Prince of Wolves (35 page)

“
She doesn’t know yet?” Fane softly asked his father.

“
No son, that honor has been left to you. As the two avenging angels who just left said, good luck with that,” Vasile told him. “Get dressed. It’s time for you to go see your mate.”

His father left him, and Fane stood up, feeling very numb. He was so broken at having hurt Jacquelyn. How was he going to face her? Without any thought to what he was doing, Fane got dressed, brushed his hair and teeth, and then headed over to Jacquelyn’s. It was the longest walk he’d ever made, and yet it was the shortest as well.

Fane opened the front door to Jacquelyn’s house and nearly turned back and shut it behind him. Everyone, save Jacquelyn, was sitting in the living room, and as he walked in all their eyes landed on him. He took a deep breath and walked in. His mother was the first to move. She came over to him and exposed her neck. Fane took a step back in disbelief at her action.

“
I am your mother, and your Alpha, but I acknowledge the sacrifice you had to make.” She kissed him on the cheek as a tear rolled down her face. Fane reached up and wiped it away.

“
I’m sorry I hurt you, mama,” Fane told her.

“
Tsk, tsk. You did what needed to be done, that is what an Alpha does. There will be many decisions you will make as an Alpha others will not understand because of the responsibility you hold. No offense to the humans, but they cannot begin to understand the weight you will carry on your shoulders, nor the weight you carried this night. You did what no one else could have. That, my son, is what the Alpha does. Never doubt that.” When Alina turned back to the room all of the wolves and, to Fane’s astonishment, even the humans, bowed their heads in submission.

“
Jacque is in her room, Fane. She isn’t awake yet. She apparently passed out at the challenge and has been out ever since,” Lilly told him.

Fane closed his eyes and squeezed them against the tears that threatened to spill. His mate, his love, broken because of him, but not with Lucas either.
She is ours
, he heard his wolf say.
As our Alpha said we did what we had to
. Fane turned from the crowded living room and walked up the stairs to Jacquelyn’s room.

As he opened the door, he used his wolf vision because the room was dark, only a night light shining. He made his way over to her bed and sat down on the edge. She laid there, hands folded across her stomach, so still. Fane leaned down and kissed her forehead. He took a deep breath and let her scent fill his lungs. He kissed both cheeks, he kissed her nose and her chin, and then he kissed her lips. He had tears running down his face and he was trembling. He wanted to hold her but didn’t want to startle her awake. Slowly, he pulled away from her, and as he sat up he realized her eyes were open, really open, like very wide open.

Jacquelyn screamed and threw the covers over her head. “I’ve finally gone crazy. His death pushed me over the edge. Here I’ve been teetering all along, and then BAM, I’m in the middle of crazy ground.” Jacquelyn was mumbling to herself, not totally hysterical but definitely on the verge. Fane thought he’d better catch her quick before she really did lose it.

Chapter 34

“
Luna, you’re not crazy
, I’m really here. I’m not dead, love, it was fake. I was faking it in order to lure Lucas into a false victory,” Jacque heard the hallucination that was Fane say.

She wasn’t going to fall for that. Fane would've told her that he was going to do something like that. He would have never allowed her to be hurt so deeply.

“
Jacquelyn, please. It’s really me. I didn’t -” he paused and took a deep breath. Jacque was caught off guard by this show of emotion from a hallucination, not that she had much experience with hallucinations, thank goodness. She pulled the covers down just enough to be able to see Fane. His head was bowed so he didn’t know she was looking at him. “I didn’t tell you I was going to pretend to die because…” His shoulders shook with sobs. The tears fell and wet his hands.

“
Because what?” Jacque couldn’t help but ask.

Fane’s head snapped up and then he cried more. “Luna, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Please know that it killed me. I didn’t tell you because I needed your reaction to be real, so that Lucas would believe he had won.”

Jacque sat in stunned silence. She couldn’t believe it, she just could not believe it. It was the second time that night that she was in shock about something she was so sure would never happen. Her emotions were at war. Part of her was like,
Who gives a flying flip because he’s alive. He’s here and he can hold you like Dorian had earlier…oops. Damn, I’m always doing that.

Fane caught that thought. Dorian had held his mate, held her close. He started to growl but abruptly stopped when Jacque sat up, leaned forward and kissed him. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down.

Fane’s arms wrapped around Jacque’s waist and when he pulled her tighter she let out a sharp yelp.

“
What’s wrong? What’s happened?” Fane asked her, frantically running his hands over her.

“
It’s nothing, just a little sore from the against-my-will retreat tonight. I got a few bruises from being restrained, that’s all.” Jacque told him, playing it off.

When his hands ran across her stomach she winced, even though she tried so hard not to. Fane growled and slowly raised the hem of her shirt and exposed her stomach. His growl got much, much deeper. “What the hell happened to you, and who the hell did it?” Fane growled out.

“
Fane, it’s nothing. It's -” Jacque tried to explain, but was cut off when Fane snarled at her.

“
It’s NOT NOTHING! You have a bruise as dark as night and as wide as a 2x4 across your stomach, Jacquelyn.” Fane paused to think about what he had just said and then it hit him. “Whose arm is that, Jacquelyn? Don’t argue with me, Luna. Whose arm is it? You can tell me, or I will discipline each wolf down there instead of just the one.”

Jacque sat back up and to Fane's surprise, pushed him. He was caught off guard and actually fell off the bed onto the floor. Fane looked up at her in shock.

“
Listen up. Your pack restrained me so that I would not get killed trying to kick Lucas’ ass. I was trying to kick his ass, in case you forgot, because you didn’t tell me you weren’t really dead. So, you aren’t going to discipline anyone. You are going to accept that I have a bruise across my stomach, my arms, my shoulders, my shins because YOU chose to keep ME in the dark. Are we clear?” Jacque was breathing hard from her outburst.

Fane lowered his head then looked up at his mate. “Crystal,” he told her and grinned.

“
Good. Now come back up here and show me how sorry you are,” Jacque told him playfully.

Fane crawled back onto the bed. He pulled the hem of her shirt up once more, exposing her stomach. He suppressed the growl, and then kissed the bruise from one end to the other, taking comfort in the feel of her flesh.

“
Okay, stop that. It’s tickling me,” Jacque told him as she laughed.

Fane pulled her shirt back down and gently wrapped his arm around her. He laid his head on her chest and listened to her heartbeat, it was music to him.

“
Fane,” he heard Jacquelyn say his name.

“
Hmm,” he answered.

“
Why is your leg not broken?” Jacque asked, sounding confused.

“
My father healed my major injuries. He can use power that he draws from the Pack to heal his wolves. I only have bruises and cuts now,” he explained.

“
Oh, that’s nifty.”

Fane chuckled. “Yes, it is most definitely nifty.”

Fane raised his head and looked into her eyes. She was so beautiful. Jacque stared back and shuddered at the thought of losing him. It almost killed her when she thought he had died, she truly had not wanted to go on.

“
I’m so sorry, my love, for doing that to you. I don’t deserve you, your forgiveness, or your love,”
Fane told her through their bond.

“
Oh, shut up. What you did, yes it was horrible for me, but it was necessary for you in order to win. I would go through it again if I knew you would be alive in the end. You deserve more than I can give. I just hope you’ll take what I can give you – just me,” Jacque told him.

“
I love you, Jacquelyn Pierce, my mate, my love, meu inimă (my heart). I want you to be all mine, with no way for anyone to challenge me.”

Fane leaned down and kissed her. Jacque moaned which made him growl. Before things could go much further, Jacque remembered the bonding ceremony and blood rites.

“
Hey, wait,” she said, pushing at him.

“
You do remember you thought I was dead, right? Now I’m not, and now you can have your way with me because, you know, I’m not dead,” Fane told her and began kissing her neck.

Jacque giggled and pushed him away again. “No really, wait. When are we supposed to do the bond thingy and the whole blood sucking?”

“
Vampires, not werewolves, suck blood, love. It’s tomorrow, which is not right now, and because I am living in the now and not the tomorrow, I want to reconcile with my mate as wolves do,” Fane told her, leaning down again, and once again was stopped by her hand.

“
Oh, we’re reconciled, we’re good to go, no problemo,” Jacque rambled on.

“
Jacquelyn?”

“
Yes, Fane?” Jacque said in her most innocent voice.

“
You want me to say it, don’t you?” Fane asked her.

“
Yep, out loud, not in my head,” she told him

Fane growled but acquiesced. “I don’t mean reconcile as in taking things seriously. I mean through touch.” He laughed when she squeaked at that.

“
I will not touch you anywhere you don’t want to be touched.” And then mischievously he said, “However, just name the location and I will comply.” He pulled out of her reach when she tried to thump him for his last comment. When she simmered down, he leaned over again and kissed her.

Jacque turned her head, exposing her neck. Fane rumbled in his chest. Jacquelyn called it purring, and he smiled. He leaned down and kissed her neck, sniffing her skin, imagining the blood rites ceremony, knowing that his mark would be right there.

Jacque picked up on his thoughts. She added creatively to it and giggled wickedly when she heard Fane whisper in her mind.

“
Soon.”

References:

* “Love Me Like a Song” Lyrics by Kimmie Rhodes, Performed by: Kimmie Rhodes and Willie Nelson

From the author
:

Thank you for purchasing Prince of Wolves. I hope that you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Blood Rites, the second book in the Grey Wolves Series will be coming out in late fall of 2011, so be on the lookout for it! You can follow the progress and keep up to date on other books I will be publishing in the future at my website:

http://www.quinnloftisbooks.com or my blog, http://quinnloftisbooks.blogspot.com/

Now, please enjoy an excerpt from Significance, a YA paranormal novel by Shelly Crane, available now through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

I waited for this day, for this one thing to complete me. To wrap up seventeen and three quarter years of my life and to set a pretty bow on it in the form of a graduation cap. I waited for this one sheet of paper to tell me I had done something right.

I sat in my assigned seat, along with my classmates, in alphabetical order in front of the gym. The ones up front were in order by achievements, their faces lit with the relief of scholarships and graduation parties with gifts and family and friends. And getting out of this town.

I was numb. I had waited for this moment but now, I didn’t feel good inside. I didn’t feel complete, didn’t feel achieved. I felt like I’d slid by and barely made it. Which was exactly what I’d done. I despised school. I was in the early release program for students who work after school, so we got out at 1:00 instead of 3:00 like everyone else. I was barely here and when I was I didn’t want to be.

I know I sound bitter. Believe me. I know, but I’m seventeen, graduating a year early and was on the fast track to being valedictorian or whatever else but things happened to me that I just couldn’t handle. And so, here I was, sullen, slightly unhappy and skidding by.

The ‘things’ I speak of, well, number one was that my mom left. She was an upstanding, stay at home mom, PTA loving, frugal grocery shopping-coupon clipping guru of the community. And she just left us. Just like that. She decided out of nowhere that my dad had been holding her back all these years. She didn’t love him and she needed time to start a new life, without me there to pester her. So she did.

She moved to California along with every cent in my dad’s checking account and the one supposed to be for my college fund. I wanted to laugh at the Cali cliché but I guess it didn’t suit her for long. She moved somewhere else but I refused to speak to her anymore when she called. All she ever talked about was how sorry she was, that she just couldn’t do it anymore, that she was happy now, that I didn’t know what it was like to live with my dad. Yeah right. I’d counter that I was the only one
still
living with him and she’d hang up.