Max followed them in. “You can get the room ready for her,” he snapped as he passed. “Can’t fucking believe this. A prisoner in my own fucking home.”
He marched away, muttering fiercely to himself. Angela watched him, folding her arms tightly over her chest in a way that squashed her voluptuous breasts downward—it did not look very comfortable.
Tyler sat beside her, chuckling in an attempt to help her feel better. “Don’t mind him. He’s a grump, but there is no reason to be afraid of him. He talks tough but when it comes down to it, he cares about people and you’re people. So you don’t have to fear him.”
“Ian would kill him,” Angela agreed, then sighed. “But you wanted me to abort.”
Tyler’s wolf growled so fiercely he flinched. Quickly he laughed to cover it up and patted Angela’s hand. “What, are you afraid we’re going to run you through the forest until you miscarry?”
The look on her face told him that she didn’t trust him not to do just that. Anger started to rise in him—given the circumstances, she could understand why they didn’t want those babies after all—but he forced himself to remain calm. It was clear that this was all frightening for her, and he didn’t particularly enjoy frightening people. Max, on the other hand…
“We didn’t want to have to take care of a couple of kids that we only signed up for when we were drunk,” Tyler replied. “But if you want them, then we can easily break our contract and we’ll all get what we want. Just so long as you understand that Max and I will not be part of their lives.”
Angela bit her lip. “What happened to all being part of the same pack?”
Shock rippled through Tyler and his wolf huffed. He had said that, hadn’t he? But it was a good point—if she did give birth and they ended up being wolf shifters, too, they’d be running with the rest of the pack. What would they do then?
“Maybe it would be better if I miscarried,” Angela mumbled, almost to herself as she tenderly cradled her stomach. “Maybe it’s what would be best for them… better never born than to have someone like me as their mother.”
Her face crumpled. Tyler wheeled back in shock and horror as she started to sob. What the fuck? His wolf rammed his ribs, telling him to comfort her. But how the fuck was he supposed to do that? She was fucking crying! What happened? How had this…?
He couldn’t stand the sight of her tears, though. And so, he did the only thing he could think of. He grabbed her face, tilted it toward him and pressed a full kiss to her lips. Angela yelped and tried to pull away, but he held her all the tighter, deepening the kiss. And then she started kissing him back, answering in a hungry way that made him harden instantly.
He might have gotten completely lost in the labyrinth of her lips if someone hadn’t suddenly ripped him away. A meaty fist slammed into his nose and Angela screamed.
“What the fuck do you think you are doing?” Max yelled in his face, holding him by the collar. “What the fuck? No strenuous activity! No seducing! Stop thinking with your dick or I’ll chop it off.”
Max all but threw him away. Tyler bounded to his feet again, a snarl ripping from his throat. How dare he? But when Max picked up Angela, Tyler’s wolf yanked back and the fur starting to sprout over his skin faded to nothing. Tyler glared at Max and Max glared right back while Angela clung around Max’s neck, her eyes huge with horror.
“You aren’t allowed near her,” Max growled. “Fucking idiot. Gonna get us both killed.”
But as Max carried Angela to the spare room, Tyler grinned. Max might be protesting on grounds of what might get them killed, but Tyler couldn’t miss the protective, possessive way he was holding Angela. He wanted her, just as much as Tyler did. And now that she was pregnant with their children? Well, maybe they could come to some sort of arrangement. He and Max didn’t want to be dads, sure, but they were all part of the same pack.
And that meant… Well, Tyler didn’t exactly know what it meant. But he could fantasize. All those bounteous curves bared to him as she asked him for more children. He’d be good with that, giving her children. Even helping pay child support.
He meandered to his room, the fantasy playing out in his mind, his loins tightening and hardening with each image. With Max wanting Angela, too, it only convinced him further. Sooner or later, the little red head was going to be theirs. Whether she wanted to be or not.
Chapter Six
Max jerked awake, a strangled shout in his throat as he bolted upright. His heart pounded against his chest, and for a moment he couldn’t sense his wolf. But it was there, pressing up against his ribs and urging him to go to wherever Angela was—which had become almost constant in the two months since she had moved in with him and Tyler.
With a groan, Max threw back the blankets and grabbed the water bottle on his nightstand. The details of his nightmare stood out vividly in his mind. He had been in the hospital with Angela and Tyler. The two of them had been fawning over two precious, tiny infants, ignoring Max when he told them that they were monsters.
And then it had been too late. The babies turned into monsters, tearing apart Angela and Tyler, going on a bloody rampage. And with every kill, he knew they were trying to make him proud of them.
Fuck this shit, he snarled to himself as he shook the nightmare off. If Angela won’t get a paternity test, then I’m going to tell her I’m not ripping up the contract at all.
He inhaled deeply, struggling to get his emotions under control. Tyler had come to him about keeping the contract in place, with a caveat that Angela have joint custody. Max had refused to relinquish any of his paternal rights according to the contract, but that was because he still wanted to convince Angela to abort. Even though by now, he knew it was a hopeless gesture. She was five months pregnant, could feel them moving.
And she kept refusing to allow him to perform a paternity test. If they were Tyler’s kids, then fine. He’d back off and let them figure it out. But if they were his? The bad blood that flowed through him could not be permitted to pass into another generation.
Distant memories of his parent’s voices rang in his ears and he strode from his room, as though he could leave his demons behind.
Max wasn’t surprised to see Tyler passed out on the couch, papers spread out all over the coffee table. A bad flu bug was passing through the senior’s center in town; there were already three deaths among the frailest of the residents and they knew that there would be a couple more before it was over. Sad but inevitable. He was only glad that shifters were not susceptible to illness like humans were.
Max headed over to his partner. He had hoped that this wouldn’t be necessary, that he wouldn’t have to remind Tyler of his heritage. Bile rose in his throat as he considered even talking about it again. It had taken him years to admit what was happening in his home, what had brought him into this world.
Why couldn’t Tyler just realize that was why he was so interested in getting a paternity test? He was supposed to back him up and yet Tyler seemed to be more on Angela’s side than anything else.
His wolf shifted, pushing toward the left and the spare room where Angela was sleeping. Max swatted at it in irritation as he shook Tyler awake. As he did so, though, his eyes fell on the papers on the coffee table. He snatched one up, his eyes skimming over the plans that Tyler had drawn.
Tyler yawned and sat up and Max thrust the paper into his face. “What the fuck is this?”
“Get off me,” Tyler groused, shoving him away. He took a closer look at the paper. “Oh, that. I was just figuring out where we could add a nursery.”
Max stared at him, completely bewildered. “You can’t be serious!”
Tyler frowned as he got to his feet. “And why not? There is a reason we signed up in the first place, Max. And these past two months have made me realize… I want to be a father. It’s not something that I thought I’d ever want, but I do.”
“Wha—?” Max’s brain shorted out. He hadn’t thought that Tyler was serious about any of this. How could
he be? He thought it was all some sort of ploy—a way to get Ian off their backs after he returned from his vacation. He shook his head. “This is going too far.”
“Too far?” Tyler got to his feet. “How is this too far? They’re our kids already, Max, legally and biologically. We can’t just throw them and Angela out because it wasn’t something we thought through. The whole town knows now, and if we don’t step up—”
Max snarled. “And how do you plan on taking care of kids when we are always getting high and drunk and having sex with a dozen women at the same time?”
“We haven’t done any of that for two months.” Tyler frowned at him. “I haven’t missed it. You ever think that maybe the reason we did do that sort of thing was because we were missing something in our lives?”
“We did it because we like it!” Max clenched his fists and loomed over Tyler, but Tyler was refusing to back down. His wolf snarled and growled, more at him than anything else, and Max wanted nothing more than to punch something. “And you might not miss it, but I do! God, Tyler. You’re acting like a pussy.”
Tyler bristled. “You’re acting like a fool.”
“You wouldn’t know how to be a good father in a million years and Angela? She’s too much of a timid mouse to be a good mother,” Max spat out. His hands clenched and he smirked at the anger growing on Tyler’s face. But some small part of him was whimpering. I can’t do this. I need you. It’s changing too much.
“I’m not asking your permission, Max,” Tyler growled. “And don’t you dare say anything like that about Angela again. She loves those babies more than anything already. And if you don’t change your attitude… then I’m going to have to ask you to move out.”
Max howled and lunged, his fist smashing into Tyler’s face. Tyler swung back, punching him hard in the stomach. As Max bent double, his breath knocked from him, Tyler clasped his arms around him and all but hurled him from the cabin. Max hooked his leg around Tyler’s ankle, causing them to tumble into the dirt just beyond the porch.
“Stop it,” Tyler snarled, yanking Max’s arm behind his back and holding him still. “Calm the fuck down already!”
The wolf in his chest paced, howled, gnawed at his ribs. It was making such a ruckus that Max couldn’t think straight. He closed his eyes, fighting to break free from Tyler and when that proved futile, to at the very least calm himself down. It wasn’t until his wolf wasn’t quite so homicidal that Tyler finally released him.
Max sprang to his feet and Tyler faced him, brow furrowed. “What is this about, Max? Why are you so against Angela having those babies?”
Hot, burning rage swept through him. Out of everybody, Tyler should know. He, who understood Max better than anybody, who knew his past, knew his heritage. For him to ask a question like that, as though Max was being unreasonable in his demands? It made a volcano burst in Max’s chest. He howled as he attacked again, but this time Tyler easily avoided him.
“Get out of here!” Tyler shouted.
Max resisted the urge to attack again. Instead, he did exactly what he was told. He shifted to his wolf’s form and charged into the trees, hatred, and anger burning so strongly through him that he wasn’t sure what he’d do if he stayed.
He ran hard and fast, only stopping when he came to the border of his property and Kristoff Dixon’s. Then he flopped to the ground, panting with exertion as he tried to force himself to just forget about Tyler and Angela and all that.
Instead, he tried to turn his mind to the mysterious vampire that had popped up two months ago and hadn’t been seen since. The man who talked to Angela in the diner that night hadn’t been seen by anybody and he had no idea what he was after or who he was. He couldn’t remember making enemies with any particular vampire.
There had been plenty of interactions between the wolves and vampires when the wolves of Devil Mountain had been undercover in a terrorist organization known as the Pack, but Max hadn’t had anything to do with them. Besides, the Pack had been defeated close to seven years ago now. Those dragons, the Blaze Ops, had seen to that.
His wolf growled, pushing him back to the cabin, but Max lay where he was. If the vampire really was after him—if there was a vampire at all and Angela didn’t just get confused with everything that was happening to her—then it wasn’t going to attack during daylight. It couldn’t.
Max wasn’t sure how long he’d lain there, trying not to think at all, before the rumbling of his stomach convinced him to turn back home. He only did so reluctantly, not at all eager to face Tyler again. Not to mention they might have woken Angela… Max flinched as he wondered if she had heard him say that she would be a bad mother.
That’s not true at all. She’s so kind and gentle, so good at resolving conflicts before they even arise. She’s smart and careful. She’d make a good mother. He had just lost his tongue to his anger.
If she had heard, there was no taking that back.
If we can just be certain that they’re not my children! Max heaved out a sigh as he trotted through the spruce trees. Normally he loved the solitude of the forest but there was no escaping his own mind. I can’t tell her why. She can’t know about…
Which only made him angrier that Tyler didn’t understand what the stakes were! Sure, Tyler could be a dunce sometimes, but he was never this outright ignorant. Was he playing some sort of game? This seemed too cruel for a prank.
Max went around back to grab a set of boxers off the laundry line since he hadn’t bothered to take off his clothes before his shift and they were all destroyed now. His shoulders tensed as he entered the cabin. Low voices came from the spare room and he headed that way—he had to know what Tyler was saying, after all.
“I think he’s scared more than anything,” Tyler was saying in a low, soothing voice. “Max didn’t have the greatest childhood. His parents abused him pretty badly. And his father… well, his father—”
Max strode into the room, snarling blackly. Both Tyler and Angela jumped, but Max didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to hear Tyler’s excuses for sharing something so damaging, so personal, with a complete stranger. Didn’t want to see the pity in Angela’s eyes. Didn’t want any of it. And so, he shoved Tyler away, into the wall and grabbed Angela. Even as she squeaked out a protest, he kissed her.
His wolf howled, but he didn’t care what it was howling about. He pulled her in tight, demanding more of her even as she started kissing him back.
Tyler grabbed his shoulder and Max broke the kiss, glaring at his partner. “What? If she insists on giving birth to those two monsters, the least she owes us is the sex so we can get something out of it.”
Chapter Seven
“They aren’t monsters,” Angela hissed angrily, only to have her face redden and her jaw drop as the rest of what Max said registered.
Today was the first time he’d kissed her. She had thought she’d seen him looking at her with eyes dark with desire, but he was so angry all the time it was honestly hard to tell. Now, the look he was giving her was half fury, have raging desire. Angela didn’t know how to cope with that look. Her heart beat faster, equal measures fearful and turned on. Her core clenched as she imagined just what he’d do to her to slake his lusts.
Her throat was very dry, but she managed to squeak out, “They aren’t monsters. They’re babies.”
“If they’re my spawn, they’re monsters.” A flash of pain crossed Max’s face.
Before Angela could ask what he meant, his hands were on her again. Pulling her into his lap, her thighs parting to straddle him. Her rounded belly got in the way somewhat, but his hands cupped her ass, perfectly holding onto her, and his mouth captured hers. Zings of pleasure went straight through her, short-circuiting her brain.
“Fuck that’s hot,” Tyler growled… somewhere.
Angela managed to pull back, even though everything was so tight and hot in her she still wasn’t thinking clearly. “I can’t,” she blurted. “I’m too sick for sex.”
Max rose a brow.
“Too sick for sex but well enough to go work for that asshole at the diner?”
“Only part-time,” Angela whimpered as he ran his hands up her back.
It was only a few hours a week, but Angela found that she just couldn’t sit still for too long. There was always a wolf at the diner with her, but so far there’d been no sign of any vampires. She had started to wonder if she had just imagined what she’d seen two months ago. She had been under a lot of stress, after all.
And there had been no further scares with the babies. They were active, constantly kicking and moving around. Angela made sure she didn’t overdo it, but everything seemed to be going well.
She yearned to give into the demand on Max’s face. Would he stop being so opposed to her giving birth if she did sleep with him? But she didn’t even know why he was opposed in the first place…
Max leaned to kiss her again and she pulled back. Even though every fiber of her being screamed at her to throw herself at him, there were just too many variables. Weren’t there? “I… I can’t…”
“And why not?” Max cupped her cheek with one of his hands. It was so big, so strong.
His thumb brushed over her lower lip, making her tremble before him. How was she supposed to say no to him? She had wanted him and Tyler for years! Ever since she moved to town to be closer to Ian. The moment she saw them, there had been something inside of her that was screaming Yes!
Now, they were here. Her hand drifted down Max’s shirt, finding the tattoos on the bits of flesh that peeked between the buttons. Her fingers itched to rip that shirt off, to greedily explore his muscular chest. Would he look the way she always imagined him? And Tyler was there, too. Chuckling, clearly enjoying watching them together. Was he imagining all the things the three of them could do together, just like her?
Max’s hands cupped her breasts, gently massaging them and sending a tingle through her body and straight to her core. Angela closed her eyes, moaning softly as the feelings enveloped her. His hands moved down her body, running over her belly—
Surrogate for the Wolves Page 4
