“I’m not a thief. Are you him, or not?”
Wolf growling at the challenge, Wyatt snapped forward and wrapped his hand around the nape of the kid’s neck. The little punk dug in his heels and tried to wiggle out of his grip, but Wyatt shoved him toward the door to the front of the bar.
A snarl worked out of the boy’s throat. He threw an elbow into Wyatt’s middle. Nothing stopped the march in front of the entire bar. And fuck, small-town gossip would surely make it back to the kid’s parents.
If they gave a shit or not was a different story.
“Look what I found in the back,” Wyatt announced to Jensen.
“Let go of my son!”
Wyatt whipped around at the angry words wrapped in a musical lilt.
Alanna.
Fuck.
His wolf shoved forward and sucked down her addicting scent. Jungle. Tropical flowers and spices he couldn’t identify. Rain about to break at any moment.
He’d fooled himself into thinking he’d forgotten what she smelled like until one night two months ago rushed every memory, thought, and desire back to the front of his mind.
Mate.
He trailed his gaze down her perfect face and over her gorgeous body. She’d aged well since he last saw her. Matured into a delicious package he wanted to unwrap even after all the years apart. Heat curled down his back and settled in the base of his spine.
Taller than most women, she still didn’t meet his eyes. Long black hair flowed over her shoulders to the middle of her back. He bet the strands were just as silky as when he used to run his fingers through them.
How many afternoons had they spent curled up with one another? How many kisses had he stolen? They’d made plans for their future while sharing every part of themselves with the other.
Every cell in his body electrified and forced hair on his arms and legs to stand on end. He missed her. Craved her. Needed her.
Alanna’s eyes brightened to a liquid amber as she stomped forward. Her glare was as clear and as deadly as her tiger flicking her tail in agitation. She was ready to stick her claws in him.
Rightfully so.
Son.
The word finally sank through his idiot brain. She snatched the boy close and another shock lit up all regions of his brain.
Same dark hair. Same olive skin.
She had a son. Alanna had a son.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she growled.
Chapter 4
Alanna threw an arm over Atticus’s shoulders and drew him away from Wyatt. “What are you doing here?”
He didn’t have a chance to respond before she turned her glare on Wyatt. “What are you doing with him?”
“He was stealing—”
“I wasn’t stealing anything!” Atticus’s eyebrows drew down in a scowl. “I had to see for myself. Are you my dad?”
The bar was noisy with music and conversation, but a dropped pin would have sounded loud in the middle of their little bubble.
Some of the fight left Alanna. Her tigress prowled through her head, under her skin, slunk along her nerves. Her cub was safe. Her mate was near.
Mate? No. No.
Atticus twisted around and focused his scowl on her. “Well? Is he? Is he my father?”
Wyatt gaped at her and Atticus. Then his brows lowered and he flashed a scowl that could have been a twin to the boy’s. He shoved his hair out of his eyes, showing off the tattoos curling around his hand and wrist and bleeding further up his arm. The lines flexed with his muscles.
Atticus narrowed his eyes and set his jaw in a hard line. “You lied to me. He’s not dead at all!”
“What is he talking about?” Wyatt growled, agitation stinking up the air around him. His eyes snapped to one side of the bar where two men watched with hooded expressions. Another growl worked out of his chest and more aggression dumped into the air. His hand clamped down on her shoulder and tried to tug her back toward a door. “We need to talk.”
Alanna snapped out of her shock and leaned on her initial anger. She threw her tigress to the back of her head and yanked herself free of the warmth spreading from Wyatt’s hand. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what you were doing with my boy.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me if he’s my father!” Atticus echoed.
A small woman sidled up to the commotion as more and more eyes settled on them. Behind her, a big man locked furious eyes on Wyatt. “Hi, I’m Noelle. This is my mate, Jensen.” Noelle smiled kindly and rested a hand against the tiny bump of her belly. “Can I get this one a drink and take him off your hands for a few minutes? You two look like you have some talking to do.”
Alanna was ready to snap their heads off to keep them from Atticus until something flickered in Wyatt’s eyes.
“They’re pack,” he said gruffly. “Safe.”
She recognized them by sight only. Noelle was a teacher at the elementary school, but she’d started there only a few years earlier. And Jensen? Well, he was the talk of the town after sending the Slayers running and reopening the bar to all of Redwater.
Still unsure, but willing to let her tigress rampage through them if one hair was out of place on Atticus’s head, she nodded.
Besides, she had many, many things to discuss.
Namely how a dead man turned up very much alive and why he was hauling their son through a crowded bar.
Atticus shot her another frown, then turned all his charm on Jensen. “A beer?” he asked hopefully.
Jensen fixed him with a hard look. “If that’s what you want to call the water I’ll serve you.”
Wyatt looked down his nose for a long second, then jerked his chin over his shoulder. Without a word, he turned and stomped toward the door.
Alanna bored a hole between his shoulder blades and stalked after him.
“How? When?” he demanded as soon as they were in the back storage room. He threaded his fingers through his hair and turned his back on her, then flung his arms wide and spun around. “He can’t be mine.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” she snapped. “No ‘hi, how are you’, or explanation of where you’ve been the last thirteen years? You just want to know if you’re on the hook for child support?”
“Blood from a stone, Alanna,” Wyatt huffed a mean laugh. “Blood from a stone.”
“Oh, of course. What else could I expect from a liar and a murderer?”
Wyatt rounded on her. Silver eyes glowed where the grey used to be and his lips peeled back in a snarl.
He stalked her backward until she bumped against a wall. Hands planted against the wall caged her between his strong arms.
Her tigress purred at the raw power under his skin. And her traitorous body warmed for him when he dipped his nose to the crook of her neck.
Holy moly. Wyatt had grown since the last time they were together, and he hadn’t been small then. He’d easily added another six inches in height and who knew how many across the shoulders. He was leaner than the tank by the front door, but every inch of him seemed packed and coiled with muscles ready to spring into action.
“I didn’t do it, Alanna,” he said in a low voice, more growl than anything else. His breath whispered against her skin. “I wasn’t the one who killed that woman.”
That was the story. A human woman had been found dead near her tiger streak’s territory. Wyatt’s scent covered her body. Her father brought the evidence to the other alphas and elders of Redwater, who agreed to the death sentence. The community couldn’t afford to have a murderous rogue wolf on the loose.
Only Wyatt didn’t smell like a lie. His words didn’t sound like one, either.
Alanna swallowed hard to keep the tremble from her voice. “Who, then? Why?”
“Come on. Your father didn’t want me around you. Your father’s men tried to carry out the sentence.” He pushed back and tilted his head to watch her. Silver churned in his eyes once more. “Those, I killed.”
A c
hill ran through her. Not that he’d fought to live after being railroaded or even her father’s connection, though that was one hell of a revelation. There was an honor in keeping himself alive under the circumstances.
The icy look in his eyes said he’d grown quite comfortable on the other side of the law.
Skies above, what had happened to him? How had he gone from her Wyatt—wild, sure, but still good—to the edgy man standing in front of her?
He was quiet for a beat as strong currents ran between them. Riptides, even. They threatened to carry her under to deep memories and easy trust, but the man reeking of fur and aggression wasn’t the one she knew. They used to be so close, but he was a stranger, now. A stranger with a familiar face.
And close enough to kiss her. Her eyes dipped to his lips as her heart thundered against her breastbone.
With a growl, he shoved away from her. Alanna resisted the temptation to sag against the wall. She tracked him while he paced, though. The livewire electricity in the air demanded her full focus.
He kicked open an office door and jerked his chin inside. Alanna trailed after him as he flicked on the light and took a seat behind the big desk. He rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a bottle of whiskey, frowned, and still took a swig before offering it to her.
Alanna declined the drink and sank into a chair opposite him. Her tigress rolled through her, loving the scent of him slowly filling up the room. Deep forests and moonlight and fur, with the added bonus that was all Wyatt—smoky wood with a hint of something spicy. It was dark, sensual, and dangerously intoxicating.
Silence, too, settled between them. Prickly. Uneasy. Grey eyes like Atticus’s watched her before churning with the silver of his inner beast.
Alanna didn’t drop her gaze. He wanted to intimidate her? Unsettle her? Too damn bad. She had thirteen years of uncomfortable looks and uneasy stares under her belt. She was an Ayers tiger, even if they wouldn’t acknowledge her. She wouldn’t back down.
“He’s your son,” she started. “My father didn’t even wait a week after you died—disappeared—to tell me I was to be mated to some pureblood tiger from a big, West Coast streak. I was a mess. I couldn’t think straight and didn’t feel well. No sense of smell. Shifting was out of the question. By the time it became clear my dulled senses were more than just grief forcing my tigress into hiding, my betrothed had arrived. Soon after that, I couldn’t hide the baby bump.”
Wyatt pushed to his feet with a growl. Agitation boiled off him as he paced from one end of the room to the other, a total of three steps. His growl picked up the second time he bumped into the chair and he shoved it angrily back under the desk.
“And then?” he demanded.
Pieces fell into place. As an only child, she was a disappointment for being born female. Her value came from the alliances she could help forge with other streaks. Only she’d picked the wild wolf over her father’s plans. Even getting rid of Wyatt hadn’t stopped his influence over her life.
Alanna’s ears still rang with the words hurled at her the night her pregnancy came to light. Her betrothed accused her father of trying to pull some trick. Her father called her all sorts of hideous names and cursed her very existence while her mother quietly sobbed in the background.
“I was kicked out with the clothes on my back and the few things I could carry, and shunned by the entire streak. They still won’t talk to me or acknowledge I exist. They’ve never asked about Atticus. Never visited. They’ll cross the street or turn the other direction if I run into them in town.”
“Atticus,” Wyatt mouthed. He sat back down and took another swig from the bottle. His throat worked with another swallow. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he said roughly, like he wasn’t familiar with apologies.
Alanna leaned forward, her eyes still on his. “Why didn’t you come for me? I would have listened. I would have believed you.”
“I was eighteen without a dollar to my name. I had no pack and no family.” He made a sour face. “What could I have offered you?”
She pressed her lips into a thin line and schooled her irritation. “A father figure to our son, for starters. I was just a couple months younger than you without a dollar to my name. My own parents threw me out of the house and ordered our streak to shun me. We could have been there for each other.”
“Is that why you’re here now? You need money for him or something?” Wyatt scowled and took a hard pull from the bottle. “I don’t have anything else to give you.”
Alanna blinked. Stranger with a familiar face, indeed. Her Wyatt wouldn’t have reduced their connection so coldly. “I’m here because I thought you might want to know you have a son,” she snapped. “He’s smart, in case you wanted to know. Really smart. He knows it, too, so that doesn’t help matters. He’s got all the arrogance you used to strut around with. All the attitude, too.” Alanna scoffed. “He’s probably more like you than me.”
Wyatt snapped his eyes back to her face and she hesitated. Well, the cat was already out of the bag. He might as well know all the details of how she’d failed to keep her kid in line.
“Atticus is skipping school. Mouthing off to teachers when he’s forced to go. He’ll barely say a word to me that isn’t a direct challenge or looking for a fight. And he got into a fight today, the latest in a rash of them. He’s been suspended for a week. The other kid called him a bastard.”
“So you told him about me.”
“No. I mean, yes.” She blew out a harsh breath. “Look, he knew you were dead. I believed that to be true until the night your pack chased the Slayers out of town. I saw you there, but I didn’t believe it. At first, I couldn’t bring myself to hope you were alive, so you existed in this in-between state. When I couldn’t deny it any longer, I didn’t know what to say to you. You obviously weren’t trying to track me down, either.”
Alanna shifted in her seat to hide her wince. So maybe that was another sore point in the whole mess, and one she didn’t want to consider. He didn’t owe her anything. No doubt he’d moved on.
Her tigress snarled at the thought of him with any other woman. Alanna tumbled the beast to the back of her head and locked her there rather than sort through the possessive feelings she couldn’t afford.
Atticus was her concern, not the bruised emotions of a young woman forced to endure too many changes at once.
“What good would it have done? I didn’t leave here under pleasant circumstances. Is that the shit you want dragged to your door?”
“Because waiting until our boy tracked you down was so much better.” She rolled her eyes hard enough even Atticus would be proud. “Did you see what he was wearing?”
Wyatt’s forehead wrinkled with confusion and he took another swallow from the whiskey bottle. “The Ramones shirt, yeah. Other than showing good taste, what’s that got to do with anything?”
“It’s yours.” She pressed on while he looked dumbfounded. “He found a box of your things while snooping for Christmas presents last year. Just the shirt and a few records. I didn’t have anything else. Not even a picture since you skipped every single picture day since fifth grade and you never let me take any.”
Wyatt cracked a smile and shoved his hair out of his eyes. “Remember how pissed your parents were when you missed them in eleventh grade? We went into the park that day instead and stayed out to watch the stars.”
His smile cut the tension in the room almost entirely. Hope bloomed inside her. That was the Wyatt she remembered. Bad boy, through and through, but not dangerous. Not to her, at least. They were in it together.
Just like that day. He’d picked her up at their secret spot where he always waited to give her a ride to school. He hadn’t even given her the chance to object, just drove straight out of Redwater and into Yellowstone. He’d had food and drinks packed for them. Even two bottles of beer he’d proudly looted off his parents. And they’d spent the entire day in fur, in skin, and with each other.
The yelling when she finally
traipsed through the door, cheeks red and still slightly tipsy, had rolled off her shoulders. Wyatt did that. He made her feel like nothing could stop them.
Skies above, how long had it been since she thought about that day? All the bad that came after sucked up the fun they used to have.
“Wyatt…” Alanna reached across the desk. Her fingertips brushed against his hand. Heat radiated through her from the light touch. Her tigress rumbled with a purr. “What I mean to say is there’s no putting this back in the bottle. He has questions and wants to know about you, too.”
Wyatt’s expression shuttered and he pulled his hand out from under hers. “Don’t,” he growled.
“Don’t what?”
“This isn’t a happy reunion, Alanna. I’m not the boy you knew. I’ve done... horrible things. You’d be better taking your cub and getting as far away from me as possible.”
“He’s your cub, too,” she said quietly. Strength laced her words. Maybe fate was finally working in her favor. There had to be a reason why Wyatt reappeared in Redwater when Atticus cranked up the trouble.
“He’s not.” He held up a hand when she started to object. “I mean, he can’t be. I’m no good for either of you. I haven’t led a good life since getting the fuck out of this place. And now you want me to, what? Show up to this kid’s baseball games and share a milkshake with him?”
Alanna snorted. “Like he’d ever play baseball.”
“Yeah, well, that just goes to show that I’ve already done my part tainting him. He got bad blood from me. There’s nothing I can do to help the situation.”
“We’ll never know unless you try.” She stood before he could object. “Dinner. Tomorrow.”
Silver eyes snapped to her face. “No.”
Alanna arched an eyebrow and his face softened. As much as hard stone could soften, anyway.
She kept herself locked upright. Oh, holy hell, what was she doing?
Not giving him a chance to talk himself out of seeing her again. Not allowing him to back off out of some attempt to shield her from his past.
Tequila and Tigers: Book Two: Shifters and Sins Page 3
