Jager smiled as he remembered how she’d brought him down and then tried to handcuff him. She’d totally taken him by surprise. He hadn’t expected her to use a karate move on him. Obviously, his mate was even tougher than she looked. Just listening to her ordering him to put down his sword in an authoritative voice and seeing her dressed in her cop uniform with her long reddish-brown hair pulled back in a bun had been a turn on. Her brown eyes had been all business, even when she had been checking him out, which was good. He needed his mate to be tough, not some flower that would dissolve in a fit of tears if he looked at her wrong. He was never one for watching what he said. He liked to say whatever was on his mind, no pussyfooting around.
Unlike his brother-in-arms Leif, who never wanted to be tied down, Jager looked forward to claiming the one woman who was meant to be his. Though doing it would be a tad difficult. Other than the fact that she was mortal, and more than likely had no idea werewolves actually existed, there was also the small point that she would try to arrest his ass if she saw him again. He would have to work around that. At least he knew she hadn’t been totally unaffected by him. When he had kissed her, unable to stop from having one small taste of her before he left, and she had kissed him back, it had taken everything in him not to claim her as his mate right there and then on the ground in that dirty alley. The mating urge had started to ride him hard then, and that wouldn’t have done anything to endear him to her.
Having arrived at the mansion where he lived with his sister and brothers, Jager parked his Camaro in the large garage and went inside. After he stepped into the spacious foyer, he heard the sound of voices coming from the kitchen. He made his way to that room and found Skylar, Roan, and Roan’s mate, Ansley, there. Both Skylar and Roan were his true brothers. They all shared similar features, along with having the same light brown hair and light blue eyes. Ansley had Skylar sitting in one of the kitchen chairs with a hairdresser’s cape around him while she trimmed the ends of his long hair. Ansley was a hair stylist and had taken over the job of doing haircuts from their sister, Saskia. Roan sat on the edge of the kitchen table as he watched his mate work.
Jager crossed the room and grabbed a bottle of beer out of the fridge before he went back over to the others. He pulled out one of the empty chairs and sat down before he twisted off the beer cap and took a big sip.
Putting the beer bottle on the table, he said, “Aren’t you looking pretty, Skylar, with your hair all nicely trimmed?” Jager chuckled when his brother flipped him off.
“Be nice, Jager,” Ansley said. “And talking about trims, when are you going to let me cut your hair?”
Jager grabbed his pony tail and pulled it over his shoulder. It was getting long. It hung to the middle of his back when tied back, but he liked it that way. He looked at the ends. “I’m good. I’ll let you know when I want a haircut.” Since Roan had claimed Ansley as his mate three months before, she’d cut everyone’s hair who lived in the mansion, except for his.
Roan snorted. “If your hair gets any longer, people will think you’re a woman from behind.”
“Bite me.”
“No thanks. I’d much rather bite my mate.” Roan moved to stand behind Ansley and nuzzled the side of her neck.
“Hey,” Skylar said. “Enough of that. Please don’t distract her when she’s holding a pair of very sharp scissors near me. I only want a trim. I don’t want my hair all cut off because Ansley chopped a big hunk out of it.” Skylar usually wore his hair the same way Jager liked his, except it wasn’t quite as long.
Ansley shoved Roan away. “Don’t worry, Skylar, I would never do that. Roan will stay out the way. I doubt he would want me to slip and get his hair instead.” She opened and closed the scissors she held in her mate’s direction.
Roan backed away. “I don’t want to be shaved bald either.” He pulled out a chair next to Jager and took a seat. “So how did tonight go? Did Leif’s tip pay off?”
Jager nodded. “Yeah. I found the lone wolf at the nightclub where Leif said he would be. If not for one small interruption, I would have beaten him during our sword fight and forced some answers out of him.
At that moment, Leif walked into the kitchen. “What kind of interruption?” With his werewolf hearing, Leif would have had no problem hearing what Jager had said before he arrived in the kitchen.
A smile spread across Jager’s lips. “A lady cop spotted me and the lone wolf crossing swords in an alley. The lone wolf took off when she showed up.”
“Why didn’t you go after him?” Leif asked.
“I couldn’t. I was a little busy trying to get a grip on the mating urged that slammed into me while my mate was ordering me to put down my sword so she could arrest me.”
Leif cursed as he got up and went to the fridge. He took out a beer and gulped down two big swigs before he returned to the table with it. “Dear God, you’re dropping like flies. First Saskia, then Roan, and now you find your mate. If I’m not careful, I’ll be next.”
Roan wrapped his arm around Ansley now that she had finished with Skylar’s hair.
“I wouldn’t say that too many times out loud, Leif, or it may actually come true.” Roan chuckled when Leif picked up his beer and chugged half of it almost in one gulp. He then turned to Jager. “So when do we get to meet this mate of yours?”
Jager scratched his chin. “Well, there is a bit of a problem, besides her being a mortal.”
Ansley spoke up. “Does her being a mortal bother you?”
Jager knew why Ansley had asked that particular question. Before she’d mated with Roan, she had been a mortal, the same as Eli, Saskia’s mate. They both had become werewolves with the help of Roxie, the foretold one. Not only was Roxie the leader of the werewolf packs because of the mark she had around her left wrist, she also had some extra magic inside her that the average werewolf didn’t have. One of her extra powers was her ability to turn a mortal into a werewolf with a magic spell and some of her blood.
Because she was so special, they had become her Protectors. If it ever came out that she could do the things she could, they would have more than Miles trying to steal her away to worry about.
With a shake of his head, Jager said, “No, her being a mortal doesn’t bother me. The problem is the fact that I resisted arrest and she’ll probably try to cuff me when I get close to her again.”
Skylar started to laugh. “She tried to cuff you? I wish I’d been there to see that.”
Jager ignored him. “Anyway, once I got away from my mate, the lone wolf’s trail had gone dead. But he was definitely one of Miles’ men. He admitted to that.”
“We’ll have to tell Saskia. She’ll want to know,” Roan said. “So what are you going to do about your lady cop?”
Jager shrugged. “Not sure yet. At least I managed to get her name from the tag she wore. Are Dirk and Kye still with Roxie?”
They usually split their numbers and took turns watching over Roxie, especially when she went to Wulf’s Den with her mate, Beowulf. Beowulf owned Wulf’s Den, a local nightclub where werewolves and mortals mixed, not that the mortals knew that.
Roan nodded. “Yeah, they are. They should be home in a couple of hours.”
Jager grabbed his beer off the table and stood. “Good. I’m going to get Dirk to do his magic on the Internet and see what he can come up with on my mate.” Dirk, though well over a thousand years old, as were the rest of the Protectors, kept up his skills with all the new technology. He was an Internet junkie just as Roxie was.
Without another word, Jager walked out of the kitchen. He needed to be by himself for a bit. Now that he had found his mate, the mating urge would ride him hard until he claimed her as his own. Even now, just talking about Daylen had caused him to become slightly aroused. He would be lucky if he didn’t walk around constantly with a hard-on until she was his. And tonight, having listened to what Roan had gone through before he had claimed Ansley as his mate, Jager expected to have one erotic dream after another about D
aylen. The longer he waited to make her his, the worse the mating urge would ride him. Not a patient man by any stretch, Jager knew he would have to act quickly.
Once he reached his bedroom, he shut the door behind him. He had plans to make.
First and foremost, he had to find a way to get Daylen to overlook what she thought was her duty and not want to arrest him. Once they got over that, Jager had a feeling he could get her to accept what was meant to be. If she didn’t, he had no qualms about throwing her over his shoulder and locking her in a room somewhere until he’d persuaded her to see things his way. Throwing himself on his bed, Jager turned on the television on the far wall with the remote and grinned. He knew just what he would do to convince Daylen to see things his way. It would be something they both would enjoy.
* * *
When dawn started to lighten the sky, Daylen drove her cruiser back to the police station. After a long night of patrolling, she was ready to go home and fall into bed. Once in her own car, a dark blue Ford Focus, she debated on whether or not to pick up some breakfast through one of the fast food drive-thrus, but in the end she decided against it.
Her body needed sleep more than it needed food, especially since she had one more night shift to go through before she had a couple of days off.
Arriving at the street where she lived, a neighborhood that was made up mostly of families with young children, Daylen parked her car in the driveway of her three bedroom bungalow. Inside the house, she locked the door behind her, then headed to her bedroom to change out of her uniform.
As she locked up her gun in the metal fire-safe lockbox she stored in her closet, she once again found her thoughts drawn to the man she’d encountered in the alley. She seemed to be thinking about him way more than she should. For some reason, she couldn’t stop herself from doing it. And it wasn’t because he had gotten away. No, she found herself mooning over what it had felt like to be kissed by him with his body pressed to hers. It pissed her off every time she did it. Daylen had never been, and never would be, the kind of woman to go all gaga over a man. And especially not one who went around sword fighting in dark alleys.
Daylen was too practical to lose her head over a man. Every relationship she had, she’d looked at as a partnership rather than a romantic love affair. If she found the man attractive, and he was willing to overlook the fact that she was a cop, she’d let things take their natural course. The sex would be all right, but it was never blow-your-mind good.
The relationship would usually peter out a few months down the road with no one getting hurt.
Now she had found a man who could not only kiss like there was no tomorrow, he’d also just about blown her socks off while doing it. And the kicker was she wanted to see him again. She also hadn’t reported the incident in the alley. For some unexplainable reason, she didn’t like the thought of another cop finding him and arresting him. Daylen wanted to be the one to bring him in.
Disgusted with how much time she’d spent thinking about him, she went to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth after she changed into a pair of pajama bottoms and an over-sized t-shirt. That done, she returned to the bedroom and got into bed. The dark shade pulled over the window blocked most of the light from outside.
Closing her eyes, Daylen drifted off to sleep with the image of the man swirling inside her head.
* * *
Miles sat in an overstuffed leather armchair in front of the wall of windows in his penthouse apartment watching the sunrise. He swirled the Scotch in the glass he held before he brought it to his lips and took a drink. The news he had received had been good and bad. He took another swallow of his drink.
The bad part was that the Protectors had once again found one of the men he used to find new recruits. At least this one had been smart enough to get away before he’d led the enemy to their door. The last time the Protectors had found the place where he trained his recruits Miles had had to destroy it, taking some of his men with it. It had taken him months to set up a new location, and to rebuild the number of lone wolves willing to follow him. He couldn’t afford a loss of that magnitude again now that the foretold one had been found.
The good news had in a small way made up for the fact that the Protectors were once more on his trail. A wicked smile spread across Miles’ lips. His man had made an interesting find before he’d managed to get away from the alley where he had encountered Jager. And Miles knew it was Jager from the lone wolf’s description of him.
He’d also told him about Jager’s reaction to the female police officer who had interrupted their fight. The sword-happy idiot had found his mate. Needless to say, Miles found that information quite useful. It wouldn’t be that hard to find out who the woman was. All he had to do was have one of his men follow Jager to her. The idiot wouldn’t be able to stay away from her. Since she had to be mortal, Miles knew it would hinder Jager’s ability to claim her as his. If the Protectors happened to come too close to his new headquarters, Miles figured Jager’s soon-to-be mate would make an excellent bargaining chip. And if Jager managed to claim her before Miles needed to use her, all the better. Mated werewolves couldn’t stand to be away from their mates. They became extremely agitated to say the least. It would be fun to watch Jager suffer while separated from his mate. It would just be one more incentive to get the Protectors to leave him alone. Given how honorable his sister and her brothers-in-arms were, they would do everything in their power to keep Jager’s mate from harm. Their weakness would be his gain.
Chapter Three
At the start of her next shift, Daylen walked into the large room her sergeant usually used for the short meetings before she and the rest of the officers went out on patrol. She crossed the room and sat down in an empty chair next to one of the other officers.
He turned in his seat and smiled. “One more night and then the next two days are ours. Got any plans this weekend?”
Daylen shook her head and smiled back at the man beside her. She and Nick Winston had gone through the police academy together and then had come to work in the same precinct. At first glance, Nick looked liked one tough customer with his brown hair buzzed close to his scalp and his large, muscular body. Being six foot four also helped with the illusion. But, on the inside, Nick was a sweet guy who would go out of his way to help people.
“No,” Daylen said. “No plans. I’ll probably just veg in front of the TV. How’s Allison? Any signs of that baby making an appearance any time soon?” Nick’s wife, Allison, was pregnant with their first child and due any day.
Nick shook his head. “Not yet, but Allison is more than ready.”
Daylen chuckled. “I bet she is. I think she was ready a month ago.”
“At least she hasn’t gone over her due date.”
“Well, you know what to do if she does go past it. From what I’ve read, sex apparently will jumpstart a woman’s labor.”
Nick grinned. “I told Allison about that when you told me the first time. Let’s just say we’ve been putting that bit of advice to good use.”
“I figured it would be no hardship for you.”
At that moment, their sergeant walked into the room. The other officers settled down when he went to stand at the front of the room. “All right, people. You all know what you’ll be doing tonight so I won’t keep you long. While you’re out, keep your eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary.”
“What would that be, sarge?” Nick asked.
“We’ve had a couple of reports that a wolf, or a very large dog, has been seen in the back alleys of the nightclub district. Normally I wouldn’t take this seriously, but we’ve had more than one person call over the last couple of weeks, and the sightings have been in the same general area. This could just be someone’s pet who has gotten loose, but if you do spot it, don’t take any chances. Try to keep it cornered and then call in for animal control to take care of it. That’s it for tonight. Be careful out there.”
Daylen filed out of the room with the
rest of the officers. Nick walked at her side.
“The nightclub district is your patrol,” he said. “Have you spotted a wolf lurking about?”
“None so far.” A wolf couldn’t be any stranger than that sword fight.
Damn. Just like that she found herself remembering the man in the alley. Even in sleep, she hadn’t been able to get away from him. She’d had one particularly erotic dream starring him. It had started off with him kissing her in the alley, but then the scene had shifted and they had somehow ended up in bed together, naked. In her dream, they had made love, and it had been the best sex Daylen had ever had. He’d rocked her world. At the end of it, she’d woken up wet and aching for a man she’d have to arrest if she ever saw him again.
Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t realize Nick had been speaking to her until he grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to a stop. She saw they had reached his cruiser outside. Daylen quickly pulled her thoughts together. “Sorry, what did you say?”
Nick gave her a look that said he’d probably already repeated himself more than once. “I said if you do happen to see the wolf, don’t do anything stupid. You never know.
The damn thing could have rabies.”
“I doubt I’ll see it. And I doubt it’s a wolf. It’s more likely some mongrel stray that happens to be on the large size.”
“Even then, be careful.”
Daylen started to walk backwards toward her cruiser. “Stop worrying, mother hen.
You know I don’t do anything rash. If I don’t catch you at the end of your shift, tell Allison I said hi.”
“I will. Hopefully I’ll be calling you from the hospital over the weekend.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you.”
* * *
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