Taming Her Mate

by Kathy Lyon

  “Don’t do that out here!” Hazel said in an urgent whisper as she held the wheelchair in place. “Someone could see that you’ve changed.”

  Anyone with a good nose could tell. It was only because they’d been down in the sewers that Kennedy hadn’t realized she was the newest form of shifter monster. She set him down in the chair then they wheeled him inside, but she balked at climbing four flights of stairs with him as deadweight. She was strong, but no one was that strong.

  “We’ll just have to wait until he wakes.”

  “Put him in the back of the coat closet. It’s summer. No one goes there now.”

  Francesca complied, though she worried about what he would think—and do—when he woke. Hazel peered over her shoulder.

  “That’s fine. Shut the door and get ready for class.”

  Francesca jolted. “Class? The city’s on lockdown. No one’s coming for class.”

  Hazel pinned her with a heavy stare. “You’re here. I’m here. That means we have class.”

  Frankie shook her head. “I need to talk to Noelle.” She was the only one who could convince Brady to go against Raoul. “Can you text her? Ask how she’s doing? Something innocuous that doesn’t reveal—”

  “That you’re the one asking. Yeah, I got it.” Hazel pulled out her phone and whipped off a text. A moment later, she grunted as she got Noelle’s response. “Says she’s going to bed, and she’ll kill anyone who wakes her or the boys right now.”

  “Yeah, the twins have the flu. Not the Detroit Flu, just the regular one.” Frankie did some mental calculations. “I’ll visit her in a couple hours and—”

  “Excellent. You have time to train.”

  “I’ve been running nonstop,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s skip, okay?” It was a vain hope. She knew Hazel’s answer long before it was spoken aloud.

  “Your brother is stepping up his insanity. That means you train.”

  “I’m not fighting him. That would be suicide.”

  “You don’t have to fight, just—”

  “Delay,” Francesca said the word with her. That was Hazel’s mantra. Don’t fight, delay. That meant getting in a surprise attack before getting the hell out of Dodge. It was the smart way to survive and had saved many of her students’ lives. But that kind of strategy only went so far, especially with wolf-shifters like her brother. Escape worked in the short term, but he always found a way to get even. Always.

  Best option was not to fight him at all, just manipulate everyone else to keep him in check. Then she was just one of many, not one standing alone in a dark alley against the most vicious werewolf she’d ever known.

  She consciously relaxed her shoulders. That image alone was enough to terrify her into practicing. Because deep inside her nightmares was the sure belief that one day she would have to face Raoul, and she would die.

  Chapter 5

  Save me!

  Pain burned through Ryan’s ribs. His neck throbbed, his leg was on fire, and he was going to die. He knew that with a horror that choked him. Four hybrids were closing in on him. They were crazed and carrying a stench that made it impossible to breathe. Each sliced him with claws or teeth, their blows impossibly strong, and they never rested. Rabid animals sent to attack him by the one person who had sworn to protect him.

  Save me!

  He looked past his attackers to his alpha. Nanook stretched back against his chair with a bored expression on his face. Nanook was the Griz alpha and the person who’d promised to keep the Detroit bear-shifters safe. He was their leader and defender, and he alone had the mental power to control the crazed hybrids. But instead of pulling them away, Nanook had sent them to attack. Ryan’s alpha had given the orders to kill him.

  Why?

  He knew the answer. It was because Ryan was a cop and he’d just discovered that Nanook sold guns and drugs to the Detroit gangs. Ryan had demanded he stop, had threatened to expose the whole organization. He’d gambled that Nanook’s bond to his fellow shifters was stronger than his greed.

  He’d lost that bet. Nanook had sent the hybrids to attack.

  Save me!

  Ryan couldn’t fight anymore. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stand, and the smell. God, the smell! It didn’t matter. No dead man breathed anyway. With his last strength, he submitted to his alpha. Even as he did it, he was ashamed of himself. What Nanook was doing was not only illegal in the normal sense, but anathema among shifters. No alpha betrayed one of his own, and yet, it was happening. And Ryan chose to submit.

  His head dropped and tilted to the side, exposing his neck. It left him open to the hybrids, but Nanook controlled them. If he chose, he would stop them. And Ryan was too valuable to kill, right?

  Right?

  Nanook looked straight at him and did nothing.

  Pain burst through his chest, explosion of impact. Bombs of agony. And then fire sliced through his thigh, ripping open muscles and vessels. Next came the cut to his arm, nearly tearing it off at the shoulder joint.

  Betrayed.

  Ryan collapsed, but the pain kept coming. The hybrids descended, eating him like the beasts they were. Nanook looked away. Ryan didn’t even have the breath to scream.

  He tried anyway.

  He woke with a garbled cry. It came out as a gagged choke, but it jolted him awake. His gaze roamed wildly looking for a touchstone. Everything was dark, and he heard the grunting sounds of a fight. Not full dark. Light seeped around the seams of a doorway.

  He closed his eyes and tried to breathe. It shamed him that he didn’t want to go out into the light. Better to hide in the dark and heal. His ribs were on fire, his chest pulsing with a dull ache, and he couldn’t move his neck. His head hung like a sack of potatoes, and he whimpered in shame.

  Betrayed.

  The word echoed in his head while he sat in agony in the dark. He needed to get his head on straight. He needed to figure out where he was and come up with a plan. But first, he needed to get the memory out of his head. He couldn’t do jack shit while fighting ghosts.

  He forced himself to relive the slash that had gutted his thigh, the impact on his arm that nearly ripped open his shoulder, and the way he had looked to his alpha Nanook, submitting to the bastard even though it would expose him to one of his attackers. And he remembered how Nanook had looked away.

  His own alpha had betrayed him. Ryan had been a naïve idiot to think the shifter bond would overcome the bastard’s greed. Nanook chose to kill his own clan mate rather than stop selling shit to the gangs. And now Ryan was stuck with nightmares and the absolute certainty that no one would ever have his back. Because no one ever had.

  Thankfully Simon, his mate Alyssa, and the sane hybrid Vic had intervened and now Simon was the new head of the Griz. All done, trauma over, stand up and take a bow. Except Ryan didn’t trust any of them. And now he was beaten all to shit and he didn’t even know where the hell he was.

  “The greatest mastery is a mind that lets go.”

  He whispered the mantra as he tried to release the echo of his nightmare. The same nightmare that haunted him every fucking time he closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept more than an hour since Simon had taken over the Griz.

  The chest pain was new. He pressed his hand to his torso and felt the impact of the two bullets from when he’d been down in the sewer. Hell. Now he had fresh trauma to add to his nightmare. And even though his human body was whole—he felt all around his chest to be sure—the mental ache was still there. And mental pain could feel damn real sometimes.

  But at least he could breathe now. Which meant it was time to get off his ass and make an escape plan.

  As prisons went, this was a piss-poor one. Now that his eyes had adjusted, he realized he was in a closet and sitting in a wheelchair. The last thing he remembered was the werewolf woman asking him if he could walk. How had he’d gotten from the sewer to here?

  He pushed up from the wheelchair, his entire body aching and cold. A blanket fell off his naked body, but at leas
t his badge still hung around his neck. It was the only piece of attire that had survived him going grizzly in the sewer. Lord, he felt like he carried a thousand extra pounds. He half stumbled, half walked to the front of the closet. It was a slanting one built in the space beneath a staircase, and the door hadn’t been shut properly.

  He listened closely before pushing it open. More grunts and then a thud.

  “You need to use your strength,” a woman said. “You’re holding back.”

  “I’m being stealthy,” someone else snapped in reply. He knew that voice. It was the woman from the sewer. And he knew her, not just from the sewer, but from before. Who was she?

  “You’re being a coward.”

  Ryan winced. Those were fighting words among werewolves. They were the smallest of the predator shifters, but they more than made up for it in viciousness. Being called a coward was one of the worst things one could say to a werewolf, but the woman just snorted her response.

  “I’m not as strong as they are. It’s stupid to attack that way.”

  “It’s stupid to have strength and never use it.” He heard the heavy stomp of a foot on a mat. “Again!”

  Combat practice, probably hand to hand. And while they were busy beating each other up, he’d slip away and call for backup. He eased through the door, stepping silently on the hardwood floor. The slats were uneven and probably creaked. He chose to step right next to the wall to minimize the risk.

  Narrow hallway, old home. Front door to his right, studio to his left, stairs behind him. He smelled a kitchen and old spaghetti sauce. Also books. There was traffic noise and light coming in around heavy curtains. Whoever lived here valued privacy.

  The combat training was in the back, so best he ease out the front. He’d taken two steps when he heard a voice.

  “Where you going, Detective Kennedy?” The wolf woman’s voice.

  He straightened and turned to see his captor. She stood with her hands on her hips in the studio doorway. She’d been the one training. He could tell by the sheen of sweat on her skin, much of which was revealed by her outfit of tight sports bra and sleek leggings. Her short-cropped hair curled about her temples and her eyes were alight with humor.

  She looked like one of the porn pictures he’d particularly enjoyed as a teen. Athletic body, full breasts, beautiful skin, and dripping with sexual hunger. Well, this woman wasn’t exactly dripping anything but amusement, but her body was built along the same sexy lines, and his mind couldn’t help but supply the details of what was currently covered in Lycra.

  Her eyebrows went up in surprise as her nostrils flared. And then a fit woman in her sixties stepped into the light and blew out a low, appreciative whistle.

  “And here I thought I’d seen everything,” she said. “Never expected to see a naked cop with an erection in my front hallway, but there you go. I can die happy now.”

  Ryan had been focused on his injuries, on the echoes of pain that were almost as real as the dull ache throughout his torso. He wanted to be able to fight if he needed to. It didn’t bother him that he was naked. Shifters tended to forget that stuff, but the way the two women were looking at him made him feel like a teenage boy who’d walked into the wrong locker room.

  He jerked his hands down to cover himself, but the abrupt movement set off a wave of dizziness that made him stumble. He felt his shoulder hit the wall and he grunted in pain.

  “Whoa there, Five-O,” the older woman said as she grabbed his arm. “No need to be embarrassed. That’s a mighty fine penis you got there.”

  “Hazel!” the wolf woman snapped. She’d made it to his other side with lightning speed. Or had he blacked out there for a moment? It was hard to tell. “You’re dead on your feet, Detective. You need to sit back down.”

  “You’re wanted for questioning,” he said, imbuing his voice with all the strength he had. “Call the precinct. Tell them I’m here and call it a…” What was the code for emergency? Or officer in trouble? Hell, why couldn’t he remember? He’d memorized all of them by the age of eight. “Tell them—”

  “Let’s get him upstairs,” the wolf woman said over him. Then the two women started maneuvering him toward the base of the stairs.

  He tried to resist, but he hadn’t the strength. Damn, his head was spinning. “No!” he said, pleased that his voice had some power to it. “I need to make a call.”

  “You can do that upstairs,” the wolf woman said.

  “God, he’s heavy,” the older woman said with a grunt.

  Yeah, he was. Close to 240 pounds, most of it muscle and bone. And right now, he wasn’t supporting himself. His damn knees kept folding like wet origami. Which meant the bulk of his weight was on the wolf woman who was handling him as if he were a ninety-pound weakling. That didn’t make sense, but then nothing did right then. He thought he smelled hybrid, but that couldn’t be right. She was obviously a shifter—had to be—but she wasn’t in wolf face now. As a human, she shouldn’t be able to manage him so easily.

  Then the older woman stumbled. Tripped over something in the hall, and her support was gone. He tried to help. If his legs didn’t work, then he sure as hell could use his hands.

  No go. There was nothing to grip and nowhere to go but down. Except he didn’t. All of his weight was on the wolf woman and she kept moving him steadily toward the stairs.

  That was scary strong.

  “Set me down,” he huffed. “I’m going…to crush you.”

  “Climb the stairs,” she ordered.

  She wasn’t going to give up, and he didn’t have the brainpower to figure it out. “Call. Cops.” Or maybe…“The Griz.”

  She shot him a hard look. “Climb!” There was command in her voice, an authority that would not be disobeyed, and he felt a surge of strength in his body as he rallied. But he wasn’t going up the stairs. He needed out of here. Back to safety.

  His head swam. “No. Call the Griz.”

  “It’s not like I have their number on speed dial.”

  She paused and leaned him against the wall. She wasn’t even breathless, and that should tell him something. Something important, but he couldn’t hold on to it. He was too busy holding on to the wall.

  “I would love to call the Griz and have them pick you up, but they can’t come here and you’re in no shape to go to them.”

  “Put me in a cab.”

  She nodded. “That would work, but I need your help. I want you to stop the person responsible for the Detroit Flu. And you can’t do that if you’re laid up in the back of Griz Hardware.”

  The Griz home base used to be an Ace Hardware store, so the nickname had some merit. He still didn’t like it.

  “Who’s responsible?”

  “Raoul Wolf.”

  He grimaced. “Nanook was right. It is the wolves.”

  “Not the wolves. One wolf. Raoul.”

  “Proof.”

  She threw up her hands. “If I had the proof, I wouldn’t need you, now would I?”

  He dropped his head back against the wall. The clunk added to a headache he hadn’t even noticed before. “What can I do?”

  “Arrest Raoul before the war starts.”

  He frowned. “What war?”

  “Wolves against bears. You’re going to die, then we’re all screwed.”

  He snorted. “Bring it on, wolf. We’ll see who gets bloody.”

  She stepped backward to lean against the stair railing, her eyes infinitely sad. “I thought you were different,” she said quietly.

  Meanwhile, the older woman snorted. “Told you. I don’t know why you’re messing with him. Only chance is with the Griz women.”

  “They’re all snobby bitches who won’t lift a finger against their men.”

  Ryan frowned. Protecting your man was a good thing. Man, woman, holding together against the storm. But his mind was churning on her earlier statement. “Different than who? How do you know me?” He straightened as much as he could against the wall. “Who the hell are you?”
>
  “Don’t tell him!” the older woman huffed. “Let’s put him in a cab and send him away.”

  “I need him!” the wolf woman responded. “He’s the only shifter cop in Detroit. Anybody else is going to require proof against Raoul.”

  He narrowed his eyes, really focused on her face. His memories were foggy, but he was able to put the pieces together. She was a wolf-shifter. She was high enough in the werewolf hierarchy to know who was responsible for what. And since he made it his mission to know his adversary, he ran through the wolf family tree to find a woman. Someone who hid in the background but was—

  “You’re Frankie, the bastard daughter.” How the hell had he missed that before?

  He’d only met her once, but she’d stuck out. She’d been the driving force behind a new community center in the heart of werewolf territory. She’d lobbied the city, raised money for it from all over the state, and put together a design with careful forethought. He’d met the staff and had been impressed by their qualifications, but none had held a candle to the quiet efficiency of Francesca Wolf. She was charming, beautiful, organized, and determined. All qualities he admired. When he saw her at the ribbon-cutting ceremony, he’d been struck with a physical need to be with her.

  He’d planned to ask her out right then and there, but he hadn’t had the opportunity during the festivities. He’d been willing to break normal shifter lines and date a werewolf even though he was a bear. But that was also the day his work problems in the robbery department began. Before long, he had too many of his own issues to deal with to think of adding romantic entanglements on top.

  “I’m not a bastard,” she stated with force.

  Touchy subject? The rumor mill said she’d never shifted and therefore had to be a bastard. Since Emory had never contradicted the rumor, the idea stuck. Well, Ryan now could say with certainty that Frankie was no shifter slouch. Anyone who could support his body weight had to be a full shifter.