AlphavsAlpha (7 page)

Damien nodded.

“She’s your True Mate?”

“True Mate? Whoa…” Kenyon whistled.

“Yes, she is. Cut to the chase…Chase.”

“Just for that, I’ll let you figure it out.”

“Just spit it out, Bear!”

“If you marked each other and you are True Mates, then
you’re going to start sensing each other. Feel each other’s emotions…thoughts.
If you focus, you’ll know exactly where your bitch is. If you are
very
lucky, she won’t realize what’s happening until it’s too late, so you can get
to her before she starts focusing on you.”

Damien smiled. Then he grinned. Finally he started to laugh.
She was
so
screwed and she didn’t even know it! He was going to find
her, and when he did, he was going to make sure she never left him again.

“How do I do this?”

Chase shrugged at his question. “I haven’t found my True
Mate either, you know. I just know my parents never had to talk about anything.
They would just stare at each other then look at us cubs, and there’d be hell
to pay.”

Damien tried to reach out for her and picked up a flash of
an image. She was grabbing clothes out of drawers and throwing things on a bed.
He could see that she was packing an overnight bag. She seemed a little
frantic.
Almost
scared. He frowned as the image slipped away. She
shouldn’t be scared of him. Damn it, he didn’t want that even if he did want
payback for her abandoning him without a stitch.

“Unpleasant thoughts?” Kenyon’s deep mellow voice brought
him back to reality.

“Shit. She seemed scared. I don’t want my Mate scared of
me!” Damien frowned.

“It must have been some
seriously
hot sex. I’ve known
females who can’t deal with the aftermath of hot sex. They get all freaked out
and run off.” Damien cocked his head and thought about Chase’s observation.

Could it be the intensity of their mating she was frightened
of, or was it him? He focused on Serena again. She seemed to be done packing
and was staring around the bedroom, lost in thought. He tried to focus on what
she was feeling. Confusion, he could definitely feel that. Desire, definitely.
She was blushing and he knew she was thinking about him. He waited to see if
she would realize he was connected with her, but she didn’t. She licked her
lips, but then shook her head. Again he felt a wash of fear from her.

Fuck! Maybe it
was
the sex that was freaking her out.
Yet, it didn’t feel as if it was sex that scared her. It seemed as though there
was something significant about sex with
him
that was the issue, but
he’d only caught the edge of it. He reached for her again. She grabbed a purse
and went through the front door. She locked it and headed for her car. He could
feel a driving need in her to go home and talk to her mother. Somehow, her
mother could explain everything.

He blinked as he felt himself shoved from her thoughts. He
reached again but found she’d blocked him. Had she realized? No, there hadn’t
been anything like that in her thoughts. He realized that she had focused on
driving and it was her focus that had pushed him away from her. All he had to
do was give her some time to get out of the city, and he could find her again.
In the meantime, he could probably look up the Goldwolf family on the internet
and find out where they lived to follow her home.

“I know that look. He’s got something.” Kenyon nudged Chase.

“She’s going home to her mother.” Damien told them absently
as he sat down at his desk and started his computer. He drummed his fingers as
he waited for it to load.

“She has sex with you and then goes home to her mother?”
Chase hooted with laughter. Damien shot him a death look, which he ignored.
“Don’t threaten me, boyo. You’d need your whole pack to take me out.”

Damien growled and shook his head in disgust. He focused on
the computer, pulling up the internet, and started to search for an address. He
kept running into blind alleys. He found a link then it would be nothing or it
would be broken.

He wished Rosalie were there to do this searching, she was
much better at this kind of shit. She always told him that she was underpaid
and underappreciated, but cousins are supposed to say that. Apparently, she was
correct.

Just when he was ready to throw the computer across the
room, he got a hit. He found an address out in the middle of nowhere for a Dr.
Quinn Goldwolf. When he found a listing at the same address for a slew of other
Goldwolfs, including Andrew and Ginger, he knew he’d found her lair. He just
knew at gut level that Andrew and Ginger were Serena’s parents.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. She had relaxed
and her mind let him find his way back. He winced. She was singing along to
John Denver’s
Rocky Mountain High
. Life was not kind. She just had to be
a country music fan, didn’t she?

“What’s wrong?” the hawk asked.

He looked at Kenyon, looked down at the design on the shirt,
and sighed. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Chapter Eight

Serena pulled up to the gates of her clan’s compound with a
sigh of relief. She’d gotten here before he caught her. She didn’t know why she
thought he was following her. She’d started to feel like that while she was
packing to head home. It was as if she’d gotten this emotional flash that she
could run but she couldn’t hide. It scared her. She didn’t want to deal with
him right now.

She sighed and drove toward home. It was 9 p.m. and she was
as safe as she was going to be. If Damien showed up, her father would hand her
over without a murmur, let alone a bark. All Damien would have to say was he
was her wolf and she was his bitch. It would be more than enough for her
father. Still, she had needed to come home and see her mother. Her parents were
True Mates and maybe her mother could help her get used to the idea of
submitting to a male, if Damien really was her Mate. She still wasn’t certain,
but not being near him hurt…as if a vital organ had been removed. Just fanciful
thoughts really, but against all common sense, she missed him.

Through the years, she’d watched her mother always do
whatever her father had decreed, and it bugged Serena. She didn’t want to spend
the rest of her life living by Damien’s commands. How could her mother stand
it? Serena needed to know the answer to that question if she had any hope of
surviving this relationship as an independent female. What terrified her the
most was that she wouldn’t have a choice. She’d just bow to his orders and lose
herself in him and never be Serena again. She shuddered. She’d rather be dead.

She followed the winding road onto clan lands with a sense
of homecoming. As she headed west, she passed various small homes that housed
the Goldwolf families who lived here. She waved when she saw those she knew.
She reached her parents’ place in the center of what passed for a town out
here. It was a large old Victorian. Her parents had hoped to fill it with pups,
but there’d been just her. She knew her father regretted not having a son,
despite designating her cousin Quinn as his heir.

She parked and went up to the house. She opened the door and
heard voices in the kitchen. She frowned as she recognized Quillen’s whine. She
strode through to the kitchen and entered to hear him blaming her for the whole
mess.

“Serena fired me for
no
reason! It isn’t fair! I’m a
good worker and I was doing a really good job this time, Quinn. Really! It’s
all
her
fault that wolf was complaining.”

“My fault? You lying little
worm
!” She growled,
crossing the room to stand over her cousin, who cowered in the face of her
wrath.

“What’s going on, Serena?”

Quinn looked tired as he brushed lank dark-gold hair off his
forehead with a sigh. Serena frowned because he looked like hell. There were
circles under his eyes and he seemed nervous. It was so unlike her cousin that
she stopped wanting to kill Quillen and hug Quinn instead, but she paused
because she knew he wouldn’t want her to draw attention to him.

“Your whiny little brother set one of our clients up
with…someone completely inappropriate. So, I fired him.”

“Serena, you gave him a chance before. Can’t you try again?”
her mother asked from the kitchen sink where she was calmly washing dishes.

Serena bit her lip to keep from screeching. She was still
too tense for this dramatic crap. “No, Mother. I can
not
give him
another try and I
will
not.” She turned to her young cousin. “You
brought this on yourself with your ill-timed and idiotic sense of humor.”

“Just because some bitch was inappropriate, doesn’t mean
that Quillen should be fired,” Quinn countered as he leaned against the wall
behind Serena’s father.

Serena took a deep breath. She hadn’t wanted to go there
because she knew how it upset Quinn, however, it would seem she had no choice.
“Inappropriate doesn’t begin to cover it. Does it Quillen?”

“He’s a prick. He deserved it. Just because he screwed you
blind today doesn’t mean anything!” Quillen smirked at her. She was going to
slap that smirk off his face if he kept it up.

“I don’t care if he is the most arrogant bastard on the
planet, and he is. That is no excuse for setting him up to go out with Joyce
Blackwolf.”

Quinn stiffened as if shot. The look he shot his younger
brother made Quillen cringe and look for cover. “He did what?”

Serena winced. Quinn hadn’t shouted—he’d gone quiet. That
was very bad. If Quinn shouted and blustered, he could be managed. When he went
quiet, there’d be hell to pay. Thank God it wasn’t she who would be paying it.

“He set Damien Blackwolf up with Joyce Blackwolf. They
aren’t from the same family clan so he had no idea what he was getting into.
You might have heard of Damien Blackwolf. He’s the Blackwolf from
Blackwolf,
Goldbear and Whitehawk
.”

“The law firm from hell?” Quinn hissed. Serena nodded. “You
stupid, freaking
idiot
!” He turned on his younger brother. “Why? Because
he’s a prick? So what? You’ll be lucky if the bastard doesn’t sue you or get
the DA to charge you with attempted murder with a deadly weapon.”

Quillen looked rather pathetic, and Serena felt sorry for
him. “It’s not my fault, Quinn. Really.”

“What did I do wrong? I tried to raise you right after Mom
and Dad died. What more could I have done?” He dropped his head into his hands
and pulled on his hair. It was predictable that he would accept responsibility
for Quillen, but this emotional behavior wasn’t at all like him.

Serena frowned. “What more could you have done? Start by
letting him take the consequences of his own actions, Quinn. It is time for
Quillen to try to fix his own mess. He’s been irresponsible for far too long.”
She turned to Quillen. “I gave you a chance when everyone else had given up,
and you do this. It’s time for you to go out into the world and try to survive
on your own. Go to college.
Do
something. You’ve been a pup long
enough,” Serena told him. He frowned at her.

“You aren’t my pack leader. I don’t have to do what you
say.”

“She’s my daughter, pup. Give her respect! She’s also right.
I suggest you get your things together and start the application process to
college.
If
you’re accepted, I’ll contact a Goldwolf pack to provide you
some assistance—but assistance only. You won’t sponge off them.”

Quillen gasped and ran from the room. She tended to forget
he was so young. He was only just nineteen and it definitely showed.

She sighed and Quinn did too. “I’d better go calm him down.”
Her cousin shook his head and went in search of his errant younger brother.

Serena looked at her parents. They were gazing at one
another. Her father raised his eyebrow and shrugged. He stood up from the table
and came over and gave her a hug. “I have a feeling you need to talk to your
mother. I’ll leave you to it. Your bed is where you left it. Stay here
tonight.” He kissed her cheek and left the room.

“He is very good at declarations, isn’t he?” Serena
commented as she picked up dirty dishes from the table and brought them to the
sink.

“It’s one of his many talents, yes,” her mother responded,
and Serena studied her.

Ginger Redwolf had come to Denver to go to college and met Drew
Goldwolf. She dropped out when she got pregnant shortly after they met. She’d
finally gotten her degree only a few years ago. In the interim, she’d settled
down in apparent happiness. Ginger was still a lovely woman with red-gold hair
and amber eyes. She didn’t seem submissive, and yet she always seemed to obey
him. Serena just didn’t get it.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Serena finally burst out as she set
the dishes on the counter.

“What, precisely?” Ginger asked her daughter as she took the
plates and began washing them. She watched Serena pace in agitation.

“Always doing what he tells you to do! I can’t live like
that. I just can’t.”

“Ah.” Ginger nodded, and waited for Serena to continue.

“I don’t want to be the submissive little Mrs. I’m
not
June Cleaver. I’m not going to say ‘Yes, Ward.’ I just can’t
do
that!”

“Is that what you think I do, Serena?”

Serena shook her head. She’d put her foot in it and didn’t
know how to get rid of the muck she just tramped in. Her mother didn’t look
angry or hurt or anything else, but then Serena had always had trouble reading
her mother’s moods.

“I’m sorry. No, I didn’t mean it. I just…”

Ginger studied her for a few minutes and Serena began to
shuffle her feet, as if she were as young as Quillen. She certainly felt as
stupid.

“I think this would be best discussed in the morning. And
you need your rest…especially now.”

Serena met her mother’s gaze, ignoring her mother’s comment
about rest. “I love you, you know.”