“I called up the pack secretary to see where you’d be,” she said, trying for a casual shrug.
“I’m flattered.” He flashed that winning smile at her. She’d been prepared for it – he’d been beaming that charm-ray at her ever since she’d moved back to town three months ago, and she’d known it was coming. And she still felt her knees go weak.
“Don’t be,” she said sternly. “I had no choice. You’re on the verge of getting me fired.”
“I am?” He seemed genuinely surprised at that.
“Of course you are. This bridenapping has been pre-arranged. Your uncle agreed that you would marry Regina. Regina’s even agreed that it will be a marriage of convenience. You guys can both have whatever arrangement you want on the side.”
“Generous of her.” Amusement twinkled in his whiskey-colored eyes. He leaned forward and sniffed. “You smell delightful. Is that bergamot?”
“What?” She flushed, momentarily thrown off. How had he suddenly moved so close to her? She could feel his body heat, smell his earthy, masculine scent.
She glanced nervously at her watch. It wasn’t moonrise, was it? No, she had a few hours. Mature male Alphas gave off a special pheromone around moonrise, which lasted about an hour and made them irresistible to any female within scenting distance. Or so she’d heard.
She shook her head angrily. “Anyway. Regina’s all about appearances, and you’re making her look bad.”
“Am I really, now? I think she does a pretty good job of that all by herself.”
Mary was surprised. Regina was stunningly beautiful – on the outside, anyway. She was also spoiled and bitchy and prone to wild mood swings, but she didn’t think Jarrod would care about that. Regina was exactly the type he’d gone for in high school.
And marrying her made perfect business sense. Her family owned a chain of department stores. His pack made furniture. It was a great match.
“Tell me,” he said, folding his arms against his broad chest and surveying her with an idle glance that made her whole body heat up, “What kind of mother do you think she’d be?”
“Regina? Mother?” she squeaked, trying to stall. Regina was incredibly self-centered; she couldn’t imagine her paying attention to babies. Or cubs.
“Exactly.”
“I didn’t say anything!” Mary protested.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Look. You can hire nannies. You can’t back out on this deal. Your uncle agreed.”
“Oh, my uncle agreed, did he?” He was still looking at her in that way. It was almost physical, as if his hands were roving over her body. Skin tingling under his touch…his lips brushing her neck…his groan of pleasure in her ear…
“Stop that!” She took a step back.
“Stop what?” He was all polite, wounded innocence.
“Stop looking at me as if you like me!” she spluttered.
“I do like you. Always have.”
“Yes, you made that quite clear.” That came out more bitter than she would have expected.
His smile faded and he nodded solemnly. “I know,” he said. “I was… Things were different. I was different. I’m not the wolf I was back then. I just want you to give me another chance.”
Another chance to rip her beating heart out of her chest? Sounded like fun. Given his recent history of dating and dashing, it didn’t seem as if he’d changed at all.
She forged ahead. “That ship has sailed. I need this job, and if you keep flirting with me, I’ll get fired. If you care anything at all about me, you will stop flirting with me and start being nice to Regina, at least in front of the cameras,” she said desperately. “And you need to go through with the bridenapping.”
He stared at her for a long, long moment, as if trying to see whether she meant what she said. Mary tried to look as uninterested and bored and impatient as possible.
“Okay?” she prodded him.
To her surprise, he nodded. “Okay. Absolutely.” He turned and walked back inside without a backward glance, letting the door bang shut behind him.
Well, that had been easy. Too easy. She’d gotten what she wanted – and she was left standing there feeling cold, hollow and alone in the damp heat of the night.
Chapter Five
She pulled up in front of her apartment and parked, still feeling disconcerted. Had he meant what he’d said? Who knew, with Jarrod? She’d always thought he was a wolf of his word…until he’d ditched her and left town.
It was getting dark out. The streetlight on her corner was out, as usual, and dark clouds now crowded in front of the faint sliver of moon. Her apartment wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods, and she felt an odd ripple of fear as she climbed out of her car and headed for the front door of her apartment building.
There was a car parked in front of the apartment, and she quickened her stride as she headed for her front door. The doorway was set back in an alcove, pooled in shadow, and as she approached it, a man shot out from the alcove. He grabbed her by the arm and threw her up against the wall. He wore a ski mask and gloves.
Terror flooded through her.
“One word, and I’ll choke the life out of you. I’m here to warn you. I saw you chasing after the Alpha at the bar tonight. Leave him alone, or you’re dead.”
“I didn’t go there to chase after him!” she protested, clawing at his hands. His hand tightened on her throat until she was gasping for breath, and she stopped clawing.
“Liar,” he growled.
“I went there to tell him to leave me alone and be nice to Regina, and he promised he would. And he always keeps his word,” she wheezed. God, she hoped that was true.
The man’s cold gray eyes bored into her from the slits in his mask.
“I know where you live. I know where you work. I know how late your cousin stays out.”
Her heart leaped into her throat. Not Angela.
“Stay away from him,” he said, and he let go of her throat, turned around, climbed into his car and drove off.
* * * * *
The next day…
Angela stood on the sidewalk in front of Mary’s apartment building, with her bags packed and her face wrinkled in misery. Mary felt it too. Angela had driven her crazy since she’d moved in with her…but she’d miss her terribly.
“But why do I have to leave?” Angela wailed as her mother climbed out of the car.
“For the millionth time, because a crazy man grabbed me last night outside my house and attacked me. He knows where I live and where I work. And he mentioned you.”
“You should have called the police. Or maybe told Jarrod. Jarrod wouldn’t let anything happen to you. He’d have half the pack in front of your door guarding you,” Angela said.
“Jarrod doesn’t care about me, especially after I told him to get lost,” Mary said. “And I can’t call the police. Not in a situation like this, with a famous socialite and an Alpha and a bridenapping… It would hit the news, and it would probably ruin Hilda. And she’s mad enough as it is.”
Angela’s mother, Prudence, stalked up to them, stiff-legged, her expression disapproving as usual.
“Did she get arrested?” she asked Mary, without bothering to greet Angela.
Angela’s expression turned sullen and she folded her arms across her chest like a sulky toddler.
“Hello, Prudence. No, she did not.”
“Did she get fired?”
“No.” She never looked for a job, so of course she didn’t get fired, Mary thought.
“Date some thoroughly unsuitable loser?”
Mary hesitated for just a microsecond, but it was enough.
Prudence’s eyes flashed with triumph. “Of course. What a surprise.”
Angela’s expression was as dark as a storm cloud.
Herb, Angela’s stepfather, had climbed out of the car. He walked over and seized Angela’s suitcases, head bowed. He blinked hard behind thick sunglasses.
Angela shot Mary a last look of mingled des
pair and pleading. Mary bit her lip and looked away. She knew Angela would be miserable back at her parents’ house, but at least she’d be safe.
Chapter Six
“But why?” Bruce asked, as they lay on their backs in the grass, looking up at the stars. “Why can’t we go outside the fence?”
“You ask too many questions,” John said. “Mr. Tompkins told us. The humans want to kill us.”
“How come they want to kill us?” Bruce persisted.
“They’re scared of us. You know that. Mr. Tompkins told us. He’s the only one who cares about us. He keeps us here so we’ll be safe.”
Bruce didn’t know very much, but then he only had five winters. John remembered the day he’d arrived, Mr. Tompkins carrying him in a basket, wrapped in a towel, with plastic bottles and cans of milk. He hadn’t bothered with instructions; John and the others knew how to take care of a new cub-baby. They came a few times a year. Most of the time they lived. Sometimes they didn’t, and then they had to bury the baby in the big field. Bruce cried when it happened, and he took flowers and put them on top of where they’d buried the cub.
Mr. Tompkins and his sons Clem and Brax were human. They lived in a house on the property, and went into the human town once a week to bring back supplies for them, to supplement the food they hunted.
Even though he said he wanted them to stay safe, John thought that secretly Mr. Tompkins didn’t like wolf people. His voice was always angry when he talked to them, and he never looked them in the eye. He couldn’t turn into a wolf like they could. Maybe he was jealous.
Sometimes John worried that Bruce might ask too many questions. Mr. Tompkins didn’t like questions, and he and his sons always carried guns with silver bullets. Silver killed wolf-people. Bruce knew that because one time Fergus, the oldest one there, tried to run away, and Mr. Tompkins shot him and he died.
It was for their own good, Mr. Tompkins had explained. If Fergus had escaped, the humans would have found out about them, and they would have sent soldiers to kill them all. John tried not to be sad when he thought about Fergus, but he couldn’t help it. It made a big, empty ache in his chest.
“How come we don’t have mothers like they have in books?” Bruce asked. “I’d like to have a mother.” His tone was wistful.
There were old books in the house they all lived in. They smelled funny and their pages were yellow. Clem had taught the older wolves to read a long time ago, and he’d taught them to count to a hundred, until Mr. Tompkins had told him to stop teaching and taken away most of the books.
But they’d hidden some of the books, and they took them out when Mr. Tompkins wasn’t there. The books told strange stories about another time and another place. A place when humans hadn’t hunted all the wolf-people until they were almost gone. John and the others were the last wolf-people in the world, and if anyone else ever found them, they’d all be killed.
“You’ve got me, right? And the others.”
Maybe they shouldn’t even have those books. It just made them sad. It told them about a world that wasn’t theirs. It made them miss something they’d never have. Families and jobs and houses of their own. They all lived in one big house with rows of bunk beds.
“All the other animals have mothers,” Bruce continued stubbornly, his lower lip sticking out. “The rabbits have mothers. Birds have mothers. I want a mother.” Tears welled up in his eyes.
“Shhh,” John said frantically. “He’s coming. Don’t cry. He hates crying. He’ll hurt you. Let’s go inside now and I’ll tell you a story.” He scooped Bruce up in his arms and rushed to the big house.
* * * * *
“I’ve seen molasses that moves faster than you,” Craig taunted Jarrod as they slowly circled each other in the grassy field behind the pack’s rec center.
“Slow, am I?” Jarrod lashed out suddenly with his left leg and, in one swift motion, swept Craig’s legs out from underneath him and knocked him on his rear end. Craig landed with a grunt and a thud. One second later, Jarrod was on top of Craig, partially shifted, hands pinning Craig’s arms by his sides, fangs snapping at Craig’s neck.
“Hey, I like you too, but I don’t swing that way.” Craig thrashed and struggled to dislodge Jarrod, but Jarrod just growled, keeping Craig pinned down in the dirt.
“All right, I give, I give!” Craig gasped.
Jarrod rolled off him and leaped to his feet, shifting back. “Call me slow,” he snorted, bending down and brushing dirt off his knees.
Craig scrambled to his feet, laughing. “Hey, man, just doing my job. Getting you riled up. Don’t want to see you getting soft on us.”
Jarrod grinned fiercely. “I’ll show you how soft I am.”
“I’m not sure I like where this is going,” Craig mocked, dancing back out of Jarrod’s reach.
Jarrod was about to lunge forward and ring Craig’s bell when he heard angry male voices, raised in argument, coming from the left side of the rec center. Jarrod growled in annoyance. He loved his morning sparring, he’d been in the zone, and being interrupted irritated the hell out of him.
He stalked around the corner, fists balled, with Craig right behind him.
A man in a suit was yelling at Earvin, Jarrod’s uncle. The man was accompanied by several werewolves in uniform, bearing the insignia of the Alpha Congress, Pack Games Division.
Earvin’s ears had gone pointy, his face was hairy, and claws curved out of his fingertips. He was on the verge of fully shifting.
“You’ll let us do the testing, or your pack is out of the games!” the man was yelling at his uncle.
“After those accusations hit the paper,ou knew the testing was coming,” Jarrod said to him.
His uncle scowled at him. “I’m handling it.”
“I’m pack Alpha, so actually I’m handling it.”
His uncle glowered at him. “You’re Alpha Regent. You’re not officially our Alpha until and unless you get married.”
The man who’d been yelling turned away from Earvin and spoke to Jarrod. “Doctor Henry Costello, Chief Officer of the Alpha Games Medical Commission,” he said, leaning his head back and exposing his throat to indicate submission to the Alpha.
Jarrod nodded in acknowledgement. “Jarrod Shaw, Alpha Regent of the Magister Pack. How can I help you?”
“New Alpha Games rules. We require a series of blood samples from all participants in the games to ensure that there’s no use of performance-enhancing drugs.”
Earvin’s snout shot out and saliva drooled from his jaws. He growled something incomprehensible.
“Change the fuck back,” Jarrod said irritably. “Can’t understand a word you’re saying.”
Earvin’s whole body shuddered and, with visible effort, he forced his head back into human form. “That is an insult to our pack,” he snarled.
“No, it isn’t, not if they’re requiring it of all packs,” Jarrod snapped at him. “How would it make us look if all the other packs agreed to the tests and we didn’t?” The Alpha Congress had been smart to do it that way. They’d avoided directly accusing the Magister Pack of cheating, and also made it impossible to refuse to take the tests.
Earvin didn’t answer, just glowered.
“We have nothing to hide. Test away. We will not interfere,” Jarrod said to Henry.
“We need all the athletes to meet us at your clinic,” Henry said. “You have two dozen contestants. By the end of this weekend, I need blood samples from all of them. I will personally supervise the blood draw, and from each athlete we will take two vials. We will take one vial with us and leave one behind. We will be leaving three of our men on your property, guarding the vials around the clock, until the testing is done.” He nodded at the uniformed men. “Of course, you may also assign men from your pack to guard the vials with us while we wait for results.”
“That is entirely fair. See that it’s done,” Jarrod said to Craig. “Give them whatever they need. Call me if there are any problems.”
Craig
nodded. “We can take my car; I’ll take you to the clinic,” he said.
Earvin watched them walk towards the front of the building, his lip curled and fists bunched, then whirled to face Jarrod with a snarl.
“You have a lot of nerve,” he growled. “I’m the pack Gamesmaster, and I set the rules.”
“You calling me out?” Jarrod met his uncle’s gaze with a steady stare. “Or are you saying that we have something to worry about? Are you concerned about what they’ll find with the tests?”
His uncle’s gaze flickered for the briefest moment, and alarm shot through Jarrod. Earvin was actually worried about something. What was it?
“Not in the least,” his uncle said, stepping back and bowing his head the slightest bit to indicate submission. He should have inclined his head a lot more, but for the moment Jarrod would let it go.
Sooner or later they were going to clash, he knew. His uncle had gotten too used to running pack affairs over the last twenty years, and at one point he’d actually made a formal appeal to the Alpha Congress to overturn the rules about his disability so that he could be pack Alpha. He’d been voted down by a wide margin, and he’d been bitterly disappointed.
“There had better not be anything to worry about,” Jarrod said.
His morning sparring session was over. He needed to go to the clinic and talk to the athletes personally. He couldn’t imagine his uncle allowing any of them to take drugs – not because his uncle was such a great guy, but because of pride. His uncle was fiercely, obsessively proud of his position and of the pack’s standing; they had numerous champions. To win by taking drugs would be an embarrassment and a disgrace.
But still… His uncle’s expression… He was lying about something.
Jarrod let out a long, rumbling growl of frustration. This kind of distraction was the last thing he needed. He had a bridenapping to prepare for.
Chapter Seven
It was the big day. The day that Jarrod would bridenap Regina right out of Greenwood Park…if his uncle was to be believed, anyway.
Bridenapped The Alpha's Choice Page 3
