Yours, Mine and Howls: Werewolves in Love, Book 2

by Kinsey W. Holley

  “Well, I shouldn’t have said shut up. That was ugly. So when you were surprised, thinking Seth obeyed me—that was because I’m a woman? And even betas shouldn’t obey a woman?”

  He knew where she was going with this. It came up with a lot of women, and it was one of the reasons Cade avoided serious dating. “It’s unusual. It’s just weird to see a woman dominate two wolves, even if they’re both betas.”

  She made that contemptuous clicking sound with her tongue that only females could do. He could feel her rolling her eyes at him.

  “I don’t dominate them. I just tell them what to do. ’Cause…they’re laid back, and I’m not, so it’s easier that way.”

  “Whatever you say, Ally. It’s still weird.”

  “Are all alphas sexist?”

  Now he laughed out loud. “I knew you’d get to that. No. Wolves aren’t sexist. We’re just wolves. We don’t submit to women. Not permanently, not… It’s tough to explain.”

  “What about mates?”

  “Oh, well, mates are different. That’s a whole other psychological, physical relationship. When a wolf bonds to a mate…yeah, it’s different. It’s not really submission, but I guess it’s similar. My parents were mated, and my mother could play my dad like a piano. And he knew it.”

  But when did he know it? Cade had never thought about that before. He frowned to himself as he downshifted to get up a small hill and back onto the paved road.

  “So…Becca’s mother isn’t your mate?”

  “No, she wasn’t.” He carefully emphasized the last word and waited for the question he knew would come next.

  “Where is she? Is she still involved with Becca?”

  “Mary Ann’s not around. I paid her a lot of money to go away, and I expect her to stay there. It’s best for Rebecca.”

  She didn’t say anything after that.

  They were back on the main road leading to the complex. It was easier to hear and talk now that that they weren’t bucking across the bumpy terrain.

  “Now I have something to ask you,” he said.

  “And you don’t particularly care if it pisses me off.”

  “Not really.” Somehow she made him smile when he should’ve been annoyed. When he actually was, in fact, annoyed. “You haven’t spent much time around any wolves but yours, have you?”

  “No, just casual acquaintances. Seth’s the only one I was related to—well, him and Dylan. Since we left Lake Charles, we’ve avoided other packs.” She turned toward him with newfound animation. “See, when we first got to Texas, we kept a low profile. I think Lake Charles suspected Seth killed Guy, and they let him get away with it because Gracie was his sister. They must’ve figured he had a right. But even though they didn’t come after us, we decided it was best to stay out of Louisiana. So—”

  “Hang on,” he interrupted, holding up a hand and glancing at her as he drove. “About that. What happened with Guy’s body? The cops? Your trailer?”

  “Seth made an anonymous call and told the cops they’d find Gracie in her trailer and Guy in mine.” Her accent had gotten a little twangier as she talked about the past. It was sexy as hell. She chattered on, oblivious to the way he was staring at her and probably risking a rollover. “Once the cops realized Guy had killed Gracie, they didn’t care who killed Guy.”

  “Yeah, but, I mean, what about you?”

  She shrugged. The wind had whipped more hair out of her ponytail. He fought the urge to reach out and tuck the silky strands behind her ear.

  “I called a friend, told her to send me a few things I wanted and I’d deed the trailer and everything in it over to her. All it cost her was getting the place cleaned up, so she was happy. And then we—”

  “No, wait, Allison, that’s not what I meant. How did y’all explain your disappearance? Yours and Dylan’s? Even if the cops didn’t care who killed Guy, he’s dead in your trailer, and you’re nowhere around, and neither is the pup. What did they think when they saw all that blood?”

  She cocked her head with a lopsided little grin, like he’d said something funny and she knew he didn’t realize it. “Cade, we lived in an empty trailer park on a bayou fifteen miles outside of town—me, a drunk werewolf, his stripper wife and their little boy. The cops don’t wonder about folks like us.”

  When he didn’t say anything—what the hell could he say? He had no idea what it was like to grow up like that—she went on cheerfully.

  “I’m still not sure what stories are out there, but the Houston wolves weren’t anxious to have Seth around. I think Nick would’ve let him in anyway, after he got to know us, but Seth never wanted to join. I don’t think Seth is a born Lone, it just worked out that way. Dec is definitely a born Lone.”

  “MacSorley is strange,” Cade muttered.

  She busied herself redoing her ponytail before saying, a little crossly, “I’ll take your word for it. He’s popular back home. There aren’t many wolves in Sugar Land, just a few young betas who followed Dylan around. They didn’t have fathers.”

  Wolves needed to be raised by wolves, if not necessarily in packs. Fatherless wolves had higher rates of alcoholism, domestic violence and imprisonment.

  “That’s one of the reasons I decided to bring him here.” Finished messing with her hair, she turned her attention back to him, where it belonged. “Dylan needs to be around werewolves, and I didn’t think Houston was the best choice.”

  “Of course it wasn’t. You had to bring him here.”

  She cocked her head at him. “Well, no, I didn’t have to. I wanted him to meet his only paternal relative.”

  He couldn’t let that one go. “You had to bring him here. I’m his uncle.”

  She shrugged deliberately. “So is Seth.”

  “I wanted to meet him. You didn’t have a choice.”

  “I always have a choice,” she responded calmly.

  He threw the Jeep into park. For a split second, he feared she’d bang her head into the windshield, but she had amazing reflexes. She simply stretched out a hand for the dashboard. He would’ve been ashamed to hurt her, but goddamn. She took turns pissing him off and turning him on.

  “Do you enjoy baiting me, little girl? Is that why you keep doing it?”

  “No. But let’s get something straight.” She took a deep breath and bit her lip. He could smell her anger and her fear, but she didn’t cower. Her words were clipped and precise. “Dylan’s not just my cousin, he’s my kid. I saved him, I raised him, he’s mine. If he wants to join your pack, fine. If he wants to leave, fine. But I didn’t have to bring him. I don’t have to do anything.”

  “You’ll sure as hell have to leave when I tell you to,” he ground out.

  He heard her breath catch in her throat. Blinking against tears, her jaw clenched, she put a foot up on the dashboard and rested her head on her knee. Ally Kendall talked a tough game, but he wasn’t buying it anymore.

  Or maybe she just wasn’t as tough when the subject was her pup or her future. Somehow he knew, without asking, that she had no place else to go.

  And just like that—just like last night—he regretted his words. Without thinking, he reached out to her, but she turned her head away. The skin on the back of her neck was warm and soft beneath his calloused hand. He stroked her neck with his thumb as they sat in silence for a few long minutes, he trying to think of something to say, she trying not to cry.

  “Ally. Look at me.”

  “Don’t,” she said shakily, sitting back and staring straight ahead with dry eyes. She pushed his hand away. “Don’t say something nice. Because I’ll like it, and then you’ll turn around and be an asshole again.”

  “I’m not trying to be an asshole.”

  It discomfited him, how much he needed to gaze at her. Her face, in profile, looked so young and fragile. He’d managed to memorize its lines and curves in the space of just one day. The golden blond eyelashes resting against the smooth, soft cheeks. The spot where he knew a dimple could appear, but not for him,
not anymore.

  He shouldn’t be sitting here trying to patch things up. They were in sight of the complex. Wolves were strolling about, looking at the Jeep stopped in the middle of the road.

  Cade stretched his arm out again, letting his hand just brush her shoulder, but she still wouldn’t look at him. “I’m a Pack Alpha, Allison. You keep challenging me, and I don’t know why you do it.”

  Or why he kept letting her do it. A suspicion had taken root in the back of his mind, but he didn’t want to look too closely at it.

  “I’m not challenging you. I just don’t like being told what to do.”

  Her voice was steadier, but still so forlorn as to break his heart. He couldn’t stand being the one who made her sound like that. She seemed so scrappy and determined, but so small and alone. Even with three wolves—or perhaps because she was with three wolves—she was so alone.

  “I hate the way you make me feel,” she muttered in the same hurt tone.

  Recoiling at her words, he threw the Jeep into first and drove much too fast back to the house.

  They didn’t speak again. Cade jumped out of the Jeep and stomped into the house, leaving Ally staring after him. Just as well—tears still pricked at her eyelashes. She couldn’t bear to cry in front of him.

  In a minute, Michael came out of the house. He scowled as he approached her.

  “Cade wants me to show you around.” He turned and began to walk toward the cabins.

  “I’d rather just…”

  “Cade told me to show you around, so I’m gonna show you around.” Now that she was on the outs with his Alpha, Michael didn’t bother trying to be polite. “The sooner we get started, the sooner it’ll be over.”

  “Well gosh, Michael, when you put it that way.”

  They checked out the cabins—three large bunkhouses for wolves, two empty cabins for guests. They didn’t visit the woodshop. She suspected Michael could tell she didn’t give a rip.

  Why did she keep fighting with Cade?

  The gym was right behind the main house and constructed of the same beautiful wood and stone. Michael said it was as old as the house. Louis MacDougall and his wolves had built it some fifty years ago.

  Why was he harsh with her one minute, tender the next? As soon as he’d seen that he’d hurt her, he’d tried to soothe her. Was claw/caress/claw a Pack Alpha thing?

  When they walked into the building, her own reflection assaulted her from three of the main room’s four walls. This was why she hated commercial gyms—all the damned mirrors.

  One minute he was about to kick her out, the next he was stroking her neck with that warm, hypnotic touch.

  The gym was indifferently furnished with an old plaid couch, a Formica-covered table and some chairs.

  He was the most confusing male she’d ever met—charming, brusque and overpowering.

  His mother had served the Old One who had restored Ally’s life.

  She barely glanced at the showers and sauna. What really impressed her was the pool room, which held a full-sized saltwater pool. She’d never swum in one before.

  He was going to take all the family she had and kick her back out into the world by herself.

  And she couldn’t wait to see him again. She both dreaded it and longed for it.

  She wanted to put on her swimsuit and jump into the pool, but she didn’t feel comfortable doing that. It would feel weird, having just had another fight with Cade, to help herself to his facilities, even though he’d offered them. Besides, going back and forth across a pool wasn’t enough to quell this dammed up, kinetic misery. She needed to be outside. She needed to run.

  At first she sprinted, overjoyed to move freely and naturally with no one to see her, no one to note her speed and agility. She left the compound behind in seconds.

  As she ran through a small copse and back into the open, she heard the howling. It was one of her favorite sounds. She could discern the nature of different howls, and tonight Rocky Mountain sounded alternately forlorn and exuberant. They mourned Aaron, even if he wasn’t dead, and they rejoiced in their wolfish nature.

  She wished she had a pack to belong to, someone else with whom to rejoice in her nature. Uniqueness sucked.

  So did maudlin self-pity.

  She ran for two hours, heading back to the house when it got dark. Later, emerging from her shower, she found Becca perched on her bed, wearing only Hello Kitty panties.

  “You should be in bed, baby. Want me to tuck you back in?”

  “I heard the wolves,” the child said sleepily. “Can we go look?”

  She debated for a second, then decided there’d be no harm in a quick peek.

  “Hang on. I’ll get dressed.”

  She sat down at the top the porch. Becca promptly claimed her lap.

  The house sat at the apex of the horseshoe formed by all the buildings clustered around the yard. From the porch she could see all the way down the main road, across the open fields and beyond the stables. Nothing moved. All she heard were wolf howls in the distance.

  Becca put her head on Ally’s shoulder, eyelids heavy. Ally pressed a kiss to her temple. They sat in silence for a while before a few wolves walked out of the trees behind the woodshop and headed in their direction, taking no notice of the two females.

  Becca pointed in the direction of the stables and said with a groggy grin, “Look. There’s my daddy.”

  An enormous black wolf loped gracefully across the fields. As he approached the yard, he slowed to a walk. Ally caught her breath.

  Full moon was a few nights away. On this cloudless, starry night the yard received enough glow to give everything a faint silver sheen. No outdoor lights spoiled the effect. She could see without the moon glow, but the way it glinted off the wolves and shone on the whispery fields and trees, the howls of the unseen wolves and the breeze across her skin, and the bundle of warm, sleepy child in her arms—all of it together brought tears to her eyes. If she could paint herself into a home of her choosing, it would be here. This wasn’t self-pity, just an acknowledgement of what she didn’t have and wished she did.

  The black wolf stopped in front of the porch and stood watching them with unblinking eyes. She rested her cheek on Becca’s head.

  Becca said, even more sleepily now, “Hi, Daddy.” The wolf put his cold, wet nose to her cheek. Becca laughed. Then he looked up at Ally, and it was weird and scary to have that face so close to hers, those yellow eyes holding hers.

  Ally whispered, “I’ll put her to bed now.”

  He watched her as she walked away, just like he had last night.

  She hit the pool early the next morning. Losing herself in the rhythm of the laps, she swam hard, back and forth, back and forth, all movement, no thought.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been in the water when she ran out of strokes. She had just enough energy left to swim to the ladder and hoist herself out. She took a couple of steps and looked up.

  Cade stood a few feet away, watching her.

  Yet again, she stopped breathing. She tried to look away, to look anywhere else, but he commanded her attention without word or movement. His gaze, intense and unreadable, caressed her skin, and she shivered.

  His dark blue button-down shirt accentuated tanned skin and taut muscles. He leaned with his back against the wall, arms crossed, one foot braced behind him. Faded jeans hugged his lean hips and long legs. The worn denim looked soft to the touch. An image popped into her mind unbidden—her running her thumb along the inner seam of his raised leg, the friction of her fingers on the denim heating her hand as it went higher up his thigh.

  Blushing, she forced her eyes back to the fierce, beautiful face. Her hand itched to brush the curls out of the startling green eyes that held her pinned in place. How could he stalk her without moving a muscle?

  A wolf that pretty shouldn’t look so dangerous. A wolf that big shouldn’t be so graceful. If only she…

  “I hate this place.”

  “I’m sorry?”


  “This room. The pool. My mother swam every day, sometimes more than once a day. It irritated my father—he’d say he didn’t know he’d married a mermaid.” He paused, temporarily releasing her as he looked about the room. “I don’t know why I keep it running. The smell of the saltwater reminds me of her.” He smiled slightly. “I don’t think I want to associate my mother’s scent with you.”

  “Cade, I…” She faltered, too nervous, tongue-tied and aroused to continue.

  He pushed off from the wall and crossed the distance between them in two long strides, picking up her towel on the way.

  Her brain yelled at her to run, her body insisted on staying put, so she did what every small animal did when confronted with an inescapable predator.

  She closed her eyes.

  “Allison.”

  She loved the feel of his voice. Deep and slow, it flowed through her like warm brandy.

  “Ally. Look at me.”

  She opened her eyes, careful not to meet his gaze. Instead she stared at his strong, sensual mouth and imagined his beard against her skin.

  Cade pulled the swim towel tight around her shoulders and drew her in. Before she could react, his mouth came down on hers.

  She gave a helpless little moan. His tongue was hot, and she shivered again when he let go of the towel to bury his fingers in her hair and kissed her harder. She stood on her tiptoes and leaned into him, her arms going around his waist, her hands running over the smooth, hard muscles of his back.

  Slowly he released her mouth, pausing to bite her bottom lip ever so softly. He lifted his head from hers, but he didn’t let go of her face. She glanced at his eyes, just for a second. The heat and the hunger in his gaze melted her bones. Her breath caught in her throat as his finger softly traced the outline of her mouth.

  Cade inhaled sharply when she parted her lips and tentatively, shyly, licked his finger. His skin was rough beneath her tongue. His thumb traced a line of soft fire down her cheek as his finger explored her mouth. A hot, exquisite ache inflamed her core, weakening her legs.