by Sam Hall
Lone Wolf
Sam Hall
Contents
Stalk me!
Author Note
Trigger Warning
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
What next?
Stalk me!
Acknowledgments
Nail ‘Em
Lone Wolf © Sam Hall 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except for in the case of brief quotations for the use in critical articles or reviews.
Cover art and design by CJ Romano
The characters and events depicted in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Created with Vellum
Stalk me!
Stalk me!
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Author Note
This book is written in Australian English, which is a weird lovechild of British and American English. We tend to spell things the way the Brits do (expect a lot more u’s), yet also use American slang and swear more than both combined.
While many people have gone over this book, trying to find all the typos and other mistakes, they just keep on popping up like bloody rabbits. If you spot one, don’t report it to Amazon, drop me an email at the below address so I can fix the issue.
[email protected]
Trigger Warning
This book does deal with the death of a parent, which may push some buttons for people. There’s an extensive scene that deals with the grieving process that’s designed to be emotionally moving, but you’ll need to assess if you’re up for that. As always, talk to someone you trust about content that might be potentially upsetting.
Chapter 1
They say you should never go back. Well, sometimes you didn’t get a choice.
“Hello…?” My voice was a combination of a grumble and a moan, having rolled over in the middle of what the fuck o’clock to grab my phone off the bedside table.
“Paige.”
Just my name, that’s all he said, but it was enough, more than enough. I recognised that deep voice with just a hint of growl like I would my own, but mine didn’t have me sitting up straight in bed.
“Mase?”
“He’s in the hospital, Paige. It’s time to come home. A decision has to be made.”
And that was that. The object of all my teenage fantasies, my father’s beta, hung up on me. I just stared at the screen, unable to decipher what sorcery was at work in a simple device that it could create a temporal rift in my room and yank my mind, if not my body, to five years ago.
“Paige, a decision needs to be made,” Dad growled as I shoved clothes into a bag, not really caring what I packed. Actually, I did. Those dumb floofy gowns they tried to make me wear to pack meetings were not coming. If anything, I’d like to take them out the back and set them on fire. I grabbed jeans, T-shirts, jumpers, socks—
“Paige!”
My spine was jerked up straight, I lost my grip on a handful of socks I’d been holding, and my body became taut as a plucked string.
“I know you’re hurting, love, but Spehr’s don’t run from their problems.”
His voice was all warm, reassuring Dad, but the effect was ruined by the fact he was keeping me pinned to the spot by the dominance in his voice. I quivered with the need to go, to get the fuck out of Dodge and away from all of this. Away from men who could freeze me with just a snap, who could push their will on me at their leisure, who could force me to listen to their fucking bullshit.
I remembered this moment because it was the last time I saw my dad. I remembered it because for the first time, I managed to move when Dad pinned me, just a small twitch of my finger. Dad’s voice was being drowned out by the smash of my heart in my ribs as I watched it jerk, then curl under my direction.
“Are you listening to me?”
The order snapped me back to what he was saying and the moment was lost, but it was a memory that sang in my mind, long after this ended.
“Speak freely,” Dad said, finally seeming to realise I couldn’t do shit unless he gave me permission.
“I don’t want this.”
“You’re my daughter.”
“Disown me. I’m leaving anyway, so adopt one of the cousins or something. A woman of our blood has to claim the next alpha, not me specifically. Aunty Nance is dying for—”
“No.” I stood there silently, unable to suggest anything else while his will beat down upon me. “You know I could force this. I could make you stay, keep you here until you make your decision. Plenty of other alphas would do the same.”
“But you won’t,” I said, half whisper, half hope.
“But I won’t. Paige, run off to the city if that’s what you think you have to do, but, honey, you gotta know it won’t make a difference. This is your pack, these are your people—people you’ll rule over one day as alpha female.”
No, no, no. No. I never felt further away from my father than when he spouted this shit. We’d done our best after Mum died, rubbed along as well as an alpha and his only daughter might, but I made no mistake. My father had never understood me. That went when Mum did.
“If it doesn’t matter, then it won’t hurt if I go,” I said, my chin raising despite the instinctual beat inside me that screamed for me to lower my eyes.
But he didn’t exert his dominance right at that moment. Alpha Spehr fell away, and right then, there was only Dad. A man disappointed, a man at war with himself, because irrespective of what he thought he knew, he did love me and he did want me to be happy and it killed him I couldn’t be happy here.
I jumped when those big arms wrapped around me, making my own considerable height feel like nothing as I was swamped by my father’s massive frame. As I closed my eyes, I was hit hard by my dad’s reassuring scent. I was a little girl again, running to Daddy with my boo-boos, feeling like any problem in the world could be solved by him. But that had stopped after puberty.
I pulled away, something that hurt us both, I knew, but I had to. It beat, loud and true, my own instinct—get away, get away.
“I love you, Dad, but I need to leave for a bit. I’ll be back, when I’m ready.”
But that moment never came, despite everything I tried and achieved away from the pack. I’d toss the idea of going home around in my mind, and it never felt right.
It didn’t feel any better now as I hauled myself out of bed and started shovi
ng clothes back into that same bag, as well as everything else I needed to take. Luckily, I had a big car. I’d need it to take all this shit…
I looked around the apartment I’d lived in since I got here, the crisp white walls, the high ceilings, the large windows that filled the place with a diffuse light that made it OK to ignore the dodgy plumbing and ancient fittings. I’d built something here, something that was going to have to be packed away and returned to sender.
But there was no point in dwelling on it. This was always the way. Our kind lived in packs and had no time for lone wolves.
Chapter 2
“So you’re going.”
It should’ve been a question, but it wasn’t, Zack standing in the gym we’d both worked in since I got here.
“Thought I better give you the keys rather than send them to you.”
He’d met me downstairs readily enough when I texted. Probably thought I just had an itch to scratch like I sometimes did. And who wouldn’t? He stood there in nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants that hung low on lean hips, giving me a damn good outline of Not So Little Zack. Massive muscled arms crossed a bare chest that would’ve had Brad Pitt having a little sook about his body circa the Fight Club era. Those smouldering dark eyes took me in, the heat now irritation not sexual, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. My vajayjay was trying real hard to convince me that just one more for the road, or maybe two, would be a good idea. Except coming home stinking of another wolf shifter, right when the three ring circus of choosing another alpha male was on the agenda, was a certain way to have one of the idiots from my pack driving down here to ‘defend my honour.’
Would Zack be able to take them? I wondered. I shook my head, trying to clear it of yet more bad decisions. Fuck, Dad was in hospital… I’d boxed up my feelings about that a lot like my junk in the back of my car, not to be opened until I was at home, if ever.
“Anyway, here they are. Consider this notice given. Take my last pay as compensation for last minute bullshit.”
My hand hovered in the space between us, holding out for him the cluster of keys to the gym I’d used every day since I started working here.
“I’m not docking your fucking pay, Paige. You’re good here. We’re good here, and you’re gonna throw it all away on—”
“Familial bullshit. I know, but that’s how it goes. You knew this when you took me on.”
“I don’t know shit.” He raked his fingers through that raffish shock of dark brown hair. “Other packs don’t adhere to this archaic crap. Plenty of people live lone or make their own packs—packs built on mutual respect, not hereditary shit.”
I put my spare hand up, not having time for the patented Zack Gillespie vision for the future, trademark pending. As it was, I’d be guzzling coffee all the way to get home in one piece.
“Keep them.” A big warm hand closed my fingers over the keys, then used that to draw me forward.
“Zack, I can’t—”
“I don’t give a shit what those fucks in your pack think. You’re not walking out of here without this.”
I might have protested, but he knew I couldn’t say no. Not to the hiss of his breath as he came closer, giving me all the time in the world to make good on my objections and pull away. Not the feel of his other hand on my chin, tilting my lips up, and not the feel of his pressing to mine, firm, persistent, not stopping until mine parted and his tongue surged in.
The keys lay forgotten on the ground as we clawed at each other, the hunger that always rose when we spent too much time together roaring to life. His hand fisted in my hair, forcing my mouth hard against his, the other pressing me firmly against him as I felt Not So Little Zack become a fucking raging anaconda. He smiled against my lips at the guttural sounds I was making as his hand went to my waistband to pull it down.
But god fucking dammit, I jerked away.
“No…”
“Baby, when you run, it just makes me harder,” he said as I shuffled back to the door.
“Zack, I can’t.”
“See, I hear what you’re saying, but your scent is telling a whole other story.”
“Scent’s not consent, Zack. You told me that.”
And that was exactly what I needed to say to stop things cold. My boss, my sometimes lover, my friend, froze where he was, nodding for a moment as he processed his own words.
“I can’t let you walk out of here without one last taste of you, Paige. You know…”
His words fell away. We’d had this conversation, going around and around, but my objections stopped it cold each time. I walked up to him, feeling the weight of that, the finality of this gesture. When my arms went around him, when I was pressed against that big broad chest and breathed that sweet, spicy essence of Zack in, he went way deeper than if we’d given in to our urges and he’d fucked me on the floor of the boxing ring.
I would miss this. Pain surged up, having already been battened down once tonight, loss a ravening ghost inside me, wanting to suck every part of me down into it. I kept my eyes down when I finally pulled back, trying to hide the tears welling there, but he brushed a thumb across my cheekbone, capturing a stray one.
“Just remember everything you’ve learnt,” he said in a low rumble I felt down into my toes. “None of them will be able to take you if you do.”
I nodded, scooped up the keys, and shoved them in my pocket, then walked out without saying goodbye. I couldn’t, a howl building in my chest. I might have refused his offer to form a pack here, but my beast, she didn’t acknowledge that. As far as she was concerned, we were walking away from that bond, again, and she wasn’t happy about it.
Chapter 3
I’m not going to describe the drive home, because I don’t really remember it. There was coffee, long roads, the flicker of sunlight through the pale trunks of big gum trees, and endless rolling hills of farmland. And dread. That rose the closer I got, until I was driving down the road into town, passing paddocks of sheep before the first houses appeared. The farther your place was from the centre of town, the lower in rank you were, so in I went, past houses, car yards, shops, a McDonald’s, the big ceremonial garden, and then past the ANZAC memorial to the ‘big house.’ A big old stone Federation style building complete with decorative pilasters; tourists coming to Lupindorf assumed it was the town hall, and in some ways, it was. I drove the car around the back, the automatic gate recognising me, and on the back steps, there they were—the contenders.
Men in their twenties and thirties. Big strong men, lounging upon the stone stairs. Men I’d grown up with. Men who were waiting for me. Mason, Mase I called him, pushed away from the pack and approached the car, bending down when I wound down the window.
“You made it OK?” he asked, leaning on the car door. One look at those muscles, that too long scruff of dark hair, those piercing brown eyes, and you could see what the draw of Zack was for me. He’d been the latest in a long line of Mason substitutes, though I liked him best out of all of them.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“So you know the drill? You’re gonna run the gauntlet, let them get a smell of you, then we get you inside and you shower and change clothes to get the stink of another shifter off you. Then I’ll take you to see your dad.”
My eyes jerked up to meet his, something that drew a growl from him, but for once, it wasn’t hostile. He shifted against the car, brows frowning then smoothing as he watched me stare back. This was a threat, a slap to the face, a throwing down of a challenge in my pack, but right now, Mason Klein just seemed intrigued that I could. Something inside me flared hard when he was the one to look away first.
“They can’t touch you, can’t make overtures, can’t do a fucking thing without your say so, and I’m here to make sure that’s how it goes.”
I opened the car door, waiting for him to back off so I could get out, and didn’t mention the fact I could probably put any one of these pricks down if they started anything. Don’t declare your hand early, Zack always to
ld me. They’ll misjudge you for being a woman. Use that to your advantage and take the bastards by surprise. So I didn’t use any of the holds or throws on Mase as I got out, not while he kept backing off, keeping a respectful distance. Something that was about to change abruptly.
‘Running the gauntlet’ was a tradition our pack had brought over from the old country. The next alpha was always chosen by a female member of the old alpha’s family, preferably his daughter. The man who became her mate took the position as head of the pack when they were ready. Running the gauntlet was supposed to be something our beasts naturally did. Strong males pushed forward, scented her for receptiveness and then put themselves forward as contenders if she was. So why did my wolf whine unhappily inside me at the prospect? I didn’t let that show as Mason escorted me over to the stairs.
“No touching, no getting in her face. Be respectful, or I’ll show you how to,” Mason said as we approached.
But they didn’t pay attention to him, just me. Familiar and not so familiar faces were directed my way, hot eyes raking down my body. Some eyebrows jerked up. So they should, I was in a helluva lot better shape now than I’d been when I left. Working with Zack, I’d honed my body just as they did theirs. They’d tell themselves they didn’t like it, that they liked their women sweet and soft and pliable.
