Shameful by May Dawson
20
Legacy
“If we stop for food,do you think you can behave?” Rhett asked me. He couldn’t hide his smile when he asked, “Will you resist beating my brother up anymore?”
“Yeah, it’s funny,” West said. “Next time you can drag her out of trouble.”
“I didn’t need to be dragged anywhere,” I shotback.
West didn’t even bother to answer me. He didn’t seem to have much to say—and he certainly never had anything to say that wasnice.
“Are you always fucking hungry?” West asked Rhett.
“It’s a seven hour drive to the islands. I think we’re going to need tostop.”
I ignored Rhett’s attempts at banter—and West’s mostly grunted answers—to stare out the window. Night settled over the sky like a curtain dropping on stage. It felt final. In a few hours, it would be as dark as it was when the vampire walked into the coffeeshop.
I wished I could reverse time twenty-four hours. Maybe I should’ve just run. Maybe that would’ve been the smart thing. Maybe if I hadn’t been so proud, so sure of myself, I’d be home with my family, laughing with my best friend.
My hands had tightened into fists, and my fingernails pinched into my palms. I forced myself to relax.
No, I was going to find that vampire, and I was going to kill him and prove my innocence. If he didn’t come and find me, then somehow, one day I’d findhim.
“You never answered my question,” Rhett startled me out of my reveries.
“What?” I demanded.
“Food?”
West’s lips curled, but didn’t quite manage to form a smile. I wasn’t sure he was capable of the act. He said to Rhett, “You used to be good with girls.”
“What was I going to do, flirt with the ghost? I’m out of practice.” Rhett seemed genuinely offended.
“And I’m right here,” I prompted, not interested in a discussion of how well Rhett was doing—or not—at impressing me. I cast a sidelong glance at West. “And anyway, I don’t think he can criticizeyou.”
West snorted again.
I patted his leg. “You sound like a water buffalo. That’s less cute than you think.”
His lips parted in surprise, and before he could say anything, I added, “We can stop. Or not. I don’tcare.”
West sat stonily for a moment, then said, “If we must. I’ll stay here with the girl. You getfood.”
“You think I’m going to run?” I asked.
“No,” West growled. “I think you’re going totry.”
“So what are you?” I demanded. “Are you part of the Elders’ Guard or something?”
Rhett laughed. “No, that’s not really on our list of dreams and aspirations.”
“So what are your dreams and aspirations?” I prompted.
No one bothered to answerme.
These guys were fucking annoying.
Rhett picked a place to get off the highway to go in and order food. He tried to solicit input but when neither West nor I responded, he just picked something and wentin.
I leaned my elbow on the windowsill and ignored West. It was hard, because he took up so much of the backseat. I could feel him watching me, making sure I didn’t open the car door and run forit.
There was nowhere to go. I knew that. West shouldn’t have thrown me over his shoulder like a barbarian, but maybe I hadn’t needed to punch him either. I’d felt so trapped, and I couldn’t lash out at Cyrus without risking my family.
“Does your jaw still hurt?” I asked.
For a few long seconds, he was silent. “Why? Did you want to play that game with me again and see what happensnext?”
I rolled my eyes. What an adversarial dickhead, for no good reason.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. I dove into conversation to cover the faint sound. “I didn’t mean to hit you. I’m sorry.”
I wasn’t sorry. I was distracting him. Covering the faint buzz, I babbled on. “I was just so scared. Being taken away from my pack… It was devastating.”
It really was, but West seemed entirely focused on somethingelse.
“Yeah?” West leaned forward, grabbing the hem of my sweatshirt. I started to pull back, but he held out his other hand. “Hand itover.”
“Hand whatover?”
“I can put your ass over my knee again if that jogs your memory. The cell phone, Quinn.”
I pulled a face and took the cell phone out of my pocket. I considered smacking it into his palm. But as long as I had a cell phone in my possession, I had a better chance of escape.
Maybe there was somewhere for me to go besides Reject Island. After all, West and Rhett and Killian had never come back home. What were the odds I ever would?
I lowered the cell toward his palm—then turned and in one smooth motion, unlocked the door and threw itopen.
I tossed the cell phone into my pocket as I raced across the parking lot, my arms and legs pumping furiously. There were woods to one side, but that wasn’t where I wanted to go. I veered toward the shopping center instead.
I knew he was fast. But he didn’t want to get caught chasing a girl, either.
After all, our cardinal rule was don’t draw attention.
“Legacy,” he growled, right behindme.
I was almost to the sidewalk when he slammed into me. His big body hit me hard—then he twisted as the two of us landed. My weight landed on top of his and he let out a grunt as the two of us slammed into the concrete.
His arms wrapped my waist, holding me tight against his body. And I could’ve sworn for a second that I felt his dick press into my backside, like he was hard just wrestling me across the sidewalk.
“I’m losing my fucking patience,” he spat as he got up. He grabbed my cell phone from me and before I could do anything else, he threw it on the concrete. The screen shattered, but then he brought the heel of his boot down on it for good measure.
I stared at it in shock. All those texts with Lucas, all the times I’d talked to my friends. It was allgone.
“It won’t do you any good on Reject Island anyway,” he said. “The only people you’re going to have to talk to are me and Rhett and Killian.”
“Sounds miserable,” I shotback.
“Yeah, it sounds pretty bad for us too,” he said, grabbing my arm and hustling me back toward thecar.
I looked over my shoulder at the demolished cell phone, left with its guts spread across the sidewalk.
West shoved me into the car, his grip on my arm unnecessarily rough, then followed himself. He groaned at the sight of the empty driver’s seat. “Where is that fucking idiot?”
“Idiot? You’re looking for an idiot? One’s located in the right rear passenger seat,” I said brightly. That happened to be where he was siting.
He glowered at me but refrained from offering me a spanking yet again. He seemed very generous in that regard, anyway.
Before I could say anything else to him, a strange sensation brushed myskin.
I jumped, thinking there was something crawling on me, then I felt it again, stronger—like fingers sinking into my flesh.
A familiar phantom scent—Lucas’s—rose in my nostrils. Then the touch again, like a hand stroking down my back, my hips... I jumped, pulling at my shirt.
“What the hell are you up to now?” West said impatiently, grabbing me and yanking me back into theseat.
“I—” I cut off with a gasp as some strange feeling jolted through mybody.
An intense wave of desire, followed by a throb of pain through my muscles that made them all tighten. I froze, my hand going to my throat as I felt the phantom fingers there.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” I said, my voice coming out more of a whimper than I meant it too. “It hurts.”
“What hurts?” West growled.
My breath was coming short. “Everything.”
But even as I drew my knees up into my stomach to try to protect myself, there was also a lancing hollow between my thighs, an ache of lust so intense that ithurt.
West swore. “You have a fated mate? You’re inlove?”
“Had.” I managed. “Was.”
Sweat broke out along my brow. I felt like I was being tortured and toyed with all atonce.
A whine rose to my lips, startling me. It sounded like mywolf.
“Your mate’s working on breaking the bond, I’d bet.” West sounded frustrated. He leaned over the passenger seat and honked thehorn.
“How?” I gasped.
“By fucking you out of his system.”
Was that how it worked?
“How do I make itstop?”
West didn’t bother to answer me. He honked the horn again.
I gasped, putting my head down between my thighs as I reeled from the pain. I wanted tocry.
To my surprise, a heavy hand descended on my back and patted me. Once. Twice.
Even through the waves of pain, I was amused at how bad West was atthis.
I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. “Are you trying to be comforting?”
“Nope. I don’t give afuck.”
“Good, because you’re not very good atit.”
“Don’tcare.”
I gasped at another wave of pain—and then a strange, confused jolt between my thighs. It was as if all my nerves were overstimulated, both for pain and for pleasure. I didn’t understand what was happening.
“Did this ever happen to you?” I asked, my breath coming short.
I thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he growled, “No.”
My view of him was hazy through the pain, but somehow the haze made it easier to see aspects of his face; the determined jaw, the mass of dark hair above strong features, a scar through one dark eyebrow. Maybe it was because I was so dizzy, but he actually had a handsome face, except for how grouchy hewas.
“I bet you’d be pretty if you smiled,” Isaid.
He turned those icy blue eyes on me. “Did you actually lose yourmind?”
I let out a long, low groan as the front door flewopen.
“I thought we were trying not to attract attention to ourselves,” Rhett said as he flung the bag of food over onto the passenger seat. “Does honking attract attention, West?”
“That asshole Lucas is trying to fuck her out of his system,” West said. “I can drive. You eat French fries and run your mouth. Work your two big strengths.”
Rhett took one long look at me and said, “We need to get her to a hotel to wait out the worst of it. And I’ll drive.”
“Hell no. All counts.”
“Killian will understand.”
“No he won’t.”
“What does it matter? You don’t give a fuck what he thinks anyway.”
West stared at Rhett, his jaw working once. Rhett offered his sunny smile. Despite their argument about who would drive, Rhett was still the one in the driver’s seat, and he began to backup.
I tried to hold back a scream, my fingernails digging into the upholstery. My thighs spread involuntarily, inviting the phantom touch to fill the hollow there. But nothing did. It was as if I felt parts of whatever Lucas was doing with someone else, but only the empty, aching parts. None of the satisfaction.
West stared at me as I threw my head back, my spine arching, hips bucking—twisted by lust and by pain in equal measure.
“Fine,” West snapped suddenly. “Hotel.”
“I knew you would see things my way,” Rhett said cheerfully.
I screamed, the sound echoing through the car, and both of them winced. The car shot forward.
“Comfort her,” Rhett toldWest.
“There’s nothing I can do,” West said. He waved a dismissive hand at me. “She’s just… likethis.”
“Try holding her,” Rhett suggested.
West scoffed. But he looked at me with a mixture of disgust and uncertainty written across his face, and I had the feeling he mighttry.
I swallowed the groan of agony on my lips and managed to mutter, “No thank you, I’m already being tortured.”
He snorted again, then abruptly cut himself off—as if my comment earlier about it not being cute had landed—and leaned back in his seat. He crossed his arms over his powerful chest, and his shirt sleeve rode up, revealing a hint of a tattoo on his broad bicep.
I shouldn’t notice so much about him. It was just the phantom lust lancing through my body that had me so attuned to his every movement, to the power of thatbody.
But I could’ve sworn that no matter how much he pretended to ignore me, he was watching me too. I could feel his gaze onme.
I writhed across the seat, my fingers catching in my hair, my back arching. My lashes fluttered open to find West watching me and this time, his gaze was heated. He jerked his gaze away the second he saw me watching him, but there was no denying the way his jeans were tented.
“Hold on,” Rhett said urgently. “Just stay with us, Legs.”
I almost laughed. There was no place else for me togo.
“You’re giving her a nickname?” West demanded.
“That’s always been my nickname forher.”
Rhett had noticed me? When all the girls in the pack were noticing him? I wanted to think about that, but the pain stealing my breath stole my thoughtstoo.
I had no idea when my pain would end. I closed my eyes, my stomach twisting with the pain, and felt West shift closer tome.
He didn’t touch me, but he was close.
Rhett sped us through the night.