The Space Between

Brendan 3-2

“Back it up.” I couldn’t believe what he said.

“She marked me.”

“She’s not a f*****g shapeshifter.”

“Ok, let me say it in a crude way you’ll understand. I tried to edit it for your brotherly sensibilities. I had your sister, naked, sobbing, and begging, under my body.” I felt my eyes start to glow. “In the midst of her o****m, which I’m more than happy to provide to her multiple times a night, she was moaning right in my ear and my wolf came out and I sank my incisors in her neck, marking her as mine. This also intensified her o****m, so don’t worry.” The more he spoke, the more my aura grew, but it didn’t seem to be affecting him. How did he expect me to sit here and listen to this s**t about my sister? “Imagine my surprise when I felt her own incisors pierce my neck during my own o****m, marking me as hers. This, in essence, blended our scents together so no other wolf will ever approach her again. So, is your sister, who is my marked mate, a shapeshifter? No. Is there, however, a wolf somewhere in your bloodline?” Here he pulled the neck of his shirt aside so I could see the mark. “Clearly, there is.”

I shot to my feet, chest heaving, my aura at intimidation factor seventy-two, but he didn’t back down. He was on his feet just as quickly as me, his pupils dilated, his teeth elongating. Were those the ones that had been in my sister’s flesh? “She’s my f*****g sister.”

“She’s my f*****g mate.”

Ok, I had to calm down, this was getting us nowhere. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, trying to wrangle my aura back in. He wasn’t going to back down from me. He wasn’t Zak. He was a predator, just like me. And strong. I’d watched him carry two full kegs at the same time. Slowly, I sank back in my chair, my eyes still closed. I didn’t hear him sit until I was also sitting. I took another deep breath before I opened my eyes. “Ok, so, if you both marked each other and that’s some great thing to your kind, why did she come back looking so sad and upset?”

This was the first time he broke eye contact with me, looking down at my desk, before he looked me in the eyes again. “I scared her. I made her feel fear.” He shifted in the chair. “The next morning, when I saw she marked me, I tried to wake her up, but she must not metabolize alcohol as quickly as me. When I tried to wake her up, to talk to her about it, she said ‘leave me alone, Brendan.’ And I saw red.”

“Oh, shit.” Can’t say I blamed the guy. Not sure how I’d feel if my woman said another man’s name in bed. Jealousy was very rampant with giants too. “Didn’t she tell you about me?”

“She’d told me she had a brother, but never said your name, so I didn’t know who she was talking about. I thought she’d marked me when she had a boyfriend somewhere. You have to understand, there is no talking sense to a jealous wolf. I ended up pinning her to the bed before I realized what was going on and she finally yelled in my face that Brendan was you and not a boyfriend.”

“Did you f*****g hit her?”

“No. I never would or ever will. I’ll let that question slide since you’re her brother. But what I did was enough, and she told me to leave her room. Her eyes did that glowing thing you both do, and I knew it was pointless to try to talk to her about it right then, so I got dressed and left. A couple hours later, she came down to my room to talk to me. My alpha was there at the time, and I introduced her to him. She wanted me to explain my role in the pack because my alpha called me by my title…”

“And what is your pack title?” I asked him.

“I am the beta of my pack.”

“That’s like, second in command, right?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not a f*****g rogue.”

“You knew I wasn’t a rogue.”

“Ok, that’s true. Continue.”

“I tried to explain what the mate mark meant, but it scared her. I could tell she felt the mate bond too, but she didn’t grow up with the stories about it. The intense feelings scared her. She still hasn’t told me what happened to make her fear relationships and rejection. She said she needed time, so I gave it to her, with the stipulation that I would be coming for her. Maybe she thought I wouldn’t, I don’t know, but she really thought I wouldn’t be able to find her.” Nathan snorted at that statement. “She had thirty days to reject my mark, so on day thirty-one, I was in the city.”

“Did she know she had thirty days to reject you?”

“No, she never asked. But over those thirty days, I knew she was thinking about us. Every time she touched that mark, I felt it, like her fingers running over my skin. And she touched it a lot.”

“I never asked her about the mark because I could tell she was trying to glamour it away. I figured she’d talk to me when she was ready. Then, you were standing in front of me with the same damn mark on your neck she was trying to hide. Naturally, I thought the opposite of the truth and thought you forced her into something or whatever. I figured the best way to find out what happened was to keep you around and let it all play out. That’s why I didn’t kill you at the door.”

“You and your sister both have fairly high opinions on your ability to kill me, without considering the possibility that I would fight back. I’m not saying anything about your ability to fight. It’s your lack of faith in my ability that’s disturbing. Trust me, I can fight.”

“Fair enough.” I’d give him that much. “Continue with the story.”

“It took until New Year’s Eve before she finally approached me.”

“I told you not to mess with any of the females here.”

“And I told you not to get in the way of me and my mate. Besides, I technically didn’t mess with her, she came to me.” There’s always a loophole I never thought of. “So, more stuff happened…”

“Really? In my club, Nathan?”

“Are you saying you’ve never had s*x in this club?”

“That’s beside the point, this is my club. And that’s my sister.”

The damn wolf just shrugged at me. He didn’t appear one bit sorry. “We got closer over those weeks, we talked a lot, and the night she was kidn*pped she came to me and told me she loved me. She said after closing we were coming to talk to you because she was finally ready.”

“Finally ready to tell me?”

“That, and to tell you she was leaving, that she was moving to Colorado to be with me.”

“No,” I said, “she’s not doing that.”

“I’m not arguing with you about that right now. But just so you know, she will be coming home with me to Colorado, it’s not really up for you to debate. I heard the whispers go through the staff that something happened, and I usually don’t listen, but someone said Britt’s name and I came up front as fast as I could. That’s when I found you beating the s**t out of Zak. I heard what you said, and I need you to understand how much self-control it’s taken me to not haul off and kill the elf myself. I don’t understand why you allow him to stay around. In my world, if a wolf committed that kind of betrayal he’d be killed, or banished, but more likely killed. She’s a female, meant to be protected, and the sister of his alpha. That kind of betrayal should never be allowed.”