by Abby Blake
Was she dead?
This wasn’t exactly her idea of heaven. She glanced around at the familiar room and decided she probably wasn’t in hell either. Maybe she was in some kind of afterlife waiting room—she’d read about them in some literature once—or maybe she really had dreamed it all.
“It’s okay, Andrea,” a voice said from her left. Panic slammed her. She scrambled off the bed, uncaring that she was naked, and dropped to a fighting position as she faced the man that belonged to the voice.
“What do you want?” she demanded and then growled. Actually growled like a dog, the noise rumbling up from deep in her throat. “What the fuck?” She hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but the entire situation was proving to be ridiculous. Maybe she was hallucinating, and she was really still just slumped in the main room of her shop bleeding to death.
The bedroom door opened behind her, and she damn near leapt the length of the room to put space between herself and the newcomer. She glanced back at the guy in the chair. Two of them? Twins? Or was she just seeing double. Shit.
“Hello, beautiful. Would you like some coffee?”
She shook her head. She could really do with the caffeine boost, but unless someone started explaining exactly why two strangers were in her bedroom, she was going to start knocking heads.
“Andrea.” The guy who’d been sitting in the kitchen chair he’d obviously moved without asking stood up and took a small step toward her. “Sweetheart, everything’s going to be fine. We’re not here to hurt you.”
“Good to know,” she said as she inched toward the closet where she kept her gun. Except that, fuck, she’d locked it in the safe because she hadn’t needed it in the three years since she’d arrived here. She’d moved to this tiny town in the middle of nowhere because of its low crime rate, yet in the space of—she glanced at the clock and realized she had no idea if it was night or day—maybe a day she’d been the victim of an attempted drunken robbery, an accidental shooting, and now a home invasion. Except…how could she remember being shot when she had no evidence?
“What day is it?”
The guy lounging against the doorjamb shrugged as if she were a bit crazy but answered with, “Tuesday.”
“What’s the date?” She’d been shot on a Monday. Could it be possible that it was Tuesday several weeks or months later?
“Andrea,” guy number one said again, taking another step closer. She held out her hand for him to stop, and he took the hint and stepped back. “We’ll explain everything. You just need to stay calm.”
Not. Fucking. Likely.
Talk about triggering an opposite response. Her ex-husband had always been telling her to calm down as if she were some kind of recalcitrant child. She hadn’t taken it from him, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to take it from two fucking strangers.
But that growl happened again, this time so deep and loud she startled herself into silence.
“That’s part of what we need to talk to you about.”
“What did you do to me?” A part of her realized that question wasn’t exactly rational. After all, how could two strangers do something that would make her growl? But she wanted answers, and since they were here now, she may as well go asking—she glanced down at her nakedness—as soon as she pulled on her robe.
Moving carefully, unwilling to turn her back on either man despite how calm they seemed to be acting, Andrea inched back toward the closet to grab her robe. She managed to slide it on, tie the belt closed, and hold both men in her sights without too much fumbling.
“So who’s going to go first?”
Damn. Poor choice of words. She pulled the robe tighter around her.
“Which one of you is going to explain how we got here?”
The guy lounging on the doorframe gave her a sexy grin and indicated the other guy. The other guy rolled his eyes at his brother’s obvious willingness to pass the buck and then took a step closer. Just to be certain he understood the situation she took a step back. She wasn’t frightened of them per se, but if she was going to fight she needed space. It had absolutely nothing to do with how delicious he smelled, or how sexy he looked with one of her bath towels wrapped low on his hips exposing chiseled pectoral muscles and lickable abs.
“Why are you naked?” Well, not naked, but a part of her wanted him to be. Fuck, she must have hit her head on her way down to the ground. But wait, if she wasn’t actually shot—and considering her uninjured state it seemed unlikely—why would she have hit her head on anything?
“I cleaned you up,” he said quietly.
“Cleaned what?” She was pretty sure she already knew the answer, but since it was impossible to get shot and bleed all over everything and somehow have no wound or scar, then she must be mistaken.
“Andrea, we have a lot to explain to you.”
“How do you know my name?” Again not the most intelligent of questions. It was a town small enough for everyone to know someone who would know her name.
“Driver’s license,” the guy propping up her doorframe answered with a mischievous grin. It seemed he expected her to be upset about that. Why would a woman be upset that some stranger pawed through her handbag, found her wallet, searched the contents, and looked at the world’s worst driver’s license photo in the history of photo licenses?
“You went through my bag?” Her ears protested as her voice reached a higher pitch, and she narrowed her eyes when both men winced at the shrill sound. Well, it would serve them right to end up with bleeding eardrums. No male she’d ever known had been bold enough, or stupid enough, to go through her handbag, ever!
But again she was forced to face her own ridiculousness. She’d been shot, and they’d helped her? She shook her head. She couldn’t have been shot, so why would she have needed help? Unless…had these guys attacked her?
“Andrea, sweetheart, please just listen to what we have to say, and then, if you still want us to, we’ll leave.”
“Fine,” she said, rubbing her forehead in an effort to preempt a damn headache. “And don’t call me sweetheart.” She glanced at one and then the other. “Start with names. Who the fuck are you two?”
The man leaning on the doorjamb laughed. Of course the sound was deep and husky and so darn sexy it made her toes curl, but she chose to ignore it. She gave him an irritated scowl, and he just laughed harder. Great, fucking great. If he kept that up, she was liable to growl at him again…or maybe leap on him and lick him all over.
Crap. Did her libido have to choose now to reawaken?
“I’m Isaac Cloveck,” the man near the chair said. He gave the other man a dark scowl. “And that’s my twin brother, Daegan.”
“Twins?” she asked in a smart-ass tone because her own reaction to these two men was pissing her off. “I never would’ve guessed.”
“Ouch,” Daegan said with another laugh. “Our mate has sharp claws.”
“How,” Andrea asked as she shot a dark look at the handsome invader in her doorway, “did you end up in my bedroom?”
“You were shot.” She went to interrupt hunkalicious-in-a-towel, but he held up a hand to stop her. “You were dying. We saved you by turning you into one of us.”
“Us?” she asked on a squeak. Just her luck that she would hit her head—that was the only rational explanation for this whole ridiculous episode—imagine she’d been shot, and then get “rescued” by a couple of good-looking, but bat-shit-crazy, guys who’d watched too much TV. What was the latest craze? Vampires? Witches? Demons?
“Yes, you’re one of us now, beautiful.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, inching back to where she kept her gun. Maybe she could get the safe open while she pretended to swallow their delusional drivel. “And what does that make me, exactly?”
“A werewolf,” the guy at the door—Was his name Daegan? She couldn’t remember—explained with a casual shrug.
“So you guys, what? Change on the full moon?”
“Nope, you will though.”
Daegan laughed happily, obviously turned on by her sarcasm. His brother—Isaac?—looked very annoyed and shot his brother an exasperated look. Now that she could relate to. Completely exasperating described this conversation perfectly.
Daegan stopped laughing and grew suddenly serious. “Just show her.”
“Why me?” Isaac seemed really pissed about his brother’s suggestion.
“Because you’re undressed already. Because I’m in the best position to catch her when she freaks out. Because Xavier will accuse me of trying to freak her out deliberately, but will understand why you did it.”
“True,” Isaac said with a small laugh. “Fine.”
He stood up and unwrapped the towel. It took every ounce of strength Andrea possessed to stop herself from looking at the part of him that had been hidden by the terrycloth. He stood there smirking, and she realized the rotten man was actually waiting for her eyes to drop lower.
“Get on with it,” she said irritably. Was she really asking some naked guy to turn into a werewolf in her bedroom? Considering the fact that her eyes refused to stay above his waistline, it was probably the safest choice.
But all the air was suddenly sucked from her lungs when the handsome man began to sprout hair all over his body. In a strangely fluid motion his body moved and contorted and changed into a wolf right before her eyes.
The silver wolf yipped once and then sat on its haunches, wagged its tail, and watched her.
“Ho…ly shhhhh…it.” Andrea swallowed hard. She was dreaming. Surely she was dreaming. Shit like this just did not happen in real life. The wolf made a sound very much like a doggy version of a human laugh. “I need to lie down.” She sat on the edge of her bed, swung her legs around, and lay back on the pillow.
But the damn wolf leapt onto the bed, leaned over her a moment, and then moved to lie down beside her like some faithful guard dog. It rested its head on both front paws and gave her what could only be described as a sad puppy-dog look. She lifted her hand to scratch the creature’s ears, not really willing to acknowledge the fact that she had the biggest damn wolf she’d ever seen lying on her bed next to her.
“No fair,” Daegan said from the doorway. The wolf wagged its tail as if pleased by the outcome. Daegan merely laughed again.
“Oh crap,” Andrea exclaimed as probably the least important fact she could think of at this particular moment leaped into her head. “Does this mean I can’t make jewelry out of silver anymore?”
“Actually,” Daegan said as he stepped closer, “silver is a myth. It doesn’t hurt werewolves—well the bullets do, but it doesn’t kill us—but don’t go telling the monster hunters. As long as they think they killed us, they leave us alone.”
“Can I wake up now, please?”
The wolf moved closer, and Daegan stepped to the edge of the bed and touched her face with a callused finger. “I’m sorry, beautiful, there’s no going back. Under normal circumstances we would have explained all of this before we turned you, but you were dying, and we needed to act.” He ran a finger over her lips and smiled softly. “And besides we’ve lived too long without you.”
“Without me?”
“Yes, beautiful. We’re your mates.”
“Mates?” She knew what that meant in the wild, but what, exactly, did that mean to werewolves?
“Yes, Andrea, in human terms it means we’re your husbands.”
“Husbands? Both of you?” She wriggled off the bed, stood up, placed her hands on her hips, and yelled at the top of her voice. “Not on your fucking life!”
Chapter Two
Xavier stepped into the small store. The lights were off, but he could make out the dark stain, smell the spilled blood, and knew that his brothers were telling the truth. Their phone call had been short and to the point. They’d found their mate dying and had no choice but to turn the woman. Nobody in his family had expected his younger brothers—identical twins and therefore extremely unusual for werewolves—to find a mate, so if she was truly the one made for them, then Xavier was very happy for his younger brothers.
It wasn’t often that werewolves discovered their mate was a human, but it did happen. Usually, though, the human was introduced to the werewolf way of life before they were turned. Humans didn’t feel the same mating link that werewolves did, so it was only fair to give them a choice. Almost all chose to stay, but Xavier knew from years of experience that taking away a human’s right to choose their future was a very bad idea—especially for modern women.
He had a feeling that his younger brothers may just have bitten off more than they could chew. If the conversation he could hear going on upstairs was any indication, he was going to have one very pissed-off female wolf to deal with.
He got to the door of her apartment just as the argument exploded.
“Now, beautiful—” Daegan began, but she cut him off with a voice angry enough that he could hear the deep growl of her wolf.
“Don’t you ‘beautiful’ me! I’m not marrying two strangers. No way, no how, never, ever, ever, ever going to happen.”
Xavier opened the bedroom door to find Isaac in wolf form sitting in the middle of the bed tracking the woman’s pacing movement. Daegan was quite happily watching the woman rant.
But it was the woman herself that caught his attention. She wasn’t at all like the women Daegan and Isaac usually dated. Even when they dated werewolves, his younger brothers tended to go for the timid, quiet, less confident females. This woman seemed to be the exact opposite and at the moment looked angry enough to remove their testicles and serve them up for lunch.
So intent on pacing, the woman Xavier assumed was Andrea didn’t even see him step into the room. Something must have alerted her to his presence, though, because she stopped dead and turned her eyes on him. Anger gleamed from their brown depths, and his wolf did happy circles in his head.
Oh, hell.
“Who the fuck are you?”
He glanced at his brothers, saw their incredulous stares, and said the words anyway. “I’m your mate, too.”
“Not happening. Absolutely, not fucking happening.” Andrea returned to her pacing. At this rate she was going to need new carpet very soon. “Who are you people? Any more ‘mates’ where you come from?”
“I fucking hope not?” Daegan said with an irritated scowl.
“Don’t swear in front of our mate,” Xavier said without really giving it much thought. His mother had always taught him not to swear in front of females—perhaps old fashioned but something he’d tried to uphold—yet he was fairly certain his mom hadn’t taken into account foul-mouthed females like their mate.
Oh, this was going to make Thanksgiving dinner so damn extra special this year.
Xavier rubbed the headache forming behind his eyes.
As the lady said, this could not be happening.
The woman had three mates. Three! And he was one of the three. Hell, she hadn’t met any other werewolves. What were the odds that she could have more than three? One in a billion? One in a trillion? So far she had three from three. Hell, maybe taking her home and introducing her to the pack wasn’t such a hot idea. How many more mates could she have out there?
Xavier took a deep breath, trying to calm his chaotic thoughts. Maybe something was off, and she wasn’t really their mate. He’d never heard of it happening before, but there was always a first time.
Ironically, the thought was a depressing one. He hadn’t planned on taking a mate just yet, but the euphoria of finding the woman far outweighed the inconvenient timing. But if there were some sort of glitch, and she wasn’t meant to be anyone’s mate—apart from the disappointment he would feel soul deep—he would still have one pissed-off, newly made werewolf to deal with.
As leader of his small pack it was his responsibility to make certain she knew the rules and understood the constraints they all willingly lived by.
“Andrea,” he said, stepping closer to the irate woman. He wanted to take her in his arms, but he got the feeling that would be a very poor choice. She wasn’t fragile by anyone’s standard. She was tall, moved like an athlete, and from what he could see of her legs, had quite nice muscle tone. He couldn’t tell through the thick terry robe, but he suspected that she was perfectly curved in all the right places as well.
If she was his mate, at least fate had chosen a woman that would suit him in a physical sense. Now if he could only get her to calm down.
“Andrea!” She stopped pacing and ranting to give him a glare that should’ve melted him into a big pile of goo.
“What?” she growled.
Making a decision he sincerely hoped he wouldn’t regret, Xavier said, “The full moon isn’t for another three weeks. We can give you time to pack away this life, but for your safety and the safety of the humans, you need to be inside the compound before the full moon rises.”
Xavier’s brothers looked ready to protest, but he gave them both his most arrogant stare. He was leader for a reason, and unless they were up to challenging him for control of the pack, they would fall into line.
Isaac, still in wolf form, managed to glare at him, obviously annoyed that Xavier would pull rank in this situation. But at least his younger brother was sensible enough to realize that the woman needed some space. The initial changes to becoming a werewolf were already complete. Strength, agility, all of her senses were already enhanced. Her ability to heal was obviously working, and there were no immediate threats from monster hunters in this area. She’d be safe while she closed off this part of her life.
Of course, that didn’t mean he would leave things to chance either.
“Daegan and Isaac are staying in the motel down the street. They’ll give you their mobile numbers. If you need anything, all you have to do is call.”
She nodded. “What about you?”
He hadn’t been expecting the question. She seemed quite relieved to see them go.
“I need to get back to the pack, but Daegan and Isaac are more than happy to drive you up the mountain and show you around your new home.”
