How to Tame a Werewolf: Seven Brides for Seven Shifters, Book 3 (2 page)

Chapter Two

It hurt when Rue slammed her forehead against the edge of her laptop screen, but not nearly as badly as her father’s rejection did. She missed her
baba
so much she’d built her life on finding excuses to see him—she’d grasped at any reason, no matter how wild or misguided. Her excuses usually didn’t work but the memory of Somerfield Vineyards clearly meant as much to Abasi as it did to her. That’s why she still believed in her plan. Even though nothing worked to draw her mother out, and Rue feared no excuse ever would, she had to try. Rule #2 demanded that she never give up.

A low growl sounded behind her. Rue whipped around in her seat to see her father standing at the open front entrance to the diner. He hadn’t left yet for only one reason. Trash Man stood in his path, a snarl on his bearded face. Not good. Not good at all.

Her father was at least six feet six inches. Trash Man couldn’t have been taller than six-foot-three and beyond that, Abasi’s long square body outweighed the shorter man’s lean wiriness. Rue also knew something the werewolf didn’t. Her father wasn’t a typical ocelot shifter. Due to his size and heritage, Abasi’s animal looked more like a tiger with all the strength and ability of the bigger animal. Her father would mangle most types of wolf, unless Trash Man had ancient wolf blood. Which wasn’t likely.

“Leave it,” Rue called out to Trash Man, “he’s old blood and big.”

Trash Man slowly inclined his head in her direction and gave her a smirking eyebrow lift, as if to say “like I give a fuck”. Then the wolf turned back to her father and growled from somewhere deep down, in an overture to a serious ass whipping.

And then it was on.

The standoff came down to Alpha versus Beta. But it wasn’t the Trash Man who stood down, but the beta, her father. He side stepped the alpha and left the diner in a huff.

Well, alright! The Trash Man had backed Rue’s big bad dad, Abasi Gray-Sayf, down with only a growl no one else had heard. Wait. What? Wow.

Trash Man didn’t turn to leave like Rue expected. Instead, he stalked over to her table. His animal existed so close to the surface of his skin that his eyes blazed pure amber. In the silence that followed, the wolf inside him regarded her, his head turning from side to side so slowly she knew he’d gone feral.

Trash Man was not civilized. He hadn’t been tamed by his human skin the way most shifters had. Or if he had been a man of manners once, his life had somehow beaten the etiquette out of him.

Rue couldn’t breathe. She wanted to kick him under the table to distract him enough to end that unwavering glower.

He sniffed her, so she sniffed him right back. And he didn’t stink. If he’d been living on the streets he should’ve had some form of odor, especially to her cat senses, but he simply smelled manly. Like waterfalls and a crisp green forest on a winter night. He sniffed her again and his brows quirked. The skin bunched between his eyes in the most adorable way as if her scent confused him too.

How can a man be so wild and so adorable in the same moment?
She wanted to ask him but he intimidated her.

Oh hell, fake it ’til you make it.

“Um, thanks?” Rue said.

Trash Man crossed both his muscular arms and rested them on the table. Then he lazily lifted a thumbs-up. Amber lit his eyes with animal ferocity but a touch of humor danced at the corners, causing the skin to crinkle in a smile that didn’t quite reach his lips. Both the gesture and the expression made Rue more comfortable. She preferred eye smiles to smiles that only lifted the lips. Lips lied, eyes never did.

After a long time, Trash Man dropped his gaze and used it to damn near caress her father’s untouched butter pecan cinnamon roll. So that’s the flavor he’d been searching for in the garbage cans. He’d never have found it. No one threw away the butter pecan ones. It was a crime punishable by a good kick to the shins.

Trash Man gestured at the cinnamon roll and then to himself. When she looked from the plate back up to his face, he’d quirked an eyebrow at her again. She’d read about those eyebrow quirks in a lot of romance novels. She’d always thought it sounded a bit pretentious and weird. Though not when Trash Man did it. When he did it the region south of her belly button began to feel very…funny. Yeah, she’d go with funny.

To distract herself she stared at his beard, a preposterous growth that sprouted from his cheekbones and didn’t stop until it tickled his chest. The beard was as wild, dark and tangled as the look he hadn’t stopped giving her since he sat down.

Rue tentatively, so as not to startle the beast within the man, reached out and pushed the cinnamon bun his way. Trash Man smiled fully this time and Rue’s stomach did a downhill rollercoaster flip.
Holy hell
. Then to make matters worse, for her libido, he tented his hands and bowed his head to say thanks. Maybe the wild animal inside him still had manners. At least Rue thought so until he ripped the cinnamon bun apart and devoured it, not leaving a single pecan behind.

Impressed, she pushed the not so good but drinkable house red wine she’d ordered in his direction. He picked it up, sniffed, and gave her an affronted look.

Rue couldn’t help but laugh. “I know it’s not the good stuff but it’s okay for a diner.”

Trash Man gave her a double take.

“Fine,” she said. “What do you want to drink?”

Putting the wine down with one hand Trash Man picked up a full water glass and drained it. Rue looked down at the empty dessert plate and back up at the man with the outrageous beard, phenomenal body, and intimidating feral gaze. She threw a hand up to catch their server’s notice. “Two—” Trash Man inclined his head at her. “No, four more Buttery Pecan Dreams and more water,” she said.

“Gotta love a werewolf and their bottomless stomachs,” the plump server murmured while scribbling down their order.

Rue grinned. The shifters in the room could relate to the comment. The humans would probably think the server had made a joke about Trash Man’s wolfish appearance.

The werewolf in question leaned back against the vinyl seat, looking pleased. Rue paused to study him. She didn’t need to look at her reflection in the window to know her cheek had started to twitch because of him. This guy absolutely fascinated her. She’d never met any one so expressive. Although wild nearly black hair covered half his face, she knew exactly what he meant to say without words. His expressions were so precise; every emotion seemed to have a corresponding facial gesture.

In the minutes she’d known him, he’d shown ferocity, derision, hunger, wit, disgust, humor, gratitude, and a variety of smiles indicating everything from teasing to arrogance to straight up humor. Trash Man didn’t have to speak. He knew how to make himself clear through silence.

Suddenly, Rue really needed to know if he had the ability to speak and, if so, what his voice sounded like.

“Are you mute?” she asked.

Rather than nod or shake his head, Trash Man lowered his chin and looked up at her through the thick fringe of his lashes. His heavy although gorgeous brow rippled in an S shape as if to say, “what do you think?”

“I don’t know,” she answered the unspoken question. “Look, I’ve been calling you Trash Man in my head and that’s just rude.”

They gazed at each other. Rue broke eye contact first. That funny fluttering low in her belly had sparked and she didn’t know how to handle it. Her friends, if she had any, would say the only thing she ever said about guys was “he doesn’t do anything for me.” Her one and only ex-boyfriend had broken up with her by telling her he felt like a means to an end, like she was using him to get somewhere. David must’ve been right because when he’d left, Rue had done her laundry and played
Words with Friends
with strangers for the rest of the night. She really hadn’t been bothered.

Refocusing on the conversation at hand and away from the fluttering in her belly, Rue asked, “What’s your name, sweetie?”

Trash Man chuffed out a breath accompanied by sparkling amber eyes. Rue easily recognized the combination as a chuckle. He’d done the wordless communication thing again. This time with the barest hint of sound.

His lips parted and a rumbling squeak came out. It shocked the hell out of both of them. Trash Man’s eyes widened and his gaze shot left and right to make sure no one else had heard the embarrassing noise. Assured his shame had been contained by their booth, he tried again. A hoarse wheeze blended with the squeakiness that happened to teenaged boys ejected from his throat. Actually, Trash Man had too much baritone in his tone to be accused of squeaking, but no matter what Rue labeled the sounds he made, they weren’t intelligible.

“It’s been a while, huh?” she asked.

He lifted a brow and had the grace to smirk at himself in good humor.

“Don’t rush it,” she said, pushing another glass of water to him. His cinnamon rolls and more water arrived. Rue thanked the server and ordered hot tea with honey. By the time she looked back at Trash Man he’d nearly demolished the buns. She didn’t bother hiding her amazement. Feeling her stare on him, Trash Man glanced up at her.

Rue deadpanned. “Now we know where the expression ‘wolfing down your food’ comes from.” The teasing jibe warmed her face and she quickly swallowed a grin.

The skin around Trash Man’s eyes crinkled in another eye smile. Rue returned the smile, and without warning, the wolf’s eyes flickered from amber to blue. Holy freak, that blue. She’d only seen that shade in one other place.

Her gaze dropped to Ian Somers’s picture on her laptop, then back up to the homeless man, then back down to the vineyard heir. Ian Somers and Trash Man couldn’t be more different. One had lived a charmed life with all the luxuries money and family had to offer. The other had clearly subsisted on the bare minimums. One sported the full cheeks of wealth and privilege. The other wore the stark cheekbones of disillusionment and loneliness. But Rue couldn’t deny what anyone could see. Although the men behind them were opposites, the eyes were oddly similar.

“It’s freaky,” she said. “But you have the same eyes as a vineyard heir named Ian Somers.”

Trash Man jerked back and shook his head, as though he’d misheard her. Rue just stared at him. Her mouth must’ve fallen open because she could feel the cold blast of the air conditioning hit the back of her throat. She might’ve said more but with only a shuddering noise to warn them, all the lights in the city shutoff, dropping them into total darkness.

Chapter Three

Ian had never appreciated a blackout so much. How the hell did a cat shifter in Muuyaw, Arizona, recognize him by his eyes alone? He paused and his sense of humor kicked in.
Muuyaw
sounded like a nod to the huge cat population in the city. Instead, it was the Hopi word for moon. The Hopi nation couldn’t have come up with a better pun for cat shifters, even if they’d done it on purpose—moon and meow all rolled into one word. Ian nearly chuckled through the shock that this woman had recognized him when no one else had in two years. “Meow, Arizona,” the home of the most enticing kitty he’d ever met.

Then the lights went out and the diner dropped into complete darkness.

The kitty yelped. The dim glow of her laptop skidded sideways as she rushed to grab his hands. The other patrons erupted in concerned sounds and questions about what they should do, but the noise didn’t drown out kitty’s heartbeat. The rhythm of it blurred into a frantic whoosh inside his
wolfen
hearing. For some reason the dark scared the hell out of her. Ian forgot about nearly being recognized and grabbed her shaking hands, enveloping them both in the warmth of his larger ones.

He still had trouble forming words after being in wolfen form for so long. Rather than try to speak, he gently pulled kitty forward across the table and pressed her trembling fingertips to his chest. He hoped feeling his steadiness would calm her. To make sure she understood him, he hummed in soothing tones that rumbled in his chest, and her pulse immediately slowed.

As if on cue Cinna Mum’s generator kicked on. The faint illumination of the backup lights filled the room and the pretty kitty relaxed. She looked lovely as the tension eased out of her body, which riled his wolf. He wasn’t supposed to notice when women looked lovely anymore. But he couldn’t help it with her; every move she made was lovely. Whether frantically trying to impress her icy father, teasing Ian about demolishing cinnamon buns, or even when she tried to hide her fear.

Through each of these emotional states the rich reddish brown of her skin shimmered in the light. The glow of her skin complimented the amber-ale hue of her eyes. Not to mention the glorious abundance of tiny tawny curls framing her face and falling to trace the curve of her neck. Her beauty sparkled in a wealth of browns, as if he’d found a priceless topaz in the middle of Arizona. Ian hated clichés but the term desert jewel sprang to mind and it suited her.

His wolf rose closer to the surface, agitated by the direction of his thoughts. Ian could feel the amber burning behind his eyes. He’d been suckered into this kind of attraction before and, in the end, that one-sided love had burned him. Ian refused to go back to that kind of intense attraction. It led only to hurt. He wouldn’t allow himself to be made a fool of again.

Tense from exerting his will over his wolf, the animal that perpetually prowled below his surface, Ian decided to focus on other things. He guessed from having seen Kitty’s Arabic father, and from looking at her, that her mother was black. Also, based on Kitty’s use of the word “
Mãe
” he’d bet her mother hailed from Brazil.

He must’ve stared at her too long because Kitty gently tugged, reminding him he still held her hands clasped within his. Looking down at their entwined fingers, Ian noticed how his mostly European and Nordic heritage contrasted beautifully with her Arabic and Brazilian ancestry. Suddenly he felt relieved she’d pulled away.

He’d always had a thing for brown skin. No matter how dark or light, women of color reeled him in. One in particular had broken his heart and left him jilted at the altar. The wolf inside him growled at the memory and Ian had to curl his fingers into fists to hide his swiftly growing claws. Yet somehow the pain that claimed him whenever he thought about his former fiancée didn’t wash away Kitty’s warmth. Instead, the sensation of her touch spread across his chest, penetrating deep inside the hurt. It shook him out of the trance she’d lulled him into and the warm strum of her presence stunned him. Unsure of what to do next, he let her go.

Looking for a reason to walk out of the diner and go back to being a wolf alone, he pulled her laptop in front of him and typed:
Are you all right? I mean, before and now?

With one hand he spun the screen in her direction. She read the words and nodded. “I’m okay. I’m used to my father. And I don’t like the pitch dark. It’s strange for a nocturnal cat, I know, but it’s true.”

This time he typed:
Want me to walk you home?

Once she read his message she leaned back. “Sorry, dude, you’re a wonderful hero and everything.” She paused. “Thanks twice, by the way, but I don’t know you and your eyes are burning solid amber.”

Spinning the laptop his way, his unamused gaze never left hers as he typed:
Seriously, sweetheart? Because at this point I could track your scent to anywhere you run and my eyes have been amber for two years straight. That’s not going to change.

Ian watched a variety of thoughts cross her mind as she read his words. Finally her lips rounded into a soft O. Ian couldn’t guess the reason for that last expression. He hadn’t lied. He’d lived as wolf since his failed wedding day. And he truly could follow her cinnamon honey scent with its accents of nuttiness anywhere. She smelled absolutely delectable. The wolf snapped sharp teeth in his mind.
“Easy,”
he told his animal.
“I’m not doing anything here but puzzling through things.”

Did she smell this enticing to all shifters? If her scent had this effect on everyone, Ian wondered how other males managed to keep from devouring her. If he hadn’t taken a vow of celibacy, he would pull her into his lap and bury his face in her neck. He wanted that scent all over him. Hell, he’d bet the nutty undertone he smelled extended to her personality and he was a sucker for a touch of zaniness too.

Of course, he wasn’t about to break his vow of abstinence. Women screwed with the mind. In his case, he made dumb decisions while under the influence of a woman. His wolf snuffled in agreement. They’d made their mistakes together. Bad choices like following a woman around for twenty years even though she’d made it clear she didn’t love you, despite agreeing to marry you while on the rebound from another shifter, a wolf she married while making a fool out of you in front of your entire pack. That kind of woman.

The entire memory sounded horrifically stupid in Ian’s head. Even while thinking about it in second person POV. So, he definitely wasn’t contemplating kissing Kitty’s generous mouth; he simply recognized beauty when he saw it. He’d have to be a jackass if he couldn’t appreciate art, no matter which vows he’d taken.

Kitty reached out and patted his furry cheek. Her rueful little headshake implied she agreed with the jackass label he’d given himself. He really hoped she couldn’t read minds. He’d heard about shifters who could and he didn’t want anyone inside the not-so-amusement park in his head.

“We’re not talking running, wolfie. I do not run,” Kitty said. “We’re talking an intelligent woman protecting herself from a weird dumpster diver dude.”

Too late.

Ian didn’t type those words. Therefore she had no idea she’d gone well past the point of protecting herself from him. He’d just thought it…and kept thinking it. Shaking himself out of that dangerous mindset, Ian reclaimed the laptop and typed:
Drink the wine.

He showed her the message then pushed the glass filled with an astonishingly bad mishmash of grape varieties her way. At this point alcohol was alcohol and it would calm her. She took the glass and drank it in one smooth swallow. Ian lifted both eyebrows in appreciation. Kitty wiped her soft full lips with the back of one hand and shrugged. Then her eyes rounded.

“My Latour 1990,” she screamed. “That jerk is going to go for my stash while my alarms are off.”

Ian didn’t get a second to wonder about her knowledge of Chateau Latour wine. She followed up her first exclamation with a second one, “Uh, and my 1993 Somerfield Reserve.”

Wait a damn minute. How did this kitty from the desert acquire a bottle from his vineyard that he desperately wanted but didn’t have in his personal collection? And he
was
Somerfield Vineyards. Stunned into silence, Ian lost the opportunity to ask her.

Kitty yanked a huge orange handbag from under the table.
Wow, Mary Poppins would be impressed.
She shoved the bag up her arm to rest in the crook of her elbow. Next she snatched her laptop off the table, and left the diner so fast he thought she’d teleported.

And of course he followed her. It took Ian five, more accurately, three minutes to make the decision. Then, with a growl of frustration, he followed Kitty’s cinnamon honey scent. Her cat was fast. His wolf moved much faster.

But Ian didn’t need his shifter senses to guide him to her. She shone like a bright beacon in the darkness…mostly because she was running with a flashlight app on high. Ian couldn’t believe it. Despite being scared of the dark, she still had the guts to hightail it through the streets during a blackout.
Her only crutch?
Her phone flashlight turned all the way up to what had to be a cave diving setting it was so bright. That couldn’t be good for the battery.

Ian didn’t doubt her fear. The pounding of her heart proved she hadn’t faked being scared. And the jumpy sound made it difficult to tell whether losing her wine worried her more or if her fear of the dark had gotten the best of her. Perhaps both.

Not that he cared. He wasn’t trying to swoop in and save her from her father, or the dark, or from the complete loneliness that filled her eyes when she thought no one could see it. Just because Ian had the same hair and eye color as Superman didn’t mean he had a hero complex. No. Following this pretty kitty home had more to do with that bottle of 1993 Somerfield Reserve she claimed to have. She shouldn’t have that particular bottle of wine. No one should. His father had only set aside five bottles and as far as Ian knew none remained.

His mother drank two bottles on the day his father suddenly keeled over and died while walking the aisles between plant rows. Pops had been forty-three when his aneurism burst and the vines he loved had cradled him in his last sleep. The doctors said Peter Somers died softly. Perhaps so, but he’d also died on his wife’s birthday and Cora hadn’t celebrated a single year since.

The city shuddered for a second time as the lights came back on. Kitty dashed into a two-story apartment complex. The boxy building had yellow stucco walls and white painted balconies that seemed welcoming enough but somehow didn’t match the woman he’d tailed from the diner all the way to her front door.

Ian hid himself in the shadows of an open stairwell as Kitty ran upstairs. Leaning back against the wall, he rolled his shoulders in an attempt to shake off seventeen years of missing his father as much as his mother did. He didn’t complain. That wasn’t his way. He’d had nineteen full years with Pops and they’d been good. His father had taught him to hunt and to stalk, to care for the vines, to lead the pack with wisdom, compassion, and an iron claw, and to love with everything in him.

A crunching noise broke his train of thought. Ian looked down to find a small pile of crushed yellow stucco near his foot. A dull ache throbbed across his knuckles. It took him a moment to realize he’d punched the wall. His fist still rested in the indentation he’d made. Damn it. He’d lost something important. Although he’d held on to most of the things his father taught him he’d lost the one that mattered most: loving with everything in him. But a love like that had flayed him alive and abandoned him at the altar two years ago. Beyond his absolute care for pack and family, Ian had no love left.

Shaking his fist free from the wall, he examined his knuckles for damage. The few cuts were already healing. More troubling, the wolf lingered just beneath the surface of his skin. The entirety of the last two years—since he’d left his vineyard, his pack, and his beloved family behind—had been wolf years.

The wolf had roamed from the mountains of North Carolina, through the lushness of Mississippi forests, and into the center of the three state nexus called Texarkana. He’d run with true wolves in New Mexico and they’d called him brother, yet something drew him to Arizona and a lively city called Muuyaw.

The animal lived as a wild thing. Simply, undeniably true to their wolfen nature. The wolf didn’t worry about rejection or broken hearts. That’s why Ian had given his animal complete control, because he’d needed that kind of freedom, the choice of being wolf and living wild.

Truth be told, his wolf had wanted to mate Lennox Averdeen as much as Ian. At least the wolf had, as in past tense. They’d never met a more alpha female than the lovely Averdeen with her caramel curls and kick-life-in-the-shins attitude. Although Lennox wasn’t a wolf or even a shifter, the wolf gave her a nickname. He’d called their former fiancée “Queen Bitch,” and the wolf meant it with complete and utter awe. For an alpha male finding an alpha bitch to run with, to warm his den, and raise cubs with him was everything. Bitch was not a pejorative among wolfen shifters. It referred to the best of the best she-wolves.

Yet despite wanting Lennox as their mate, the wolf had shaken off losing their chosen female far more quickly than Ian had. The wolf had stopped thinking about her three months after they’d left home. He’d said they’d find a better match, a superior mate. And he’d meant it.

Ian sniffed the wind and that cinnamon honey scent cajoled him to follow. He exhaled hard and fell back against the wall. He hadn’t allowed himself to think about the implications of following this woman home through the darkness until right now.

What the hell am I thinking?

Frustration took over. He rubbed his brow then roughly finger-combed his hair off his face.
How do I always end up in the role of stalker?

Back at home, in LuPines, his friends constantly teased him about his love for tracking. He had an incredible nose and since he’d learned to crawl he’d tracked people and things that caught his interest for fun. Hell, that sounded creepy even to him. But it wasn’t. He’d been curious about everything and everyone and he liked to protect the people he cared about. Of course, it was curiosity, not care, that made him stalk Kitty. Correction, curiosity made him
follow
Kitty. Follow was the key word. He had questions. He needed answers. Like how she knew about Ian Somers? How she’d gotten such an important bottle of wine?
And is she okay?