Mina stumbled and stepped on Shane’s foot.
He steadied her. “You all right, Mina?”
“Yes. Sorry.” Her gaze shot back to Evan and the woman. Tall and flawless, a solid wall of muscle with curves poured into a miniscule, tight, black minidress. Glossy, auburn hair cut in a stylish bob. Not an ounce of fat on her, the lucky hussy.
“Ah, so that’s how it is.”
She blinked at Shane. “Sorry, what?”
“Evan. You. Message received. When you didn’t speak to each other at the bride and groom table, I assumed you weren’t together.”
Mina shook her head. “We’re not together.” But she couldn’t suppress the soft, pained sound at the sight of the perfect woman draping herself against Evan, and Evan holding her close, one hand pressed low on her back, almost touching her ass.
Shane gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “You want to talk about it? Looks like you could use a friend.”
“Um….” Good grief, gorgeous and kind. Why couldn’t she like him? Why did she have to like a cranky, impatient dominant who ran so hot and cold and hot again?
She stopped dancing. Wait, I like Evan?
Her wolf harrumphed a, Hell, yes we do.
Every dominant female bone in her body demanded she march over to him, tear the hussy from his arms, toss him to the floor, and ride him, declaring loud and clear, My mate. Mine. Yeah, she really, really liked him. “Oh, no. Oh, God.”
“Mina?” Shane’s tone conveyed his concern.
“I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. Thanks for the dance. Nice to meet you.” She pushed her way through the dancers, past Lexi and Mrs. C, both too busy arranging the dessert table complete with a gorgeous five-tier, pale-pink wedding cake to notice her.
Her chin quivered as she hurried past Jake and his DJ gear and neared freedom. He caught her gaze and waved, motioning her to join him, but the last thing she needed was more sympathy. I like Evan. Damn it. And Evan held another woman in his arms.
She escaped into the night.
Chapter Nine
Worry sucker-punched Evan’s gut. When he’d seen the stricken look on Mina’s face and watched her bolt from the room while he attempted to extricate himself from his clingy dance partner, he’d wanted to forgo propriety and shout at her to stop. Wait for him.
Too late. By the time he pushed through the crowded reception room and out the front doors, she had disappeared. Outside, the waning afternoon sun sank behind the mountains and the air chilled, filling him with foreboding.
Pack protectors on either side of the door nodded at him then the taller one he’d met at the party, Colt, pointed toward the nearby trees. “Shifted and ran.”
“Thanks.” Evan shifted and scented the frigid air. There, due north, not too far ahead. He howled and shot after her.
It didn’t take him long to catch up with her. She looked fucking magnificent with her golden fur glinting in the last beams of sunlight seeping through the dense trees. When he’d almost overtaken her, she skidded to a halt and rounded on him, teeth bared. A fierce growl gurgled from her throat, and her vivid blue eyes shot daggers. He braced himself for her attack, but she snapped her jaws at him, shot some more warning sounds then darted away.
The call to mate blazed through his wolf body. No way in hell would she escape him now. He sped after her. When the mountain leveled off and she ran into a small clearing, he leaped and took her down. They tumbled over each other in the snow. Mina snapped at him, while Evan simply attempted to ground her without injuring her.
Dominant energy exploded from him. She stilled under his larger wolf body. A soft whine escaped her, and he huffed and nuzzled the side of her face, licked her fur. Fuck, she tasted and smelled so good in wolf form, his own wolf urged him to take her right here and now. But he bet the woman inside the she-wolf was hurting. His fault. He had to make things right, ASAP.
He rose and bumped her body with his head. She whined again, tail thumping the snowy ground then stood to face him. Her beautiful blue eyes shone bright with sadness. Pain he’d put there.
He shifted. “Mina. I’m so fucking sorry.”
The air shimmered, and she assumed her human form, arms crossed. “For what this time, Evan?”
He took off his tux jacket and draped it over her shoulders, using the empty sleeves to pull her into his arms and cuddle her close. “I’m a fucking idiot.”
“Really?”
A grin escaped him at her sarcasm. He kissed the top of her head. “Yes, really.”
She sniffed but pressed against his body.
A good sign, he hoped. “I was wrong about us.”
Her body stiffened, and she pushed against his chest. “You already told me, you jerk. Why are you rehashing it?”
He held tight. “Let me finish.”
“What’s the point?” Her shoulders slumped.
The finality in her tone hurt to hear. He put enough distance between their bodies so he could give her good eye contact. “This is coming out all wrong, again, because you have me so twisted up inside I seem incapable of stringing coherent statements together into a convincing argument.”
Her mouth curled up at one corner. “That was a pretty good sentence, Wolf Man.”
Excellent, she’d used his pet name. “You’re my mate. And I was bat-shit crazy to think we could ever have a casual and temporary affair. You’re special and deserve more than a brief encounter. You’re smart, sassy, sexy, talented, and I can’t imagine going back to a life in which you don’t factor.”
She gaped at him. One blink. Another.
The silence shredded his gut. “Say something, Red.”
“I, I….” She chewed on her lower lip, brows furrowed. “When you left after we…you know…and then the things you said at the rehearsal….” She frowned. “You hurt me, Evan.”
Hell, I’m a dick. Could he mend the bridge he’d detonated with his asshole moves? “I know. I can’t change the past, but I can promise you a better future. A better here and now, if you’ll have me.”
“I don’t know, Evan. Are you sure it’s not simply the red-hair type you want? I saw you with the…other redhead.” Fire danced in her expressive blue eyes. She cared. Thank fuck.
“Oh, Red. Let me be clear….” He caressed a path down her jacket-covered arms, settling his hands around her lush hips. “Little Wolf. You’re my mate, my jasmine moon. I don’t have a clue in hell how we’re going to work out the kinks in the day-to-day aspects of our lives outside of Los Lobos, but here, now, I promise to work with you in partnership to figure out a future satisfactory for us both, personally and professionally.”
He yanked her closer. Pelvis to pelvis, chest to chest. Warmth like he’d never known rushed through his body, making him tremble. “I’m yours, Mina. Are you mine?” His voice cracked with the depth of his emotion for the woman who’d obliterated his world. Hopefully the woman who would partner with him to piece it back together into something new, something better. For both of them.
Tears shimmered over the surface of her blue eyes, darkening them to pools of deep ocean-blue. “Well, when you put it that way, Wolf Man.” She stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I’m yours.” She kissed him.
A grunt escaped him, and he deepened their kiss, tongues circling, claiming. The scent of her arousal perfumed the cold winter air, making him hungry to taste her sweet cunt. He dipped a hand under her dress and between her thighs, teasing along the seam of her pussy. Her silky thong was soaked. He pushed a finger inside her tight sheath. She moaned against his mouth while her inner muscles squeezed his finger. He added a second finger, gliding them in and out.
“Yes.” Her head fell back.
“Have to taste you now.” He fell to his knees, pushed up her dress, and ripped the side of her thong, discarding the shiny pink fabric on the ground.
She threaded her fingers through his hair. “Please.”
Clamping her thighs w
ith a firm grip, he opened her folds with his thumbs, exposing her swollen nub. He gave it a long, slow lick. She yanked on his hair while her thigh muscles trembled under his fingers. Round and round he circled her bud then pushed two fingers into her core while his other hand curved around one soft, full cheek of her ass. He could have feasted on her forever, but she came with a loud cry echoing off the surrounding hills, her inner muscles milking his fingers while his eager mouth devoured every speck of her arousal.
Nothing had ever tasted as sweet as his mate’s release.
“More,” he growled against her folds, but she pushed at his head.
With one last kiss on the red curls of her mound, he let her have a breather. He rose and snatched her around the waist, kissing her hard, letting her taste her own arousal. She licked his lower lip then sucked it into her mouth. His balls tightened to painful steel.
“In me, now,” she begged, her fingers fiddling with his zipper.
Behind him, branches snapped. He froze, his senses on sudden alert.
“Well, isn’t this sweet,” a vaguely familiar male voice taunted.
He pivoted, putting Mina behind him. Fuck. The two men from the highway, the exiled wolves, Michael and his father, stood across the clearing, the latter armed with a rifle and looking hungry for a kill. Their presence here on pack land was illegal, a death sentence for them both. They were either insane or confident they wouldn’t get caught. Or both. Shit.
The older man aimed his rifle at Evan’s head. “Thanks for the show, Luparell. I’ll be having some of that now.”
Pressed against his back, his little mate stiffened and growled. “In your dreams, Grandpa.”
The old wolf chuckled. “I sure like them spicy.” His smirk vanished, and he spit on the ground then advanced, his aim steady. “Michael, take the little she-bitch and teach her some manners. Luparell and I are going to have a nice talk.”
“Not happening,” Evan growled, backing Mina away from the approaching men. Fuck, they were screwed. At this distance, even if he shifted, he couldn’t dodge a bullet from the rifle.
The old man came closer. “We’re here for your brother and his bride. Have the perfect ambush planned on the road beyond here. You two are a bonus.”
“Stand down,” Evan warned, releasing his dominant energy.
The asshole stumbled but recovered fast. “Nice try, Luparell.” He aimed at Evan’s chest. “On your knees.” He shot the ground by Evan’s foot, spraying a cloud of snow and dirt and small rocks into the air. “Now.”
Every dominant gene in Evan’s body told him not to do it, but his rational mind said if it would buy them some time, he had to. He sank, nice and slow, while Michael walked wide and circled too damn close to Mina. The younger man whipped out a gun and trained it on her. Evan’s stomach dropped. A tranq gun. What these two sick fucks had planned for Darci and now Mina was all too clear.
Evan’s mind raced and adrenaline pumped through his muscles. Backed into a corner, he saw one way out. Fight to the death for his mate. First step, take out the old asshole with the rifle then deal with his son.
He shifted and lunged for the old timer. Mina must have had the same thought because his fierce female shifted and attacked Michael. Seeming startled by Mina’s shift and attack, Michael’s father took his attention off Evan for a split second and aimed at Mina. Evan barreled into the asshole. The rifle went off.
The crack of the shot and a yelp from Mina jolted Evan’s gut. Please, God, let him have missed my mate.
The old man fell to the ground with Evan on top. Clamping his jaws around the asshole’s throat, Evan sank his teeth deep. One hefty jerk and the man’s neck snapped. Blood gushed and wet Evan’s fur. He ripped his teeth free and leapt off the corpse, searching for Michael and Mina. His mate had the fucker flat on his back underneath her, one of his arms between her jaws. She shook her head back and forth, eliciting wails of pain from the man.
Evan dashed in her direction, his urge to kill her attacker a primal, raging inferno in his blood. He wasn’t fast enough. Mina let out a high-pitched yelp and toppled to the side. Shit, Michael had tranqued her. The asshole lifted his leg as if to kick her, but a huge wolf with golden-brown fur leapt into the clearing and landed by Mina. The newcomer’s fierce roar cracked the air like thunder.
Michael dropped his gun and cowered, clutching his injured arm to his chest. “Ryker,” the man rasped, eyes wide, face pale.
Ryker growled, sank his teeth into the man’s wounded arm, and dragged him, kicking and screaming, from the clearing. Evan shifted mid-run and slid next to his mate, who lay unmoving on the ground. Blood pooled near her head, staining the snow.
He lifted her limp wolf body into his arms and cradled her against his chest. Dead weight. No. Can’t think like that. “Mina. Baby. Open your eyes.”
No response, but her torso rose and fell with her shallow breaths.
She’s alive. “Wake up, Red. Please.”
He searched her body for the gunshot wound causing too much blood to leave her. More wolves entered the clearing. Ross and Darci. Lexi and Jake. And their fathers.
His father, Jake, and Jake’s dad ran over to the dead body and sniffed then shifted. The men exchanged dark glances and disappeared into the trees where Ryker had gone with Michael.
Ross shifted and sank next to Evan. “Truck is on the way. Healer can’t shift at will.” He stared down at Mina, his face contorted. “Who?”
“Michael.”
His brother’s eyes gleamed. “Where?”
Evan motioned toward the trees where their dad, Jake, and his father had gone. “Ryker took him.”
“Hell. Beat me to it.” Ross glanced at the corpse across the clearing. “Yours?”
He nodded.
“Good.”
Lexi and Darci trotted over and whined at the sight of Mina, her golden fur matted with blood, her eyes closed, barely breathing. One by one, they switched to their human forms. Darci pulled out her cell, while Lexi hit the ground, heedless of the blood staining her dress.
“Hey, bestie. I did not give you permission to leave the party. You didn’t even wait for cake.” His sister’s voice cracked, her chin trembling.
Taking up position behind them, Darci squeezed Lexi’s shoulder while talking in hushed tones into her phone. She gazed at Mina, her green eyes wide, face pinched.
Evan pulled a tranq dart out of Mina’s flank eliciting a whimper from his mate. Thank God. Sounds meant she lived, alive being the only result he would accept. The dart wasn’t the source of the blood speckling the snow, however. Mina snapped at him when he grazed his hand over her front leg and shoulder area near her chest, her golden fur drenched with blood. “Bullet wound. Mina, you need to shift.”
She whined and opened her eyes to stare up at him.
“Shift, baby. Come on, Red, you can do it. Come back to me.”
Her eyes drifted shut. Her breathing slowed.
Lexi shook her. “Oh no, you don’t, Jasmine Felicity Carver. You wake up right now, do you hear me? Fuck the tranquilizer. Fuck the gunshot. You wake the hell up, sister!”
Mina jerked, and her eyes snapped open. She let out a low growl.
“Back off, Lexi,” he murmured. “I’ve got this.”
Lexi and Ross and Darci stepped away.
Pressing down on Mina’s wound, Evan let his dominant energy burst forth, rushing over her, pushing, demanding, commanding his mate to submit. Obey. “Shift, baby. Do it now, Red.”
The air shimmered and roiled around his mate’s trembling wolf body. White-hot pain shot over his skin from her slow shift, but he held her hard, willing her to complete the transformation.
“Finish it, Mina. Shift.” He gave her one last push with his power and then she transformed, her chilled little body resting in his lap.
Mina had never felt so cold and fuzzy in her life. Why did her head feel like someone had stuffed it with cotton? Painful, razor-sharp
cotton. The ache in her head rivaled the torment in her shoulder. What the heck had happened to her? Sleep threatened to take her under, but someone kept talking to her and someone kept pushing dominant energy at her like she was a freaking piñata he had to open and fill with his power.
Evan.
The name whispered through her head, gaining a foothold in her foggy brain. Memories flitted on the edges of her consciousness like moths darting in and out of a porch light. Evan in wolf form running through the snow. Evan in human form, his mouth on her clit. Voices. Men. Bad men. Her body jerked, and her heartbeat sped up. Men with guns. A fight. Pain.
“Mina, wake up.” Evan’s voice, strained. Worried.
Her eyes flickered open of their own accord, incapable of denying her mate.
A chorus of relieved voices started talking at once. Dark shapes surrounded her. She blinked them into focus. Darci and Ross. Jake and Lexi. Mr. Luparell. Mr. Marsden.
A kiss landed on her forehead. Evan smiled down at her, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Hi there. Stay awake, baby.” He pressed hard against a spot on her shoulder that really, really hurt.
“Ouch.” Her voice sounded wispy and weak to her ears.
The roar of a truck engine rumbled nearby. “Hang on. Help is here.” Evan gathered her close and stood, the motion taking her head for a spin. She closed her eyes and rode the dizzy waves while Evan walked her somewhere.
A door slammed, and an unfamiliar female voice said, “Let me have a look.”
Fabric moved away from Mina’s torso, and the woman’s fingers prodded her shoulder. “Her shift healed her some, but she still requires stitches. Let’s get her home.”
Mina cracked open one eye. The cute redhead from the wedding stared down at her, a look of concentration on her face. She oozed confidence and strength. The woman smiled, her brown eyes nothing but kind and reassuring. “Relax and breathe. I’ll take care of you.”
Jasmine Moon Page 10
