by Lisa Kessler
He bit her? I couldn’t wrap my head around it so I grabbed on to something small that I could digest. “Is that why he called you his mate instead of…girlfriend or…something?”
Ryker came over, leaning his elbows on the back of her chair so he was a more human height. I knew him well enough not to be frightened, but his massive size definitely put some people off. He had a handsome face like Alcide on True Blood, but by the time they looked all the way up there, most people were already backing away.
“Gage didn’t tell you about mates, either?” Ryker asked. He pressed a kiss to the top of Serenity’s head. “You probably know that wolves mate for life?”
I nodded, my mouth going dry.
“So do werewolves. There’s one mate for each of us and only one, and when we find our mate, our wolves know it the moment we touch. Even though mine was in a coma at the time, as soon as my fingers brushed her skin, my wolf came unglued, howling from the shadows of my soul. He recognized her instantly. And when we found her”—he massaged Serenity’s shoulders—“we knew we would treasure her forever.”
Serenity reached up and patted his hand. “It freaked me out at first, but everyone in the pack assures me that fate hasn’t made a mistake yet.”
Mates. Why didn’t Gage mention it? Maybe telling me werewolves existed was all he thought I could handle at one time. But something he’d said the night he’d knocked me out of the way of a bullet whispered through my mind.
I can’t let anything happen to you.
Okay. No. This was crazy. Why would fate choose me?
However, it would explain his sudden attraction…
My heart sank. It had nothing to do with me. He was operating on instinct.
Serenity looked up at Ryker and back to me. “Are you sticking around until Asher gets back?”
“Oh.” I shook my head, struggling to mentally back away from my revelation about Gage. “Yeah.” I nodded. “You guys can take off if you need to.”
Ryker straightened up, grinning at Serenity. “Let’s go grab the cubs. They’ve probably grown since we dropped them off.”
Serenity stood up, rolling her eyes. “They’ve only been with Kaya for a few hours.” She met my eyes. “Thanks for letting us sneak out a little early. Yesterday was the first time we’ve ever left them with someone else, and I’m still a little twitchy from missing them.”
Ryker took out his phone and skimmed through his photos, then held it out to show me. Seeing him as a proud dad made me smile. It was a good look on him. He found another picture of the two tiny boys lying next to each other in the crib with huge grins on their faces.
They had their dad’s dark coloring and their mom’s big, haunting green eyes. I glanced up at him. “They’re gorgeous. And they’re smiling already? Are they even a month old yet?”
He chuckled, beaming with pride. “According to Cole, shifter babies grow and mature faster than humans. They’ll slow down a little around five years old, just in time to start school.” He poked at the screen. “That’s Jasper.” He glanced my way. “He’s the older brother.”
Serenity nudged him. “By five minutes.”
“Still counts.” He grinned and pointed to the other boy. “And this is Jack.” His expression softened. “He’s got a birthmark on his foot. It’s the only way I can tell them apart right now.”
Serenity came over next to him, draping her arm around his waist. “Jack had a hard time breathing at first. Gave us a scare.” She looked up at Ryker. “But he’s tough like his dad.”
He smiled and pressed a kiss to Serenity’s forehead. “You’re not fooling anyone. We all know you’re the tough one.” He slid his phone back into his pocket and met my eyes. “You sure you’re okay on your own?”
I nodded, waving him off. “I’m always here alone. Go love your adorable babies.”
Ryker chuckled. “Thanks, Becca.”
When the door closed behind them, I settled back into my chair, the silence in the room suffocating me. Everything was changing so fast I could hardly keep up. This shit was all real.
Werewolves existed, and my uncle wanted them destroyed or cured or…who knew? Those tiny little guys, so loved by their parents—how could anyone want to hurt them?
I spent the day fielding a couple of phone calls, logging expenses in quick books, and then tackling some website updates. Anything to keep from watching the clock. Time was crawling at a pace snails would’ve scoffed at.
Finally, Asher came through the door. “Last tour’s finished.” He came over and brought his chair to my desk before sitting beside me. “Are you all right?”
Hot tears bubbled up from nowhere. I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. “I’m awesome. Why do you ask?”
He chuckled and turned around to grab a Kleenex box. He handed it to me without a single trace of judgment or pity in his eyes. “I’d probably be worried if you weren’t falling apart a little after all the news we’ve dropped on you.” He leaned forward resting his forearms on his knees. “Gage told me General Sloan was tailing you, too.” He shook his head. “No one would blame you if you jumped on a plane and got out of Sedona altogether. None of this is your problem, and I’m sorry you’re being sucked into it. I thought I could keep that from happening.”
I blew my nose and lobbed the wad of tissue into the trash can. A perfect three-point shot. I would’ve buffed my nails on my shirt if I wasn’t teetering on the edge of a breakdown.
“It’s starting to look like I was going to be pulled into this no matter what you did.” I met his eyes. “Even if I tried to run, apparently my family is all twisted up in this…situation.” Regrouping, I snatched another backup Kleenex from the box before looking at Asher again. “There’s a really good chance that Henry and Hawk are my cousin’s little boys.”
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“Oh, did Gage leave that part out?” I blinked back a second wave of tears, focusing on the wall behind Asher in the hopes that it might keep the waterworks at bay. “My cousin was Samantha Jones. We were supposed to room together in Sedona for a spiritual retreat.” I glanced his way. “She never showed up.”
“Shit.” He sat back in his chair, rubbing his hand down his face before meeting my eyes. “I’m so sorry, Becca.” He shook his head. “You told me once that you came for a retreat and decided not to leave. I didn’t realize the Samantha in our pack was…”
“The same as mine.” I cleared my throat, ridding my voice of that shaky wobble. “Anyway, my uncle Mitch called me again today.” I stared at Asher, trying to calm myself before asking the question I was afraid to have answered. “He said Gage killed Samantha.” Another tear rolled down my cheek. “And I’m super screwed up inside because Gage has always been so good to the boys and to me. I can’t imagine he’d…” I pressed my lips together, struggling to beat back the emotions. “I need to know exactly what happened to Samantha. Even if it’s not what I want to hear.”
Asher nodded, and a muscle in his cheek tensed. “First off, your uncle is wrong.” His gaze locked on mine. “Let me back up a little. Caldwell ordered one of his pack to attack Samantha during the full moon and so she was bitten. Honestly, I have no idea why Caldwell chose her. He usually picked people like me and Gage who didn’t have parents or siblings to file missing-persons reports.” He got up, pacing in front of my desk. “I have to think maybe she was bitten by mistake. Why would he change a woman who was related to a judge? The last thing the pack needs is law enforcement snooping around.”
“Maybe that’s exactly why,” I interrupted. “He could’ve found out she was related to my uncle. Maybe he wanted to punish the Collective or scare them by taking Samantha?”
“We didn’t know the Transparency Collective existed back then. Caldwell was working with Nero at the time. Evolution Defense wasn’t on our radar yet, either.”
He continued thinking out loud, but I was still waiting for the end of the story. “What happened to Samantha?”
He crossed hi
s arms with a sigh. “After we killed Caldwell, we freed her and the babies from the storage facility where they were keeping her and brought them back to the ranch. We thought it was over and that we could move on.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “Gage and Samantha weren’t true mates, but he was committed to her and raising those boys.”
There was that word again. “Ryker was talking about mates, too.”
“A true mate is a gift.” He paused, and for just a second, he reminded me of my dad when he tried to explain sex to me as a kid.
I almost smiled.
“When the wolf recognizes his mate,” he explained, “the animal instincts are overpowering, but once the human part of us catches up… I’m trying to say, Naomi is my world. I love her because she makes me complete. Her happiness and safety mean everything to me.” He sighed. “I’m not explaining this very well.” He raked his fingers back through his long hair. “Gage would’ve laid down his life to save Samantha that day because he’s a good man and he wanted those boys to have their mother. But deep down, she never would have been the other half of his soul.”
Hearing him describe it made being a mate seem like a bond beyond a pledge of love or marriage. “So Gage really didn’t kill her.”
“No.” Asher shook his head. “One of the wolves that was loyal to Caldwell came back looking for revenge. He peppered the house with bullets. Samantha was near a window when one of them came through. She died instantly.” He came back over and sat beside me. “I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” I plucked another Kleenex out of the box. “After all this time, I figured she was gone… But it’s good to know what really happened.”
It didn’t escape me that I almost met the same fate the other night, but Gage had knocked me out of the way. He had saved my life—and touched my arm. Could that have been the moment his instincts had kicked in?
I pushed the thoughts away and focused on Asher. “Gage thought the snipers were after Henry and Hawk for their DNA—something about making super soldiers for the government.” My mouth went dry again as I forced the words out. “But he’s wrong. They weren’t after the boys for experiments. My uncle knows they’re his grandchildren. He says there’s a ‘cure’ to save them.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him about my uncle asking me to help him get his grandsons out of Sedona, but I didn’t. Maybe it was chickenshit of me, but I didn’t want Asher to worry about my loyalties.
Had I already chosen a side in this?
“Shit.” Asher’s mouth flattened into a hard line, his eyes narrowing. “That confirms what General Sloan was telling me earlier today. He tailed you because he thought you might be after the kids, too.” He clenched his jaw. “They don’t need a cure. There’s nothing wrong with them.”
I nodded slowly, sensing the aggression coming off him in waves. Gage called Asher his Alpha, and even as a human, the vibes around him right now were palpable. His desire to protect his pack burned in his dark eyes. In fact, they almost glowed with power.
Suddenly I broke eye contact, focusing on my shoes. I wasn’t afraid of him. It was more of an instinctive show of submission.
But I wasn’t one of his wolves.
He stood. “I need to get home to Naomi. She’s got all four boys with her.”
I peered in his direction. “Is there anything I can do?”
“No. Stay safe.” He shook his head. “Thank you for sharing the information.”
He came closer and offered his hand. I took it, unsure what was happening as he helped me up from my chair. His deep voice had something extra in it. I hated to chalk it up to magic. It was more of an elemental call, similar to the feeling of connection I got when visiting the vortex spots around Sedona.
“I’m offering you a place in my pack. If you become a part of us, you’ll have the protection of the pack, but we’ll demand your loyalty in return.” His eyes searched mine. “I’m not asking this lightly, and I won’t judge you if you choose your blood family.”
My blood family. Images of my dad’s blood puddling on the ground filled my head. Then the memory of Hawk squeezing me tightly around the neck blotted out the painful shadows. Those little guys were my blood, too.
I stared at Asher, weighing the choice. It was easy to see the war gathering on the horizon. I needed to choose a side. My uncle offered me protection, but so did this man I considered one of my closest friends.
The memory of Gage’s smile along with his whispered promise that he’d wait a hundred years for me if that’s what it took haunted me. Could I really walk away? Did I want to? My uncle wasn’t going to give up on his grandsons. A fight was coming. I thought about Henry and Hawk. Their giggles were like pure sunshine, and their dad was their hero. My heart hurt just imagining someone taking them from him. Suddenly I knew I would fight like hell to keep that from happening.
“I choose the pack.”
He grasped my forearm, the way I’d seen him do with so many of his friends who came in the office. His packmates.
I wasn’t an outsider anymore.
I gripped his arm back, my gaze locked on his.
He nodded slowly, the corners of his mouth curving just slightly as he released me. “It’s done.”
I blinked. “Am I…a werewolf?”
His lips parted, becoming a rare Asher grin as he chuckled and shook his head. “No. But you’re one of us whether you ever choose to be bitten or not. You have my protection.”
He went to the door and turned back. “I’m not made of magic so be careful, okay? These people your uncle is working with won’t hesitate to hurt you in order to get what they want.”
My phone rang on my desk, and I jumped. I shook my head. “I’ll watch my back.”
“See you tomorrow, Becca,” he said as he walked out.
I stared at my phone’s screen—Uncle Mitch again. Asher’s words hung in the air as I sent the call to voice mail. I wasn’t ready to talk to him. Not yet. I sat back in my chair and looked up at the ceiling. I needed to talk to Gage first.
My mind wandered back to that searing kiss again, and my skin warmed. Being in his arms and feeling his body pressed against mine had been so sudden and urgent. I hadn’t felt that alive in years. It was as if he’d dragged my heart back into the land of the living.
One moment I’d been sleepwalking through life, and the next moment I was wide-awake and present and…hungry for more.
I sat perched on the edge of my chair, torn between wanting to run back to the safety of the numbness or throwing caution to the wind and racing into Gage’s arms, consequences be damned. It was time to make a choice between being present or being safe. Existing or really living.
My dad would tell me to live.
Maybe I was finally ready.
CHAPTER 11
Gage
I finished the custom tile floor, barely noticing the ache in my knees as I rushed back to my place. I didn’t run to the ranch after work to pick up the boys. They were staying over at Asher and Naomi’s tonight. When I got into my apartment, I headed for the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water and took a few long swallows.
As much as I was itching to see Becca, I needed a shower first. I went inside the bathroom and stripped down while the water heated up. Fog started to distort my reflection in the mirror as I studied my face. Maybe I could skip shaving. Some women liked a five-o’clock shadow. I didn’t know if Becca did, but she hadn’t seem put off when we’d kissed yesterday.
Just thinking about kissing her had parts of me wide-awake and eager.
Maybe I’d shave anyway. Fuck, I hadn’t been this nervous for a date in… I couldn’t remember the last time. I stepped into the shower and closed my eyes, allowing the dust and grime from the day to wash away under the spray. The contents of the envelope General Sloan had given me kept floating through my head. If Samantha, the mother of my boys, was also Becca’s cousin who went missing, and it seemed like a logical assumption, could her uncle have made that connection, too?
But how? There was no paper trail, no preschool or medical records. Vance would get all the pack kids all their legal documents before they started elementary school, since he still had connections through his old friends from the Nero Organization who specialized in false identities. But as of now, we couldn’t even go to a regular hospital, let alone give birth at one, so there weren’t any birth certificates or records of any kind. So how could the judge have discovered his grandchildren?
Maybe I was overthinking it. He had probably paid a mercenary to grab my kids to harvest their shifter DNA. Except we’d neutralized Evolution Defense’s top scientist and destroyed at least some of the super soldier research…
Okay, so if it wasn’t for their DNA, his ultimate goal could be to expose shifters to the world. But then taking my boys wouldn’t make sense, either. They wouldn’t be shifting for years. According to the pack members who were born shifters, their first full moon shifts came sometime after puberty. My little guys were about to turn three. That would be a long time for a group hell-bent on outing us to wait.
I rinsed out my hair and soaped up my body. If the judge wasn’t coming for them in order to continue experiments or show the world shifters exist, then he must know they’re his grandsons. I rested my hands on either side of the showerhead, tilting my head forward so the water ran down my back, taking the lather with it.
Would that asshole hurt little kids who had his blood in their veins?
I slammed my hands against the tile. If I had any hope of protecting my sons, I’d need to stop a man who sat on the Supreme Court of the state and who also happened to be my mate’s uncle and my boys’ maternal grandfather.
This wasn’t like killing an ex-Nero assassin or a bioresearch scientist. It would be impossible to keep the death of a Supreme Court judge out of the news. Besides, Becca didn’t seem to have any bad blood with her uncle. Would she ever forgive me if I hurt him? Because if it came down to him or my boys, I wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.
