Her Fated Mates (House of Wolves and Magic Book 2)

by Helen Scott

  I tried to keep myself standing when he let go of my hips, but I slowly sunk to my knees. Quickly, I grabbed my leggings and pulled them up so I could sit on the ground without getting dirt and pine needles in places they should never go.

  “Fuck me, is it like that every time?” Blake asked quietly.

  I grinned, pleased that he was enjoying the sex just as much as I was. “Has been so far.”

  “Is it weird that I can’t wait to fuck you again, even though we just did?” Blake sighed as he lowered himself to the ground next to me, both of us leaning against the tree.

  “No. I can’t wait either.” My core gave a corresponding clench, as though it wanted to agree with me as well. “Just wait till Roman gets involved as well.” Roman was a stallion in bed, a fucking thoroughbred, and just the thought of him fucking me made me wish he’d been here with us. It wasn’t that Blake wasn’t enough, he was, I just craved all my mates with an appetite that only seemed to be growing in strength.

  17

  Nina

  Micah appeared at the other end of the clearing, crossing it with the loose, confident amble that he had and sniffing the air very pointedly the whole time. We had probably stunk the place up with our sweat and sex. Even though we were out in the woods with the scent of pine trees and loamy ground, our pheromones were potent enough to cancel that out. Fortunately, it wasn’t a windy day or we might have been in trouble.

  “Don’t stop on my account. I’m happy to watch or take part if you want,” he said with a grin.

  I stuck my tongue out at him. He knew good and well that we’d finished, but that didn’t stop him from giving us a hard time. I couldn’t blame him, just like I couldn’t stop the laughter that was bubbling up in me. We might’ve been hunted by two packs, but I’d never felt more at home than I did with my guys.

  Micah plopped down on the ground next to me on the other side from Blake. He propped himself up with one arm, while the other wiggled the phone as he said, “I’ve found us a new location to crash for a few days at least.”

  “That’s amazing. Thanks, babe,” I said before leaning over and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

  “I’m going to go scout it out. Do you want to join me?” Micah looked at me, apprehension dancing in his gaze.

  “Of course I want to.” I picked a few blades of grass from the ground and threw them at him. “I don’t want to leave until we’ve spoken to Roman though. I want to make sure he’s okay.” The fact that he still wasn’t back was suddenly the foremost thing in my mind, and my stomach began to twist itself in anticipation.

  “He’s okay, probably just taking his time so he can make a dramatic entrance,” Micah said with a snort.

  I wasn’t sure I believed him and began worrying at my bottom lip.

  “If you really don’t believe me, then use the bond to check on him. You can get a read on his emotional state and how far away he is, just like he did with you in the tunnels.” Micah picked a few blades of grass and threw them at me, mimicking my earlier actions.

  I did as he suggested though and looked within myself for my bond with Roman. The cord shone like silver in my mind, almost glowing like moonlight off water. Mentally, I followed it to its source, and while I couldn’t see or hear or smell anything that Roman was experiencing, which was probably for the best if we’re being honest, I could sense that he was on guard. He wasn’t panicked or pissed off. Yes, there was anger and the sting of betrayal, but mostly, it was just caution.

  He was also on the move.

  The bond stretched and wiggled like an elastic band between two fingers. I focused on the tension of the band, and when I realized he was getting closer to us, I sighed with relief.

  Micah and Blake were having some kind of dude discussion, not that I was really paying attention to what they were talking about. My gaze searched the tree line of the clearing, waiting for Roman’s form to emerge, whether human or wolf.

  A few moments later, he did just that. I couldn’t suppress the joy I felt at seeing him alive and whole, so I pushed up and off the ground and jogged across the clearing to him. Fortunately, he was in human form, so I could jump up and hug him.

  His strong arms wrapped around me, holding me close, and I wrapped my legs around his waist as he dipped his head into the crook of my neck and nuzzled me softly for a moment. His grip on me shifted so that he was holding me under my butt as he walked us both back over to the area where Micah and Blake were sitting.

  He moved to sit down and waited for me to let go, but I didn’t, which only made him chuckle as he awkwardly sat with me on his lap. Once we were settled, he said, “The wolves have left the cabin, but I don’t think we should linger there, or sleep there, for that matter.”

  “Micah found a place for us to stay,” I said feeling excited at the prospect of renewed safety.

  “I need to call Brecken and set up some kind of meeting with him. I’d like to lure him and probably the wolves to a different location than where we’re going to stay. Ask them a few questions. Punch them a few times. You know, the usual.” There was a joking tone to Roman’s voice, but he wasn’t actually joking. This was becoming oddly usual for us, which was not what I wanted for my little family.

  “What about using the old new mates house?” Micah asked.

  Roman looked thoughtful as he considered the idea.

  “What’s the new mates house?” I asked.

  “It’s a house that’s off pack land that newly mated couples are invited to use if they don’t have a place of their own yet. It’s been so long since anyone in our pack found a mate that it’s barely used anymore. It’s actually recently been used more by unmated or unattached females going into their fertile time, since it gets them away from the males and their pheromones don’t make everyone go crazy,” Micah explained.

  “That sounds like a good option, so long as no one is using it,” Blake said.

  “Agreed,” Roman and I said at the same time.

  I grinned, unable to help myself, and a twinkle of humor came into Roman’s eyes. It only lasted for a moment though before he followed it up with, “I’ll need to call Brecken and let him know as soon as we know the place is clear.”

  “I was going to take Nina to check out the new place, so we could swing by the mates house on the way,” Micah suggested.

  Roman nodded. “Let’s go back to the cabin and grab some clothes and our phones, then Blake and I can hunt for some dinner while you check out the new place.”

  It was some time later when we finally got to the mates house, which was a cute little row house, or maybe some would call it a townhouse. The place had a single light on somewhere inside, but there was no car on the street or in the tiny one-car garage that was at the back of the property. I’d never noticed, until we were walking around the property, that the city had a distinct smell to it. Not just normal city smells, but something else underneath all that, like all the metal and concrete generated its own specific odor. The woods had been so clean and fresh. I mean, yeah, it smelled like dirt and trees, but overall, it was refreshing, unlike the city. I wasn’t sure how I’d become so used to it.

  “Maybe it’s just on a timer, like they do in the movies? You know, to make sure people don’t break in?” I wondered as Micah peered in one of the windows on the back of the house. If he kept that behavior up, then we’d have the human police coming round, thanks to us looking suspicious.

  Micah nodded but still seemed unsure. Still, he bent down and picked up a rock, which to my surprise, had a pill container glued to the underside and a key stashed inside that. He quickly unscrewed the bottle and dumped the key out into his hand before screwing it back on and putting the rock back where he picked it up from, the orange of the pill container disappearing into the ground. The rock appeared completely normal, so I never would have suspected that was where they kept their spare key, which I guess was the whole point.

  We went back around to the front and walked up the steps, unlocking the fr
ont door and stepping inside. I could immediately tell that the place hadn’t been used in a long time. The air smelled musty, and dust moats flowed through it as though there was a whole universe existing inside the house that we didn’t know about.

  Stepping into the hallway disturbed the layer of dust that was covering everything and sent more moats flying and dust bunnies scrambling. Micah stepped down the hallway toward the source of the light, which was still coming from an unknown location. As we rounded a corner, it became obvious that it was coming from a bathroom.

  The half bath was just big enough for the necessities and the lamp that sat on the tiny table opposite the toilet. My gaze followed the cord that came out of the base of the lamp to a plug, which was indeed on a timer, just as I had suspected. Once I saw that, I felt free to move around.

  The place had a small kitchen, though it was bigger than the one I’d had in my apartment, and a nice sized living area with a huge TV covering one wall, plus a couch and a small dining table and chairs. Compared to my old place, this was super nice. The fact that the pack just kept it empty kind of irritated me, since there was an affordable housing shortage in the city.

  A set of stairs led up to what I had no doubt were nice bedrooms and a full bathroom. I had no desire to explore them though, since this wasn’t where we were staying. This was just an anonymous meeting place where Roman could vent his rage at Brecken. Micah jogged up the stairs, probably scouting the rooms to make sure they were empty. When he came back down, I watched as he fired off a text to the group chat we’d set up before we left.

  I needed a group chat for my mates.

  Ha!

  As soon as Roman responded that they were going to set something up with Brecken, we left the mate house to go and see the place that Micah had found for us. It was only a few blocks away, so it took barely any time to get there. We checked out a cute little bungalow at the end of a street. Safe. Secure. No one knew we would be there.

  We began walking back, and the evening air on my skin was cool and crisp, making me playful. When I looked over at Micah, intending on cracking a joke or teasing him, his expression stopped me dead. “What’s wrong?”

  For a few moments Micah kept walking, not leaving me behind necessarily, but not stopping completely either. Finally, he said, “I don’t want you to think I’m a bad fighter.”

  “Why would I think you’re a bad fighter?” I asked, confused as to where this was coming from.

  “Because I hesitated with Rob and got silver poisoning because of it.” The slight flush to his cheeks and hesitance in his voice told me how hard this was for him. He seemed embarrassed that he’d shown mercy, which I wasn’t having any of.

  “You didn’t do anything wrong. He was your friend, of course you hesitated. If you didn’t, I’d be worried. Only a psychopath can turn on their friends and family that quickly. Which you, sir, definitely are not.”

  His gaze caught mine, and I could see the torment within his eyes. “I should have been protecting you, not worried about hurting my friend. I’m so sorry.”

  “You have nothing to be sorry for, and it may have escaped your attention, but I can take care of myself. Plus, the only people I wouldn’t hurt are the three of you. I have no other attachments, as sad as that may be, at least not in the shifter community. If it were some of my human friends attacking us, I’d probably hesitate as well, and not because a punch at full strength and speed could kill them, but because I care about them. Just like you care about Rob, even though he betrayed your friendship.”

  “That’s just it though—he betrayed me, just like Brecken betrayed Roman, but Roman doesn’t have an issue exacting vengeance.”

  “You and Roman are not the same, nor would I want you to be.” I stepped close enough to Micah that I could cup his cheeks with my hands as I looked deep into his eyes. “I love you for who you are, not who you think you should be. I never want you to change because of me or Roman, or even Blake for that matter. We will all love you as you are, come rain or shine. Only ever be who you are inside, be the truest version of yourself that you can be or want to be. There’s nothing else we want or need. The fates put us together for a reason, and I have to believe that our differences play into it as much as our similarities.”

  “Thank you, beautiful, I appreciate that. Also, isn’t that the mate house that woman is going into?” Micah’s voice was low enough that only I could hear him.

  The two of us crossed the street and edged closer. She was bold, switching lights on and off as she went. In some areas, she seemed to be searching for something, but she always returned to her purse that was sitting on the dining table.

  “Do you recognize her?” I hissed in Micah’s ear.

  “No, she’s not from my old pack.”

  My heart broke a little at his words and the way his pack had treated him. From what I could see, she was small, cute with a little pixie haircut and casual vibe that I could relate to on a personal level. I wasn’t sure how long we stood there, but when she came out, I grabbed Micah’s face and started kissing the daylights out of him.

  I kept one eye cracked as she began to walk off in the other direction. Once I was sure we were in the clear, I stopped kissing Micah like my life depended on it and more just because I enjoyed it. The man did know exactly what to do with his tongue.

  When we broke apart, I whispered, “She’s gone.”

  “Who’s gone?” Micah asked, his hooded eyes looking down at me, and I swore I could practically see all kinds of naughty things running through his mind.

  “The woman who was just in the new mates house.”

  That seemed to bring him back to his senses, and he went back into business mode. “We should check it out.”

  I wholeheartedly agreed, so I followed him back to the house. We’d never put the key back, knowing that we’d only need it again later, so we opened the door right away and went in.

  Micah was as silent and stealthy as a shadow as he moved around the house, looking for anything suspicious. When he returned to me looking confused, I couldn’t help but think about how she’d turned all the lights on and off. It wasn’t like she was testing them, since she left them on for a minute or so at a time, but something about it was bothering me. Not to mention how she was checking different things.

  It didn’t seem like she was there for anything other than whatever she did, and if Micah said she wasn’t part of his pack, then who was she? As quietly as I could, I walked over to one of the lights she had turned on and began to inspect it.

  At first, I thought there was nothing there, but as I felt along the metal ring of the lamp shade, I found a bump I hadn’t expected. It wasn’t fastened on very firmly so I pulled it away from the lamp, hoping I hadn’t just broken something, and opened up my palm.

  There in the middle sat a small black circle.

  It was clearly technology of some kind, but what? I was no tech geek, I barely even had a cell phone and had no money for any fancy things, so I had no clue what it could be.

  I checked another lamp, and sure enough, I found the same thing. A small lump that was stuck to the inside of the shade. I pulled that one off as well, setting it next to the other one in my palm.

  They were identical, with no markings or anything on them to tell me what they were.

  I walked over to Micah, where he was looking down at his phone, probably in the group chat letting them know what was going on. Instead of trying to verbally get his attention I just held my hand over his phone. I wasn’t sure what the instinct was that made me keep quiet, but as soon as Micah saw it, his eyes went wide.

  He pointed to the black circle and then tapped his ear.

  Someone was trying to listen to us. But why?

  18

  Nina

  Micah put a finger to his lips, and I understood what he was saying—he didn’t want me to talk, didn’t want us to give anything away. He quickly fired off a text to the group and motioned for me to set the bugs down on t
he dining table. As soon as they were out of my hand, he grabbed me and pulled me from the house.

  “We’re going to follow her. Roman and Blake are going to get to the meeting place and destroy the listening devices, possibly after saying some misleading things, before meeting us back at the cabin,” he told me with a wicked grin.

  “How are we going to follow her when we can’t see her?” I asked, feeling dumb for stating the obvious.

  Micah tapped his nose before setting off in the direction the woman had gone. “Her scent was all over that house, and we can use it to follow her, since she was on foot. If she’d had a car, or gets in one at some point, then yeah, we’re screwed, but for now, we can follow.”

  “Is my nose broken?” I didn’t mean to ask it aloud, but it was out there now.

  We walked along for a couple minutes without a word between us as Micah occasionally took a long sniff. Eventually he said, “I think it’s whatever is causing you not to shift. It impacts your other senses. You’re not at human levels by any means, but you’re not as strong as you should be, or will be when you can shift again. It’ll be an adjustment once we get it figured out as well. Believe me when I say there’s a lot you don’t want to smell.” He gave me a crooked smile, and my heart melted a little.

  I wasn’t sure what I’d done to deserve these mates, but I was keeping them and would fight anyone that tried to take them from me, that was for damn sure. I’d always regretted not fighting for Sam. If I had been any older, I probably would’ve tried to save him from getting shot. It was a good thing I hadn’t been, or we both would have been killed, just in different ways.