Colt knew that changed whenever a paranormal and a human bonded. Just like the Para, the human would want nobody else—but that was with a bond. Colt’s fingers curled into tight fists. Without a bond, human mates could do whatever the fuck they wanted—
Maddox cocked his head to the side. The move was decidedly canine. “Are you growling at me?”
It was one thing to be snarky. It was another to challenge an infuriated, aroused, lonely wolf shifter. Colt would be lucky if Maddox only kicked his ass if he kept on provoking him. His brother was wound so tight, he was almost vibrating in place. One wrong word. That’s all it would take. Maddox would pounce, and not even the fact that they were blood would save him if Maddox’s wolf got control.
Colt let out a rough exhale before dropping his gaze. “No. Just clearing my throat.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. So, you gonna come in and tell me what’s going on? Or was mooning the whole Bumptown the reason behind your unexpected visit?”
“Mooning? Ah, fuck! My clothes!” Maddox finally stepped inside the house, grabbing the doorknob and jerking it roughly until it wasn’t stuck in the drywall. His flashing eyes gleamed dangerously as he slammed the door shut behind him. He stalked toward his brother. “I wasn’t even thinking when I shifted. And after I carried them all the way out of the Cage, too. Jesus, Colt, I’m a fucking moron. I forgot all about my clothes.”
Shifters went through a ton of clothes. Something about the momentum of the shift, the final snap as the body traded one shape for another, made it impossible to keep clothes in one piece if you didn’t strip first. The material burst at the seams, shredding into unwearable tatters.
Colt couldn’t understand why one pair of clothes mattered to Maddox more than another, but recognized that this wasn’t the time to ask about Maddox’s sudden attachment to a particular outfit.
“Here,” he said, leaning over the edge of his couch and pulling a pair of crumpled jeans from an overflowing laundry basket. He'd been meaning to stop by his parents’ house and see if his mom would take pity on her poor son, but after everything that had happened lately, laundry wasn't at the top of his to-do list. Throwing them across the room, he hit Maddox squarely in his heaving chest. “Put those on instead. I'm tired of that thing winking at me. And you can keep the jeans, too.”
Maddox was still breathing heavily as he jammed one leg into the pants. “Jealous, little brother?”
Colt thought of his situation and shook his head firmly. “Not even a little bit. Now tell me what happened. Three days I don't hear from you and suddenly you're back, huffing and puffing and blowing my damn house down.”
Maddox’s expression went dark, his brow furrowed, lips pulling into an angry snarl. “I saw her. I saw Angie.”
The monster hard-on had already clued Colt into that. But the mutinous expression, the fury that had Maddox tied up in knots? Add that to the fact that Maddox was in his house instead of busy claiming his mate again and something was wrong.
“That’s good news. Good news, Mad… isn’t it?
“It should’ve been. It was supposed to be easy. Find Angie, claim Angie. Only…” Maddox shrugged helplessly, his golden eyes wild. “Her scent was gone,” he admitted at last. “And her eyes… she looked right through me. She acted as if she didn’t even know who I am.”
Colt nearly choked on his breath.
So it wasn’t just him, was it?
Maddox’s head snapped in his direction. “What was that?”
Colt swallowed roughly. “What was what?”
He didn’t give anything away in his scent, he was sure of it; born an alpha wolf to the Alpha, Colt learned how to keep his emotions locked up tight so that nothing gave him away. He was working on twisting his words enough that no one could pick up on the rare times he didn’t feel like being honest. Apart from that strangled gasp, there was no way Maddox should have been able to guess that Colt was suddenly rattled.
Except that Maddox was his older brother. So what if he spent the last few years in the Cage? Colt didn’t stand a chance against him.
Maddox moved carefully across the room, picking his way around the furniture, never taking his predator’s gaze away from Colt. “What aren’t you telling me? What the hell is going on, Colton?”
Colt winced. Colton. Maddox sounded just like their father—just like the Alpha—whenever he barked out Colt’s full name like that.
He couldn’t help it. He immediately went on the defensive.
“Okay. Listen. You can’t blame me. I thought it was a fluke. I mean, she’s not my mate.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“When I found her scent, right? When I followed her to the store in Grayson? She saw me. I know she did. She had to have known I was waiting out front, too. Why else would she sneak out the back? But… here’s the thing, bro. She acted like I was a stranger. No recognition. She had a blank stare, a sad smile, and the same scent that used to be embedded in your skin. I knew it was your Evangeline, only she didn’t know it was me.”
Maddox glared at him. A rumble built up in his chest, growing louder and louder before his accusation came out in a mix of snarl and spit. “You didn't tell me any of that!”
Colt held up his hands. “Hey, I was hoping to be wrong. I'm not the one who bonded with her. I figured she had no reason to remember me. But you… she loved you, Mad.”
“She might have once, but now she doesn't remember me. My mate doesn't remember me!”
Colt dared to meet Maddox’s angry gaze. “What did you expect? She would see you, the bond would spring back, and you’d be busy making pups as soon as you got her back home?”
From the frustrated look on his face, that was exactly what Maddox had expected.
“That's what you told me would happen!”
“How the fuck would I know? Who died and crowned me the mating king? I told you what you needed to hear to keep from going full wolf the second you got out of the Cage.”
Sometimes Colt wished his wolf didn’t have that all-consuming need to obey Maddox’s because, shit, what he wouldn’t have given to be able to lie straight to his face.
Because the second the words were out of his mouth? Colt hated himself for telling the truth.
And when Maddox snarled before lunging straight at him, Colt didn’t try to evade or submit to him without giving Maddox the chance to blow off some steam. Why would he? Whatever came next, he knew he deserved it.
Still… this was going to hurt.
The fight was fast and furious, a flurry of fists and fangs as each of the Wolfe brothers engaged in a partial shift. It was how they had always fought since they were pups: not a challenge or a real attempt to hurt each other, but a scuffle between brothers. In their human shape, Maddox was taller, though Colt was faster and wasn’t afraid to hit his brother as hard as he possibly could; as wolves, Maddox had the full advantage because of his dominance. Halfway shifted, they were more evenly matched.
Colt was a single-minded fighter who fought dirty when he had to. Maddox had his missing mate bond to fuel him. While Colt got in a few good hits, it was no surprise that Maddox wiped the floor with his younger brother.
In fact, the floor was where they both ended up when the fight was over. Colt was flat on his belly, Maddox perched on Colt’s back, forcing Colt to keep on submitting. There was blood on Maddox’s knuckles and Colt’s right eye was swollen shut, but while they both panted from a combination of exertion and adrenaline, the injuries were already starting to heal.
It was easy to let a good right hook do the talking when the damage done would fade away in minutes due to a shifter’s metabolism. Their tendency to use a fistfight to solve all of their disputes used to drive their poor mother crazy, especially when Terrence jumped in and fought alongside his boys.
Colt ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, checking his teeth. He could’ve sworn that last punch knocked a couple of them loose. Luckily for him, they al
l seemed to be accounted for. Not too bad. When they last fought years ago, Colt lost two molars and chipped a fang.
He felt Maddox’s weight shift on his back. Peering over his shoulder, he found Maddox leaning forward, rubbing the rough, ruined skin on his neck with both hands. Colt didn’t even think Maddox was aware he was doing it.
The scars from the silver collar reminded Colt how much the Cage had cost Maddox, and what was at stake. Colt knew his brother couldn’t stand to lose Evangeline again. Discovering she didn’t remember him was bad enough. If they couldn’t fix this and fast, who knows how long before Maddox self-destructed?
Colt cleared his throat. “Hey? You feeling better now? Ready to start working on your bond again? Or do you want to go another round, maybe let me knock some sense into you first?”
Colt decided not to take it too personally when Maddox chuckled. He never thought he would hear that sound again, even if it came at his expense. And then Maddox told him, “My dick’s so hard I could use it to hammer nails but, other than that, yeah. I think I’m okay now. Thanks, Colt. I needed that. And, hey, at least I know the mating instinct is still working for me.”
“Don't mention it,” Colt told him. “I know I’m trying to forget how much I know about your dick.”
“Whatever, pup. I still think you’re jealous.”
Colt groaned as he pressed his face against his carpet. In this position, with Maddox purposely weighing him down, he was stuck. He couldn’t do anything except wait for Maddox to get his ass off of his back. He was just grateful he’d been able to get his brother to put jeans on before their skirmish.
It was bad enough Colt had to deal with his own erection. Dealing with Maddox’s… that just added insult to injury.
Maddox took over Colt’s spare room again. It was either that or spend the night sleeping in the vacant alleyway near Evangeline’s apartment building. With the revelation that, for some terrible fucking reason, his mate didn’t recognize him, heading back into Grayson would cause more harm than good.
He couldn’t get to Evangeline. He couldn’t make any sense of what was happening. Being so close to her would be a tease his wolf didn’t deserve.
So Colt, nursing a fading black eye and wearing a scowl, reopened his home up to Maddox. Until they could figure out what was going on—until Maddox could find a way to fix it—it made sense for Maddox to stay over at the Bumptown.
It threw him back to almost four years ago, right after he first found Evangeline. It had been pure luck—and a big ol’ dose of fate—that led Maddox to his mate that first afternoon. He’d been out for a run, choosing to take the drive to Woodbridge because it was open land that didn’t belong to any pack in particular. No dominance issues, no territory lines, just a good, honest run.
The wooded area surrounded a park that was popular with Paras and humans alike. He tended to stick to the trees, taking to the rougher terrain to give his wolf a challenge. Evangeline, he discovered, was the reserved type. On her days off from work, she liked to lay out on a blanket in a more secluded part of the park, reading a book while keeping to herself.
When Maddox caught her rich vanilla scent on a breeze, it was like a punch straight to the chest. It tripped him right out of his shift, going from wolf to man in an instant. For twenty-six years he’d been searching for a mate. He found her in a gorgeous brunette who shrieked when she first laid eyes on him.
At least he was already doing better this time around. Evangeline might have dashed into her apartment before he could confront her, but she hadn’t screamed. That had to count for something, right?
Getting Evangeline to agree to be his mate had taken ages. When he wasn’t prowling around outside the back of her home in Woodbridge, taking to the trees that bordered her yard, he stayed in Colt’s home since the Bumptown was closer to Woodbridge than Maddox’s place in Wolf’s Creek was.
Just like how the Bumptown was closer to Grayson.
Without bothering to change from his borrowed jeans, Maddox sprawled out on the king-sized bed his brother kept around for when he came to stay. He stared up at the ceiling, his thoughts racing.
He made Evangeline fall in love with him once. She was still his mate. His bond might not be as strong as it was, but it wasn’t completely severed like he’d feared. There was no denying the presence of his mating instinct; his erection didn’t go down until after the fight with Colt, when Maddox had to accept that getting his mate back wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought when he was waiting to be let out of the Cage.
The tether between them was fragile, weak, but it was there. Why else would he have picked up on her presence in the coffee shop? She locked eyes with him, too. She saw him.
Did she sense him?
He really fucking hoped so.
She ran, though. Maddox couldn’t forget that. Her scent was so muted, he could barely pick up anything other than the sickly sweet smell that clung to her faintly, but he could’ve sworn there was a rush of… of something right as she bolted for the glass door.
At first, he thought it was fear. When he forced himself to back away from the crackling wards, he almost talked himself into believing it was a burst of excitement.
Not the way he wanted his mate to react when he finally found her again.
But, then, she wasn’t his mate, was she?
Filled with sudden fury, Maddox unleashed his claws, slashing at the royal blue sheets that covered Colt’s guest bed.
She used to be. She should be. Just like the bond should have snapped back into place.
Only it hadn’t. And, as much as he didn’t want to, he had to face the reality that, if he wanted Evangeline back with him as she should be, he was going to have to do something about it.
Struggling to regain his control—he didn’t want to destroy anything else of Colt’s because he couldn’t maintain his hold on his anger or his wolf—Maddox let his thoughts turn to what it was like centuries ago, when witch burnings were a thing and it was all “shoot the wolf full of silver bullets, ask questions later when it shapeshifted back into Old Man Jenkins”. Paranormals chose to keep their world segregated from the humans—not because of any great secret, but because the brutal truth was that the alternative could mean genocide.
But the world wasn’t stagnant. It’s always changing. First there were newspapers and radio, television and then the internet. Paras couldn’t hide anymore and they didn’t really want to, either.
Fifty years ago, they stepped into the light and they never left. It wasn’t as easy as that, though. It took until humans stopped looking for monsters on every corner before the paranormal community finally revealed itself little by little, making strides, building relationships until having a law-abiding Dayborn vampire neighbor wasn’t just accepted, but encouraged because they made excellent neighborhood watch captains.
Back then, though, mates were mates. None of this Claws Clause bullshit. If you found your mate in a village, you ran off with her and prayed the torches and pitchforks didn’t follow behind you. Sometimes the village would mourn the loss of a woman of marrying age before writing her off as a sacrifice that kept the things that went bump in the night happy. And finding his mate made a paranormal male very happy.
But as more Paras found their mates in humans, the government inevitably stepped in. Realizing it was futile to try to keep a paranormal from his or her mate, they passed and enforced Ordinance 7304: the Bond Laws.
Or, as Paras snidely whispered to each other, the Claws Clause.
Not only did the strict set of laws prevent against forced matings—and the disasters that always followed when a mate wasn’t given the choice—but the Claws Clause was a shield against the calamity that occurred whenever a bonded paranormal was left without their mate.
Shifters were the most unstable. Maddox would be the first to admit that. That’s precisely why he had Colt lock and barricade him inside the spare guest room. Sure, he could knock down the door if he gave in to his urge to see Eva
ngeline. It might be a little harder to get through the three chairs and a solid mahogany dresser Colt stacked up against it.
He needed to use the brain in the head on his shoulders instead of thinking with his cock.
Maddox got Evangeline to fall in love with him once. If he couldn’t force her to bond with him, he’d have to convince her that she wanted to.
He banged his head against the pillow, trying to shake loose a brilliant idea or two.
Convince his mate to be his mate?
How the hell was he going to do that?
Come on, come on—
And then it hit him.
Mugs. The coffee shop.
Maddox exhaled roughly, lying flat on his back, slowly working his way through the fledgling idea. When he was first courting Evangeline, he hid that he was a shifter for the first couple of months. Pretending he was human, Maddox orchestrated an “accidental” meeting at the coffee shop down the street from the offices where Evangeline had worked.
A week after he made that initial contact, they were dating. It was exclusive from that moment on. Two months later, when Evangeline called him out on being a Para, he confessed that she was his mate.
But it all started that afternoon with a fancy cup of coffee.
Hell. It worked once, didn’t it?
Tomorrow, Maddox decided. He would head back to Mugs tomorrow, and every day after that until he could see Evangeline, scent her, and come up with a way to make her his once again.
11
After what happened the day before, Evangeline promised herself that she wasn’t going to return to Mugs anytime soon. Mainly because she kind of really wanted to.
The lure of the stranger was that strong.
She couldn’t explain it and that was after only a quick glance across the crowd. All through that day, she couldn’t go more than ten minutes without thinking about him. At night, she rushed her mother off the phone and pointedly refused to tell Adam about her shadow home from the coffee shop.
Hungry Like a Wolf (Claws Clause Book 1) Page 10
