Prey to the Heart

by Kristen Banet

  “I thought they suited you,” Abigail said, pleased as a button with her choice for Riley’s nails. Her cheeks warmed as Riley grinned at her.

  “They really do, and now my toenails are black, which is just hot,” Riley chuckled, looking down at them as well.

  “You might want to be careful with those,” Abigail laughed freely. Her mood was high after being able to treat herself and Riley. “I hear men are fascinated by painted toenails.” Abigail actually knew from experience. It was one of her favorite things to do: surprise her ex with painted toenails, a little treat that showed she took care of her appearance.

  “I’ll have to test that,” Riley joked. “Who do you think I should test them on?”

  She gave that some thought. She’d had some interaction with all the Pride now, but there were a couple of standouts. Zachary or Brenton would both find it enchanting. Now which one of those two deserved it?

  The Alpha who scared his lover. Definitely.

  “Brenton,” Abigail grinned. “I think you should test them out on Brenton. Hide them and let him discover them on his own. I bet you’ll both have a good time.”

  “You can be devious,” Riley said with a note of appreciation in her voice, as Abigail was paying for their visit. “I like it.”

  “I know how the mind works.” Abigail winked at her, which made Riley lose her shit. She was still laughing as they climbed back into the Range Rover. Their guards had been silent the entire time, trying to remain out of the way for the entire girly affair. She normally didn’t try to mix work with friendship, and the advice she’d just given Riley wasn’t professional at all. It had been friendly advice, woman to woman.

  “We’ll have to do this again,” Riley said as they were heading back to Wild Junction. “I never had these moments with other friends. Haley, Phoebe, and I would just meet up to go out, but not this small stuff. Not getting our nails done or anything.”

  “We do need to do this again,” Abigail agreed with a smile. “Do you still hang out with Phoebe?” Abigail knew the answer, but she figured asking was the best segue into another topic that Abigail wanted to try out with Riley.

  “No, not really,” she said with a shrug. “After my falling out with Haley, Phoebe and I just drifted apart, I guess.”

  “It happens. You entered a new place in your life, and some things in your old place get left behind.” Abigail nudged her. “Give her a text, ask how she's doing. You never know, it might lead back into the friendship - or you’ll know it’s over.”

  She had done it a few times, trying to rebuild her life after the explosive end of her engagement. It was another piece of advice she could only give as a friend. It felt oddly good not to need to be the therapist, even if she couldn’t always turn it off. When was the last time she went out with a girlfriend like this?

  “That’s a good idea.” Riley nodded. “Maybe if things are good, the three of us can go out to Rocker’s. I haven’t been in ages.”

  “Is that the bar the wolves are thinking of getting involved with?” Abigail frowned. She only knew of one bar and it was the one they had mentioned.

  “Yeah, though who knows?” The young woman chuckled. “I don’t think they know what to do with themselves.”

  “They don’t,” Abigail said emphatically. She felt they were moving quickly and really had no idea what they were doing. Landing in a small town and taking some territory, buying a bar? It’s like they just decided on a whim that this was the place for them. Sure, their plans were good, but she felt they were too fast.

  Not. Her. Problem. She reminded herself of that again. She was here to make sure everyone was stable and healthy, not question a wolf Pack’s life choices.

  She had a strong feeling that Riley, this passionate shifter next to her, would be just fine. And a good friend. She waved goodbye to Riley as she watched them drive off, leaving Abigail back at her hotel.

  Now she needed to go back to work.

  7

  Abigail

  The next day, Abigail was preparing for a small check-in with Gabe when her phone started going off. She groaned and went to grab it from her bedside table.

  “I should be used to this,” Abigail muttered to herself. This happened every time she was in a new place with patients who lived by their own rules. This was the type of work she did before she decided to help the SSTF. She would get a call and go to do private treatment and counseling in-house for them. The SSTF just dragged her around, in case they had someone who might need her. Both types of work were satisfying, just different.

  Thomas: Can you stop by our new place? I was hoping you could set up in my office and talk again.

  She felt it then, the small bit of sadness she held for all these shifters. Straight out of a hunting compound and rushing back in to their lives like they couldn’t take a break to process it.

  Abigail: Certainly. I’ll be over after lunch. Send me the address.

  She waited and saw the address pop up next, along with a ‘thank you.’ She slid her phone into her pocket and considered what Thomas would want to talk about now.

  Probably his lost friends. She wondered if he was having nightmares. He seemed the best, or most emotionally mature, wolf, willing to talk a bit about what happened to them. Abigail wondered if she could credit that to the military experience she knew he had.

  She grabbed her things and got moving before she could be late for her appointment with Gabe at the mansion.

  She didn’t beat Gabe to Brenton’s office. She’d gotten slowed down by their new security, which didn’t bother her really, just played a minor annoyance she forgot about. This wasn’t the first patient with heavily armed guards she’d ever had, but she’d forgotten to give herself time to deal with it.

  She found Gabe looking like he was asleep as she walked in. His eyes opened, and she nodded towards him as she went behind Brenton’s desk. He had green eyes similar to Antonio’s, but Gabe’s were more emerald. She took a deep breath and noted several things. Humans had been in this office, a bear, Riley. Anger and pain. Rebellion.

  “I can smell it’s been an eventful morning,” she started, leveling a stare on the leopard.

  “We had some drama with the SSTF guys,” Gabe groaned. “They decided to have opinions about our…Pride dynamics.”

  “Oh.” Abigail stopped for a moment and shuffled papers around on Brenton’s desk. She felt uncomfortable. Did the SSTF really cause problems over the Pride’s romantic life? Were they crazy? That was a sure-fire way to get people killed. She could see how protective these males were over Riley. “People are still breathing, I hope?”

  “Yeah, we got it worked out,” Gabe chuckled. “The bear.”

  The bear…She thought for a second. Sheriff Johnson was the bear. She hadn’t met him yet, but went along with wherever Gabe was going with this.

  “Of course. So…What do you want to start with today or would you like me to pick the topic?”

  “You can pick the topic,” Gabe sighed.

  “Let’s talk about the pills,” she decided softly. “Have you been feeling the need for any, recently?”

  “No.” Gabe smiled at her. “I’m actually feeling pretty good.”

  She smiled back at him.

  After Gabe, Abigail loaded back up into her car. She would need to come back tomorrow for Troy, and he wasn’t nearly as rough as Gabe. Gabe was a guilty type of guy. He held on to everything and blamed himself, destroying his own sense of trust in himself and his intelligence, killing his self-confidence. Troy’s problems were more centered around depression and fitting in, being useful. She didn’t think Troy had chemical depression, looking over his records, but she considered putting him on a small anti-depressant anyways, to help him through the hard time they were going through. It would be something she talked about tomorrow with him.

  Now she needed to go see the wolves. Or Thomas, at least. She didn’t ask if he wanted her privately or if he wanted her for all of them yet.

 
; Thomas. She had mixed feelings about him, just like she did the rest of the wolves in Wild Junction. All three of them were distractions from her job - and also her job. Such an odd place to be.

  She pulled up to their house, down a long dirt road that led her to the farmhouse in the middle of a gorgeous piece of property. Something envious popped up in her chest. Her condo in LA had nothing on this, even if it did cost her a few million to procure, which wasn’t a hardship thanks to her private rates working with shifters in the mental health field. Everyone was rich. This was probably only a few hundred thousand, if that. She saw a few vehicles parked on the dirt driveway and in the carport, and realized the wolves must have gotten their things back. Good for them.

  When she got to the door, she knocked several times and waited patiently, holding her bag, ready to get this started.

  “Come in,” James yelled from inside and Abigail frowned. Well, that wasn’t what she expected. They couldn’t even answer the door for her? She grabbed the handle and pushed the door open and stopped, shocked by the sight she was hit with.

  The front door had a clear line of sight to the kitchen. Where James was. Naked as the day he was born, cooking something on the stove. She was treated to a view of his back and butt that would haunt her. She’d been good enough out in the woods to not look too much at them, even if it was unavoidable. It felt more natural out there.

  This was a fantasy in the flesh. A man cooking and exposing all of himself for viewing pleasure? Abigail just didn’t know how to react. This wasn’t the world she lived in anymore, and it definitely wasn’t the world she was raised in. Prey had some propriety.

  “Well, close the door before you let in the damn cold,” James told her gruffly, turning to look over his shoulder at her. The twist of his body into a profile view made her mouth water. “Thomas, Abby is here!” James gave her a long look up and down before turning back to what he was doing. She fumbled to get the front door closed and walked further into the house.

  She should have expected it, the nudity, but it still had shocked her. Maybe it was because he was the first thing she saw. She stopped in the living room, trying to ignore the nude male who could watch her from where he cooked.

  “Hey, Abigail.” Thomas walked out of the back, from a hallway that must have led to the back bedrooms. He gave her a genuine smile and she smiled back as he turned to the kitchen. He let out a grumble. “Damn it, James. We have company.”

  “I’m a wolf,” James answered, giving a small growl. “She’ll deal with it. She knows.”

  “Forgive him,” Thomas muttered, taking her arm and pulling her along towards the back. He let go of her once they were out of sight of James. “He’s a great, likable guy. Good with numbers, normally less tense and cranky. He just also completely accepts that he’s a wolf and nothing is going to change that. Add those two together…”

  “He’s different now than before you were taken to the hunter’s compound?” Abigail asked as he led them into a room. She looked around and realized it was just a bedroom, not even an office.

  “Very, though I think he’s slowly coming back to us,” Thomas sighed. “He’s burying it all, working it out for himself. He puts on a smile for others, but he won’t do that here…or with you, it seems.”

  “And Antonio? Has he been different at all?” Abigail inquired, dropping her bag on the bed. She sat next to it and watched him lean on the wall then slide down to sit on the floor.

  I guess this is where we’re having our talk here, she thought to herself. Bedrooms weren’t the best place for deep discussions about feelings. It wasn’t the office Thomas had mentioned.

  “He’s better,” he answered noncommittally. “More himself than James has been. Antonio’s always been a bit of a wildcard. Hard working and loyal, but a wildcard.”

  “Is this what you wanted to talk about?” She pulled a notepad out of her bag and Thomas shrugged.

  “Just wanted to talk,” he said quietly. She met his gaze and wondered what was going on behind those baby blues. “How’s Wild Junction treating you?”

  “Better than my last job?” she answered tentatively. “You guys are fairly easy to deal with. I think you all just want someone to talk to. The Pride is the same way. And here, I’m my own boss.”

  “What was your last job?” He watched her carefully, and the way he said it made her nervous.

  “I was an on-hand trauma therapist for the SSTF,” she informed him. “It was good work but…”

  “The SSTF is full of shitheads, humans and shifters alike,” Thomas said, chuckling.

  “Yeah,” Abigail laughed, nodding. “Yeah it is. I liked my job. I like this better though - helping people who genuinely want it, getting to explore, not having a leash.”

  “I bet,” he whispered, still just watching her. She scooted a little, uncomfortable with the stare. “I have dreams of being in the compound, you know. I’m sure we all do.”

  “I bet,” she whispered back. “You don’t let it drag you down, though you are moving a bit fast to settle in. I think you should slow down and grieve a little longer.”

  “I think you say that to all the wolves,” Thomas teased.

  “I do,” Abigail giggled, nodding more. “I really do. You guys just…well, you don’t lock it away, but you close the door.”

  “We like that part of our lives private,” Thomas agreed. “But it is nice to talk to someone who understands that. It was hard, ya know? Being there, seeing our brothers on the walls. It was hard. We were there too long. It was like waiting for our time to get called. Then mine did.”

  “How did you feel?” she asked softly, hoping he would continue to open up to her.

  “Terrified,” he sighed. “I paid attention to all the details, thanks to my military training, but it was difficult.”

  “This weighs heavier on you than it does them,” Abigail noted, watching him. “Do you think it’s because you had to survive a hunt? Or maybe it’s because you’re an Alpha by nature. Maybe a combination of both?”

  “I think all of those are right.” He groaned. “Do you want to come back tomorrow?”

  “Thomas,” Abigail started.

  “Not just for this, but maybe you can come on runs with us,” he offered. “We can keep the wildlife away from you and you can shift without being in danger, enjoy the outdoors a bit more.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she whispered. He raised an eyebrow at her and she groaned this time. “I’ll think about it,” she repeated louder, even though she knew he heard her the first time.

  “Awesome,” Thomas breathed out.

  They sat in silence for a long moment. She wondered if the wolves really needed her help. It was a possibility they just didn’t, or maybe only Thomas did. He had the weight of being an Alpha on his shoulders, and he went through more than the other guys.

  “How are James and Antonio, truly?” she asked, crossing her legs.

  “I think they’re fine,” Thomas chuckled. “I think a few more weeks, and they’ll be back to normal. They just need time to breathe again, ya know?”

  “I do,” Abigail said with understanding. She did understand. Some people just handled trauma better than others. Everyone was different.

  “Do you want to stay for dinner?” he asked, slowly standing up. “I think that’s enough for me today about this.”

  Abigail made a snap decision she felt she was going to regret. She was already making friends with Riley and through her, probably the Pride - why not the wolves?

  “Sure,” she answered.

  They walked together, and she brought her bag out with her. When they got back into the living room, Antonio was sprawling on the couch and grinned at her.

  “I knew I heard the pretty doe,” he exclaimed, jumping up. She didn’t know how to react as he wrapped her into a hug. “How are you? Go on anymore hikes recently?”

  “No,” she answered, trying to breathe as he kept her in his arms. She pulled away as best she could. “I
haven’t. Got busy again.”

  “Happens to all of us,” he said, laughing afterwards. “Staying for dinner, huh?” His eyes searched her face, and she wondered why it was so important.

  “Yeah, it seems,” she said with a shrug.

  “Sweet. James, you got enough food for her too?” Antonio turned to the kitchen and her eyes followed his gaze. James was still in the buff as he cooked. Thomas had entered the kitchen as well and looked to be starting to help.

  “Yeah,” James sighed, looking a bit aggravated.

  “I don’t have to stay,” Abigail cut in quickly. She didn’t want to be an inconvenience. They had saved her from a mountain lion; she didn’t want to start stepping on toes now.

  “He’s cranky with me,” Thomas chuckled. “If you’re staying for dinner, he has to put on clothes. Which he’ll do right now,” he said that last part with a ton of force.

  James dropped the spoon he was holding and stomped out of the kitchen. Abigail went wide-eyed at the front half of James she knew fairly well now as it was again visible. She turned slowly away and saw Antonio snickering.

  “You think this is funny?” she asked him, crossing her arms.

  “I do,” he admitted, giving a shit-eating smile. She narrowed her eyes on him and those dancing jade green eyes.

  She huffed and turned back towards the wolf Alpha, unwilling to get lost in those playful eyes. Thomas was chuckling too.

  “Sorry, we’re not used to females being around. Our inner circle was all guys and we lived together. And the women that did show up were Pack females,” Thomas informed her.

  “Certainly you didn’t do this at Kingson Estate,” she said, a bit tart and curt.

  “No, but it wasn’t our house,” James answered, walking back in, only wearing a pair of black jeans that rode much too low on his waist. Abigail had wondered if he could have gotten more attractive and sure enough, with clothes on, he looked even sexier.

  “Come on.” Antonio chuckled, probably smelling her attraction. “Let’s go set the table.”