Crying Wolf, Shoot for the Moon, Thrown to the Wolves

by Rochelle Paige

  “And we’ve made sure she was safe right from the start,” I reassured him, knowing he was beating himself up for the break-in and the fear Grace was feeling. “Every wolf in town knows she falls under your protection.”

  “Then why did one of my own risk my wrath tonight?” he asked in a deep growl.

  My brother had asked the question burning in my brain. Eliza had to know what she’d been risking when she’d entered that room. She had only joined our pack a couple of years ago, but Eliza knew the rules just as well as anyone else did. Hunter was a fair alpha, but every wolf in our pack was aware of what would happen if they harmed his mate. It didn’t matter who the culprit was. Even if it had been me instead of the she-wolf warming my bed, the punishment would be swift and brutal.

  I drove as quickly as I could to Eliza’s small house on the outskirts of town. Although she had joined our pack, she still held herself a little separate from everyone else. Even me.

  The porch lights were on and she was waiting for us in the rocking chair. Through my windshield, my eyes locked with hers, and for a moment, it felt as though time held still. The wind blew her long, caramel-brown locks away from her lithe body as she sat huddled in the chair with a blanket tightly wrapped around her.

  When we exited the truck, Eliza stood and watched us as we walked towards her, the blanket dropping to the ground. Her light-brown eyes held sadness as she looked at me, and my wolf whined in my head. She seemed to shake it off as she shifted her gaze to my brother. There was no mistaking his anger, but she didn’t look scared. No scent of fear drifted towards me as we drew nearer, which gave me a moment of hope that this could be cleared up without Eliza being hurt.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Hunter hissed after he stalked up the stairs.

  Eliza was tall, even for a she-wolf. But Hunter towered over her. As I followed him up the stairs, I could feel the dominant waves of his alpha wolf pouring off him. My own wolf growled again when Eliza lowered her eyes and bared her neck in an instinctual submissive response. The beast inside me wanted to leap between them and protect Eliza regardless of any possible wrongdoing.

  When I saw the fear that entered her eyes as she raised them to look at Hunter, I almost couldn’t control my wolf. Struggling to gain control, I almost missed her answer.

  “She’s in danger and I needed to get closer so I could try to figure out where it was coming from.”

  I didn’t understand what she meant. We had been together last night. If she’d known about a threat to Grace, why hadn’t she told me about it then? I wasn’t just the man in her bed—I was also the pack enforcer. All the wolves knew they could come to me with any issues that affected the pack’s safety.

  “And how would you know of a risk to my mate when I didn’t?” Hunter growled at her.

  Eliza’s gaze briefly darted to me before returning to Hunter. “I dreamed of her last night.”

  I had woken up when she started to toss and turn. Just as I started to reach for her, a yell was wrenched from her lips and she had leapt from her bed. I tried to calm her down but she had practically kicked me out of her house before I could argue.

  “Your nightmare,” I gasped out, the implications starting to take hold in my brain. “The one that woke you up screaming? The one you refused to discuss with me? It was about Grace?”

  Eliza’s eyes remained locked with my brother’s as though she couldn’t bear to look at me right now.

  “Answer him,” Hunter demanded of her.

  “Yes,” she replied. “Grace was in my nightmare. I couldn’t tell who it was, but she was being chased through the forest at night. The moon was full in the sky, and the pack raced to try to catch up with her.”

  “And when we found her?” Hunter asked.

  Eliza lowered her eyes again, but not before I felt the bolt of fear pass through my brother. “She was dead.”

  My wolf was fighting for control, demanding I protect Eliza. The scent of her sadness pulled at me as I tried to wrap my brain around what she was telling us.

  “And you expect me to believe that this dream sent you to her motel room today?” my brother asked, sarcasm heavy in his voice.

  “Yes, alpha. I expect you to believe me because it’s the truth,” Eliza insisted, determination evident in every line of her body as she stood boldly in front of her alpha.

  Hunter inhaled deeply, trying to scent her sincerity. “Why didn’t you simply tell my brother about this dream when he asked you last night?”

  “I’ve learned the hard way that most people aren’t willing to believe,” she replied.

  Eliza’s answer saddened me even as my heart leapt with hope. Is it possible? Does Eliza walk in dreams? If so, why didn’t she share her gift with me before?

  “I’ve never given you any reason to doubt me,” I muttered.

  “Not now,” Hunter barked at me, anger coloring his tone. “Focus on what’s important first—my mate’s safety. You can deal with your hurt feelings later.”

  I wanted to argue with him, but I knew he was right. If Grace was truly in danger, it was my role as pack enforcer to help him resolve the issue.

  “Why would you hide this dream from me and sneak into Grace’s room?” I asked Eliza.

  “Because it wasn’t just a dream. It was a premonition of what’s coming for her.”

  My knees went weak with her answer, and my wolf settled as realization rolled through me. Then my heart stopped, and it felt like fire had lit my veins. And all of my senses seemed to go on overload as one thought pounded through my brain. Eliza was my fated mate. Eliza was the dream-walker our grandmother had spoken of with a faraway look in her eye so many years ago.

  She had taken us in when our parents had died in an attack against our pack. Our numbers had been smaller back then, and the alpha from the pack closest to us had wanted to claim our land as his. He’d killed our mother in an effort to weaken our father, whose response had been a swift attack that had resulted in both of their deaths. His second, the pack enforcer, had stepped up to lead us until Hunter had been old enough to take our father’s place.

  The loss of both of our parents so close to each other had sent Hunter, Parker, and me reeling—until our grandmother had taken us aside one day and explained the mating bond and how much pain they would have felt if only one of them had lived. We still missed them each and every day, but we were less angry that they had died together. In that speech, she’d also given us something else to focus on—the idea that we would find our own mates one day.

  The mate who was stalked by danger would be Hunter’s.

  The mate who walked in dreams would be mine.

  And the mate who was discarded by her family would be Parker’s.

  When Eliza had come to Wolf’s Point, she’d been leery of interacting with our pack. Over time, she’d slowly developed some friendships with the other she-wolves, and they’d convinced her that Hunter was a good alpha—that the Black River Pack would be a safe place for her.

  I’d been attracted to Eliza the moment I’d met her, but I hadn’t acted on the chemistry between us. Our grandmother had just died, and before she’d passed, she’d lamented my man-whore ways, so I’d backed off quite a bit. In turn, I’d avoided her and the temptations she’d represented. After some time had passed and I’d realized the attraction was still there, I’d decided it couldn’t hurt anything to burn off the chemistry between us before I found my mate.

  I finally realized what a fucking idiot I had been. Eliza had been there, right in front of me, for years and I’d refused to consider the possibility that she was the woman I’d waited years for. So when I’d finally given into my desire for her, I’d told her point-blank that I wanted her to warm my bed and nothing else. I hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that I hadn’t wanted anyone else in all the time since I’d met Eliza. I hadn’t asked her any questions to try to determine if she could be the woman who walked in dreams, the one my grandmother had spoken of. And for the f
irst time in my life, I’d ignored my wolf and allowed the human part of me to rule my decisions completely.

  I tried to refocus as Eliza and Hunter continued their conversation.

  “I didn’t come here a lone wolf because I wanted to be one. People don’t like hearing bad news, and my dreams always make me the bearer of it,” Eliza said, unaware of the turmoil her words had caused. “What happens in them—it doesn’t have to be reality. There’s still time to change the outcome, so I keep trying to make a difference even though it makes people hate me when they come true.”

  “The loyalty you swore to me when you joined my pack goes both ways, Eliza. You have no need to hide your gifts from us,” my brother assured her.

  “You believe me?” she gasped. “Just like that?”

  “I’m sure you and Spencer will have much to talk about soon, including the reasons why I don’t doubt that you see things in your dreams that come true. But if you’ve seen my mate’s death, then I need you to focus on what you can tell me to help me stop that from becoming her reality,” Hunter replied, and I knew he’d come to the same realization about Eliza’s being my mate as I had.

  “Yes, of course,” she agreed before describing her nightmare in detail. “I went to her room in the hope I would be able to recreate the dream again. I didn’t see enough to keep her safe, and I wanted to see if I could nudge my dreams in her direction when surrounded by her things.”

  “And did it work?” Hunter asked.

  She shook her head sadly. “No. I don’t have control over them, and it could be months again before I have another. I’m sorry.”

  Hunter sighed in frustration, and I wanted to punch him in the face because it was clear that Eliza was trying her best. He had no reason to be upset with her, but his reply eased my anger.

  “I understand, but next time something like this happens, you will come to me or Spencer. If not, you’ll be punished.”

  “Yes, alpha. I swear I won’t keep anything like this from you in the future,” she promised.

  Oh hell no, I thought. She better understand right now that she didn’t need to worry about Hunter.

  “Or from me,” I growled.

  When Hunter looked at me apologetically, I knew I wasn’t going to like what he had to say next. “I’m sorry, Spencer. I know there are things that need to be said between the two of you, but I need you with me until the danger to Grace has passed.” Then he gripped my shoulder before walking past me to the truck.

  “Eliza,” I sighed, trying to gather my thoughts and find the right words to explain how I could have messed this up so badly.

  Eliza raised her hand to stop me. “No,” she hissed in a low voice as she glanced towards the truck, where Hunter was waiting for me. “I get that you’re probably mad at me because I chose not to share my dream about Grace with you, but you need to understand one thing right now. It was my choice. Just because you’re the guy in my life giving me orgasms for now doesn’t mean you own me.”

  Her words, which had so quickly followed my realization she was my fated mate, made me see red. I pressed against her until her back was against the front door, leaving no room for her to get away.

  “I don’t have a lot of time because Hunter needs me, but let’s get a couple of things straight right fucking now. The instant you thought my brother’s, our alpha’s, mate was in danger, you should have come to me. I’m the pack’s enforcer, dammit!”

  “I would have told you the second I had anything solid to share,” she hissed.

  “You’re in my fucking bed, Eliza. You don’t need to wait until you have solid intel. You come to me the instant something’s wrong,” I argued.

  “And say what?” she asked. “‘I think Grace is in trouble because I had a dream about her’? Bullshit! The second I laid that on you, you would have been out of my bed quick as a flash. You’ve had one foot out of it since the second you decided you wanted in. You made that damn clear to me when we started this.”

  “If you’d ever actually shared what was going on in that head of yours before tonight, then I would have had you mated, marked, and claimed so fast your head would have fucking spun,” I bit out. “Instead of being an ass because I was so fucking pissed off you made me feel things I was only supposed to feel for my mate.”

  “What?” she gasped, slumping against me.

  I took a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves, and her scent filled my lungs. It was the same scent that had been driving me wild for years. And if I had been paying attention, I would have realized that her scent called to me like none other because she was my mate.

  I reached out and cupped her cheeks with my palms. “I’ve been waiting for my mate for years, Eliza. Ever since my grandmother shared a vision with me and my brothers. For years, I’ve been focused on finding the woman who would be able to walk in dreams. If you’d only told me sooner, I would have known you were my dream girl all along.”

  For a split second, hope and love shone from Eliza’s eyes. And then they dimmed as she squashed it and straightened her spine.

  “Then I guess you’ll just have to wait until another woman with the same gift comes along, because I’m not your mate.”

  Hearing her tell me that she wasn’t mine threw me off-balance, which gave her the opportunity she needed to shove me and fling the door open behind her. Then she slipped through the opening and slammed it shut, right in my face.

  As much as I wanted to force my way inside and make her listen to me, I knew I had to wait until Grace’s situation was resolved. And now, I was even more determined to wrap it up as soon as possible so I could focus on Eliza.

  “You didn’t know she was your mate?” Hunter asked me when I climbed into the truck.

  “No, and now I’m going to have to convince her she really is my mate since I’ve treated her like a casual lay for the last year,” I answered.

  “A monogamous one at least.”

  “And thank fuck for that,” I replied, relieved beyond belief that my fuck-up wasn’t to that monumental level. From the moment I’d laid eyes on Eliza, all other women had ceased to exist for me—yet another sign of how incredibly stupid I’d been since meeting her. “Because it’s going to be hard enough to explain why I’ve held her at arm’s length emotionally when I should have marked and mated her months and months ago.”

  Two

  Eliza

  I didn’t know what to think when Spencer told me his grandmother had shared with him a vision she’d had when he was younger—one that foretold that he would mate with a woman who walked in dreams. I’d never run across anyone else with the same gift as mine. I didn’t think the odds were high that Spencer would meet another woman like me and mate with her, but I didn’t understand how it all fit together. I’d been dreaming the same thing for years now, and although my dreams didn’t always come true, I had a hard time believing that one this persistent wasn’t real unless I’d managed to change my fate already. Maybe telling him about my ability was all I’d needed to do to stop it from happening.

  The mere thought that I now might have a future with Spencer was almost more than I could wrap my head around. For the first time in years, I had hope that Spencer and I would become mates. But I was still a little bitter at the way he’d treated me the last year. I couldn’t just let go of all the pain I’d suffered each time he’d walked away from me. Even if we were able to move past this, there was a lot for us to talk about. So I waited up for him all night, hoping that, even with everything going on, he would still make time for me.

  It wasn’t until the wee hours of the morning that I heard his truck pull into the drive. He must have been in a hurry to get to me, because he quickly moved up the steps of my porch and didn’t bother to knock before he flung my front door open.

  “Thank fuck you’re still up,” he grumbled as he shed his coat and boots. “I’m sorry it took me so long, but this mess with Grace isn’t good and Hunter needed me to take care of a few things before I could get here.
”

  “I know,” I whispered. “Her situation is serious and you need to do whatever you can to make sure she isn’t killed.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I won’t make time for you, too,” he promised, bending down to place a kiss on my lips before pulling me off the couch so we were on our feet, facing each other.

  “Because you think I’m the woman your grandmother told you about?”

  “Yes. I’m sure you are,” he agreed.

  “Which means all of a sudden you think I’m your mate and that makes me worthy of your time?”

  “I know I fucked up with you when we first met. I should have paid more attention to you, listened to my wolf, and realized that the crazy pull you have on me meant you were my mate. It’s not just about my grandmother’s vision. If I hadn’t been so goddamn stubborn, I would have handled you better from the start,” Spencer tried to explain.

  “Handle me? That’s what you call telling me the most I could ever be to you was a fuck between the sheets while you waited for your precious mate?” I hissed.

  “Eliza,” he sighed. “I get that it’s gonna take me a long time to make all that shit up to you. I never should have treated you like anything other than my cherished mate. I’m not asking you to forget about the last year. Hell, I don’t want to forget any of it even if we never moved past casual.”

  His words surprised me. “But why? We didn’t do anything except sleep together. No dates. No movies or shared meals. All we have to remember from the last year is sex.”

  Spencer pulled me into his arms and held me tight as he answered. “Even though that’s true, my best memories are my nights with you.”

  I’d never had sweet words from Spencer before now, and it was hard to resist him. “I don’t know. I can’t wrap my head around what you’re telling me yet. I need more time.”

  “Fine,” he huffed. “Take some time, but you won’t spend it apart from me. You might not be ready to move forward with me, but I sure as hell am not going to let you move us backwards. You’ll do your thinking in the day and spend your nights with me.”