Beast (Norseton Wolves #1) (8 page)

“And that’s partly why I’m here. I—I thought last night was the start of something that might have been enough, but it’s not enough. I want—I want what everyone else has.”

“I can give you the piece of paper and the ceremony if you want them, little wolf. That’s fine. I’m not gonna send you away, or try to make you so uncomfortable you’ll pack up and leave on your own. You wanna be my wife—gods bless you—that’s okay. But you don’t need to be a wolf to be mine. I didn’t—
want
you to be.”

“Why?”

“Easier for me to take care of you. At least, the way I saw it. You’re right that you probably wouldn’t make a very imposing wolf, so it puts my mind at ease that you couldn’t shift.”

“She still can’t shift,” Adam said. “Not fully. Doesn’t make her any less scary to these assholes.” He crooked his thumb toward the Pack members behind him.

“What’s happening to me?” she asked.

“Nothing you weren’t already capable of.” Adam shrugged. “Not every woman can do it. Used to be that everyone, irrespective of their sex, could shift after puberty, but then some evolutionary thing changed that. I think it was meant to keep the birthrate up. Pregnancy is just riskier for wolves that shift for the moon. Can’t exactly set the fetus aside while you go out howling. Good drugs suppress the shifting compulsion, but they’re hard to come by. Way back when, it was supposed to be that women didn’t get their bites until after they’d had a few kids. We’ve obviously gotten away from that. You’re a throwback, honey. I bet there’s more like you where you’re from.”

She held her now-normal hand in front of her face and stared at it. “I wouldn’t know.” Folks back home didn’t wait so long to pair off. She dropped her hand, determined. “Well, I don’t want the bite, then. Not yet.”

“If ever,” Anton muttered.

Christina rolled her eyes and turned to him. “But I want my certificate. I want it now.”

“All right.” Smirking, he put up his free hand and handed the rifle to Adam. “We’ll take care of it today.”

She jammed her hands onto her hips and cocked up her chin. “You messin’ with me?”

“No, I’m not messing with you. I think you have an appointment to keep first, though.” He canted his head to the walkway where Lora stood. She gave Christina a small wave.

“Oh.” She started toward Lora, but then stopped. Turned. “Are you gonna take your shots?”

“My shots?”

She cut her gaze toward the unblemished target. She didn’t want those wolves to think she’d gotten him off the hook. Maybe it’d be hard for him, but she believed he could do it. And if he was supposed to be an alpha someday, he needed to show them what he was still capable of.

He let out a long breath and took the rifle back from Adam.

Adam took a few steps back and plugged his ears as Anton raised the gun. She did the same, cringing all the while.

She worried for a moment that he wouldn’t do it, as he was taking so long to line up his shot, but then he pulled the trigger five times in a row without pausing.

Two shots dead center, two just outside, and one where a head might have been.

Not bad at all, even if he’d been uncertain.

He handed Adam the gun again and scooped up Christina’s hand as he approached her side. “
Slow
,” he whispered.

“But you got it right. That’s what matters.”

“Being slow out in the field can get me killed.”

They followed Lora up the path and back into the mansion.

“I’ll practice with you. Maybe you can teach me how to hit something smaller than a Cadillac.”

“I think you’re probably a better shot than that.”

“Nope. Can’t shoot so great if your hands are shaking.”

“The Queen is a pretty good shot,” Lora said. “As is her cousin, Nadia. They can probably teach you how to compensate for boobs, if you want the practice.”

Anton gave Christina a nudge just before they started up the stairs to the second floor. “I’d much rather you have a gun than fur, little wolf.”

The more Christina thought about it, the more she liked the idea, herself. She’d hoped that having her wolf ready and available would make her less useless, but perhaps she didn’t need that after all.

“Changed my mind.” Anton snapped magnets onto two corners of the black and white ultrasound photo and straightened it on the refrigerator. “Don’t want you carrying a gun.”

“You’re overreacting.” Christina grabbed her bagged lunch from the refrigerator, along with her thermos, and headed toward the door. “I’m no different today than I was yesterday, and you were fine with me carrying yesterday.” It wasn’t like she carried the darned thing in her waistband or close to her belly at all. She kept it where most civilized women did—in her purse, and with the safety on.

“I was never
fine
with it.” He raced around her and barred her exit at the door. “I simply tolerated it because I don’t like arguing with you.”

“It was either that or the bite.”

“And I’m not biting you.”

“For the moment.”

“
Ever.
Why fix what’s not broken? You’re not broken, little wolf.”

She sighed, reached up, and gave the hair over his blind eye a flick. At least he’d stopped hiding it from her, though he still tied on a patch before leaving the house on most days.

“Nothing’s going to happen to you here,” he said.

A loud boom from the general direction of Norseton rattled the windows.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“What the fuck?” He plucked his cell phone from his flannel shirt’s pocket and dialed out. “What the hell was that?” He furrowed his forehead as whoever was on the other end of the connection talked.

She yanked his shirtsleeve. “What’s happening?”

He covered the mouthpiece. “I was right. Nothing’s going to happen to you, because I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

“What
happened
?”

“Guys at Norseton detonated a suspicious package out in the desert. Mailed in.”

She might have clutched her pearls if she had any.

“I’ll be over there in a few minutes to sniff it out,” he said into the phone before disconnecting. “
You
, stay home.”

“No. Threat’s been minimized, so I’m going to work. I’ve got a lot to do.” And she liked her job. She’d had first pick because she was the first of the mates to go and ask. She spent her workdays in the mansion’s library, scouring newspapers and the Internet for leads on the Afótama’s missing people. It was tedious, sure, but it engaged the same part of her brain that taking things apart did. She got lost in the work, and because it truly had to be done, she felt useful while doing it, even if she didn’t find something to report every single day. The Afótama had gone decades without viable leads on some of their missing, and in just a few months, she’d helped them find three.

Anton folded his arms over his chest and stared down at her in that not
really
terrifying way. Maybe it was terrifying to the others, but to her, he was just her big, cuddly wolf.

“I’m pregnant, not helpless.”

“If anything happens to you—”

She wanted to hear the rest of that if statement, but knew if he got it out, he’d set his mind on keeping her at home. He tended to jump to conclusions and stick to them when it came to her wellbeing. Typical overbearing wolf, but he was, at least, sweet about it. “Nothing’s going to happen to me. There’s no safer place to be than inside the mansion, right?”

His nod came slowly. He had to know it was true. Maybe it wasn’t evident from the outside, but that place was reinforced to withstand Armageddon.

“Walk me there? You were heading that way anyway.” She crooked her elbow for him.

After a moment, he took it and opened the door. “I swear, if being half-blind doesn’t get me killed, you will.”

“You’re being dramatic.” She grabbed her purse off the hook before stepping outside. “Your uncle said it himself. We’re an alpha pair. I’m supposed to be a help to you, not a hindrance, so let me do my part. That’s all I’ve been trying to do, all along.”

“I just want more for you. You deserve more.”

“I have more than most wolves do.”

“And that’s a damned shame.” They moved up the path at a clip that wasn’t quite running, but close. With her short legs and decreased lung capacity, Christina could barely keep up, but somehow managed. In another few weeks, she’d probably need a golf cart to get to and from work. Baby Girl Denis wasn’t being so kind to her mother’s pelvic floor.

“It’s an opportunity,” she said, yanking his hand to slow him down.

He did, and grimaced. “Sorry. I could carry you, if you want.”

She grinned. “I can walk.” And they did, at a much more reasonable pace. “We’ve got an opportunity here to build something from scratch. Start something new. We don’t have to be like all the other packs—so transient and sending our little boys away when they become some stupid perceived threat to the leaders. Why do they have to be a threat? Isn’t it better to keep ’em and be strong?”

“Sure, it’s better. It’s just not the way things are usually done.”

“Well, let’s change things. I wouldn’t let you send me away. I’ll be damned if I let you do it to my boys.”

“
Boys
, huh?” He chuckled.

“Well, I’m sure there’ll be more than one at some point. Basic statistics.”

“We have a long time before we have to worry about it, but I’ll do my best to make it right for you.”

“For
us
.”

“That’s right. For us.”

The End

Look for Darius’s story in June 2015.
Preorder it now
.

Half wolf Stephanie Benson has spent much of the last decade enduring criticism from her father’s pack about her deficiencies. If it weren’t for the fact her inner beast craves a wolf’s sensual attentions, she’d try to settle down with a nice human man. Answering a mate call from an unknown pack is her one chance at fleeing toxic influences, but it’s a gamble. She may end up with a man who finds her softer human physique and progressive opinions just as repulsive as the men back home.

Ousted from his pack as a young boy, Darius Lucas is Norseton’s resident lone wolf. He lacks mastery of the social graces most men over thirty would have, and can barely speak more than a few words at a time. Although Darius is skeptical about saddling a stranger with him for a companion, his alpha insists Stephanie is everything he needs. Darius enthusiastically gives the captivating, bombshell his bite, but not his confidence.

He’s used to being on the fringes, but Stephanie understands how that feels all too well. He may lack polish, but he has the tenderness that was lacking in Stephanie’s previous relationships. They’re both loners in their own ways, but if they can come together to find a common thread, the mates could ignite a romance hot enough to make them both howl.

Hungry for a paranormal romance with a twist? Check out the lady private eyes and their “weird” love interests in this darkly humorous, sexy series.

Book 1:
The Problem with Paddy

Dana Slade isn’t just Durham’s most tenacious private detective, but also an unwilling initiate into the mysterious paranormal world. After an unregulated research trial warped her DNA and turned her into an honest-to-goodness mutant, she lost her man and her job. Her spirit may have been broken, but she didn’t lose her edge.

It turns out that Patrick O’Dwyer isn’t missing, but hiding, and he’s got something in common with Dana. He’s recently had an unwilling initiation into the supernatural domain of his own, and his secret could devastate the business he’s worked so hard to build. He needs a confidante for sure, but he sees in the fierce investigator the potential for so much more than that.

The new were-cat could be the perfect partner Dana didn’t know she needed, but not if she can’t convince herself that another chance at love is worth the risks.

Buy it now
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