Moves Like Jagger (Wolf Mates Book 4) (8 page)

And then, while light snowflakes swirled around them, as the wind whistled and Nat King Cole sang “White Christmas”, their cold hands clasped at their thighs, Jagger kissed her.

Light at first, but still commanding, his lips met hers, testing them, fitting them to his mouth.

Viv sighed into him when his tongue touched hers for the very first time, the silken rasp making their entwined hands tighten. Fire shot to the pit of her belly, her toes curling inside her boots when his arms enveloped her, pulling her close.

Her arms slid up along Jagger’s, over his thick biceps covered in a puffy jacket, along the caps of his shoulders and eventually winding around his neck to curl her fingers into his hair.

Their groans mingled, the cold air suddenly not so cold.

Jagger’s hands swept over her spine as his arms pulled her closer, lifting her off her feet while he kissed her like she’d never been kissed before.

Her toes curled even tighter in her boots, her breathing grew harsh while she clung to him, absorbing his hard length and the rigid line in his jeans pressing against her.

Mouths clashed, more needy now, their kiss deepening, and her hunger grew, tightening like a coil waiting to spring. If Jagger had stripped her bare right outside the cottage in the freezing temperatures, she’d have been willing to succumb. The kiss was that good.

In the far off distance, she heard a ringing, or tinkling, or some jarring sound that had the nerve to interrupt this amazing, glorious kiss.

“That’s my damn phone,” he said against her mouth, nipping at her lips as he let her body slide down against his until her feet were on the ground.

Viv groaned her crushing disappointment. “Is it the ringtone for an emergency?”

He dropped a kiss on her nose, now getting cold, before letting her go. “’Fraid so. For right now, I am the only vet in town.”

Viv’s shoulders slumped and he gripped her hand in apology as she slipped past him. “I’ll go check the sauce. C’mon in when you’re done.”

With great reluctance, she made her way inside, the smell of spaghetti sauce rich and delicious with garlic reaching her nose, making her stomach grumble.

Scar roused, removing himself with great care from the pile of sleeping cats to come sit at her feet, his droopy eyes assessing her. Viv smiled down at him. “I see you survived the cat-pocalypse, huh, buddy? You’re the best dog ever, you know that, right?”

Scar rumbled his answer before flopping down on the small slice of rug in front of the sink as though he’d just done a triathlon.

Jagger stuck his head inside the door, his eyes grim from beneath the rim of his red knit hat. “We’ve got an emergency. Max just called. You in?”

Her stomach jumped with a nervous jolt as she turned the sauce off. “Always. You think Scar will be okay here with the boys?”

“Scar would be okay with Satan. C’mon, we have to hurry.”

Reaching down, Viv gave Scar a quick scratch on the ears before rushing out the door behind Jagger.

As she climbed into the van, she prayed no more animals had been injured.

* * * *

Max paced the floor of the woods, his booted feet kicking up the freshly fallen snow. “Who the hell is doing this and why? And why can’t I get a scent from this?” he asked Jagger, his eyes flashing with anger.

Viv jammed her hands inside her jacket, trying not to look in the direction of the pile of mutilated rabbits as Jagger finished looking over the lone bunny who’d miraculously survived.

They’d arrived to find Max and his brother Derrick waiting for them on the outskirts of Derrick’s property to avoid alerting Hector. They’d taken them deep into the woods where the rabbits were killed.

To their surprise, one rabbit, buried under a lump of fellow dead rabbits, had moved, squeaking weakly. Jagger and Viv had fallen to their knees and begun pinpointing the squeaks until they found him.

He was now tucked inside Jagger’s jacket, snuggled with a heat pack he’d brought for her hands, mostly shaken up more than anything else.

“Hector’s going to freak if he sees this,” Derrick commented, his strong jaw rigid under the half moon. “I need to bury them before he comes out here again. I’m going to go get a shovel.” As he passed her, he squeezed her shoulder. “Good seeing you, Viv. Martine said if you need a hand shifting, give her a call. She’s happy to help.”

Viv nodded, her throat tight. “I’ll do that. Thank her for me, would you?”

“Were these part of Hector’s crew?” Jagger asked.

Max sighed. “No. Thank Christ. He’s going to be upset enough as it is.”

Jagger planted his hands on his hips. “I don’t get why I’m not getting a distinct scent, either.”

Max rolled his shoulders before crossing his arms over his big chest. “Something has to be done. Maybe we patrol the woods at night? I don’t know, but I won’t have this, and when I catch the son of a bitch, I’m going to kill him myself.” He hissed the words, his face a mask of anger.

Max was usually pretty easygoing, a fair pack leader according to anyone who knew him, but he wasn’t afraid to dole out a harsh punishment if the crime warranted one. To see him this angry only made Viv that much more aware of how lucky she was to live in a place where her shifting was protected.

“It’s pretty clear these bodies are fairly fresh. So whomever or whatever is responsible has some appetite. No one heard anything or saw anything?”

Max shook his head. “Not a damn thing. JC and I were decorating the tree, and before I say this, I love my wife, and yes, I’m a werewolf with keen hearing. But no one can hear anything over JC’s screeching…er,
singing
. And my parents are still in the honeymoon phase of their reunion, if that can get any more embarrassing to admit. So they were
busy
.”

Max’s parents, Faith and Brock, had been apart for several years due to a curse and Brock’s imprisonment. Viv hadn’t asked JC the details so as not to pry, but Brock Adams’s homecoming had been a huge celebration, followed by them reaffirming their vows.

Jagger snickered as he cupped the bunny to his chest, its small skull looking rather like the size of the head of a pin compared to his hand. “I get it. I have parents who’re still crazy about each other, too.”

“Derrick and Martine were at the bar, but if anyone else heard anything, they haven’t come forward.”

“Okay, so let’s look around. Maybe we can spot tracks or something. I know the snow is fresh, but with these thick trees, maybe whatever kind of animal this is wandered under one of them and left us some kind of hint.”

As the men poked around the area, shaking their heads, Viv shivered.

There was a slight rustling sound coming from her left, where a thatch of bare limbs on some bushes crackled. Her eyes were sharp in the dark, almost sharper than they were during the day, and she caught a glimpse of a rabbit, hobbling.

Probably another victim of the monster who’d eaten them like they were weenies in a blanket.

Without thought, she left the men to investigate and kept her eyes on the injured animal. “C’mere, little guy!” she whispered into the night. “I won’t hurt you.”

She’d been told that, in her animal form, she could learn to communicate with other non-shifter animals, but she had a hard enough time getting her shifts right at this point. There was no sense in attempting a shift in the middle of this mess.

The rabbit made a break for an area of large rocks, dark and clustered, and she did, too, running after it as fast as she could in the deep snow.

“Dude! I’m trying to help you here! I’m your personal 911!”

But the rabbit turned deaf ears on her plea, ducking into the thick of the rocks.

Perfect.

Stopping for a moment to catch her breath, she narrowed her eyes and got a good glimpse between the boulder-size rocks.

Was that a cave? Kind of cool if not for the fact that it was twenty degrees and as cold as Antarctica. Maybe on one of her test runs out here in the woods, she’d check it out.

But then it dawned on her—where did a rabbit go to hide?

A cave was as close to a hole as you got, and considering the bushes were barren, it made sense. She began making her way over the rough terrain, her ankles turning inward awkwardly.

The rustling noise met her ears again, soft and steady.

“Listen, you ingrate, I’m trying to save you from a vicious serial bunny killer here. Do you want to end up like the rest of your family and friends? Did you see that pile of bodies? It wasn’t pretty, pal. Now stay put,” she ordered as though the rabbit understood her.

There were a bunch of very large rocks surrounding the opening of the cave with very little space between them as though someone had tried to block it off. She’d have to either squeeze between or climb over them to get to the cave’s entrance. After the lunch she’d had with Jagger today, she was likely going to have to haul her ass up and over.

Her sigh grated from her cold lips as she planted a foot on a craggy edge of the granite surface, hoping to get a foothold. “When I get my hands on you, we’re due a conversation about stranger danger and how it applies to someone who’s just trying to save you.”

Grunting, she managed to haul herself over the rock, slipping on the way down and ripping her only pair of good jeans. “And you owe me some jeans,” she muttered before dropping down in front of the cave’s opening.

Her eyes honed in on the dark interior of the cave…and what she saw made her cock her head.

A nest of twigs sat in the middle of it, along with a few empty beer cans scattered about and a Moonpie wrapper. Maybe the kids in town came out here to drink and party?

Also in the middle of the twigs was the rabbit, spots of dried blood visible on his back leg.

Thrusting her boots into the snow, she lifted her legs high and dropped her feet downward as she made her way to the cave. “Do not move, mister!” she warned—just before she heard a low, deep growl.

Okay, so, note to self:
When animal attacks abound, don’t go off alone in the woods, moron.

She could just scream. When an animal needed help, she forgot everything—lost track of time—almost to her detriment.

The growl sounded again, just low enough to make her stiffen, yet try to crane her neck in order to see what she was up against.

Not that it would matter—she was a cat, for the love of a kitty condo. While certainly she could do some damage with her sharp claws and teeth, the growl didn’t sound like she’d make a drop in the bucket’s difference if she shifted.

The moon had begun to change position, shining at that very moment on the cave, revealing a dark shadow on the face of the rocks.

The presence of something very big, something very angry, maybe even very hungry, was right at her doorstep.

But the hell she was going to have her flesh ripped from her skin before she saw who the perp was.

So she turned around—probably foolishly if she survived to weigh in on hindsight, but she did it anyway, her mouth freezing in an “O”.

“Aw, hell,” she murmured before she was able to stop herself.

A bear. She was face to face with a bear.

Who assessed her like she was a Christmas goose.

Why had she moved to Cedar Glen? Hoboken was perfectly fine. She’d loved Hoboken.

Hoboken didn’t have motherfluffin’ bears!

That was her last thought before the bear—the immense, snarly, irate bear—lunged for her with a roar.

Chapter 7

A
s the brown bear arced upward, Viv had to give the beast props for being getting so much air. It was pretty damn big to leap so high.

The mere blip of seconds before it landed on her gave her time to ponder turning and running. But in her human form, there was no way she’d outrun a bear in snow this deep.

A bear.

There was a bear preparing to eat her!

It floated up in front of her in slow-mo as though it had wings, its paws complete with thick, sharp claws, its mouth sporting plenty of teeth to handle even the toughest of human flesh.

It was graceful and beautiful, almost balletic as it rose upward, roaring and drooling while its claws swiped.

Almost out of nowhere, another blur of gargantuan sound and noise cut the graceful bear off, knocking it to the ground and howling its discontent with a screech so piercing, Viv’s ears twitched.

And then it was over and the first bear was tearing ass out of the cluster of rocks and Jagger was standing in front of her.

Naked.

She knew it was him. She smelled his cologne. She knew it well because she’d sniffed him a thousand times since this afternoon.

Her eyes traveled upward, for somehow in her frozen-on-the-spot-in-abject-fear, take-charge-of-her-death attitude, she’d fallen on her ass. As she let her gaze move up along his thick thighs, covered in dark sprinkles of hair, forced her eyes to move past the general groin area and upward to his chest, also rather pleasantly covered in hair—not too much, but just enough to curl her fingers into—her eyes widened.

He held out his hand to her, pulling her upward until she was safely within the confines of his arms. “Jesus, Viv! Are you okay?”

“You’re a bear.” She offered her wisdom woodenly.

“I am, and so was the shifter who tried to attack you,” he responded, running his hands over her face.

“You’re a
bear
.”

Jagger looked down at her, his head tilted, his eyes amused. “You didn’t know?”

She clapped her hands on his broad shoulders. “Of course I didn’t know! I thought you were a werewolf just like everyone else.”

“I kind of just assumed everyone knew or that JC probably told you. I would have told you if I’d thought you didn’t know.”

She needed a minute to process this.

“Bet you’re wondering about the hibernation thing, aren’t you?” he asked on a chuckle.

She was wondering a lot of things. Viv hitched a thumb over her shoulder. “This is
your
cave?”

“Yep. I like to call it Early Neanderthal: A Still Life.”

“Or Early High School: Clan of The Teenager.”