Page 28 of Claimed By the Damned

Drake snorted. Already, he could see the end of what they had. The end of everything they had built and worked so damn hard for. All over some pussy. It was good pussy – he wasn’t going to deny that – but in his mind, no pussy was worth losing everything.

Zeke turned to him. “How can this not even affect you, considering your background with your father?”

At the mention of his father, Drake growled. “My father has nothing to do with this. This is about us having to pick up and move again because you guys became pussywhipped. If you think that you are going to be able to kill her father to get her away from him while not sparking a war between us and the pack, then you have another thing coming.”

“Bring it,” Knox said simply with a shrug of his shoulders.

“You don’t know that it would start a war,” Zeke stated. “Who knows, maybe Amara isn’t the only one he’s abusive to. Maybe he’s like that to the entire pack and they’d be happy to see him gone. We have to talk to Amara about it to get the full picture.”

“That’s if she will even tell us,” Knox pointed out.

Zeke rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, she isn’t exactly forthcoming when it comes to personal crap, but maybe now that we know, she’ll be more open to discussing it.”

The grin that spread across Knox’s face sent a chill down Drake’s spine. He’d seen that grin a thousand times before, and nothing good ever came of it. “I can always torture it out of her,” Knox said dangerously.

“No,” both Zeke and Drake responded at the same time.

Chapter Twelve

Amara

The coffee pot spluttered as it spat out the dark brew into her pot. She was exhausted, and her emotions were all over the place from last night. She’d hardly had any sleep and then her father in the morning . . .

Even though she was already two cups of coffee in, it didn’t feel like she’d had any at all. She rubbed at her eyes. She was hoping this next pot would do the trick, even if it was already the lunch hour and well past the acceptable coffee-drinking time.

Once the machine brewed the entire pot, she poured herself a cup into a blue mug that looked as worn as she felt. She was sore and moving slowly today. She’d never had so much sex in her entire life. Not that she was complaining. It was the best sex she’d ever had, but the consequences of her actions, should she get caught, terrified her.

Everything her father said she had heard before, but it hurt even more now, knowing that one of her mates heard him say it. That was what she had been trying to avoid, trying to keep from them.

Part of her just wanted to accept this whole thing and get it over with. She knew it was inevitable since Knox had marked her already, but if she did, she’d have to leave her pack, and that was what she had a problem with. Pack life was all she’d ever known. She didn’t know how to survive without it, and she was concerned about the ramifications of being a rogue shifter. Especially how it would change her.

She took her steaming mug and moved back to her desk. Gingerly, she sat on her chair, but even that was proving difficult. She winced as the chair squeaked.

Because Knox had shown up the way he had, she hadn’t had time to pack her lunch. Then again, she wasn’t exactly hungry anyway, so it wasn’t really a problem.

Since the shop was always slow or empty around lunchtime, she chose her office to rest in, and she didn’t feel like reading either, so she just sipped her coffee in silence. Her mind wouldn’t slow down enough to let her focus on much of anything else anyway. So instead, to sort out her confusion and to keep her hands busy, she started making a list. She grabbed a pink pen with a fuzzy ball at the top and a pad of white paper and began scribbling the pros and cons of accepting her mates.

Cons. She would piss off her father. As she wrote that, she stared at the words because that could also be a pro. Seeing him angry at a situation he couldn’t control made her feel a little powerful.

Shaking herself, she continued. She’d have to leave the pack and her home, start a kind of life she knew nothing about with three men, and at the same time, she may not be enough for all three of them.

She pursed her lips at her ‘cons’’ list. Satisfied that those thoughts were now on paper, she began the pros list.

She’d no longer be alone, which was a plus. She’d felt that way ever since her mother had gone. She would have three men absolutely devoted to her, never-ending love and protection, which meant she’d never be rogue alone. They could start a family, something she’d always wanted. And, they could live anywhere they wanted to. Heck, she worked next door to where they’d all live.

Sighing heavily, she slammed her pen down on the notepad. She hadn’t expected there to be more pros than cons. Honestly, she had thought making a list and seeing everything down on paper would help her make a decision, but it only made it worse. She was more confused and lost than she was before, and she was a little terrified of that fact.

She bit her bottom lip as she stared at the open door before her, wondering if she was only lying to herself. With Knox’s mark in place, what option did she really have? She couldn’t undo a mate mark – no one could – and it was only a matter of time before her father found out. Especially if Knox kept sneaking onto the property late at night.

Maybe it was time to rip off the bandaid, tell her father, and deal with the fallout.

The bell dinged above her shop entrance door, and she sighed, got up from her desk, and stepped out of the office to greet the customer. But instead of it being a customer, it was Zeke. He strode in with a soft expression as soon as he spotted her. She took him in and how well his jeans hugged every part of his thighs. If he turned around, she’d get an excellent view of his ass.

His mere presence soothed her immediately. He took up so much space, in the shop and in her heart, that she breathed deeply for the first time all day. She hadn’t realized how much she needed that until this very moment.

Both of them headed for the counter, and when she reached it, she set her coffee on the surface, loosely crossed her arms over her chest, and leaned a hip against the edge. “What are you doing here?”

He kept walking until he was before her. Then, he took her into his arms and rested his chin on top of her head. His scent swirled around her, and a sense of calm washed away some of her nerves. Greedily, she sucked in the smell, eager to erase the rest of them.

---