This Weakness For You (Entangled Select Otherworld) (Taming the Pack) (29 page)

“I don’t think we should hold any more of these team-building weekends. They’re a little violent.”

“Okay, you keep your eyes closed,” he said as he took his hand away.

“Okay.”

A volley of gunfire erupted to the side. One of the poachers had survived. The gun was pulled from his back as he stood paralyzed with indecision. Dive back into the cabin to protect Christa or grab the gun himself? The kick from the gun pushed at Christa’s body as she shot behind his back. His gaze followed the trajectory of the bullet as it hit the poacher’s gun, knocking it from his hand as the poacher screamed. A trio of Lycans jumped on him to finish it, and Jordan reflexively faced Christa away from the vision before looking down at her.

His mate had her eyes squeezed shut as she slid the gun back into his waistband after thumbing on the safety.

“Did you just make that shot without looking?”

There was no way. It was behind his back while in motion. With her eyes closed, that was impossible. No one could make that shot. Especially not with their eyes closed.

Christa bit her lips before saying, “Of course I did. You know me, Jordan, I’m a lady, and I’m sure a lady never looks when she’s told not to.”

He grinned. “Yeah, but an Alpha looks and doesn’t apologize.”

One green eye peeped open. “Damn straight.”

Chapter Seventeen

She was glad most of the Alphas had at least rounded up some clothes, but there were still a whole lot of naked people wandering around as she stood near the cabin. It was like a nudist colony had gone to war.

Jordan was surveying the other side of the clearing from fifty feet away, but he turned to face her and gave her a long considering look.

She wasn’t sure whether to wave or what, but she kept up the staring contest they seemed to be having continuously.

Jordan put two fingers to his lips, and his piercing whistle made even the humans in the group wince. Climbing onto a nearby fallen log, Jordan said to the crowd who’d turned to face him, “For the first time in our history with these bastards, we’ve faced them and won. Every time they’ve come after packs, they’ve done it in the darkness and silence, and we’ve helped them by keeping it quiet and in the shadows. It’s very easy for us to rely on only ourselves. To think of ourselves as separate. To think only of our own pack. You all answered the call when it was made, and I thank you. We wouldn’t have won this without you…and what you were willing to give. And I honor you for fighting, and I honor you more for risking your lives, and I honor our dead for giving them.”

Her heart ached at that. She’d hoped that if there were enough of them, that no one would have to die, but maybe that had been hoping for too much, and it was over.

“And none of this would have happened if it was left up to me,” Jordan continued, and he turned to face her. “I would have kept this to ourselves, and many would have died. You’re here because my mate, the Alpha of the Glacier pack, could see beyond her pride and the limits of the pack and do what was right—not just for Glacier pack or Lycans, but for everyone. I owe her an apology for not recognizing her strengths when she offered her advice. She’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever met, and I don’t deserve her.”

Christa swallowed and bit her lower lip, and she was about to undo all this by bawling. Her heart was pounding and full. He’d said this, in front of everyone. He’d shown weakness…for her.

“Also, she throws one helluva party,” he shouted, smiling, and Lycans whistled and cheered.

Behind her, her father laughed.

“And she can outshoot you,” Garret called, cupping his hand around his mouth.

“Ignore him,” Jordan said, dropping off the log. “Those Hill boys are a bunch of loudmouthed idiots.”

The group dispersed as Jordan walked toward her and grabbed her in a hug, kissing her temple. “I love you, Christa Hansen soon-to-be-Hill.”

“I love you, too.” She tucked herself into his body and inhaled. This was the best day of her life. Even with all the naked strangers around her. At least Jordan wasn’t making her keep her eyes closed anymore. “You guys need to pack around a lot more clothes.”

He laughed and pulled her out of the clearing, away from the main site of the battle.

The other humans in the group drifted over to sit beside her on a fallen log on the opposite side of the cabin from the cleanup, as Jordan and the other Alphas discussed nearby how to handle a war zone that couldn’t look like a war zone.

Her dad kept looking around and shaking his head.

“Your whole world just got turned on its ass, didn’t it?” Dane asked their dad.

“Actually, not quite. You remember when we went to visit you at your post in Northern California? I ran across your boss running through the woods naked—twice. I was going to warn you about that, but then you told us you’d gotten a job somewhere else.”

“He might not have been Lycan,” Dane said slowly.

“A Lycan? That’s what you call them? Not werewolves?”

“I call them a lot of things,” Garret murmured.

Christa nodded at her father, choosing to ignore Jordan’s brother—he’d come around, eventually. “I had a limited time to bring you up to speed and get you here without sounding like a crazy person, and I think I really only managed the first part of that.” If she’d been talking to her mom, her mom might have stopped hyperventilating about now and been willing to listen to reason. Her dad was significantly less emotional. He’d listened and then asked how much ammo to bring and to repeat the address.

Garret got to his feet, focusing on a woman who was lugging a poacher away from the Hummer. “I know her. She used to be in my pack.” He grinned in a way that made him look part wolf. “I think she could use a hand.”

“You’re going to go talk to her when she’s naked?” Christa asked doubtfully.

He ruffled her hair, just like her own brother—great. “Sister, that is the best time to talk to a woman.”

Christa frowned after Garret as he walked toward the woman dragging a corpse. “This was a strange way to meet the in-laws.”

“I think that’s what Jordan was thinking, too. But your boy’s not a bad shot,” her dad said, patting her knee. “He aims for the throat, too. I gotta admire a man who aims for the throat.”

“Until it’s your throat,” Dane muttered.

She sent him a dirty look. “Is he better than me? He said he couldn’t make a shot at two hundred meters.”

“Oh, he was walking and made
that
shot. Either he was trying to be nice, or he’s just one lucky devil.”

“Both,” Jordan called over his shoulder.

Her dad looked at her with raised eyebrows.

“Their hearing is pretty incredible,” she explained. “He can also see in the dark and track things by scent.”

“That’s how we found you. He followed your scent. Until we got closer…and then we just followed the horrific caterwauling.”

“I was trying to block Ross’s hearing, you guys.”

“You kept throwing off my aim with those high notes in ‘Memory.’ I don’t think even cats screech like that,” her dad said.

She jabbed her finger at the air. “That wasn’t really in my vocal range, and I was trying for annoying. You should have heard ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’! It sounded really good. It sounds better in a shower stall, but it wasn’t bad.”

Dane leaned forward. “Then there was ‘Oklahoma,’ and I kept wanting to swing my gun in your direction and put you out of your misery…or Ross out of his.”

“The pause between ‘Memory’ and ‘Oklahoma’ was the problem—he heard you guys behind the cabin and the duct tape came out. But it might have anyway with ‘Oklahoma.’ He handled it longer than I thought he would.”

“He was a paramedic for a while,” Dane said. “I bet the sirens dulled his aversion to high-pitched squealing.”

Jordan groaned and turned to their group. “Of course!”

Travis dragged both hands down his face. “How could I forget that? No wonder he could manage copying the poachers in Rainier.”

“What happened to Ross?” she asked the Alphas.

“We got him,” one of the other Alphas said with a smile. It made her swallow and shudder. He probably ripped the throat out of people who crossed him. He stared at her. She stared back. Just because he
did
freak her out, she wasn’t about to show weakness.

Finally, he turned to Jordan and said something quietly.

Jordan glanced at her and smiled and then looked at the other Alpha and shook his head.

A few seconds later, the Alphas split up, and Jordan came toward them. “Black Tusk said there’s a white supremacist compound near the border that the government has been looking to raid. He’s voting we pack up all our poachers into their death trucks, and he’ll drive them there. He’s planning on setting the scene to look like a turf war. At the very least, it’ll confuse law enforcement long enough for us to clean up this area.”

He looked at her dad. “Did you hit any of the poachers with your bullets? I’d hate for anything to be traced back to you.”

He shook his head. “No, just hit the straps. It seemed wrong to take them out with so many of them on the ground hoping to do that.”

“I think Alanna is planning on digging out any bullets anyway, and Olympus is gathering up the bullets from the ground and trees. Since they got here late, we gave them cleanup.”

“We had the farthest to travel!” one of the Alphas yelled back.

“What about the Lycans? What will happen with their bodies?” Christa asked. There were eight dead Lycans among the packs.

“They’re all in wolf form, so the individual packs will decide how to deal with it.”

“That’s convenient,” her dad said.

“No,” Jordan said. “It’s our way. If we sense we’re going to die, we shift. We enter this world on two legs, but leave on four…unless we have a good reason not to. Most Lycans with human mates don’t, but the rest do.” After saying that, he moved behind her and crouched down to hug her. “How are you, by the way?”

The attention sent tingles across her body, even if she flushed because her dad was there. “I’m good. I think they latched the straps on that gurney too tight.”

She turned to look at him in time to catch the smirk as he said, “Good to know.”

“Tell me when you’re going to marry my daughter on paper. I think her mother might like to be there,” her dad said.

Jordan froze.

“I think maybe around Valentine’s Day,” Christa said. “Mom would like that.”

Jordan’s sigh sounded almost painful.

“But I was thinking of asking Travis to do a ceremony back at Jordan’s house today, since the pack will be there—and some of our family.” She looked around. “Life is too short to waste time.”

Her dad nodded. “I can give you away twice. It’ll give me practice for in front of your mom, but she’ll still find something wrong with the way I walk or something, anyway. We’ll just pretend the one in front of your mom was the only one.” He stood up. “I think I’m going to start walking back to the Jeep. At some point, you’ve seen enough naked people dragging around dead bodies for one day.” He gestured across the way. “It doesn’t seem to bother your brother, though.”

“He was adopted,” Jordan said.

Laughing, her dad walked off.

“Only Garret could pick up a woman at a battle to the death.” Jordan shook his head.

They all watched as Jordan’s brother continued flirting with the Lycan who’d just dropped the dead poacher’s body between them.

“Well, as fun as this is, my fingerprints are on file,” Dane said, standing up. “I’m not touching anything. I think I’ll head back with my dad.”

“Sissy,” Jordan said.

Dane turned and pointed at Christa. “You’ll make sure she’s okay.”

Christa rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out.

Dane shook his head. “Maybe I’ll ask Dad if I can give you away this time. I’ve been dreaming of doing that my whole life. I tried to sell you to the neighbors right after you were born, but they wouldn’t take you. I might’ve known I should’ve given you away.”

She glared at her brother.

Jordan waited until they were out of earshot before leaning in and whispering against the skin beneath her ear, “I thought I’d survived this whole thing just to have you kill me when you said Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t have lasted a month—not in the same house with you.”

She pressed back against him. “It would have served you right if I’d let you keep thinking that until we got back, but I figured we needed to ask Travis.”

“He already said yes.” He kissed a line down her neck to her shoulder.

“Mmm. Then we have a good reason to toss everyone out of our house tonight. Get your stuff and get out. Team-building is over.”

Several Lycans from Glacier pack laughed at this, and she blushed. Someday, she’d shut up before she said things like that with the pack around.

“What did that other Alpha say to you about me? It’s not fair that he whispered so I couldn’t hear.”

Jordan laughed and picked her up.

She put her arms around his neck without protesting. Weak, strong…it didn’t seem to matter when you were with the one you were supposed to be with. And he
did
like to carry her around.

“He said that he was glad I’d finally found an alpha female dominant enough to keep me humble. He also asked if you had a sister.” He started carrying her through the forest. “If you did, I’d be glad to see her end up with Black Tusk.”

“He’s a good guy?”

“He’s not too bad, but I just think Glacier has all the Hansens it can handle.”

“What was that, Jordan? You wanted to hear me sing ‘Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina’?”

A load of Lycans turned and shouted, “No!”

Chapter Eighteen

Vanessa cried through the whole ceremony…though it was mostly because Christa had insisted on Lucifer being present for the wedding.

Her father must have forgotten the cat’s name because he asked, “You want Satan at your wedding?” And for the first time, he looked at Jordan like he was wishing he’d kept his rifle in his hands.

Dane insisted he give his sister away, and there was something nearly gleeful in his expression that might have frightened a lesser man.

The words blurred in Jordan’s memory, even though he meant them as he said them. He kept staring at Christa and thinking,
This is mine to keep. Forever.
And it felt like a rebirth—like everything from the past really was over. This was a new start. The beginning of a new life.

And he
was
anxious to begin. He gave Travis a stern stare when it seemed like the other Alpha might be prolonging it to frustrate him.

Vanessa ran from the room as soon as Christa said “I do,” as if the hounds from hell were after her, and Lucifer did follow her, so she might not have been wrong. Dane had already packed up their things beforehand—as had most of his pack, which was good because Jordan didn’t stop kissing Christa once Travis told him he could. He picked her up and carried her out of the room, much to the amusement of everyone. He could hear them laughing behind him, but he didn’t care. He was Alpha—he could do whatever he wanted—and hopefully Christa would let him.

At the door to his room, he finally pulled back from kissing her and called over his shoulder as he opened it, “Glacier pack, disperse—especially if you have young and impressionable offspring.”

Christa dropped her face into his shirt, laughing.

He kicked the door closed behind him. His pack was leaving in a fast mass exodus, even as they were all chuckling to themselves and telling stories about their marriages. There was also talk about holding team-building get-togethers like this every year.

“How would you feel about having the pack stay over some weekend next year?”

She tipped her head back and met his eyes. “Well, you might have to add on eventually. I promised you we’d fill a few of these rooms ourselves.”

The idea of his child inside her made him breathe faster, and his heart burned like it had lit on fire. If he didn’t know better, he’d have thought he was having a heart attack—it was that strong and that intense. “I love you.”

She grinned. “Well, that’s good, because you’re keeping me, and because I love you, too. But seriously, you didn’t have a chance from the moment you opened that door to me and Lucifer.”

He set her on the bed. “I didn’t have a chance from the time I walked into the hospital room.”

She toed off her shoes and slid back into the middle of his bed. She was wearing a simple white dress that almost looked like a cotton nightgown, but she’d covered it with that red cloak—much to her brother’s chagrin.

He unbuttoned his sleeves, slowly, enjoying the way her breathing got faster and more shallow.

“How much of this do you think is the scent-match?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

He pulled his shirt off and then prowled across the bed toward her, which brought a smile to her perfectly feminine lips. He stopped at her feet and sat back on his heels. “Right at this moment, I love the way you are my equal if not my superior. I cherish the way you give me hell if I’m behaving like an ass. I adore that smile on your mouth right now, which is the smile of someone who
looks
and
admits
to it. I’m humbled that you’re willing to put up with an old wolf who is willing to learn a few new tricks.”

Her laugh was deep and throaty as she tipped her head back.

“You arouse me, astound me, and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings. And also, I think you smell nice.”

Her head tipped forward, and her eyes sparkled mischievously as she met his gaze—met it and held it. If she had any idea how that tugged at his heart, not to mention would lead straight here to the bedroom…

She reached up with one hand and unbuckled the clasp at her neck. The red cloak fell around her. Yeah, her brother had totally missed the mark with that joke.

“What big eyes you have,” she said.

“The better to see the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.” He crawled the rest of the way and propped his hands on either side of her as he bent over her. He’d remember this moment until the day he died. Her hair splayed across the red fabric, and the white dress made her look like a virginal sacrifice left out for a beast. The wolf reared up in him, and though he pushed it back, he also saw her eyes dilate and watched her mouth drop open. He grabbed her and rolled so that she was on top.

“And Red Riding Hood came home from Grandma’s house to find there was a wolf in her bed,” Christa said, pushing up to sitting. Straddling his thighs brought her dress high on hers. One of her sleeves dropped down, exposing a bare shoulder. That was certainly not her grandmother’s nightdress.

The wolf inside pushed against his restraints again—a primal need growled for release.
Mate. Mine.

She licked her lips, leaving a wet sheen that made his own mouth go dry. “He was a big, black wolf…with eyes like midnight and sharp, sharp teeth.”

“And what did she do?” he asked. Every inch of his body begged for him to rush, to take her—to finish what they’d started with their first kiss. Instead, he crossed his arms behind his head and waited to see what Christa would do.

Christa leaned across him, as he’d been doing to her a moment ago. She put her hands on his wrists, pinning them in place. “She asked him to stay. Red Riding Hood said she was strong enough to handle him.”

“Sounds like she tamed him,” he said.

Christa grinned, leaned forward, and whispered against his lips, “Hell, I hope not.”

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