Wolf and Punishment (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 1) (27 page)

This time he cut his own impertinent question off, sniffing the air. A huge grin spread across his lined face. “Hey! Smells like you two made up.” He tipped his head at his brother. “Yeah, Lonewolf, that’s how you do it! I’m guessing those divorce papers got torn up.”

“Not yet,” Janelle answered.

Mag turned to her with confused hurt in his eyes. “What do you mean ‘not yet?’” he asked.

Sensing now was as good a time as any, Janelle took a deep breath and grabbed on to the front of Kang’s long-sleeved thermal, fisting the waffled material as she pulled him down for a kiss. A real kiss, one so hot she pushed her tongue into his mouth and let it intertwine with hers. Then she squeezed her eyes shut and thought about the first time she had kissed Mag, fully clothed, while he stood naked. And like a good set of pheromones, her arousal scent went off.

Kang was so surprised he actually kissed her back for a few moments, his tomcat instincts kicking in before his good sense could. But eventually he realized what he was doing. He yelled out against her mouth and pushed her away, his eyes wide with horror like she was a creepy old man who had just molested him.

“What the fuck!” he yelled. “What the fuck!”

Janelle turned to Mag, regarding him with the same look hostage negotiators employed for their most high-stakes jobs. “Stay calm, Mag. You can do it. I know you can.”

Mag was breathing hard and ragged, his nostrils flaring, his chest heaving in an out like a bull who’d had a red flag waved in front of him.

Her human did not like this sight. Her human was ready to push the panic button and run screaming upstairs, but Janelle wouldn’t let her. This was the moment that would define their relationship, and she couldn’t run away from it.

“Why the hell did you do that?” Kang demanded behind her. “He’s not going to be able to…”

She ignored Kang and pushed words into Mag’s head.
“I don’t want him. I want you. This arousal you’re smelling is for you. Only you. You know that in your heart. Calm down.”

Mag let out a feral growl, raising his fist and taking a step toward his brother, who braced himself for the coming blow.

“Mag, don’t! He’s your brother. And I’ve chosen you. Only you. Know it. You have to know it, or we’re not going to work.”

Mag bellowed with anguish, but at the last moment, he pulled his punch, slamming his fist into the side of the couch instead.

Janelle ran to him, her face near ecstatic with relief. She wrapped him up in her arms. “See, I knew you could do it. You’re okay. You’re okay. We’re going to be okay.”

Mag held on to her tight, as if he were afraid of what he might do if he let her go. “I understand why you did that,” he said. “But it can’t ever happen again.”

“It won’t.”

“I could have killed him. It can’t ever happen again.”

“It won’t. And I knew you wouldn’t hurt him or me. You love us both too much. This was the only way to show you that, to make you stop being afraid of yourself.”

“I wasn’t afraid any more. You asked me for a divorce, so I knew… I knew you would do what was best for our family if I went too far. That’s all I needed. To know you would leave me if I turned into my dad.”

Her heart broke for the twenty-year-old who had so internalized his parents’ volatile marriage, he couldn’t relax unless he knew his wife was capable of divorcing him. “That’s not enough. Not for you. Not for us. I wanted you to
know
for sure you would never hurt your family. You’re not him, Mag. You’re not him.”

He wasn’t his father. The truth of it seemed to sink into his soul as hard as his fist had sunk into the couch when he had hit it instead of Kang.

“Okay, okay,” he said, and she could feel his spirit calming. “I
know
now. If I can get through watching you kiss Kang’s ugly mug, we can make it through anything.”

He pulled back and gave her a gentle smile, one so full of love and hope for their future, it nearly made Janelle’s chest burst.

However, out loud he said, “Kang, bro, I love you. Now get out.”

Kang didn’t have to be told twice, he bee-lined for the door, like a man who had just escaped a deadly confrontation with an angry bear.

But before he got to the door, Mag said, “Get a hotel or whatever tonight. But come back tomorrow. We’ve got to get you situated in your beta post.”

Neither Mag nor Janelle looked away from each other to see Kang’s reaction to Mag’s command, but Janelle could hear the smile in the other Freedom Town wolf’s voice as he answered, “Alright, see you tomorrow, bro.”

Then came the sound of the door opening and closing, and they were once again alone. Leaving Mag free to incline his head towards hers and kiss her like nobody’s business. It was a hot, possessive kiss meant to scrub the one she’d laid on Kang from both her head and his.

It worked. In that moment there was nothing but Mag for her…

But then she pulled back. There was still one mystery between them, one secret that had yet to be shared.

“Wait Mag, before we get too far into this again, I’ve been meaning to ask… what’s in the locked garage?”

MAG PUSHED THE SLIDING DOOR of the guest house garage open with a noisy metal clang. Then he stood back and watched Janelle as she took in the sight of what was inside.

When they’d first met, he’d been riding a used Ninja Kawasaki, one so banged up he’d been ashamed to wear the Ducati helmet she’d gifted him while riding it. He still owned that Ninja, it stood as a reminder of where he’d come from… beside three rows of gleaming Ducatis.

Janelle seemed to understand the significance of what she was looking at. Tears welled in her eyes and she brought her hand up to her chest. “I’m… I’m very proud of you, Mag. You had dreams and you made them all come true. How many…?”

“Eighteen,” he answered. “Every single one released from every line since the year you broke up with me. I was kind of obsessed. You can see why I needed Sofia, yeah?”

She raised her watery eyes to his. “I just hope you’ve been wearing a helmet.”

“That’s the funny thing,” he said, walking over to his favorite Ducati, the first Superbike he’d bought after signing his contract with the Suns. “I have eighteen Ducatis, but I only have one helmet.”

He unhooked the helmet from the strap that held it to top of the bike. “And I wore it every time I got on my bike. Never could bring myself to break my promise to you, even after…”

He didn’t finish. Couldn’t finish, because Janelle was suddenly all over him, flinging herself into his arms, like him taking proper safety precautions was the most romantic thing any dude had ever done for any she-wolf ever.

“I love you,” she said between kisses. “I love you so much, I’m going to be teed off about the years we had to spend apart for a really long time.”

“Yeah, me too,” he said, cradling her against his body, loving the way she felt in his arms, long and fitted, like she was a custom job made explicitly for his every loving caress.

But Janelle didn’t let him hug her too long.

“You know,” she said with her head on his shoulder, “You sent Kang away and we could give Mrs. Coates the day off… what was that you were saying about making sure I never regretted choosing you? I think you're going to have to show me I made the right choice.”

He set the helmet aside and lifted her so she was sitting on the Ducati, at just the right angle to wrap her legs around his waist if they needed the extra leverage. Oh, he’d show her all right. He’d spend the rest of his time here on earth showing her just how good life could be with a big bad wolf.

EPILOGUE

M
AG didn’t know what to expect when he, Kang, and Janelle’s cousin, Vince, landed in the Alaska kingdom town on Christmas morning. Janelle had flown out a few days before, claiming she had a few things to take care of in Alaska, including some in-person research about signing up for classes at the University of Juneau.

The University of Juneau’s secret werewolf program wasn’t widely advertised anywhere the humans could see it—especially not online, since mentioning anything regarding werewolves online was another thing strictly forbidden on the North American Lupine Council’s long list of stuff werewolves weren’t allowed to do lest the humans find out about them. But Janelle was Alaska royalty. “Just give ‘em a call,” he’d told her during his counterargument to get her to stay in Wyoming and fly in with him and Kang on Christmas morning. It had been a good counterargument, the kind made with kisses and soft touches to sensitive places.

But Janelle had insisted on coming up by herself, and now Kang and Mag were clinging to their door handles as the plane roughly landed on top of the now frozen Wolf Lake.

“How the hell do these rich bitches fly like this all the time?” Kang asked. He must have been hit by the same wave of nausea as Mag, because the hand that wasn’t gripping hard on the handle above the plane’s door was on top of his stomach. “It ain’t right for wolves to get around like this.”

“Sorry, guys,” Vince said after he opened the door to let them out of the plane. “Been flying people in for the party all week. Ice has gotten real choppy. Going to have to run a Zamboni over it soon.”

Vince let out a big booming laugh, and Mag couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. Not that he cared. He was too busy trying to hold the contents of his stomach down as he deplaned. The King of Wyoming losing his breakfast all over the kingdom dock would definitely not be a good look.

But then the sound of drumming cut through the loud, blustery Alaska wind. In the gray morning light, there was Janelle, dancing and singing her way toward him down the dock, while Tu followed behind her, striking an animal skin drum with a mallet. Mag straightened, the nausea disappearing as suddenly as it had arrived.

His breath emptied out of his body in a white cloud of disbelief. Even after the amazing two weeks he and Janelle had just shared together, one filled with apologies for the past and promises for the future, he still couldn’t believe Janelle was actually his wife now. That she loved him as much as he’d loved her from the first moment their eyes had met.

“Come here, baby,” he said when she finished her dance.

“But wait, we still have to do the Eskimo kiss—”

Too late, his lips were already on hers, and soon she was giving in with a happy sigh of contentment. He wondered if his poor wife would ever get a proper
kunik
from the husband who couldn’t keep his hands off of her.

And, to his surprise, that wasn’t even the best part of the day. Later that night, after the whole kingdom town had gathered within the large but cozy bottom floor of the kingdom house to celebrate Christmas, Tu announced that she needed all the guests to gather to either side of the staircase, because “Mag and Janelle are about to have a wedding do-over!”

Apparently Kang had already known about this, because he pulled his stunned little brother into position in front of the hearth, where the same pastor who married them the first time was now standing, this time with a sprig of mistletoe on his lapel.

“Good to see you again, Mag,” the gray-haired wolf said with a nod and a smile.

“You, too,” Mag said, though he couldn’t remember the pastor’s name for the life of him.

The sound of “The Way You Make Me Feel” filled up the living room. A Michael Jackson song, of course. And his former princess bride looked like she was fighting hard not to break out into a dance as she descended the kingdom house’s cedar steps in a dress he knew for sure her mother hadn’t picked out.

Mainly because it was really tasteful, flowing down to the floor with a bodice that didn’t show off too much cleavage and a furry white hood attached. She looked like a snow queen coming down the stairs, her head swinging back and forth to the beat. Like his queen.

And this time instead of dread, the thought filled him with nothing but joy.

“I HOPE YOUR THUG KING appreciates all this hoopla,” Janelle’s dad said later during the dancing portion of the evening. He glanced to where Mag was dancing with Queen Wilma on the other side of the dance floor. “It’s not like we didn’t already throw you two a wedding in the Alaska tradition.”

“With all due respect, Daddy, that wasn’t a wedding, that was a steamroll with you and Mama in the driver’s seat. What we just shared tonight…” Janelle smiled thinking of the vows she had given to Mag, ones of love, spoken in the Bad Wolf dialect, thanks to her brother-in-law’s helpful tutelage. “That was a wedding I know we’ll both treasure for years to come.”

Tikaani grunted. “Supposedly my middle daughter’s run off to God knows where for the next five years, so why do I feel like Alisha’s still here?”

It was meant to be an insult, but Janelle took it as a compliment. “I wish she was here, but unfortunately she isn’t. Which reminds me, Mag and I will be summering in Alaska starting the year after next.”

Tikaani’s face lit up, “You want to make sure our first grand pup knows about his strong heritage. Good idea.”

“Yes, that and I’ll be attending summer classes at the University of Juneau. I can do most of my human credits online and at our local university. But Wyoming doesn’t have a Wolf Law program at their wolf university and the University of Juneau does.”

Tikaani’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you saying you’re planning to get a grad degree? In law? Women don’t go into law!”

“No, they don’t, which is a shame, because Alisha’s going to need a good representative when she gets back. I plan to make sure she has one.”

Tikaani’s lips thinned. “And that thug king of yours agreed to this?”

“He’s actually the one who suggested it. Thanks to Kang, only a suicidal idiot would challenge you or Mag at this point. And Kang’s turned out to be an even better beta than expected—he’s not only intimidating, he also has a good head for money and investments behind all the face tattoos—one he’s been using now that he’s overseeing a place that has low crime and lots of capital, pretty much the opposite of Freedom Town. So Mag is fine with leaving him in charge while he’s out on paternity leave, then every summer after that until I get my law degree.”