As though he sensed me standing there, his gaze swung my way. Our eyes locked, and my heart soared. He winked, tipping his chin for me to come closer.
I made my way to the bar and sat on a stool two down from the other woman, shrugged out of my jacket and folded it over the back of the chair.
“Hey there,” he said, bracing his hands on the bar top leaning over waiting for a kiss.
I met him halfway and pressed my lips against him. Everything about him, about us, seemed so easy and natural. Were normal couples this comfortable with each other after just one night? Though, I guess, we’d known each other for longer than that. The whole situation was anything but normal.
Noah straightened, that dimple on his cheek deepened sending a little thrill through my middle.
“Hey,” I replied.
He motioned to the other woman. “This is Ivy, my brother’s wife.” He lowered his voice. “Liam’s mate.”
Oh, secret shifter code.
I turned to Ivy. She was stunning. Deep brown eyes, wavy hair, and a beautiful dusting of pink over her cheeks. “Nice to meet you.”
“Welcome to the Cole family, Mia.”
My pulse kicked a little. Welcoming me to the family was moving a bit fast, wasn’t it?
I made a mental note to ask Noah about what being a mate entailed. Was it like dating? Or more? He’d told me that wolves have one mate for life. If that were true, like I suspected, then I doubted he sought only a girlfriend.
Ivy patted the seat beside her. “Come closer so we can chat.” As she spoke, her cell pinged, and she picked it up off the bar to glance at the screen. “Liam’s on his way.” She placed the phone back down and looked at Noah. “So you can stop babysitting me.”
His laugh lit up his unnaturally blue eyes. “You think this is babysitting? You wanna pray you’re not having a girl.”
Ivy exhaled a loud exaggerated sigh. “It wouldn’t surprise me if you all took shifts sitting on the front porch with shotguns.”
Noah laughed again, louder this time. “Don’t worry, we’ve already set up a schedule.”
I moved seats and settled in next to Ivy. Her hand rested on a small rounded bump at her belly. “You’re pregnant?”
“Yeah.” She swiveled to face me. “Can you imagine if it’s a girl and the Cole brothers had their way? The poor thing won’t be able to date until she’s ninety.”
Noah rounded the bar to stand behind my chair. He wrapped his arms tight around my middle, resting his chin on my shoulder. “That seems reasonable, right Mia?” His tone left no question about his intention to embrace the overprotective uncle role.
I drew back to see his face. “Hey, don’t bring me into this.”
“I have a feeling you girls will put the Cole brothers in their place more than once.”
“Damn straight,” Ivy replied.
I couldn’t speak. Having Noah so close, his heat radiating through my back, his cologne consuming my senses.
He angled his head to whisper at my ear. “I have a surprise for you.”
I swallowed. “A surprise?”
What could possibly top seeing him shift into a wolf?
“Yep. I was gonna give it to you at dinner, but since you’re here…” He kissed my cheek. “Get excited.”
Lowering his arms, he returned behind the bar. From under the counter, he grabbed a small cardboard box and held it just out of my reach.
“What is it?” I leaned forward trying to peek.
He snapped it away and grinned. “You have to wait and see.”
He turned his back to Ivy and me, and gathered various liquor bottles and items from the fridge. The anticipation killed me. But rather than stare at him, trying to figure it out and ruin the surprise, I swiveled my chair to face Ivy. “How far along are you?”
She smiled, rounding her hand over her belly. “Almost five months, so I still have ages to go.”
Something about the way she smiled when she spoke of her pregnancy told me she’d make a great mom. People like her should have babies. People like my mother, not so much. Though, I was thankful she at least had me.
“It’ll be fun to have cousins running around crazy at the Cole ranch.”
“Does Ashton have kids?”
“No, he hasn’t mated yet. I meant when you and Noah have kids.”
I swallowed. The fantasy between Noah and I burst in one second. Holy hell, I’d only just met the guy and Ivy thought we’d pop out a few kids. Noah and I hadn’t agreed to run away and get married or anything.
Besides, kids were never in my future. I didn’t exactly have the best role model. What happened if I turned out like my mother?
Thankfully, before I answered, Noah slid a glass in front of me. A tall fancy tumbler filled with pale golden liquid and a floating lime wedge.
His smile was contagious.
“Is this a cocktail?”
He leaned in close, his voice low and silky. “If you tell the locals I made you one, you’ll ruin my badass reputation.”
I laughed so hard I almost fell off my stool.
He nodded to the drink. “Give it a try.”
I took a sip through the straw. Fizzy, not overly sweet, and a decent amount of rum. “This is really good. What is it?”
“Dark and Stormy.”
How appropriate.
“I thought it was the perfect mix of Woodland Falls meets fancy inner-city cocktail bar.” He lifted one shoulder. “Plus, I already had all the ingredients. I only needed to order the glasses.”
“Thank you.” My heart felt so full that at any minute it would burst from my chest. “I always loved the idea of cocktails, but I never really had the free time to try them.”
What I loved even more was that he specially ordered glasses to make the cocktail for me.
I took another sip. Given the lightness sneaking through my shoulders, I think he was a little heavy handed with the rum.
“Hey, bartender.” Ivy pointed to my drink. “Does that come in a non-alcoholic version?”
Noah grinned and got to work making Ivy a concoction in the same fancy glass. He slid it to her. As she took her first sip, a man wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing her cheek.
“I missed you.” His hands slid to her belly. “Both of you.”
Ivy cupped his cheek with one hand. “You’re lucky. This drink is so good I might have gone home with it instead.”
The guy growled, nuzzling Ivy’s neck. “I bet that drink doesn’t satisfy you like I do.”
Ivy tapped a finger on her lips, thinking. “This is true. You win. But can we at least stay until I finish it?”
He kissed her forehead. “Take your time. I need to talk to Noah anyway.” He straightened, turning to me. “Mia, right? I’m Liam.”
I shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.” He glanced to Noah. “You got a second?”
Noah nodded and the two disappeared into a room past the kitchen.
“So,” Ivy sipped her drink. “Noah told me you inherited Joan’s house.”
“I did. But I’d like to have it on the market at the end of summer.”
My chest tightened, and I wasn’t sure why. I wanted to sell Joan’s place. Yet, now saying it aloud stirred this weird feeling. Was it doubt? If so, why? I couldn’t rethink my plans just because I’d met an incredible guy who also happened to be the same wolf I befriended as a teenager. The same wolf who’d stolen my heart.
Yet, here I was, reconsidering my plan.
“You’re selling it?” Ivy frowned. “Oh. Will another Whitcome buy it?”
“I doubt it. I’m an only child.”
Her shoulders relaxed. “That’s a relief.” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that. These damn pregnancy hormones have me jumbling all my words.”
She laughed it off, though her tone suggested she knew exactly what she’d said. She sipped her drink.
“Why are you
relieved I don’t have any siblings?”
Her fingers stilled on the straw, avoiding eye contact.
“Ivy.”
She slowly turned her head to me, searching my eyes for a moment. “It’s really not my place to say.”
Prickles raced over my arms. “Say what?”
“Ivy,” Liam said, startling me.
I spun to find Liam and Noah standing behind the bar. Color drained from Noah’s face.
Liam squeezed his brother’s shoulder. “There’s no one here. I’ll close the door on our way out.”
Noah’s gaze held mine. He nodded. My heart pounded like crazy. What the hell were they keeping from me?
Ivy slid off the stool. “I’m sorry, Noah.”
Liam gathered Ivy’s coat and helped her into it. The tension in the bar increased with each second. I jumped when Ivy touched my arm, her face etched with sadness. Without saying another word, she left with Liam.
I waited for the door to close before turning to Noah. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
He rounded the bar to sit on the stool beside me, spinning me and positioning my legs between his. “It doesn’t matter. You’re nothing like your ancestors.”
A weight sank low in my belly. “You know my family?”
Of course, he did. Noah said shifters were near immortal, the Coles had probably lived in Woodland Falls for decades, if not longer. Had my family lived here that long too? My mother grew up here, though from what I knew, she left as a teen after a falling out with Joan.
“Your family knew about us, about the shifter world.”
“What?” I whispered the words so softly I hardly heard them. “If that’s true, wouldn’t I have known?”
Would I? Growing up, I didn’t exactly have a great relationship with my mother. She never spoke to me about anything important. She hardly spoke to me at all, too busy organizing where to ditch me before her next work trip. And I’d only spent one summer with Joan.
“Noah.” An uneasy feeling prickled along my nape. “What aren’t you telling me?”
He met my gaze and in that split second, I wished I hadn’t asked. I didn’t want to know the answer.
An awful feeling sank low and heavy in my belly.
“The Whitcomes are the original…hunters.”
Chapter 13
Noah
Mia stared at me for so long I wondered if she’d heard me. Did I say it aloud? ’Cause I sure as hell thought about it a million times during the past two weeks. Correction, during the past fifteen years.
Back then I didn’t know Mia was a Whitcome. Joan fostered a few kids over the years, and I assumed Mia was one of them.
“What did you say?”
I swallowed. “The Whitcome family are the original hunters. For centuries, they’ve hunted shifters for their blood, triggering the curse generation after generation.”
“No,” she whispered. “You’re lying.”
My heart cracked, splintering into jagged shards. “Why would I lie to you? I have nothing to gain from making this shit up.” My stomach twisted. “I have everything to lose.”
“Lose?” Her eyes narrowed, then realization dawned on her face. “As in me. Your…mate?”
I nodded.
I let her push my leg aside as she slid off the stool to stand. Secrets had a way of coming out eventually, I knew that, but I wished they weren’t mine. I thought I had more time. I wanted to tell her about the mating bond first.
She was nothing like the others of her kind, I sensed that deep in my soul.
Mia paced, stopping in front of a wrought iron wolf head hung on the back wall. She stood there, hands on hips, staring at my family’s crest. I hopped off the stool and crossed to her, sliding my hands up and down her arms.
“If Joan was a hunter, why didn’t she say anything to me when I came here?”
She twisted to face me, and the look on her face made my knees buckle. Shock, confusion, betrayal. It took every ounce of strength not to sweep her up in my arms and tell her everything would be all right. Would it? I didn’t know. Whether we had a future or not depended on this conversation.
I led her to the nearest chair and sat facing her. “Joan was different. She and my dad had an…understanding.”
“An understanding not to kill each other?”
“When you put it like that, it sounds a bit bizarre.” I took her hand in mine. “Joan had already triggered the hunter curse when my parents moved here but she hated the curse and the compulsion to kill for blood. She and my dad struck a deal. In exchange for his blood to keep the cravings at bay, Joan created a concoction to mask our shifter scent which kept our existence in Woodland Falls a secret, protecting us from other hunters.”
She thought for a moment. “My grandmother was an immortal hunter.” The creases in her brows deepened. “And my mother? Did you know her? Is she the same?”
I held her gaze. No more secrets. “Yes. But she didn’t agree with Joan’s deal. From what I know, your mother had a falling out with Joan and left town.” I squeezed her hand trying to reassure her. “It doesn’t matter what your mother is or isn’t like, you’re not her. I’ve known that from the first moment I saw you. I feel it in my soul.”
“How can you be sure? I might be. If what you say is true, I have the hunter curse. What if tomorrow or the next day, I wake up and have the urge to kill you for your blood like some sick vampire?”
I held back my smirk. “I have no doubt there’ll be times in our lives when you want to kill me. But wanting to and actively trying to are two very different things.”
Her brows furrowed. “If my grandma had the blood, how did she die of a heart attack? You said the blood healed and gave her near immortality.”
A lump thickened in the back of my throat. Fucking secrets. I should’ve learned my lesson in the beginning.
“After my parents died, Ash vowed to keep the Cole end of the bargain, but that was right about the time you first came to Woodland Falls.” I paused, not sure how to explain it. “I think Joan knew about us. I think she knew you were my fated mate. Right after you left, she told Ash that she’d continue providing us the concoction but no longer wanted blood. She fought against the bloodlust and the compulsion to kill every day.”
She sat back in the chair. “That’s why your wolf never stepped out of the forest. It always waited at the tree line. Even though you had an agreement, Joan was still your enemy.”
I nodded.
“So, she had no blood in her system to prevent the heart attack?”
My pulse kicked up, thumping around my body so fast it made my brain fuzzy. I let go of her hand to wipe mine along my jeans.
“Noah?”
I’d dreaded this moment from the second I found out who she was. No, before that. I’d dreaded this moment ever since Joan died. Ash said not telling Mia and lying weren’t the same thing, but it sure felt like they were.
Regardless of what my brothers thought, Mia deserved to know the whole truth. Joan was her grandmother. If she left because of it, then I’d lay my heart at her feet and beg her to stay.
“Noah?”
I lifted my gaze to hers. “Joan didn’t die of a heart attack. She died because of me.”
There. I said it. I finally fucking said it.
Her eyes gaped open. I tried to grab her hand again, but she pulled it out of my reach. “What?”
I swallowed the big-ass lump blocking my airway. “Someone discovered her secret and that she’d sided with shifters. It wasn’t long before a hunter stalked her house, terrorizing her every night but even then, she didn’t stop protecting us.”
I stared at the ceiling, instead of peering at my shirt half expecting to see a gaping hole where someone had torn out my heart.
“My wolf waited in the forest behind Joan’s house every afternoon for years, waiting for you.” An imaginary fist squeezed and twisted my heart, but I kept talking. I needed to get it all off my chest. “I became complacent and,
I dunno, angry that you never came back. Eventually, I gave up. I figured I’d missed my chance with you and I stopped going to Joan’s house. A week later, I sensed something was wrong with her, but I ignored it. That night a fucking hunter attacked her.”
Her fingers threaded through mine. “Oh, Noah.”
“By the time I swallowed my pride and got there, Joan was dead. Ash and I tracked the hunter all the way to Timber Falls. Before I tore the fucker apart, the local pack threw him in a cell so he could rot as a human and never again have access to shifter blood.”
I breathed my first full breath in nearly three months. I urged Mia to stand between my legs and peered up at her. “I’m so sorry.”
Her lips rolled inward. “It’s not your fault, Noah.”
“I stopped going to her house. I stopped protecting her. I failed you.”
She slowly shook her head. “No, you didn’t. The only one to blame is that hunter.” Her eyes widened. “That’s why the hunter didn’t attack us at the waterfall. He couldn’t sense you were a shifter.”
I nodded.
“But if the other pack locked him up, how was it the same hunter at the waterfall?”
“Somehow he escaped. But you don’t need to worry, the Timber Fall’s pack killed him. They’re not keen on second chances.”
She exhaled a deep breath but remained silent. We’d reached that point where there was nothing more to say. I’d laid it all out for her and now the choice was in her hands. The silence pounded in my ears as I waited.
I couldn’t lose her, not again.
“What if I become one of them?”
“You won’t. Shifter blood is the only way to trigger the curse. As long as you don’t drink the blood, you can fight the compulsion.” I pulled her toward me. “I know it’s a lot to process.”
“You think?” She gaped at me. “In a matter of days, I found out a whole other world exists, and not only am I destined for a guy who can shift into a wolf, but also my family spent years…” Her eyes widened. “Centuries, hunting wolves for their blood.”
Warlords, Witches and Wolves: A Fantasy Realms Anthology Page 88
