Once Bitten Twice Smitten
BBW Shifter Menage Romance
Copyright ©2015 by Ariana Hawkes
All rights reserved.
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Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
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About Ariana Hawkes
Chapter One
As Chase pulled off the highway and into the small town, his wolf let out the drawn-out whine of a bored teen. It had been fractious the whole way there, claws fretting at his skin, muscles twitching, little snarls periodically escaping from between its jaws. Chase knew what was wrong. He hated being so far from home, and he badly needed to shift, to reassert his place in the universe. Not much longer now, he muttered.
Williston was kind of a pretty town, if you liked that sort of thing. Rows of neat little houses spaced in a grid, tidy little lawns, trees planted along the sidewalk. Unfortunately, it happened to be his idea of hell.
He stopped the car on a quiet street, and rubbed at the rough stubble on his chin, casting his eyes around. As long as the girl’s here, it’ll all be worth it, he reminded himself. This was the moment he’d been waiting for all his life: finding the girl and claiming her as his own. Pulling his phone out of his pocket, he opened the map app. He’d turned his GPS off hours before. It’d been annoying the crap out of him, ordering him what to do every few seconds. It looked like his hotel wasn’t far away – directly across the town, and along a winding road that led to a miserable excuse for a national park. The car windows had been closed throughout the journey, his nostrils offended by the industrial smells that polluted the highway, but now he pressed the button on his Ford SUV, and the driver’s window slid down with a whir, allowing the night-time air to fill the car. He inhaled deeply, and his wolf did the same, its nostrils flaring. He smelled all the odors of a small town – home cooking, restaurants, gas stations, the alcohol in bars – and, further away, the reassuring scent of the forest. He picked up pine trees, damp leaves, and rich, dark earth. It was almost like home, but different. But, wait! What was that? There was another scent that he knew all too well. And this wasn’t just like home, it was home! With a snarl of fury, Chase started up the engine and roared off in the direction of the smell. He turned three corners in quick succession, tires squealing in protest, before slamming his brakes on as he reached his destination.
He’d stopped in front of a Greyhound bus station. What the fuck? Without pausing to wonder what he was doing there, he leapt out of the car, slammed the door and hurtled through the harshly-lit entranceway. His head jerked around wildly, before his wolf gave a soft growl, and he located the object he was seeking. His anger jumped up at least three notches as his apple-green eyes focused on the sight of Brad MacConnell curled up on one of the benches. He was fast asleep, right next to an old lady who was muttering to herself and sorting through a bunch of grocery store bags. Chase strode over to him, his every breath catching in snarls.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he bellowed. The old lady jolted in shock, knocking two of her bags off the bench, and scattering all kinds of junk across the floor. She scowled up at Chase through a filthy pair of glasses.
“You leave that young man alone!” she squawked. Despite himself, Chase broke into a smile.
“It’s ok, ma’am, I know him. Unfortunately,” he said. Immediately, her expression softened. She batted her eyelashes beneath her smudged lenses.
“Ok, dear,” she said, still squawking, but more softly now. “I just get sick of folks harassing people like us, who are minding our own business.” Chase’s grin widened, and, as if hypnotized, the woman settled down on the bench, and stared at him, mouth hanging a little open.
Only now did Brad begin to stir, yawning and stretching his arms. The leather jacket that had been covering him slid to the ground. His t-shirt had ridden up, exposing his tanned stomach, complete with a set of strongly-defined abs. The old lady’s eyes bulged and her mouth fell open even further. Dismissing her from his mind, he turned his focus fully on Brad.
“Hey, dude, I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Brad said at last, his voice slow with sleep.
“No kidding! Should I even ask how you’ve come to be sleeping in a bus station?”
“I got travel sick,” Brad replied, shaking his head. “Man, that was a rough journey. I wanted to sleep, but the bus was jumping my belly around like a sack of fleas. And when I got off here, I just came over all sleepy.” He smiled at Chase, like taking a nap in a bus station was a totally normal thing to do.
“And you chose to sit on a bus instead of driving, because?”
“I lost my license. Speeding.” He shrugged.
“Ah. And you couldn’t fly?”
“No.” Brad’s expression turned serious. “No way, man.” Chase nodded. Flying hadn’t been an option for him either. Werewolves lived on the ground. They needed to maintain their strong connection with the earth at all times. Flying thousands of feet above the earth in a metal tube was totally counterintuitive to them. Chase shook himself out, sick of wasting time on bullshit conversation.
“Back to my initial question: what are you doing here?” he demanded. Brad’s eyes widened.
“You mean you don’t know?”
“I don’t know what?” Chase snapped.
“I’m here for the same reason you are.”
“I seriously doubt that,” Chase replied, his chest expanding.
“You’re here to find a girl, right?” Chase remained silent, but the snarl that burst out of him confirmed it. “I grew up knowing that you and I shared a claim on a human female,” Brad continued, unperturbed.
“I grew up knowing that I had a claim on a human female, but some imposter might try to snatch her away from me!” Chase roared. His body began to flex, his shoulders broadening and his haunches becoming more muscular – telltale signs that he was about to shift.
“Dude, you’re starting to look like a tomato that’s too tight for its skin. If you don’t want to rip that fine pair of jeans to shreds, how about you take a seat and we can talk this over rationally,” Brad said. Chase felt like his brain was about to burst out of his skull, and his skin burned as his wolf began to claw its way out. Stop! he told it. It yipped in surprise. He’d only held back a shift a handful of times in his entire life, and his wolf wasn’t used to being restrained. It shrank back, gave a sulky yowl, and lay down, its jaws resting on its paws. Still coiled with anger, Chase sat down on the edge of the metal bench, as far away from Brad as possible. Brad heaved himself up into a sitting position.
“I don’t know what your father’s been telling you, but this is what happened,” he began. “When we were young wolves – like too young for me to have any memory of it, and, obviously, you as well – we were out running in the forest that lay between our territories. We came across a little girl playing by herself. She was terrified by the sight of us, and started running. We’d never come across a human female before, so we thought she was playing, and we gave chase. She kept running faster and faster, and, wanting her to stop and play with us, we pulled at this long dress she was wearing. In fact, we pretty much shredded it to pieces. And, somewhere al
ong the line, one of us bit her, drawing blood. You know what that means. But the point is, no-one knows which of us it was. It doesn’t surprise me that your father told me it was you, but the truth is that we have no way of knowing, until we find the girl.”
Chase opened his mouth to argue, and then stopped himself. He knew in his heart that Brad was most likely telling the truth. And he didn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of this moron.
“I need to make a phone call,” he muttered, getting to his feet and stalking outside the station. He had to make sure he was significantly far away before he could be sure that Brad wouldn’t overhear him with his keen werewolf ears.
“Mother, were there two of us chasing the little girl that day?” he asked, the second she answered her phone. There was a shocked silence, and then his mother gave a long sigh.
“Yes there were, Chase,” she said at last, her voice low pitched.
“So, isn’t it theoretically possible that the other wolf bit the girl?”
“Yes, I guess it is, honey. But your father’s convinced, of course, that it was you. You know how proud he is. He couldn’t stand the idea that his son could be so close to seizing this great opportunity, and then not be the one to take it.” Chase ground his teeth together, thinking. The whole premise he’d grown up on, that he’d one day find the girl that he’d bitten – and almost killed – and she’d become his mate, restoring his family’s ailing line, was crumbling around him. He’d been told that he was the first werewolf in living memory to transform a human, and he’d gotten a lot of his confidence from it as a teen. But now, it seemed as likely as not that Brad would possess this accolade. He was shocked to discover that his eyes were stinging. He squeezed them tight shut and opened them again.
“Chase, honey, are you ok?” his mother said, breaking into his thoughts. He wanted to yell at her for having lied to him all this time, but what was the point? His father was so forceful an Alpha that she would never have disobeyed direct orders not to tell her son the truth. “I’m sure that you’re the one, but we can’t know a hundred percent until you find the girl and court her,” she continued.
“And how will I know then?”
“She’ll accept you as her mate.”
“What if she doesn’t like me and goes for the other guy regardless?” He cringed at the hint of vulnerability in his voice. No-one but his mother would ever get to hear it.
“You’ve got to make her want you, Chase. If you bit her, you’re bound in blood, and that’s a very powerful thing, and, by adding your character into the mix, it shouldn’t be too hard.” He smiled into the phone, knowing he couldn’t tell his mother that the girls he’d dated were turned off as much as on by his forthright personality. He had inherited some of his father’s prickliness, and, while he’d discovered that his classic good looks, unusual eyes and powerful build created an initial attraction, plenty of girls ended up running into the arms of chilled-out guys like Brad. Brad. He snorted in disgust. He didn’t want to ask his mother, but he needed to know for sure.
“Mother, is Brad the other possible mate?” he asked.
“Yes, he is,” she said quietly, well aware of the rivalry between them. He blew a long breath through his nostrils.
“Ok, thanks, mom. I’ve got to go now.”
“Good luck in finding her, Chase. I love you.”
Chase ended the call, and stomped back to where Brad was sitting. The crazy old lady had been joined by some friends, and Brad was chatting to them and telling them stories, while they piled around him, enthralled. As Chase approached, they looked at him warily, some of them scattering. His wolf pawed at him, yearning to nip at their ankles. He ignored its mischievous desires, and the motley collection of people too, and sat down next to Brad.
“Where are you staying?” Chase asked him, suspecting he already knew the answer.
“The Pines Hotel,” Brad replied.
“The only hotel near the national park, right?”
“That’s right, bro.”
“I’m not your brother!” Chase shouted, the anger he’d been intending to control rising up again. Brad was unabashed.
“Hey, relax. We weres have got to stick together,” he said. Chase frowned, shooting glances at Brad’s audience. He’d just broken the number one rule of not talking about werewolves in front of humans. Brad laughed.
“Don’t worry. Most of them are three sheets to the wind. I think I’m getting high off the fumes!” Chase looked at them again. Brad wasn’t wrong. None of them would be out of place in a drunk tank right now.
“I’ll give you a ride to the hotel,” he said, surprising even himself.
“That’d be awesome,” Brad said, getting to his feet and slinging the strap of a large holdall over his shoulder.
“This isn’t so bad,” Brad said, as they drove onto the winding road that led into the national park. The park was thickly wooded, but the pines were a different species from the ones they knew so well. Chase’s chest tightened at the reminder of how far away he was from home, and he ached to be running through the well-loved forest of Gila. He grunted acknowledgement of Brad’s comment. He was turning over how to ask him what his strategy was for finding the girl, without being too obvious.
“What are your plans tonight?” he asked at last.
“Eat, run, sleep,” Brad replied, with annoying cheerfulness. “You?”
“Same,” Chase replied truthfully. His body was a mixture of exhausted by the journey, and tense from being cooped up for so long, and he felt twitchy and out of sorts.
They had reached the hotel, and Chase pulled into a parking space. The complex looked welcoming, consisting of individual log cabins arranged over a huge garden, which, Chase knew from looking at Google Earth, backed directly onto the park. Slipping out unseen shouldn’t be a problem.
“Chase Cooper,” he said to the receptionist at the same time that Brad said “Bradley MacConnell.” The face of the receptionist, a balding, gray-haired man with heavy jowls and a swollen drum of a belly, fell at the sight of them.
“Well, I’m really sorry to tell you fellas that we only guarantee these rooms until 6pm, and since it’s a quarter of eight already, I’m afraid we’ve only got one left.” He looked at each of them anxiously. “I don’t know what to tell you. I guess I’ll have to let you fight it out between yourselves.” As Chase turned to look at Brad, his wolf growled hopefully at the prospect of a fight. Chase shushed it up. Brad shrugged.
“Hey, I don’t have a problem with sharing,” he said.
“You and me. Share a room. Are you serious?” Chase yelled.
“Well the alternative is you being stuck in the middle of the town, and not being able to shift.”
“Me? Why the hell would I be the one to not stay here?”
“I booked first.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Because the guy I booked with told me I could have the pick of the cabins,” Brad said. Chase scowled.
“Well that doesn’t mean shit. If I’d arrived first, I’d be nice and cozy in the cabin now, while you’d be out on your ass,” he said.
“The only reason you weren’t here first is because you couldn’t resist sniffing me out at the Greyhound station.”
“Your point is?”
“That we’re in this together. We’ve both come here to find the girl. This whole thing started because we used to be friends. There’s no denying that. As long as you don’t keep me awake with your snoring, like you used to, I’m ok to share a room with you.” Chase stared at him for several long moments.
“Ok,” he said at last. “But only for one night. And then one of us can move.”
“Exactly.”
“Snoring my ass,” Chase muttered, as they filled out a form and picked up their key. “Coming from the guy who used to wake me up howling when he was having nightmares.”
“Coming from the guy who used to suck his thumb in his sleep.”
“Don’t lie!�
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They continued bickering all the way up to their cabin, which, as luck would have it, was right at the back of the complex. Brad unlocked the door and it swung wide open, revealing a dark wooden interior, with a huge fur rug, rustic furnishings, and a double bed.
“What the fuck?” Chase said. “Not only do we have to share a room, but we have to sleep in the same bed!” Brad breezed past him, bounded onto the bed and lay down flat.
“Wow, that feels good,” he said. He lifted his head and looked at Chase. “Believe me, I’m as excited about it as you are. But there’s nothing we can do about it. So how about we quit bitching and chill the fuck out?” Chase dropped his bag in the corner of the room.
“Whatever,” he said gruffly. Brad opened one eye and gave him a sly look, knowing it cost him to yield on anything.
“Thanks for agreeing, dude,” he replied, and closed his eyes again. Chase sat on the edge of the bed and looked at him in distaste. Everything about him was irritating. From his immaculate good looks, with his black hair, dark eyes and razorblade cheekbones, to the scattering of chest hair that poked out of the top of his shirt, to the way he dressed like a hobo, but somehow managed to look good with it. And that was before you took his personality into account. He was so annoyingly laid back. If he’d been human, he would’ve most likely been a stringy-haired surfer, living on a beach in California. Instead, he was an Alpha’s son, and one who didn’t seem to be taking his responsibilities seriously. Chase’s wolf began to whine, begging to be let out. He strode towards the door and opened the latch.
“Where are you going?” Brad said drowsily.
“To the woods.”
“In your clothes? It’s definitely going to rain, bro.” Chase snorted dismissively and slammed the door shut behind him.
He strode to the back wall of the complex, vaulted over it, and jogged into the forest. The burning under his skin and the straining of his joints and tendons was becoming unbearable. As his wolf made a sudden lurch inside him, he gasped and stopped dead. This was the longest he’d ever gone without shifting, and it felt terrible. He ripped his shirt off and, just in the nick of time, yanked his shoes and jeans off as well, as his wolf tore itself out of his human form. The pain of it took his breath away. These days he barely noticed the discomfort of his joints cracking, and his muscles stretching to their limits. But this felt like the first time he’d ever shifted. When he finally stood as a wolf in full, huge, with golden-hued fur and apple-green eyes, it took him some time to compose himself. And then the rush came. His body was flooded with euphoria as it remembered that it could run as fast as it wanted, see everything, hunt anything it came across. He started to run. The woods were damp, the air thick and rich with mulchy earth and dense pines. He ran fast, trying to shake off the hurt that his parents had caused him by lying about Brad’s potential claim on the girl. But it wasn’t something he was going to get over fast. Especially if it turned out that she wasn’t his. He snarled at the thought. It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t. He was Chase Cooper. Number one. The winner. He was faster, better, stronger than anyone else. He’d marked the girl: he just knew it.
Once Bitten Twice Smitten: BBW Werewolf Shifter Menage Romance Page 1
