by J. A. Saare
But perhaps more importantly, Michael was a close personal friend of my father, the long-standing beta of Michael's pack. It was probably the only reason—aside from Noah—I wasn’t being shipped to an unmarked grave.
I licked my parched lips, hoping they wouldn't crack as I spoke. "I’ll contact the alpha in Manchester and make arrangements. I’m sure he can work one more into his pack."
Noah’s bitter laugh was a sound I remembered well. "Still holding a grudge."
Seven years is a hell of a long time to loathe someone, especially when you once loved him. Still, he was right. I was holding on to a grudge, one that sent me hundreds of miles away from home.
The familiar scent of piston grease, oil, and orange-scented GOJO hand cleaner encouraged me to make the effort to pry my eyes open. The light from the high wattage bulbs overhead burned my retinas, scalding the shaded surface, and I had to blink back tears. The corkboard ceiling slowly came into focus, dirty white squares with brown indentions hidden within. I rotated my head on the pillow, my nose piloting my face toward the calming fragrance wafting through the doorway.
Another growl came from Noah, this one deep and threatening. His voice echoed the sentiment, possessive as ever. "You won’t even look at me, but you welcome him."
Goading Noah was stupid.
From the moment I arrived to live with my father some twelve years ago, he’d all but staked his claim, warning everyone in Michael’s pack and the neighboring ones I was off-limits. Of course, I hadn't known that. I hadn't discovered the lengths Noah was willing to go to ensure I accepted him as a mate until much later. He and his wolf had been robbed of my closeness for seven years—a lifetime for a male who found his other half—and only three of those years had been agreed upon.
I chose the safe route: feigned submission. "Please, Noah."
The soft plea didn’t have the desired effect. The painful prickling of energy increased, the power of his beast wafting off him as the growl became louder. Noah was alpha and dominant to a fault. He wanted more than my submission; he wanted my total acquiescence and compliance.
"Damn it," I huffed weakly, giving him what he wanted by turning my head.
Time hadn’t changed much, but then, it didn’t in regard to werewolves. He was still unjustly breathtaking—built like an NFL running back in his prime—tall, lean, and muscular. His blond hair was stylish, with long layers on the top that bled into shorter, darker strands along the back. His dark blue eyes with glowing silver flecks had a way of reaching past his gaze to stare right into the soul. A darker shade of blond covered his squared jaw and surrounded his full lips, the shadow giving him a rugged and devastatingly handsome visage.
The growling subsided, and the silver embedded in his irises slowly dulled and faded along with the burning tingle against my skin. I wasn’t sure if he could see just how much pain I’d held on to in the last seven years, if he could smell my fatigue and exhaustion, or if he was experiencing a rare moment of guilt for being the cause of it.
He maintained eye contact, voice steady. "I’ll give you privacy, but I should warn you. Lucas and Brianna are posted at the exits on the floor, and Michael is driving over as soon as he’s finished with the agent in charge of your case."
He stood, and I severed eye contact, my focus drifting down his immaculately pressed shirt and black slacks. He’d always been beautiful yet deadly—a man I craved like no other.
"Lucas and Brianna?"
"Yes," he replied. "You know what that means."
Lucas and Brianna—the gruesome twosome—had tagged along as insurance. My case was definitely national news. When you needed to call in the big guns, it could only mean one thing.
Death threats.
Steven breezed into the room just as Noah stormed out. Steven was slightly shorter and bulkier, but his body was equally impressive. It was the result of hard work and long hours spent sweating inside his car shop. He was dressed in garage clothes, but they were surprisingly clean. The succulent freshness of lilac static sheets indicated they’d come straight from the dryer. His dark brown hair was messy—the long strands along the front and crown slightly tangled and windblown—but his jaw and cheekbones were smooth from a recent shave.
A person would never know a genius mind lay hidden beneath the mechanic façade, and he liked it that way. He'd worked as a stock broker for years before we met, investing wisely and amassing an exorbitant amount in savings. Now he made a living doing what he enjoyed most, restoring classic muscle cars from the ground up.
I met Steven McDaniel shortly after I arrived in New York while sitting in Chloe’s café—which coincidentally, I had also been employed by—four years ago. The friendship wasn’t intentional as werewolves and humans don’t mix well by design. But occurred because each of us saw in the other what we needed at the time. He was recently widowed, having lost his wife and infant daughter years before in an automobile accident. I was a young girl fresh off the train, without friends or family.
The connection had been immediate.
He didn’t discover my carefully hidden secret until two years later. One night the fan belt on his ‘67 Camaro snapped, leaving him stranded a few blocks from my neighborhood. He'd decided to walk the short distance to my home instead of flagging someone down, guided along the way by the glorious light of the full moon.
When I didn’t answer his knock, he'd used the key hidden inside a ceramic flower pot to gain entrance. I had been caged at the time, locked in the basement on the off chance I couldn’t suppress the urge to go for an extended run through the cityesque burbs of Greenpoint. When he had come into the basement searching for a phonebook in my office and gazed into my green eyes, it hadn’t taken him long to put two and two together.
He’d known who he’d been looking at.
But he hadn't run.
When I shifted back to my human form, he’d asked a lot of questions. He took the truth surprisingly well, meaning he continued to stick around.
"Dear God, Raven. I’ve been scared out of my mind." He approached the bed slowly as if he was afraid I wasn’t real. "What were you thinking?"
"Close the door." I tried to sit up and groaned, pain returning swiftly.
His uncertainty and nervousness evaporated. "Hold on. I’ll help you."
He slid the door closed and walked to the bed. After readjusting the pillows, he pressed a button along the side to help me sit upright. I clenched my jaw, biting my bottom lip, nearly drawing blood. All things considered, the damage my body suffered was extreme. Werewolves healed quickly unless the rounds were silver, and the thug monkeys at the bank were only carrying standard ammo. I would have felt a white-hot burn that accompanies silver otherwise.
Reminding me of just how clever he was, Steven walked to the television and turned it on, turning the channels until he came to reruns of The Price is Right. He adjusted the volume to a level that ensured privacy before he walked to the seat vacated by Noah. He looked me over, taking me in from head to foot, and shook his head.
"You look like shit, but it’s an improvement."
I smiled at that. "I feel like shit, and I’m glad to be of service."
"That was some stunt you pulled. It’s all over the news and radio stations."
"Michael’s here, so I can imagine. What happened? I can’t remember everything."
His frown meant only one thing—bad news.
"Channels are reporting a crazed animal went on a rampage inside a bank and killed three men. A few mentioned the lives saved, but most are terrified a werewolf was inside the bank in the first place."
"Ouch." Leave it to terrified humans to assume the worst. "The minute a person sprouts fur and a tail, all bets are off."
"Yeah, well, not all of us lemmings are so easily duped. I managed to eavesdrop on a conversation between two of the officers who were on scene the night they brought you in. They stormed the building after the first shot was fired. They expected to find suspects waiting just inside, but
what they didn’t count on was the crazed wolf devouring them. They're still in shock." He cocked his head to the side. "You said that Michael was here, as in Michael Preston?"
Being involved with a shifter meant doing your homework, and Steven had two years to ingest supernatural knowledge. What he didn’t learn from first-hand news accounts available in the library, he made up for with late-night Google searches and various books he purchased online.
I nodded carefully. "The very same."
He whistled and closed his eyes, his head drifting from side to side.
"I know, I know," I muttered. "He’s come to take me back to the pack like a good little pup."
He tried to sound nonchalant when he asked, "With Noah?"
Steven knew all the sordid details of my previous relationship, including the reasons I chose to leave pack lifestyle in the first place. It wasn’t a big deal, just another personal story shared between two close friends. But Steven didn’t want to be just a friend anymore, having transcended that hazy grey line that oftentimes accompanied male and female friendships. I was certain all of the details I shared weren’t so easy to swallow with the competition present and in the flesh.
"If I go back to Tennessee, it will not be because of Noah."
"I introduced myself the night he arrived and came into your room. He didn’t take it well."
I chuckled despite my best intentions. "I bet."
His slightly rough and calloused hand wrapped around mine. "I got the call while I was rebuilding Mitch’s transmission. When the officer’s voice came over the line…" He exhaled shakily. "I’d forgotten how terrifying those kinds of calls can be. "
A surge of guilt overcame me at that moment.
Steven had lost his wife, Deborah, and eighteen month old daughter, Elizabeth, when a drunken driver had plowed through a four-way stop. He didn’t talk about them often, only from time to time, but I knew how deep his wounds went.
He missed them terribly.
"I’m so sorry." I twined my fingers around his, squeezing. "I didn’t have any other choice. Those men were at their breaking point. Crazed people are like mad wolves who don’t retain the human element when they shift. There is no semblance of right or wrong, decency or depravity. When they took that little girl…" I recalled her terrified little face, clearly picturing the tears streaming down her cheeks. "I just reacted."
"You don’t need to explain. I would have done the same." His thumb brushed over the top of my hand—the motion familiar and comforting. "I’m just damn thankful. The gunshot wounds were bad, but your leg was what kept you under sedation. The damage was nearly irreparable. The bone nicked the femoral artery when it split, and they had to call in a surgeon to reset the femur when it started mending wrong. If it weren’t for your accelerated healing, you would have died."
"So that’s why it hurts like the dickens," I joked lamely.
His warm, caramel-colored gaze met mine. "I don’t want you to go."
His emotions were right there, out in the open for me to see. That was the refreshing thing about human males. There was no need to dominate or control. Steven was smart, confident, and witty. He was also good-looking, successful, and charming. He wasn’t an alpha who demanded complete adoration or devotion, and oddly enough, he didn’t have to be.
I sighed and pressed my head against the pillow. "I don’t want to go, but I don’t know how much of the decision is based on what I want."
"What if I speak with Michael and we make our relationship official?"
"It's not that simple."
"Why not?"
"You're human." We'd talked briefly about this issue but hadn't worried about it overly much. I never thought I'd see the pack again. There had been no reason to. Things were now very different. "They won't approve."
"Werewolves mate with humans. Your mother was human, for Christ’s sake."
"You know how her relationship with my father ended."
"We're not them."
"It’s complicated," I responded evasively, not wanting to lie but unable to tell him the private eccentricities that pack life entailed. Our friendship started on the foundation of a lie, but fortunately, he had seen past it. I didn’t want to stretch the man as far as I could to see when he snapped.
What he said was partially true.
Humans and werewolves did mate in the literal sense—when male werewolves didn’t find what they were looking for inside the pack and needed to scratch a sexual itch—but wolves didn't bond with humans. Or at the very least, the male population didn’t. When males finally homed in on their prospective mate, all romantic entanglements between the human females they’d used to slate the lusts of their inner animal were severed.
Werewolves made excellent lovers; that was a well-known fact. But there was a catch. They may or may not be there the next month, the next week, or the next morning. It was a hard lesson learned each and every day by scorned women the world over—including my own mother.
Were females capable of forming such attachments with humans while their male counterparts were not? I didn’t know, and neither did anyone else to my knowledge. Females were kept away from human society like prized eggs, tethered to their packs until the right male came along. That was another reason Michael was sure to be angry. I'd broken a huge pack rule by leaving without permission or maintaining close contact with my alpha. Even worse, I'd insulted his entire community by doing so as a female.
Noah believed me when I told him I’d return to the pack after my mother's passing, taking me at my word when I said I needed time and space to think about our relationship. He had been unaware my decision to flee had already been set in motion. I knew the proud and dominant male I’d left behind had only been allowed to reside in Michael’s territory to keep the peace during Michael's frequent trips—as a backup alpha to ensure the packs stayed in line when a lone beta wasn’t enough—meaning I’d left all of them vulnerable. Now that I had been found, they knew I'd become involved with another male—a human.
Steven’s jaw ticked, and I could sense his rising anger. "Is that a no?"
"That’s an I don’t know, because I don’t. If anyone were willing to lend a sympathetic ear, it would be Michael. His first wife was a human, and two of his four children were born from her. But he’s going to be furious with me, and I don’t know what he’ll say or do. I haven’t spoken to him or had any contact with his pack in the four years since Mom died."
Steven’s fingers were gentle around mine, but he squeezed harder than I was sure he intended. "Since you ran, you mean?"
I closed my eyes, nodding. "Yes."
"Do you mind if I go to Michael to plead my case? "
My lips curved into a smile, and I looked at him again, "What will you say?"
"I don’t know." He returned my grin and released my hand. Moving from the chair, he eased his weight carefully onto the bed. He stroked a lock of blonde hair from my face, tucked it behind my ear, and cupped my chin. He brushed his thumb along my jaw. "Maybe I’ll tell him that I love you."
My chest caved and my heart melted, but I didn’t let on. Frowning in play, I sighed. "Love doesn’t dictate pack life. It’s nice if it’s there, but it’s not a requirement."
He lowered his eyes, staring at my mouth, speaking absently. "It doesn’t matter. I have something that will make it impossible for him to keep you from me."
I brought my hand up and wound my fingers around his wrist. The brush of my warm skin got his attention, and our eyes met. "And what exactly do you have?" I questioned. "Hidden connections to the PBI?"
"No, I have something better." When he didn’t continue, I wanted to throttle him. He chuckled at my expression, and I knew that was his intent. He wanted to tease me. "A secret weapon."
"What secret weapon?"
"Money," he answered, leaning forward, kissing me lightly. He pulled away, honey brown eyes determined. "Lots and lots of money."
"You can’t buy my way out of the pack, Steven." My vo
ice was soft, the words etched with pain.
If only it was that easy.
"I know that." He shrugged. "But what I can do is tell your master and commander if he won’t let you leave Tennessee, I’ll be forced to purchase a large stake of land and move down south. I’ve always wondered what it would be like to live a Dukes of Hazard lifestyle. With you beside me in cut-off shorts, I’ll be living the dream."
I stared affectionately at the man before me.
Several months ago, Steven had invited me to his place under the pretense of sharing a casual dinner and partaking in a cheesy horror movie. Nothing had occurred at dinner, but during the show, he'd moved closer to my body nestled on the very far arm of the couch. Then closer still. When the end credits rolled, he had ended the night with a bang by kissing me for the first time. Time had mended his heart, just as it does with many things. He was ready to move forward with his life, and he wanted the person he shared it with to be me. We were still in the precarious dating stage, lusting for one another but taking things slowly. So far, we'd engaged in nothing more than heavy petting.
I regretted that decision now.
I smiled, picturing the future together as he described. I would be amenable to it. "Who knows? Maybe we can find an old Dodge Charger in need of restoration. We can drive to Velma’s on Sundays for the best homemade biscuits and grits below the Mason-Dixon."
"That sounds perfect." He agreed with the idea yet seemed puzzled. "But I have a question."
I frowned at him, curious. "Okay?"
He arched a dark eyebrow and asked, "What’s a grit?"
I didn’t need the assistance of enhanced smell to identify the visitor in my room the next time I woke. The glorious hum of power radiating from him was evident all along the nerve endings in my body, prickling both above and below the surface of my skin. I opened my eyes and turned my head, focusing easily in the dimly lit space, the blaring fluorescent bulb over the nearby sink the only viable light source.
