Werewolf on Somana Two: Michael

by Brenda Steele

  “Oh no, you don’t.”

  The stranger caught her wrist for the second time and used the hold to force her back around to face him. She jerked on his grasp but found herself to be fighting a losing battle. The muscles she glimpsed rippling beneath his shirt were not just for show.

  “I will kiss you again if you don’t tell me your name.”

  Chrissie couldn’t believe she stood there considering how great the punishment for not telling him would be. But then she would never admit that to his arrogant ass. She blew out a noisy sigh. “Fine. It’s Chrissie. Now let me go.”

  “Chrissie what?”

  “Chrissie Malvoy,” she snapped.

  He bowed as if this were the olden days or like she gave a crap who he was. “I am Michael.”

  She sassed him. “Just Michael?”

  He winked and kissed the tip of her nose. She froze, steeling herself against the feelings his slightest touch evoked in her.

  “Well, it was just Michael for a long time, but just recently, I took on my brother’s last name. It’s Michael Hunter. I’m extremely pleased to meet you.”

  “I’ll bet you are.” She watched four other men stroll up and gave them a slight nod. “Now that you’ve gotten the information and the free feels you set out to get, you can get lost. Hope I never see you again.”

  Chrissie signaled to her guys to follow in the aircar as she jumped into Joey’s vehicle and the two of them zoomed off down the street. The last she heard of Michael was his bold laughter as they put distance between her and him. She might have mouthed off that she never wanted to see him again, but the truth was altogether different. Just like he had called her his dream girl, Chrissie was pretty sure she’d have a hard time keeping him out of her nighttime imaginings—for a long time.

  * * * *

  On the outskirts of Somana Two, Chrissie looked over the personal transport ship that would carry her and her crew across the barren surface of the moon. She rested a palm on the dome and frowned. “Are we sure about your guy, Joey? He’ll get us out with no alarms going off? If we blow this, we’ll likely be either imprisoned or kicked off the moon. Somana Two has its issues, but it’s home.”

  Joey fiddled with a small leather pouch in his hands that had seen better days. He did that whenever he was unsure of something. “Yeah, yeah. My contact said the guy who will be on duty that night at the gate will let us through with no paperwork, and the best part is we don’t have to do it through the main exit where all the other ships launch from. We can stay hidden when we leave, and because there’s no light extending past the dome, it’ll be a dark ride unseen all the way to the site.”

  Chrissie moved from examining the dome to return to the transport. The vehicle would fit just four of her usual six men plus her, so this job was already shorthanded. And while traveling to their destination under total darkness was good for not being spotted by the agents, it was not good for safe navigation. They would have to rely on the transport’s sensors. If anything went wrong, they might be splattered all over the cold rocks and craters. She shivered at the thought.

  “Somehow, Joey, I’m not confident about your source.” She pointed to his restless hands. “When you’re not sure, you fiddle with that thing. What aren’t you telling me? All our asses are on the line.”

  He jumped to his feet, his eyes wide. “No, Chrissie, I promise. Trust me. This guy is legit. He’ll help us. I’ve known him forever, since we were pickpockets back on Earth and got sent up for it. He stuck by me that whole time and even got me out early with his connections. He gets in good with people, so a lot of them owe him favors.”

  She stood there staring Joey down. Joey had been with her for the last three years, and all of his connections had panned out. Except, she thought with trepidation, when he fiddled with that damn pack. She should call this job off, or at least postpone it. Nothing felt right, and she had learned the best way to survive in the thieving business was to follow her gut. It had kept her alive in too many dangerous situations. But this job meant a nice payoff, one that might get her that much closer to what she had been wanting for a while, a café. She was close, so close that she could smell it and see it in her mind.

  Of course, she wasn’t going to tell the others about her dream. They’d think she had gone soft, and she might lose respect in their eyes. That could not happen, not when she had fought hard to get it in the first place—a woman leading a group of hardened men, with criminal records every one? None was a killer, of course. A couple had been charged with assault, but that was as heavy as it got. They had forged a name for themselves on the uglier side of Somana Two and even into a few higher-up places on the north side.

  In fact, rumor had it that the money behind this job was someone who had a reason to screw the new head of the agency that governed both Somana Two and Earth. Stick it to the man in charge, that was always a good thing in Chrissie’s book. She laughed.

  “Okay, fine. We’ll do it. Everybody in?”

  Her men all nodded, waving various weapons, eyes glittering in the dim light of the abandoned south docks where the salvage ships used to come in. Now they landed in a nice spaceship port on the other side of Somana Two. Miss Willie hadn’t wasted time in restructuring things the way she liked them, which made this the perfect place from which to sneak out of Somana Two without papers, as well as for meeting to plan their next jobs. The place wouldn’t be a good one for long once other groups found out about the advantages, but for now, Chrissie ruled the area, just as she liked it.

  “Okay, then we meet here in two days at ten p.m. Joey, let your guy know we’ll be at the gate no later than ten twenty-two. Got it? Everyone know what they need to do, or do I need to go over it again?”

  Several grunts rent the air, which meant they were prepared. Chrissie narrowed her gaze on them and drilled every step into their heads for the fiftieth time anyway.

  Chapter Three

  Michael used the key Willie had given him to get into her house. The place was quiet, everyone having turned in hours ago. He had spent the last few days searching for that woman he had kissed on the south side but had been unable to find her. Even questioning the bartenders and the patrons in a few bars had turned up nothing. From the looks he got, he figured they were lying about never hearing of her. They protected their own, he guessed, and he was not one of them.

  Frustration made him more irritable than usual. Asking around for her had been a last resort since he had assumed he would be able to sniff her out. Her scent was forever etched in his memory, but even changing into his full wolf form had meant nothing. Only small traces of her in a few locations remained. He began to think she was no longer on Somana Two, but that couldn’t be true. In the short time he had been here, he could recognize the diehards, the ones that wouldn’t leave unless kicked off the moon. He did okay on the moon, but he still dreamed of returning to Earth one day.

  For now, though, everything he wanted was here, all put together in one hot package—Chrissie Malvoy. Just as he knew would happen, he had dreamed of her writhing beneath him, calling out his name while he took her. His cock hardened at the mere thought of it. Her scent seemed to fill his nostrils again, and he fought for control before he burst right here in the hallway.

  A light clicked on, and Willie stood in a doorframe to his right with her arms crossed over her ample breasts. At one point, with her almost naked, wearing a sheer nightgown that showed off all her goods, he would have been panting to get her horizontal. However, with images of Chrissie dominating his mind, there was no room for lusting after Willie. The truth of it hit him hard, and he wasn’t too sure he liked being that driven by a woman. Hell, Chrissie was human, for fuck’s sake. He didn’t have an excuse. However, he’d learned a long time ago, what the beast in him wanted, the beast got. Michael went along for the pleasurable ride.

  “Is that for me?” she asked with a pointed look at his crotch. Her expression hardened. “No, it couldn’t be. Because if it was, you’d ha
ve come home days ago and answered my calls. Who is she?”

  He continued to walk by her, calling over his shoulder after he passed, “If there was a she, I wouldn’t be hard.”

  “Don’t play me for a fool, Michael. I’ve been around too long.” She followed him to the room she had offered him six months ago, his own space even though he had spent little time there, preferring instead to be in her bed. That was about to change. “You didn’t care that I was worried not hearing from you.”

  “Cut the crap, Willie.” He spun around to face her after tossing a duffel bag on the bed. “You’re not in love. In fact, I doubt you even like me. I do jobs for you. You pay me—with money and your body. Don’t think for a second I don’t know that you settled on me as your lover. You wanted the alpha, my brother. Since you can’t have him . . .” He shrugged.

  “You’re packing. So it’s over; is that it?”

  “Yeah.” He glanced at her, intending to soften if she showed even a hint of emotion. There was none, other than anger. He bet she was pissed that he was the one to end it and not her. Willie busted balls on a regular basis. She had men and women running around to do her bidding. She’d bought and sold dozens of them in one form or another. Her cold heart and blind ambition were what had gotten her to the position she was in now, the most powerful woman on Somana Two and Earth. He’d be a fool to stand against her, but what the hell. A little danger kept life interesting. “There is no other woman. I’ve decided to move on. That’s it.”

  “You owe me, Michael.”

  His eyes widened in disbelief. “Owe you what?”

  In a flash, her belligerence was gone. She moved with sensual grace over to him and lined her slender figure with his. One hand slid over his chest down to his waistband. She would have ventured lower if he didn’t stop her. “Aw, don’t be mean, Michael.” She pouted and brushed her hardened nipples against his arm. He wondered if she could produce that form at will. “I need you do some work for me.”

  Michael shoved her away from him. “You don’t have to turn on the charm. I can still use the money. I’ll work for you, but I won’t share your bed. I’ve rented a room.”

  She glared but backed off. “Where?”

  “That’s none of your business. You can reach me on my phone. If I like the pay and the job, I’ll take it. If not, I won’t.”

  “You don’t get to call the shots now, Michael. I don’t know where you went off and grabbed a set of balls, but I don’t appreciate it.”

  She rested her hands on her hips, and he realized why he often stayed away and didn’t take her calls. Willie thinking she owned him, a werewolf, set him on edge. Too many times he wanted to prove to her that what he did, he did of his own free will. But that would mean violence, and with his blood feeling like it was just below boiling most of the time, he had to get away every now and then.

  Irritated, he dropped his bag on the floor and crossed over to her. He raised a hand to her hair and tangled his fingers in it, fighting all the time for dominance over the beast. “Let’s get one thing straight, Willie. You never did, and you never will own me. You may like rough sex, so you go after werewolves, but you’re playing with your life.” He moved in until his face was less than an inch from hers. “Don’t fucking push me, got it?”

  To her credit, Willie didn’t register how he must have terrified her, but he smelled her fear. Willie had spent time on Earth years ago as a prostitute servicing werewolves on the reservation. Michael had come across her there and had even propositioned her, but she had been all about the Alphas, although there were few of those. Even then, he’d seen how she loved power, loved to be surrounded by it until she had it in her own grasp.

  “I get it,” she said at last, and he let her go. She put distance between them and straightened her nightgown. When she crossed her arms to hide her breasts, she was all business. “I need you to check a site outside of Somana Two for me.”

  He frowned. “Outside? What do you mean? As far as I know, there’s only rock out there.”

  Her eyes seemed to sparkle with the joy she got from knowing something others didn’t. “I’ve been planning it awhile, but because Somana Two is getting overpopulated, I’m funding an expansion.” Her expression changed to one of disgust. “The south side is growing the most, the vermin leaking into this area more and more each day.”

  For some reason, Michael took offense at that but didn’t address it. “So a Somana Three, I guess.”

  She waved a hand. “I’m not sure yet. I’m considering giving it a new name. I never liked the name Somana. Or I could just leave it at that and link the two somehow. That might not solve my problem. Whatever, the situation is someone has broken into the facility we have over at that site. I need you to go and check it out. If you catch the thief, I want him brought to me. I’ll deal with him.”

  He flared his nostrils at her suggestion. “I may be a beast, Willie, but I do require oxygen, and I don’t need to test it to know that those little space suits won’t stand up to my claws.”

  “And I may be pissed at you, but I wouldn’t send you to your death. You’d have to push me pretty far for that.” Her eyes held a warning he ignored. “I find you useful. The facility has oxygen. We’ve stored supplies for the building over there, and the first thing I arranged for was security, but someone bypassed it and hauled out thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment. I suspect it’s not about the equipment but rather sabotage. I have enemies, believe it or not.”

  Michael smirked. “No way.”

  She glared. “Anyway, I need you to check it out. I want the person brought to me so I can question him. I have my suspicions of who is behind it, but I need to be sure.”

  “What will you do to the thief?” he asked out of curiosity more than interest.

  “I’m not known for mercy, Michael. Screw me over, screw with your life. Period.”

  “Fine.” He hoisted his bag to his shoulder and headed toward the door. “When the guy makes another move, I’ll be there, and I’ll bring him here.”

  “Not here, at my office,” she instructed him.

  He waved. “I’ll drag him in, without a doubt.”

  * * * *

  Michael watched them from the shadows. He had picked up their scent before he caught sight of the four men and one woman. It had been all he could do not to waltz over to the stealthy group and demand to know where Chrissie was keeping herself that he hadn’t been able to pick up her scent before now. In truth, he just wanted to get his hands on her.

  Then he recalled the job Willie had sent him to do—take down the thieves and bring them to her. Michael had no qualms about ripping into Chrissie’s buddies, but he wasn’t going to take her to Willie. For a human, the woman was astute. She’d pick up on Michael’s attraction to Chrissie and set out to make the woman’s life a living hell.

  To see just what they were up to, he decided to tail them around the facility. Besides, another wilder scent reached him from the darkness. He believed he could identify what—or rather who—it was, but if he was right, that would mean taking extra care. He could be outnumbered if the enemy was still here. And, frankly, where else was there to go on this cold chunk of rock?

  What Michael assumed would be a shell of a building with life support and nothing else had turned out to be a structure that put him in mind of a giant mall. From one end to the other, it had to be a few miles. Along the multiple corridors were smaller compartments, some with walls and doors, and others with just the framework. Throughout, lighting was minimal. Michael guessed the other uninvited guests could hide out for weeks, maybe months, in this place. That is, assuming they could find food and water.

  As he moved from shadow to shadow behind Chrissie and her band of thieves, he tapped the holo-phone in his pocket. He considered calling Gabriel about the other intruders but changed his mind. Until he had solid proof, he didn’t want to contact his brother. Gabriel was liable to think it was a ploy to get back to Kelly’s shop. He grunted, am
azed. Days had gone by, and he hadn’t thought of Kelly once.

  “What are we grabbing this time?” one of the guys asked around the imitation jerky hanging from his mouth.

  Michael wrinkled his nose against the smell. Another drawback to the moon, he thought, no real meat. Just thinking about the word made his stomach growl. And then he was hearing it aloud. He touched his throat, wondering if he was hallucinating again like he had done when he first arrived here. No, he hadn’t made the sound.

  “Quiet,” Chrissie snapped as if she heard it as well. She stopped walking and began to search the shadows.

  Michael didn’t move from the spot where he hid, even when her lovely eyes paused on him. Could she see him in the darkness? Or sense him? He breathed deep and didn’t pick up anything unusual about her like before. Street smarts, he decided, a sort of honed instinct that went beyond what most people sensed about disruptions in their environment. Chrissie must have needed that and more to survive.

  He grinned as he watched her thin figure twist this way and that in what he figured was her signature clothing: dark colors, formfitting. She liked to be sexy, nothing wrong with that. Taking in the roughnecks around her, he wondered how many of them had tried what he did when he first met her. The thought of another man touching her angered him, but then Chrissie could take care of herself, of that he was sure.

  The defiance in her movements, her words, convinced him she could hold her own against anyone or anything. He cursed. Anything but that. The wolf came from the opposite side of the area where they stood. Two more joined it, heads low, growls rumbling up from their throats. Why hadn’t he been paying closer attention? He’d been caught up in admiring Chrissie. Now, all of the humans were in danger.

  Gabriel had told him months ago that a ship carrying three werewolves from Earth had never landed at Somana Two—and hadn’t been heard from since. That meant they never received Gabriel’s little “mind meld” to straighten out their heads after the moon fried their senses. These three must be them, and from the look in their eyes, Michael knew he’d be in one hell of a fight. If Chrissie wasn’t there, he might let the wolves have the men, but there was no way he’d allow her to be the main course for starving werewolves.