Ultimatum: Graham Pack Mates, Book 3

by Annmarie McKenna

By the time he came to his senses and figured out he’d been dissed and thrown off the porch by a girl, Paige had already absconded inside her home. She leaned back against the door and listened to him rant. Her bag thudded to the vinyl floor.

  “You are a coldhearted, frigid bitch!”

  That’s me. Still want me as your mate? she thought at first. Then the blood drained from her face.

  “Now wait just a minute,” she grumbled. She spun and yanked the door open. “I am not frigid, you Neanderthal. Just because I don’t want your egotistical, narcissistic self doesn’t mean I don’t have sex.” She’d done very nicely not more than two hours ago. Putting her hands on her hips, Paige stomped to the edge and leaned over his still laid-out form. “You’ll never find a mate at the rate you’re going, Tucker. No one will want a man-wolf who harasses women.”

  “I’ve found a mate, you little twit, and as soon as I can, I mean to get you under me and fuck you till you can’t walk anymore.”

  The mere image made her dizzy. If he did get a hold of her in that fashion, she’d be helpless to prevent him from taking her. She might have gotten the best of him tonight, but next time he’d be ready for her. Paige snorted and tried to shake off the vision of Tucker tackling her in wolf or human form and forcing himself inside her. In wolf form, the rest of her pack might not notice he was hurting her. Unless she told Caelan first about being mated.

  “You can’t claim a mate based on rape, you prick.” She looked at him anew and swallowed the bile rising up. Tucker was whacked, but God, not that whacked. Was he? Would he resort to rape?

  She shook her head, dismissing the ass. He wanted her, but she didn’t think he’d face Caelan’s wrath if he took her by force. She was tempted to tell him she’d already found her mate and marked him, but since she hadn’t told Derek yet, she didn’t want Tucker to do something stupid. Like go after Derek.

  Christ. Had she put her own mate in danger? What would it take to convince Tucker she wasn’t his so he wouldn’t go after the man he would surely recognize by what he smelled on her skin?

  “You won’t be calling it rape when I’m finished, little wolf.” His lips curved into a smirk. “You’ll be begging for more. There won’t be a need for any other man to satisfy you. I’ll be the only one touching you.”

  “Never. Get off my property.” She turned and went back inside to the window, where she could watch him pick himself up and wipe off his dusty ass.

  Before he scurried off to his truck, he flung more crap her way. “No other man will touch you again, Paige Treyhorn. Count tonight as your last fling.”

  Paige dropped the curtain she’d been gripping and noticed her hand shaking. “Damn you, Tucker.” She squeezed her fingers into a fist and pounded the wall, wincing at the pain radiating down already bruised knuckles, and willed her heart back into a more normal rhythm. At least she didn’t have to worry about the stupid flowers anymore.

  First thing tomorrow she’d get a hold of Caelan and let him know what was happening. He could protect Derek, or at least warn Tucker to back off, while she worked up the nerve to tell him what she was. And then she’d work on finding out why Tucker thought she was his mate. What the hell was going on?

  The red, blinking light of her answering machine made her pause as she turned to pick up her laptop bag. Hopefully she hadn’t done any damage to the computer when she’d dropped it. She stabbed the Play button and rubbed the back of her neck. Hot water, some smelly stuff thrown in, maybe a few bubbles, the amaretto sour, a good book, nice soft sheets, remembering how it felt when Derek was buried inside of her pussy…

  The night didn’t have to be completely ruined by Tucker’s interference.

  “Paige, this is Nikki, just calling to remind you about the final fitting tomorrow.” Paige smiled. As if she needed a reminder. “And the rehearsal dinner on Friday. You are such a sweetie for doing this for me. Feel free to bring a guest too. I think you’ll finally get to meet my brother, provided he decides to grace us with his presence rather than working like he did instead of coming to the picnic Sunday,” Nikki muttered.

  Despite her annoyance, Paige couldn’t help but chuckle. Nikki and Eli’s wedding was this Saturday. Paige had been invited from the get-go—the whole pack had been—but until last week, she’d only been part of the guest list. Then one of Nikki’s bridesmaids had fallen and broken her leg. Nikki had come to Paige in a panic, rushing to explain what had happened before pleading with Paige to fill in.

  Of course Paige had said yes. She loved weddings and, while her friend Tracy had asked if she felt funny about being chosen long after the fact, Paige could honestly say no. She and Nikki had only known each other for a short time, but they’d clicked from their first introduction. Besides, knowing the circumstances surrounding Nikki’s past and the brutal murder of her two best friends, Paige would never have had the heart to add more grief to the weight Nikki carried on her shoulders.

  She’d never met Nikki’s brother, the man scheduled to walk her down the aisle, but everyone assured her he was sex on two feet. Paige snorted. After tonight, she’d never look at another man again, so Nikki’s brother could be a god sent to earth for the strict purpose of seducing women and she wouldn’t give a rat’s ass.

  “Anyway, I promise he doesn’t bite. Oh, and you should try really hard not to bite him, tempting though it may seem. He’s a good guy. Most of time. Some of the time. So.” Nikki released a big breath. “I’ll meet you tomorrow at Bridal Flare and we’ll get you all fitted, and have I said thank you? You are a lifesaver. Mwah.” Nikki sent a lip-smacking kiss over the phone, and Paige smiled before rolling her eyes at the biting suggestion. She’d already done her biting. And it was a pretty sure bet she wouldn’t be tempted to go after anyone else’s neck.

  With a sigh, she made her way to the bedroom, stripping clothes as she went, bundling them in her hand to deposit in the hamper. She arched her back, working the kinks that had developed, first from her mating and the subsequent shifting. Not to mention the hours of sitting at her desk today.

  She loved her job and was good at programming, but sometimes she wished she’d been interested in a career that involved a little more movement. Computer work could be hell on the back and eyes. Stress headaches were becoming a part of her everyday life. Of course, those might have something to do with squinting at the screen all the time. She guessed it was time to hit the eye doctor. So much for having the keen sight of a wolf.

  The hairs on the back of her neck stood for a second time that evening. Paige spun on her heel, looking for the source of her unease. The curtains were parted slightly in the middle, affording anyone outside a partial view of her naked body.

  Sleazeball. Tucker was probably still out there, watching her. Jerking off his pencil-thin cock too, no doubt. She stomped to the window, purposefully not hiding herself. He didn’t scare her. Much.

  Just as she reached to yank the curtains closed, she noticed the window was open. Only a crack, but open all the same, when she knew it hadn’t been open when she left for work. Paige fingered the latch and stared into the dark.

  If that dickhead had gotten into her house…

  She sniffed deeply, picking up his scent. Hell, he’d been all over her on the porch—no big surprise she still smelled him now. She couldn’t differentiate if the scents came off her body or from the house. Her coworker friends Tracy, Craig and Ryan had been over last night for dinner, so their scents still lingered, but she didn’t pick up anyone else. She would have if a stranger had been in her home. Right? More importantly, she would smell them if they were still inside, because the scent would be strong.

  Tucker wouldn’t have come in. Well, yes, he probably would have, she guessed. To do what? Leave another gift? Rifle through her underwear?

  “Eeeew.” Paige slammed the window shut and locked it before flinging the edges of heavy fabric together and shutting out Tucker o
r anyone else who might be peeping. Goose bumps lined her bare arms and her skin prickled with the ultimate ick factor. If she opened her underwear drawer and saw the least bit of evidence someone had touched it, she might have to hit a hotel room for the night.

  Muttering to no one, she crossed the room. “Tucker, I swear to God, if you even stepped one foot in my house, I will go for your throat.” She paused in front of the antique dresser, one of the last pieces of her heritage, passed down to her from her great-grandmother Nettie. Hand-carved, the wood was worn, soft from age and use. Paige loved it and the wardrobe directly across the room from it.

  Her hands wavered on the knobs. What the hell did she expect would happen? Something to come jumping out at her? Paige sucked in a breath and yanked the drawer open.

  She let her lungs deflate. “Jesus. I must be going crazy. It’s a government conspiracy, probably. Let’s see how long it’ll take to make her huddle in a corner, hugging her knees.” She shoved the seemingly undisturbed drawer closed and snorted. Someone could have wrestled an alligator in her underwear drawer and she wouldn’t have known the difference.

  Folding slim pairs of silk and cotton had never made much sense to her. Damn slippery things. Always seemed to jumble themselves up anyhow. Much easier to dump the lot in and be done with it. She had better things to do with her time. Like make an amaretto sour and sink into the tub filled to the rim with hot water, where she could finger her clit and imagine Derek doing it for her.

  Back in the kitchen, she shut the blinds above the sink, still a little freaked out by the weirdness in her bedroom. Normally she’d leave them open. She loved the woods surrounding her house, felt safe while running in them with her pack, and furthermore, the thick trees mostly hid her from the prying eyes of her nearest neighbors.

  Paige filled a short glass with ice and splashed in about three times the amount of sweet and sour as amaretto, gave it a stir with her index finger and sipped.

  “Yum.” She wasn’t much of a drinker, so tasting a ton of alcohol would have ruined the drink for her. She turned, rested against the counter, crossed one arm under her small breasts and scowled at the pieces of flesh that looked better suited to a thirteen-year-old than her own twenty seven. Might as well not have any.

  Derek hadn’t seemed to care.

  Paige sighed and rolled her head, releasing the tension in her neck left behind from dealing with Tucker. Her gaze flicked to the table. She tilted her head and considered what she was looking at. She might leave her undies in a mess—no one would ever see them but her—but not her kitchen table. And she most certainly had not used a butcher knife this morning before work and left it lying on her table. Her mind went back to the open window and her tummy announced its renewed unease by threatening to spill what miniscule amount of alcohol it held.

  The ice tinkled in her glass, and some of the drink slipped over the edge to slosh on her shaky hand.

  “Shit.” She spun around and set the glass in the sink. The sink devoid of anything, just like she’d left it after putting her breakfast dishes in the dishwasher.

  Before she could think twice about it, Paige scooped up the cordless and dialed her pack alpha. Time to talk to Caelan. Someone had definitely been in her home. And the fact she couldn’t detect their scent wasn’t good.

  No matter if they were long gone or not, she should have been able to smell them. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, searching for something, anything, that didn’t fit.

  Nothing. Still traces of her friends, and Tucker from his touches earlier, but nothing foreign, just like in her bedroom. Had they masked their scent somehow, or was she going crazy and had left the knife out, having forgotten about ever needing to use it? She swung around in a slow circle, looking for anything else out of whack, but nothing jumped out at her.

  “Hello?” a very sleepy voice asked, making her jump, since she’d forgotten she even had the phone in her hand, let alone at her ear.

  Christ. She’d also forgotten how late it was. Hopefully she hadn’t woken her alpha’s sleeping baby. That’d be just what she needed on top of all this crap. Nothing like ruining the alpha pair’s night by upsetting their six-month-old, who she knew to be teething and not sleeping well in the first place.

  Damn it.

  “Caelan, it’s Paige. Someone’s been in my house,” she rushed out.

  There was a second’s pause and then, “Are you sure he’s gone?” No questioning she might be imagining things, just straight-out trust that Paige wouldn’t make this up. No patting the little woman on the head and telling her she was imagining things. It was one of the reasons she loved Caelan and the way he ran their pack.

  “I think so. If they’re still here, they have damn good way of cloaking themselves.” Even she could hear the quaver in her voice. Damn it. Here she stood, in the middle of her kitchen, stark naked, knees knocking, threatening to drop her to the floor, and she couldn’t move.

  “Get in your car and drive away. Leave your front door unlocked so I can get in and take a look around. Paige?”

  She must have taken too long to answer him. She swallowed. “Yes?”

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I can’t,” she croaked and berated herself for the weakness. The whole thing was like a scene out of childhood, when she used to watch scary movies in the dark by herself. She’d get so scared she couldn’t move and the slightest noise would make her scream.

  “Why not? Paige, is he still there?” Caelan growled. “I’m on my way. I can be there in five minutes.”

  “What’s going on, Cael?” Paige heard Caelan’s wife, Tieran, ask in the background.

  “Paige says someone’s been in her house. Paige,” he snapped, prompting her to answer.

  “I’m naked.” Jesus, woman, get control. Stop being a sissy.

  “Excuse me?”

  Paige cleared her throat. Her panic was causing her to say stupid things. Caelan had seen her naked a hundred times when they ran as a pack. There wasn’t much of any member in the pack the others weren’t aware of. But she wasn’t on a run right now, and walking anywhere out of her well-lit kitchen when there was possibly an intruder in her house wasn’t about to happen. Here she had access to knives and light and pantries to hide in. Out there…the darkness called with whatever it might be hiding, and crap! Could she be any more of a girly-girl? Her entire body, including her gumption, had frozen solid.

  “I’m fine,” Paige admitted. Or she would be whenever she was able to pull on her big-girl panties and stop freaking herself out. It wasn’t a lie. She’d get her clothes back on and meet him at the door. Whoever had been there was long gone. She was sure.

  “I’ll be right there,” he said.

  “Okay.” She pushed the Off button, laid the phone on the counter and stared at the doorway to her kitchen. How many steps were there to her room? Twenty? Thirty? She couldn’t force herself to move. Her heart pounded, drowning out the hum of the refrigerator, the monotonous drip of the faucet, even the ticking of the clock above the table. Paige settled her gaze on it and watched as the second hand moved in slow motion.

  How long would it take Caelan to arrive? He’d said five minutes, but she knew that could only happen if he shifted and ran the couple miles separating them. Driving would take more like ten on the winding back roads.

  Since when was she afraid to walk through her own kitchen? It wasn’t like whoever had taken the knife out of its sleeve in the wooden block still had it. For God’s sake, it was sitting on the table, glinting up at her like it knew things she didn’t. Unless he’d taken a different one…

  She spun around and glared at the block. Only one slot empty. So why take the knife out in the first place?

  Paige racked her brain for any reason she might have taken it out herself that morning, and came up empty. Frosted Flakes and orange juice didn’t require a butcher knife. She hadn’t
used one in the shower to shave her legs, she hadn’t cut anything out of the newspaper she hadn’t read and she had not used it to pick the Frosted Flakes out of her teeth.

  The only real reason a knife would be on her table, unless the inanimate object had some kind of power to project itself across her kitchen, would be someone taking it out and putting it there after crawling through her bedroom window.

  The doorknob rattled at her back door, and Paige jumped with a scream to bring the house down. It flew in after a monstrous crash and slammed into the wall. Caelan stumbled in, breathing hard and naked as well, a fine sheen of sweat coating his skin. He held a bag Paige knew had a change of clothes so he wouldn’t have to stay naked to fight her intruder. She just hoped to God he got dressed before they were killed.

  She could see it now. Man and woman found naked and stabbed to death in kitchen. Authorities suspect man’s wife.

  Paige shook her head. She really had to stop thinking.

  “Hey Paigey,” Eli said with complete nonchalance from behind his twin. He shoved Caelan out of the way and sauntered into her kitchen like they were having a barbecue or something. He’d thrown his pants on before coming in. Nikki would be relieved.

  Without another word, he dropped his T-shirt over her head and helped her pull her arms through the armholes. Oh yeah. She was supposed to have gotten dressed while waiting for the cavalry.

  “What’s going on, Paige? Why did you scream?” Eli asked softly. The lilt soothed her frayed nerves.

  Her faculties were slowly but steadily coming back to her. Standing in here with her pack leader and his twin, her cousins no less, made the whole thing seem surreal. Now she felt silly having to call in the white knights to rescue her. The entire night seemed a bit ridiculous.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Too many scary movies about things that go bump in the night, my open window, the knife on my table, and the fact that you rattled the door, then kicked it in, and I expected Bloody Mary to come in and finish me off.”

  Caelan blinked, Eli smiled. “I think Bloody Mary comes from the bathroom, doesn’t she? No need to worry about her coming through the kitchen door.”