Moron.
Most blessedly of all, he hadn’t done a thing she could see to the twins. When she’d arrived with Ozzie training the gun on her as he affixed her to the chair, the tiny pair had been whining and snuffling and howling in their little, high-pitched voices. Otherwise, they seemed in fine shape.
Immediately recognizing her as a frequent visitor to their cabin, their parents’ friend and their “cupcake lady,” who always brought them treats and played with them, they peered at her with eyes agog, their desolate little faces lighting with glee. Apparently deciding this was some new game, they stopped crying to watch the chair-tying procedure with interest. After Ozzie had finished with her, each of the twins shifted, curling in animal form around one of her feet.
There was enough give in the rope for Julie to raise and lower each of her legs a bit, giving them each slow rides, delighting and entertaining them. Autumn purred softly and rubbed her furry head along Julie’s calf while Clay yipped and nipped at her binding, his strong little teeth fraying the rope. Soon he’d pierce through. Autumn looked at her brother and then raised her paw, claws springing out as she took a swipe at the rope on the other side.
Julie murmured at them to keep them calm, and keep them cutting, telling a long, nonsensical story and humming a song she’d heard Summer sing to them. She glanced at the windows, wondering if help was on the way. A pair of huge amber eyes stared back at her through the glass. The desolate expression in the mysterious eyes tore at her. Were there other prisoners here? Who? Where? Why? Even twisting and craning, she couldn’t catch a better glimpse.
Ozzie let out a resounding belch, dragging her attention back to him. When she glanced at the window again, the glittering, hollow eyes had disappeared.
Julie frowned and turned back toward Ozzie, who seemed to be drowsing on a battered couch in front of a blaring big screen TV, beer can in hand.
Fabulous. Her own claws emerged through her fingertips and she made fast work of the duct tape behind her back.
What the hell did he want with her anyway? Where the hell were they?
They seemed to be in some type of caretaker’s cottage in the midst of a gated and fenced compound outside Los Lobos and Black Hills Wolves territory. What the hell was it? How had she never heard about it before? She’d only managed to steal a brief glimpse at the place as Ozzie sprang out of the truck to open the gate before hustling her inside and stowing her in the cottage closest to the entrance. She’d had a haunting feeling other eyes peered at them from hidden corners of the place as he brought her inside. The eyes in the window confirmed her feeling.
Ozzie seemed far too dim to be running this abandoned place, whatever it was. On the other hand, it took some talent to mask his scent to sneak into Los Lobos. Such scent maskers were unheard of, practically myth. When it came to Ozzie, rumor had it Magnum had made him into what he was.
After his nasty innuendos when he’d barged into her home, she’d figured he’d fling her onto his bed and crash down on top of her immediately, or perhaps chain her to the kitchen to grind out a dinner for him. Thankfully, he’d done none of those things. After his piss-poor job of restraining her, he’d grabbed a beer from the fridge and settled into the sofa for a baseball game on the TV.
Perplexed, Julie glanced up to see a pitcher named Riley Morgan wind up and unleash a smoking-hot fastball. Something about his muscled stature, larger than life stance, and the speed and force of his delivery made her suspect him of being a wolf. The batter stepped into it managing to get the thickest part of the wood on the ball. Craaaaaack. Suddenly Riley Morgan was writhing on the mound, various limbs bent in unnatural shapes, and the TV announcers going crazy. The team manager, coaches, and trainers poured onto the field, surrounding their fallen star, as the dugout emptied.
“No!” With a shocked bellow, Ozzie leaped to his feet, skipping even closer to the TV to see what was going on.
Julie bent to glance at the kids, still riding her legs, fiddling with her bindings and giggling. She scooped them into her arms. They immediately shifted back to their toddler forms and chortled.
“Quiet, my little sweeties,” she crooned. “This is still part of the game.”
Holding both twins to her chest, she glanced around for a weapon suitable to conking Ozzie over the head and laying him out while he remained riveted to the drama unfolding on the TV screen.
Bang. The cottage door slammed open and suddenly the room filled with shifters.
“Da-da.” Autumn laughed and nearly poked Julie in the eye as she held out her arms to a big brown wolf. “Unc,” Clay howled, not to be outdone by his sister.
Brick and Cal immediately shifted, relieving her of her precious packages. Brick dropped to his knees, with Cal beside him, and gathered both his children into his arms, tears streaming down his face as he nuzzled their sweet necks. “My babies. Thank the Goddess. My beautiful babies.” He squeezed them so tightly, he nearly hugged the breath out of them.
“Da.” Clay squirmed, until his father loosened his grip slightly.
“Forget it, my little one, my heart, my breath. I am not letting you go, my son. Not ever.”
“Let’s get them out of here,” Cal said, laying a hand on Brick’s shoulder. “Summer needs to see them, to hear we’ve got them.”
Both men looked at Julie. “You okay?” Brick demanded gruffly, his voice so taut with emotion he could barely speak.
“Yes. I’m fine. Go. You don’t want them here for this.” Across the room, an enormous brown wolf with golden streaks had Ozzie on his back, large jaws clamped around the thug’s neck, teeth descending. “Let Summer know.”
Brick nodded. “We’ll be right outside until it’s done.”
“Stop, Chance,” she shouted at her mate the moment the others had exited with the kids. “He’s not worth it. We need him to talk.”
Drew, Ryker, and Gee burst through the door.
“Okay, Julie?” The Alpha visibly sucked in a breath of relief.
“Yes.” She nodded across the room, to where the wolf had a wailing Ozzie pinned beneath him. “Please don’t let him do it.”
“It’s his right,” Drew said.
“There’s something else going on here in this place. I think there are others here.”
“Why do you think so?” Ryker demanded, eyes narrowed. “It’s been deserted for years. No one’s here.”
“I had the feeling of being watched when we came in and I’m sure I saw someone looking through the window. Someone with haunted, golden eyes. Ozzie’s too stupid to mastermind this…whatever it is.”
Ryker stared across the room to where Chance had the incompetent thug pinned down. “Ozzie. His presence explains a lot. Magnum trained him as a scent masker and did a good job of it. He’s not very bright, but he does have one true talent—his aptitude for masking his scent. His only skill. We thought it had died with him when Magnum killed him. ”
“He won’t live for long, if one of you doesn’t do something. You’ll need answers. We’ll need answers.”
“Right.” Ryker nodded. “Pity Magnum didn’t kill him.” The Enforcer actually sounded disappointed. “The one decent thing I thought he’d done.”
“Chance,” Gee growled. “Let the bastard up. Plenty of time to rip out his throat later. Julie saw Amber here. Maybe the others. She’s right. We need him to talk.”
With a flashing ripple of electricity and a frustrated roar, the huge blonde-streaked wolf rose from the prone figure wailing on the floor and shifted back into the man, straddling Magnum’s leftover henchman.
“Chance,” Julie said. She held out her arms, much as the twins had done when they spied their father enter the room. “I need you, baby. Come back to me.”
Her mate leaned over the quivering man and hissed into his ear. “You fuckin’ go near my mate again and I’ll rip your fuckin’ throat out and tear your nuts off. Then I’ll shove your dick down your throat and behead you. So stay
away from us.”
Ozzie whimpered and pissed his pants. A stinking pool formed under him, spreading outward over the wood floor.
Chance leaped out of the way and, without a backward glance, returned to her as Ryker bent over the putrid thug, hauling him up by the neck, and tossing him onto the chair he’d previously tied her to.
Julie turned away from the interrogation and let Chance envelope her in his strong arms. She rubbed her cheek against his, breathing deeply of his delicious scent. She wanted to wallow in it, roll around in it until it drenched her, became her own, so any wolf in the vicinity who sniffed at her would get a snootful of her mate. A sense of well-being immediately descended over her, the feeling of rightness more powerful than she’d ever known before. Only one thing more remained for her bliss to be complete, for her wolf to purr with satisfaction and delight.
“I need to claim you,” Chance murmured, for her ears alone. His lips and nose nuzzled her neck, as if he’d read her mind. Soon. Soon their mate bond would be complete. He’d have her in his blood, as she’d have him. Even if they could not actually read each other’s minds, they’d sense each other’s emotions.
“Let’s go home.”
Drew cleared his throat. “We’re gonna do a sweep of this place, Chance. There was some sort of electrified fence around it before and we couldn’t get in. Didn’t want or need to, since we thought it was abandoned. You want in?”
“All I want is to be with my mate.”
“Julie saw someone,” Gee told him. He held up a hand as if sensing the ebb and flow of currents in the atmosphere. “Amber’s here.”
“Amber?” Chase froze, at the mention of his long-lost sister, all his muscles tightening, his arms going rigid around Julie. He stared at her. “Are you sure?”
Julie met his wild gaze. “I only saw golden eyes peering in the window. I don’t know if I’d recognize her, to be honest. Gee thinks it was Amber. Oh, Chance…what if it’s true? You know the bear’s seldom wrong.”
“Maybe others,” Gee said. “This would be a perfect place for Magnum to keep prisoners, especially with that other lunatic masking their scent. Outside Los Lobos territory, appearing abandoned to the rest of the world.”
Chance shook his head, clearly torn. “I couldn’t save them. When they vanished one by one, I suspected Magnum had a hand in it. I nagged at him until he took his sick revenge on you and forced me to leave Los Lobos. What if Amber’s here, Jules? I need to be with you now…but….”
“Go. I’m fine. I’ll be waiting for you. However long it takes.”
***
The most trusted members of the Black Hills Wolves pack, successful in the search for Julie and the smallest Northridge twins, began a painstaking sweep of the strange, seemingly abandoned compound, surrounded by electrified barbed-wire fencing.
Six shivering, mistrustful, and half-starved members of the pack, long given up for dead, including Amber Northridge and her twin, Garnet, were found scavenging like feral wolves among the empty buildings and rubble. Oddly, when they located Amber, she stared wild-eyed at a staticky television set flashing news about the injured baseball pitcher, Riley Morgan. Chance could barely pull her away. He wasn’t entirely sure she recognized him, but she seemed to recognize something about Morgan.
After what seemed like hours of coaxing, the rescued returned with their packmates to Los Lobos. Chance decided against bringing the twin Northridge siblings to Gee’s noisy and jarring bar, and didn’t yet have a place to call his own. Eventually, he’d move his sisters into the house he was building in the woods. For now, he took them to Brick’s spacious cabin. Summer was a calming influence, as always, her songs soothing in a way nothing else could. His baby brother was more than ecstatic at the news of his sisters’ return, and the littlest Northridge twins, already over the moon about their big adventure of the day, were delighted to have new relatives to charm and play with. Goddess knew Clay and Autumn could drag anyone out of a shell, even those as traumatized and withdrawn as their new aunts.
Chance stayed for hours to make sure Amber and Garnet were settled. He didn’t want to leave them…but Julie awaited. He definitely had unfinished business there.
Chapter Seven
“Jules?” Chance jiggled the doorknob and the door gave without even the slightest push. Damn it. What the fuck was wrong with the woman? He strode into his mate’s living room, only his mate’s lusciousness and the homey scent of baking cupcakes wafting around him. He sniffed but no hint of the whackjob scent masker or his cloying sickness remained. Julie had done a good job of airing the place out. “Do not even tell me you left the freakin’ door unlocked.”
She came out of the kitchen, holding a bowl in one hand and wiping her other on the apron tied around her waist. “Well, I knew you were coming, didn’t I?”
“Jules, you were kidnapped today.” Between his mate’s delicious scent and the tantalizing smells of chocolate and spices emanating from the kitchen, his exasperation rapidly evaporated. But still.
“My big bad wolf came to rescue me, right?”
“We’re going to make a habit of this?”
“Only if we get to have kidnap sex.”
“Kidnap sex?” The enormous grin spreading across his face made his cheeks hurt. “Don’t even.”
“Unless my man is too tired after his eventful day, of course.”
“What about yours?” he demanded. “I expected to find you fast asleep in bed, not baking cupcakes. It’s two in the morning.”
“Adrenalin and nervous energy. Helps me relax.” She offered in a lascivious wink. “Want one?” She dipped a finger into the bowl, smeared it with frosting, and held it to his lips.
He growled and opened his mouth, sucking her finger inside and swirling his tongue over it. “Oh, that’s good.”
“Want more?”
“All I want is you, baby.”
“Want me enough to claim me?”
“Fuck, yeah.”
“Enough to chase me?”
“Hell, Julie, really?”
“It’s a blue moon tonight, Chance. Really low and bright in the sky. How often do we get one of those?”
“Like, oh, I don’t know. Once in a blue moon?”
“Come on, big guy. A run will do you good.”
In the next instant she put down the bowl, whipped off her apron, and shifted easily into a sleek tawny wolf, golden and light brown and utterly gorgeous. Almost his. In the next instant, she bounded out the door. Chance shifted and raced after her.
The night breeze rippled through his fur as he chased his mate in the moonlight, the sky midnight ink and the blue moon round and silver as it shone down upon them.
Sweet Luna, give this union your blessing.
His stride lengthened and he ate up the distance between them. His size was such he could have overtaken her the moment they’d sprung from the house, but the exhilarating chase and sent his juices into overdrive.
His wolf, usually so eager to scamper beneath the moon, had had enough. His mate’s sweet and spicy fragrance mixed with the scent of pine and woods and the wild flowers of the night and the burst of lust spilling through him blotted out all other thoughts.
One more jog and he’d reached her, shifting quickly into his human form.
“Shift, baby,” he growled. “The chase is done. It’s time.”
The moment she regained her human form, he pounced, swiftly bringing her to the ground.
“We’ve wasted enough of it,” she agreed, wrapping her arms and legs around him as his weight pressed her into the soft grassy earth.
“Do you understand why, Jules?”
“I didn’t, really, not until today. I get all the threats Magnum made, the danger he exposed your family to. I’m so glad you found your sisters today.”
“And you, Julie. He threatened you. Every time I think of Ozzie putting his hands on you, I want to rip his fucking head off.”
; “I never would have let him touch me, Chance. I was your mate then. I’m your mate now. Still unclaimed, I might remind you again.”
“Will you let me make it up to you?”
“I’ll demand you do. Every day and night for the rest of our lives. Starting now.”
“I love you, my Jewel. Always have. Always will. You know that don’t you?”
“A girl likes a demonstration every now and again.”
He seized her soft lips and the kiss went from sweet to wild in an instant, as she opened for him like a sultry night-blooming plant, drawing his tongue into her mouth and sucking until he thought he’d lose his mind.
His wolf purred, wallowing in bliss, urging him onward.
Sliding down his mate’s silky body, he took her breasts, one at a time, playing with her pebbled nipples with his hands then his mouth then his teeth. She squirmed beneath him, her fingernails raking his back. “Dear sweet Goddess of the Moon, how I love you, Chance.”
He glided a hand up her smooth legs to reach the apex of her thighs. Hot and wet. Ready for him. The scent of her arousal tantalized him. He wanted to drink from her, licking and sucking until she screamed. He bent his head toward her and swirled his tongue between her legs, wringing an impassioned gasp from her. Grasping her thighs in his hands, he spread her legs wider, until she cradled him, digging her fingers into his hair. He wanted to delve still deeper into her, loving the erotic taste of her. Julie’s moans urged more from him.
“Need you inside me,” she murmured. “All of you.”
Neither of their wolves could wait any longer.
With a quick thrust, he entered her, driving long and deep until he could go no further. He pulsed within her and her inner muscles tightened around him, holding him in place. His wolf howled in sheer bliss. He drowned in the feeling of complete connection, of their bodies and hearts and minds becoming one.
“Bite me, Chance,” Julie groaned. “Claim me. Please.”
He withdrew from her slick channel and rocketed into her again, increasing the pace until his thoughts fled and his body became a mindless machine. Julie moaned. He pumped back and forth, his wolf clawing at him, echoing Julie’s demand. Claim. Claim. Claim. Still he waited, until her body began to tense beneath him, her inner muscles clutching at him, sending them both careening into ecstasy. He bent his head toward her, nuzzling her shoulder and neck. His canines descended, plunging into her sweet skin at the moment of their shared orgasm. Her hot blood spurted into his mouth, painting his lips, the taste more rich and sinful than the darkest most decadent chocolate, finer than the most precious wine.
Another Chance Page 7
