Claimed Mate

by Jessica Aspen

  “Please. I need to hear it from you.”

  This wasn’t how she’d planned it. She’d decided she was going to tell him in a public place—a restaurant, a coffee shop. Anywhere but here, in what was now supposed to be her home, where his giant frame towered over her, making the small room feel even smaller.

  “Sit down, Sam. You’re making me nervous.”

  Something fierce and alpha crossed his face, and for a minute, she wasn’t sure if he would. But the pack conditioning of years of females being in control must have taken over, because he threw himself into the leather chair opposite, his long legs and arms overflowing to the sides. “Fine.”

  There was a long moment of silence where she struggled to find the words to tell him what had really happened.

  She sighed. “First of all, you have to remember that you two are twins.”

  “But you knew that! I talked about my brother Gabe, I texted you all the time about him.”

  “I didn’t know. I would have remembered if you’d ever said your brother was your twin.” In fact, she’d gone back over every text they’d ever shared and examined them for any evidence that Gabe and Sam were twins. But Sam had never said ‘twin’. Never. “It doesn’t make it right. I’m sorry.”

  “Christ, I can smell who you are from a mile away.” He grimaced.

  “I’m not a shifter, Sam, I’m a dreamwalker. My wolf is on the inside. I feel her, like you feel yours, but she doesn’t enhance my physicality.” She made her own face. “Trust me, this is not the first time my lack of being a shifter has caused problems. You try growing up basically human in a family of shifters. They all have superpowers that I don’t have. They’re super strong, super fast, and super sensitive. They can tell if food is going bad when the refrigerator door is closed. But not me.”

  The fight seemed to go out of him, and he slumped in the chair.

  “Do you love him?”

  She gave a short humorless laugh. “Despite what you might think, I don’t even really know him. Or you, for that matter.” The tension jumped back into his body and she instinctively moved back. “Sam, we’ve barely met. I’ve mostly texted you. Yeah, we get along and yes, those kisses that night were amazing.”

  Not just the kisses—they’d had a connection. It was one of the reasons she’d taken the job. Had she made a mistake? Had her wolf’s desire for a potential mate superseded any real attraction?

  “But that’s us. What about Gabe?”

  “I don’t know him either.”

  “Then forget about him.” He leaned forward, his bright-blue eyes burning. His wolf wasn’t far beneath the surface. “I need you, Serena.”

  Inside, her wolf howled in response, and the push of arousal came hard and fast. She shoved it back. That definitely wasn’t from her and she wasn’t about to let her inner wolf decide who she took to her bed.

  “I promised Gabe I’d give him a chance.”

  “Fuck your promise.” He stood up faster than human speed and crossed the room to her chair. Bending down, with his face close to hers, he braced his hands on the chair’s armrests, caging her in. Suddenly, she was reminded how big and strong he really was.

  “Sam—” Anxiety pitched her voice higher.

  He rubbed his cheek on hers. She knew what he was doing—branding her with his scent, trying to cover the smell of Gabe that likely still lingered on her skin, even after she’d showered.

  “Sam, stop.”

  A shudder ran through him, and he pulled back a few inches. “You’re seeing him?”

  “Yes.” He was too close and too big, but she kept her voice calm and in control, just as she would if she were seeing someone on the dreamscape.

  “But you have to give me equal time. An equal chance.”

  “Okay. I can do that.” She slid out from underneath his body, which was half-blocking her way out of the chair, and stood up. “But tonight, you have to leave. Now.”

  “One kiss?” He reached out, his big hand encircling her arm.

  She stiffened, then reconsidered and made her body relax. After what she’d given Gabe, maybe she should give Sam at least one kiss tonight, just to see how it felt. “One.” She gave him a stern look. “And then you go.”

  He nodded. He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her in close. At five foot eight she was reasonably tall, but to meet his lips, her face was forced to tilt up at an angle. She fought her body’s desire to resist and lifted her mouth up to his.

  Their kisses last month had been hot, and she’d craved each and every one of them. But this one was all one-sided. Sam’s mouth closed on hers with brutal force. He kissed her as if the pressure of his lips alone would force her to remember him. To choose him.

  Her wolf pushed her to give in to Sam’s dominance. This was what her wolf wanted, a strong mate, one who would take care of them and keep them safe. For a moment, her need to push back fought with her wolf’s need, and she didn’t know what to do. Her wolf wanted him, but this wasn’t the man she remembered from a month ago. While Gabe in the meadow had seemed familiar, and so much like her memory of Sam, Sam himself was a stranger.

  She pushed him away. “Okay, that’s enough.”

  Sam’s hold stayed tight. His eyes were wild and hungry and, for a second, she wasn’t sure he was going to let go. The panic inside her threatened to take over, but finally he let go, and she moved fast for the door.

  She opened the door for him.

  He stopped short, right on her heels. “We’re supposed to have breakfast tomorrow.”

  At this point she wished she could just cancel. She was exhausted and confused and the idea of getting up tomorrow and facing all of this again seemed like too much. But she’d promised. “Yes. Can we make it later though? Say ten?”

  “Sure,” he said and walked out the door. “I’ll pick you up.” She closed it fast, leaving a gap no wider than the width of her body.

  “I think I have a car here I can use, and I need to run some other errands. Why don’t you text me the address and we’ll meet there?” She kept her smile bright and cheerful.

  He frowned, but nodded.

  “Great. I’ll see you in the morning.” She closed the door fast and locked it, leaning against it just as she had earlier in the day when she’d gotten back from her encounter with Gabe. She stared into the little cabin’s unwelcoming interior. “Serena, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?” Two men. A new job that looked like certain failure. And all of this miles away from home.

  She went into her bedroom and crawled back into the bed, curling up on her side on the lumpy mattress. She missed the fun, lighthearted relationship she’d had texting with Sam. Now, he was a pissed-off alpha with a wolf pushing him. There was no knowing what would happen and she was here in Colorado, miles away from her support system. Her throat tightened with held-back tears. Suddenly she missed her overbearing family with a sudden fierceness that had her aching and longing for home.

  Chapter Nine

  Gabe stared out the passenger side of the patrol car, a plain white SUV with the Fated Mountain wolf’s head logo on the side. They were approaching the outskirts of Wolf’s Peak, but the familiar landscape of the steep, rocky slopes on either side of the road with the drop off to the creek on one side rushed by without registering. He should cancel his dinner date with Serena. It was the right thing to do.

  “Gabe!” Rico, Gabe’s partner for the day, gave his shoulder a push then put his hand back on the steering wheel. “What the hell is wrong with you, Wulfric? You’ve been somewhere else all morning.”

  “Sorry.” Gabe rubbed his face with his hands. “I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “Big Friday night out with the ladies?” Rico gave him a huge grin and winked. “Gotta watch it. The chief will have your ass if she thinks you’re not duty-ready.”

  “You’d think they’d be nicer to us volunteers.”

  “You’d think.”

  Rico could talk. He was a career enforcer and a
ctually got paid for his hours on the job, unlike Gabe and Sam who both volunteered their time to fill their pack tithe. Rico lived on-site at the Fated Mountain compound, sharing a bunk with a bunch of other lone wolves not really looking to settle down. It was where Gabe and Sam had lived before their dad died. Afterwards, Sam had moved in with their mom and Gabe had moved into the apartment over the deli—a move that had become suddenly extremely complex.

  “Yeah, I’ll be careful of the chief.” He’d tossed and turned with guilt—the look on Sam’s face still etched in his mind—until the small hours of the morning. When the pale light of dawn had lit up the blinds in his bedroom, he’d given up and made coffee. This was his full day of volunteer enforcer duty he did each week, and it was getting longer and longer by the minute.

  “Look, there are no calls right now. Let’s go get some grub. We’re close to your place. Saturday is potato soup day, right?”

  The idea of possibly facing Sam made Gabe’s stomach lurch. “What about somewhere else? I eat at the deli all the time. I could use a change.”

  The dark line of Rico’s black eyebrows shot up, but he nodded. “Okay. The Chubby Burrito instead?” At Gabe’s nod, he got on the radio and told dispatch they were taking lunch.

  Gabe stared off into space as they pulled up at the bright-green food truck—a mural painted on the side featured a fat, mustached burrito dancing with a pair of sexy, long-eyelashed maracas. “Hey, Rico, give me a minute, will you?”

  “No problem. The usual?”

  “Yeah.” He watched Rico get in line. He’d screwed up, big time. If he’d had any clue Serena and Sam were this far into a relationship, he never would have pressed her for dinner.

  Hell, that was a lie.

  The moment he’d seen her, he’d known she was the one, and his life had changed forever.

  What he hadn’t known, and never could have guessed, was that it would threaten his relationship with his brother. Or that he’d ever choose a woman over his twin.

  He should let her go, let Sam have her. If you’d asked him a few days ago, that’s what he would have said. But now? Now he had the smell and taste of Serena in his system, and he wasn’t sure he could give her up so easily. No, he definitely couldn’t give her up without making sure if she was really Sam’s. Or really his. His wolf hummed.

  He was taking her to dinner, and he was going to go all out to seduce her. Sam wanted her, but the odds of either of them having started deep into the mating fever were slim. The lycanthro virus was tricky, and it took exactly the right circumstances to bring it back to life after years of lying dormant in the bloodstream. He was just feeling the results of being a highly charged alpha in the presence of a very sexy potential mate. And so was Sam.

  Right now, it was every man out for himself. Just like he and his twin had competed against each other in football, baseball, and track, they were going to compete for Serena.

  And he intended to be the winner.

  Feeling lighter than he had all day, he saw Rico waving to him from the front of the line. Gabe reached for the door and the radio crackled. “Woman down at 10 Gibson Street, Edge Canyon. Looks like she’s been mauled by dogs. All units, be aware and on the lookout for aggressive canines.”

  The Fated Mountain enforcers were not local law. As far as anyone knew, they were a security company based out of the ranch and used by many individuals in the area. They had no official standing as far as the county was concerned so they kept their radio chatter mundane and friendly. Aggressive canines might be aggressive wolves. But Edge Canyon was out of his and Rico’s patrol area. For something like this, one of the enforcers who was undercover in the actual police department would keep an eye on the investigation and make certain it wasn’t pack related.

  Gabe headed for a free table in the shade, taking his cell phone with him. Out in public they used phones—much more private than the radio if anyone non-pack overheard anything.

  “Hey, Rico, aggressive dog warning in Edge Canyon.”

  Rico nodded and set their order on the table. “Not our jurisdiction.”

  “Nope, just interesting.” He reached for the first of his tacos and took a bite. “We’ve got some big dogs in the area.”

  Rico’s grin showed off sharp canines. “You can say that again.”

  Gabe grinned back and stuffed the last half of his of taco into his mouth. The woman’s situation could be serious, but suddenly he felt better. The sun was shining, Chubby’s tacos were the best in fifty miles, and he had a date with the sexiest woman in the county.

  Serena opened the back door to her bedroom and went outside. “Lacey? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.” The familiar tones of her sister’s voice washed over her.

  “Good. I had to get outside and into the sunlight for a little while.”

  “Is the cabin that bad?”

  “Worse. It’s dark and small and everything is super old. The windows are tiny and don’t let in much light.” She walked down the short path to a patch of sunlight that fell in a gap between some towering pines. “But it’s nice out here.” She took as deep a breath as she could. “If I could only breathe.”

  “Still getting adjusted to the altitude?”

  “Yep.” She found a nice rock in the puddle of sunlight and sat down on its heated surface. “Now you have to help me out. I have a dinner date with Gabe tonight and I have no idea what to wear. Do I go sexy or not? I’m thinking buttoned up to the neck. What do you think?”

  Lacey laughed. “I guess that depends on how breakfast with Sam went.”

  “It was a disaster.” Serena shuddered. “Thank God I drove myself.”

  “Talk to me. I thought you liked him? You spent enough time on the phone with him the last month you were here.”

  “That was texting. It’s different.” She sighed. “I had no idea how different. Maybe, if the thing with Gabe hadn’t happened we’d have been okay, but as it was he spent the entire time staring at me with that whipped puppy face, trying to figure out how to make me happy. And then one of us would say something and it would hit too close to home and he’d flip and get really angry. I know it’s because he’s not over the thing with Gabe.”

  “Well, what did you expect? ‘Thanks for blowing my brother yesterday, here are some flowers?’”

  “No.” Serena smiled, despite the seriousness of her situation. “Of course not. But I don’t think there’s any chance for us if he can’t get over it. Remember, he’s an alpha. They’re a little possessive.”

  “A little? Don’t forget, you left me here with a whole pack of them.”

  “Well, maybe the ones at home are easier.”

  “I doubt it.” Lacey laughed, then got serious. “Okay, let’s say you didn’t meet Sam a month ago and built up an imaginary romance with him. Forget about Gabe and pretend you’ve just met Sam. Would you go out with him?”

  Forget about Gabe? The memory of the heat of the sun and the smell of the grass rising up around them as she took him in her mouth suddenly washed over her. Her entire body flushed.

  “Serena? Are you still there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “So, answer the question.”

  Go out with Sam? The Sam she thought she knew, absolutely yes. But this new one who was needy and aggressive and someone she had to walk on eggshells with? “No, not as he’s acting now.”

  “And what about your wolf? They have good instincts. She liked him before, what about now?”

  “She’s a bitch on a biological time clock. She wants every alpha male she thinks might make babies with her. I can’t trust her.”

  Lacey’s laugh rang out over the cell phone. “I’m with you there. My wolf thinks I should hook up with Owen, can you believe it?”

  Serena could. “He’s grown up pretty hot.” She’d had her own secret crush on their older brother’s best friend when she’d been a teen, but she’d outgrown it. Maybe it would have been better for her had she fallen in love with Owe
n. Then she wouldn’t be in this fix now.

  “He’s too much like a brother. That’s what happens when you’ve known someone since you were five.” Lacey snorted. “I’m telling my wolf to find someone else, fated mates be damned. They’re just a myth anyway.” Lacey’s voice trailed off. Serena almost asked, but then Lacey’s bright tone was back. “So? What about Gabe? If you’d met him before Sam, would you still be going out to dinner?”

  Gabe. Heat washed over her again. “I don’t know,” she lied.

  “So, what are you going to do?”

  Serena got up off her rock and stretched. “I said I’d go out with him and I will, but I have to cut things off with both of them. This is just too complicated.”

  “Are you sure?”

  No, she wasn’t sure. When she thought about cutting things off with Gabe her wolf snarled in protest. But this was ridiculous. There were other men out there she could find to be her mate. She didn’t need a man whose twin would always resent them, regardless of whether she chose Sam or Gabe. Lacey was right—fated mates be damned.

  “I’ve gotta go, Lacey. Thanks for listening.”

  “Always, sis. I’m here for you. We all are.”

  After Serena hung up the phone, everything seemed brighter. It had helped talking to her sister. She liked Sam, but in retrospect she suspected that what they’d had was merely a few kisses after too much wine and a texting relationship from too far away. Despite her wolf’s pushing her at every available alpha in sight, Sam wasn’t the one. Sure, they might have been able to develop something, but now?

  She doubted it.

  The question now was, how soon could she dump Gabe at dinner and get back to making a life out here in Colorado without all the mess these alphas and her wolf had brought to her door?