t run from this, the least I could do would be stand by his side and support him with every bit of insignificant human effort I could exert.

Besides, if I left, what would he do about his other problem? He’d have to knot someone. And he’d said he wanted me.

I wanted it to be me. That knowledge burned in me, a glowing coal searing my insides.

“You told me your family would fight for me if it came down to it, because as your mate, I’m part of the pack and part of the family,” I said at last. “Did you mean that? I mean, is that true? Or were you just trying to reassure me?”

“I meant it.” Drew rolled onto his side, putting his face much closer to mine. Close enough to see the little streaks of mossy green in his deep brown eyes, faint but there, like the gleaming striations in a piece of agate. He laid his hand on my back and stroked down, resting it on the swell of my ass. I didn’t know if he meant to soothe me or start the process of taking me again, but either way I wasn’t about to complain. “They would. Even Boyd. But that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be paying for it for the rest of our lives, one fucking way or another. And I don’t need to ask to know he’d much rather we broke our mating bond to clear the way for the pack alliance he wants.”

“Except that you don’t want to mate with—Victoria.” Drew nodded. I remembered something else he’d said, and my blood chilled in my veins. I swallowed hard. “And they don’t want anything to get out about what happened to you. Which makes me a liability if we’re not mated.”

“I wish I’d never told you that,” he muttered, his gaze skittering away and then coming back again, boring into me with diamond-hard intensity. “This is my bullshit to worry about, not yours. And in case it wasn’t clear, that isn’t happening. Not today. Not fucking ever. If I have to choose between my family and you, I’ll choose you. Without hesitation.”

He said it like he’d stated a law of the universe or some unshakeable mathematical constant. Rate equals distance over time. A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. Drew would choose me instead of the people he’d known and loved all his life.

It didn’t compute.

“Why?” I asked, my throat so dry the word almost didn’t emerge. “You’ve been choosing them over your own well-being for a while now, it sounds like. I mean, reading between the lines, you wouldn’t be here at all. You’d have gone somewhere far, far away, and started a life out of your uncle’s shadow. Told him to go to hell with his needing an alpha heir who’s not worthless thing. And I’m nothing to you.”

His eyes flashed, gold bleeding through the brown, and his jaw set into a stubborn jut. “Because you’re mine,” he said simply. His hand traced the curve of my ass, fingers sneaking into the crease. Teasing. As if I could enjoy the feeling of him seducing me. “And close your mouth, Ash, no arguing. That ought to be fucking good enough. But if you really need another reason that makes more sense to a human, it’s because you haven’t done a fucking thing to bring any of this down on your head. I’d do just about anything to bail my parents and sister out of their mess, because we have a pack bond and a familial bond and it’s hard to separate myself from that.” He grimaced, shaking his head. “But one thing I won’t do is sacrifice an innocent bystander.”

“You shouldn’t sacrifice your own happiness, either,” I said softly.

I couldn’t resist, with his handsome face and those intense, worried, gorgeous eyes—and all of Drew, really—so close, so available for me to touch. I wriggled my arm out from between us and reached up, stroking my fingers along his stubbled jawline.

Drew turned his head, never looking away from me, and pressed a kiss to the tips of my fingers. The heat in his eyes sent an answering flush all the way through me, warmth seeping into every limb and leaving me weak and wanting.

A moment later he’d turned me over with irresistible strength, rolling himself on top, his hard cock nudging between my thighs.

He kissed my fingers again, sucking the ends into his mouth. “Can I?” he asked, his eyes glowing.

“Yes,” I whispered.

And he took me again, slowly this time, while I closed my eyes and laid back, his to use.

***

Getting knotted had a bizarrely soporific effect on me, it turned out, because I fell asleep again before Drew had even pulled out. I dozed off smiling, knowing he’d stay inside me and take his pleasure as long as he wanted.

When I stirred again, still incredibly relaxed, I found Drew propped against the headboard next to me, laptop on his knees. He’d obviously been up and around for a while before coming back to bed. A steaming cup of coffee sat on the nightstand, he’d shaved, and he smelled like shampoo.

He glanced down, a half-smile on his lips and a look in his eyes I couldn’t interpret. “Hey, sleepyhead,” he said. “You ready to get out of bed for a while?”

“You’re back in bed too!” He grinned at me, and I stuck out my tongue. I rolled over onto my back, stretching my arms—which I had to remind myself to do now that it didn’t actually give me any pleasure—and letting the blankets slide down to my waist, baring my chest.

Drew’s eyes fixed on my exposed skin, and his breath came a little faster.

God, he liked what he saw, and those signs of his desire made me feel valuable in a way I hadn’t since I’d gone to that prison.

Of course, who knew if I’d ever felt valuable before that.

Maybe no one seemed to be searching for me since my disappearance because I truly never had any value to anyone.

But Drew wanted me. Magically induced or not, his lust gave me a purpose in the world.

“Maybe you want me to stay in bed for a little while longer?” I asked, peeking at him from under my eyelashes, too shy to meet his eyes directly.

Drew flushed bright red and made a sound like he’d tried to swallow his tongue and missed.

“No,” he said hoarsely, still staring at me. It sounded like yes. “No. Definitely not. Even if you can’t feel it, you’re sore by now. Swollen.” His voice had dropped another octave.

I squeezed my thighs together, wishing I could feel it, my stomach muscles clenching oddly. Had he inspected me after his knot went down again and he slid out of me? Watched his come trickling out of my well-used hole, maybe spread me with his fingers and thumb to see if he’d damaged me? I’d been dead to the world, lying limp and passive for his examination.

I shuddered, my eyes drifting closed. I could imagine it so clearly. Had it aroused him even more, made him hard to touch me like that after he’d literally fucked me unconscious?

“Ash, are you all right?”

My eyes popped open as I let out a startled squeak. Drew had leaned over me, frowning down worriedly.

“I’m fine!”

Drew’s frown deepened. “You’d tell me if you. If I. You’d tell me if I’d done anything to upset you?”

“Other than keeping secrets until I have to pull them out of you with pliers?”

His grim expression melted into a sad half-smile. “Other than that.”

“I’d tell you. And you haven’t.”

He sighed. “Well, then I’m about to upset you a little bit more. Not more about my family!” he added quickly as I popped up on my elbows, my haze of imaginary arousal disrupted by the burst of anger that detonated in my chest. “About you. I found something the other day. I’d meant to tell you at lunch. And then you tried to deep-throat your own hand and I…yeah. I kind of forgot about it until a little while ago. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the second I found something. I’ll dig out the baseball bat if you want.”

My heart had started to thump in a weird, double-triple non-rhythm that felt like I’d always heard a heart attack described.

You couldn’t have a heart attack at twenty-five, right? Well, at least it wouldn’t hurt.

“What did you find?” I asked him, through lips as dry as sandpaper.

Drew leaned back again, retrieving the laptop from where he’d left it further down the bed and turning it so I could see the screen. When he clicked over from whatever tab he’d had open in front of it, the first thing I saw was my own smiling face: the same photo that’d been in the missing persons database.

Except it wasn’t only my face. This photo included another guy, his head leaned in close to mine, black hair tousled and a cocky smile on his all-American-good-looking face.

My first absurd, inane thought: Well, I certainly have a type.

And then the real point of it hit me: This is someone who knows me.

My breath caught, and I couldn’t look away, staring at that unknown man as if the force of my will could bust through the screen and wrench the truth out of him.

“Where did you find this?” My voice didn’t even sound like mine, thin and shaky.

“I had to use a few different image search tools, because partial images aren’t that easy to pin down,” Drew said, his own tone very even, as if compensating for my impending freak-out. “But this came up on a social media profile. Shitty privacy settings,” he added disapprovingly, as if he couldn’t help it. Right. Network security. I almost smiled in spite of everything. “I have his name: Clayton Moore. He’s twenty-five, graduated two years ago from the university in the town you supposedly stole that car in, and as far as I can tell, he still lives there. Parties all the time. Dates blondes with big tits and drinks a lot of flavored shots. I’ve got a background check running on him for more practical information.”

Clayton. Clay, maybe? Ash and Clay. There was a combination for you. Had we laughed about that? Had we kissed and touched and…maybe I’d been getting ahead of myself, because that one photo didn’t prove we’d been dating, or even hooking up.

But the body language suggested it. It kind of looked like we might have our arms around each other just out of the frame. Something blue behind us…a couch. We were sitting on a couch. Practically close enough that one of us had to be in the other’s lap—me in his, probably, since he looked a lot bigger than me and would’ve squished me like a bug that never went to the insect gym.

“You want to hear the kicker, though?” Drew asked, more grimly than evenly this time.

Oh boy, did I ever! Christ. “Sure,” I whispered.

“I didn’t even find this photo on Moore’s profile. It was in an older photo album in the profile of a girl who went to the same school. I’m guessing you did, too, based on that, although maybe you were from that town and not a college transplant. There’s no trace of you in Moore’s photos. And I looked through all of them, and what a fucking pleasure that was. Total douchebag, as far as I can tell.”

I mulled that over for a minute, setting aside Drew’s oddly disproportionate anger at Clayton’s lifestyle and doing my best to order my whirling thoughts. It was like trying to pull a single strand out of a tangled ball of thread. My brain felt like it’d been lit on fire.

We looked close in that photo, both physically and emotionally. And he didn’t have a trace of me on his profile.

If these people had been my friends, wouldn’t there have been something about my disappearance? A plea for information? Anything?

“I looked for a profile under my name a couple of weeks ago,” I managed. “I didn’t find anything. I’m guessing you didn’t either? Looking through these people’s friends lists, or whatever?”

Drew shook his head. “Nothing. And most of their friends have their personal info locked down a little better.”

“That’s weird. I mean, I guess they all think I’m a criminal? But still, you’d think—” I swallowed down the lump in my throat. What would crying accomplish except confirming Drew’s preexisting impression, which he had to have by now, that I was a big wuss? “You’d think someone would’ve cared enough about me to miss me.”

A big arm wrapped around my shoulders, tugging me against Drew’s side, and I gave up on trying to be all stoic and collapsed against him, burying my face in his chest.

Drew shoved the laptop aside and looped his other arm around my waist, pulling me halfway into his lap.

He smelled so good. Had those fucking assholes simply not gotten around to depriving me of that particular sense, or had it not been useful to them to do it? I’d spent some long nights lying awake lately, and I’d taken some of that time to imagine a variety of ways you could make use of someone who couldn’t feel any pleasure. Or who could take a lot of injury before succumbing, keeping going until he dropped dead. Those uses ranged from the spine-crawlingly creepy to the war-crimes horrifying, but I guessed I couldn’t really imagine what you’d do with someone who couldn’t smell anything. Put him to work on a pig farm, maybe?

Those warlocks hadn’t seemed like agriculture would be high on their list of interests.

At least Drew had found a use for me that didn’t make me want to run screaming.

And I could inhale that spicy, woodsy scent of him, so warming and soothing it hit my bloodstream like a drug.

“They weren’t your friends,” he said at last, almost growling. I stiffened in his arms. He tugged me even closer, nuzzling my hair.

Oh. He hadn’t been growling at me; he’d been growling on my behalf.

I relaxed into his hold again, putting my own arm around his middle and clutching on like he could keep me from drowning.

“They weren’t your friends,” he repeated. “Whoever they were to you, fuck them. No one with half a brain or any judgment at all could know you and not care. And I was thinking while you were asleep.”

I smiled into his shirt. “Uh-oh.”

“Shut up,” Drew said, without any heat. “I mean, fair. But look. Are you serious about being willing to make an appearance in a few days? Try to get me off the hook?”

“Yeah. I am.”

“Okay. Then we’ll do that. We’ll put on a really fucking good show. We’ll at least convince my uncle that we’re mated and staying that way. If he’s convinced, then he’ll have to stand up for us to save face, because the Petersons are so far up their own asses when it comes to werewolf tradition that he has to be at least as much of a stickler for the sanctity of a mating bond. And then we’ll blow this fucking popsicle stand and head to California.”

I tipped my head back onto his arm to find him looking down at me, those gorgeous dark eyes all soft with…God, I wanted to call it affection.

Calling it affection would be so dangerous to my very tenuous claim to mental stability.

“Your family’ll still be screwed, though, right? I mean, let’s say we pull it off. We go looking for my past, and a reliable shaman. Your uncle’s going to take it out on your parents and Alyssa, right? Because he sounds like that’s his M.O.” That lump had come back, blocking my throat. “And your company, Drew. Your income and all your hard work.”

Drew slid one big, warm hand up my back, stroked my shoulder, and then let it settle on the side of my neck. He had such long fingers and such a broad palm that it wrapped halfway around, a heavy weight on my nape and pressing against my windpipe.

That would’ve felt so good. I knew it.

He gave a light squeeze, comforting. And also possessive, as if he needed me to understand he’d staked his claim on me.

“Fuck it,” he said quietly, never looking away from me. “Easy come, easy go. I think if we run now, before we’ve performed for our audience, my uncle might not let us go that easily. But if we make a public appearance, show everyone we’re together so that he can’t deny it or sweep it under the rug, we’ll be safe. You’ll be safe. And for the rest of it—fuck it. Maybe he won’t bother putting me out of business. If he does, I’ll give all the employees some severance out of what’s left, sell this house, and we’ll start over.”

Drew couldn’t possibly be that blasé about throwing away years of work, the whole life he’d built for himself.

And he couldn’t possibly think I was worth it, could he?

But when he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my forehead, and then tucked me against his chest again and held me close, I could almost believe it.