“Too much?”
“No.” She blinked rapidly, not letting me catch her gaze. “I’m not used to anyone flirting with me.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never indulged in a little sexy talk.” I stepped closer to her and took her gloved hands in mine. I refused to think of her alone with Tate.
“No need to work so hard when you own your mate.” A little puff of air floated between us when she scoffed. Fat snowflakes fell between us and dotted her hair.
My heart twinged and my wolf begged me not to say anything. To protect her to make up for that fatal time I couldn’t. But my love for Sarah had been too great to be kept a secret. “I had a mate before. She was killed when our pack was attacked.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” Neither of us said anything for a long moment. “Will you tell me about her?”
“She deserved better,” I muttered under my breath. “So do you.”
Willow had to understand that love like that only happened once.
“She had you,” Willow said softly. “I think she did pretty damn good.”
“I couldn’t save her—”
Willow shook her head. “No. Don’t think about that. Tell me your absolute favorite thing about your mate. What was her name?”
“Sarah.” I felt lighter the moment I said it. “Since you know Marcus and Matteo, it’s no big surprise football was a huge deal in our pack. We had some guys with serious talent. Sarah was their coach. Not officially, but she was the one who put together the scrimmages and watched all the tape to help the guys who had a chance at getting drafted by a big-league school get where they needed to be.”
Willow threw her hands up. “Great. I’m walking in the footsteps of a total badass.”
“Yeah, you are.” I had to remind myself to keep my guard up, no matter what my wolf thought he wanted. At least, until I knew this woman wouldn’t destroy me all over again. “She would’ve been impressed with the way you tore through the forest on that snowmobile.”
Willow hesitated before she took another step closer. “Would she have skinny-dipped in the hot springs?”
“Absofuckinglutely.” I’d spent the last seven years building walls, and my inner cynic wanted to graffiti them with all the ways Willow could be setting me up.
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet her, but I’m glad she brought you to me. It might be silly, but I believe in that stuff. If I hadn’t been sold to Tate, I wouldn’t have Hazel. And if you hadn’t gone through all the stuff you’ve dealt with, you wouldn’t be here. With me.” She kicked her boot in the snow. “Neither of us expected to be here, Carlos. I’m thirty years old, and this is my first real date. I’m terrified.”
“Me too,” I said softly. “Sarah and I always knew we were mates. We went on dates, but she knew me. Better than I knew myself.”
“I love hearing you talk about her. Because it makes me believe that fated mates are real.”
“They’re real.”
Our gazes caught and the snow melted away. The steam faded and everything in the forest stopped. It was just Willow and me.
I wanted to kiss her again, but I wasn’t convinced the first one wasn’t a mistake. A promise I couldn’t keep. There were so many reasons I couldn’t be this woman’s mate. She could betray me, and if I completed my contract, I’d kill the father of her daughter.
But my wolf liked this feeling of standing on the edge of the cliff and not knowing if I’d jump or fall.
“Show me what else is good in this forest,” I said before I did something we couldn’t come back from.
She blew out a shaky breath. “We need to get back on the snowmobiles for that.”
She cranked the throttle, and the roar cracked the tension between us like fingers of lightning. I straddled my own machine, feeling so different than when we arrived. I could blame it on the springs, but it was this she-wolf who’d broken down the massive walls I’d built around myself.
Willow powered up the winding path, and it wasn’t easy to keep up. I had a pretty good idea what she was running from, and if she thought I gave her the protection to finally break free...
It came with a price.
Her snowmobile caught air. Fuck. She must’ve hit a rock. Her body flipped in the air, almost in slow motion. Fur ripped through my skin. Wolf, this was not the time. I couldn’t be wasting precious moments ripping my clothes off when I needed to leap forward and catch her before she hit the ground.
But I was half man, half wolf, and totally useless.
She landed in the snow before I could get to her.
The snowmobile slid down the crooked path, narrowly missing her head. I pushed it away, and it rolled into a ditch.
Before I did anything, I had to finish my shift. Were those Willow’s fingers, helping me pull away my clothes? There was blood on her face, and she was smiling at me, but it was one of those surreal smiles that didn’t reach her eyes. I turned wolf, and she fell back into the snow. Her eyes fluttered, and then she was out.
I had to get her someplace safe until she came to. The snow was intensifying, and I didn’t know this part of the mountain. No sign of Stephanie’s drone. Ripping the camera off my snowmobile with my teeth, I nudged it inside the opening of Willow’s coat. Stephanie wouldn’t be able to see anything, but she’d be able to find us.
At least I hoped. Because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find our way back.
Chapter Eleven
Willow
I woke up in Carlos’ arms. And he appeared to be naked.
Wait. What?
He was definitely shirtless. And warm. And that earthy scent... like he’d just shifted. My she-wolf groaned inside me.
“Hey.” Carlos’ voice was raspy.
I blinked, trying to figure out where we were, and why he didn’t have any clothes on.
“I have a lot of questions.” I tried to sit up, mostly to see if he still had his jeans on, but my head weighed twice as much as it usually did, and that little bit of movement had sent the room spinning. I landed on his arm. Hard.
His jeans were on, and that was probably a good thing, since I remembered nothing.
He smiled down at me, and it was to enough hit the pause button on those awful spins. Temporarily. “Bet you do. Turns out, someone likes to go like a bat out of hell on a snowmobile.”
“Guilty.” I groaned. “I just...felt so...free.” I’d been in an accident. There were the spins again. I closed my eyes to combat them and inhaled his scent. That seemed to be the antidote. “How long have I been out?”
“A few hours. And you scared the hell out of me, because I know you’re not supposed to sleep after you hit your head.”
“They’ve changed that recommendation.” My voice was weak. “I get my recklessness from my nine-year-old. We’ve been through this a couple times. Especially after superhero movies come out. There’s no telling that girl she can’t fly.”
He chuckled. “How does the rest of you feel?”
Giving my limbs a wiggle, I winced. “Sore.”
“You flipped your handlebars and almost got run over by the mobile. I started to shift as soon as you were airborne. My animal thought you’d been attacked, and I started shifting before you even hit the ground. But I got there in time to make sure you didn’t get run over.”
Wow. “Worst first date ever.”
He scoffed. “Hardly. I hate that you got hurt, but I like that you’re willing to take chances, Willow. Where were you bringing us?”
“There’s this overlook on the side of the mountain where you can see the valley. This close to the full moon, the valley glows. I have a feeling you’ve seen a lot of ugly stuff in Sawtooth Forest. I wanted to show you why we fight so hard for this place.” Even when we fought with each other. “That’s why I’m on the show. Does Stephanie know where we are?”
“I brought you to the nearest cabin. Didn’t want to move you too much. We’ve still got one of the GPS devices.” He motioned to the other side of th
e small room, where he’d folded my outerwear and propped the camera on top of it. “I tried to signal Javier and Rick, but I don’t know if they heard me. And it’s really snowing. That will throw them off our scent.”
“So nobody has any idea where we are. What about our phones?” Reception was sketchy at best this deep in the mountains. “What time is it? I need to get back to Hazel and the girls.”
Carlos pulled me tighter into his arms, with his lips resting against my hair. He didn’t say anything right away, but the vibration of his body and his warm breath were comforting in a way that Tate had never been. “I’ll get you home. As soon as it’s safe.”
I hated to leave his arms, but I wriggled away. My body protested as I moved. Everything hurt, and I’d be lucky if all I came away with was some black and blues. He put his strong hand on my back, helping me stand. I squeezed my eyes closed and swallowed the pain. We were so close to the full moon, and if I could shift, I could heal. In my wolf form, I could run down the mountain and get back home.
But a piece of me liked being here, just Carlos and me. Even though I was in some serious pain and I was failing at the no-panic thing about getting back to Hazel, my she-wolf wanted to be close to him. He’d held me in his arms and kept me safe when I couldn’t do it on my own.
My ex-husband had never done that for me.
The shack Carlos had brought me to had probably originally been used for hunting. It had seen better days and stank of other wolves. Which would make things interesting if we couldn’t get out of here until the full moon.
No. We’d be home safe in our own beds tonight.
I turned to Carlos, wondering where he went home to. I was alone in a mountain shack with a rogue wolf. All the surveillance that was meant to keep me safe had failed. “Who are you? Like, why are you here?”
Not as smooth as I’d hoped, but the time for keeping secrets was over.
“I’ve asked myself that same question many times.” He ran his hand through his long, dark hair. “A few weeks ago, I couldn’t go anywhere without hearing about Matteo Shaw. The Alaska Bloodhounds’ secret weapon. No one could figure out where he came from. But I knew. I did a little research and found the shelter videos.”
“With Marcus and Jasmine.” Matteo’s brother. It was the first one, shown during the finale of the first season. A sweet little video with Jasmine introducing a pair of mated birds to Marcus, intertwined with moments of the two of them falling in love.
He nodded. “We thought Marcus was dead. Me and the guys would’ve never left him behind if he was alive.”
“You can’t blame yourself for that.” A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold swept over me. The Sawtooth pack was no stranger to attack and heartache. I’d been lucky that I’d never been face to face with the worst of it.
“I don’t,” he said. There was something different about his voice. Something dark. Tonight, he was introducing me to the side of him who’d seen too much. “But I questioned if Marcus was who he said he was.”
Marcus Shaw had rocked the Sawtooth pack with his arrival. Tate swore he was a spy for the embattled Montana pack. I didn’t expect Tate and Carlos to see eye to eye on anything, but especially not this.
“What did you decide about Marcus?”
“He’s the real deal,” he said, and I let out a relieved sigh. “Do you have many people coming here, saying they aren’t who they say they are?”
My heart was pounding. “I don’t know. Do we?”
Carlos walked over to the pile of clothes, picked up the GoPro, and threw it out into the snow. Oh, shit.
“Why did you do that?” I asked, panic clear in my voice. “They won’t be able to find us.”
“It’s right outside the door,” he countered. He strode back to me. “There are some things the public doesn’t need to know about this pack.”
“What do you know about the pack? You won’t even tell me where you came from.”
“I did. I’m from the Wyoming pack. The same one that Marcus and Matteo came from, and Sawtooth gave them a place.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t that easy.”
“They had to prove themselves. That’s what I’m doing right now. When I came looking for Marcus, I didn’t know who the alpha was. I talked to any wolf willing to talk to me. And we found out there are a lot of unhappy wolves in this pack.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Tell me about it.”
“Now it’s my job to find out what they plan to do about it.”
My blood ran cold. “You agreed to take me out to get information about Tate.”
Chapter Twelve
Carlos
“Not exactly. I took you out because...” I took a deep breath. I couldn’t tell her it was because I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Not when I wasn’t sure I could make her mine. Or that she’d want me after this confession. “Tate has plans, and I think you know something about them.”
Willow blinked rapidly, and her breath caught as she considered my claim.
“What does Tate have planned?” She raised her chin, defiant. I was aware she could be pumping me for information. Seeing what I knew.
“He wants to attack Shadow Channing and make a claim on this pack. As soon as possible.”
“On the full moon.” She shook her head. “He asked me to keep Hazel this weekend. It was right before we headed out to meet you. I was nervous about the date and distracted by a houseful of people, so I said sure. He loves Hazel. He always wants to take her. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“He can love his daughter and still want to destroy his alpha.”
She tipped her head back, and her hand darted for the wall to steady herself. She was hurt. A bump had formed on the side of her head. I’d done the best I could to clean up the blood with my T-shirt and melted snow. I stepped forward to steady her and hated that she shied away from my touch. But I didn’t back away. She needed to hear this.
I was almost bold enough to think she needed me.
“I didn’t choose him. I chose something else. Something better,” she said between deep breaths.
“That’s given him fuel for the attack.”
“I’m tied to him forever because he’s the father of my daughter. I swore I’d never take Hazel away from her dad.”
“I’m not asking you to choose between a wolf you just met and the father of your child. But you need to know what he’s capable of. That he stopped me on the way back to the Stepchild the other night and told me to stay the hell away from you.”
“But you’re still here.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “I hate that my first instinct is to apologize for him.”
I was cautiously optimistic that she wasn’t working with him.
“I’m still here because I know what it’s like to have my pack taken away from me. Marcus was a slave for seven years. You deserve a chance to live your life.”
She considered me, eyelids drooping, stance wobbling. I had to get her off her feet before she passed out again. This was too much, too soon, but she deserved to know what was happening, and I was tired of hiding.
“Is that the only reason you’re here?”
“No. I like you, Willow. There’s nowhere I’d rather be right now. That’s a problem for a wolf who’s already found his mate and who’s been hired to kill your ex-husband.”
She gasped. “You can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’s Hazel’s dad.” She rubbed her head, wincing. “I wish I had more reasons than that, but that’s all I’ve got.”
“It’s a good reason.”
“I’ve spent so much time—energy—telling people that we had a good marriage. That Tate treated me well. But this time by myself, and especially this time with you, have made me realize that’s not true.”
I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her she deserved so much more. My wolf was begging me to do it. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said sof
tly. “I thought dating was supposed to be fun. Not full of concussions and hitmen.”
I moved in to steady her before she lost her balance.
“Can I tell you something?”
She groaned, either at the thought of another bomb dropping or in an effort to stay conscious.” “Carlos, I—”
“This is the best night I’ve had in a long time.” My wolf was satisfied and there was a piece of me, a fucking batshit crazy piece of me, who wanted to make this work. Who believed I could have another mate. Even if she once belonged to Tate Ulrich.
Especially if she belonged to Tate Ulrich, my beast snickered.
“Me too.” She swayed, and I led her to the ground and put my arms around her. She melted against me, and for a moment, I thought she was out again. Which would’ve been very bad. She needed medical attention. Or she needed to shift.
I could only see a sliver of the sky through the window, and the snow obscured my view of the moon, but it wasn’t quite full yet. I hadn’t been in Sawtooth Forest long enough to know how full these wolves needed the moon to be before they could depend on their animals.
“We need to try to get home.”
“We’re better off waiting for daybreak, and for the snow to pass. I’ll carry you down this mountain if I need to. But the most important thing is for you to get stronger and we stay warm.”
“How will we do that here?” Her voice weakened.
“I can keep you dry.” Some protector I was.
A wolf howled and her eyes snapped open. “Is that Javier and Rick?”
I inhaled deeply, but all I could smell was Willow. Her sweet, spicy scent, like a burst of spring on a mountain morning. The snow was fucking with us in more ways than one.
“Hope so.”
“It’s not time for our pack to shift. Not yet.”
“Are you sure? Because if you can shift, it would be a lot easier to get you home.”
She drew away from me, but our gazes locked. Her she-wolf was close, and it was making my animal go haywire.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve induced a shift.” Her fingers traced over my biceps and up to my collarbone. “Good girls stay human.”
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