My Personal Hell, D. Richardson [ebook reader browser txt] 📗

my shoulders and mine found their way to his chest, almost keeping him at arms length. “You had no choice. He would have killed Sarah, he would’ve killed you. You did nothing wrong,” he just kept talking like that until I was finally able to take a deep breath.

When I was conscious enough to realize that my hands were clenched in his shirt, I leaned my head back. I met his eyes and he just stared at me for a few seconds. We were closer than I had thought. I could feel his warmth in my hands as our breathing started to match, every inhale and exhale made at the same time. I started to get really, really warm just staring back at him. I stopped shaking but he never let go of me. About ten beats later he let my shoulders go, and I dropped my arms. It was almost simultaneous and he backed up a few feet, looking anywhere but at me.

“I need to call in a cleaning crew,” he said, pulling his phone out. I nodded and moved to sit against the building.

We had lucked out, Cory and his family had pulled away without noticing anything. The wolves that were still there had watched, but the humans had been kept out of it and sent on their way.

It turned out that the cleaning crew was Bastion and his men. Drake showed up just a few seconds after them, taking in the scene in one sweep of his eyes. Before backing up and waiting for the final report of the situation.

Alex immediately checked the dead guys pulse, when he didn’t find one he moved on to the leader, who was still whining like a baby. I was tempted to go kick him for good measure, just to see if it would shut him up. Alex apparently felt the same way, as he filled a very large needle and unceremoniously stuck it in his neck before he could flinch. It must have been a sedative, because he collapsed onto the ground almost immediately. It took him no more than a minute to wrap a bandage around his head.

The third guy needed more hands. I had snapped his leg in two at the knee, they had to reset his knee before they could move him. I nearly laughed when Alex told him that if he didn’t hold still they’d make sure he never walked again. After that he took the abuse in silence. The two guys that Sadler had taken down were merely unconscious though they were sure that they had severe concussions, and were possibly in comas.

While the guys worked at moving the body and the others into a van, Bastion stood talking to Sadler. Everything was still a bit hazy, but I tuned in as soon as they started talking about the overall actions of all of us who were involved.

“The five of them had shown up about an hour ago. We asked them to leave, and they did. But they must have doubled back. Ailith and I caught their scents as we were leaving. They were going for the human girl. We cut them off before they could show themselves and they attacked us.” Bastion nodded as he wrote something down in his little notepad.

“Who went for who?.” he asked absently.

“The leader over there went for Ailith. The other four came at me. She dispatched the leader and pulled two of them off me. She rendered the one with the broken leg useless and the other one pinned her to the ground. I got rid of my two and turned to pull him off of her, but she flipped him over and took care of him.”

“And by took care of him you mean?” he asked, needed all of the details.

“I killed him,” I answered, they all turned to look at me. “I pinned him to the ground and snapped his neck.” I still hadn’t moved from my spot on the wall. Drake stared at me as though he was seeing me for the first time, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.

“He was trying to mark her,” Sadler added, and everyone took a simultaneous breath of relief. And several of them, Drake in the lead, came over and started to check me over.

“I’m fine,” I spit out from behind clenched teeth.

“Thank god,” Drake whispered, barely pulling back. I stared at him, appalled that he would be relieved that I had killed someone in such a cold manner. Though I didn’t know if that made much of a difference, what manner I had killed him in, he was still dead. He leveled a gaze at me. “You did what I would expect a commander to do. You did your job, nothing more, nothing less. If it hadn’t been you it would have been someone else. As far as I’m concerned you’ve proven yourself an asset.” He walked away when Alex made an appearance from the back of the van.

“Well, the one with the broken leg will walk again, but with a limp. The bastard with the eye patch lost his left eye. How’d you manage that?” Alex asked me, it was out of blatant curiosity so I held out my right hand. The spikes were still sticking out. I didn’t want to close it until I could clean the blood off.

My knuckles were bruised and I couldn’t tell if the blood was mine or not. Alex held my hand lightly, taking a close look at the ring. Dalton sidled up next to him as Bastion glanced at it, a small smile playing on his lips.

“I thought that would come in handy for you,” he said before walking away. He was the one that had given it to me. Though I hadn’t realized exactly how much damage it could do when I put it on.

“That’s cool,” Dalton muttered as he bent over it. After another moment Alex gave my hand a small squeeze before letting it drop.

After that I looked around, the girls had already left, and once I got the all clear I climbed into my car and went home. Becca was waiting for me in the kitchen I walked in. She didn’t say anything, but she made me sit in front of her. There was a bowl of warm water and a towel already sitting in front of her. She cleaned my hands, her movements sure and gentle as the blood washed away. Turned out most of the blood wasn’t mine. After she was done she took my ring off and opened a bottle of jewelry cleaner. Once it was clean she handed it back and I retracted the spikes before putting it back on.

She never said a word, and neither did I. When it was all done I went up to my room. Not really looking forward to seeing the sun rise. I just wanted to wallow in the darkness for a while. But rise it did, and I got up to take a shower. My first stop was the training compound, like most mornings.

But it was different. No one gave me any grief, in fact, several of them looked at me with a new found respect. Even Asher. While all of them that I counted as my friends acted like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. I was grateful. I didn’t want to be treated any differently simply because I now had blood on my hands.

After training I got a call from Sarah. She was her usual happy self and told me that they wanted to treat me to lunch. Though they wanted to have it at their temporary house. So I went over there.

It turned out that one of the biggest reasons that they were even in town was that Dave had business to tend too. He traveled a lot, sometimes closer to home, like the two and a half hour drive to their home town, or clear across the country. He really wasn’t home very often. They had seen a DVD of the benefit and had begged him to take them with them, so they could try to find me.

Sitting in the house alone with the three of them was like I had traveled back in time. I had even managed to forget about the night before. And that’s how I spent the next week. I trained, I worked, and I spent my free time with them. In the rare moments that Cory and I were alone was intense, though not physical. I just kept feeling like something just wasn’t right.

By the time I realized what it was, it was too late. It just hit me out of nowhere while we were just sitting there alone. I had been watching him, while he watched a movie. And it occurred to me that we had never argued. Not even a playful argument. We just seemed to always agree, and when we didn’t neither one of us acknowledged it. Like we were too afraid of pushing each other away. Or upsetting a precarious balance.

On the one hand I liked that we didn’t fight. We got along wonderfully with no tension. On the other hand, there was no passion, plenty of intensity, but no passion, not really. Not even in the most recent kiss that we shared. It left me feeling a little hollow.

Sarah had come in right after my realization, so I never got the chance to say anything to him. We had fun, enjoying the accommodations that Drake had provided. The house we were staying in was meant for any extra enforcers, which meant males, so there was a pretty nice game consol along with several games. Sarah really like the dance games on the Xbox 360.

We played until she was exhausted, then she collapsed onto Cory’s lap. It was simply meant to be playful, and I played along, doing the same with a dramatic flare. We were all laughing when Sadler tapped on the door and walked in. I sat up as soon as I saw him, but he looked different. Colder, more distant, it wasn’t like him, and I didn’t like it.

For a moment, just a moment, it occurred to me that both Cory and Sadler were in the same room. Together, with me, and I started having heart palpitations, I didn’t even know why. But it took me a moment to shake it off, after already having to hide my trembling hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sadler

 

 

 

 

Drake sent me over to the pack house to deliver some food. He was doing his best to be hospitable, but I could see the jealousy when Ailith was friendly with Dave. She treated him like the father she never had, and Drake didn’t take too kindly to it. That’s the thing with wolves. Once you become close, even if you don’t always get along, we don’t like other’s touching what’s ours.

Ailith may not know it, but Drake considered her a daughter, whether she wanted to be or not. I almost wished she had heard him when he said that he was grateful she had been there when the rogues attacked. She did a lot of damage, but it served as a better warning than he could ever give. A beating only went so far, but doing permanent damage the way that she had been forced to do, spoke volumes to rogues wanting to cause trouble on the territory. It said that no one was to be messed with, especially the females.

I heard her laughter through the door right before I knocked. When I walked in I had expected to see her messing around with Sarah, not laying with her head in Cory’s lap. She sat up when she saw me, her smile never wavering, though I caught the glance that Cory split between the two of us. I didn’t bother to say anything, instead choosing to put the bags on the kitchen counter.

It was a relatively small house. The kitchen opened up to the living room, allowing