by Dunbar, Natalie; Glass, Seressia; Jeffries, J. M. ; Banks, L. A.
“The howl ran all through me… I was just upset because I thought it was for me.”
He pulled her into an embrace. “Oh, it was; trust me. It was.”
She gave him a disbelieving smile. “I’m not angry, I was just.…”
“It was for you,” he repeated softly, leaning in to lick her earlobe. “When you waltzed into Marcus’ office… damn… I was messed up. Before I even saw you, your scent had me walking in circles. Then you came through the door—this angry, ravishing, snarling beauty, and I couldn’t breathe.” He found a place on her neck and paid it gentle attention, loving how she melted to fit against him. “Then you got in my face and challenged me, and then stormed out. I thought I’d lose my mind… was half about to drop to all fours and chase you, girl.”
She laughed quietly and ran her hands up his back. “I needed you to do that. I came out of that office panting.”
“For real?’ he said, beginning to nuzzle the side of her face that hadn’t been injured. “You felt like that earlier today?”
“Uh huh,” she whispered, nodding and holding him tighter. “I was soooo wet that I had to get out of there.”
He shuddered. “Oh… shit….”
“Yeah,” she said, nipping his ear and sending a raspy whisper into it. “I had to sit on my hands and force myself to stay in my office.” Her head was beginning to lean back as her eyes slid shut. “And when you howled, Barron… it plunged into me like a knife. Then the hunger came.”
“Really,” he said, starting to pant. “I was so messed up that I practically agreed to any terms Ecstasy offered. I just wanted to get back inside, tell Malcolm, so there’d be no trouble, and then bound up the stairs to feed you. That’s why I couldn’t even stand out there and argue with her and haggle about money. I wasn’t trying to undermine your authority. The moon was full; your scent was all over the casino… I had to get to you. Next thing I knew, I was telling the truth to the moon.”
“For real?” She pulled back and looked at him, her eyes glistening with desire. “You couldn’t even haggle terms with her because of that?”
He nodded and swallowed. She watched his Adam’s apple bob in his throat.
“The whole way up to your office I was saying a prayer… please let her be in there alone. Please don’t let some other male be in her face that she wants in her face. Please let her like this cheeseburger. My heart was slamming inside my chest like I was a kid in high school.”
She kissed him slowly and smiled, dropping her voice to a low, husky tone. “For real?”
“Then you were there,” he said, his voice becoming gravelly. “Alone. Hungry. Sniffing me for a lie. Hunting me with your eyes when I came in. Listening for unspoken words between sentences. My eyes were trying to tell you all the things my mouth couldn’t say ‘cause I was too choked up… how much I missed you, how I was a fool to ever leave you… how if you gave me one more chance to fix what I broke, I’d never break it again. Then I heard the lock click and almost shifted on you right then… oh, shit… you have no idea how close I was.”
He hugged her tightly, more tightly than maybe he should have, if he was going to hand her off to another male. But it was reflex. She felt so right fitting there, and he needed to get it all out and said in case anything went wrong.
“I’m not gonna lie, in that moment that you locked the door, I forgot about the money. I started hunting you.”
She gasped, and he felt it in his groin.
“You hunted me?” she whispered quickly, her breaths now shallow.
“Hell yeah…” he said just above a growl. “I wanted you bad. I scanned the room for an exit—there was none. The wolf mind took over. Mate her, and mate her hard. Period. There was no battling with the animal. It had won all but my outer skin, at that point.”
He felt her tremble and it made him seek her hair with his nose. He pulled in a deep inhale and let it out through his mouth in a hot wash. “I began to figure out how to box you in a corner, trying to figure out which one, which surface, how to position you so you’d most enjoy it… ’Cause, see, the moon was coming through the window. I have excellent memory. My nose got it all, and you were in heat, burning me up just like you’re doing now. Then you just turned around for me and dipped into the mount position, and my mind snapped. Next thing I know, we were half-naked, half-shifted, half-crazy, and howling. I wasn’t trying to disrespect you or play you cheap, Laurel. It was be with you or stop breathing.”
“I need another shower just from talking to you in the hall,” she said on a strangled breath.
“Why’d you tell me that?” he said, aggressively taking her mouth, then backed off a bit, remembering her injured jaw. “I’m sorry… but.…”
“Yeah, I know.” She ran her hand down his chest and pressed it against his hard abdomen. “I wanted you to hunt me… chase me… make me dash through the desert under the silver moon. I wanted to turn into silver-black blurs of motion, running so fast and so free that I became the wind… with you on my heels in that fantastic, jet black coat—midnight itself.”
“Oh, girl, stop.…” He closed his eyes, unable to stare into her deep, luminous gray eyes that flickered animal wolf fire beneath them.
“I have a very good memory, too… because it all came back in that office.” She clutched his back as her mouth neared his, and she licked his face. “Wolfen… Lupine lover… named Barron for the noble human rule… named Butch by the clan for the alpha male that you are… and claimed by me. Since you left, there’s been no one in the pack worthy enough to follow you to mount me… and you have no idea what that’s been like starving for you to come back—that’s why I had an attitude,” she said deeply in a low, feminine growl.
“Oh… baby… I’m no more good now.” He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t release her, and could barely stand on two legs, needing to go to four to keep his balance.
“The ketchup on your face… and the hamburger blood was mine to wash away, Barron… I’m in full heat right now… just after midnight, and I can feel it making me very insane.”
He stood there panting hard, then licked her face and nuzzled her injured jaw. “I’ll eat again soon so you can do it. Anything you want; any place, any time, oh shit, anywhere, just tell me and I’ll drag it still kicking over the threshold—will kill it in front of you, if you wanna see it die.”
“Yeah.…”
“Baby… say it again like that with the growl in it.”
“Barron…” she murmured, growling his name. “You don’t know how much I wanted to find a private little place in the crags, high up to put us closer to the night disc in the sky, and throw my head back for you and feel your breaths in my ear… the weight of you against my back so divine that I howled till I cried and cried till I howled, until my shape-shift wouldn’t even hold and I just broke down and became woman in your arms.”
“Oh, shit, Laurel… I ain’t letting you go down there for some beta male to even try to—”
“Shush,” she said, stopping his words and pending kiss with the pad of her finger. “Hold that memory and extract me from that room well.”
“No question.” He looked at her hard. “Laurel, I’ll be coming through that door on a take-no-prisoners rampage.”
“Good,” she said sweetly. “Kill them all. They came against our clan.” She closed her eyes and allowed her head to drop back. “Then hunt me—after you’re nice and bloody.”
Her spine hit the elevator doors. He could feel her slapping at the wall to find the button. If the contraption had opened, they would have both fallen in and hit the floor. Malcolm’s calm lope down the corridor wasn’t even enough to break the kiss. He needed to mount Laurel so badly that his entire body was trembling.
“Man… you’re gonna have to let her go in order for this to work,” Malcolm said calmly, depressing the elevator button for them. “You two can either stay in the hall making out like kids, torturing yourselves, or do the job, and then head for the hills.”
Butch tore himself away from Laurel’s mouth, and she came out of the kiss with a gasp. He looked up at Malcolm with a pained expression and slowly unwrapped his arms from around her waist.
“Yeah, okay… I was just saying goodbye.” Butch winced as he pulled away.
Laurel dabbed her mouth with the back of her wrist. “I was going downstairs in a minute.”
The elevator doors opened and Butch held onto the wall beside them, swallowing down a forlorn howl as they closed her away.
“She’s beautiful, Malcolm.”
“I take it that we won’t have any witnesses after this is finished?” Malcolm said in an even tone with a smile.
Butch just shook his head, staring at the shut elevator doors. “I don’t think so, man. I really don’t.”
Malcolm nodded and began to lope away. “Okay. Cool. I’m not in a very tolerant frame of mind myself tonight.”
Chapter Six
It wasn’t hard to track a foreign clan member on the premises, especially having tangled with his alpha brethren in a brawl. Even human common sense said the new leader would be in one of three places; the remaining bars, the restaurants, or in a room getting it on, if not the hills. She just hoped it wasn’t the hills.
But a promotion was a promotion and a conquest was a conquest—even if by default. Since her clan appeared to only be focused on the foolish combatants that entered a domestic dispute, it wouldn’t give the rival clan reason to believe they’d each be hunted down for spite. Especially not when free food, liquor, and accommodations had been publicly delivered by a clan leader as a peace offering.
Laurel’s mind assessed the potential threats as she rode the elevator. It was imperative to remain focused, something very hard to do after being in Barron’s arms. Nonetheless, she had to wrest back her strategy and keep the details sharp in her head like razor canines.
No, the rival clan wouldn’t be in the clubs partying; that would seem like a slap in the face to the pack members who’d died—but eating and drinking in a jovial wake was acceptable. Outright retaliation from them for the deaths of their two big alphas, and the severe maiming of a third who lost his arm, would be seen as low. After all, they were the ones who’d lost their cool and allowed their libidos to make them jump into a family dispute between pack brothers over an inner clan female.
If there was no alpha contender from her clan staking a claim, then, by rights, the alphas from their clan could have duked it out between themselves to win her. But to cross clan lines and go alpha-to-alpha over a rival clan’s woman was severely out of order. Wolves had a different philosophical bent than vampires.
Laurel stepped out of the elevator and kept walking across the battered first floor of the casino, headed for the bar. Drink, eat, and be merry—that was a werewolf male’s style. They’d go to the bar to raise a respectful toast to the dead after loading the bodies in a truck. Then they’d head straight for a restaurant to eat well, both in memoriam to the fallen and in tribute to the next leader. Then they’d be off to be merry with whichever female was down. The beta females would be fawning, and tonight the conqueror might take more than one. But if the alpha females were present and willing, which they’d have to be to keep the clan going, then he’d have to pick one—and that’s who she’d have to brawl with first to get the new leader alone. Laurel sighed hard.
Why couldn’t things just be cool, she wondered? Tonight of all nights, the last thing she felt like was a bitch fight. But so be it.
She surveyed the remaining, undamaged bar on the first floor. Just as suspected, food had been ordered and the drinking was going non-stop. They’d blended things together, obviously ravenous after watching the brawl, and had clearly decided to pass on the idea of moving the party to a restaurant. The little fracas that trashed the first floor would no doubt improve business in the long run—the Weres loved see a good beat down, and the more blood and bodies involved, the better. This had been like WWF with no refs, no rules, and no pulled punches.
Heads turned as Laurel walked into the bar, and she spotted the newly installed alpha sitting in a booth with two beta females under each arm. The rival clan of Weres had a biker theme going, nothing but black leather, steel-studded collars, tattoos, and spikes, with hard attitudes to match. It was a far cry from her more corporate clan that preferred the laid-back approach. Okaaay… so negotiating by talking one’s way out of anything would be impossible. Sophistication was not in the rival clan’s grasp.
Laurel’s eyes cased the perimeter and stopped. Loud music was making her temples throb. Bass lines were rattling her skeleton. The head alpha female was in the house. Not good that she was built like an ox. Cutter’s wife was no joke. All the while the family meeting was going on, she’d been too caught up in her own heat to thoroughly work the logic from the female side of things. Major oversight. The moon was kicking her butt royally.
She kept walking, and made sure her movements through the crowd were fluid and non-threatening. It was important to appear nonchalant, as though she was just going to get a drink… possibly, for her man, nothing more. As long as she didn’t make a false move, they wouldn’t. But their distrustful, angry eyes were on her.
The facts were simple: her family males couldn’t jump into a brawl between one of their females and those of a rival clan without that being considered a serious breech of conduct. It would start an outright war. Going after a rival clan’s female in combat mode, when a female from their family crossed the line first, to go after the rival clan’s alpha male? Hell no. The rival clan’s females would be within their rights to attack the poaching female, en masse, which was why that generally never happened.
Tension keened Laurel’s senses. In all the discussion, she hadn’t factored in the huge alpha female on the rival clan’s side that could possibly mop her ass up and down the bar. Plus, by all indicators, the sister had a squad that was not above jumping in it. Laurel’s mind raced. Who did she have in her clan that was female?
Most other threats to the casino had been male inspired, and she had plenty of male security staff and family to deal with that— but this was an unusual situation. Probably why it had been overlooked as a hurdle. Everyone was battle amped, hyped up, thinking through testosterone and moonlight, and focused on how to handle what they’d believed to be the primary threat to the family and her safety: Dominant males. They forgot all about the basics—pissed off females with an axe to grind. Grudge match personified.
Okay, that left her with few options. Simone Temple, Malcolm’s sister, who ran the club entertainment, was too classy to get down in a bar brawl. Simone had a Lena Horn vibration and hadn’t shifted into a she-wolf to do battle for years. Scratch that option. Octavia, Oliver’s twin sister who ran mall store operations, wouldn’t help. No doubt, she was still salty about her choice of Butch over Oliver’s alpha friend, Guy. Plus, Octavia had always been sweet on Butch.
Laurel tried not to sigh as she neared the bar rail. Claire might be with it, but she ran the food and beverages, and was busily reestablishing new watering holes up on the second and third floors with Marcus. After a big fight, liquor was serious revenue that couldn’t be ignored.
That only left Iva in accounting, who was no doubt tallying losses and feverishly trying to be sure the cashier’s booths and vaults, as well as the trashed slot machine revenues, were safely stashed. With all the chips, coins, and cash that went flying, and patrons who were complaining about interrupted bets, Iva probably had a line of snarling guests outside her office to contend with. The final alternative was Solange, the elder Temple’s personal assistant. However, even as beautiful and awesome as Solange was, if she wasn’t strong enough to be taken as a mate by Julius and Esther Temple’s son, Malcolm, then it was very doubtful she’d fare well in a bar fight, either.
Laurel released a quiet sigh. No wonder she’d been made head of security. Tonight the responsibility weighed heavily on her shoulders as she kept her gaze roving and ordered a drink, keeping Cutter�
�s wife in her peripheral vision. But the sister was cool, sipped her drink slowly and evenly, not even snarling yet. Good.
Part of Laurel wanted to offer her condolences for losing the big guy she’d come there with. Then another variable entered her peripheral vision. Oh, yeah, there had been three alpha males, and their pack was strong with three alpha females. Now there was a big problem, but too late to call any outer circle female family for backup. Not to mention, calling weaker, beta females in as backup would put those females in severe risk of being killed or badly maimed.
She assessed the new alpha male leader from a sidelong glance. Weak jaw structure, short canines—therefore short dick. Oh, yeah… these rival clan females were not gonna be happy with the new top dog, and he definitely wasn’t gonna be able to control them for long. Laurel glimpsed him again. Almond complexion, pocked, with freckles. Small, nervous, hazel eyes, short reddish-brown afro, slightly thinning on the top. Hmmm… Judging by his height sitting down, he appeared to be about six-feet even. Damn even she could take him.
Laurel glimpsed his old beta girlfriends tearfully saying goodbye as he looked up and spotted her. The hunt was on.
She took her time leaning in to reach for her Dewar’s on the rocks at the bar, making sure he saw her real good from behind, but kept her vision roving on the now alert alpha females sitting at the far end.
This wasn’t the place to order a girlie drink—nothing blended, nothing foamy, and definitely nothing with a cherry on top. She’d be safe if the new male leader approached her and sniffed her, and she soon left. That would be his first right of refusal, and he’d bark down any females from his own clan that snarled—after all, it gave him bragging rights to have sniffed another rival male’s territory.
Her mind was on fire as she brought the Dewar’s to her lips and took a slow sip. Even though he might come sniffing, the weak rival alpha might not want to start a war by having the foreign female go home ragged from a bitch tussle. It would bring a foreign male back to him to get in his face about not being able to control the females in his pack, which this male couldn’t, and the challenge for dominance would be on—ending in a severe male beat down, possibly even a pack takeover that they couldn’t afford. So, no, the new alpha wouldn’t allow his babes to just outright jump her, there had to be cause, given she knew instinctively that he’d pee his own leg if Butch lunged at him. That bought her time. That also made the new male take his time to get up and approach her. The man was obviously weighing the odds himself.
