Chapter 24: Free and Clear

Chapter 24

Free and Clear

They talked.

They started to protest and posture, but Drew extended his claws, flexed his hands, and told them to sit the fuck down.

Both of them dropped down on the couch like someone had broken their kneecaps, Clayton’s nose still bloody and his neck blooming with bruises, and Brian, who’d muttered his name in response to Drew’s demand, looking like he might faint any second.

Drew pulled up a chair—for me, as it turned out—and then stood next to me, facing the other two, and loomed.

“I know Ash didn’t beat you up,” Drew said. “And I know he didn’t steal a car. What happened that night? Full story. Leave anything out, and you lose a finger.”

“How would you know if we—”

“Shut the fuck up, Clay!” Brian hissed. “That’s a fucking alpha, he’ll kill us both.”

“He won’t kill you,” I put in, hoping that was true. “Right, Drew?”

He glanced down at me. “Not unless they lie to us.”

Well, okay then. I shrugged at the shivering duo across from me, making a face that tried to say “Well, I did my best, and you’re on your own.”

They apparently got the message, because Brian swallowed hard, turned green, and started to talk.

And I listened, with mounting disgust and a huge side helping of horror.

Also, homicidal rage.

Although Drew probably had that covered for me.

We’d started out at a club, a place downtown where Clayton and Brian, who’d been roommates since their sophomore year of college, liked to go for the half-price off-brand liquor. Brian drove because Clayton wanted to get wasted, and I tagged along for the ride. I had in fact been dating Clayton at the time, although Brian volunteered that “You guys weren’t, like, official or anything. Clay’s too into girls to give them up or whatever.”

Their story cut off and meandered, and they were both obviously trying to lie to make themselves look better, but finally we got to the point: Clayton thought I needed to “loosen up a little,” which turned out to mean “let him fuck me,” because I’d only been giving blowjobs so far.

That bought him a noise from the depths of Drew’s throat that had my internal organs trying to crawl out my nose and run away, let alone Clayton’s.

Because Clayton had drawn his knees up and was staring at Drew in abject terror, it fell to Brian to explain that Clayton had put a hefty dose of ecstasy in my drink, given a more reasonable amount to Brian and taken some himself, and then talked Brian into going up in the hills for a drive.

By then, Brian said, I’d been totally out of it, rubbing myself all over Clayton in the back seat and acting like a—he stopped abruptly in the middle of that sentence, because Drew had started growling again.

Just as well, because I thought I might be sick. Clayton had been someone I’d slept with, had trusted—and even if I couldn’t imagine feeling that way about him now, he’d betrayed that trust. Hearing more of Brian’s nasty description of my behavior, drugged and taken advantage of, might’ve broken me.

Brian hurriedly skipped over that part and went on. We’d stopped a mile or so out of town, up in the foothills between the city and the mountains. Brian and Clayton got out to smoke a joint and then got in a drunken fight. They didn’t even seem to remember what it’d been about, so Drew gave up on trying to press the point, but Clayton knocked Brian out, got in the car, and took it and me for a joyride, eventually crashing it into a boulder.

And then he panicked. He thought I was dead, and he ran, walking all the way down the hill and into town, going a different way than the way he’d driven up because it was shorter and thereby not running into Brian.

Clayton made it all the way back to their apartment—this apartment, and it set me shivering with something between fury and nausea that he’d been here, right here, when he gave me up for dead and then probably passed out drunk.

When I was kidnapped. When some opportunistic asshole found me, either one of the warlocks or someone who knew they’d want me. While I was being dragged out of that wrecked car and taken away to be tortured for a year, Clayton had probably been lying on the same couch he sat on now.

It took me a second to get myself under control, biting back a fresh wave of nausea and stilling the shakes in my hands.

The rest of their story didn’t take long. A police car doing a drive along the road up there found Brian beaten and unconscious and called for an ambulance. The next morning, a jogger called in the totaled car.

I wasn’t in it.

And when the police questioned Brian—and Clayton, who was Brian’s emergency contact and had ended up going to the hospital a couple of hours before dawn, long before the police arrived—they told them I’d been the one to beat Brian up and take off with the car.

Because I’d vanished into thin air. And they were convinced that they’d be arrested for manslaughter if they didn’t cover their asses.

With me gone, there wasn’t anyone to contradict their story, even though it stank to high heaven.

“We thought you’d taken off,” Brian whined, eyes flicking between me and Drew, as if he couldn’t quite bear to look at either of us. “I mean, what were we supposed to do?”

“Tell them the truth?” The words wrenched out of my throat, scraping like barbed wire. “Send them looking for me? Call an ambulance when you crashed the car in the first place? You left me to—worse than die.”

A long, heavy silence descended on the room. Clayton’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.

Drew lifted his hands, spreading his fingers to show them the gleaming, razor-sharp length of his claws.

“I have ten of these,” he said, his voice so calm and even and deadly that I grabbed him by the arm, my breath catching. Oh, shit. “You have a lot more than ten internal organs between you. I’ll have to double up. You better fucking pray I get bored and do it quickly instead of slowly.”

“He’s fine!” Clayton cried, pressing himself back against the couch. A damp patch appeared on the front of his gym shorts. “He’s right here, he’s alive, nothing happened to him, please don’t—”

“You have no fucking clue what happened to me!” My shout startled even me, and I jumped up from the chair, fists clenched, wishing I had my own claws to tear them to shreds. Images flowed through my mind like a waterfall, the lab where they’d tortured me, my cell, the endless tears I’d cried as I begged for someone to come and rescue me. “You deserve it. You deserve for him to rip your liver out and beat you to death with it—”

“You have the best ideas, babe,” Drew interjected. “I love you so fucking much.”

For a second everything blurred, and it felt like my blood stopped pumping. I turned and stared up at him. “You what?”

He looked back at me, mouth open in startlement. “What?”

“You said you love me,” I whispered.

“Oh, my God,” Brian moaned. “This isn’t fucking happening. What’s fucking happening?”

Drew’s brows furrowed, and he waved a clawed hand at me in a “help me out, here” kind of gesture.

“Yeah, of course I fucking love you,” he said, sounding puzzled more than anything at my lack of comprehension. “I’d die for you. I’d kill for you. I have killed for you, and I’m totally down to do it again in the next five minutes. I mated you, Ash! What the hell did you think?”

“I—what—I thought—” I sputtered into silence, torn between the deep, almost frantic joy welling up in me and absolute, bone-deep exasperation. “I thought you’d say something, Drew! You know, words? I’m human! I don’t speak fluent werewolf yet!”

A dull, deep-red flush spread over Drew’s perfect cheekbones. I wanted to lick them.

Maybe the werewolf thing was starting to rub off on me after all.

“I’m human enough to use words to tell you I love you. But I’m also human enough not to want to say it when I don’t think I’ll hear it back.”

Exasperation came out on top.

I put my fists on my hips and glared. “You are not that stupid! Don’t think you’ll hear it back? Of course I love you, you idiot! I thought you didn’t love me!”

Drew stared at me for a second, and then a brilliant, blinding grin took over his face. “Yeah?” He moved a little closer, leaning down, his lips getting so close—

“Oh my God,” someone groaned. “Fuck, I’m gonna throw up, this is so fucked-up—”

Drew and I turned as one to see Clayton covering his face and leaning over the side of the couch, while Brian gibbered at the other end of it.

“Way to ruin the fucking moment,” Drew gritted out. He turned back to me. “I love you. I can’t quite believe you love me, so can you scream it later while I’m holding you down?”

“Yeah, I can do that.” My own smile felt too big for my lips to contain. The bond flared between us, vibrating with its own delight in flashes of brassy gold. “All night. Please.”

Drew nodded briskly, as if to settle the matter. And then he turned his full attention to the two assholes on the couch.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “With your permission, babe?”

“I trust you.” And I did, with everything. Including executing my revenge for me. Right then, I felt too happy to want to dismember anyone, but I didn’t think that’d stop Drew, necessarily. He could handle it.

Drew leaned down so quickly I almost missed it, kissed my cheek, and took my hand.

“Instead of me killing you slowly, you fucking assholes are going to go to the police station, turn yourselves in, and confess. All of it. The way you drugged him, the fight, crashing the car, leaving him for dead, the lies. Every single fucking last bit of it, until they have to gag you to make you stop telling them what absolute scum-sucking motherfucking pieces of shit you are. Do you understand?” Brian made an incoherent sound. “I said, do you fucking understand?”

“Yes,” Brian whispered, and nudged Clayton with his elbow. “Clay, come on, man.”

“Yeah,” Clayton choked out. “Okay.”

“And we’re all clear on what’s going to happen to you if you don’t do that in the next ten minutes?”

“Claws, liver, other internal organs, etcetera,” I put in helpfully—and probably way too cheerfully, but fuck it.

Drew loved me. I squeezed his hand, and he squeezed back, careful not to scratch me.

How could I help being a little chirpy?

“We’re clear,” Brian said.

“Good,” Drew replied. “I have better things to do with the rest of my day.”

And he turned his head and winked at me.

I smiled back.

God, I loved him so fucking much too. And I couldn’t wait to scream it to the ceiling.

***

Of course, the police ended up taking the rest of the day anyway.

Drew escorted Clayton and Brian to the station, since neither of us actually believed they’d go on their own. I thought they were more likely to lock themselves in a closet and keep pissing themselves than run, but either way.

One of the officers on duty happened to be an alpha werewolf. Drew pulled him aside and mentioned that the victim in the case was his mate, and the officer didn’t have any more questions about Drew’s involvement. Drew told me the officer quietly complimented him on his restraint, since Clayton and Brian came in with a few contusions rather than missing limbs.

And then they called me in, and I sat through hours of endless questions—with Drew at my side, since legally mates couldn’t be separated, it turned out.

Thank God for that, because without him right there next to me I might have broken down.

But instead, I stuck to the simplest story I possibly could: I’d lost my memory, I’d been kidnapped and assaulted, and eventually I’d escaped. Drew had found me by the side of the road and helped me.

We’d fallen in love and mated, and Drew had brought me here to look for my family and my missing past.

The end.

By the sidelong glances the detectives questioning me exchanged, they thought our story had more holes than Swiss cheese. They asked me the same things, phrased a little differently, over and over again.

But with Drew backing me up, I felt untouchable, my confidence soaring in a way it never could have without my mate holding my hand.

My mate.

Every time I looked at him, or thought about him, I couldn’t help smiling. It probably made me seem even crazier to the detectives.

But whatever. I didn’t care. And Clayton and Brian, terrified into compliance by Drew’s last-minute spate of threats in the car, insisted they’d come in under no coercion whatsoever, and that as soon as I’d turned up alive they’d realized they had to obey their consciences and clear my name.

They got booked for a variety of charges and led away in handcuffs.

Drew and I were told very sternly that we had to be available for further questions and would be called as witnesses if Clayton and Brian went to trial rather than taking some kind of plea deal. The alpha officer popped out of his cubicle to whisper his congratulations on our mating, slap Drew on the shoulder, and leer at me.

And then we walked out into the late-afternoon spring sunshine, free and clear and hand in hand. The police station had a wide set of white steps leading down to the sidewalk. It almost felt like coming out of a church after getting married, and I had to choke down a hysterical burst of laughter at the thought.

Instead of heading to the car, Drew pulled me the other way, down the block and across the street to a little park on the corner. It didn’t have much, just a stretch of lawn and a few hedges and rose bushes, all of the latter blooming in California’s perpetual warm weather despite April being a little early.

Drew tugged me behind a bank of white climbing roses that were swarming with bees and flooding the air with sweetness.

I went into his arms, and he bent and kissed me, long and deep.

When he lifted his head, he looked as dazed with joy as I felt, my whole body buzzing like the bees.

“I love you,” I said, because I honestly couldn’t wait until he fucked me.

“I’m never going to get tired of hearing that. I love you too. And you were fucking awesome in there.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” My eyes stung. Oh, God, I was going to cry. So freaking pathetic. “I wouldn’t be alive without you. And I want—Drew, I really want to introduce you to my parents. I want to introduce me to my parents. Can we? I know you wanted to spend the day in bed with me, but—”

“No,” he said firmly. “I wanted to spend the day with you. In a police station, here, in the car, wherever you want. I want to be with you. Every fucking day of my life. Not that I’m not going to get a much nicer hotel room than the last one and fuck you all night later on, so don’t think you’re getting out of it.”

There was nothing I could say to that except, “I’m yours.”

And when Drew leaned down, whispered, “Right back at you,” and kissed me again—I didn’t need to say anything at all.