Rosko, Mandy - The Wolf's Pack [Sequel to Mate of the Wolf] (Siren Publishing Classic)

by Mandy Rosko

  Sequel to Mate of the Wolf

  The Wolf’s Pack

  Shelly Star has run away with her Alpha werewolf lover and disappeared from the grid, but not the spotlight. The tabloids are still having a field day with the story of her disappearance, ironically making Shelly even more famous now than before she left.

  This makes her very presence in the pack a danger to their secrecy, and what’s worse, there are some people in the pack who want her, and Michael, banished before the vampires return for his silver pelt and before the police and reporters show up for Shelly.

  Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal, Vampires/Werewolves

  Length: 35,329 words

  THE WOLF’S PACK

  Sequel to Mate of the Wolf

  Mandy Rosko

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  THE WOLF’S PACK

  Copyright © 2011 by Mandy Rosko

  E-book ISBN: 1-61034-767-6

  First E-book Publication: September 2011

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of The Wolf’s Pack by Mandy Rosko from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Mandy Rosko’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Rosko’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  THE WOLF’S PACK

  Sequel to Mate of the Wolf

  MANDY ROSKO

  Copyright © 2011

  Chapter One

  Shelley Star made a break for it when she punched the werewolf in the face. Alex was so pissed his transformation was inevitable. The stunned look on his mug would have been funny—open mouth, eyes wide—had she not been a whole foot shorter than the guy, and a human whom he could snap in half with his Iron Man hands. Her knuckles even hurt from when she’d punched him. His face hadn’t even discolored.

  Then those big eyes narrowed, heavy brows coming down, and the ripple that Shelley recognized as part of the transformation process shimmered under his skin.

  She got the hell out of there, faster than a bullet train, before his wolfy self could wake up and hunt her down.

  Running into the trees surrounding the house would’ve been a too-stupid-to-live move that even her panicked brain could figure out. Her first thought was to run into her bedroom, hide under the sheets, and stay quiet-as-a-mouse still, and no, hiding under the sheets was not a dumb move on her part. In fact, she’d been here a couple of minutes so far, and nothing had broken down the door. Yet.

  The door opened. She could hear the gentle turn and click of the chrome knob. No wolf could do that, only a man. There was only one man allowed to enter this space. The wood slid across the carpet, and the muffled clomp-clomp suggested heavy-booted feet.

  Michael’s big hand gently pinched the comforter over her face and pulled it away. He looked just as confused as Alex had been before his face twisted, stretched, and sprouted hair, at any rate.

  He wore a blue button-down plaid over a white T-shirt and his usual faded jeans. Not faded from work, or designer, but from age and constant use.

  It was pointless to be constantly buying new whenever the fancy struck, despite all the money Michael had—this fortress house being proof enough of that—since the transformations usually left clothing barely wearable. Whatever new clothes were purchased tended to get sealed up in bags and hidden around the 350 acres of forestland that made up the property, just in case.

  A single light brow on Michael’s face lifted high into that sandy hairline, and his pink mouth parted a little, as though not sure what to say to her.

  She grinned at him. “You heard?”

  “Jake came and got me.”

  That took her aback a little.

  “He was human when he saw you punch Alex. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile at anything before.” Michael sat by her knees. “I take it you’re not happy?”

  She had enough energy left in her to form an angry pout in his direction. “No.”

  Silence, then a little smile. “Alex wouldn’t have attacked you. His wolf knows better than to touch his alpha’s woman, but what did you think this would do?” He flicked the brown comforter.

  “I was hoping your smell would keep him out.” Hence why it’s not stupid to hide under the covers, Shelley thought.

  A crinkle of paper alerted her to something in his hand. He tossed it onto her chest. She sat up and took the magazine, and the Star logo on the corner immediately had her insides knotting.

  Her most recent personal picture took up the whole front cover but for the right side. That was reserved for the smaller photos of Shelley’s mom, dad, and her two sisters. They looked like a unit, a little battalion of brunets, her parents standing behind Stacy and Sissy, their hands on their remaining daughters’ shoulders, as though protecting them and keeping them close. The whole group had grim expressions. The caption, printed in yellow below them, read simply We Miss Her.

  Shelley had to look back at the picture of herself. It wasn’t from when she was going to the Grammys, or even during the premiere of any of the movies she’d done, few that there were. It was a picture fro
m home. The last time she’d been at home, anyway. She’d been seventeen then. Her formerly blonde hair was slicked back from sweat and a red bandanna. It had been longer then. Her clothes were gray joggers and a sports bra. She’d been working to lose some weight after being told she was too heavy to get the role of a dancer in a music video.

  Shelley frowned. This was staged. She could tell because she’d had her photo taken enough for Cosmo, Elle, and several others to recognize when the photographer, or someone else, wanted to elicit a certain emotion out of the viewers. Just a normal hometown girl, smiling for the camera, at home with her family, and there was her family, looking perfectly groomed, unhappy, and victimized.

  She tossed the paper away. “So what?”

  His jaw became tight. He looked like he hadn’t shaved that morning. Something he usually forgot to do.

  Then it clicked. “You don’t think I’d want to go back?”

  “Of course not. You’ve made your feelings perfectly clear on the subject of…them.”

  Yes, she had.

  “Then why would you order me not to leave the house?” That was what had pissed her off enough to hit Alex.

  Alex was the second-in-command for Michael’s pack. If Michael was the alpha, then technically, Alex was the beta, even though no one actually used that word for him. Alex was usually the one to carry out the commands Michael made.

  Which meant that she’d punched the messenger.

  She hadn’t thought about it in that way when her fist flew. She hadn’t been thinking at all, and now that she did, she felt a little bad.

  “Shelley,” Michael said, making his voice softer, more tender, to turn her into mash.

  “Yes?” she asked, the strength leaving her voice despite herself.

  It had been a month since Michael Hunter had brought her to his home, introduced her to the members of his pack who were living here, most of whom had a great big laugh when they found out about how she and their alpha had met, but in all that time, they’d only gone to bed once. Their first night in this room.

  It had been a totally wild night that left Shelley blushing like crazy the next morning, unable to look her new roommates in the eyes, even hours after they’d stopped smirking over it.

  Since then, Michael had to be called away to answer questions his family all seemed to have about the vampires and their current status.

  Hence why she’d been so uptight when Alex had delivered the latest order.

  Not all vampires were a problem for werewolves and their packs, but the ones who were, were after Michael, and well, they were on a whole new level of insane.

  Michael had left his pack, exiled himself, hoping to draw the vampires away. Upon his return with Shelley, he needed to reassert his command over his wolves.

  Shelley was beginning to feel like she’d married the CEO of some big company, whose spare time was precious and little. Though they shared the room, they rarely slept in this bed at the same time, and when they did, Michael was always too tired from arguments he had over the phone with unruly pack members or negotiations with the vampires not loyal to the king, to do anything more than pass out over the covers.

  This was the first time in weeks they’d both been perfectly awake and aware while on a mattress. Middle of the day and house full of people or not, Shelley felt his closeness, watched the rise and fall of his chest under his tight button-down as he breathed, and noted the way he looked at her.

  She scooted closer to him, wrapped her arms around his muscled arm, and tilted her head to rest it on his shoulder.

  She felt the heat radiate from his body. “Shelley,” he said again.

  She reached up to kiss the spot just under his jaw. It was strong and prickly, the way she remembered and liked. “Mmm?”

  “We might have to leave the pack.”

  That stopped her mouth from traveling farther up to his lips hella fast. She pulled back. “What? I thought—”

  “I am leader of this pack, but that leadership still depends on certain factors. You know there were some members who did not want me to come back.”

  She did know. Shelley could remember plainly finding those letters under Michael’s bed in that worn-down cabin in Washington. Some people—Chris, Alex, and Deena—wanted him to come home so badly. She imagined Jake would’ve written the same but doubted he knew how to read or write. Others in the pack, mostly Cal, wrote how his absence was benefiting everyone.

  She still wasn’t entirely up to date on werewolf pack law, but so far, none of them were like anything she’d read about in romance novels or seen in horror flicks.

  Then a scary thought hit her, and she gripped Michael’s arm tighter.

  He chuckled, reading her thoughts. “No one’s going to kill anyone. We’ll settle it the way we always settle things.”

  Shelley narrowed her eyes. “The last time I saw you settle anything, there was blood all over the lawn.” The mix of green and dark, shiny red hadn’t been pretty, either.

  His grin showed off perfectly white teeth. It was hard not to melt all over his lap at that face. She slapped his arm instead. “Stop that! This is serious. Are you going to fight them?”

  She hadn’t met Cal, or many other pack members who didn’t live in this house. To her, they were just faceless voices across the distance that so far had done nothing but cause her trouble.

  “Cal was the one who issued the challenge. I’ll be expected to battle him. The winner will have the final decision, but, because I am alpha, if I lose…”

  “You won’t be in charge anymore.”

  He nodded. “Alpha battles tend to be that way.”

  Michael could handle himself, but Shelley was a glass-half-empty kind of girl. She was worried. In most werewolf books she’d read, pack members were all best friends who had each others’ backs and handled their matters with a vote. This was different, more real somehow, since everything needed to be settled with a fight. Chris and Alex once fought over what to order for dinner. Chinese or pizza. They both had bites and deep gashes all over the place in the end. Deena had been pissed because she was the one who had to break out the first aid kit and stitch bloody wounds every time someone got hurt.

  But Shelley supposed it made sense in a twisted kind of way. It was, however, really inconvenient under current circumstances. “You’ll beat them, right?”

  “Only Cal issued a challenge. Most likely I can. It’ll happen the minute he gets here, but I’m beginning to think that I should just step down and get it over with.”

  “No,” Shelley said immediately, “you’re safer here.”

  “Shelley, Pearl may or may not read those types of magazines,” he said, his eyes going down to the crumpled paper still on the bedspread, “but she will eventually see your face somewhere. She knows where I am, and she’ll know you’re with me. If she knows half the humans in the country are looking for you, she can stir up some serious shit for the pack.”

  Pearl being the vampire princess who was most interested in bringing Michael to her father. The same vampire Shelley came into contact with the last time the vampire and Michael had battled.

  Shelley’s blood chilled. Memories of dyed-purple hair, long nails dripping poison, and fangs in her neck brought a chill to her bones that she shivered off. When that didn’t entirely work, her hands came up on their own to rub her arms. “Your family is thinking I’ll cause trouble?”

  “Not all of them,” Michael assured her, “but if the police were to suddenly show up and collect you because Pearl tipped them off, that could lead to a lot of awkward questions.”

  Especially since the papers seemed all too happy to write about her kidnapping. When Shelley had disappeared with Michael a month ago, she’d left everything behind, even her rental car and all the camping equipment she’d brought out when she first met him.

  She’d been taking a break, time to herself to figure out whether she really wanted to sign a contract to act in so many movies in one year she’d likely have g
one insane.

  Michael had been a wolf when they’d met. Naturally, she’d freaked out and run for it. She was in pretty good shape, but he’d chased her down until she passed out, but Michael’s wolf form was able to recognize something that his human self could not. She was his mate. That’s why he hadn’t torn her to itty-bitty pieces.

  She’d woken up with him on top of her, totally naked. She’d been scared out of her mind, but he didn’t want to risk that he’d scratched and infected her, so he took her and chained her to the inside of his little house, hidden away in the woods. It wasn’t until he transformed a second time that he figured out what she was.

  Then Pearl had shown up and ruined their short-lived peace.

  Michael’s wolf didn’t just have a rare silver color to its pelt. It was, like, real silver. The kind of silver people made into jewelry and wore on their bodies, mixed in with actual gray wolf hair. She kept a bit of the coarse stuff in the locket around her neck, and, to complicate things further with paranormal politics, the vampire king wanted to use it for trimming on his royal robes, so he sent his half-breed daughter out to collect. It was the reason why Michael had left in the first place.

  Michael nearly killed Pearl that last time they met, but, being the honorable man she loved, he showed mercy instead. He let her go.

  For a while, when nothing else happened and no other vampires attacked, Shelley’d hoped that would be the end of it.

  Or…had it really been the end? Michael obviously saw where her thoughts had headed—he could hear them half the time, a product of their mating—because he took on a guilty expression.