by Celia Kyle
She took a beat to collect herself, and in that brief moment realized that her father’s voice wasn’t the only one that sounded familiar. Lance’s was brash, commanding, defiant. As always, his harsh tone set her teeth on edge. The other though… It seemed to soothe her frayed nerves.
How can that be?
“The National Circle said no enforcers, Coleman,” the deep, rumbling voice reached out for her with invisible hands.
She’d heard it before, but she couldn’t quite place it. She’d never so much as met a wolf from the Warren pack, and she knew the wolves in her own. Who…? As her brain raced to connect the dots, her heart thumped so loudly in her chest, she was surprised all the wolves in the clearing didn’t hear it.
Stepping out from her hiding spot, Jane’s gaze zeroed in on the man towering over her father. Muscles flexed and rippled under his tight black t-shirt as he glowered at Lance, a strand of his shaggy brown hair falling in his light brown eyes. Even at a distance, the sun glinted off the gold in them.
Even after so many months of carrying his pup, an intense need washed over her, coating every cell in her body. Memories of how he’d taken control of her and made her scream with pleasure consumed her mind.
She managed another shaky step forward, the crack of a breaking twig drawing everyone’s gaze, but she only cared about one. It seemed to take ages to find her voice, and then it came out as barely a whisper.
“Reese?”
CHAPTER 5
Reese couldn’t believe his eyes. He saw her standing there, but… there was no way she could be there. Right?
Since Lance Coleman had arrived in the clearing—escorted by six massive enforcers—Reese hadn’t been able to pinpoint the familiar scent that clung to the man. Coleman’s natural aroma nearly overpowered it, but it remained. Like a gentle undercurrent in a warm pool of water. The moment he’d seen the enforcers, Reese’s senses had gone into overdrive and his wolf had howled to be released. If it hadn’t been for that soothing flavor, he might have obliged—and mostly likely died in the process. But that scent had somehow calmed him enough to control himself.
Then the wind had blown a spiral of dust through the clearing, strengthening the delicious, almost erotic smell. He’d been powerless to breathe it in deeply, memories flooding his confused brain. A hot night in Ft. Lauderdale. A sexy woman with curves that drove him wild. A spray of strawberry blonde hair on his pillow. He hadn’t stopped thinking about the stranger for the last five months, but not once had he recalled her aroma at such an inopportune time. He needed to focus, not daydream like a pup with a crush.
With the snap of a twig, his universe flipped upside down in an instant.
Jane stood frozen in front of the black SUV, her eyes wide and her jaw slack. Fuck, she was just as beautiful as he remembered. His wolf rumbled with recognition and strained to be released. It wanted to burst free and take up position in front of her; protect her from the other single males. He wanted to break into a grin and sweep her into his arms, but none of this made sense. He remained in place, unable to think or speak.
Only when her hands wrapped across her belly, almost as if protecting the bump there, did he spot the soft swell. Another gust of wind carried the smell of her mixed with a hint of something else as well. How had he not recognized it? He smelled himself on her. No, not on her. In her. The truth glowed in her pleading gaze.
The pup she carried was his.
Every ounce of moisture in Reese’s mouth evaporated and his heartbeat thundered in his ears. He had so many questions, the first of which was what she was doing there. How had she found him, and why approach him at this completely crazy moment?
Were she and the baby healthy?
The world around him completely forgotten, Reese took a step toward her. “Jane?”
The Coleman alpha blocked him, his big barrel chest bumping into Reese’s. Reese tried to sidestep the older wolf to get to Jane, but the asshole kept stepping in his way. Finally, the man snarled and tufts of fur sprouted from various, unattractive parts of him.
“Don’t you dare speak to my daughter!”
Reese reeled back, unable—unwilling? —to process what Lance Coleman had just said. He stared into the man’s furious, crazed eyes, utterly aghast. Jane was his daughter? Jane was a Coleman? It wasn’t as if their packs did much—okay, any—socializing, but how had they not at least seen each other growing up? Surely someone must have known.
Brody. Reese shot a glance to his beta, who simply shrugged.
“I tried to warn you.”
Reese swallowed hard. Was that why she’d been in Ft. Lauderdale that night? Had Coleman sent his daughter to seduce him, the enemy of their pack?
He shot her a glance, but couldn’t read her expression. Well, he could—she looked as confused and excited as he felt—but he wasn’t sure if he could trust her. If it had all been a set-up, what was the end game? To compromise him in some way?
The idea she’d been playing him tore his heart to shreds, but that couldn’t stop the surge of protectiveness welling inside him. He wanted to believe that need to shield her was really just for the baby, but he couldn’t deny the feelings extended to Jane herself. He shook the confusion from his brain and came to a decision. Regardless of whether Jane had betrayed him, there was a baby in the mix now.
Everything else—including his pride—came second.
Glancing around, he wondered if anyone else could sense what he knew, but either they were blind or they chose to ignore the situation. Lance Coleman looked almost insane, his beta appeared jealous, and their enforcers circled the gathering standing with blank, stony faces.
Reese took another step toward Jane, but her father—her father!—stepped in front of him once more. Reese’s irritated snarl was matched by a throaty, threatening growl from Lance. Reese realized he was losing control when fur sprouted from his knuckles. Judging by the long hairs sliding down Coleman’s nose, the older wolf was losing control, too.
Movement caught Reese’s eye. Jane scurried closer to them, her eyes never leaving his, pleading for something. Understanding, perhaps? He didn’t know, and right now it didn’t matter. Things were going downhill fast.
“Daddy?”
Her voice was a soft symphony, and it boggled Reese’s mind that her father ignored her. His gaze remained trained on his opponent, trying to burn him alive with a mere look.
Jane’s gaze flicked between Reese and her father. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Daddy…”
“Go back to the car and mind your place,” he snarled without so much as shifting his eyes in her direction. “This is pack business.”
A stricken look flashed in Jane’s eyes at her father’s coldness, and that protectiveness surged inside Reese again. He was about to tell the older man to treat her with the respect the daughter of an alpha deserved, but a slight shake of her head stayed his tongue.
Jane reached a trembling hand out and laid it on Lance’s shoulder. “Daddy, listen—”
“Enough!” he roared, spinning around, his arms flailing in blind fury. One hand connected with her cheek, sending her sprawling into the dirt.
The sight of this man, this father striking his own daughter would have been enough to send Reese into a rage, but that Lance had knocked down the mother of Reese’s child was more than his wolf could bear. Even if he had wanted to salvage anything from this meeting, there was no going back.
Before he could even blink, Reese released his wolf. Normally, he relished the sensation of his arms lengthening and hands melding into great, brown paws, but his sole focus was on the soft spot on Lance’s neck that pulsed with his life force. Except, before his shift was complete, Lance began his own transformation into a massive, if aging, sandy-colored beast.
“No!” Jane screamed. “Don’t hurt him!”
She scrambled toward the two wolves on her hands and knees, and Reese barked at her. He had no idea which of them she was trying to protect, but he couldn’t have
her risking their child in a vain attempt to stop the inevitable. Somehow, she understood him and scuttled back the way she’d come, heading for the shaded tree line.
As large as Lance Coleman stood as a wolf, Reese had the physical advantage. Not by much, but enough. They circled each other, foamy drool dripping into the dust at their feet, as they waited for the right moment to attack. Behind Coleman, his beta shifted into a wolf so white he was almost albino and flanked Reese, teeth bared.
Strictly speaking, that was against protocol. When alphas challenged each other, their betas and enforcers stepped back and let the big boys duke it out. But this beta was small and weak. He wouldn’t dare attack Reese, and if he did, he’d regret it. The Coleman enforcers glanced at each other nervously, but stayed in their human forms.
Lance must have seen Reese’s momentary distraction and took his shot. He lunged, his yellow muzzle snapping and his teeth gnashing. He tried to find purchase on Reese’s fur, but Reese was faster. He spun and latched onto the scruff of Lance’s neck, a coppery taste filling his mouth.
For a brief moment, Reese thought the altercation was over, that he’d won, but a streak of dark fur knocked him sideways and he lost his grip on the other alpha, who skittered away. Reese regained his footing and saw the cause of the disruption. Brody had tackled the thin, pale beta, who lay struggling mere inches from where Reese had been holding Lance. The bastard had tried to sneak up on Reese from behind.
Fucking Colemans.
He should’ve known they wouldn’t play by the rules—after all, they never really had in all the years their packs remained enemies. Now, lowest of all, their alpha had used his own daughter to confuse Reese’s allegiance. Who would send a female to seduce an enemy? An even better question was, who would agree to such a heinous plan?
Reese glanced at Jane again to make sure she was all right in spite of all his suspicions, but the look on her face made him second-guess himself. She could have only been scared for her father’s safety, but her eyes never wavered from Reese. A warm glow filled him and the truth came into sharp focus.
Jane was faultless. She hadn’t been sent by her father to seduce him. They had come together on their own, and now that his head had cleared from the grief of his father’s passing, he knew something else. Jane was his mate. Not just because she carried his child, but because it was their fate. After all this nonsense was finished, he’d carry her to his cabin in the woods and claim—
Something barreled into him as he mused, knocking him flat and bringing him back to the present. Lance’s muzzle snapped at Reese’s neck, his blazing, insane eyes glued to his opponent’s jugular, but Reese managed to roll them both to their sides and pull his hind legs up between them.
A switch flipped and a deep, guttural growl rumbled up from deep inside Reese as he kicked at Lance’s exposed belly. Each kick was for his unborn child, for his mate, for himself, and each kick grew harder and harder as he vented his rage on the man who had betrayed them all.
He could feel Lance weakening from the assault, and a small voice inside told him to back off, but then the image of the man hitting his own daughter fueled his fury. Suddenly sharp teeth buried deep into his shoulder, drawing a scream of rage and pain from him.
The Coleman beta had broken free from Brody’s grip and leapt on Reese, bloodlust glowing in his icy blue eyes. Reese snapped his powerful jaws at the beast and managed to clamp down on an ear. The wolf released his mouthful of Reese and howled in pain. Before Reese could go in for the kill, the white wolf was dragged away. That was followed by strong hands wrapping around Reese’s ankle, pulling him from the Coleman alpha.
Writhing around until he could see who dared break up a fight to the death between two alphas, Reese started with surprise. Roman Flynn, alpha of the National Circle, towered over him, his dark brown hair in disarray and his green eyes blazing.
Shit.
Roman’s beta, Silas, and enforcer, Dane, guarded Lance Coleman and his whimpering beta. Brody stood behind them, panting and slightly bloodied but looking otherwise unharmed.
“What the fuck is going on here!” Roman shouted, commanding everyone’s attention and obedience.
Brody shifted back into his human form and stepped forward. “We got here early so the Colemans couldn’t ambush us, and look…they brought six enforcers when you specifically instructed us not to.”
Roman shifted his gaze between Reese and Lance. “This meeting was meant to broker peace between your packs. You’ve both disgraced yourselves and your packs today.”
“But they—” Brody tried to object, but Roman cut him off.
“The National Circle will deal with each pack separately, since apparently neither of you are capable of remaining civil or following simple god damned orders. If I get so much as a whiff that either of you have crossed this boundary line, the full wrath of the National Circle will rain down an ungodly fucking firestorm upon you!”
Roman, Silas and Dane stood in a line, arms crossed and scowls warning them all not to cross them. Lance Coleman and his beta shifted back to their human forms and headed for their SUVs. Reese rejoiced internally at their battle scars—especially the devious beta’s. His ear hung halfway off his head and blood poured down his neck.
Their enforcers followed, with one gently helping Jane to her feet. Reese’s wolf eyes watched the man’s every movement, tensed and ready to attack if he so much as made Jane wince. Reese hated the sight of the man touching her, but with the National Circle standing watch, he couldn’t very well do what every fiber of his being screamed to do: tear the enforcer’s throat out and drag Jane into the forest so he could claim her as his own. Then they would be a family, and Jane and their pup would be safe forever.
That would come… just not today.
CHAPTER 6
Since the failed peace summit, Jane had spent nearly every minute of the next week in her room. She’d taken all her meals at her desk and spent her days in bed reading, talking to her baby, and trying to figure out her next move.
Jane had been a bit of a pariah before the meeting, but that was nothing compared to how her pack treated her now. When she dared to venture out of her room, only her mother and Ian would look her in eye. Sometimes she’d catch people glaring in her direction, but they’d just turn away and pretend she didn’t exist. As far as her pack was concerned, she was persona non grata.
That didn’t really bother her. After all, she’d fought tooth and nail to go to college so she could create a life outside the pack, and everyone had considered her a traitor. But because she was the alpha’s daughter, they’d kept their mouths shut. At least until they’d thought she was out of earshot. After the meeting with the Warren alpha—her baby’s father—they didn’t bother hiding their disdain.
Honestly, she didn’t care what any of them thought. Like it or not, she was going to have her baby. The question remained, though, if that baby would have a father.
Reese was never far from her thoughts. As much as she fantasized about him dropping in to see how she was healing, that would be impossible. First, he’d have to fight his way through the entire pack to reach her. A pack who would happily tear him sixteen new assholes. Second, he’d then have to somehow get past her father and his goons. Third, if the National Circle caught wind of such a visit—when they’d forbidden any contact—he’d be stripped of his status and exiled. It was tantamount to a death sentence since wolves needed a pack to survive.
You and your baby need a pack to survive too, a voice whispered in her head.
“Shut up,” she mumbled and covered her head with the thick comforter. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get away from herself that easily. The voice was right. She needed a pack—that’s why she’d returned in the first place—but her own had all but rejected her. No doubt her pup would be even less welcome.
Snuggling into the warm, dark depths of her bed, she daydreamed about moving into Reese’s pack. He’d protected her that day, and she knew he’d also been pro
tecting his baby. He either smelled her pregnancy or somehow sensed it, but either way, he knew. No alpha worth the title would allow his pup to be raised without him. He’d come for her, she just knew it, and when he did, she’d live happily ever after as a Warren wolf.
Only…
The truth hit her like a slap in the face. Neither pack would want her or her mixed child. The baby would be reviled because of the half of him that didn’t belong. The Warrens might be more accepting of her at first, but they’d never trust her. Then, as soon as a towheaded Coleman baby was born, they’d turn on them both, and possibly even Reese. Hugging her tummy, tears burned behind her eyes as she frantically racked her brain for a solution.
A soft knock on her door brought her out from under the covers. Her mother poked her head in and smiled. Not for the first time, Jane was struck by Ginger’s impossible beauty and prayed she’d look half as good at the same age.
“Hi, honey,” Ginger said, closing the door gently behind her.
Jane stretched and yawned as she sat up. “What’s up?”
“Just thought you’d like some company.” Ginger sat beside Jane, cupped her chin, and tipped her face to the side. “Let me see your bruise.”
The mark on her cheek had faded to an ugly green, which seemed to satisfy her mother.
“Almost as good as new,” Ginger said with a sad smile.
Jane grimaced. “Almost.”
“I know I wasn’t there, Jane, but—”
“He didn’t mean it,” Jane finished for her. “Yeah, you’ve said that already.”
“It’s not like him to lose control that way.” Her mother entwined her fingers with Jane’s and stroked the back of her hand.
“It’s not like him to snap at you, either,” Jane said.
In the past week, the few times she’d heard her father’s voice, it had been raised in a gruff shout, calling her mother’s name. He didn’t ask questions anymore—he made demands—and based on her mother’s pained expression, both women knew it was true.
