Page 37 of Forced Mate Bride
“Keep me posted,” Jasper said, then hung up.
When he came back into the living room, Nikki was still sitting on the couch. She had barely moved since he had left. She was leaning forward, forearms resting on her thighs, while she stared at the coffee table. Some of the color had returned to her face, a slight pink to her cheeks, but her leg jittered up and down. She didn’t raise her head until he placed the mug right in her line of sight. Her gaze rose slowly from the steaming mug until it met his own stare.
Jasper could have killed Vincent for the haunted look he saw in Nikki’s green eyes.
“Drink,” he said.
She stared at the mug for a long moment before reaching out to take it. When she did, a new flash of rage lanced through him. A dark bruise was beginning to blossom around the wrist Vincent had grabbed. He should have killed the bastard instead of letting him run off.
Noticing his glare, Nikki shot him a look that was both amused and exasperated at the same time, but she took a tiny sip of the still-scalding tea, then another. He moved to sit next to her, and she took another shaky drink from the steaming mug.
“Thanks,” she said.
“What happened exactly?”
She bit her lip. When she finally spoke, it was to the coffee table.
“Vincent came to see me at the library.” Her voice came out not quite robotic, but not far off. “He wanted to see if I wanted to go on that hike. I said yes. But after we started, I started realizing things were off, and I tried to get him to turn around. He kept insisting we keep going. When I finally put myfoot down, he made a grab for me. I managed to get away for a bit, but…”
She trailed off, as if the words had simply stopped coming. She sucked in a breath, and her fingers white-knuckled the cup. “I thought he was my friend,” she said.
“I know.” His hand went to her shoulder. She flinched slightly but didn’t recoil. She stared down at her mug, running her fingers through her hair.
“Lucas plans on getting rid of you and Camden and the rest of your group,” she finally said. “He wants to take over the pack. Vincent was going to be his right hand.”
That fit with what Donovan had told them the other day and what he had relayed to Franco. “I’m sorry you had to go through that,” Jasper said.
She buried her head in her hands. “I can’t believe I was so stupid,” she said. Her voice cracked, and she took a deep, trembling breath.
“You’re not stupid,” Jasper said.
“It sure feels like I am.” She sucked in a breath. “I thought he was a friend. I trusted him. Otherwise, I never would have gone with him.”
He tried not to wince. “It’s not your fault,” he said. He wanted to add,it was mine. He should have warned her. If he had told her about Donovan’s conversation, she would have been more prepared. She wouldn’t have waltzed into danger like that. She would have at least known it was a possibility that Lucas had people inside the pack. She would have thought twice about going off on her own with anyone, even a friend. He knew he needed to say it, but the words stuck in his throat and refused to emerge.
He wanted to apologize. He needed to apologize. Except after what she had just been through, now didn’t feel like the right time to have that conversation.
“Trust me,” he said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’ve been an idiot,” she spat, not bothering to hide her vitriol or self-loathing. “And I can’t believe I ever thought that I could handle myself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“All those training sessions? Look at how useless they were. It doesn’t matter what happens or what I did. It didn’t do any good.”
Jasper paused. He twisted and turned so he was looking directly at her hunched form. “You’re joking, right?”
Nikki’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“You don’t think the training sessions did any good?” He wanted to laugh. “You do realize that you managed to kick Vincent in the balls, run away, and were defending yourself pretty damn well by the time I got there. Do you really think you aren’t capable just because you couldn’t knock out a guy twice your size with your bare hands?”
Nikki regarded him, her face inscrutable. Her eyes strayed down toward her tea. “You’re the one who knew I needed protection, that I couldn’t handle it on my own.”
Jasper barked out a laugh that was partly due to the sheer absurdity of the statement and partly because of just how wrong it was. He twisted until he was facing her and grasped her shoulder until she was looking right at him.
“Nikki,” he said. “I can’t express to you just how wrong you are.”
“But I—”
