The Bite of Revenge

Chapter 10

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of someone banging on my door. "Jesus f*****g Christ," I muttered as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, "how the hell am I supposed to get any sleep around here?" I opened the door to find Derek on the other side. "I thought I told you the next time you showed your face around here, I would kill you."

"I came to apologize," he said, "my temper got the best of me yesterday, and I'm here to tell you that it won't happen again."

"Apology not accepted," I said, glaring at him, "you're lucky I stopped Alison when I did, otherwise you'd be ground chuck right now."

"Just give me another chance to prove myself to you," Derek begged, "I admit, yesterday was my fault, and I promise you that it won't happen again."

"You almost killed me and Alison," I said, poking him in the chest with my finger, "if you think that I'm just going to forgive and forget, you're damn wrong. Now get the hell out of this house before I throw you out again." With that, I slam the door in his face and head back to bed and, just as I'm about to drift off to sleep again, I here a light tapping at my window. I groaned and get up to find Peter with a cocky grin on his face peering at me through the window. "Are you crazy?" I asked when I've opened the window, "you're going to break your neck doing that."

"I would've used the front door, but I saw Derek leaving and I didn't want to cause a scene," Peter answered as he climbed into my room, "he also looked pissed as hell and I try to avoid my nephew when he's in one of his bad moods."

"That still doesn't explain why you're here."

"Is it a crime for me to want to see a beautiful woman?" That cocky grin is still plastered on his face and I just roll my eyes.

"That cocky charm of yours is going to get you into trouble," I mutter, "you Hale men are crazy." Before I can head back to bed, Peter pulls me into him and starts trailing kisses up and down my neck, which causes my face to go bright red.

"You're cute when you blush," Peter whispers against my ear as he lightly scrapes his teeth against the shell of my ear, which causes me to gasp in surprise, "but unlike my nephew, I have more self-control when it comes to things that I want and a woman like you deserves to be treasured and treated with the utmost respect." His hand then slowly trails down to my stomach where his claws lightly dig into my skin, and he lets out a low growl as a light knock breaks the heated silence.

"Who is it?" I gasp, my brain is so frazzled that I can't even sniff the air to see who it is.

"It's me," came Alison's voice from the other side, "I need to talk to you about the camping trip." I reluctantly pull away from Peter, who gives me a light kiss on my forehead and then flops down on my bed, making himself at home. I then open my bedroom door and usher Alison, who just raises her eyebrows at Peter, but doesn't say anything.

"What's going on?" I asked as I shut the door, "are we still going on the camping trip?"

"My dad has agreed to the camping trip," Alison answered, "but on one condition." I raise my eyebrows questionably at her as she takes a seat at my desk. "My dad says that we can go as long as Peter or Derek goes with us."

"Tell your dad that I'll go with you," Peter says quickly, "I don't want my nephew anywhere near Anna after what happened yesterday."

"That's probably best," Alison agreed, "I just told my dad what happened and let's just say, I'd hate to be Derek right now."

"I'm guessing your dad's temper is a force to be reckoned with?" I asked.

"That's an understatement," Peter muttered with a slight grin, "Mr. Montgomery doesn't tolerate any disrespect, especially when it comes to his family, and what Derek did yesterday was probably the dumbest mistake he ever made."

"Is it just me, or has Derek been acting weird ever since Anna arrived here?" Alison asked.

"How so?" Peter asked.

"Well, besides the occasional angry outbursts, he's been coming around a lot since Anna arrived." Alison then pointed an accusing finger at Peter, "you've also been coming around a lot as well. Care to explain that?"

"I care about Anastasia," Peter answered, sitting up and pulling me into his lap, "and I want what's best for her, and it seems that Derek is also interested in Anastasia as well, but for very different reasons." Alison nodded, satisfied with his answer and then got up to leave.

"I'll tell my dad that Peter will be going with us and we'll plan on leaving tomorrow morning," she said. Peter and I both nod and once the door shuts behind her, Peter flips me on my back onto the bed, causing me to squeal.

"Finally," he growls as he kisses me gently on the lips, "I was hoping to get some alone time before heading to work." Peter then starts trailing light kisses from my neck to my collarbone as his hand slips underneath my shirt and moves towards my breat, but I gently push it back down to my stomach.

"No," I say gently, but firmly, "I'm not ready, I want to take things slow."

"Of course," Peter says with understanding, "we'll take things as slow as you want sweetheart." After that, he rolls onto his back and pulls me closer to him so that my head is lying on his chest and eventually I drift off to sleep again.

***

I wake up to find that Peter has left and as I rub the sleep from eyes, I find a note on my nightstand. I pick it up and begin to read:

Anna-

I'm sorry I had to leave, but I didn't want to wake you. Mr. Montgomery wanted me to stop by his office to go over the plan for your camping trip tomorrow. Derek won't be happy about being left behind, I know you can handle yourself, but please be careful if you run into him today, we both know his temper can get out of control.

Love, Peter

I smile to myself as I place the note in the drawer of my nightstand and once I'm dressed for the day, I head downstairs to find both Alison and Taylor sitting at the kitchen island eating breakfast. "Where's Peter?" Alison asked as I joined them.

"He had to meet up with your dad," I answered as I grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, "said they needed to go over the game plan for the camping trip tomorrow."

"Why was Peter here?" Taylor asked.

"Apparently he has a thing for Anna," Alison answered with a mischievous grin, "Derek does too, but my money's on Peter."

"Why do you say that?" I asked, my face going bright red.

"Peter may be a cocky smart ass, but at least he's a gentleman," Alison answered with a shrug, "Derek's just an asshole who only cares about his image."

"She's not wrong," Taylor agreed as we head for the door, "if I were you, I'd go with Peter simply because he'll treat you like a queen while Derek will only put up with you as long as you're useful to him."

"You say that as though you know from personal experience," I say.

"I'm friends with his ex girlfriend, Amber," Taylor says as we head towards the training yard, "her dad is head of security and Derek only dated her so he could climb through the ranks, once he got what he wanted, he dumped her."

"Amber must've been heart broken."

"She was more pissed than anything else." By now we had reached the training grounds and I noticed that there were more students than usual. "Amber, what's going on?" Taylor asked a girl that was nearby.

"No idea," she answered, "Derek sent out an email to all the combat training students early this morning saying that there's going to be a combined class today, but he didn't elaborate."

"I have a bad feeling about this," I whisper as the girl walked away, "do you think this has anything to do with what happened yesterday?"

"I wouldn't put it past him," Alison answered, "if he's trying to win your favor, he'll want to make a huge spectacle of it."

"He did try to apologize earlier, but I told him to kick rocks." Before either Alison or Taylor could say anything more, Derek walked up to us with a huge smile on his face.

"Can I have everyone's attention please?" he asked, he then turned to me and held out his hand, "Anastasia, will you join me?"

"Not until you tell me what the hell is going on," I said, crossing my arms and glaring at him. Derek rolled his eyes, took hold of my arm and pulled me to his side.

"Ever since Anastasia joined our community, I knew she was something special," Derek said, ignoring my attempt to pull away, "and as soon as I saw her, I knew that I had to have her." He then turned to me and went down on one knee, "Anastasia Anderson, will you do me honor of becoming my mate?" It was like the air got sucked out of the room and I had to hold back my laughter as I backed away.

"Are you f*****g crazy?" I asked, glaring down at Derek, "after your temper tantrums yesterday, what makes you think that I would want anything to do with you?"

"I just want a chance to prove myself to you," he pleads. "Please Anastasia, be my mate, and you won't regret it."

"My answer is no," I say firmly, "now get up, you're embarrassing yourself." Derek gets to his feet and leans in so that only I can hear him.

"You will be my mate," he growls, "even if I have to force you, you will be mine."

"f**k you," I growl back, my eyes flashing. With that, Derek stalks out of the training room.

"What an ass," a girl mutters. I turn around and see it was Amber who had spoken, "I can't believe I ever dated that man."

"You must be Amber," I say, holding out my hand, "I'm Anastasia, but everyone calls me Anna."

"Nice to meet you," Amber says, shaking my hand and giving me a warm smile. "You handled that well. Derek tends to intimidate a lot of people, so it's nice to see someone put him in his place for once." Before I could make a comment, an arm wraps around my waste, I whipped around and my fist connects with Peter's face.

"Damn it woman, it's me," he says, rubbing his jaw.

"You shouldn't sneak up on people like that," I say, trying hard to hide my smile as everyone else howls with laughter.

"I'll try to remember that," Peter says as he pulls me to his side, but then lets out a low growl as he inhales, "did Derek hurt you?"

"No," I answered reassuringly. I then told him what happened and what Derek said afterward.

"He said what?"

"That I'll be his mate, even if he has to force me."

"This is getting out of hand," Peter mutters as we all head back out to the main thoroughfare, "I've never seen Derek this unhinged, not even during mating season."

"He's determined, that's for sure."

"It's more than that, Derek's never really shown an interest in finding a mate until now."

"Why me though?" by now we had arrived back at Alison's house and were heading up to my room, "I'm just the new girl."

"I don't know," Peter answered, pulling me close, "But I really want to find out."