But, who would be his friend if those walls kept everyone away?
She reached out and gripped his hand, squeezing to show her support. He seemed surprised again, as if everything she happened to do was surprising to him. It brought a laugh to her lips. He was so out of touch with people that the actions of a woman continually blew his mind.
“Are you ready to try again?”
He scowled.
“That isn’t an answer, big guy. That just makes you look like a grump.”
“I am a grump.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes, still smiling. “You have been anything but a grump with me, and I’ve been an utter nuisance this whole time. Well, except while I was sleeping.”
“You definitely snored,” he confessed.
Mockingly, she let her jaw drop and unfolded her arms to playfully shove him. He reached for her and pulled him into his body so that they staggered back together. Her heart stuttered as she looked up at Oscar. For a moment, stretching as her heart struggled to beat, she thought he might kiss her.
She waited for it, surprisingly ready. Then, she sucked in a breath of air and righted herself. She couldn’t keep flirting with all the boys, baring her heart only to let it get bruised again. Sooner or later, it would become broken and irreparable. Then, what would she do with herself? She’d would have to live with that pain forever.
Regina would much rather live with the knowledge that she could be enough for herself. She didn’t need to let a man in to be happy. It saved her heart some trouble, at the very least.
Only, she didn’t step away from his embrace. Instead, she put her weight on her own feet and a breath of space between them. Oscar still held her, tender yet firm.
“I’m going to need help this time.”
She arched a brow.
Lips pressed together, he nodded slowly, as if it pained him to admit it. His brown eyes were somber, revealing more of him than she’d seen since they met. In them was guilt and fear and a fiercely powerful love. He didn’t try to hide it, not right then.
“What do you need from me? I’m not sure what I have to offer.” Regina waited for him to say something stupid, like jokingly ask for a kiss. Or worse. She’d seen men try everything in the book to get hanky-panky.
“I need to borrow some of your magic.”
She certainly wasn’t expecting that. “I’m not sure how…”
“I’m not even sure this will work, considering we aren’t Pack. If you’ll allow me, I’d still like to try. Once it’s over, you’ll be tired. I’ll let you sleep all the way home.”
Her part of this pact had been to convince the stray shifter to join Oscar’s pack. If she was falling asleep on her feet, she wouldn’t be able to do that. Then again, she would do nothing if the shifter never even showed up. So, she nodded, allowing herself to be used for the magical beacon.
His arms drifted lower on her back, holding her upright in a lover’s embrace. It was nice, she thought. His touch felt good, making her want to touch him in return. She wanted to run her hands up his chest, to wrap her arms around his neck, and let herself melt into him.
She was pathetic. Had it been that long since she’d been touched by anyone? Her cravings were directing her toward someone who should have been off limits, and yet she could barely stop herself from enjoying this small touch.
Then, she felt it. At first, it was like a sucking sound in her ears. The dull roar was nothing until it consumed her. She was the center of a vacuum. Her aura was being siphoned away, a thing she’d never noticed until it was suddenly being eaten. She gripped the front of Oscar’s shirt, her fingers curling in the fabric until her nails met her palms.
Oscar didn’t notice. He was too busy doing whatever he needed to do to become the beacon. She hoped this worked, because there was no way she was doing it again any time soon. The ritual dragged on. Her knees became weaker by the moment, until she was suspended in Oscar’s arms.
“Are you finished?” she croaked.
Pressed against his chest as she was, she could feel the rumble of his frustrated growl moving through him. It passed from him to her and filled the now empty spaces inside her. It curled around her core and sparked a fire that was only worsened by their proximity. She should have tried to step away, but instead, Regina pressed her face to his chest.
“I don’t even feel a shifter nearby.”
“So, this was all for nothing?”
He moved to lift her higher, glancing down at her weakened state. His lips twisted to the side and he reached to brush a lock of hair from her face. “Not for nothing if you’re willing to stay and search for him. Not today. You need to sleep first.”
“Like hell am I spending a night sleeping in your car,” she mumbled into his shirt.
She might have been tired and hallucinating, but she couldn’t deny the feeling of his lips against her brow. He laid a gentle kiss on her forehead before lifting her into his arms. Before glancing back once, he turned back the way they’d came. His scent surrounded her, and she leaned into it, happier than she’d been in a while despite how tired she felt.
In the parking lot, people cried out over her condition. Oscar explained it away as heat exhaustion before she drifted into sleep. She didn’t care about the people, about the shifter, or anything else. In the moment between consciousness and sleep, she was content in his arms.
Chapter Nine
Oscar felt a great number of things all at once. Distantly, he was aware of his own failure. He should have known the fox shifter wouldn’t stay in one place for long. It’d been his own naivete that caused him to use a good portion of his power too quickly. Yet, the thing that concerned him the most was the woman snoring quietly in the passenger seat beside him.
He sought out a small hotel while she slept. He’d placed her in the seat and buckled her in to keep her safe. The idea of harming her further made his bear wild and nearly uncontrollable. For a moment, he’d considered grabbing the silver from the trunk again, but he didn’t want to accidentally burn Regina with it.
She’d already sacrificed too much to help him. Not only had she given up a day of work to assist him in his search and rescue, but she’d gladly given her magic up to him. The magic that kept shifter bodies energized had been sapped by his trick and now she needed to recover. He’d been surprised at the ease with which she’d agreed to help. She’d barely spent any time considering his request.
To be honest, it’d felt far too good to have her in his grasp. He’d wanted to kiss her. Hell, he’d wanted to ravish her right there in the forest. The only thing that kept his pants on had been his focus on the mission. Well, that and Regina’s refusal to be wooed by him.
She confused him. There were moments when she seemed friendly and open. Then, there were moments when she pulled away. A wall came down between them as if they’d never known each other at all. His bear wanted her in more ways than he could count, but if she wanted nothing to do with them, then he had to honor that decision.
As difficult as it might be.
Inside, he managed to snag two hotel rooms. They were on the same floor, but at different ends. It would have to do, especially for a last-minute reservation. He carried her up to her room, cradling her in his arms and staring down anyone who thought to argue with him. Everyone looked at him like he was hurting her. In a way, he had. Oscar was bearing that guilt, working through it the best he could, but he would never raise a hand against a woman who was not engaging in an open shifter challenge.
He knew women could fight and lead, but his temper was not so short that he struck everyone who stood in his way as people so often thought he did. Just to prove them wrong, he left Regina in her own room, her door card on a side table with a note that she had the room to herself, and left.
Downstairs, he found the open swimming pool and stripped to his boxers. He didn’t’ care if anyone was around to see. All he wanted to do was swim a few laps. The exercise leached more strength from his beast, muting
it’s desires long enough for Oscar to think. The venture had been a failure, no fox shifter to be found other than Regina.
The pool water lapped around him. Soon, his strokes took over his mind. He became a body in motion, spilling his energy into the action of swimming. The beast became nothing more than a quiet voice in the back of him mind. It couldn’t fight for power, nor force him to do anything he shouldn’t.
There was another splash. It startled him, and he stopped to tread water. A figure shimmered beneath the water’s surface, gliding toward him. Garnet red hair led the way. Regina surfaced beside him, a smile across her face.
“You should be aware that you have an audience,” she whispered before diving beneath the water again.
He spun around to find the employees behind the glass window scattering. They ran into one another in their hurry to escape being noticed. Oscar’s attention was dragged back to the woman doing graceful laps around the pool, as if he hadn’t destroyed her energy reserve in the worst way. He could think of better ways of tiring her out.
“What are you doing out of bed?” he barked when she surfaced.
“Whatever I want!” she dove again. This time, she slithered past his legs, letting her fingers trail over them.
A shudder raced through him. If she touched him again, his desire would be hard to hide—especially since he was swimming in his boxers. So, he pushed in the opposite direction and tried to fill his mind with distracting thoughts. He tried to focus on where the shifter might have gone. He thought of what he would say when they found him.
Then, a body slammed into him. Regina broke the water’s surface, throwing back her long mane of hair. Water glittered in the air as she laughed. She wiped at the droplets still clinging to her face.
“Whoops! My bad,” she said as she laughed.
Before he could stop himself, he yanked her into his arms. She placed her hands against his chest but didn’t push back. It was then that he noticed she was swimming in her underwear, too. The front of her bra plunged low to show her mounds of milky skin. He dared to let his fingers drift lower, grazing the bare skin of her buttocks. He glanced down in surprise at the barely-there panties.
Regina licked her lips, looking up at him. Her garnet colored hair clung to her scalp only to fan out like blood once it touched the water. She was intoxicating, a witch that muddled his senses and charged his skin with electricity. He waited for lightning to strike while their hearts found a similar rhythm.
She didn’t move. She made no attempt to escape. Gone were the maids and clerks that had loitered at the window. When Regina arrived, they knew his attention was snared by only one person. The bear roared with victory.
Their lover had never been their mate, but the woman he held in his arms made him question everything. What was it like to be mated? Was it this voracious need to feel her skin? Was it the gnawing hunger low in his belly that pulled him ever closer?
Finally, unable to stop himself any longer, he lifted one hand to her jaw and tilted her head back. She was pliable in his arms, holding her breath as she watched him through her lashes. He pressed his lips to her. They were gentle, questioning. At first, he thought she might not open to him.
He’d gotten it all wrong. Regina was only waiting for a chance to escape, to run back to her room. His heart sank, and his hands fell away. He was about to kick away from her when she reached out for him. Hands on either side of his face, she pulled him back for a deep and thorough kiss, drawing a deep groan out of him.
Regina pulled back, breathing hard as she treaded water. Her eyes were wide, as if surprised by her own actions. Oscar pushed toward her, but she leaned away. He hungered, wanting to fill himself with her. The bear begged him to taste every inch of her pale skin, to count each and every freckle as they did so, but Regina seemed to pull away.
“I think I need to get more sleep,” she said with a nervous laugh as she pushed strands of wet hair out of her face.
Oscar bit the inside of his cheek as the bear roared and clawed its way toward her. If he wasn’t careful, the bear would take over. He feared what the beast would do if he lost control. Regina didn’t deserve to deal with he thing living inside him. As she climbed out of the pool, he dove beneath the water again and tried to swim enough laps to clear his mind of the kiss playing on a loop in his head.
He hadn’t come all this way to woo Regina. He hadn’t even wanted to seduce her. There was a mission at hand and he needed to finish it before he screwed anything up. Should he give in to the bear’s cravings and things went wrong, he could open a divide between them before they even found the fox shifter. Oscar was smarter than that. He could hold off the beast until the mission was over and the fox shifter was safe within their Pack.
Once Regina was gone, he rolled over and allowed himself to float on the water’s surface. It was difficult, packed with the muscle of his human body. The concentration and effort it took helped him straighten his thoughts. The bear’s growling voice receded. It allowed him to stop and think, to realize all that he needed to do.
For so long, he thought he was doing the right thing. He thought he’d put together a Pack that was strong. They didn’t need him all that often, taking care of one another. A creeping voice whispered into his ear that they never called upon him because even they feared him. He’d turned himself into a monster for even his own Pack.
So, that was how Regina saw him, too. She envisioned him as the monster of the rumors he’d built, the ones he’d forged through blood and whispers. How could she want a man like that? Even in bed. No woman wanted to date a monster, unlike the fairy tales.
***
Regina’s heart raced. It was pounding a hundred miles and hour as she clutched the tiny towel to her chest and ran back to her room. With the door locked behind her, she could finally pick apart the things that filled her mind and made her heart shudder.
First, she pried off the wet bra and panties and threw them over the shower curtain rod to dry. She shrugged on the complimentary robe, pleased with the softness. This couldn’t have been a cheap hotel. The tub she stood before wasn’t just any tub, but the kind that could have fit a small elephant. There were several jets on either end.
As tempting as it was, she stumbled toward the bed. Her bones ached, she was so tired. Seeking out Oscar had been a bad idea. Not only was her body still recovering from the trick they’d attempted in the park, but it seemed her mind was, too.
She’d kissed Oscar. Of all the people in California, she’d grabbed and kissed Oscar Torres. Clearly, there was something wrong with her. The morning’s events filled her mind, replaying as if part of her mind was trying to convince her that he wasn’t all that bad. Still, no matter how sweet he seemed, Regina could still see the red welt he’d left on his own hand.
That red welt had swelled across his hand because he knew no other way of taming his beast than poisoning himself. This was the man who’d left a river of blood behind him when he appeared. She’d heard about the pack it had been before Oscar appeared. The Alpha had not been nice. Then Oscar destroyed and remade the pack.
She suspected the time of silence afterward had been when he met his mate. The woman had quieted his beast, but now there was no one who could do that. He would forever be one step away from losing control and Regina could do nothing to stop it. She would walk on eggshells around him, should she give in to the crazy desires of her heart. That was no way to live.
Tears burned her eyes. Why would she want such a dangerous man? Her father had not been a nice man. He’d been all fists and fury, hitting his way through his family until they did as he wanted. He never used his words to express his needs. Regina didn’t want to fall prey to that kind of love. She didn’t want to convince herself that Oscar could be a good man and then find out the hard way what he truly was.
She wouldn’t allow herself to fall into this situation. The kiss was all there would ever be. No matter what kind of man he presented himself to be, she wouldn’t take th
e chance that there was more underneath.
Regina pulled out her phone, intending on clearing her mind with a brainless dating simulator, but it rang just as she opened the screen. Monica’s face flashed across it, her tongue stuck out and middle finger cut off at the edge of the screen.
“Tell Oscar to answer his damn phone,” Monica snapped before Regina could even say hello.
“He’s down in the swimming pool.”
Monica paused. “Swimming pool? Does he think this is a freaking vacation? What the hell is he doing swimming?”
Regina rubbed her eyes, pushing back the tears from earlier. “We couldn’t find the shifter we came out here for, so Oscar figured staying the night in the area would help us in the morning.” She said nothing of the trick they’d used in the park or how it had drained her.
“It’s a forty-minute drive!” Monica was fuming. “While he’s out there in a luxury hotel room, we’re all out here looking for Pillar. They didn’t try calling Oscar, but I’m sure as hell not going to ignore him like they do.”
“Are you saying his pack doesn’t ask him for help?”
Monica snorted. “He’s Oscar Torres. They all think that the only kind of help you go to him for is when you want someone dead.”
Regina’s stomach sank. His pack didn’t trust him to help. They didn’t want to summon the monster that had made their world safe, even if he was their Alpha. Instead, they let the world fall apart in their hands. He wasn’t a leader, but a man who wore a crown while in his tower.
There were muffled voices in the background, Monica’s responses to them quick and biting. Finally, she sighed. Over the phone, Regina could hear Monica collapsing onto their new couch.
“They found Pillar. She was staying with family. We’re lucky we found her before she lost control and shifted in front of them.”
So, Regina wouldn’t have to go find Oscar after all. He would, in time, go up to his room and find the voicemails left on his phone. It was his problem to deal with on his own, no matter what Regina’s heart said. She wanted to drive back and help the shifter who ran away to the arms of family. She guessed it was one who’d been changed, perhaps even newly changed. She must have been having a hard time coming to terms with the new voice thundering in her head. Regina knew someone who could relate, but she wasn’t sure he would leave his tower long enough to help.
Her Alpha Mismatch Page 7