by Sam Crescent
“Yes.”
“Look at me,” Sisu said.
She moved so her chin rested on his chest and she could gaze at him. The color of her eyes had returned to their normal hue, but the flecks of gold he’d seen earlier were brighter than before. He inhaled deeply. May still smelled differently. Not entirely human, but not like any shifter he’d known.
“You’re wolf, too,” he said. “You’ve claimed me. Your eyes shifted and your teeth did too. You bit hard.”
A slow smile spread over her face. Her eyes twinkled.
“I guess I have.” Her lips pursed. “But this hasn’t answered any of my questions. I’m still not sure of what I am. I didn’t shift completely. I don’t know if I can. I—”
Sisu interrupted her by pulling her up and kissing her until they broke apart due to lack of air. She rested her forehead against his.
“We’ll find out more, I promise, but I can tell you exactly what you are,” he said.
She glanced down at him quizzically.
“You are my mate. My soulmate. You’re my sunshine.”
www.evernightpublishing.com/elyzabeth-m-valey
CHECKMATE
Wren Michaels
Copyright © 2017
Chapter One
Seven days. Seven days he’d stalked her like prey from the shadows. Moonlight soaked her flaxen hair as it beamed down through the glass-paneled roof. The soft red lighting of the bar shadowed her face, yet those bright blue eyes were like beacons in the dark. With painted-on jeans and a skin-tight t-shirt, she played the crowd for suckers at The Howler, hustling pool and drinking her way into every man’s wet dreams.
Jordan recognized her scent the minute she crossed the threshold each night, rich and seductive human blood masked by an array of amber and musk. Yet, there was something unique about her that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Rather, he’d like to sink his teeth into. She had an allure he’d never encountered before, one that raked his skin with an itch he couldn’t scratch, dried his throat to cotton at the sight of her, and launched his heart into an erratic dizzying beat.
She was a mystery, showing up out of nowhere, coming into his bar the last seven nights in a row. No one knew much about her, and her story was much the same to any who would ask—she was visiting family. The only information anyone had on her was the name the regulars called her by, Trix, for she refused to reveal her real name. She always paid in cash, on the few occasions she had to.
Jordan tipped back his bottle of beer, letting the cold liquid quench his throat.
“It’s been a week, Jordan,” Zeke said, sliding next to him in the dark corner booth.
“For being my intel man, you aren’t giving me much to go on.” Jordan stared his second-in-command down. As Alpha of Eden’s Bayou, Jordan needed to know of any possible threat to his pack. And Zeke was damned good at his job, until now.
“She’s like a ghost, man. I searched everywhere for the last week. No one in a hundred-mile radius has heard of her or even seen her around. She said she’s here visiting family. She very well could be.”
Jordan shook his head, though his stare never left her as she bent over the pool table for a shot. “Not likely, since she seems to spend more time visiting my bar than any family. And she’s always alone.”
“She ain’t wolf, Jordan. I don’t think she’s even a shifter. Don’t smell like one I’ve ever been around, anyway. Her scent is pretty human to me.”
“There’s something about her though.” His lips curled to the left as he watched her shirt creep up her back each time she leaned in for another shot across the table. “Somethin’ ain’t right.”
Jordan twisted in his seat, his jeans tightening around him as she caressed the pool stick like an intimate lover. She raised her head, pressing her cheek against the wood and locked onto his gaze. A fiery tingle struck his heart and sweat slicked his skin from head to toe. He raced to unbutton the flannel shirt now threatening to choke him as heat sweltered his flesh.
“Dude, you okay? You look like you’ve got a fever.” Zeke raised a brow.
Jordan tugged open the top three buttons and tossed him a nod. “It’s just hot in here. Humidity rising in the bayou.”
Zeke folded his arms. “Dude, it’s February and fifty degrees.”
Jordan eyed the woman as she stretched the length of the table for a trick shot, swaying her hips in a rhythm that ensnared his attention like a moth to a flame. His tongue darted out, licking his lips in anticipation. Her cue stick connected with the balls, slapping them around the table and sinking her shot. It snapped his attention back from her hips that almost called out to him to grab her from behind and claim her.
“Jordan?” Zeke slammed a hand on the table. “Did you hear me?”
Jordan shook his head. “Sorry, what?” He cleared his throat and slammed back his beer in hopes it would douse the heat raging through him.
“I said, Bayou Vista is on the move. Since you had me on this wild goose chase about this chick, I had to rely on sources to keep tabs on the surrounding packs. We need to have a plan in place if they try to attack again.” Zeke huffed. “You reckon she could be a spy for them?”
“Unlikely. If she knows exactly what we are, she would have taken off long ago. Roark doesn’t normally send humans to do his dirty work.” Jordan continued studying the mysterious girl as she claimed her victory shot at the bar, scamming another unsuspecting customer out of money and dignity.
“Something feels off, man. My skin’s crawling, like there’s an electricity in the air,” Zeke said with a shake of his head.
Jordan felt it, too. Only he thought it came from the woman who’d consumed his thoughts for the last week. She drew him to her. When daylight came and she disappeared, his soul hollowed with an emptiness he’d never known. But at night, when she walked through that door, his body thrummed, as if coming alive again after a dead sleep.
He’d never experienced that feeling, that sensation. He’d often heard others talk about similar experiences, but that was with their mates. A desire drawing them to their soulmate, a hunger to claim them and become one.
Jordan had yet to find his mate, but it certainly wouldn’t be with a human. Yet every moment they remained in the same room, his every thought was of her: shredding her clothing, burying himself in her, and making her his.
He refused to let any other members of the pack know her effect on him, hoping she’d eventually head back to wherever it was she came from. Because every moment she stayed, his concentration on the needs of his pack waned and focused on her.
“Let’s put a couple extra guys on watch around the bar tonight and back at the homestead. Just in case,” Jordan said, running a hand over his stubbled chin. It’d been days since he’d even shaved.
“I’m on it,” Zeke said, pushing his way out from the booth.
Jordan inched his way around to the edge of the booth as well, but stopped as Trix darted from the bar directly in front of Zeke. Her bright-red fingertips inched their way up his chest as her lips curled into a coy smile. Jordan’s heart seized as he watched her flirt.
Arching her fingertips around his heart, she dug the tips of her nails into his skin. Jordan stood helpless, unable to move. His feet refused to lift from the floor, as if he was frozen in place.
“Zeke,” Jordan yelled out, panic hitting his gut as he realized it was no longer flirting but an outright attack.
Zeke’s rigid body stood like a statue. The woman’s eyes darkened to shined onyx. Her lips chanted some language Jordan couldn’t understand, and a gust of wind blasted the doors off their hinges. Windows shattered around them, blowing through the room in a rainstorm of glass.
Something pulled Jordan’s body, dislodging him from the floor without his control. He flew backward, as though someone had punched him in the gut. Bodies all around him shot through the air, like a vortex sucked them from the bar.
Jordan’s back crashed into a tree outside the bar and the air whoo
shed out of his lungs upon impact. His limp arms and legs collapsed beneath him and his face kissed the dirt. Fangs protruding, he heaved himself up from the ground and leaped into the air toward the bar, only to bounce off an invisible wall.
“Zeke,” Jordan yelled out from the doorway. Some kind of ward prevented him from getting back into his own damned bar. “Zeke!”
But he didn’t answer. Zeke’s body swayed like a pendulum, caught in the woman’s hypnotic trance. Fuck, he should have followed his gut instinct days ago, instead he fell prey to his dick and salivated over the bitch. Probably all part of her plan. She must be a witch. She had him under some spell, just like Zeke now. That would certainly explain his sudden lust at the very sight of her. All part of a detailed game of distraction she’d been laying for days.
“You bitch! Let me the fuck in there and I might just let you live.” Jordan slammed his palms against the door frame. But the force of the wards blew him back once more, and his spine cracked as it broke the tree.
A howl gurgled in his throat as he fought for breath. Searing pain leached up his back as the bones fused themselves back together. As the last vertebrae snapped in place, he leaped from the ground and made toward the bar again. Thanks to the ancient blood in his veins, he healed quicker than any of the others.
But something in the air stopped him cold. That scent.
Wolves. Bayou Vista wolves.
Fuck.
“Let me in. You have no idea what kind of danger you’re in!” Jordan cried out. “For fuck’s sake, Zeke, wake the hell up!”
Panic rode the waves of nausea tumbling in Jordan’s stomach. Fear for his brother and fear for his pack.
Several sets of yellow eyes surrounded the perimeter of the bar, peeking out from between the trees. The rival pack outnumbered them, but Jordan refused to give up his pack to a bunch of thugs and lowlifes. His pack was his family, the last of a generation of pure-bloods, the ancients. And the Bayou Vista pack wanted to infuse them with their hybrid-tainted blood—part vampire, part wolf, part fae. They didn’t like the power the ancients held over them, having the strongest bloodline.
Jordan could easily dispose of three of them on his own. But as the number of eyes increased in the darkness, so did his odds of losing. He needed his brother. He needed the rest of his pack, who were currently back at the homestead five miles away. The only other wolf working tonight had been Benny, the bartender.
Jordan closed his eyes and channeled his Alpha side, burrowing into Benny’s psyche. Benny, you need to run back to the homestead and get help. Roark and the Vista pack are here. Run!
Benny darted into the darkness, shredding his clothes as he leaped into the air mid-change.
If Jordan could just get inside and wake Zeke the fuck up, they could at least hold them off until reinforcements arrived.
The yellow eyes disappeared from the trees, replaced by a dozen men walking from the edge of the forest perimeter toward the bar.
“Listen to me, Trix,” Jordan pleaded. “You have no idea what you’re about to be up against. There’s a pack of asshole wolves headed your way. Let my brother go and we can help you.”
The woman glanced over her shoulder at him, then to the figures walking toward the bar as the moonlight uncovered them.
“They can’t get past my wards. I have unfinished business with your brother,” Trix said, and she turned her attention back on Zeke.
“Dammit, Trix. You’re about to get killed, and so is Zeke. Fucking use your head, woman!” Jordan slammed a hand against the door frame, sending him sailing back through the air. Fuck, he was going to make her pay for that.
“What’s the matter, Jordan? Can’t get a drink in your own bar?” Roark laughed as he leaned against the opposite blown-out door. “Pity, she’s a pretty li’l thing.”
“Get the hell out of here, Roark. You have no business here.”
“I have plenty of business. We’re all about done being held under the thumb of the Eden’s Bayou pack. Vista’s time is here and now. You so-called pure-bloods think you’re so high and mighty. But you’re just a bunch of sanctimonious assholes trying to rule over the rest of us. So fuck you, your pack, your bitch here, and your brother. It’s all ours now.” Roark ran a hand under his nose and smirked as he wiggled his fingers through the doorway. The wards had no effect on him.
Jordan’s eyes widened. “Zeke, fucking wake up.”
Trix dropped her hand from Zeke’s chest. Blood stained a circle around his heart where her fingertips had been. She turned in a circle, staring at the men entering the bar from all ends.
“Yeah, I guess you didn’t think about other wolves showing up to your little party, did you? If you want to live, Trix, let me the fuck in here. I promise you’ll survive. Just fucking drop the wards. Now!” Jordan clenched his hands into fists, snarling through his teeth.
“Fine,” Trix said, waving her hand as she dropped the magical wards blocking him entrance. “I have your word I am to stay alive?”
“Absolutely,” Jordan said, crouching, ready to strike.
As the wards dropped, he leaped into the air. One arm swatted the bitch away from his brother and she flew backward over the bar and dropped to the floor.
He never said she wouldn’t leave unscathed.
Chapter Two
Nyah’s eyes fluttered open and she attempted to wake up. Darkness shrouded her, except for the moonlight streaming in from the window behind her. She rolled over and a wave of pain crashed her head, forcing a moan from her throat.
“What happened?” she choked out as her fingertips caressed a lump at the back of her head.
A low growl hummed through the air in response. Her heart raced at the sound and she shot up from the bed. Before she could grasp her surroundings, a hand clutched her throat and slammed her against a wall.
Arms and legs flailing, she dangled in the air, gasping for breath.
“Who the hell are you?” a gruff voice said. If she hadn’t been fighting to get air into her lungs, that voice would have melted her insides to a puddle. Sexy and animalistic, it still sent a wave of heat through her.
She clasped her hands to his and tried to pry his fingers from her throat. Fine, if he wanted to play that way, she would, too. Pressing her hand to his chest, she mumbled an incantation and her hand blazed with fire.
The man dropped her from his grasp. “What the ever-loving fuck?” He stripped out of his shirt and threw it to the floor, stomping out the flames engulfing it.
“Don’t choke me, and I won’t have to do that again.” Nyah rubbed her neck, attempting to swallow back her fear mixed with excitement.
The stranger stepped back and moonlight shimmered against his light-brown skin. Muscles flinched as he curled his hands to fists. For a wolf, the man was as smooth as porcelain. Not a hair on his head or his chest, save the dark stubble that dotted his stark jawline clenched as tight as his hands.
She’d watched him for a week, studied him. Though the coven told her the target was his brother, Zeke, the one they called Jordan had stolen her focus, and it cost her. Damn him. Something about him intrigued her. Maybe it was his quiet, broody nature sitting in that back booth every night just taking in the surroundings. Maybe it was how his gaze stalked her from across the room, undressing her within the depths of his dark-brown eyes. Maybe it was his protectiveness over his pack, because when he wasn’t watching her, he was watching everything else going on in that bar, from the patrons to the workers, the ones who’d nicknamed her Trix.
She fell prey to whatever charms he used on her, and she kicked her own ass for it. Nyah should have been back to her sister’s coven by now with the heart of her killer still pumping in her hands. Instead, she stood eye to eye with a wolf.
“You tried to kill my brother. While I said I would let you live, I didn’t say you wouldn’t be punished for it.” Jordan closed the space between them, releasing that low growl again from his chest.
“What happened after you knock
ed me out?” Nyah folded her arms, holding her ground. The wolf didn’t scare her. She’d been up against their kind before.
Jordan backed her against the wall and slammed his hands above her head. Blood trickled the length of three claw marks on his upper arm. Nyah fought the instinct to touch them, heal them, remembering her enemy towered over her. Heavy, weighted breaths huffed from his mouth against her ear, sending a ripple of exhilaration to her core. As much as she didn’t want it to, it turned her on. His nearness, his growls, his ferocity with her.
“I won, if that’s what you’re asking.” He leaned in and sniffed along her neck before pulling back. “Who are you, Trix? Obviously, you’re a witch. But what I can’t figure out is, which coven has a beef with my pack? We haven’t had any trouble with witches in centuries.”
“The name’s Nyah. They only call me Trix because the bastards in your bar don’t know how to play pool.”
He gripped the hair at the back of her head and yanked her face toward him. “I don’t care about your pool hustling, I care about why you tried to rip Zeke’s heart out. Now tell me, before I rip yours out with my teeth.”
He wouldn’t hurt her, of that Nyah was sure. The evidence of that pressed against her belly. He was just as turned on as she was, and she’d use that to her advantage. She’d get close to him to get close to Zeke and then avenge her sister’s death. Maybe she’d kill both of them, send a message to the wolves that when they kill a witch, they should know who they’re dealing with. They may have taken her sister, but Nyah was the stronger of the twins. Even more now since Norah’s death fused their powers back together in her veins.
She didn’t care about the coven her sister joined years ago when she ran away from their abusive father. She did care about losing her only remaining family. Nyah was now the last of the Winston Witches, descendants from Salem. Norah would never know what Nyah had done for her, killing their dad, making him confess with his last breath that he had indeed killed their mother. And she would have made damn sure he wouldn’t do it to her sister.
