Miranda whimpered and wrapped her arms around his waist, and he pressed against her, flexing his hips to try to ease the urgent need building inside him.
He nibbled on her lower lip, breathing hard. Then, regretfully, he pulled away. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
He looked down at her, stroking her face.
“When I’m with you, I feel different,” he said quietly.
“Good different, or bad different?” she asked, peering up into his eyes.
“Good different,” he said. “But in my experience, anything that feels this good never lasts, and when it goes away, it’s worse than never having felt it at all.”
“That’s kind of a grim way to look at things,” she said. After a long moment, he rolled off her and stood up.
He reached down and held out his hand and helped her to climb to her feet.
He wasn’t ready to go back just yet. He liked being out here with her, under the starry sky.
“I grew up near a lake like this one,” he said as he brushed grass and dirt from his clothing.
“What was it like where you grew up?”
He scowled. “It was great when I was younger, until it wasn’t. Actually, I guess it never was great, and everything I thought was good there was a lie.” He hesitated, staring at the distant treetops across the lake with a faraway look in his eyes.
“Forget I said that,” he said. “It’s all in the past now anyway, and it doesn’t matter. I’ll never see those people again.”
He glanced at her. “What about you?” he said. “Why did you leave your pack?”
He half expected her to tell him that it was none of his damn business, since he wouldn’t answer any of her questions.
“I never fit in there. They took me in out of a sense of obligation after my mother ran off and left me. My father died in a challenge match when I was very young. He was an idiot; had an affair with a woman who’d been claimed. My mother was just one of the many women he screwed around with.” She sighed. “They always made me feel like I was a burden, until they found out…”
“What?”
She glanced at him, half defiantly.
“I can talk to ghosts.”
He didn’t quite know what to say to that, so he just nodded. “I see.”
“I know that sounds crazy.”
He shrugged. “It does, but I’ve heard crazier.”
“Thanks, I think.” She smiled ruefully. “So you believe me?”
“Let’s just say that I don’t disbelieve you. I haven’t seen any proof yet. I’m kind of a believe it when I see it guy.”
“Fair enough. Mostly I talk to Grammy Edith, but technically I can talk to anyone who’s died by violence. It’s really easy for me to talk to my grandmother, or anyone she introduces me to. For anyone else, I have to know more or less where they were killed, and I have to concentrate so hard it makes me puke. Unfortunately, this past year, one of my distant cousins found out about my abilities, and he decided he wanted to use me to contact some ghosts who had supposedly been ambushed after hiding a bunch of stolen gold.”
“Well, you could just tell him to kiss your ass, couldn’t you?”
She sighed. “Pack tradition said that if I didn’t find a mate by the time I was twenty-five, then my Alpha got to pick one for me, and he basically sold me to Joseph. Joseph’s an Alpha Prime, and nobody says no to him. I knew it was coming, so I moved up here a few months ago, but I guess they still think they own me, no matter where I am.”
She looked out across the lake “What was the lake like where you grew up? Was it as big as this one?”
“Much bigger,” he said. “We had a mating festival there every summer that lasted for weeks. Shifters from about all across the country would meet up there to sniff out potential mates. You’ve probably heard of it. The Mirror Lake Mating Festival.”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “Yeah, I’m familiar. Sounds like a wild time.”
He barked out a harsh laugh. “Yeah, I had some good times up there. Even thought I’d met the one, but…” He trailed off. “Forget I said that. I talk too much. Well, only when I’m with you.”
“I don’t mind,” she said. “We can go back now if you want. It was a very nice walk.”
They walked back to the cabin together in silence, but it didn’t feel awkward to him.
She slept in his room that night, and he spent a restless night on the couch wishing that she was by his side.
Chapter Six
In the morning, the growling of his own stomach woke him up. He sniffed at the air and drew in the the sizzling scent of bacon. He showered quickly and went into the kitchen to find the table already set. She was loading up their plates with thick slabs of bacon and piles of fluffy scrambled eggs with melting cheddar cheese mixed in.
“You don’t have to wait on me hand and foot,” he told her. He sniffed at the air and his stomach growled again. “Smells good, though.”
“I like cooking,” she assured him, handing him his plate.
“I’ll grill some burgers for us tonight,” he said. He set his plate down and held out her chair for her.
“Okay, taking turns is fine.” She went to get him some coffee. “But really, you’re letting me stay here, so I don’t mind helping out around the house. Are you working today? I can make your lunch.”
“Nah, I’ve got some money saved up from working construction all last year. I’m taking it easy this month.” He didn’t tell her why; the anniversary month of his parents’ death and his pack’s betrayal always put him in a sour mood, and he didn’t want to be on a job site with other people in his face all day long.
She didn’t pick up on his grim mood at all. She chattered nonstop throughout breakfast. “I’m just trying to avoid that awkward morning-after thing,” she said cheerfully.
“There is no morning after,” he growled.
“Yes there is,” she said. “We made out, and you admitted that you want me. And you were as hard as a rock. Also, I had a dream about you and you gave me multiple orgasms. Win for Miranda.”
“If you say so,” he grunted, getting up to grab the coffee pot. “Do you just blurt out everything that’s on your mind?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
He poured fresh coffee for both of them, shaking his head.
“By the way, I need to go buy some girl things, and there’s nowhere to buy them in the south. My friend Hephzibah’s going to mind my store for me today. What do you think of going into the western territory to the general store in Granite Flats?” she said. Granite Flats was the biggest town in the newly developed territory, and it was where most of the shifters went to do their shopping.
“You don’t have to pay me to hang out with you,” he said.
“You just admitted that you like spending time with me,” she said happily.
He had to fight not to laugh. Her cheerful demeanor was contagious. Damn it, she was forcing him to be happy. He would not stand for it. He was a mean, grouchy son of a bitch, and that was on a good day.
“Take it any way you want,” he said. “But you’re taking it wrong, just so you know. I had to go check up on something in the west anyway.”
“Oh, we’re giving my grandmother a ride, by the way. If it bothers you when I talk to her, I can wait until we get into town.”
Creel shrugged. “Talk away.”
Apparently Miranda’s imaginary grandmother was quite the pistol. As they drove, Miranda affectionately chided her for spying on shifters making out on Lover’s Lane and scaring the crap out of some jerk named Peter who was her friend Hank’s former son-in-law, and also cheating at a ghostly game of cards.
Creel didn’t mind it. If he hadn’t known that Miranda was speaking to an empty spot in the back seat, he’d have felt as if he were in his own family’s car back in the day…back before the Galewinds pack had ruined everything.
“How does your grandmother get around when she doesn’t have someone giving her a ri
de?” Creel asked as he pulled into a parking spot downtown.
“She doesn’t really need rides, I just wanted a chance to catch up on what she’s been doing the past couple days. She normally walks, or glides, or if she concentrates hard she can manifest somewhere else if she’s been there before. And she can find me anywhere and appear where I am.”
A thought occurred to Creel. “You said that you can only see people who died by violence.”
“Yes, something about that makes it harder for their energy to move on. They linger here for decades, sometimes centuries, wandering the Earth and generally being a nosy, interfering, pain in the ass.” Miranda shot the empty area in the back seat a severe look. “One who shouldn’t run around spying on people to get their jollies. It’s creepy.”
“Yeah, go ahead and smack me upside the head, see how that works out for you,” she added to Ghost-Grammy. Creel thought he actually felt the air inside the cab chill, dropping several degrees in temperature. And was that frost appearing on the windows?
Apparently insanity was contagious.
“But does that mean your grandmother…”
“Died by violence? Yes. She was ambushed by a guy from another pack, before I was born. It’s the stuff of legend; as she was dying, she stabbed him in the gut with a silver knife, and he died too.”
“Nice,” Creel said approvingly. “Your grandmother’s a badass.”
“Oh God, Creel, now her head just swelled three sizes bigger and she’s going to be unbearable for the next few days. More unbearable. Yeah, I went there, Grammy. Go find Hank and stay out of trouble, will you?”
They climbed out of the pickup truck.
“What did she say to that?” Creel asked.
Miranda gave him a reproving look. “Oh, I can’t repeat it,” she said primly.
* * * * *
Miranda couldn’t hide the grin that stretched from ear to ear as she and Creel walked up the street together.
A memory flashed through her mind. Years ago, watching Creel stride through the woods, bathed by sunlight… He’d looked exactly the same then as he did now. So handsome, so self-assured. He’d never spotted Miranda – she’d made sure of that. She’d had to.
Back in those days, she’d never dreamed that she’d be walking through town side by side with Creel. She glanced around, noting the looks she was getting from the people crowding the town square – especially the women. They were looking at her with a mixture of jealousy and curiosity.
Too bad nobody from her former pack was here to see it; that might be enough to put an end to their harassment. As far as she knew, though, the Coldwater jerks were camped out in an area northwest of Granite Flats.
Miranda and Creel were headed up the main street towards the general store when they heard a shout.
“Creel! Creel Jenkins!” A tall, scowling Alpha Prime, standing in the middle of the village green, impatiently waved at Creel, gesturing at him to come over.
Creel bit back a curse and ignored him.
“Angrim. Fucking asshole. Excuse my French.”
They reached the store just as the Alpha Prime hurried up to them with several other male wolf shifters at his heels.
“Excuse me,” he said self-importantly. “I waved at you to come over and you ignored me.”
Creel let out a low, rumbling growl and his face went furry. Miranda instinctively found herself placing her hand on Creel’s arm in a soft, gentle gesture, and she concentrated on sending calming thoughts to him – as if she really was his mate.
Creel’s anger was a thick, bristly barrier that radiated so intensely from him that Angrim blinked and took a step back and the shifters with him bowed their heads. Oddly, Miranda didn’t feel it too much; it was as if Creel was shielding her from the worst of it.
“From one Alpha Prime to another, don’t ever show me that level of disrespect again,” Creel said, his voice blurred as his fangs descended.
The two men stood there glaring at each other, but Angrim was clearly outmatched. All Alpha Primes were more powerful than other shifters, including Alphas, but some Primes were more powerful than others. Angrim had been elected to his position as chief of security for the Alpha Prime Summit because he was a talented bureaucrat with a genius for organizing things. However, in terms of raw strength, Creel could mop the floor with him.
Sweat beaded on Angrim’s forehead and trickled down his face, and he stepped back and bowed his head. Creel stopped broadcasting his rage and dominance.
“No disrespect intended. I am, however, the elected chief of security for—”
“I know,” Creel ground out. “Everyone knows. Get to the point.”
Angrim’s eyes flashed with anger, but he’d already been humiliated in front of several other shifters. He didn’t try to push his luck.
“We’ve been receiving threats from a new fringe human group who say they’ll bomb the new meeting house. Not only that, but we’ve intercepted a report directly from the Shifter Affairs Division in which they communicated with a human spy who’s already in our area and monitoring the activity here.”
Miranda felt a stab of alarm. She wasn’t much for politics, but if the Alpha Prime Summit was sabotaged, it would be disastrous for shifter-human relations all across the country.
“We need everybody to sign up for security shifts,” Angrim continued. “You haven’t signed up yet.” Now he’d taken on the tone of a petulant child.
“Yep. All you had to do was ask. Respectfully. I’ll take the overnight shift tonight,” Creel said coolly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, we’ve got some shopping to do.”
He and Miranda headed over to the general store as Angrim and his men skulked off, muttering amongst themselves.
Chapter Seven
Creel glanced around, looking at the shifters milling around downtown. “I hardly recognize the place,” he growled. “Sure has grown in the past few months.”
“You haven’t come here in months?” Miranda said, surprised. The southern territory didn’t have much to it. The Rotgut was the only business currently open there, and other than that, it was just a bunch of houses scattered among the rocky, hilly countryside.
“Why would I?” he asked, scowling in distaste at a crowd of bear shifters laden down with shopping bags from the Stoney Creek Clan Honey Emporium, bustling past them on the sidewalk. “There’s all these people here. I don’t like people.”
“You don’t say?” she said. “You sure could have fooled me. You’re such an extrovert.”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “Smart-mouth girls get spanked,” he said.
“But what are you going to do to punish me?” she said with a wink, and quickened her pace to get around the bear shifters, who were clustered together on the sidewalk now, digging in their bags and pulling out honeycombs.
“Do you ever take anything seriously?” he called after her, shooting a look of annoyance at the happy bears.
“What would be the fun in that?”
She walked up the steps into the general store. Creel followed her in and headed over to the grocery section.
She went to the personal hygiene aisle and grabbed a box of tampons and a stick of deodorant. Then she stopped to look longingly at the fancy imported shampoo that smelled like honeysuckle. Twenty dollars a bottle; she wouldn’t be getting any of that anytime soon. She picked up the sample bottle, opened the top and took a deep, long sniff. Then she closed it again.
The store owner, Thom, stalked over and glared at her. “Don’t put your paws on the merchandise unless you plan on buying it,” he snapped, and she quickly put it back on the shelf.
“What did you just say to her?” Creel said, glaring at Thom. The air crackled with the feeling of Creel’s anger, like hot sparks swirling. Miranda could also feel thick, wavy bands of tension reining in Creel’s emotions so that he didn’t make everyone in the store fall to the ground screaming. Could everyone sense that, or was it just her? She wanted to run over to him and stroke his
arm again, calm him, absorb his rage, but she resisted. She wasn’t his mate. She couldn’t get used to acting like one.
Jarvis took a step back behind the counter. He went pale and swallowed hard.
“I didn’t realize she was with you,” he said, casting his eyes down submissively and tilting his head back on his neck, indicating surrender to the more powerful shifter. His face drained of color, and he opened his mouth and shut it a couple of times. “She can handle anything she wants. Hell, she can have it. On the house.”
“I didn’t ask for charity,” Creel said with a growl, and stalked back to the grocery section.
Miranda quickly put down her money on the counter and counted it out. She winced in dismay as she realized she was twenty-seven cents short.
The store owner waved her away. “Just take your stuff and go,” he said. Then he added in a low voice, “Please. I don’t want any trouble with Creel. You can have it for free, even, really.”
“No thank you. I’ll pay you back when I have the money,” she said.
He shoved the bag of her items at her, and she went to find Creel.
“I’m going to sign up for some guard duty shifts, then I’m going to see if there’s a table open at the Grubstake,” Creel said. “I’ll meet you there in half an hour.”
“Ooh, you’re taking me to lunch? Like a lunch date?” she said.
He made a raspberry noise. “Lunch date? I like steak. You happen to be with me when I’m hungry and right near an excellent restaurant. At lunchtime. It’s a series of coincidences.”
“Lunch date,” she repeated with a smile as he walked away.
She wandered around the shops in the downtown area for a little while, but she was flat broke and couldn’t afford to buy anything, so she got bored quickly. She took a stroll down Spruce Street to look at the spot where the new meeting house was being built. It was located six blocks from the town square.
Several burly-looking shifters stood guard outside the construction site. A couple of them were pacing. One was sitting on a bench, eating a sandwich. The site was bustling with activity. It was hard to imagine anyone getting close enough to the building to sabotage it during the daytime, but at night it was probably a different story.
His Curvy Mate (Alpha Prime Book 2) Page 5
