Bash, Volume III Read online

  We all sat in the living room — Angelica in her big chair, me on the sofa, and Dawg in another chair.

  “Relationship bindings can be worded to allow a third to play, without hitting as cheating,” I told her. “It’s easier if the third is human, as you don’t have to worry about inadvertently creating a three-person pack, but as long as he isn’t present when we do it, and we’re careful with the wording, it’s possible.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not anywhere close to being ready to talk about a relationship binding, Bash. Let’s talk again in a year. I’m not saying I won’t want to, but it’s way too soon to be talking about it.”

  I was trying to find the most diplomatic way to respond, when she added, “Look, if you were bound to a single female, I’d have a problem with it. But, if it was with someone who’s in a committed relationship with someone else, and I knew the two of you were just good friends, I’d deal with it. You know how close Brain and Harmony are, and you know how good of a friend I consider Brain to be. I’m sorry I didn’t think to tell you of our telepathic link before, but it’s been so long since we’ve used it, I honestly didn’t think of it.”

  I shook my head. “We can go at this logically all day. My wolf isn’t okay with it.”

  “Neither are you,” she told me, “and your wolf won’t even try to be okay with it until the man can come to terms with it.” She looked at Dawg, then back to me. “Maybe we can ask Randall to try to break the bond between Brain and I? My dad couldn’t do it, and Brain and I couldn’t, but maybe it can be done now?”

  “You’re really this dead set against promising yourself to me?” I asked as I felt knives spearing my heart.

  “No. I’m this set on not doing it until I know in my heart this is forever. We’re still new, Bash. We’ve known each other a long time, but we keep finding things we don’t know about each other. I love you and I want this to work, but I need to know in my heart it’s going to last before I promise you forever.”

  The sharp pain in my heart dulled a little, as I dared hope maybe this wasn’t the end of us, after all.

  Her voice went harsh and she asked, “Are you still set on punishing me for not telling you?”

  Dawg moved a little in his chair. We’ve been friends a long time and — without words — I knew he was warning me this was a potential powder keg. She’d agreed to it at the time, but she’d been abducted and been through a ton of shit since then. Plus, she’d had too much time to think about it.

  “Let’s not call it a punishment,” I said, careful of my tone. “In fact, let’s not tie this to anything in particular. Three minutes of my belt on your ass, then I fuck you into oblivion in human form. We won’t be able to change and let our wolves go at it, so we’ll drop that part.”

  “No.”

  I looked at her a few seconds, but she only stared back at me, challenging me. My wolf bristled, and the growl that came out of my mouth vibrated my human throat enough, I knew I was in danger of changing if I didn’t get a handle on my humanity.

  Dawg’s voice punched through, and my human brain had to engage enough to make sense of the words. “Bash, do you love Angelica? I think perhaps this might be a good time to tell her.”

  Dawg wasn’t telling me she needed to hear it, he was reminding me I loved her and I didn’t want to do this. I wouldn’t look down or away, but I could talk to her, while staring her down.

  “You know I love you, right?”

  She rolled her eyes, breaking our stare-off without actually looking away. “Yeah, but never hurts to hear it.”

  “If you won’t follow through on the three minutes you’ve already agreed to, do you have a compromise?”

  “So much has changed since I consented to it, Bash! If you insist I stick with the agreement, I will, but I’m hoping you’ll understand why I don’t want to agree to it, anymore.”

  “What will you agree to?”

  “Something that brings us closer. After being treated the way I was in the van, I don’t want anyone being mean to me, especially not someone who professes to love me. If your wolf has a problem with me, we need to go to the woods and change, let them work it out.”

  I looked out the window a few seconds, analyzing my needs, and finally looked back to tell her. “My wolf needs me to claim you in human form. Mark you — show you and I and everyone else exactly how much you belong to me.”

  Angelica looked at Dawg, and I wanted to strike out at her for it, but I held my temper. I’d invited him here to help mediate, and she obviously wanted some kind of input from him, even if it was just a few seconds of eye contact.

  “There’s all kinds of marks, brother. Can you put marks on her that show your love for her? Or, better yet, can you demonstrate your love for her as you’re marking her?”

  And this was why I’d asked Dawg if he’d sit with us while we talked. I suck at relationships, and he may not indulge in them, but he understands women so much better than me. Granted, I’d never cared enough about a woman to want to try to understand, before, but still… I had a huge learning curve in front of me.

  My wolf did, too. He was used to the way I treated women, and he was going to have to learn we treat our Princess different.

  “I love you,” I told her again. “Dawg’s right. We’ll do it as a scene, and I’ll make sure you enjoy it.”

  “And the orgasm denial?”

  “Oh, we’re doing that. Not this weekend, because I’ll want you to orgasm from my belt on your ass this weekend, but in the near future you’ll be with me nonstop from Friday evening until Monday morning, and I’ll give you an orgasm before you leave for work Monday, but you’ll go without all damned weekend.”

  I smelled her arousal, and Dawg’s chuckle let me know he caught it, too. The idea turned her on, though I knew she’d be pissed as hell at me while it was happening.

  Every muscle in my body relaxed as I realized we’d gotten past the parts I was worried about, and we were still together. I don’t know why I’d been so scared we wouldn’t be able to find a way past this, but it’d really been weighing on me.

  I was about to let Dawg know we’d be okay without him for the rest of our talk, when he asked her, “You haven’t heard from the police or FBI anymore, since they stopped by Tuesday?”

  “Wednesday, while I was at work, Agent Graham texted me pictures of shoes like I’d described, and asked me to verify they were what I saw. One definitely was, the others I thought probably were, but they hadn’t stuck in my head as clearly as the high tops. Brain let me know they’d finally gone in to process the crime scene at the house. From what Drake’s reporting, so far the evidence matches my story.”

  “Just remember, if they take you in for questioning, you stay quiet,” Dawg said, his face dark. “They’re allowed to lie about the evidence they have, so don’t believe a word they say. You can smell a lie on a normal human, but statistically, there are too many sociopath cops, and they don’t smell like they’re lying. If they get you off guard and you’re tempted to believe them, ask for Johnson — he smells like he’s lying when he is, but don’t believe your nose for anyone else.”

  She looked back and forth to both of us. “Is there something else I should know?”

  Dawg shook his head. “No, but historically, when they realize their case is at a dead end they start bringing people in and flinging shit around until someone talks. They’re gonna see you as the weak link.”

  Her eyes met mine and the uncertainty in them broke my heart. “You’ll be fine,” I told her. “Johnson and Graham aren’t your friend, but I don’t think they’re going to let anything bad happen unless they’re certain of your guilt, which neither are. If they bring you in, smile and laugh and cut-up, but stay on your toes and don’t let the friendly shit make you talk too much.”

  I looked at Dawg, telling him while I reminded Angelica, “Her dad used to bring her in when he coached us on how to deal with LEO. She’s had it hammered into her all her life. She’ll sail ri
ght through, if they take her in.”

  Dawg nodded and stood. “Give me a goodbye hug, Girly. The two of you have more to talk about, but you don’t need me. You’ll do fine.”

  Angelica walked him to the door, they hugged for a good ten seconds, and Dawg kissed the top of her head before leaving. She locked the door behind him and joined me on the sofa.

  “Why did you want him here?”

  “I suck at relationships. I have no idea what I’m doing, and every time I tried to go over that conversation in my head, it ended with the two of us fighting and not speaking to each other. I’ve never tried to understand women, never tried to get along with them. When something came up that made someone more trouble than she was worth, I booted her to the curb. Not many were around even long enough for me to need to boot.” I touched her cheek, kissed her nose. “Dawg doesn’t do relationships, but he knows what makes women tick — knows how to talk to them without it turnin’ into a fight. I, on the other hand, have perfected the art of pissing off a woman so much I never hear from her again.”

  “The only thing we really needed him here for was to get us to back down and not fight for dominance.”

  “It’d be easy to agree with you, but he silently let me know I was treading on thin ice a few times, and I was careful with my words.”

  She jerked a little, and sat up straighter to look me in the eye. “The two of you have a telepathic bond?”

  “God no. We’ve just worked together enough, I know his body language. He moves in his seat and I just automatically know he’s warning me to watch what I say next.”

  She sighed and sagged against me again. “Tell me about the fights in Ringgold.”

  “It’s a big damned barn on a farm. He has three barns, the other two seem to be used for actual farm activities. This one is set up with a cage in the middle, and room around it for people to stand downstairs and watch the fights in the cage, or seats they can sit in to watch from upstairs. The audience pays to get in, and then the house handles all bets. It’s shifters and a few other kinds of supernaturals only — humans who come to watch have to be vetted beforehand, vouched for by whoever wants to bring them, and they can only watch from the upper level, because if someone gets hurt bad enough they change in the cage. Most fights are in human form, occasionally he does a half-form night, or even a night of fights with everyone in animal form. He doesn’t do it often, though, and security’s a lot tighter on those nights. LEO usually leaves him alone, but it’d be bad if they chose to do a raid on one of the special nights.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  How much should I tell her? Fuck, she’d seen me kill Sloane — she knew how I fought. “Unless I want to kill someone, I have to pull my punches, even for other wolves. People talk about my temper, but if I hit at full strength there’d be a string of bodies in my wake. I hit humans at maybe ten to fifteen percent if I want to hurt them bad. Five percent if I’m just sending a message. The strongest wolves usually get about half my strength unless I intend to kill them — other wolves get a good bit less.”

  “And they put you with people you can whale on without killing them?”

  “Yeah. There’s a lion I like to fight, and a grizzly bear. Rules are, if you shift before a winner’s announced, you lose. Otherwise they’d both have the upper hand.”

  “How often do you go?”

  “When I’m pissed, I just show up and see if he’ll work me in. He pretty much always does, even if he has to add a fight on at the end of the night. He loves being able to announce, “And the winner of the final bout gets a shot at Bash.”

  “Not exactly fair, is it? You’re fresh and they aren’t?”

  I smiled. “If I let him know a day ahead of time, I get to fight them fresh. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it before, it wasn’t something I intentionally kept from you.”

  She nodded. “I get it, because I didn’t intentionally keep Brain, or the thing when I was twelve, from you.”

  Her eyes went to the drawer with the sweeper Brain had made for her, and I said, “Did it before you got here. We’re clean.”

  I laughed at the roll of her eyes, but then sobered when she said, “You know me better than you think. Maybe Dawg’s smoother, but don’t sell yourself short. Just pay attention.”

  “Something else we need to talk about. It isn’t an us thing, so much as something I just need to talk to someone about.”

  She leaned backwards, pulling me with her until we were lying side-by-side on the sofa, crammed together, her face in my chest. I don’t know how she knew what I needed, but this made it so much easier to say what I needed to tell her.

  “Somehow, in everything that happened before my family sent me away, I started seeing myself as a monster — the type of person who could bash people’s skulls in without remorse. I told my family I was distraught over it, but deep down, I knew the truth.” I sighed and rubbed her back. It was soothing, having someone to hold. “They’d pushed me to it, thought they had the upper hand, and I’d been happy when they realized their mistake had just cost them their lives.”

  “If that makes you a monster, then I’m one, too. There wasn’t much time for the men I killed to see what was coming, but the last two knew. They didn’t have time to get to their weapons, but they knew.”

  And that was my point, but I didn’t tell her that part, yet.

  “When I killed Sloane, I assumed you’d never look at me with affection again. You’d seen the monster in me and we’d never be close again.” I’d turned music on before Angelica and Dawg arrived, and I spoke softly now, just to be on the safe side. The sweeper hadn’t picked anything up, but it was still never wise to admit to murder aloud unless you were certain LEO couldn’t hear.

  “You rescued me, you were my savior. Never a monster.”

  I wanted to sigh in frustration, but instead took a breath, let it out quietly, and kissed the top of her head. “My entire view of myself changed, thanks to you. I saw myself as a defender, a protector, and not the monster I’d let people convince me I was.”

  I stopped talking, unable to bring myself to finish the thought.

  “And now,” she finally said, “you’re thinking maybe I’m just as much of a monster as you, so you can’t depend on my opinion of you. If I’m a monster, of course I won’t think you’re one.”

  “That’s why I was upset when I found out you’d already killed. That, combined with what Marlin told us about how you shot, showing no emotion before, during, or after… damn, Princess. I love you even more for it, and it changes nothing about us, but it changes everything about how I see myself.”

  “What if it’s about perspective?” she asked. “I mean, some people think if a woman has slept with anyone she isn’t married to, she’s a slut. Others think as long as you only have sex with people in meaningful relationships, you can stay away from slut status. I’m pretty sure most everyone thinks if you’ve been fucked by one guy while giving another a blow-job, you’re a slut, but you don’t think I am, do you?”

  I shook my head. “No. And the whole slut thing is ridiculous, anyway. Just the tight-asses of the world jealous of the people out having fun.”

  She tilted her head back, her neck bent so she could meet my gaze. “So why are you worried about the tight-asses of the world thinking you’re a monster?”

  I shook my head. “Doesn’t matter what they think. It’s what I think. The way I define myself.”

  “Yeah, but you’re using their measuring stick, which is bullshit. If I use their measuring stick, I’m a slut, but I know their stick is bullshit.”

  She looked at me another couple seconds, must have seen that her words were getting through, and snuggled her head back into my chest. “I love you, Bash. I wouldn’t want you any other way. When push comes to shove, I know you’ll do what needs to be done. They say girls marry guys like their dad. I’m not saying I’ll marry you, but I’m saying if we’re still this much in love with each other a year from now, it’ll be a
consideration.”

  My body stiffened at the thought of marriage, and she pinched my side, hard. “Don’t you dare fuckin’ freak out. You’re the one wanting the relationship bond, and I see that as a bigger deal than marriage, asshole.”

  I chuckled, realizing she was right. “You’ll pay for that pinch, Princess. Thanks for the perspective, though.” I kissed the top of her head again, and just held her.

  Eventually, she sat up and caressed my cheek. “It’s going to be dark, soon. We should probably head back to the compound.”

  “Dawg said you’re scared to be here.”

  “Yeah, and he kind of nailed why. I’ll have to deal with it, but please not tonight.”

  “Okay, no dealing with it tonight, but explain it to me.”

  Chapter Nine

  Angelica

  Bash let me explain as we stood and turned lights and music off, and he pulled me to him as we were about to leave.

  “All of this will blow over soon, Princess, and I’ll make sure you feel safe in your home again.”

  For most people, it would’ve been an empty promise. I knew Bash intended to make it happen, though.

  I was on alert when we walked through the parking lot, but not scared. Together, Bash and I would handle anything that might come up.

  When we got to the clubhouse, Duke told him, “Your delivery came. It’s behind the bar.”

  I looked at Bash in question, but he only grinned and went to retrieve it. I was surprised it was in a gift bag, and looked at him a few seconds as he handed it to me, unsure of what he was up to and a little afraid to find out. The ice cream had been good, but I worried he might do more than I was comfortable with.

  “Open it, Princess. Wasn’t sure we’d get through our conversation tonight, but we did, and we’re good. I hope you’ll accept this.”