The Wolf's Mate Book 6: Logan & Jenna (12 page)

His teeth nipped at her neck
and she shivered.  “Don’t walk away from me in the woods like that again,
Jenna.  I thought we had an understanding about you disappearing on me.”

She wasn’t feeling
particularly repentant.  “If you’re going to do this every time I wander off, I
have to say that’s not much of a deterrent.”

His head shot up and he
glared at her for a long moment before he started to laugh.  “I suppose not.” 
He moved them away from the wall and to the bed, where he laid her down and
shucked his clothes.  “Just promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Are you hungry?” he asked,
joining her on the bed.

“Not really.  Are you?”

“I could eat.”

She grinned and pointed to
her pussy.  “Good idea.  Why don’t you put your face here for about an hour?”

He barked out a laugh,
sliding down her body.  “Whatever my baby wants.”

* * * * *

Logan led her into the front
door of his alphas’ home.  Jason and Cadence were in the kitchen, and Logan
introduced Jenna to them.  Jason wasn’t as tall or muscular as Logan, but he
had an air of authority about him and she could see why he was alpha.  His
mate, Cades, was beautiful, with dark hair and green eyes.  They greeted Jenna
warmly.

Their home was packed.  Males
and females milled around the kitchen and family room, spilling out onto the
porch and large backyard.  Jason excused himself and went out the back door.  Logan
was speaking to Cades about the young wolves who had helped with the clearing. 
Jenna’s thoughts were suddenly consumed with the heady scent of red meat. 
Almost without realizing it, she walked away from Logan, through the kitchen,
and out onto the back porch, where Jason now manned four grills.

Logan snagged her hand with
an annoyed sound.  She licked her lips as she watched Jason turn over several
steaks with tongs.

“You guys hungry?  There’s
tons of food inside, too.”  Jason said, picking up a plate.  “How rare do you
want it, Jenna?”

“Really rare,” she said.

Jason lifted a steak and placed
it on the plate, handing it to her.  Logan led her back into the house and sat
down on the couch in the family room, pulling her into his lap.  He handed her
a fork and knife, but she ignored them, picking the hot steak up in her fingers
and taking a bite.

“Oh, yum,” she said with a
satisfied groan.

“Hey, guys,” a tall, dark-skinned
man said, coming into the room.

Logan said, “Jenna, this is
my friend Teller.  Teller, this is my mate, Jenna.”

Teller greeted Jenna.  She
said hello absently, taking another bite of steak.  As she chewed, she cast her
eyes up at the tall man warily. 
Is he going to steal my food?
  Frowning
at the sudden strange thought, she shook it away and concentrated on the steak
while Logan and Teller talked about locating Jasper.

“I have her gown from the
hospital.  It’s sealed up in a bag with the iron shackles they used, too.  Come
by tomorrow and I’ll give them to you.”

“Sounds good,” Teller said. 
“Shouldn’t be too hard to find them from the stuff that you have.”

“I appreciate your help.”

Teller nodded.  “It’s what I
do.”

Jenna was frustrated.  The
steak was far too cooked for her liking.  She had specifically said rare, and
this was practically well-done.  Climbing from Logan’s lap, she stormed through
the house.

Jason looked surprised when
she tossed the steak into the nearby trash can and asked for another one.

“I said rare, and that was
way too done.”

Jason gave her a strange
look, and she tensed.  She had the weirdest feeling that he was sizing her up. 
She felt Logan come behind her and settle his hand on her shoulder.  Feeling
claustrophobic, she shook it off.

Even though he looked over
her head at Logan, Jason turned the handle of the tongs over to her and
gestured towards the grills.  Selecting an uncooked thick steak from a tray,
she placed it on an empty section of one grill.  She was aware that silence had
settled on the deck around them, but she didn’t care.  She was starving and the
only thing she could think about was having a delicious, juicy steak, not the
dried-out piece of shoe-leather that Jason had tried to pass off to her.  Alpha
indeed!  He needed his eyes checked.

Satisfied with the steak, she
pulled it from the grill and set it on a clean plate, leaving the tongs hanging
from a handle on one grill and storming into the kitchen.  Her thoughts tumbled
quickly in her mind, feeling foreign but also right.

Eat.  Eat quickly before someone
steals it.  Guard it.  Watch your back.

She pressed her back into a
corner of the kitchen so she could make sure that no one snuck up on her and
stole her food.  After assuring herself that no one had designs on her meal,
she took a bite of steak.  Hot juice splashed on her tongue as she chewed on
the delectable chunk, swallowing and snatching another piece between her
teeth.  She’d never tasted anything so perfect in her life.

A snarl escaped her lips when
a shadow passed over her.  She pressed tighter into the corner.

“Jenna?  What’s going on?”  Logan
asked.

“I wanted a rare steak.”  She
put the steak on the plate and scowled at him.

Logan moved closer and
lowered his voice.  “Okay, but that’s no reason to be rude to my alpha in front
of the entire pack.  You embarrassed me, Jenna.  I would never act like that in
front of your family.”

A small part of her
understood that her actions had been wrong, but the larger part of her was
snarling in hunger, and she could only repeat herself.

“I said rare, Logan.  Rare! 
See? 
This
is what I wanted.”

“Jenna, that’s not rare, it’s
raw!”  Logan’s shocked voice made Jenna look at the plate again.  Her fingers
moved through the juice on the plate, which was very red.  Blood red. 
Delicious
,
something whispered inside her.  Her stomach heaved at the thought of consuming
raw meat, and she dropped the plate, slapped her hand over her mouth, and raced
for the bathroom.

Kneeling in from of the
toilet, she threw up, crying out at the intensity of it.  Someone gathered her
hair away from her face while she choked and vomited, and she knew it was
Logan, offering comfort even though he had to think she was nuts.  She knew now
that the steak had been raw, and even though it had tasted delicious to her,
her mind couldn’t get over the rawness of it.  She shouldn’t want to eat raw
steak, that wasn’t normal.

A cool, wet cloth wiped
across her mouth when she was finished being sick, and she flushed the toilet,
leaning back against the wall with a soft sob.  Her stomach hurt, her throat
burned, and shame filled her.

“Logan, what’s wrong with
me?”  She started to shiver uncontrollably.

“I don’t know, baby.  Do you
want me to take you home?”

She shook her head.  “You
need to shift and hunt, and we’re supposed to announce our mating.”

“The only thing that matters
to me is you.  If you’re not feeling right, then I’ll take you home.  I can
shift and run around in the backyard and you can rest.  It’s fine, I swear.”

Get a hold of yourself,
Jenna!

She pushed up from the floor
and stood with trembling knees, leaning against the counter.  Looking into the
mirror, she took in a quick breath, sure that she’d seen her silver eyes turn
amber for a brief moment.  Shaking her head, she turned on the faucet and splashed
cold water on her face, rinsing out her mouth.  Logan opened a medicine cabinet
and handed her a bottle of mouthwash, which she used until her mouth felt
clean.

When she’d turned off the
water and dried her face and hands, she felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow
settle on her, and she threw herself into Logan’s arms and hugged him tight.

“I’m so sorry, Logan.  I
don’t know what’s the matter with me.  I’ll apologize to Jason and whoever else
you want me to.”  She chewed on her lip, her hands fisting in the back of his
shirt.  “I feel like my brain’s been taken over by someone else.  You know I
actually thought that Teller might steal my steak?  How crazy is that?”

Logan, who had been rocking her
back and forth gently, went very still, and she looked up at him, noticing how
confused and worried he looked.  If Logan was worried, and he was a big, strong
wolf, then she should probably be worried, too.

“You must think I’m nuts.”

Fear hit her hard.  Would
Logan leave her?  Would the pack reject their mating because she’d clearly lost
her marbles?

No!
  She fought against the irrational emotions that were
rolling through her like the tide.  They were truemates, bonded together by
blood, and Logan wouldn’t abandon her, even if she was having some kind of
emotional meltdown.

“Of course I don’t, baby. 
But you have to talk to me.”  He pushed her away gently and cupped her face
with his large, warm hands.  “I’m right here, Jenna.  You can trust me.”

“I know I can,” she said,
gripping his wrists with her hands and holding on.  He felt like a lifeline,
like the only sane thing in her whole world.  “I can’t explain it, really.  I
just don’t feel like myself.”

“Then we’ll leave.  Nothing
about tonight changes what we are. You’re my truemate and I’m yours.  I’ll
shift at home and you can rest.  I don’t mind.  You have to let me take care of
you, Jenna.”

She worried her bottom lip
with her teeth.  He was so sincere.  No matter what other strange emotions she
was feeling, she knew without a doubt that Logan cared about her and would
never walk away from her.  She felt selfish for letting such strange emotions
cloud her thoughts and alter her behavior.  It was a special night, and she
didn’t want to let him down.

Forcing the emotions away,
she willed herself to calm down.  This was their mating night, and after he
went hunting with his pack, he would take her home and they would make love. 
She wanted this night to go on as planned.

Squaring her shoulders, she
wiped away any traces of the strange emotions from her face and plastered a
smile on her lips.

“I’m ready to be yours,
Logan.  I don’t want to go home yet.  I want you to hunt and then come back to
me and take me home.”

The frown on his face,
complete with drawn brows, told her that he didn’t really believe she was fine,
but she continued to smile, hoping he would believe her.  She would feel
terrible if he left with her now after she’d clearly caused a scene and embarrassed
him.

“It’s just a few hours, Logan.”
 She reached up and cupped his face, stroking her thumb across the bow of his
mouth.  “I’m fine now, I swear.”

Liar, liar.

His eyes narrowed, but she
remained smiling like an idiot, and after a few tense moments, he brushed his
lips against hers with a sigh.  “If you start to feel badly again, let me know
and I’ll take you home.  You’re the most important thing to me, Jenna, you have
to know that.”

“I do.”  She reached past him
and opened the bathroom door.

He led her out of the
bathroom and back into the kitchen, where only the top-ranked and their mates
remained.  A blush heated Jenna’s cheeks as she remembered her harsh words to
Jason.  If she could just figure out what was causing her to act so strangely.

The group looked at her, and
when she met their eyes she didn’t see recrimination or displeasure, only
concern.  These were good people and she’d acted like a bull in a china shop.

Clearing her throat, she
said, “I’m sorry for snapping at you, Jason, and for my behavior.  It was
inappropriate and disrespectful, and I have no excuse for it.”

“Apology accepted and
entirely forgiven, Jenna.  If you’re not feeling well, we can postpone the
announcement until the next full moon.”

“No, I’d like to do it
tonight.”  She looked up at Logan as he stood next to her, one arm around her
protectively.  He smiled at her, but his eyes were tight with worry.

“Okay.  Let’s head out, the
pack is waiting,” Jason said.

“Jenna,” Logan said, as the
group moved out of the kitchen and out on the porch.

Pressing her fingertip to his
lips she said, “I’m fine, Logan.  I want to be your mate tonight.”

“You already are.  This
announcement doesn’t change anything about us.  I can just take you home and we
can be alone.”

Irritation flashed through her,
but she tamped it down.  “Please,” was all she said and he shook his head with
a sigh and held open the back door.

The walk to the full moon
meeting place didn’t take more than a few minutes, as they followed the
well-worn path.  The pack surrounded the clearing where the bonfire burned
brightly.  It was laid with enough wood to last through the night.

Jason and Cades stepped over
a ring of rocks around the bonfire.  The pack grew quiet.  Jason motioned for
them to come forward; Logan took her hand and they walked to the edge of the
stones and then turned to face each other.  She knew that if she was also a
wolf, they would have a real bonding ceremony and she would be inducted into
the pack as a member.  But as she was a fairy, they were simply recognizing her
as Logan’s mate and an honorary member of the pack.