The Cougar's Pawn

by Holley Trent

  He got in beside her, straightened the covers, and pulled her close to him. He only had a couple of hours, then he’d have to get up and start another too-damn-long day.

  He nuzzled her hair with her chin and tightened his arm around her waist. Comfortable. She belonged right there in that space in front of him. Her body had been made for him, and there was no doubt about that.

  Closing his eyes, he wondered if he’d gone too far, though. He should have been able to stop himself in spite of her teasing. He was Alpha. He had nothing to prove.

  Or did he?

  She wasn’t Cougar. Even as his mate, she wouldn’t be Cougar unless she wanted to be. Maybe Cougars liked their sex a bit rougher on average than the typical Joes, but there were no guarantees she’d tolerate it from him. One day, he might scare her away, not just with his sex, but his love. She’d always be his mate, but she didn’t have to be there to be that. She could leave and he’d have nothing left to do but love her from a distance and hope she’d come back.

  She twined her fingers with his and molded her legs against the bend of his knees.

  He could tone it down for her. Keep her away from all the Cougar stuff. Make things normal for her. Maybe that’d be the ticket.

  “Yeah,” he whispered, convinced.

  Normal would keep his little witch from running. Suited him just fine. Sometimes, being Alpha wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Later in the morning, Ellery stepped outside Woodworks with Nick on her hip and intercepted Darnell on his way past the building.

  “Let me see your arm, Cougar,” she shouted.

  He stopped. Slumped. Turned toward her.

  “Bring it,” she said.

  He cringed. “Now don’t go getting mad. I swear, I did everything you said.” He walked over holding his arm out as if he carried a smelly bag of garbage at the end of it.

  “Roll up the sleeve for me.”

  Sighing, he did as she asked.

  She stared at the discolored, oozing arm for a moment and could barely tamp down the anger building. If she weren’t holding her little wingman, she would have popped Darnell in the forehead, and hard.

  The door swung open behind her. Mason stepped in between them.

  Oh, boy. He already thought she was bossy and domineering, and she suspected at some point he would suggest she stay in her lane. She planned to go down swinging before he did. Life. People were doing it wrong. It was her job to tell them.

  “Uh, hey, Alpha,” Darnell mumbled.

  “What the fuck did you do to your arm?”

  “Nothing. Nothing much … ”

  “The scab’s all torn up.”

  “It itched a little.”

  “What’d you do, scratch it with your claws?”

  Darnell rocked back onto the heels of his cowboy boots. “Maybe. Hard to say.”

  “Hard to say, my ass.” Mason turned to Ellery and raised one of those reddish eyebrows at her. “Can you fix it?”

  “You want me to fix it?”

  “Not particularly. I just wanted to know if you could.”

  Darnell made some sound that was half gasp and half yip.

  Poor kitty.

  “I actually came out here to tell you not to bother. It’s Cougar mess.”

  His grin was crooked and shaky, but she was totally counting it.

  Damn, that grin. It was all the more brilliant for its rarity.

  She switched Nick to her other hip.

  Darnell held his arm in front of her face and affected a pout. “It’s not gonna fall off, is it?” Compared to the Foyes, Darnell was almost excessively expressive. She wondered if the Foyes were aberrant if Darnell was. She let her gaze track back to Mason. That warm energy of his licked around and enveloped her. She felt like a statue being slowly overtaken by some sort of sentient ivy that receded every time she paid it any attention. It was almost shy in its approach, as if it thought she’d shear it back if she noticed it. Nothing like Edgar’s had been. Edgar’s was all bulk and no substance—the puffed chest equivalent of an aura. Mason tended to keep his compact and contained, and he didn’t even have to. She’d never encountered an alpha who bothered.

  She’d never met a man anything like him, alpha or not.

  Nick caught a particularly matted tangle of her ponytail and yanked her out of her reverie. Try as she might to keep the mess detangled, something about the lack of humidity, and perhaps certain bedroom antics, had her hair in knots yet again.

  “Ell?”

  “Huh?”

  “Darnell’s pouting at you, and it’s giving me heartburn. Should we fix his arm again?”

  Should we, not will you.

  The fog in her brain parted and let the beacon of rational thought shine through. She squared her shoulders and cleared her throat. “It can fall off for all I care. He should have done what he was supposed to the first time.”

  Mason barked with laughter.

  God, how she loved hearing that sound coming from him. Loving seeing the joy in his face on the rare occasion he let it out. It was almost as sexy as the man naked, which was a hard sight to beat.

  “You heard her, man. Good luck. Maybe pouring a little tequila on it will help.”

  Darnell huffed. “You’ve never been cruel, Alpha.”

  “Turning over a new leaf, since all you assholes seem to demand it.”

  Darnell pouted. “She’ll fix it if you ask her to. Come on.” He scratched at the edges. “I’ll do better.”

  Mason shrugged. “I could ask, but it’s up to her. She can say no if she wants.”

  She could say no. She could say no to everything at the end, and he knew that. Was he playing her? Softening her up?

  “She’s your medic. She can’t say no.”

  “Not my medic. My woman, according to La Bella Dama. Alpha’s woman does what she wants.”

  Darnell’s nostrils flared. Pupils dilated. “Say what?”

  “Don’t start sniffing. She’s already claimed.”

  Darnell’s nose twitched again. “You sure she’s a keeper? She only smells a little like you. I wouldn’t want to piss off the goddess—lord knows I don’t need any new problems—but … ”

  Ellery handed Nick over to his father, grabbed Darnell’s arm, and sent another hot blue flame over it.

  He yipped as if someone had stepped on his tail. “That hurts!”

  “The only thing you’ll be smelling for a while will be seared flesh. Don’t you worry about my scent. That’s none of your business.”

  He cast a sideways glance to his Alpha.

  “Go put a wrap on it,” she said. “If it’s infected the next time I see you, I promise I really won’t care. I get enough of that shit in the emergency room. Some people just don’t want to do their part to ensure their health.”

  “She’s mean.” The man sounded like he was one blink away from shedding a tear.

  “And if she’d been sweet and demure, the glaring would have criticized her for that, too. Can’t win with you all. Nothing I ever do is right.”

  “You do well enough,” Darnell said softly before straightening up a little more. “Hey, Hank and Sean brought home mates, too?” Darnell asked. He leaned sideways and looked past Mason through the woodshop’s glass door.

  “Why don’t you ask them when you see them?”

  “I just might.”

  “Darnell? That you?” Mrs. Foye called out from her back door. She stood at the steps holding her gardening gloves in one hand and her sun hat in the other. “Shouldn’t you be seeing to some cattle?”

  “Uh. About that … ” He jogged toward her, holding his cowboy hat down on his head as he went.

  Ellery turned to Mason. He wasn’t off the hook about that Alpha’s woman thing, and like hell if she’d let him think he was going to let it slide without discussion. Before she could get any words out, though, he said, “I wonder what’s taking Hank and Sean so long. I’m going to go call them and see
where they are.”

  He pulled open the door, and she stood there flapping her jaw a few beats.

  Retort. Say something. Use words.

  She had none. Didn’t know what she felt, and didn’t know what to say. She was tired of lashing out with half-formed emotions. Nick cried out, reaching for her, as the door swung closed at Mason’s back. That got her moving.

  “All right, killer.”

  She scooped him up before Mason could set him into the playpen, and Nick burrowed his face against her shoulder and twirled the ends of her hair.

  “Sorry,” Mason said as he wedged his phone out of his back pocket.

  “For what?”

  “About Nick. He’s not generally so clingy. You think maybe he’s sicker than you thought?”

  “No.” She didn’t really want to say what she thought. She’d never met Jill and didn’t presume to judge the woman.

  Mason pushed up an eyebrow and tapped his phone screen. “Just no?”

  “Don’t worry about it. It’s not like I’m going to be holding him for the rest of his life.”

  A little less than two weeks. That was all, if she refused Mason. She had twelve days to make a little boy feel safe and cared for, and it didn’t seem like enough.

  “Are you sure you’re not using witchcraft on my kid?” Mason asked softly.

  “No more than I’m using it on you.”

  He turned his phone over and over in his hand and fixed her in his gaze. “I’m not convinced you aren’t. The inside of my head is a mess right now of your making.”

  “Sorry.” She didn’t know what else to say. She wasn’t handling that “thinking” thing so well herself.

  Mason let out a long exhale, turned from her, and put his phone to his year. “Yeah. Hank drives like a maniac. They should have been back already unless they found some trouble to get into.” He walked into the woodshop with her on his heels.

  Change of setting, more distractions. Things to fiddle with and look at. Good.

  “How often does that happen?”

  “What, them getting into trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  “Frequently. They’re delinquents, but I love them anyway. Here he is. Hey, Hank. Where are you? Got orders piling up here.”

  And sawdust, too. Ellery leaned against the column, her back to the door, and worked a little wind magic to blow all the detritus into a neat-enough pile. She could sic the vacuum on what was left when Mason got off the phone. It was the least she could do. Nick wasn’t exactly a handful, and as badly as she’d needed a vacation from the hospital, she didn’t like being so unproductive. She needed things to do. Lists with items to tick off. Busywork so she didn’t fret about and fixate on That Cougar.

  “Well, that’s good,” Mason said into the phone. “You should be pulling in shortly, then. Any trouble at the campground? Everything look like it was still there?”

  Ellery’s ears perked up. She really wanted her dagger back. Agatha or Claude would eventually get her another, but she’d already bonded with the one she had. Wielding it no longer felt foreign to her. It was an extension of her arm and hand.

  “We’ll let the girls sort through it when you get here. Nah. It was a pretty uneventful night overall.”

  She scoffed. Uneventful, huh?

  “See you in a few.” He ended the call and tucked the phone into his pocket.

  As he passed, she gave him a poke to her shoulder. “Uneventful?”

  “Little white lie. They’re going to smell it on me, anyway. No need to start the commentary before they even get here.”

  “You showered.”

  He grinned. “It was a nice shower, and your assistance was very thorough. Do your knees still hurt?”

  She rolled her eyes. Lechery always went a long way in dousing emotions. She considered thanking him for it.

  He laughed. “Really, the Were-cougar sense of smell is pretty phenomenal, even when we’re in our human forms. Your scent is going to linger on me and they’re going to catch it. Doesn’t matter how much soap I use or how much scalding water I let beat on me. And they’re going to tease and tease and tease a little more until I shift from patient big brother to kick-your-ass Alpha.”

  “Why would they tease?”

  He shrugged and picked up what looked like a table leg and eyed it. “They may not have been interested in mate-hunting until being forced, more or less, to do it, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t chase tail.”

  “And you didn’t.”

  “Nope. Didn’t have the time, energy, or inclination.”

  “All I’ve had in the past year was inclination.”

  “But?”

  “Small dating pool. I didn’t want to date a normal guy.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t.”

  “Why?”

  “If you’d gotten attached, my job would be that much harder. I’m not winning blue ribbons for charm any time soon, and I know I wouldn’t be able to compete.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “It’s what I know.”

  He sounded so certain. It made her a little sad. He had a lot to offer a woman, but he probably needed the right woman to recognize it.

  And that reminded her—she still needed to have a conversation with Agatha about her sudden recognition. If Ellery’s hunch was right, she’d have a major decision to make quickly. She was being offered something someone thought she needed. It was up to her to decide if it was enough to turn her life upside down for.

  “Ugh. There’s something sticky on the table. I think Sean’s been eating in here again.”

  Sticky. Another reminder—this time about something Darnell had said.

  “Question,” she said.

  He grabbed a rag from a nearby shop table and bobbed his eyebrows at her. “Lay it on me.”

  “Darnell said that I only smelled a little like you as if there were space for someone else. What was he getting at?”

  He blew his hair out of his eyes, scrubbed the tabletop, and switched on some table-mounted power tool she hadn’t learned the name of yet. No response.

  No, that wasn’t suspicious at all.

  “Answer me.”

  “Fine.” He tossed the rag aside and groaned at the ceiling. “If you weren’t a witch and already familiar with some of the more out-there customs amongst preternaturals, I would never tell you. This stays between you and me. Got it?”

  She approached the table and pressed her one free palm to the edge. “Don’t tell Miles and Hannah, you mean.”

  He didn’t look at her, just worked his lower lip between his teeth and stared at the machine’s blade.

  “Tell me.”

  “All right. When a Cougar claims his mate, there’s a build-up period before the pairing … sticks.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Understand that me telling you this is essentially giving you the keys to renegotiation truck.” Now he did look at her. His expression was impassive. More staid Alpha than the lustful man who’d put her to sleep in the best possible way overnight. His energy gave no clues because he’d drawn it back in. There were no wispy tendrils seeking her and trying to draw her close. He was keeping his hands to himself, figuratively speaking.

  “I … can’t promise I won’t use it against you.”

  “Yeah, I know. The thing is … technically, right now, you’re fair game. Any Cougar could challenge me for you, even if they didn’t plan on keeping you.”

  She let the words settle into her brain in pieces. “Challenge you? Why would anyone challenge you for me? I thought your goddess directed you to me specifically.”

  “Cougars challenge each other for all kinds of bullshit. We’re territorial creatures and sometimes we pick unnecessary fights. People are going to see something that belongs to Alpha, and they’re going to want it.”

  “I can’t just be snatched up like some kind of commodity.”

  “I did that.”

  Oh yeah. How could she possib
ly forget?

  “The reason I had to have you here for two weeks isn’t just because that is La Bella Dama’s consent deadline. It also takes fourteen days to complete a mate bond. My cougar is pretty calm right now, but a couple of weeks from now, he’ll be more aggressive. Something about taking a mate fucks with our hormones.”

  “Aggressive in what way?”

  “Less forgiving. Less inclined to give second chances or second thoughts.”

  “Not necessarily a bad thing for an alpha, right?”

  “You should be more afraid.”

  Of Mason? Nah.

  Nothing in his energy scared her. The longer she spent with him, the easier it became to sift through it and read its components. Sure, there were some dark spots in his energy, but everyone had those. They were the anger people drew on when they needed to fight. Given the disorder in his life, she would have expected his to have been larger than they were.

  “I’m not afraid of you.”

  “Yeah, you’ve proven that.” He bobbed his eyebrows and rubbed his upper arms as if he’d suddenly caught a chill. “There are a few benefits to mate meshing. You’d carry my imprint—my scent. Cougars would know who you belonged to and possibly think twice about doing you any harm. There are also some perks that tie in with that psychic tether I told you about a couple of days ago, though they vary with every match depending on a Cougar’s rank. Mom and Dad never talked about theirs. Said it was personal, so I can’t say what they’ll be. And … taking a true mate makes a Cougar stronger.”

  Ah. Funny how he’d saved that for last. It was pretty damned important.

  “And you only have two weeks to mesh.”

  “Something about our energy being most open immediately after meeting. You’re my one chance. Other Cougars would know that.”

  Her turn to shake her head. “That seems extraordinarily cruel. Stripping someone’s mate from him before she’s had a chance to—”

  A blinding white flash just beyond the wood shop door made her cover her eyes and pull Nick tighter against her chest.

  “Did I miss hearing thunder?” Mason asked. His footsteps thudded away from her, likely to the front of the building.