Wild Love (Wilding Pack Wolves 2) - New Adult Paranormal Romance

by Alisa Woods

  “Of course, I know all about them. They were in the news. The oldest brother, Jared, is married to our new House of Representatives candidate—”

  Marjorie held up a hand to stop her. “Of course, sweetie, I should’ve known you’d be all over this.”

  Emily buttoned her lips together, determined not to run off at the mouth again and accidentally spill things.

  “The point is,” Marjorie said solemnly, “last night, Riverwise caught one of the stalkers. Maybe the stalker. I’m hoping there’s only one.”

  “Wait…” Emily’s brain was just catching up. Noah Wilding had been working for Riverwise ever since he returned stateside. “So, last night, when the shifter was shot, Riverwise was trying to lay a trap for him?”

  “That’s right. The shifter was one of the Riverwise wolves. And it looks like they caught their bad guy.”

  Emily shoulders dropped, partly with relief, and partly because it all had become clear. Noah didn’t pick her because he was actually looking for a hookup—he was trying to catch the hate group creeps who were targeting shifters. It made complete sense, but it also twisted her heart into knots. She had hoped to at least hold onto the memory of last night, of Noah Wilding choosing her and kissing her because he was actually attracted to her, even if it was only physical… but it was all just a setup. A fluke that he had swiped her and not someone else.

  “Well… that’s really great,” Emily forced out. “I mean, I’m glad they caught him.” She tried to blink away her broken heart, then realized something didn’t make sense. “But what do you need my help with?”

  “The first time, it could have been a coincidence that it happened at a WildLove hookup. The second time was too suspicious… that’s when I brought Riverwise in. Now that they have the guy in custody, well, there doesn’t seem to be any link between him and the human females involved in the first two hookups. We were hoping to find a connection, but… it’s not looking promising so far. I’m afraid there might be someone inside the agency helping him find targets.”

  “Inside the agency?” Emily was aghast. “How could anyone here—”

  Marjorie cut her off again with a raised hand. “I knew you wouldn’t ever believe someone could be capable of this, but I’d like you to keep an open mind and scour the records. See if you can find some kind of connection between this hater and WildLove. Or some kind of security breach from the outside. Not everyone in the world is a good guy, Emily.”

  “I know that.” Emily scowled. She knew all too well how evil people could be. And if she found someone here in the company who had hurt shifters… she’d find a tech way to ruin their lives. On top of turning them over to the police. “And of course, I’ll help. I’ll do anything I can to bring these people to justice.”

  Marjorie smiled, her large amber earrings glinting as she moved. “That’s my girl. Come on over to my office. I have someone I want you to meet.”

  Emily nodded and hurried out of her chair to follow after Marjorie’s long-strided walk down the hall. She kept her head down, breathing through her teeth, anger boiling inside her. The agency had recently hired a ton of people—programmers, database managers, hardware specialists—all to ramp up WildLove to keep up with demand. There were more new faces than experienced people at the company these days—a lot more than the six they had started the company with a year ago. They did background checks, but it was possible someone from the hate group had managed to infiltrate them. Whoever this mole was, it would be her honor to find them and make them pay.

  She was so wrapped up in the fury of her thoughts that it wasn’t until she rounded the corner into Marjorie’s office that she even wondered who her boss wanted her to meet. When she saw who it was, she froze in her tracks and legitimately thought she might die on the spot.

  Noah Wilding.

  Holy shit.

  He looked up from his phone at her standing in the doorway, and his eyes went wide for a split second. Then he whipped back to looking at his phone again. He tapped a few things in, ignoring her. Emily just stood there with her life flashing before her eyes—Noah Wilding was in her boss’s office. It was all going to come apart in the next two seconds.

  She was doomed.

  Marjorie had crossed the office to lean against her desk, looking very pleased with herself. “Noah Wilding, I’d like you to meet my lead programmer, Emily Jones.” She barely held back her grin.

  Emily just stood there, inarticulate in the doorway.

  Noah finally looked up from his phone, but all sign of recognition was gone from his face. He tucked his phone in his pocket and stepped forward to extend his hand. “Nice to meet you, Emily Jones.”

  She stared at his hand for an embarrassingly long half second, then jerked her hand up to take it. Her small hand disappeared inside the gentle grip of his large one. His touch was just as electric as it had been the night before while simultaneously being warm and reassuring.

  “Mr. Wilding,” she managed to get out.

  He dropped her hand and turned to Marjorie.

  Her boss addressed them both. “Emily, I’d like you to work with Noah to use whatever information the Riverwise people have gathered on this guy. I’m putting a hold on any further hookups until we’ve found whoever is involved in these attacks. I’ll make some excuse about servers being down, but that won’t hold water for long. And I don’t want to be out of business for too long, either.” She pushed away from her desk, eyeing both Emily and Noah as if she couldn’t be more pleased to be throwing them together… almost as if this was her own personal matchmaking!

  But Emily still sighed in relief. It was obvious that Marjorie didn’t know Emily had been there last night, and so far, Noah wasn’t spilling her secret. “Of course,” she said to Marjorie, then turned to Noah. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  “Thank you,” Noah said, but his voice was cool. Measuring. “Maybe we could get started right away?”

  “Um… yeah. Sure. Okay.” God, she was babbling. She needed to get out of Marjorie’s office now.

  Her boss was overly delighted with this. “Yes! Absolutely. You two run along.” She turned back to her desk and called over her shoulder. “Keep me posted! I want WildLove up and running again as soon as it’s safe.”

  Noah followed her as she scurried out of Marjorie’s office. Emily kept her head down, avoiding looking back as Noah trailed right behind her.

  Holy shit! What was she going to say to him? What could she say? She kept her mouth shut, heading fast toward her cubicle, but then Noah’s warm hand landed on her elbow. She jerked to a stop and spun to face him.

  His face was livid. She cringed under his anger, but words were frozen in her throat. They had stopped by the break room. He glanced around—it was early and the office was still pretty empty—then tugged her into the room and closed the door. She backed up against it, trying to get some distance from him and that anger-filled look on his face.

  He leaned close, pinning her against the door with the stone-cold look in his eyes. “Tell me it’s not you,” he growled.

  “Not me?” she squeaked.

  His jaw worked. “Do not tell me you weren’t there last night. Shifters have a very keen sense of smell, Emily Jones, and I’d know your scent anywhere.”

  “I… no… yes, that was me!” She was having a hard time breathing.

  “Did you set me up?” His voice was ice cold. “Are you one of these nutjobs who’s hunting shifters?”

  “What?” Her mouth hung open in surprise. “No! I would never do anything like that! You… I…” Her hands were up between them, proclaiming her innocence and almost touching his chest, he was so close. “I think shifters are…” She swallowed and tried to calm her racing heart. “You have to believe me. I’m the last person on earth who would ever hurt a shifter.” She pleaded him with her eyes to believe her.

  He eased back a little, frowning. “Why did you run?”

  “Because I work for WildLove!” she said, exas
perated.

  This seemed to sway him a little because he gave her more room. “So… what? You were just looking for a hookup?”

  Her face flushed, but of course, that was exactly what she was doing. “I just wanted one night. That’s all.” Her throat was closing up with a turmoil of emotion, but some sign of it must have worked its way out into her voice because he frowned and eased back more. “To be honest,” she said, “I never thought you’d actually swipe right for me.”

  He pulled back and gave her a quizzical look. “Why not?”

  She gaped at him. “Why not? Look at me!” She gestured to her standard office attire—worn jeans, flat tennis shoes, no makeup whatsoever, a black coder t-shirt with a knit cardigan over it. She really did get cold in the air conditioning, but her outfit blasted out loser who writes code not hot IT professional.

  He gave her a look like she was crazy, but then just shook his head. “So it was just a coincidence that you were my hookup when this hater was trying to plant a bomb on my car?”

  “It was a coincidence, I swear. At least… I didn’t know anything about it.” She bit her lip. “I saw a wolf got shot. Marjorie said he was working for Riverwise, but that he’s okay. Is that true?”

  He gave her a pinched look. “Yeah, that was Jimmy. He’s fine now.”

  She let out a sigh of relief. “Good. That’s good to hear.” She hesitated to say the thought running through her head, but she had to know… “Why didn’t you say something to Marjorie about me?”

  He gave her a small smile. “It seemed odd that the lead programmer on WildLove would be a lunatic trying to kill wolves.” The smile turned into a smirk. “And I figured that hot kiss earned you a chance to explain.”

  Hot… what? Was Noah Wilding actually flirting with her?

  She closed her gaping mouth. “I… um… thank you.”

  His frown returned. “But I do think someone in your agency is targeting shifters. Or has access to your database somehow.”

  She nodded in fast agreement. “If there is, trust me, I’m going to find them.”

  That banished the frown and brought back a smile. “Sounds like you’re just the girl for that job, too.”

  His smile heated her up from the inside out. “Just don’t tell Marjorie what I did, please. She’ll fire me.”

  “Okay, programmer girl,” he said with a full smirk. “But you have to make me a promise in return.”

  Her eyes went wide. “What’s that?”

  He held out his hand. “Give me your phone.”

  She frowned but hurried to fish it out of her pocket and hand it to him. He bent over it, tapping something in. What in the world was he doing? Then he handed it back to her and leaned in close again, putting one hand on the door behind her.

  “Next time you want a random hookup, don’t be random. Call me.” Then he lightly kissed her on the cheek.

  It felt like it was on fire. Or maybe that was her entire body.

  She just stared at him.

  He smirked. “Now let’s go catch some bad guys.”

  “Wait… your hookup works at WildLove? But you don’t think she’s the mole?” That was his sister, Piper, taking none of this bullshit story Noah was feeding her. Even though it was the truth. At least, he believed it.

  “The lead programmer,” he said. “But yes.”

  “She’s a programmer?” his brother asked with that arrogant tone he always has. “As in, she knows all the tech back doors in the software that she designed? In what universe is it possible that she’s not the mole?” Daniel was looking at him like he was crazy, which wasn’t unusual. They’d spent their entire childhoods with Daniel believing he was the only sane one among the three of them. Of course, it was really their father—Colonel Wilding—who was batshit crazy, but they hadn’t known any better. They were just kids.

  “In the universe where this lead programmer is a sweet girl named Emily Jones. A girl who would rather eat her own lips than try to hurt a wolf.” Noah’s voice was climbing up to a growl. He already felt protective of her—she seemed to bring that out of his beast, although he didn’t understand why—and he didn’t need Daniel revving him up more.

  They were standing on the front porch of the River family safehouse, a huge estate tucked into the mountains of Washington outside Seattle. The inside was teeming with Wilding pack members from the five families. The Wildings were spread out all over, hardly what you would call a real pack, but they were still wolves… and gathering together when faced with danger was natural.

  Piper narrowed her eyes. “Just how far did you go with this hookup?”

  Noah tilted his head at her. “Like that’s any of your business.”

  She raised both eyebrows and tossed a look to their brother, Daniel. “It’s personal for him.”

  Noah’s mouth fell open. “What—”

  “That’s it,” said Daniel. “You’re off this case. We’ll put you on—”

  “Oh hell no! I work for Riverwise, brother. You’re not my boss.” Anger was a red heat crawling up his neck. “And I am not off this case. I’ve spent half the morning working with Emily, looking for a connection between this Richard Bately asshole we caught and the prior bombing incidents.” He flicked a hand toward the back of the safehouse, where they had the WildLove bomber bound up in one of the cottages. Interrogations hadn’t come up with much more than his name and some crazy hate rhetoric spouting out of his mouth. All of Riverwise wanted a piece of the man, but torture wasn’t on the table, not with Jaxson overseeing the operation. He was pretty straight-arrow, not unlike Daniel. But turning the suspect over to law enforcement wouldn’t get them what they needed, either—shifters usually couldn’t trust the police to do what needed doing, and they just treated shifters like second-class citizens anyway.

  “Half the morning? And no leads in all that time?” That was Piper again. As if Noah and Emily weren’t really trying. They were, but he’d left because he was mostly getting in her way. She was a wizard with the tech, obviously super smart, but there was an electric charge between them that made focusing on the actual work damn near impossible. He’d spent most of his time trying to talk himself out of “accidentally” touching her.

  Of course, he didn’t want to report that to his siblings.

  “There’s a lot of data,” Noah tried. “It’s not like Emily’s dragging her feet on this. You don’t know this girl—”

  “And you do?” Piper’s look of surprise was genuine this time, and it flushed embarrassment through Noah. He was the youngest, used to having his judgment always questioned by his older brother and sister. And after allowing himself to be duped by the Colonel once again… and landing in the experimental cages because of it… the last thing Noah wanted was to be overly trusting. Of anyone. Or to make a stupid choice, especially when shifter lives were on the line.

  The accusation hung between all three of them.

  Noah put up both hands. “Okay, so I don’t really know her. But I did check out her background, and it’s freaky clean. Not so much as a parking ticket or overdue library book. But maybe you’re right—maybe the sweetness and innocence are all an act, and I’m an idiot who can’t judge people. It’s possible.” Not likely, he thought to himself, but he sure didn’t want to get caught with his pants down on this. “All the more reason for me to stay on the case. She no doubt thinks she has me fooled at this point. So she’ll be more likely to slip up if she’s really the mole.”

  Piper gave him a pinched look, like she wasn’t buying this bullshit either, but Daniel was nodding. He always was the easier one to lie to, being the straight arrow in the family. Dad’s favorite. Noah knew Daniel had been instrumental in stopping their father, not to mention taking a personal interest in keeping dear-old-Dad behind bars in a military prison, but old habits died hard—both in Daniel’s presumption that he was always right, and Noah’s chafing against being bossed around by him.

  “All right,” Daniel said as if that settled it. “Watch h
er for now. But we need access to WildLove’s database to do our own analysis.”

  “I’ll work it,” Noah said roughly.

  Piper was still appraising him. “Either you’re being emotionally manipulated in this… or she will be by the time you’re done. I hope for your sake, Noah, that it’s not you.”

  Noah sighed. “Or maybe we’ll just work together and find the bad guy.”

  “That’s an option, too.” But she didn’t look like she believed it.

  Noah loved his sister more than anyone else in this crazy, fucked-up world—she was the one responsible for getting him out of the cage he managed to get himself locked away in—so he knew she was just looking out for him. It still rankled, though.

  “I’ll try not to get my heart completely obliterated or, you know, become actually dead.” He said it in that soft voice he saved just for her. It was the voice that got them through all the hard times when they were kids—the one that said, I know you care. I love you, too. Those weren’t words the three of them ever said out loud, but they were known anyway.

  “Now you’re talking,” Piper said, but there was a shine in her eyes. She pulled him into a rough hug and then shoved him away. Then she shocked him by actually wiping at her eyes. “Damn hormones.”

  Noah grinned. “Hey, that’s my future niece or nephew you’re cursing at! You’re going to have to clean up your language before the baby comes, young lady.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Noah burst out laughing, and it felt damn good to release the tension.

  Daniel just shook his head.

  Right then, Jace River, Piper’s mate and husband, waved to her through the living room window, beckoning her.

  She gave him a nod, then said to Noah and Daniel, “My hot husband needs me. See you losers later.” She headed for the front door.

  “You’re already pregnant, Piper!” Noah called after her with a laugh. “You can stop having sex every five minutes now!”