Mated for Keeps Boxed Set: a BBW Werewolf Shifter Romance (The Lost River Pack) (11 page)

Waiting.

For what? Natalie wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do, except maybe just…understand. And she did. As Damien leaned into Nico’s touch the way she hadn’t thought him capable, Natalie’s understanding changed subtly.

Victor brutalized with his strength.

Nico really was different. Smaller than Victor, wiry where Victor was muscle, but…

But maybe she wasn’t giving Nico Flores enough credit.

Natalie’s smile tipped into something crooked. A little apologetic. It was all the acknowledgement she could offer.

Across the study, Alek stirred on the floor, sitting up with a loud groan and a ripple of muscle at his taut abs. He stretched the way she had, long arms straining for the ceiling. But unlike her, there wasn’t an ounce of softness on his lean, whipcord frame. As his sky blue eyes cleared, they searched first for Damien—and when he found his brother in Nico’s care, flicked to her. The diamond intensity of his gaze softened. “Tell me I smell breakfast.”

“You smell breakfast,” Nico confirmed. “Meet us there?”

“Mm,” came Alek’s acknowledgement, muffled on a yawn.

“Come on, you two,” the alpha added, amusement tinging his tenor. He was barefoot again, the hem of his jeans folded over his feet. It rustled as he rose and led the way through the hall and into the open country kitchen.

As promised, the sturdy wooden table had been laid out with a feast for her starving senses. Waffles steamed in the bright morning light, syrup warmed in a pitcher filled the kitchen with its sugary sweet fragrance. Bacon piled high on a plate, and slices of ham. It was meat-heavy, as expected for a hungry werewolf pack, but beside it all were fruits, a pitcher of orange juice, and fresh coffee. Her stomach twisted to so hard, she reflexively flattened a hand over it. It didn’t help muffle the sound of its hungry growl.

“We don’t stand on ceremony around here,” Nico warned, eyes crinkled in amusement as he waved her forward. “Eat before the others steal it out from under you.”

Damien’s long tongue lapped at his chops as he loped past them both. She expected him to shift back into human, but to her surprise, he stopped by a chair and sat.

And stared.

At
her
.

Natalie swallowed a laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Damien’s yellow eyes flared. His body language said it all.

He wasn’t, and he was every bit as hungry as she was.

Nico’s chuckle filled the kitchen with warmth, with a tolerance that she wasn’t used to. As she claimed the chair beside Damien, the other man easily hooked the back of another and sank into a seat across the laden table. “He’s spoiled.”

“Apparently,” she snorted. Even so, she snagged a piece of bacon and held it out to the wolf.

Damien lapped it from her fingers. His warm tongue curled into her skin, dragged over her palm. Licked the taste of the bacon from her.

She shivered.

“Oh, man,” Alex said as he joined them. “Dema, don’t be lazy.” He’d shrugged into a long-sleeve shirt, covering up the glorious shape of his body under thin cotton, but she didn’t have to see it to remember what it had felt like under her hands. Against her breasts.

Her nipples tingled. Tightened.

So good. She felt amazing. Better than she had in a long time.

Damien chuffed in reply, ears flicking back at his brother.
Sucker.
She could all but see the taunt ripple between them.

Could feel the binds of love that tied them.

Nico dished food onto Natalie’s plate. More food than she’d expected him to give her. More than her mother would have let her have. “Eat,” he ordered. “As much as possible.”

Like night and day.

Natalie couldn’t stop her lips from pulling into a wry sort of grin. Even so, as Alek circled the table to sit on the other side of his brother—nudging the big wolf with a boot as he did—she obeyed.

And it was delicious. Buttery and sweet and tangy and everything she never imagined breakfast could be.

For a while, only the sound of eating—forks against plates, the crunch of bacon, the clatter of dishes and Damien’s snorting as he wolfed down whatever Natalie or his brother gave him—filled the open air. It was…

It was nice.

It was
cozy.

Natalie studied the men who sat on either side of her. Alek’s smile was easy enough when he caught her looking, but he wasn’t as quick to reach out as Damien was at her hip. Or as Nico was in ready affection. Of the two, given Damien’s early prickly wariness, Natalie had expected him to be less trusting than he was, but maybe that was the point.

Maybe Damien was
more
affectionate once the barriers had been breached. Maybe Alek was the more cautious—the more aware of his brother’s feelings. He seemed more relieved than anything, watchful and careful and concerned. Damien protected Alek at first, but then Alek protected him.

Natalie glanced at Nico, ducked her head when she realized he was watching
her
watch the others.

His smile, easy like Alek’s, still pulled at something deep inside her. Something not just wolf, but softer.

It would be easy, she thought, to attach herself to that smile. To wake up every day hungry for it.

But there was a trap in that smile. Misdirection. Natalie had spent her life among werewolves, she knew when she was being snowed. She set her fork down on her plate. The clink earned Damien’s attention. The wolf laid his head against her bare thigh.

Nico’s eyebrows rose. “Natalie?”

Alek looked up from his plate.

She frowned. “I don’t mean to be rude,” she began.

Damien’s hot breath whooshed out over her knee. A laugh, inasmuch as wolves could.

Nico’s silver eyes twinkled. “Go for it.”

Okay, fine. She did. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“What makes you think that?”

Alek’s fork stilled above his plate.

Natalie gestured at him. “That,” she pointed out. “I can feel the way Alek is braced just because I asked. And you’re being really nice, but you’re not grilling me like any other alpha of a pack would. Or even
should
.”

Nico popped a piece of bacon into his mouth. Paused to lick the grease from his thumb.

She couldn’t help but notice the way his tongue flicked over the broad tip of his finger. How his eyes held hers. No power in them.

Maybe some challenge?

Oh.
What was she
thinking
? She looked away fast, tearing her gaze away from his before she delivered any more offense.

Nico shot out a hand, caught her chin between thumb and forefinger and pulled her face back around. It was all so fast that she didn’t see it happen, didn’t know what he’d done until her gaze was snared by his. Held, and this time, a flicker of heat danced inside all that wolfish white and black.

The twins went still.

“Don’t do that,” Nico said, his voice the same pleasing tenor.

The same, but…different. Resonant somewhere in all that pleasantness.

“I’m not your last alpha, Natalie,” he continued softly. “We aren’t your last pack. You don’t have to be afraid of us.”

Her heart stuttered. Skipped a beat and sank into her stomach. “You know,” she said hoarsely, hoping she was wrong. Hoping they didn’t.

And in a perverse sort of way, hoping they did. That they’d want her anyway.

That she could stay.

She bit her lip.

Nico’s gaze flicked to the small movement. His thumb eased from her chin to press delicately against her lip, forcing her to free the flesh. His thumb was warm. His skin smelled like bacon and wolf and something too desperately close to
home.

Her wolf, nose engaged in food, shook under her skin.

“I know you’re Yellow Canyon,” Nico said, acknowledging her whisper. “We know you’re running, and we can guess why.”

Natalie jerked away from his hold. The chair legs screeched on the floor, clattered when she shot to her feet. Damien’s lips peeled back from his teeth, but he backed away from her—giving her space?

Her heart hurt.

“I’m sorry,” she began, but Alek’s coffee mug hit the table with a thump that rattled, cutting her off.

His tone was clipped. “Nico.”

The leader tipped his head. Whatever unspoken message passed between them, she couldn’t tell. Nico touched the table with gentle fingers. “It’s okay, Natalie. Sit. Eat. We’re not going to turn you over.”

She didn’t know if that was better or worse. “But that— I mean…” Her throat ached. Tears? Regret.

Nico lifted his eyebrows. “Answer one question.”

Her hands closed into fists at her side.

He took that for acquiescence. He leaned forward, eyes intent on hers—searched her face. Read her soul. She just knew it. “Do you want to stay in the Lost River Valley?”

Oh, God. A trap. This was a trap. If she said no, they’d let her go back. She knew they wouldn’t try to keep her if she didn’t want to stay. She could feel it.

But if she said yes, they’d be made a target.

They’d be killed over her.

For
her.

She couldn’t. She couldn’t live with that. Tears burned behind her lashes; she kept her eyes wide, her gaze steady so the tears wouldn’t fall. “No,” she rasped.

A short, sharp growl died on a whine as Alek reached down and scruffed his brother. “Liar,” he muttered to his coffee.

Nico’s mouth twitched. He leaned back in his chair, draping one elbow over the back. “Why?”

That surprised her. A why instead of recrimination? Instead of an argument?

She wasn’t ready for that. Couldn’t explain it. She hesitated, her balance caught between fleeing and facing the danger she read in the air between them all—danger, she realized, to her. Not physically, not as if they’d harm her. They wouldn’t. She knew that, trusted in that.

Trusted in them.

Her heart couldn’t handle what Victor and his pack would do to them.

But Nico looked her in the eye and asked why.

Why?

Natalie closed her eyes. It didn’t help. She could still
feel
the weight of his stare. The heat of it. The
pressure
.

Lying felt useless. He’d know.

She didn’t realize she was shaking until her knees gave out from under her. She fell back into the chair with a low, strangled sound. “I can’t,” she managed. Her resolve crumbled. Tears slipped down her cheeks. “I can’t stay here and watch Victor tear you all apart. He will. He’s…” Brutal. Unforgiving.
Cruel.
She didn’t have the words for it.

“A fuckhead of monumental proportion,” Alek supplied.

Natalie’s laugh strangled. “Oh, God.”

“We know.”

“No, you—” Natalie covered her face with trembling hands. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to go back, yes, but I don’t want to
leave.
”

Claws clicked against tile. A wet, warm nose nudged her knee. Glossy fur settled heavily against her leg. Damien, doing his best to comfort her. To let her know he was there.

It only made her cry harder.

Nico’s chair creaked. She heard his footsteps circle the table, was ready for the solid warmth of his hands as they cupped her shoulders. “Natalie.”

She shook her head.

“Natalie,” he said again, voice firming. The fringes of that pressure he carried within him unraveled around her. Slipped over her skin, more solid than Damien at her leg. Warmer—no, hotter. “Look at me.”

She didn’t dare disobey, not when that heat licked at his voice. Hardened his command to something weightier than steel.

She lowered her hands.

Nico knelt in front of her, just like he had the first day. Lower than her. Looking
up
at
her
. It wasn’t right.

But it…felt right. It felt like even though he held her as gently as he would glass, even though his head was below hers, he was the one in control. The one she could lean on.

The one who would carry her.

If she only trusted him.

His eyes promised that and more. “All you have to do is tell me that you want to stay.”

At her hip, Damien pressed harder.

Alek reached out and tweaked his brother’s tail. “Don’t push her, Dema.” The wolf’s hackles twitched. His weight eased.

Natalie’s breath shuddered out on a sad laugh. “I’m not mated to any of you. I can’t—”

“Stop.” Nico touched her cheek. Eased away a teardrop from the corner of her mouth. “We’re not the Yellow Canyon Pack. I am not Victor. Any wolf, male or female, who wants a home will be welcome here.”

“But that’s a—”

“If you say ‘waste of resources,’” Alek cut in, his voice suddenly thinned to savage, “there are going to be problems.”

“There are already problems,” Nico said, his voice pitched gently to counter Alek’s. “But let us put you at ease, baby girl. We’re not going to turn you out, mated or otherwise. We won’t send you back if you don’t want to go.”

Natalie stared down into his face, searched every rugged line for some hint that he was messing with her. Testing her.

His lips, a defined line of expressive humor, quirked. “Shall I try a different tactic? Stay with us,” he said before she could answer. “Let us be your family, Natalie.”

She held her breath.

Alek leaned forward, one hand buried in Damien’s thick fur. “Let us be a pack,” he said, voice rough.

His brother whined in quiet agreement.

A pack.
With her?

Very slowly, she reached out to cup Nico’s face in her palms. His skin was warm, smooth from the morning’s shave. He sucked in a breath, eyes dilating to thin rings of silver, but he held still for her. Let her ease her fingertips over his cheekbones. Slide her finger over his bottom lip.

Everything in her wanted to scream yes, but there was an order to these things. A method.

Her wolf wouldn’t commit to a territory where there was no mate for her.

“I want to,” she whispered. “But I…” Her finger halted at his lip. Shook. “I tried for years, Nico.
Years.
I stayed and I obeyed and I did everything I was asked, and none of them… I couldn’t—”

Nico’s teeth flashed. The nip at her fingertip startled her, a sliver of pain soothed by the wet glide of his tongue. The caress of his lips as he pressed a kiss to the small pain. “Most females learn to settle. The human side wins out when the wolf finally gives up. You’re strong, Natalie Baker. Stronger than you think. Your wolf wants to test us all, and she’s right to do it.”