Hunting Season

by Kate Rudolph

  It felt more vindictive than she normally was and she wondered if that was part of being a werewolf, but maybe it was just part of being a Selby.

  "Are you sure?" Owen asked. "Are you sure you can trust your family?"

  "I trust them enough," she said. It was way too complicated of a relationship to leave to simple trust. Would AR sell her out for the right opportunity? Probably. Would he screw her over if he needed to? Absolutely. Would he do something that would get her killed? Probably not. And would he make someone pay if they hurt her? Yes.

  "Can you give us a minute?" Owen asked the other guys, and both of them left.

  He waited several seconds, probably waiting until they were far enough away to not overhear what he was about to say.

  "What is it?" Stasia asked. Owen looked troubled and she didn't like that look on his face.

  "There's something I haven't told you. I haven't told anyone." He was barely talking above a whisper and he kept looking out the entrance to the kitchen as if he expected Vega or Andre to walk in at any moment.

  "I thought we said no more secrets." Stasia would have been angry, but he was telling her now and apparently this was a big one.

  "It's not like that," he promised. "Or maybe it is. I just needed time to think about it. One of the guys who was working on your security team, I think he was there the night that the ritual was performed on all of us. I'm not absolutely certain, but the faces of those men are burned into my memory. Could be a coincidence. It could have just been a simple job and your family doesn't know. But before you turn anyone over to them I want you to understand that."

  So her father might've hired a man who was engaging in occult rituals and the kidnapping of military officials from the US military base in Germany. It sounded possible. But did that mean her father had something to do with it?

  "My family is very…" She didn't know how to explain it. "My dad doesn't believe in magic. Neither does my brother. I'm not saying this guy wasn't there. But I have trouble believing that they have something to do with what happened to you and your people. But we definitely need to tell Gibson."

  Owen nodded in agreement. "And the guys out there?"

  "We're still turning them over to my father. He'll take care of them."

  "You know what take care of them means, don't you?"

  There was a vicious part in her that wanted to smile, but Stasia held back. She'd made her decision, there was no need to gloat. "I absolutely do. Maybe they should have thought twice before attacking me."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Gibson wasn't in the city. Owen was kind of glad for that. It meant he could take Stasia out to the farm and show her where they would run as wolves whenever they wanted.

  It had taken a little while to get a team of Stasia's father's men to come out and pick up the would be kidnappers, but once they were gone, he and Stasia took off for Pennsylvania.

  Stasia seemed full of nervous energy and Owen tried to remember back to the day after his first shift. The whole world seemed new and different, full of opportunities he had never expected.

  He reached over and laced their hands together and gave her hand a squeeze. He didn't have reassuring words to give her. He couldn't say that everything would be all right as long as they were together, even if he sort of believed it. The world was changing around them. They were changing. But maybe that was okay.

  "Do you think he's going to be angry?" Stasia asked, hitting on a thought that Owen had been avoiding for a while.

  "He's not the type to get angry. He gets disappointed." Gibson wasn't quite as good at acting disappointed as Owen's mother was, but the man was pretty damn good. And thinking of his mother, Owen wondered if he should be getting ready to introduce Stasia to her. He kept that thought to himself. They would deal with that later.

  They ended up at the farm after about a two hour drive. Gibson's car was parked in the garage. No one else was there, and Owen was glad for that.

  He didn't want to see the angry looks on his packmates' faces when they found out he had kept this information from them. But had he really? What could he have said? He knew what some of their abductors looked like? It was just as possible that everyone else knew the same thing. Now he just had more information.

  "I'll back you up if you want to run away," Stasia offered with a gentle smile.

  "I love you." The words tipped out without a thought, but they were real, true. She was here with him even after going through one of the most traumatic experiences a person could go through. One they had absolutely no preparation for. And yet she was comforting him.

  Stasia smiled and raised their clasped hands to kiss the back of his hand. "Let's go do this."

  It was okay that she didn't say it back. It was still new. Way too new. People had called Owen impulsive before, but this was impulsive even for him. He didn't care. He knew that Stasia was the one for him and there was no reason to ignore that.

  Besides, she had already called herself his mate. That had to mean something.

  They headed inside the cabin and Owen found Gibson in his office. He wasn't surprised to see Owen and Stasia; he had known they were coming.

  "You look well," he told Stasia, looking her up and down as if checking to see if any of her werewolf traits were peeking out through her human skin. Gibson knew how it worked, at least as well as the rest of them knew, but Stasia was the first new addition to their pack, the first one added through a bite and not through a ritual. They would have to see if that changed things.

  "I am well," Stasia agreed. "Not well rested, but not likely to lose control of my wolf and terrorize the city."

  Gibson laughed. "If you want to run, you're welcome. We have plenty of land here and the neighbors are not nosy."

  It was very true, and Owen looked forward to the day when he could go on a run in his other skin with Stasia at his side. Would she want to go today? He supposed it all depended on how well Gibson reacted to what he was about to say.

  "We didn't come here because of Stasia's shift," said Owen as he took a seat. Stasia sat down in the chair next to him.

  "Really?" asked Gibson. "Then why are you here?"

  There was no sense wasting time. "It's about what happened in Germany."

  Gibson looked confused. "I know what happened in Germany. I was there. Unless you've been holding out on me."

  Owen winced. He had been holding out. "I remember the faces of some of the men who kidnapped us. Or at least the ones who held us before the ritual started. And a few days ago, I'm almost certain I saw one of them working on the security detail that Stasia's brother hired. His name is Russ Hill and I saw personnel files for all of the security team, but there was no mention of a trip to Germany. He was supposed to just be regular security. But I think he was there." The more Owen spoke, the more sure he became.

  Russ Hill had been there that night in the Black Forest. He'd been holding a gun and standing on the periphery, determined to keep Owen and his pack members in the magic circle. He didn't know how Hill had come to be there or if he knew about werewolves and magic, but it was the first real lead they had on the people who had hurt them.

  Gibson didn't look shocked. He didn't even look surprised. "Russ Hill," he said, like he was testing out the syllables. "Can't say I've heard of him. Do you still have the personnel file?"

  Owen pulled out his phone and brought up the information before sharing it to Gibson's email. Gibson opened it on his computer and took a look. There was a personnel picture of Hill that had been taken by the Selby Group as well as a picture that might have been from social media. He didn't smile and he wore a generic looking suit. He could have been anyone. Just looking at the picture Owen would not have recognized him. But when he saw him in person, he knew.

  "This is the guy?" asked Gibson.

  "He doesn't look like much, but he was there." The sense of torch fire tickled Owen's nose as a flashback threatened to pull him in. Stasia reached out and grabbed his hand, anchoring him
in the present.

  "You're not the only one who recognized someone that night," Gibson admitted. "And I still have some friends back in Germany who might be able to look into some things. I think we've waited to figure out what happened to us for long enough. We're healthy now, and our pack is growing. We need to know who we are, what we are. We can't just sit around and live with this any longer. This is going to change things. We might be kicking a hornets’ nest, are you ready?" Gibson didn't look at Owen when he asked—the question was for Stasia. She was the newest member of their pack, and her life was the one being disrupted the most at this moment.

  But Stasia smiled. "I guess that will make my life as your doctor more interesting."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The news that Owen gave to Gibson didn't send the world into a frenzy. As a matter of fact, things started to calm down in the two weeks after that. There were no more attempts to kidnap Stasia and she and Owen settled in to something new and comfortable.

  And wonderful.

  His things had started migrating to her house. Slowly at first, and then she suddenly noticed that he had taken over half of her closet. Eventually Stasia asked him when she could expect a rent check, but Owen just laughed and offered to pay in sexual favors.

  It was easy, and fun, and freeing.

  She was growing into her life as a werewolf and already had plans to start researching the limits of what that meant with her pack. She was their doctor now and while they weren't getting into scrapes that needed medical attention every week, she had more skills than just sewing up wounds.

  She and Em were able to squeeze in a final dinner before her sister left for her tour, and Em had only spent about half that night pestering her with questions about lycanthropy. The other half of the night had been spent complaining about issues with her own security detail and Stasia had half an idea that Em was going to end up asking one of the pack to come help her out before the tour was done.

  And it was finally little Emmy's birthday party. Stasia had made as many excuses as she could, but her family was persistent and it was the perfect opportunity to show her mate off to everyone.

  She just hoped that AR didn't rub it in her face that he was technically the reason she and Owen had met. That would be completely insufferable.

  "You're sure they're not going to be weird?" Owen asked as he pulled his car into the private parking lot of her father's building.

  Stasia grimaced. "Yes, they're going to be weird. They're always weird. But you're a werewolf. You can handle weird." She leaned in close and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "And if you behave, I'll make it worth your while."

  "Really? How?" His eyes shifted to that wolfish yellow that she was growing familiar with before quickly shifting back to their human brown. Owen was working hard to get control of his wolf, and he was getting better at it. He said that now that his wolf had claimed his mate he was happy to cooperate and let the human make most of the decisions.

  "I was thinking we could go for a run later."

  "It's like you read my mind." Stasia wasn't talking about the human kind of run. No, this would be the kind of run that took place on four legs. But they had to get through the family gauntlet first.

  They ran into thirteen-year-old Heidi and fifteen-year-old Ally first, the two girls playing some kind of game near the entrance to the penthouse. Tabitha, the sister closest in age to her, was in the kitchen drinking wine with AR and Ethan, her twenty-two-year-old brother. Thomas wasn't there, since he was in college in Europe and apparently that was a good enough excuse to get out of the party. Neither was Selby, the one other sibling that was older than Stasia. But Selby didn't come to family events, being her father's not-so-secret love child.

  She could see Owen mouthing names as he met everyone, and she had a feeling that he had been studying.

  Riley and her daughter Emmy were sitting with Stasia's father in the living room, surrounded by what had to be hundreds of gifts. The four-year-old looked ready to start crying. Riley had a faraway look in her eyes that made her look older than her twenty-three years, and Armand Selby was the picture of a doting father.

  Stasia had seen that look before in her other stepmother's eyes. Divorce was around the corner. She only hoped that Riley could afford a good lawyer.

  Stasia gripped Owen's hand tight and introduced him to her father and Riley, and she was in a good enough mood that she even gave baby Emmy a hug.

  There was plenty to drink and enough food to feed an army. The whole party was miserable, though it got better when a few kids from Emmy's preschool showed up with their mothers in tow.

  "Who's this?" Tabitha asked her when Stasia and Owen made it back to the kitchen to hide out by the food and drinks.

  She didn't like the tone of her sister's voice. She and Tabitha had never really gotten along. Her father had dumped Stasia's mom for Tabitha's mom and Stasia hadn't yet known that that was just what Armand Selby did. But by the time she figured that out, the resentment was already in place and she and Tabitha had never been close.

  "Mob muscle, what do you think?" Anyone else, and Stasia probably would have had a normal conversation. Or as normal as any conversation went with any of her siblings who weren't her.

  "You're not still having trouble, are you?" AR came up beside them and shook Owen's hand. "I thought the contract was over. "

  "We're dating now," Stasia told her siblings.

  "And you brought him here? It must be serious." That was from Tabitha.

  "That it is. And I think this counts as doing our duty. Owen and I are going to cut out."

  "Dad won't like that," Tabitha warned. Beside her AR was nodding in agreement.

  "Dad doesn't like anything. And he's not even going to notice." She'd said hi, she’d done her duty. There was nothing else to worry about.

  Tabitha shrugged. "See you at the wedding."

  "What wedding?" Had Stasia missed something?

  That actually made Tabitha laugh. "Yours. Obviously."

  Stasia's eyes got wide and she didn't know how to react to that.

  Werewolf, she could handle.

  Mate, she could handle.

  Bride? That was a bit of a stretch.

  Owen put a hand on her back and led her out of the penthouse. They made it all the way to the elevator before he burst out laughing.

  "What?"

  "That wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be." He gasped it out between bouts of laughter.

  "It was worse, right?" It had to be worse. Stasia felt like she needed to shower just to get the awkwardness off of her.

  "We survived."

  The elevator counted down the floors as they headed to the parking garage, and just as they were about to get to the last floor, Stasia wrapped an arm around Owen and leaned into him. "I love you."

  Owen smiled and kissed her.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  They ran as wolves for hours. It wasn't Stasia's first run, but every single time her paws padded across the soft forest floor it felt new. Scents swirled around her and the night was alive with possibility.

  Owen ran, she chased. And then when she overtook him he was the one chasing, barking and pouncing at her, determined to win in a game with no rules and no losers. But eventually the run had to come to an end. There was a sweet temptation that called to her to stay on four legs and forget about her old life.

  But that temptation was weak compared to the thought of waking up next to Owen in human skin.

  They made it back to the cabin and went through the process of shifting and washing and eating. Wolfishness burned a lot of calories, and Stasia was eating more than she'd ever eaten in her life. Yet she still felt like she could eat more.

  Werewolf life had its perks.

  She'd had big plans for her mate following their appearance at Emmy's birthday party, but with the run over and her stomach full, all she wanted to do was curl up and sleep for a week. And judging by the way Owen's eyes were drooping, he felt the s
ame.

  They ended up snuggled together in one of the beds in the room they were using. It was a tight fit, but Stasia wasn't sleeping apart from her man if she didn't have to.

  "I had fun," she murmured as she teetered between wakefulness and sleep.

  "It wasn't so bad," Owen agreed.

  "Wait. What? What wasn't so bad?" She could still smell hints of the green night air and her body hummed with sated excitement from running as a wolf. There was nothing bad about it.

  "The party." Owen turned a bit, pulling her closer. "Your family was nice."

  "Nice?" Clearly he was delusional. "They were polite, I guess. I still don't see why we needed to be there." Did that make her a bad sister? Maybe. But she was pretty sure little Emmy had no idea who she was.

  "They're family." Owen said it like that explained everything. "Can't wait for you to meet mine."

  "What? When?" Yeah, that was a thing couples did. Stasia knew that. But it wasn't something Owen could just spring on her like that. "When, Owen?" she asked again when he didn't answer. But he had slipped into sleep and none of her prodding could wake him.

  Luckily Stasia's own exhaustion was too strong for her momentary panic to override it, and she soon followed her mate into sleep.

  Kisses trailing down her stomach woke her up and Stasia stretched into Owen's caress. Her made knew exactly how to wake her up and she loved it. She'd never been more sated, more in tune with another person. She didn't know how she'd been blessed with Owen, but she wasn't going to take him for granted.

  Not ever.

  She arched up as his tongue found her core and delved in, waking her to pleasure and letting her neurons explode with it. She moaned and said words she'd probably want to take back at some point, filthy promises she'd never be able to repay.

  Or maybe she would. With Owen, the possibilities were endless.