by Mary Hughes
“Thanks.” I think. “But little Matinsfield isn’t like Muskegon. The big tech store in my town is the hardware store, because they have wire.”
Muskegon and Matinsfield were as different as…as him and her. She had to remember they were total opposites. No future. Alpha geek and iota wolf, gentle giant and tiny piglet.
He had a tab and she had a slot.
“Muskegon isn’t that big,” he said. “It’s not like we’re Silicon Valley.”
“It’s ten times the size of Matinsfield.” No, it wouldn’t work. How could she mate anyone who wasn’t furry? He was big town, she was small, and they really were not very much alike at all. “If my town had a computer store, it would feature the latest in eight-bit graphics.”
He laughed. “Nothing but moving pixels and one-note sound? And game consoles the size of a lawn mower?”
“Ha. Yes. And plate-size game cartridges.” Her spirits lifted. At least in this one area, they weren’t so different after all. “The kind you have to blow to get ’em to go.” She cupped her hands as if holding a cartridge and demonstrated, blowing with puffy cheeks.
His laugh cut. He started coughing so hard he was sputtering, shaking his head. Finally he managed, “I’d better let you get back to bed…I mean your nap…I mean…I just have to go.” He picked up a sandwich and his cup and ran off.
Sighing, appetite gone, she cleaned up what was left and went back inside.
When the ferry docked on the shores of eastern Wisconsin, Emma trundled Gabriel’s suitcase out to the car deck where she found him standing beside his assistant manager’s minivan. Gabriel saw her, waved her over and dumped the luggage on Pan before escorting her to his sports car, so achingly polite she wanted to cry.
Leaving the boat, he drove in as stately a manner as possible, as if that rocket-like flight in had never happened.
He took US-10 heading west. Emma watched his hands, competent on the wheel of the car. She thought about what she’d be missing, moving home. Those big, nimble hands working at the bench. His understanding blue-green gaze. The narrow, silver knife that gaze became when his intellect honed it. The graceful, muscular stretch of arm and body as he pulled product from high shelves for her. His powerful hunter’s stalk, rarely seen but always skin-tingling. His rescuing her…and everyone around her.
He’d changed clothes on the boat. Same slouchy sweater vest but over a fresh button-down short-sleeved shirt that revealed his very muscular forearms accented by a few short dark hairs, the perfect proportion of gentleman and beast. She wondered if his naked torso would look like that.
His phone dinged. Pulling it out of his pocket, he handed it to her. “That’s my text-received alert. What’s it say?”
He trusted her to read his private messages. Despite everything, Emma’s heart glowed. She pulled up the texts and selected the most recent. “It’s from Pan. He says ‘Van wobbling. Drivable for now. Will keep you posted.’”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “I’d turn back and help him, if my sister weren’t in trouble. I’ll have to settle for phoning when we get to Matinsfield.”
He was so caring. She sighed and leaned back in the seat, shutting her eyes against a surge of feelings. Her melancholy deepened with every mile closer to home, because each was a mile closer to losing him.
He glanced at her and must’ve caught her mood because he said, “Hey Emma. How many computer programmers does it take to change a light bulb? None, it’s a hardware problem.”
That goosed a chuckle out of her. Her dark mood lifted for a moment. Oh yes, and she’d especially miss his sense of humor.
Why am I missing him already? He’s right here.
She frowned. After they arrived in Matinsfield, she might never be this close to him again.
But by her hairy paws, she had him now.
So why not offer him sex? Her wolf began wagging its tail. She glanced at him. Sure, why not? He was single, not in any committed relationships, and so was she. Her hormones were pinging off the chart, and his—she took a tiny sniff—his weren’t.
Yeah, that’s why not. He wasn’t interested.
So? her wolf yipped. He’s a guy. Just sweeten the pot a bit first.
Sweeten the pot…?
Flash him a little boob.
She blushed hard. But her wolf had a point. Most guys would take a free grope, and it might lead to more.
Her heart beat faster at the idea. She could pretend she was hot. That wasn’t too outlandish, being August. She’d strip off her Choice Buy polo shirt, revealing her sexy bra…damn it, she’d worn her work bra today. As sexy as a smock, no help at all getting him from zero to sixty. She wished she hadn’t even worn the damned thing.
Unless… Ooh, maybe she could “accidentally” strip off the bra with the shirt? Her nipples tightened and tingled at the idea. She’d strip topless, poke her stiff nipples, and laugh at how chilly the breeze was, turn innocently to him and pretend surprise at his wide eyes.
Except he might go all noble and not be looking.
Doubt crept in. Worse, he still might not be interested. What then? She peeked at him, at his serious face concentrating on the road. What if, despite the best she could offer, he turned her down?
What if his last memory of me is me making an utter ass of myself?
Her stomach churned ice.
Once she’d started down that path, even more worst-case scenarios occurred to her. What if this wasn’t the last time she saw him? What if she had to go back to Michigan for some reason and ran into him?
If she’d managed to seduce him, she’d feel awkward. If he turned her down, she’d be mortified.
Maybe she could work up to it? Find out if he might be interested under the right circumstances?
Oh hell. If nothing else, it delayed the humiliation of him probably rejecting her.
“So, um, Gabriel. How long are you staying in Matinsfield?”
“Depends on how long it takes me to work out my sister’s problems.”
Emma’s face heated. What was she thinking? He was worried about his sister. Of course he wouldn’t be interested in a vacation fling, or even a quick stop at a no-tell motel.
She ought to be worried about her family too, her mother and brother. Since her dad died and they’d moved to Wisconsin, family dynamics were strained, but she still loved them.
Thinking about her mother and brother made her miss the carefree days of her childhood, when the four of them lived happily together in Scottville with the then-Sharpclaw pack. When she’d been the daughter of Ezra Singer and his beloved mate, Shalla.
Those days Emma had run wild in the nearby Manistee National Forest with her brother Elroy, secure in the knowledge that their father, despite being an iota, was a pack lieutenant and held in highest regard for his talent.
Until he’d been killed by a new alpha cleaning house. Dickie Bloodfang.
They lived in modern times, but alphas were still often ruled by ancient necessities, bred in. As the family of a lieutenant in the old regime, Ezra Singer’s dependents were prey for the conquering alpha and his own lieutenants. Elroy might have been killed, both Emma and Shalla might have ended up in a harem or worse.
Her mother had escaped with Emma and her brother, and Shalla moved them back to her birth pack in Matinsfield.
Emma shuffled aside the memory of the exact circumstances of having to flee.
When Bruiser killed Dickie Bloodfang, the Singer family could have returned to Michigan. But Shalla and Elroy were happy in Wisconsin, and Emma didn’t think of going herself until she had to leave town to find work. But that was why she’d chosen the Michigan pack. She thought her own birth pack was safe.
What a mistake. Her stomach churned, musing about Bruiser, about what had almost happened. What still might happen, if the alpha had friends in Wisconsin who came after her.
“Hey Emma.” Gabriel broke into her dark thoughts. “Why can’t cats be Techie Titans?”
She looked up, surprised
to recognize the area. They were about half an hour away from town. “I don’t know. Why?”
“They spend too much billable time playing with the mouse.”
She smiled. Somehow he knew when she was feeling bad and said exactly the right silly thing.
Lights flared, high beams or a monster truck headed their way. She froze until the vehicle—it was a pickup truck—passed them fast enough to kick up a buffeting wind.
“Ass.” Shielding his eyes, Gabriel slid her a grin. “I’ve got another one. Did you hear about the multitasking operating system? It boots and crashes at the same time.”
She laughed, then said, “Well, did I tell you that I took up cross stitching?”
“You did?” He glanced at her, surprise flashing across his features.
“I made a welcome sampler. It says ‘There’s no place like 127.0.0.0’.”
He barked a laugh. “No place like home, ha. You have the same flawed sense of humor I do.”
“It’s not a flaw. It’s a feature.”
He rewarded her with a full belly laugh—cut short on the sound of squealing tires behind them. “Damnola and milk.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Bruiser T. Ballsbuster. That truck that just passed? It made a U-turn and is on our tail.”
“He followed me to Wisconsin?” Stomach dropping through the floor, Emma turned in her seat. “How did he get here so fast?”
A string of headlights lined the road behind her, but one set were higher than the rest. She was about to concentrate her night vision to pick out details, when the monster truck roared out, passing cars like a kid playing leapfrog.
In moments, the massive vehicle would be crawling up their tailpipe.
Chapter Eight
Emma turned front, clutching her shoulder harness tightly enough to permanently kink it. “This makes no sense. Bruiser couldn’t beat us. We took the shortest path, straight across the lake.” She glanced at the time. Nearly three in the morning.
No, that was Eastern time. It would be two a.m. here.
“You’re right. And he’d have come from the east, not the west.” Gabriel’s hands remained calm and steady on the steering wheel. “I don’t know who that is, but we’re on a good road. We’ll lose him.” Flicking gears, he put on the juice.
The car roared and leaped forward, widening the gap between them and the monster truck.
A high whine pierced her ears—and a searing light streaked directly overhead, like a rocket.
Ten feet in front of the windshield, fireworks exploded, with sparkling colors and billowing smoke.
At the loud bang, Emma jolted in her seat, reflexively covering her head with her hands. Somehow Gabriel drove steadily, cutting through the smoke in a flash.
The truck burst through the smoke after them.
“Damn it, Light!” the driver of the truck shouted, leaning out his side window. “That’s not a car, that’s greased lightning. By my paws and claws, you need to slow the fuck down.”
The voice was not Bruiser’s. Calling on her wolf’s vision, Emma turned in her seat and beheld a black-haired, golden-eyed, very pissed off he-wolf. She couldn’t see him well, but he looked familiar.
“Crunchberry crap,” Gabriel muttered under his breath. “What’s wrong with him? Did he forget how to pick up a phone?”
She turned to him in surprise. “You know that guy?”
“Yeah.” He slanted her a sheepish grin. “That’s my brother-in-law.” He steered into the emergency lane and slowed.
That made more sense. She didn’t think Bruiser would leave his pack to come after her in person.
As Gabriel stopped, Emma realized the he-wolf in the truck had thrown magic like a witch. She rapidly put together the startling facts. Gold eyes, black hair, looked familiar… Add in her mother’s gossip, and the male in the truck was most certainly new alpha Noah Blackwood. In fact, his marriage to witch-princess Sophia Blue was all Emma’s mother seemed to talk about, when she wasn’t talking about Elroy. Their beautiful wedding, the gorgeous house Noah was building them, their upcoming babies. They were the William and Kate of the wolf world.
And Noah was Gabriel’s brother-in-law…which meant Gabriel’s sister was Sophia, a witch, and he…
Emma swallowed hard. That most probably made Gabriel a witch too. Top of the food chain, magically speaking.
And here she was, a little iota wolf, thinking she stood even a chance with him. No wonder he’d never been interested in her.
She should have known by his incredible irises. It wasn’t a certain sign, but magic showed in the eyes; even filtered by the glass of his spectacles, Gabriel’s star-shot blue-green gems were full of it. She cursed herself. She would have known, if her stupid infatuation hadn’t blinded her, made her see what she wanted—him available to her.
Brakes squealed behind them. Emma dared a glance out the side view mirror. It was filled with a very large, very angry truck grill. Objects in mirror are too damned close.
“What the hell.” The metallic boom of a slammed door was followed by stomps that rang across the pavement. “I expected you an hour ago. My beta won’t let me go after my own wife because he says you will be here to take care of it. He says it’s safer for her for you to take care of it. So I wait…and wait…and wait for you to take care of it.” Noah stalked up on the passenger side of the car and glared in. “I am fucking done with waiting.”
“I can see that.” Gabriel quirked an eyebrow. “Don’t set your fur on fire. I have out of state plates. As a ticket-bait car, I had to drive under the speed limit. We came as quickly as we could.”
“We…?” Noah’s golden eyes twitched to Emma. “Singer!” He roared her name—and lunged for her as if he’d tear out her throat.
Emma cringed instinctively toward Gabriel.
His strong arms instantly circled her, surprisingly solid and heavy with muscle. She burrowed into his sheltering warmth, away from Noah’s rage. Why was it aimed at her? She’d never done him harm. She’d only met him a couple times before she’d gone to Michigan, before he’d become alpha. He always struck her as a nice, composed guy before this, the kind to certainly take action if she reported Bruiser’s abuse.
As she cringed in Gabriel’s arms, sure she was about to be torn into meat, she thought maybe now wasn’t the best time to mention a rival alpha and his harem.
“How dare you show up here?” Noah’s growl had a rip of feral wolf in it.
Surprisingly, the growl and the heat of his anger bounced off the bulwark of Gabriel’s arms. Though Noah’s gales could blow and buffet, she was safe in her alpha nerd’s embrace.
“What is wrong with you, Blackwood?” Gabriel’s voice rumbled against her back.
“She…she…” Noah smacked a hand on the car door. “Damn it, the reason my wife is locked up is that bitch!”
“If you ever call Emma that again,” Gabriel said in a cold, deadly tone she’d never heard before, “I will personally gut you. Understand?”
There was a stunned silence. She peeked out of her shelter to see Noah reared back from the car, eyebrows practically to his hairline with shock.
“What is it to you?” he asked finally.
“Emma is mine…my employee, that is. Besides that, she’s a fine woman deserving of respect. Whatever terrible thing you think she did, I’m sure she didn’t. And even if she had, I will not have her threatened. Understand?”
“I understand,” Noah snapped. “But she’s the one who betrayed Sophia to the Wit—”
“Don’t,” Gabriel said.
“Witches’ Council,” Noah finished.
Gabriel’s arms twitched as if he were wincing.
“It’s okay,” Emma said. “I figured it out.” She’d have pulled away to see his face, but she liked being pillowed against the hard mounds of his chest too much. “You’re a witch too, aren’t you?”
“Buttered fucktoast,” he muttered. “You’re so damned smart.”
“It’s
no big deal.” Wolves knew about magic and witches. “You could’ve told me—”
“Doesn’t matter,” Noah snarled. “I want her punished for her atrocity. Hand her over.”
“No.” Gabriel used what she recognized as his ultra-reasonable dealing-with-assholes tone. “Where’s your proof?”
“The Council Enforcer,” Noah sputtered. “The shithead who locked my wife away. He said so.”
“You went to see him?”
“No! I was tired of getting shunted to your voicemail so I sent Mason. My beta reported the information.”
“The Enforcer said Emma’s name?”
“As good as. He said it was a pack wolf who hadn’t yet sworn fealty to me. I’d already figured out it was a wolf working out of town. Her.” He pointed, the V of his dark brows underlining the accusation.
“No way. Not Emma. Dozens of wolves left the pack to find work when Scauth was still alpha. It could be any of them.”
If anything, Noah’s scowl darkened. “Except most came back for the wedding and swore the binding oath then. Only three wolves didn’t.” He stuck up three fingers. “Two know me well enough that they wouldn’t have done it, not if they wanted to keep their heads attached.” He folded two fingers down. “Which means it’s her.” He jabbed the remaining finger at Emma.
She flinched. She hadn’t betrayed anyone, but he made such a strong argument that even she was half-convinced. She burrowed deeper into Gabriel’s strong arms, knowing it was hopeless. Gabriel didn’t say anything for a moment. For that bare second Emma’s heart wilted. Her boss was a logical man, swayed by reason; besides, Noah was his kin.
Gabriel would take Noah’s side and turn her over for punishment.
But surprisingly her boss’s arms tightened around her, until she almost couldn’t breathe. He said, “That’s not proof. Maybe the Council Enforcer lied. You don’t have the witch skills yet to detect truth.”
“I have my fucking nose.”
