Night Light

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He took another step forward but Warren strode into his line of sight and approached Trevor, shifting back to human form as he did so. When Trevor swayed, Warren grabbed him by the arm and brought it over his shoulder. He hadn’t seen a reason to let Quinn kick a man while he was down.

Trevor looked up at Warren and smirked when he realized their predicament. “Fine mess, now were all naked,” he murmured and promptly passed out.

Warren shook his head and couldn’t help but grin because Trevor had a very good point. It was times like this he was glad he brought his cell phone with him and carried it in the fashion he did. He gently set Trevor against the wall and was about to get the cell phone when he heard Quinn start growling.

Quinn had shifted and was looking over Kat’s unconscious form. Her clothes were a few feet away, shredded by her transformation and not wearable. Deciding to think on that later, Quinn started examining her wounds and paused when he saw the blood still oozing from her inner thigh.

Moving her leg just enough to examine where the blood was coming from, he froze when he saw a mating mark. The growl erupted from his throat before he could stop it. Someone had mated Kat, given her the mark and abandoned her.

Quinn felt jealousy rise up deep inside and leaned close to sniff her skin to see if the scent still lingered. That only infuriated him even more… she didn’t smell like another man, she smelled wonderful.

Looking up at the other man Warren was crouched in front of, Quinn wondered if the mating mark was given to her by the blonde bearshifter.

Warren took out his cell phone deciding to ignore Quinn’s little tantrum for the moment. Kat needed help and he wasn’t about to tell Quinn who the mating mark belonged to. Let him go through the hell of figuring it out for himself.

“Mrs. Tully?” Warren asked then smiled. “I’m doing just fine ma’am. I was wondering if you could meet me at Moon Dance. My sister and her friend Trevor have been hurt and they need medical attention only you can give.”

Warren was quiet for a moment then nodded, “Thank you, Mrs. Tully.”

“I didn’t know you knew Tully.” Quinn said quietly. He’d met Tully not long after the families had split up.

Warren smirked while dialing another number. Did Quinn think he was the only one allowed to spy? “Nick has gotten into more trouble than I care to remember. Mrs. Tully is forever patching him up and her home is always open if we need a place to lay low.”

“I’m surprised we haven’t crossed paths before now.” Quinn responded becoming a little more suspicious.

“Nick, we’re in an alley ten blocks west of the club and we need a ride. Bring clothes for three men, your sister, and drive the Hummer.” Warren hung up the phone without waiting for Nick to respond and turned his attention back to Trevor.

“Is he the one that gave Kat the mating mark?” Quinn demanded.

“That, my friend, is not my story to tell.” Warren said cryptically.

Chapter 5

Nick had just dropped Steven and Jewel off at Night Light when he got the call. Jewel had been very quiet since Dean’s little stunt at the church but he could tell that whatever the fallen had done to keep her calm was starting to wear off. The further away from the church they got, the more paranoid she’d become. He could only imagine the hell his friend was about to go through.

Waving to Steven, Nick quickly picked up his phone and juggled it for a moment when he almost lost his grip. Finally he caught it on the third ring and flipped it open.

“Speak,” he growled. His expression melted into one of deep concern before pushing the gas pedal to the floor. Luckily, he had decided to drive the Hummer to take Steven and Jewel back to Night Light.

He did a quick mental inventory and breathed a small sigh of relief when he remembered that Warren still had some extra sets of clothes in the vehicle from their last camping trip. No one had bothered to remove them and it saved Nick the trip back home. It was a good thing that Warren and Quinn were around the same size… there was nothing worse than trying to squeeze into clothes that were too little.

Turning on the GPS tracker in his phone, he got Warren’s exact location. Turning the next corner without slowing down, Nick knew he wasn’t going to like what he saw once he got there.

As an afterthought, Nick took out his cell phone and called Devon to let him know the new developments. Devon may have left the city willingly, but he’d made Nick promise to call him several times a day to keep him up to date on everything.

*****

Steven got Jewel inside the club and quickly escorted her upstairs. When they made it to his room, he closed the door but didn’t lock it. He didn’t want her to feel trapped.

Jewel blinked her eyes and looked around at the room she’d been brought into. The bed was king sized with a deep green comforter spread over it. A couple of decorative pillows sat on the bed and, of all things, a stuffed animal… a cougar. She couldn’t help but smile at that and a nervous giggle escaped before she could stop it.

The dresser was a black lacquer with a large mirror and in the center was a small bamboo plant. On the other side of the room was a pair of beanbag chairs, a huge flat screen television mounted on the wall, and a game console with numerous games scattered around in front of it.

Jewel couldn’t understand why she felt so calm but it was slowly fading and being replaced by dread. What the hell did she think she was doing here?

“Why did you bring me here?” Jewel asked spinning around to face Steven.

“Because you’ll be safe here,” Steven answered. “You’re not going back to your fiancé or your father.”

What was left of the calm feeling immediately fled and Jewel shook her head vigorously. “No, I have to go back! If I don’t, Anthony will kill me.”

“He can’t kill you if he can’t find you,” Steven reasoned in a voice that was so cold it sucked some of the warmth right out of the room.

“What about Father Gordon?” Jewel demanded her voice level rising. “If they go to him, they’ll find out where I am.” Jewel started pacing. “Daddy’s gonna be so mad and Anthony… I don’t want to think about what he’ll do.”

Steven had a flashback of the handprint-sized bruise she had been wearing earlier. “Why the hell would you protect your daddy when he obviously doesn’t protect you!”

“Who gave you the right to give a damn!?” Jewel yelled back more comfortable now that he was yelling at her.

“You know what? Fine,” Steven opened the bedroom door. “There’s the way out, go back to your fiancé and a marriage you’re being forced into because of Daddy’s inability to take care of business. No real father would ever sacrifice his children to pay off a debt he created.”

Jewel stared at the door and took an uncertain step forward before backing up and sinking down on the bed. She gazed toward the alarm clock and knew it was too late to sneak back in ether way. Two AM… that’s when the guards changed shifts and that had been the only time she could return without being caught.

“What do I do now?” Jewel asked and looked up at him with tears in her eyes. “Where would I go?”

Steven shut the door and knelt down in front of her. “How about you start by telling me everything?”

“Like what?” Jewel asked.

Steven gave her a small smile, “We can start with your last name.”

Jewel sighed, “My last name is Scott and my father manages a resort in Palm Springs for my… fiancé. God that word leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

Steven felt a huge weight lift from his shoulders seeing again how much she hated the fact she was being forced to marry this guy… not that he would ever let that happen now. “Okay, calm down and back up. Try starting from the beginning,” he suggested.

Taking a deep breath, Jewel calmly started talking, just letting it all go. “I was in boarding school when Daddy ran into some trouble at the resort. A government agent had checked in undercover and was trying to uncover all the mafia activity going in and out of the place. When Daddy found out what the man was… he was given orders to kill him.”

Steven nodded, “What happened?”

“Daddy waited too long to kill him… the agent had already given his superiors all the information. When the agent didn’t check in or whatever it is they do, the FBI sent more agents and Daddy was arrested. Anthony Valachi bailed him out of jail after he did something, probably bribed one of the top officials, and all the charges were dropped.”

“Now Daddy’s in debt to his boss. Not knowing how else to pay off the debt, when I came back from school, Daddy told me I was engaged to Anthony and he was actually happy about it.”

Jewel took another breath and swiped her hand over her eyes. “I don’t want to be married yet… I wanted to do something with myself, go to college and work for a living, maybe travel a little bit. This man is twice my age. Now I’m a prisoner, a slave to that bastard and my father’s mistake.”

Steven nodded and fought the urge to get up and pace the room. Losing the battle, he did start pacing. “I can fix this,” he stated firmly but kept pacing. His mind was going a mile a minute.

“Yeah right,” Jewel frowned, “you and what army?” She suddenly remembered the angel she had seen at the church and glanced up hopefully.

Steven recognized the name as the same guy Micah had gotten into a fight with a couple weeks ago before he vanished. Micah had thrown the man out of the club after giving him a face full of his fist, knocking the smart ass right out of his chair. Steven still had trouble not laughing when he thought about it.

Quinn hadn’t thought it was too funny though. Maybe Quinn had known Anthony was a big wig in the mafia and was trying to just watch out for Micah. As a matter of fact, it was the same night Micah had disappeared.

He glanced back at Jewel as he passed in front of her. She was right… Anthony Valachi had been twice her age and a self-righteous asshole to boot. There was no way in hell he was going to let her anywhere near that man or her abusive father… father… the priest at the church. Now that man owed him a favor, and with a little help from Dean… he was going to pay up.

Flipping open his cell phone, he clicked in several numbers and smiled as the other side picked up. “Dean, are you still at the church? Good, retrieve the priest and wait for me there.” He ended the call and closed the distance between him and Jewel. Dropping back to his knees in front of her, he took her hands in his, rubbing his thumbs soothingly over her soft skin.

“How far are you willing to go?” he asked in a steady voice as he searched her face.

“It needs to be more than just running away,” Jewel hated how her voice had sounded so tiny. She hadn’t meant for her fear to show through like that. She bit her lower lip wondering what Steven was up to.

“If we can do this right, you won't have to run any further than here.”

“What are you thinking?” Jewel started to pull her hands away but he held them firm.

“I’m thinking that you can’t get married twice.” Steven flinched when she jerked hard enough to gain her freedom. Pushing up from the floor, he stared down at her as she nearly crawled across the bed in her attempt to put distance between them.

“Listen…” he started.

“No,” Jewel almost yelled as she climbed off the other side of the mattress, feeling a little safer now that the bed was between them. Her face instantly went up in flames realizing the bed was between them in more ways than one if she agreed to go through with this insanity.

She snapped her gaze from the bed. “I didn’t want to get married in the first place! Why the hell would I marry you?”

Steven’s eyes narrowed at the insult but he wasn’t going to let her pride get her killed. If he had to scare the hell out of her then it would be worth it. Besides… at the moment, she was the only lead he had on Micah. Steven’s lip hinted at a devious smile now that he’d successfully added another reason for doing what he was about to do.

“Why marry me, you ask? Because if you can pretend that the marriage is real in front of my family and yours… then in the bedroom it will be in name only. And that army you were wondering about, remember I’m not human and neither are my family or friends. So when you’re jilted ex tries to retaliate… we will be waiting on him.”

“Why would you do any of this?” Jewel shook her head. “And what do you mean pretend?”

Steven held his hands out indicating the bed between them. “To answer your first question, I have a brother who’s been missing for a couple weeks now and the last person besides his family that he was seen with was your intended and it wasn’t friendly. So, what better way to get his attention then to yank his chain.”

“As for your second question, in order for this to work, everyone will have to think we are in love and intend to stay together. But when we are alone, you sleep on your side of the bed and I’ll sleep on mine. It’s not like I want to give up my freedom ether. If you can fake… it then so can I.”

Jewel relaxed some of the tenseness in her shoulders seeing where he was going, “no one else will know the truth?”

“Just our guardian angel… Dean,” Steven smirked when her fingers instantly rose to brush across the cheek that Dean had made a show of healing.

“And once Anthony is no longer a threat?” she murmured.

“Then our good friend the priest will give us our annulment and we will go our separate ways. But first, he has to marry us and, in order to get him to do that… he has to be convinced we are in love and have already consummated it.” When she gave him an appalled look he shrugged, “He’s a priest and above lying so we will just have to do the lying for him. Once it’s over, then we can tell him the truth.”

‘But there will be no consummating our marriage,” Jewel confirmed with a hard look.

“I can control myself if you can.” His pointed gaze matched hers knowing he’d just won the first battle. Now he would just have to pray he could control himself because right now it was taking every ounce of willpower he had not to come across the bed after her and claim her before Anthony Valachi got another chance.

One thing was for sure. His family was already at war with the vampires, and they weren’t equipped to take on another war right now unless they believed it really was for a family member.

“How good of an actor are you? Because if my family doesn’t think we are completely in love… this will be doomed before the ink dries on the marriage certificate.”

Steven’s lips parted when Jewel slowly smiled at him and started crawling back across the mattress toward him. He didn’t move a muscle, waiting to see what she would do. Coming up on her knees in front of him she slid her hand around the back of his neck and pulled him forward and down until their lips were touching.

It was an innocent kiss and the realization that she was still a virgin slammed through Steven without mercy.

Jewel tried not to flinch when his arm went around her back and he pulled her flush against him. Her lips were still closed against his but when she felt his hot touch slide across the seam of her lips, she parted them in surprise feeling it tingle somewhere in the bottom of her stomach.

Just a taste… Steven repeated the words to himself as he leaned into the kiss and deepened it. Feeling himself instantly harden, he placed his palms on her shoulders and gently pushed them away from each other. Seeing her startled eyes snap up and lock with his, he detected the desire he’d barely flamed within her and smiled.

“Yes, like that… just like that.” He touched his fingers to the bottom of her chin and then turned away. “Shall we go get married?”