A Wolf’s Deception (Novella) (12 page)

The massive male prowled towards them, huge chest heaving, fangs bared. She’d heard the stories. Most of the wolves here were afraid of him. They thought he was crazy, ruthless.

She didn’t know if any of that was true, but she did know in either human or wolf form, he was the biggest male she’d ever seen.

What the hell is going on?

Colt stopped Lance in his tracks, but he was still a Harlow pack member and Lance still his alpha.

He moved in, right up close to her. Her heart pounded in her chest. God, he could kill her with one bite. But then he turned and faced Lance, protecting her with his big body, a growl so loud and deep tearing from his throat, she couldn’t stop a pitiful whine from escaping.

He’d laid down a challenge, a challenge for Lance to try and get by him, and if he did try to take him on, a challenge for leadership.

Lance had one choice. If he backed up, showed weakness of any kind, it would be the same as losing the fight, and he would forfeit his position as alpha.

The fighting around them had ground to a halt, all eyes on the two wolves in the centre, some even shifting back to their human forms. As the pair moved away from her, the Black Hills pack moved back in, surrounding her, then Gabe was at her side. She shifted to her human form and he pulled her into his arms. His skin was slick with blood and sweat, several deep wounds marring his body, but he stood tall and strong, shielding them from harm as best he could.

Fletch came out of nowhere, Sawyer in his arms. Her son stared up at the Black Hills alpha, eyes wide, but he wasn’t afraid, she could tell by the way he’d curled up in the male’s arms. Fletch handed him to her and she nearly sobbed with relief. He took her other side, giving Gabe a sharp chin lift. Something past between them, then they were back to watching what was happening in the centre of the yard.

‘Stick close to me, baby,’ Gabe said close to her ear. She could feel his heartbeat, strong and sure against her side, feel the tension in his muscles.

Lance and his brother circled each other, snarling and snapping. Lance lunged first, but Colt just shook him off, far stronger, and unbelievably quick for such a big male. She realised then, the only reason Dan then Lance had become alpha was because this huge male wanted it that way. Within minutes Lance lay pinned on the ground, belly up, forced to submit to the far larger male.

When Colt released him, Lance flipped to his feet and limped from the clearing.

The Harlow pack’s new alpha shifted and faced his pack mates. It was the first time she’d seen him without the dark glasses he always wore, and she sucked in a breath when his pale gaze caught hers. One eye was pale blue like a snow wolf…but the other was green. Wolves didn’t have green eyes, ever. Not unless they were hybrid. Green usually meant human blood somewhere in the bloodline.

Gabe growled a warning when the other male’s gaze lingered on her. She wrapped her fingers around Gabe’s forearm, crossing her chest, and gave him a squeeze. ‘It’s okay. He won’t hurt me. He helped me.’ The growling stopped, but the tension in his body remained.

Everything clicked into place. Colt’s car right outside her place that day, keys still inside, the money. He’d left it there for her. He’d given her a way out.

Colt turned from her then and faced his people. Most stared openly, their shock obvious. Some stared at the ground, more than aware that the male in front of them was now their alpha and to meet his gaze could be seen as a challenge.

‘You will let the Black Hills pack leave, and you will let them take Tressa and her cub. Anyone who has a problem with that step forward now.’ His voice was like gravel, so deep and rough it sent a shiver over her skin.

No one moved.

He pointed to his eye. ‘This is what my family kept hidden. This is what shamed my brothers, my parents. You would harm…kill, an innocent child because you believe them to be less than you. Weaker. Am I weaker?’

Heads shook and feet shuffled. ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought.’

He turned and walked to them then, stopping several feet in front of her. ‘You are free to go.’

It was all he said before shifting and running back into the forest.

Gabe turned her body into him, holding her and Sawyer tight, kissing the top of her head. ‘God, I thought…if anything had happened to you…’

She ran her hands down his back, over the thick slabs of muscle, feeling the way his body shook slightly. ‘I’m okay.’

‘I thought I’d lose my mind in that meeting hall, but when Lance attacked you and I couldn’t get to you…’ he rasped. He pulled her arm around to inspect the bite Lance had given her. ‘This is deep. We need to get it dressed.’

The wolves around them had backed off, but they were keeping a close eye on them. Gabe gave her one last squeeze and Sawyer squirmed between them. Gabe smoothed his fingers over his son’s ears then brushed his lips across hers.

‘Let’s go home.’

Chapter 12

Gabe chose to sit in the backseat with Tressa on the way home. He needed to touch her, to keep reminding himself that she was okay, that she was his. They’d patched up her arm and she was wearing a pair of his sweats and one of his t-shirts. His clothes swamped her small frame and though he thought she was one of the strongest females he’d ever known, seeing her that way made it hard as fuck to settle the hell down.

She kept her hand in his the whole way back to Black Hills, head resting on his shoulder, like she knew how much he needed her right then.

Sawyer hadn’t shifted back, still in his animal form, and stretched across their laps, curling into both of them. Looking at him like that—so tiny, so fragile—brought out every protective instinct in him. His son had a hard road ahead, full of prejudice and rejection. But at least he and Tressa could make it a little easier. Sawyer would grow up in a loving family, be part of a pack that would welcome him, not throw him away.

With Fletch, the alpha of his mother’s pack, he had a fighting chance, a chance for change, for tolerance. Maybe one day acceptance.

When they arrived home, they drove straight to Tressa’s mother’s house and as soon as they pulled up Connie McCray walked out to meet them. Gabe watched their cautious reunion from the sideline, not wanting to get in the way.

Then the older female turned and smiled at him. She was extremely nervous and he could smell her fear.

‘Will you come in? I’ve made cake.’ She squeezed Tressa’s hand. ‘Your favourite. I thought Sawyer might like some’

And just like that their cub shifted back into his human form. ‘I love cake.’

Gabe stroked his son’s soft cheek. ‘I’m gonna head home, kiddo, while you visit with your grandma.’ He turned to Connie. ‘Thank you for the invite, but I’m gonna leave you three to catch up.’

She reached out, touched his arm. ‘You are welcome here, Gabe. Anytime.’

Then she picked up Sawyer and took him inside for cake.

Tressa moved in, wrapping her arms around his waist. ‘I don’t want you to leave.’

And he sure as fuck, didn’t want to go. He rubbed her back, let the heat of her skin soaking through his shirt sooth him. ‘You need time with your mother.’

‘I know. Doesn’t make it any easier, though.’ She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him, soft and slow until he started purring.

God, he didn’t want to leave them there, wanted to take them to his home where they belonged. With him. But Tressa and her mother needed time together, to heal, he knew that. He’d already waited four years, he could wait another couple days, right?

‘I nearly forgot.’ He pulled the keys to the Nova out of his pocket and placed them in her hand.

She frowned in a cute way, making him instantly hard for her. ‘Why are you giving me your car keys?’

‘The car’s yours. I brought it for you a week after you told me you wanted one. I was gonna give it to you after I’d fixed it up.’

‘You did that for me?’ Tears welled in her dark eyes, threatening to spill down her cheeks, and then a tentative grin lifted one side of her lush mouth. ‘But that was only a week after we met.’

He smiled. ‘I fell head over heels for my feisty she-wolf the moment you opened your mouth and spoke to me.’ He shrugged. ‘The way you shook that sexy little ass as you walked away might have tipped me over the edge, though. Plus, I’d been walking around with a hard-on that threatened to cause me permanent injury. I needed a way to convince you to keep going out with me.’

‘So you bought me a car.’

‘I hadn’t quite learned the art of subtlety.’

They both laughed and then they were kissing again, making out on her mother’s front porch like a couple of loved-up teenagers, delaying the inevitable.

Gabe yanked the door of the fridge open and grabbed a beer. His cabin was close, just on the border of Black Hills territory, but he felt a million miles away.

Fuck, he craved her and he’d only pried himself away from her that morning.

The squeak of the screen door was loud as he walked out to his front porch. He slumped into the old couch, propping his legs up on the railing. The sky was ink blue, streaked with a blaze of oranges and golds, washing everything in a weird pinky glow that lit up the gravel road, leading to the only cabin for miles—his.

The purr of a V8 engine cut through the forest a full minute before he got a glimpse of the Nova’s chrome grill glinting in the distance.

His heart rate picked up, just like it had the first time he’d laid eyes on her. The beast purred, stretching in contentment, happy that she must have been missing him as much as he had her.

The car pulled up outside the front gate and the door swung open. He didn’t move, watched her over his bottle as he took another pull. Needing a minute to get it together.

The light hit her silky, black hair, making it shine. And when she stepped away from the car, he drank her in. Denim hugged her long legs and rounded hips and she wore a black tank top he couldn’t wait to peel off.

A fresh bandage had been wrapped around her bicep and stood out against her beautiful dark skin. The sight of that white gauze made his beast snarl. The memory of her being hurt by that bastard would haunt him for the rest of his life.

His heart started up with an erratic staccato against his ribs. But still he didn’t move, couldn’t. Her stride wasn’t overly confident, a hesitancy there that he didn’t like. Had she changed her mind?

Nerves cramped low in his belly, and he took another swig of his beer then rested it on his thigh, happy for the icy condensation dripping down the sides, soaking through his jeans and cooling his overheated skin.

‘Hey,’ she said when she came up the steps and stopped beside him.

‘I didn’t think I’d see you for a few days.’

What the hell was going on? Why were they suddenly acting like spotty juveniles heading out on their first date?

She was looking at her feet then glanced out to the forest. When she turned to him she was biting her lip, her big, dark eyes filled with too many emotions to name. And he had no idea how to help her. ‘You didn’t?’

He shook his head. ‘Sawyer?’

He took another sip of his beer and held it out for her.

‘With my mother. My shy little boy took to his grandmother like a long-lost friend. He’s asleep now.’

She took the bottle from him, pressing it to her beautiful mouth and drunk deeply. Her throat worked in a way that made his dick hard as stone and his fingers twitch to touch her.

When she handed it back, he ignored the bottle and grabbed her wrist, pulling her closer. She came without resistance and he lifted her into his lap. Both beast and man released a relieved breath. In the back of his mind he’d been afraid, afraid her dead father still had a hold over her, that walking back into that house would cause her to turn her back on him.

‘Does your mother know where you are right now?’ He brushed her hair over her shoulder, exposing the side of her neck. ‘Does she have any idea what I plan to do to you tonight? Would she approve do you think?’

Her soft gasp hit him in the gut. ‘She knows.’

‘She okay with that?’ God only knew how he’d kept his voice even when he was close to jumping out of his skin. He slid his palm up her thigh. ‘Spread your legs, baby.’ She did as he asked without question and the scent of her desire for him nearly had him undone.

Her breath rushed out between her lips. ‘I don’t care what anyone else thinks.’ She lifted her hips asking for more. ‘I’ve waited long enough for you. We’ve waited long enough for each other.’

God, she was killing him. Did she have any idea how her words affected him?

Suddenly he knew what the hesitancy had been about.

‘You’re nervous?’ He popped the button on her jeans, and right then the sound of her zipper going down was the most erotic thing he’d ever heard.

‘Yes. But only because I was afraid you might change your mind. Decide you couldn’t forgive me for what I did to you.’

‘There’s nothing to forgive. I want you, Tressa. I’ve always wanted you, even when I tried to forget you, you stayed right here.’ He thumped his fist against his chest, over his pounding heart. ‘Because we were made for one another, do you understand?’

‘Yes.’ She bit her lip and he pulled it free of her teeth, dragged the pad of his thumb over the tender flesh. Her tongue darted out, touched the tip and he shuddered.

‘There’s no backing out after this, Tress. You’ll be mine. I’ll be yours. You, Sawyer and me, we’ll be a family. The way we should have been four years ago.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, lips trembling.

He slid his hand down the front of her jeans, under the silky fabric of her underwear. They both moaned when he drew a finger through her slick folds, moving up and back along her cleft until she begged him for more. She buried her face against his neck when he circled her clit, her hot, panted breaths coasting across his overheated skin.

‘You’re so hot, baby, so ready for me.’

‘Please,’ she groaned. ‘Don’t make me wait.’

He gripped her hips and stood. She immediately wrapped her legs around his waist and he fisted her silky, dark hair, slamming his mouth on hers. Right then he couldn’t do gentle, couldn’t give her a sweet seduction. He hungered for her, his body starved of her touch, crying out for the feel of her body wrapped around his, his cock buried deep, his fangs breaking through tender skin.