As if summoned, Colton appeared at the end of the table. Beside him was a scrawny wolf shifter with a rat face. They beckoned Atticus and Frankie forward with looks of cocky contempt. They thought they would win.
Atticus bent and whispered to Frankie. “Have you ever played beer pong before? I hate to admit that I’ve never been invited to play.”
She gaped at him. “Isn’t this your family? You’ve never played with them?” Despite her chagrin, there was a bit of excitement dancing in her eyes. “Don’t worry. I’ll carry you. I played…way too much pong in college. And before college. I taught Colton everything he knows.”
The look on Frankie’s face was priceless when Colton bounced a pong ball off her forehead and landed it in the front cup. She wrinkled her nose, plucked the ball from the cup, and chugged it in two seconds. Before she could fire back, another ball flew toward her. She snatched it out of the air.
“Foul!” the wolf shifter cried. “You can’t catch a ball unless it bounces first!”
Atticus stepped behind Frankie and glowered at the shifter across from them. The shifter immediately shut up, but Colton wasn’t to be intimidated. He called Atticus out for cheating, too. Atticus was slightly surprised when Colton yelled at him, even more so when no wave of gasps rushed over the crowd around them.
The air smelled of smoky food and cold beer. No one treated Atticus like he was untouchable. Especially Frankie and Colton. Frankie leaned into his chest when she tossed her shot. Atticus gripped her hips lightly, waiting for her to pull away, but she didn’t.
His beast settled down like a warm and sleepy cat. It blinked happily at the party unfolding around them. This pack was theirs. It always had been, Atticus had just kept to himself. He’d put space between the shifters and himself. When he was among them, they welcomed his presence.
Cheers erupted when Atticus landed his ball in the front cup on the other end of the table. Frankie pumped her fist in the air.
“Chug, you dumb liar!” she shouted at her brother.
Atticus paused and wondered what went on between them while he’d been gone. Colton blew a breath out his nose before meeting Atticus’s gaze and downing the entire cup of beer. Someone cracked open another beer, the sound smashing through Atticus’s thoughts. Before he could ask what she was talking about, Frankie pulled him in close. She pressed her cheek to his chest.
Automatically, his fingers went to her hair. He tugged a curl and let his fingers graze her neck. This was where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. Surrounded by his pack, with his mate wrapped around him, but the question haunted him.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that Colton told Frankie something while he’d been gone. He couldn’t set her straight in front of everyone. Their conversation would have to wait until they were alone.
In the end, Colton and his friend won the game of pong. Frankie immediately wanted to challenge her brother again, but there were others who wanted to play, and they couldn’t hold the table forever. Atticus guided her away from the cups and balls. Away from Colton.
“Your control has been amazing,” Atticus said, even though he’d meant to ask her about the liar comment earlier. He scowled at himself.
They would never get anywhere if he couldn’t be straight with her. Atticus was still hiding his relationship with the pack from her. He hadn’t told her about Devin, either. He should have laid everything out for her, but he was afraid she would think differently of him.
He wanted to be her everything so bad that he wouldn’t let even himself get in the way.
Chapter Nine
A light buzz put a spring in her step. Frankie couldn’t remember being this happy in months. Maybe even years, long before she’d been changed. The fresh air filled her lungs and made her light, but Atticus’s hand in hers kept her feet on the ground.
He’d returned.
Her brother had been a great big liar. Colton might have thought he was protecting her, but she didn’t need him interfering with her life. Not everything happened the way she would have liked. She would have preferred to find a good man through online dating or maybe through a meeting at a café.
Finding Atticus while she was in a highway ditch was not the kind of story she wanted to share with future generations, yet she had him. She never wanted to let go of the first person to make her feel like she was worth his time.
“I think…” She paused and watched everyone around her. “I think it’s because I’m happy for the first time.”
Atticus’s smile was worth it. She reached up and touched the dimple on his cheek. When he didn’t pull away, she pressed her palm to his face. His beard was silken beneath her touch. She’d already had dinner, but a hunger for something else overcame her.
She stood on her tiptoes to reach him. Atticus bent the rest of the way, his arm winding around her lower back to hold her. This time, his kiss was soft. It was slow, as if he wanted to take his time with her and taste her like a fine dessert. She threaded her fingers in his white hair and pulled tight.
Warmth pooled between her legs. His desire pressed against her, too. She wondered if anyone would notice them slipping away when her brother’s growl filled the air. Someone else whooped.
She remembered the people surrounding them and pulled away, sheepish all of a sudden. Atticus didn’t let her get far. He tightened his hold on her and bent to kiss her deeper. Bliss exploded in her chest. Her head spun with euphoria.
When he pulled back, he whispered, “I wanted to get one more kiss in.”
When Frankie looked up, her brother turned away, his expression hard to read. Colton kept himself at a distance, and when she broke away from Atticus to find her brother, he disappeared into the crowd. Colton was blood. She wanted to talk things out and get to the bottom of his disapproval.
Behind her, Atticus waited for her to return. He was a beacon she could see through even the foggiest of times. Somehow, she knew she would always be able to return to him. So, she pushed deeper through the crowd to find her brother.
He vanished into the party, and Frankie slammed into an unmovable force. She stumbled back and looked up. A dark-haired shifter looked down his nose at her. Immediately, her wolf snarled. A tremble overtook her, fear spilling out from the beast crouched inside her.
The man smiled. It wasn’t warm, but predatory. She took an instinctive step back. Suddenly, the sounds of joy and happiness died. Silence washed over the party as everyone turned toward the man before her. The quiet shook her, like the calm before a storm. She was in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Where was her brother? Was he alright? She prayed that Colton wasn’t working with this man. Her brother had vanished somewhere beyond the wall of a terrifying man. Maybe the man had simply interceded on Colton’s behalf, but she doubted it.
“You aren’t much at all,” the man said as he flicked one of her dusky brown curls out of her face.
Frankie flinched, as if slapped. He smelled of burnt things, bitter and choking.
“Are you telling me Atticus woke up for you?” The man leaned into her face.
Her beast wanted to cower, but the way he said Atticus’s name drew a snarl out of her. He had no right.
The man’s brows arched with delightful surprise before he laughed in her face. “So, the puppy has teeth? That’s adorable. Figures, Atticus would stoop low enough to fuck a dog.”
A roar split the air behind her. The sound of shuffling feet crashed like a wave. Heat spilled over her back, a sign that Atticus had appeared behind her. Frankie wanted to cower behind him, but she held her ground in an effort to appear brave.
The man before her wasn’t a bear or a wolf. He seemed larger than life, much like Atticus. For an instant, the light caught his eyes and his pupils seemed to elongate into slits. No, they really were slits. His beast slithered in those eerie eyes as he stared Atticus down. Frankie was too afraid to take her eyes off the man to see if Atticus’s eyes matched.
“Touch her again and I will remove your hand,” Atticus said.
The air between them was too hot, almost too hot to breathe. Frankie forced herself to stay put. She refused to abandon Atticus when an enemy was nearby. They were a team. He was more than just a leader to her. Surely, he knew that.
Atticus had protected her, from herself and others. It was her turn. Their beasts were too large, too dangerous, for this to come to a fight. She knew that if she stepped out from between them, a fight would break out and others would get hurt.
“I told you to stay away,” the man growled, even though he was trying to hold onto his pleasant expression.
“I was invited to the party, Devin,” Atticus said. “Can you say the same?”
The man’s lip twitched, a flicker of a snarl. He wasn’t welcome here. Everyone stared at him in horror, like they were waiting for his beast to burst out of him. They weren’t just waiting for the fun to come to an end, like a parent breaking up a party. The pack was preparing for disaster.
“They aren’t yours,” the man said. “You handed them off to me once you decided to crawl into a hole in the ground. You made the decision to abandon them. You can’t come crawling back and play the role of the savior after that.”
Understanding overcame her. Atticus asked to be her leader because he needed someone to lead. Before burrowing to sleep, he’d been the leader of this pack. For reasons she couldn’t wrap her mind around, Atticus had left. Colton’s warning and his disapproval made sense now.
Because when Atticus left, this man took charge. Hatred unfurled in her gut, not toward Atticus, but toward this man who had called her a dog. It was Christmas, but here he was stomping through the party like he was Krampus come to ruin everyone’s holiday.
Atticus pressed against her back. He burned so hot she wondered if there was a furnace inside him, a raging inferno waiting to be unleashed on the party pooper. In the time they’d known one another, she hadn’t seen his beast try to escape the way hers did. Not until now. The heat had to be a warning sign; the storm was about to hit.
Before she could stop herself, she kicked the rude guy in the nuts. Her boot connected with two balls. His slit-shaped pupils snapped back to a human shape as he grasped his groin.
Atticus coughed, like fire had been in his throat and he needed to clear it so he could laugh. The rude guy fell to his knees before her. She didn’t want to waste her time with him, so she spun on her heel and grabbed Atticus by his sleeve. The guy could get up in his own time. She was done here.
“You better claim her soon,” someone shouted from the crowd.
The silence broke, and everyone erupted into cheers. Frankie’s cheeks heated. She ducked her head to hide, but Atticus swung his arm over her shoulder like he was proudly displaying her. The heat spread to her chest and wrapped around her heart. She wanted to keep him.
She might have easily disabled the dragon shifter back there, but that wouldn’t last for long. Once the rude guy stood up again, his anger would fall on Atticus and Frankie. Even if she put her heart in Atticus’s hands, she had to worry about his safety. More than that, she had to worry about this pack now.
In Baltimore, she’d been alone. She hadn’t even known what she was.
Two hours with this pack and she claimed them. This was the family she’d always needed. These were the people who could help her direct the energy coursing through her body, the wild beast that was never appeased no matter what she did. A fierce protectiveness overtook her. She wasn’t a big beast, but she would fight for these people.
She wanted to stay.
The realization stole her breath. Sudden indecision made her waver. Moving was difficult. It took a lot of time and resources that she didn’t really have. Her bank account was barely hanging on for dear life most days. Moving home would clear her savings.
She couldn’t imagine being anywhere else now, not while the beast inside her preened at Frankie’s daring actions.
“I’m proud of you, but do not ever do that again,” Atticus whispered in her ear when they were back at her car.
She jutted out her chin. “That guy was acting like a total dick! Someone needed to stand up to him.”
“I’m the person who should be standing up to him,” Atticus said with a deep sigh.
“If you had fought him back there, the lawn would be toast. People would have gotten hurt. You could have gotten hurt.” Frankie shook her head. “If the two of you got into a fight, it would be devastating. I did what I did to keep that from happening.”
He jerked back, surprised. She wanted to pull him into her and hold him tight. He might not have been used to people caring about him. The whole time they were at this party, he seemed to be confused, like he didn’t expect the warm welcome he received.
Was that why he had pulled away from the pack? Did he not know how they cared? They wouldn’t be mad at him for leaving if they never cared at all. Their anger was about more than just leaving a douchebag in charge. They had missed him.
Couldn’t Atticus see how much they loved him? The way the pack watched him wasn’t with fear, but with reverence. Frankie suspected he was blind to it, caught up in his own head the way she was when her wolf wouldn’t settle. She hoped he had noticed during the Christmas party.
If not, she would happily spend the rest of her life pointing out the good moments, the moments filled with happiness and love, so he could recognize them. Because of him, she’d made it home. She realized that because of her, he’d made it home, too.
Her wolf was so proud of itself, and Frankie couldn’t argue as a bit of that pride filled her. Not only had they made it home, they had found home. She didn’t belong in Maryland. Baltimore didn’t need her.
Her brother needed her. Atticus needed her.
And she wanted to stay with them, too. Her wolf dug in its claws like it could feel the ground beneath her feet.
***
Atticus wanted to go back and finish Devin off, but he wanted to linger by Frankie’s side even more. She gently tugged his hand until he was pressed against her. With the car at her back, he would have thought her wolf would rebel. Instead, her wolf seemed content. He growled and nuzzled her neck.
Her soft groan filled his ear. The beast inside him urged him to bite her. Claim her, like the pack commanded. They liked her. Atticus was starting to love her. He knew his heart belonged to her, but there was a difference between knowing they were mated and willfully giving his heart over to her.
He started falling for her when she invited him to her bed the first night, but he fell head over heels when she kicked Devin in the balls. Devin had called her a dog in an attempt to insult Atticus. The rage that had unfurled inside Atticus had been on Frankie’s behalf. Devin was no longer allowed anywhere near her.
If Devin so much as looked at Frankie, he was a dead man.
Atticus should have gone after Devin and reclaimed the pack by force, but Frankie’s fingers curled at the nape of his neck and stole his breath. Atticus sank deeper into her. The beast’s urging became more insistent. Finally, he clamped his teeth around her shoulder.
Frankie shuddered. He didn’t bite down, but held her there. Her nails pierced his skin like she was trying to pull him tighter, trying to get him to make the next move. She didn’t know what he was going to do. Frankie had no understanding of how claiming and mating worked.
He shouldn’t bite her.
But he did. Her blood burned on his tongue. She swallowed a scream as her body spasmed in his grasp. He kept her from falling and wondered what the claiming mark felt like. She seemed to enjoy it, a pleased moan slipping from her lips.
Devin had been wrong. Atticus hadn’t fucked her.
Yet.
Atticus wanted to, though. He gripped her hips and thought about taking her right there, against her car. Her nipples hardened against his chest while the rest of her melted in his hands. Frankie wasn’t wound so tight she might c
rack anymore. Her wolf was at peace, happy where it was. He was starting to think she might be happy, too.
“Take me away from here,” she whispered.
He growled in response, ready to take her wherever she wanted. But the car would be too slow. It was too small for Atticus just then. His beast was still too close to the surface, still bursting with ire and need and passion. Atticus couldn’t bottle up the emotions, this new exhilarating rush coursing through him.
“As long as you’re alright with flying. I can’t get in your shoebox of a car right now.”
“Flying?” she squeaked. Her nails dug into his shoulders.
He thought she would back out, but a delighted grin lit up her face. Frankie nodded, and his heart flipped. In moments, he had backed out of her grasp and was shedding his clothes. He wasn’t going to need them once he landed. The heat in Frankie’s eyes, dragging over his body while he stripped, told him as much.
He yanked the burner phone from his discarded clothes and approached Frankie. Her lips parted as he hovered over her. He about lost his mind, hunger making his beast lurch toward the surface, when she bit her full lower lip. He leashed the wild creature and tucked the phone into Frankie’s pocket before jogging back.
Atticus had never shifted so fast. He gently scooped Frankie into his hand and pushed off the ground. She shouted with glee at first, but by the time they reached altitude, she had crouched behind the shelter of his hand. He thought she would cower, but Frankie was still giggling. The sound pierced his heart with cupid’s arrow.
He was amazed with the number of times he could fall in love with her. He hoped every day would be like this. She would have surprises for him for every time the earth spun. She would grant him epiphanies for every time the earth rocketed around the sun.
For once in his life, Atticus felt alive.
Chapter Ten
The ground fell away like the events at the end of the party. Frankie had flown in planes a few times in her life, to visit distant relatives across the country, but those trips couldn’t compare to this. Atticus cradled her weight in his clawed hands. The wind whipped at her hair until she reached to hold it.
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