Skylar ran the back of his fingers caressingly across her cheek. “Don’t worry, I will, guaranteed.”
Giving him one last look, Braelyn opened the car door and got out. She waited until Skylar drove away to wave before she walked to the house. A smile spread across her face as she thought about how the night had gone.
Just before she reached the front door, she suddenly had the overwhelming feeling someone watched her. She stopped in the middle of the front lawn and turned in a circle, but didn’t see anyone. Thinking it could be one of the neighbors being nosy, Braelyn shrugged to herself and went inside.
He watched Braelyn walk toward the front door of her parents’ house. Hidden in the dark shadows, she hadn’t seen him. But from where he stood, he’d seen everything. The whore had been putting on quite a display in the fancy car of the asshole she’d gone out with. Seeing them kiss like they couldn’t get enough of each other had made him want to teach her how sluts like her should be treated.
Once Braelyn disappeared inside, he slowly slipped away. Her time would come. She had to have gotten his letters. And now that she’d taken up with a man—more than likely already had spread her legs for him—it was time to act. The only good whore was a dead whore.
Chapter Six
After getting buzzed through the gated entrance to Roxie and Beowulf’s mansion, Skylar drove up the long drive. When he arrived at the house, he saw Kye waiting outside for him. He parked his car in front of the large garage and headed for his brother-in-arms.
“Itching to leave?” he asked Kye.
“The boredom is what’s killing me. And the inactivity. I’ll be glad when Roxie has her baby and we can relax a bit.”
Skylar shook his head. Out of all of them, Kye was the one who hated having nothing to do. He always had to be doing something, be it sword practice or running errands. The man didn’t like to sit still. That being the case, Skylar couldn’t understand why Kye had insisted he watch over Roxie during the day. As a web designer, Roxie spent a lot of time sitting behind a computer working. Kye usually ended up falling asleep.
“Dirk still inside?” Skylar asked.
Dirk, who was into computers as much as Roxie, usually took on a lot of the shifts, mostly because he and Roxie got along so well. The two computer nerds did a lot of brainstorming, not that any of them dared called Roxie nerd to her face. Being the only werewolf who could shift into a half human/half wolf form, making her bigger than even he, she could pretty much whip their butts if she had a mind to.
“Yeah. He’s with Roxie. They started talking all things computer and then went up to her office so she could show him some type of code, not that I understood anything of what they’d said. Beowulf is at Wulf’s Den and should be home in an hour or so.”
Wulf’s Den was the nightclub Beowulf owned. He’d cut way back on the number of hours he spent at the club to be closer to Roxie. Carl, the onetime bouncer, had shifted into the position of managing the place when Beowulf wasn’t there. The very large werewolf had the distinction of being mated to Candice, Roxie’s best friend. Once mortal like her friend, Candice had finally allowed Roxie to turn her six months before.
“Sounds as if everything is under control,” Skylar said.
“I don’t expect you’ll run into any problems, so I’m out of here.” Kye gave him a wave and headed to where he’d parked his car.
Skylar went inside the mansion and shut the door behind him in time to watch Roxie and Dirk walk down the stairs from the upper floor, deep in conversation. From the sound of it, they were still on the topic of computers and the internet. Dirk had been working on some kind of web design project for a few months, keeping the particulars to himself, though Skylar had a feeling Roxie knew all about it.
“Don’t the two of you ever get sick of talking about computers?” he asked when they reached the bottom of the stairs.
“Of course not,” Roxie replied. “Do you ever get sick of playing with your sword?”
He rolled his eyes. “It’s not the same thing. Being a warrior is a part of who I am.”
“Yes, it is. I can’t ever see myself not wanting to work with computers or the internet in some way.”
“That’s because you’re an internet junkie.” Skylar nodded toward Dirk. “And it doesn’t help when you have someone just as addicted as you hanging around all the time.”
Dirk shrugged. “What can I say? It keeps me out of trouble.”
Roxie stepped closer to Skylar. “So? How did your date with your mate go? Are you still being a good boy and holding off claiming her?”
“Yes, though I’m not sure how long that is going to last. It’s not exactly a walk in the park to resist what my mating urge is screaming at me to do. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up in the same condition as Leif just before he claimed Jaden.”
Leif had fought to the bitter end before he finally took Jaden as his mate. On the last day, he basically had agitatedly paced the entire day up in his room, driving the rest of them nuts. Roan, Jager and he had been forced to put Leif in his car and send him on his way. With his mating urge riding him hard, Leif hadn’t been able to stop himself from going to Jaden.
Roxie snorted. “That was just Leif being a dumbass. The man had delusions of grandeur thinking he could cheat fate by ignoring his mating urge, hoping it would go away.”
“That might be true, but not claiming a mate as soon as she’s found makes a mess of us males,” Skylar said.
“Then I suggest you don’t wait too long to explain what you are to Braelyn and give her a chance to decide whether or not she’ll accept you as her mate.”
Needing to change the subject of Braelyn and what she meant to him, he said, “I’m going to get a beer. I have a feeling I’m going to be in store for a long, hard, sleepless night.”
Skylar left Roxie and Dirk and went to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and took out a bottle of beer. He twisted off the cap and took a long swallow. When Braelyn had said her last kiss goodbye had been to make sure he dreamed of her that night, it hadn’t been necessary. Well into the throes of the mating urge, she’d dominate his dreams if he managed to get any sleep. Having her shatter in his arms made him ache to complete the mating bond. And the release she’d given him wouldn’t help much to take the edge off, either. Until he made love to her, he pretty much wouldn’t be good for anything else. If it took more than a few days for him to explain everything to Braelyn and get her to accept him, he could easily see himself having to take himself out of the rotation of watching over Roxie. God forbid if anything happened to her because his mating urge wouldn’t let him think straight.
It was close to three in the morning before Skylar finally fell into bed. Being alone in the room he used when he stayed over at Roxie’s hadn’t helped him keep his thoughts from Braelyn. If she could have seen them, she’d think he was some kind of obsessed stalker.
He rolled over onto his side and punched the pillow a few times to get it into the shape he wanted. Skylar closed his eyes and forced himself to relax. He tried to clear his mind. Slowly, by degrees, sleep reached up to claim him.
The dream took him shortly thereafter. Skylar found himself sitting in a chair facing a long runway, like the kind models walked down during a fashion show. There were other chairs on either side of him, but he was the only one sitting in the audience.
The lights dimmed, and music played in the background. He turned his attention to the entrance of the runway when a bright spotlight focused on it. From one side, Braelyn walked out. Flashes of light, like those from a camera, went off. Skylar looked around, but couldn’t see where the photographers were. When Braelyn headed down the runway, using the same walk she’d used when he’d watched her on TV, he gave up on his search and focused entirely on her.