by Alisa Woods
“Oh, hello, Terra!” The woman’s voice was bright and sunny. “Cassie will be so disappointed she missed your call. She’s in school right now.”
Of course she was. Cassie’s life was continuing on without her. “I should’ve known that. Just tell her I called, okay?”
There was a slight pause. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes. I just wanted to say hi.” Terra hoped the lie didn’t show in her voice. “I’ll catch up with her later.” She almost asked for Trent, but it wouldn’t make any sense for her brother to be there, either. He was probably at his software development company, running his business and getting on with his life as well.
“I’ll have her call you as soon as she gets home.”
“Thanks.” Terra hung up and took a deep breath before dialing her brother at the office. He hated being interrupted at work.
“In the middle of something here, Terra,” Trent said when he picked up the phone.
“Just wanted to let you know I was still alive.” Terra failed to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
“Jesus, Terra.” Trent covered the mouthpiece of his phone and barked something at someone. When he uncovered it, he sounded like he was moving. “Okay, you’re alive. Duly noted. Glad to hear it.” She heard a door close. “All right, I’m in my office now. What’s really going on?”
“I found a mate.” She let that just hang there.
“I… what?” There was silence for a moment. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“I’m going to take Kaden as my mate.” She wanted to make sure he understood this wasn’t up for a vote. Specifically, Trent did not get a vote on who her mate would be. It would be just like him to assume that he did.
“The cop?” His voice was drenched in horror and disbelief. “What the hell is that guy doing to you?” He growled, then there was the sound of something being hit, like a fist on his desk. “What the actual fuck, Terra? The policeman has seduced you, and now you think you’re going to mate with a human? What kind of head trip is this guy running? I’m calling the fucking mayor. Right now. I’m getting you out of there.”
“No!” Terra growled into the phone. “And he’s not a human, Trent.”
“Wait… what?” The sound of him sucking in a breath came through loud and clear. “Hang on. You’re saying the cop who has been watching over you is not, in fact, a human like every other fucking cop in the Seattle Police Department, but is, in fact, a wolf who you have now decided is your mate.”
“Yes.”
Trent held the phone away from his mouth, but Terra could still hear the cursing. After a moment, he came back. “Could you please keep the crazy to a minimum for a while? Just a little while, Terra. We’ve got this Wolf Hunter after you, I just got Cassie squared away in a new school, and I’ve got this deal I’m trying to close—”
“You know what?” Terra cut him off. “Just forget it. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“Terra —”
She didn’t hear the rest because she hung up on him. She almost threw the phone across the room, but she remembered Cassie was calling her back later, and Terra didn’t want her phone out of service when that happened. She tossed her phone on the bed behind her instead.
It sunk deep into the bedspread.
Terra growled and clenched her fists. Trent was more like her father than she wanted to believe. He threw himself into his work, was always banging one girl or another, living the bachelor life. This whole hate-group thing, with his family and his sister being targeted, was just a blip in his life. An inconvenience that he’d rather not deal with.
Terra sucked in a breath and blew out her frustration. No, that wasn’t fair—Trent had gotten Cassie a new place to live when she had to leave the safehouse. He’d enrolled her in school, which apparently was working out well. He wasn’t completely irresponsible like their father.
And he was probably just worried about Terra.
If she was honest, it was very much like her to run off and do something stupid. Like mate with a man she barely knew… and who was part of the Seattle Police Department. Or something similarly wild and outlandish and ill-considered.
Only this time, that’s not how it was.
Kaden was her destined mate, she was sure of it. She would just have to give Trent time to figure that out, too. After all, the two of them had only met once for a few minutes. In any objective way, the whole thing with her and Kaden was going crazy fast. But that’s how it was with mates, at least the true ones.
Trent had to know that, too.
Terra’s phone buzzed from inside the well of comforter fluff that it had buried itself in.
She growled, convinced that it was Trent calling her back, but when she looked at the caller ID, it said unknown caller.
She picked it up. “Hello?”
“Terra, my dear! I hope you don’t mind me calling you again.” It was Julius.
“No, of course not.”
“I have to admit to a certain delight whenever you take my call, my dear. I’m afraid I’m still awestruck that we have this little relationship. Purely fan worship on my part, naturally. I was very much hoping that we might be able to meet again.”
She’d been so busy making love to Kaden and discovering he was a wolf and hauling him up to the mountains to talk to her cousin… she hadn’t gotten any work done. “I’m sorry, I don’t have anything more to show you, Julius.”
“That’s quite all right.” The excitement in his voice was a little infectious. “I have something that might interest you, though. It concerns the topic we discussed previously.”
She sat up straighter. “You mean the white wolves?”
“Precisely. I have some new information, and a new theory I was hoping to share with you. Would it be possible for us to meet again?”
“Yes, absolutely.” She was standing now. Maybe whatever Julius had found would help Kaden understand who he was. And she knew that would be the key to them being together and becoming mates. “When would you like to meet?” she asked Julius.
“As soon as befits your schedule, my dear,” he said. “But I do hope you can respect the sensitive nature of our discussion. I know it might’ve caused you some problems the last time with your handler. But privacy in this is of the utmost importance. When can you get away for a private meeting?”
Terra winced and hesitated. There was no way Kaden would allow her to go off by herself. And there was no way she would go without telling him. Not this time. Not ever again.
But this was too important to ignore. Julius was well-connected and wealthy… and obsessed with white wolves. Whatever he’d dug up, it had to be something special to get him all worked up. She would just have to find a way to make a meetup happen. “Give me a little time to figure that out. I’m in the middle of something I need to finish up here, anyway. Can I call you back at this number?”
“Yes. Wonderful! At your convenience, Terra. I’m delighted, and we’ll make it work whenever works for you. I look forward to your call.”
They said goodbye, and Terra glanced around her room. It would only take a few minutes to pack things up, then they could start heading back into the city. And then she would have to find a way to talk Kaden into letting her meet with Julius alone.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Kaden couldn’t believe his eyes.
Noah Wilding was showing off his skills as a witch. Crackling blue energy skittered all around his hand, front and back, as he held it up for Kaden to see. In all the times Kaden had consulted with witches in the department, he’d never seen anything like it—they always worked their spells by touch. No blue magical sparks dancing all over their skin.
This was just freaky.
“I’ve been practicing,” Noah said with a grin. “It wasn’t exactly this controlled in the beginning. And Mama River doesn’t like me tearing up the house, so I keep it outside.”
They were out behind the main house of the estate, off to
the side of the stables. The mountain peaks loomed in the distance, and there were several cottages in back as well. But Noah had brought him to an open, grassy area where half the trees had already taken the brunt of his magic.
Noah swirled his hand around a couple of times, and the blue energy coalesced into a baseball-sized mass that floated above his palm. Then he pushed his hand straight out, toward one of the trees—the magic flew from his hand so fast, Kaden couldn’t track it. He just heard the explosion, then saw the flying woodchip cloud and the black charred stump left behind.
“Holy shit.” Kaden’s mouth was hanging open.
Noah grinned. “There’s a reason why I’m here, guarding Mama River, after everyone else hightailed it out for safer territory.”
Kaden managed to shut his mouth. He peered at Noah—Terra’s cousin was young like they were, probably around twenty-one or twenty-two, but Noah had a weary, worn look about him. Terra had mentioned something about him being in the Army, and Kaden already knew he’d lived through some horrific experiments the government performed on shifters.
Kaden shifted his weight from one foot to the other, awkward. “So… you’re a white wolf. Or a witch. I’m really not understanding how all this works.”
Noah held out one hand. “Part witch.” Then the other. “Part white wolf.” Then he shifted before Kaden’s eyes. Noah only stayed wolf for a moment, but he was definitely a white wolf. Then he quickly shifted back to human. His clothes were left in a pile in the grass, so Kaden averted his gaze. The grass rustled as Noah got dressed.
Kaden cleared his throat. “Well, I’ve got the white wolf part.” He wasn’t keen on shifting in front of Noah. It was one thing to end up naked with Terra—he enjoyed that—it was another thing entirely in front of a dude. And a wolf. And apparently a witch.
“Man, you don’t need to shift,” Noah said, apparently reading Kaden’s mind. He looked up. “Seriously. We can just talk. I was just showing off.” Noah had his pants back on, so Kaden could look at him again without feeling ridiculously awkward.
“Am I supposed to be able to do that?” He gestured to Noah’s hand where the blue energy had shot out from. “Shoot blue magical fire?” He was highly, highly, skeptical that was going to happen.
“I don’t know what you can do, man. The government injected me with serums. I think that’s what brought out my inner witch. But I’m also part wolf, so there’s that. From what I understand, you’re half human, right?”
Kaden nodded.
“Do you have the crazy sharp blades for claws?”
“What?” Kaden leaned back. “Um… I don’t think so.”
“What about the superhealing?”
Kaden rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah.” He’d always been able to heal inhumanly fast. It was his first clue that he was part shifter, even before his mother told him his father had been a wolf. But even from the beginning, he knew he was different from the other wolves. Shifters heal pretty damn fast—he’d seen a lot of bloodshed in the gangs—but not as fast as him. That was one reason why he could confront the gangs—whatever they could throw at him, short of a bullet to the head, he was pretty sure he could recover from.
And he had a good chance of surviving even that.
“The experiments may have brought out my inner witch,” Noah said, “but I’m second-generation to a white wolf, at best, and I’ve got normal wolf DNA mixed in there, too. You and Grace… sounds like you guys are first-generation, direct descendants of a white wolf, based on what you’re both saying about your fathers.”
“I don’t know if he was a white wolf or not,” Kaden growled. “I’m not sure my mother even knew—I don’t think she ever saw him in his wolf form. He was just some asshole who seduced her.”
Noah nodded, lips pursed. “I’ve been digging into this white wolf thing. You know, research. Sketchy stuff. Rumors mostly. Long ago, apparently, witches and wolves weren’t mortal enemies. They weren’t so divided. In fact, there’s a rumor that they both descended from the same kind of magical creature—some kind of shape-shifting sorcerer that was super strong in all forms of magic. There was a whole race of them with different variants—some expressed more like witches, some like wolves, some like other shifters. It’s like all the magical creatures you’ve ever heard of rolled up into one. And the way they expressed their magic was supposedly related to the relative balance of their male and female magical energies. Like, everyone had some of each, but the ratios were all over the place. Then some kind of change happened, and over time, the witches slowly became mostly female—and the shifters were mostly male.”
“That’s really odd,” Kaden said, “but I guess it makes a kind of sense. I’ve always wondered why there was such a lack of female wolves.”
Noah smirked. “And why they’re such a handful, right? It’s like they’re out of balance or something. I’ve got cousins and a sister that bear that out, believe me.”
Kaden scowled. Terra was certainly a wild thing, to be sure, but she wasn’t unbalanced. And that was his possible-future-mate he was talking about. “So, where does that leave me? Am I a witch or a wolf?”
“I don’t know, man. Maybe your magical energy swings in the direction of wolf because you’re more of the, well, that type.”
“What the hell does that mean?” That sounded like an insult, but Kaden couldn’t quite track it.
Noah gestured to Kaden’s bunched up fists and the glare that was no doubt on his face. “I mean, you do not exactly lack in masculine qualities, Officer Grant. Fuck, man, I’m just trying to help you out here.”
Kaden tried to reel in his wolf’s bristling. His temper had always had a hair trigger—he’d thought it was the wolf inside, but maybe it was just him.
He blew out some of the stress. “Hey, look… I’m sorry. This is still all new to me. It’s freaking me out, to be honest. So… what you’re saying is that I’m a guy’s guy, and maybe that’s why my magical beast, which is really something like a witch, is expressing as a wolf.”
“I honestly don’t know.” Noah shrugged. “It’s just a theory. But I know you’re something different than the other wolves out there, Kaden. And if you and Terra have something going, then this is the place for you. The Wilding family has its quirks, but the River pack is straight up cool and accepting. I work for Riverwise, and those guys were a hell of a lot more accepting than my own family… at least at first.”
“Good to know.” Kaden didn’t really understand where he was going with any of this.
Noah lifted his chin. “But don’t count us Wildings out—we’re coming along. We’ve been broken up as a pack for so long, I think we’re just wired not to trust people. It’s part of our DNA now.”
“Yeah, I can kind of see that in Terra.” And he worried about that—her own father had somehow dropped the ball, leaving her to fend for herself as a little girl. Which made Kaden want to go pound him to the ground… except that he was still Terra’s father, and that wasn’t cool. But the protective side of him wanted to make up for that sad upbringing—it was way too much like his own, and he knew all the ways that could hurt. He wanted nothing more than to shower her with all the love and safety he could give. And that meant one thing—mating.
He still couldn’t quite wrap his head around the fact that they were going to do that. Soon, if Terra had her way. And he wasn’t much inclined not to let her have her way, at least in that regard.
Noah was watching him. “Hey, Terra’s as wild as they come, but she’s good people. And she’s my cousin. I fully expect her to kick your ass if you’re not treating her right, but in case that doesn’t convince you…” He focused his attention on his hand and flicked his wrist a couple of times. The blue crackling energy skittered along his skin and coalesced into his palm.
Noah held it up like he might throw it in Kaden’s face.
He whipped up his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. No need to get all witchy on me.”
Noah smirked and flicked t
he energy away. It scorched a long burn mark along the grass.
Jesus, he was going to set the damn forest on fire.
Kaden sighed. “I’m not ever going to hurt her, Noah. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’ve just got to sort out my own mess so I can take proper care of her.”
“Now you’re talking,” Noah said, shaking out his hand. “But I can tell you this—I’ve never seen her look at a man like she looks at you. That was clear as day the moment you two walked in the door. For what that’s worth. Just be worthy of her, Kaden, and you’ll do fine.”
Kaden sucked in a breath. It was a relief to have someone else on board with this whole idea—especially someone in Terra’s family, even if it was just her cousin.
“If we do end up mated,” Kaden said, “I might need a new job. I don’t think the police force will take too kindly to having a shifter in its midst.”
Noah went back to grinning. “We can probably work something out. Hell, with all the threats we’ve had from the Wolf Hunter and the hate group people, everybody’s working overtime to try to keep the pack safe—both packs, River and Wilding. Like I said, they’re good people. I’m sure there’d be a place for someone like you.”
Kaden reached out a hand to shake Noah’s. “That’s a tremendous load off my mind. Thanks.”
Noah shook his hand and nodded. Then he lifted his chin to gesture over Kaden’s shoulder. Kaden twisted to see Terra skittering out from the house and coming toward them at a half run. Her black hair was flying behind her, and her eyes were lit up. Even with her cousin standing right next to them, Kaden still wanted to haul her off into the woods and make love to her up against a tree or some damn thing.
Good God, would that burning need for her ever slow down in the slightest?
Terra reached them, all flushed and slightly breathless. “I’ve got a question for you,” she said to Kaden. Then she looked to her cousin. “Are you done?”
Noah had a barely restrained smirk, and Kaden had a feeling he knew exactly what was going through Kaden’s mind. Or maybe it was the tightening in his pants that seemed to happen every time Terra came within reach.
