by Abby Blake
“Will they come back?” Belinda asked Zeb quietly, glancing at her daughter, obviously trying to shield the child from more bad news.
“I hope not,” Zeb whispered quietly. “When I left them in the street, Grayson had just issued a leadership challenge against Xavier.”
Aiden lifted his head, groaning as he turned back into human form. “Damn, that hurts,” he said out loud, but he used quick, discreet hand signals to tell Zeb to head back to the alpha’s fight. Zeb nodded. They needed to know what was happening. If Doug Grayson won, all hell was about to rain down on their heads.
With one last glance at his mate, Zeb stepped outside, dropped to all fours, and ran quickly through the still-recovering wolves in the front yard.
* * * *
Louise monitored Zeb’s progress, pleased to note that none of the wolves they’d dropped onto the front lawn were in any condition to follow him. The few that tried to get up fell back down the moment Zeb leapt over the picket fence.
She held Cal tighter as the man shook in reaction. Louise had no explanation for what had just happened. The only thing she knew for certain was that she herself hadn’t turned into a half-human, half-wolf, upright-on-two-legs killing machine since she’d been turned into a werewolf.
She could sense Aiden’s concern but wasn’t about to share it with Cal. The man was worried enough. But Aiden seemed to know exactly what Cal needed. Aiden limped over to where Louise and Cal stood holding each other in the middle of the destroyed room.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely, briefly placing his hand on Cal’s shoulder. “Without your intervention, we would not have been able to protect any of them.” Louise heard the disquiet Aiden felt at the realization that she could have died. She hugged Cal closer at the same time that she reached an arm out and urged Aiden to hold her, too.
“I’m too late. The fight’s over,” Zeb said telepathically as she felt him slow his approach to the area. “I don’t know who won.”
Aiden and Cal both felt her tense, so she quickly passed on Zeb’s message. Josh held his daughter and granddaughter close, and it was obvious by his tense expression that her whispered words had reached his ears. At least he knew to be ready.
“It’s okay,” Zeb finally sent with no small amount of relief in his telepathic voice. “Xavier looks a little banged up, but he won. Grayson is dead. So are a couple of his betas—it looks like they didn’t want to fight fair.” Louise got a sense of Zeb looking around the area, perhaps seeking a familiar face, before he sent a mental sigh of relief and passed on a message from Andrea. “Xavier’s already nominated his beta, Dave Kinsky, to take over Grayson’s former pack. Tell Joshua it’s over. Becky is safe.”
Epilogue
Nearly ten months after the attack, Cal stood at the edge of their veranda and watched the world go by. Becky and Carly waved as they skipped passed, and he smiled at the girls. Carly had come a long way from the beaten and frightened young girl she’d been the night they’d met her. Belinda Stiles had offered the girl a home after her father’s death, and everyone in the pack had done their best to assure the child she was safe. Less than a year later, she was already acting like the average teenage girl. She and Becky had both turned fifteen in the past few months and, much to their mother’s dismay, had suddenly noticed that boys weren’t just annoying freaks. Cal watched as one of the teenage boys nearly fell off his bike as he craned his neck to get a longer look as he rode by. Cal shook his head, glad to know that he had many years before he’d need to worry about something like that from a daughter of his.
He glanced at the horizon, feeling the familiar anxiety churn in his gut. Even though he knew for a fact that the moon wouldn’t rise for at least another six hours, he couldn’t quite tamp down his apprehension. Nobody had any explanation for what had happened to him the night Doug Grayson and his pack had attacked, and despite having changed successfully into a wolf each full moon, every new month brought a niggling doubt. None of the known history of werewolves had contained reference to a third form, but they’d found several entries in fictional literature. Unfortunately, despite the realization that at least part of the stories must have been based on reality, they’d been unable to sort fact from the authors’ imaginations. That hadn’t stopped pack members from discussing the event at length or offering their own theories.
The only one that he’d truly liked had come from Andrea. She’d put forth that as a man who studied wildlife in detail, and being a newly made werewolf who wanted to protect his family, he’d simply shifted into a form large enough to do exactly what he’d done.
Of course, her explanation was based on nothing more than supposition and wishful thinking, but Cal was hopeful enough to do some wishing of his own. At any rate, the last nine moons he’d turned into a proper wolf and not some grotesque creature, so it was a safe bet that the same would happen tonight.
He laughed at his own thoughts. Less than a year ago the thought of turning into a wolf—proper or otherwise—would have been the stuff of imagination.
He glanced around his new home, amazed again by the design of the community and how well human technology was blended into nature. It should have been strange that he felt more at home here than the farm where he’d grown up, but in some ways it was exactly what he’d been aiming for when he’d fought for habitat preservation and environmentally sensitive government policy. He didn’t want to stop human developments. He—and thankfully, Xavier, also—simply wanted to find a workable compromise so that humans could blend into the environment, not destroy it.
He glanced at the horizon again. He really had little reason for concern, but he supposed he’d always wonder where that strange creature had come from and if it would one day be back.
All of his friends in the pack had assured him that no matter what happened he was still welcome. Of course that was rather easy to say when none of them had actually seen the thing he’d turned into.
“Don’t worry so much,” Zeb said as he stepped onto the veranda. “I found your alter ego very handy in a fight. You took down more than your fair share of wolves that night.”
Cal raised an eyebrow, waiting for Zeb to admit that Louise had sent him out here. She’d been doing that each month as the full moon rose. In some ways he was a little annoyed by the attention, but he could sense her emotions clearly enough to know that she was worried for him.
Zeb just grinned and turned away to look at the horizon. “We’d like to claim Louise tonight.” The words were completely out of the blue. Cal knew that Aiden and Zeb had delayed claiming their mate so that Cal could learn enough control over his own wolf to claim her at the same time. It was yet another reason Cal had for the deep respect he held for the two men.
He wasn’t sure what to say, but then a familiar silver-gray wolf nosed open the fly-screen door of the house and joined them on the veranda, and his thoughts instead turned to his lovely mate. He’d never seen Louise’s wolf form through human eyes before, but she was truly as beautiful as a wolf as she was as their wife.
“Why thank you, kind sir,” she said telepathically as she rubbed her face against his hand. A moment later she was standing beside him, gloriously naked. He pulled her into his arms as Aiden wrapped a bathrobe around her. “I think you can do it, too,” she said with a knowing look.
Unfortunately, the damn mating link meant that he couldn’t hide his biggest fear from his mate. She knew that he hadn’t tried to change into a wolf without the aid of the full moon simply because he was frightened he’d change into that creature again. Maybe it was the voluntary nature of the change that had left him not quite a wolf but not quite human either.
“You’ll never know unless you try.”
Aiden and Zeb both nodded, proving that they knew as much about his fear as their mate did. Cal ran a hand down his face. “Fine, but let’s do this inside where the neighbors can’t see.”
As soon as they made it to the living room, Cal stripped off his clothes and tried t
o calm his pounding heart. Determined to get this over with, he tried to remember everything Aiden and Zeb had told him and Louise over the past ten months.
He closed his eyes, breathing out slowly as he pictured his wolf in his mind. He was almost terrified to realize that he seemed to have a choice. Yes, he could turn into a wolf voluntarily, but he could also call up that creature he’d been when his mate was in danger. He could feel Louise’s love shining in her emotions and for the first time in ten months truly appreciated the gift he’d been given.
His half form was stronger, more agile, and capable of human-type movement, but it was also based on pure emotion and more likely to be difficult to control. Even though the realization unsettled him, he also realized that Aiden and Zeb would be there to help him if they ever needed his half form to protect their mate.
Just knowing he wasn’t alone helped settled his emotions even more.
He opened his eyes to smile at the woman who was the center of his universe, winked, and let his body change into the wolf he knew he was. He wagged his tail, bumping into Louise’s leg the same way she’d done to him on the porch.
She scratched him behind the ears, and he suddenly understood the appeal. He let out a happy sound and nuzzled closer.
“Well, I guess that settles it,” Aiden said as he pulled Louise into his arms. “Tonight we claim our mate.”
“Prepare yourself, Mrs. Leckie-Sanders,” Zeb said with a grin. “You are in for a very long night.”
* * * *
Louise laughed happily at the love she could feel surrounding her. All three of her mates were incredible men, not only because of their ability to love her but also because of their willingness to work things out as a family. She knew of the deep respect the three men had for each other and felt it grow each day as they all adjusted to living under the same roof.
Tonight she would claim all three, her wolf marking them as hers as thoroughly as they would mark her. She was a lucky woman to be loved so unconditionally by three incredible men, and she vowed that she’d never forget.
“Come on, baby girl,” Zeb said as he slid his arms around her and kissed her neck. “The moon won’t be up for several more hours yet, and Cal, Aiden, and I have plans for our last official night as unclaimed lone wolves.”
He sent images of all the wicked and delicious things they had in mind. She gasped, her body beginning to burn as heat pooled low in her groin. She nodded, unable to make her mouth work enough to form coherent words.
Did she really want to spend two or three human lifetimes loving three bossy, overbearing, protective, amazingly sexy, wonderfully affectionate, incredibly adorable werewolves who wanted to spank her ass?
Hell, yeah.
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Abby Blake prefers to read or write romance over just about everything else—except maybe chocolate. Most days she can be found hurrying to do what needs to be done so that she can curl up with her laptop and her latest bunch of heroes.
Also by Abby Blake
Ménage Everlasting: Suddenly Wolf
For all other titles, please visit
www.bookstrand.com/abby-blake
Siren Publishing, Inc.
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