“Good.” Shyne nodded her head as Reika got out of the car and shut the door. Reika waved at the car waiting behind Shyne’s car, and the wolf behind the wheel waved back as he reversed down the driveway and waited for Shyne to back down as well, and then they both left. Reika stood on the front porch for a while, until the cold nipped at her and forced her inside.
As she hung up her coat, she turned to Bo and said, “Who is babysitting me tomorrow?”
He chuckled. “I thought you’d like to go hang out with Karly at her restaurant. They’re getting ready to open in a couple of weeks, and she and a bunch of wolves are getting it ready.”
She walked over to him until they were just inches apart. “How long are you going to keep this up?”
“As long as I have to in order to know that you’re safe.”
“I’ll never be safe, Bo. You’re just delaying the inevitable and potentially causing innocent people to get hurt.”
He growled, low and threatening, and she shrugged and turned away. “I’m just being honest.”
She walked to the bedroom to take a shower before dinner, but she still heard him say, “So am I.”
Chapter 6
*Logan*
Thursday morning, Logan Jackson smiled gratefully at Karly as she handed him a cup of coffee. Bo had called him the night before and asked if he would hang out at the restaurant for the day while his “friend” Reika was there, to make sure nothing happened.
Logan had never met a lynx before, but he knew something about them and their strange ways. Never putting down roots and traveling constantly seemed like a hard life. Maybe that was why they were such dicks. Although Bo wouldn’t say it outright, Logan knew from talking to Michael and Jason that Reika was Bo’s truemate. Bo had some pretty serious self-esteem issues thanks to his bum leg, but Logan didn’t think there was anything lacking in him. He was a good friend, a fierce wolf, and a good man to have at his back in a fight. Logan was happy to watch over the she-wolf for his friend.
Karly was hoping to open the restaurant in time for Valentine’s Day, which was just a couple of weeks away, and Logan was looking forward to having a chance to eat her delicious food more often. She always cooked on the full moons and for the monthly high-ranked pack meetings that he attended as fifth in rank, but to be able to just wander in for lunch or dinner whenever he wanted was a great benefit to having her open up her own restaurant.
Peter Gerrick, who had been alpha before Jason took over, walked in from the back of the restaurant with Reika, who smiled even though her eyes were screaming she was not a happy camper. Bo was keeping her under careful watch while he was at work — not only for her own safety, but also because he was worried she was going to try to take off the moment he left her alone. Logan agreed with Bo’s tactic. If Logan had found his own truemate and she was in danger and trying to escape to keep him out of harm’s way, he would do anything in his power to make sure she stayed safe and close, even if he had to trust others to help.
Nodding at Peter as he left, Logan said good morning to Reika, who smiled sweetly, but not sincerely, and joined Karly at a server station. A handful of young wolves worked diligently at cleaning in the dining room. When Karly decided to open the closed restaurant after the previous owners left town, the decision had involved a lot of work to update the furniture and decor. Now the restaurant was being cleaned from floor to ceiling, fixtures and windows were being polished, walls were being washed, and carpeting was being steam cleaned. The kitchen was being scrubbed, and the small office had been completely redone to make a comfortable space for Karly to work out her mouth-watering menus.
“Logan? I have chocolate croissants and blueberry scones in the kitchen. Help yourself, and don’t forget to tell me what you think.” Karly looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, and then turned back to Reika.
“You know I’ll love them. I love everything you make.” He chuckled.
“Still, a girl likes to be reassured.” Karly laughed.
He heard Karly explain to Reika that she needed her to proofread the new menus and inserts that detailed daily specials and Reika promising to check the information carefully. Logan had heard that Susan, who worked at the community center, loved Reika so much that she had been singing her praises to the pack and had even offered her a part-time job.
Logan walked into the kitchen and found two trays, choosing a chocolate-filled croissant and taking a quick bite. He groaned in pleasure as the sweet, buttery taste melted on his tongue, and then he opened his eyes and looked around to see if anyone had caught the nearly-orgasmic sound he’d made. Shit. He’d been celibate for far too long if he enjoyed a chocolaty treat so much. He was thankful to find himself alone. The only time he liked being noisy was when he was howling at the moon or pleasuring a woman, and since he’d gotten tired of one-night-stands and getting naked with women who weren’t his truemate, he hadn’t taken that kind of pleasure in awhile. A long while. He was a damn monk for all intents and purposes.
There were she-wolves in his old pack who had wanted to be with him just because he was the biggest and the baddest. They liked his tattoos and his Harley and his bad attitude. Younger and stupid, he’d not minded bar brawls — hell, he’d started plenty of them over petty slights — and he never walked away from a fight. When he joined the Tressel Pack last fall, he’d hoped for a fresh start. He’d ditched his bike and bought a pickup, got a respectable job as a bouncer at the pack-run bar, and he’d done his damnedest to show others that there was something underneath the tattoos and the muscles, a male of worth. The single she-wolves in the pack, and the human women who frequented the bar, took one look at him and went ape-shit. He’d known right then that not only was his truemate not to be found in the Tressel Pack, but also the slightly more depressing truth that he might never find the one woman meant for him. But he’d rather be lonely than stuck in a mating with a she-wolf who wasn’t his truemate, which brought him back to his current celibacy. A few years ago, if someone had told him he’d choose to be alone at night rather than find a warm body to enjoy, he’d have laughed his ass off. Now … not so much.
His thoughts were interrupted when he heard Karly say, “Excuse me, we’re closed.”
Logan dropped the croissant and charged into the dining room as Reika gasped in alarm. Logan snatched both women by their shirts and shoved them behind himself. “Get in the fucking office and lock the door! Call the garage!” he bellowed, pushing his arms back and shoving blindly at the women as three tall, lanky men strode through the restaurant as if they belonged there. He took in a quick breath and smelled that they were lynxes.
He glanced at the young wolves around the restaurant, counting five. Only two were older than eighteen, and they eased away from where they were and joined Logan. The other three held still, and he was grateful. They were too young to have much experience fighting and would only get hurt.
Cracking his knuckles, he said, “Leave on your own now, or I’ll make you leave.”
“Just you and some pups, dog? Do you really think you can take us?” the one in the middle said with a sneer.
“Yes. Get the fuck out of here now. Last warning.”
The one on the right pulled a blade from his back pocket and flipped it open, waving it lightly. “Send out the she-wolf, and no one gets hurt.”
“Go to hell.” Logan growled, settling onto his back leg and letting his beast free enough to give him more strength and speed. His wolf was aching for a good fight, and three arrogant cats who thought a she-wolf was property and not a person were perfect.
As the one with the blade tensed to throw it, Logan jerked a chair off the floor and threw it at the lynxes, following quickly with two more chairs. They dodged out of the way, and Logan charged, crashing into the nearest cat. His momentum shoved the cat through one of the glass front doors, which shattered on impact, and Logan stopped just short of falling on his face on top of the cat as he landed on the sidewalk.
He heard the
sound of clothes tearing and wolves growling and knew the two oldest boys had shifted to help. He looked at the three younger boys inside and shouted, “Guard the office door!”
Hauling the cat up by his ponytail, Logan fisted his pants with his other hand and tossed him down the sidewalk where he landed hard and rolled several times before coming to a stop against a parking meter. With a growl in his throat, he turned to go back into the restaurant as the two cats tore out of the broken front door, looked around wildly for their friend, and raced to the fallen lynx.
Logan watched them help him up and move to a truck idling down the street, taking off with a squeal of tires as police sirens filled the air. Logan walked back into the restaurant, stepping through the broken door, and moved straight to the two young wolves who had shifted. Relief slipped through him when he saw they weren’t badly injured. They’d be bruised most likely; those lynxes had really been smacking them around, but it was hard to fight against a snarling wolf when they were in their human form. For whatever reason, the lynxes hadn’t shifted, which was good for the young wolves.
He ruffled the heads of the two wolves and smiled. “You guys did great. Jason will be so proud of you. I’m proud of you both.”
The wolves bristled with pride, and Logan chucked them under their chins and straightened as the police came in, guns drawn.
“They’re gone, Chief,” Logan told Trick. “Beat up red pickup, missing license plate. Girls are in the office.”
“Good thing you were here, Logan,” Trick said as he holstered his weapon.
The office door opened when one of the young wolves knocked and told the girls that it was safe to come out. Just as Karly and Reika stepped out of the office, Linus and Bo rushed into the restaurant.
Linus grabbed Karly in a tight hug, and she started to cry. Logan watched as Bo came close to Reika, touched her shoulder and asked if she was okay, but did nothing more. Logan was certain that Bo wanted to hold Reika, to reassure himself that she was safe now, but he held back.
Bo turned to look at him. “Thank you, Logan.”
Linus looked over Karly’s head, his face twisted in worry, relief, and anger. “Thank you.”
Logan nodded. “It was a good thing you asked me to be here. They weren’t counting on anyone being here except the girls and the young males. I don’t know how they knew. Maybe they were watching around town.”
Bo frowned. Reika gripped Bo’s arm, and he looked down at her. She looked like she was about to lose it, but she managed to say, with a voice that only slightly quivered, “Please don’t make me stay with anyone else anymore, Bo. I couldn’t stand it if someone got hurt because of me.”
“I won’t, Reika,” Bo promised.
Reika looked at Logan. “Thank you. I was frozen. If you hadn’t been here, I don’t know what would have happened.”
“I’m glad I was here. I’m going to talk to Trick. I’ll check in with you later.”
Bo nodded, spoke to Reika and then Linus and Karly, and then he was gone, with Reika. After Logan gave his statement to Trick, he talked to Jason and Michael, who had come from the garage when Karly called. Logan explained what happened, praised the young wolves for their help, and volunteered to help patrol around town during the day. He and Teller had been driving around at night, using the garage’s tow trucks, but obviously the lynxes were either getting desperate or becoming more arrogant.
Later that day, as he patrolled around town with a young wolf named Dante, he checked in with Bo, who said that Reika was shaken but unharmed, and that was the most important thing.
“Did I say thank you, Logan? It’s kind of a blur,” Bo said.
“Yeah, you did, and you’re welcome. If she were my woman, I’d trust you to return the favor.”
Bo hesitated, “Logan, she’s not—”
Logan snorted and cut him off. “Okay, Bo. Keep telling yourself that.”
Bo was silent for several moments, and then he sighed loudly. “It’s one giant cluster-fuck.”
“Life is like that sometimes. Don’t forget that there are a lot of wolves who would love to find their truemates.” Like me.
“I know.”
Logan could hear the hurt in Bo’s voice. Logan wasn’t much of a soft, romantic guy, but he knew that Bo was already head-over-heels for Reika, and his plan to set her free from the lynxes and then send her on her merry way was going to kill him.
“Love’s hard as fuck, yeah?” Logan said, finally.
“Yeah.”
Still it was a hardship he wished he could suffer through. Leaving the restaurant, he parked the tow truck at the garage and headed home to catch a nap before his shift at the bar. Somewhere out in the world was his own truemate, and he hoped to hell he’d meet her soon.
Chapter 7
Bo didn’t think that anything had ever struck him dead with terror the way that the news that the lynxes were at the restaurant had. Linus had answered his cell and grabbed Bo’s shoulder before Karly even finished explaining the situation, and the two of them had driven as fast as they could to the renovated restaurant. They’d passed the lynxes’ truck as it shot down the street away from the scene, and they only let the lynxes go without chase because they knew that Karly and Reika were safely locked inside the office and hadn’t been taken.
Bo had never been more grateful for Logan’s friendship and the young wolves, as well, who had held their own even though they’d been scared. Jason was planning to honor the young wolves at the February full moon celebration for their bravery.
As soon as Trick had interviewed Reika and said she could leave, Linus gave Bo his keys, and Bo drove Linus’ truck back to the garage. Bo left the keys at the front desk with Cades and took Reika home. Reika sat tense in the seat next to him, chewing her bottom lip and gripping the door handle tight enough to make her knuckles white.
He opened the front door and let Reika into the house and then hung up both of their coats. Just as he turned to ask her to sit down so they could talk, there was a knock at the door.
A glance through the peep-hole showed Teller standing on the porch with a dark duffel bag. When he opened the door, Teller stepped inside.
Reika gasped, “Oh, my bag!”
Teller handed it to her, and she hugged the bag to her chest and smiled at both of them, tears glistening in her eyes. “Thank you so much!”
“It was my pleasure. Your car was about two hours northwest of Allen, in a community park in a small town called Belvin. The lynxes were obviously here in town when I went to pick it up because although I could smell them all over it, I never saw them. They did rifle through the bag and dump the contents on the floor, but I checked everything carefully for GPS trackers and found none on the contents or on the bag itself.”
Reika made a face. “I don’t like to think of them touching my stuff.”
Bo smiled at her and reached out, stroking his fingers down her arm. “You can wash your clothes and the bag.”
She nodded, smiled once more at Teller, and then took the bag into the bedroom.
Teller watched her walk away and then turned to Bo. “Jason contacted the Were-Animal Alliance and told them that Reika was here with us and under our protection. The two wolves who were attacked survived and are recovering with their home pack that is part of the WAA. They were planning to bring her back to their home pack and give her a new identity and everything.”
Bo nodded. “She’ll be glad to know they’re alive.”
“I’m sure. That had to weigh heavily on her mind. But from what the guy who runs the WAA said, the packs that go in to retrieve wolves in trouble know that they could get hurt or even killed doing it, and they do it because they choose to.”
Bo reached for his wallet. “How much do I owe you for returning her car?”
Teller shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I took care of it for you.”
“Thanks. I’ll let Reika know, too.”
Teller put his hand on the door knob and said, “Lo
gan and I are going to be taking patrol shifts, and we’ve got Trick and his deputies watching the streets for any signs of the lynxes. A few of the retired wolves are also driving around for a few hours at a time. We’ll do our best to keep an eye out for the lynxes.”
“I’m keeping her home from now on, at least until I can get things squared away. A handful of wolves are going to stand guard here tomorrow so I can finish the one project, and then I’ll be here to keep an eye on her.”
“Let me know if you need anything.”
Bo clapped him on the back. “Thanks, T.”
Locking the door behind his friend, Bo walked back into the bedroom and found Reika sitting on the bed with a worn book in her hand.
She looked up at him and said, “I’m glad the two wolves are okay.”
“Me, too. What book is that?” He joined her on the bed.
“My favorite. The Princess Bride. Ever read it?”
He took it from her hands and turned it over, noticing the dog-eared pages and the cracked spine. “Only if it came in comic book form. I wasn’t much for reading growing up. I was all about the pack and learning how to fight. How about you?” He gave her back the book, and she hugged it to her chest. “What were you like in high school?”
She settled the full weight of her beautiful blue eyes on him, and for a moment he didn’t think his heart was beating at all. “I was pretty lonely. No one really wanted to get close to me because of the lynxes. The pack was there for me, of course, but I always felt like a shadow was dogging me my whole life. My family were the only ones who never looked at me like I was damaged goods.”
He snorted inwardly. She wasn’t damaged. He was the very definition of the word. “You’re strong and compassionate, Reika, not damaged. You got dealt a shit hand, and I’m going to find a way out of the mess you’re in so you can have your life back.”
She opened her mouth to protest, and he silenced her with a swift kiss. Standing up before she could tell him not to fight for her, he told her he was going to make something for lunch, and he’d call her when it was ready.
The Wolf's Mate Book 5: Bo & Reika Page 7
