by Renee Rose
Shelby studied Marina with curiosity. “Sister, huh? Interesting. Well, this whole town loves Audrey. She’s everyone’s favorite doctor.”
Marina smiled. “Yeah, she’s pretty killer, isn’t she?”
If she thought there was anything weird about the conversation. She didn’t let on.
“Come here, sweetness, I need to tell you something about me.” I hoisted her legs up around my waist. I fucking loved carrying her. The wild, riotous cravings I had being near her calmed when I had all of her in my arms. Like my wolf knew I had her. She was safe. Mine.
Thunder boomed again and the rain came on, hard. Like suddenly the faucet in the sky got turned on full-blast. Just like the other night. It was storm season in Montana, but hell, they were strong. It pounded the barn roof, which unfortunately wasn’t completely water-tight.
I heard squeals and laughter as people had to move to avoid getting wet. The Barn Cats stopped and moved to a dry spot, then started back up. Boyd pulled Audrey close and spun her away from a drip. They were happy, completely unfazed by the change in weather. Thank fuck, they wouldn’t let a little rain ruin their night.
Marina laughed and squeezed her thighs around my waist, her arms looped around my neck. I found a quiet corner and sat down, arranging her on my lap, facing me. “What did you want to tell me?”
I glanced around. My wolf was tearing at the surface, but I shoved him down. Yeah, she had to know. She had to understand why I was pushing her away. Why I couldn’t kiss her. Couldn’t fuck her like I wanted. She deserved to know because keeping it from her was wrong. She’d be mine, no doubt of that. Later, sure, but I wanted her to know everything now. No secrets. “You see all these people here?”
“Yes.”
“They’re not just ranchers, they’re all sh—”
A whistle pierced the air and Rob’s alpha voice carried over the rain and music. “Everybody, listen up.”
The Barn Cats stopped playing.
“I hate to break up a party, but I have no doubt the creek along the canyon road back into town is rising pretty fast. Might even flood.”
There was complete silence as everyone remembered what had happened to our parents in a storm just like this one.
“We don’t mess around with that,” he added, for those who didn’t know our sad history. “Don’t want you all in danger or stuck here all night. So, anyone who needs to get back into town better leave now!”
“Oh my gosh,” Marina exclaimed, scrambling down from my arms.
“Hang on, little girl,” I said, but it was too late. Becky, Anna and Leigh came over to say goodbye. It was a parade of flurried greetings, and then Marina wanted to send them with slices of cake since they’d miss all of the food.
“There’s no time, sweetness. They need to get out of here now, or it could get dangerous driving home,” I warned.
She stared at me wide-eyed, then her look softened. Yeah, Audrey had told her. “Okay.”
“Save me some for later!” Becky said, squeezing Audrey then Marina for another quick hug before the ladies and half the shifter crew ran out into the pouring rain.
There were about ten of us left along with the band, who didn’t seem to mind being stuck here overnight. They’d crash in the bunk house. They played a tune I’d heard at Cody’s the night before. Audrey and Boyd moved into the middle of the space and started to line dance. I had no idea Boyd knew the steps. Neither did anyone else because they were clapping and whistling, impressed.
I had to admit, my brother was smooth.
Marina and a few others joined them. Marina crooked her finger at me to participate, but the one thing I didn’t do was dance. No fucking way. Besides, I was having too much fun watching. The camaraderie of the Wolf pack made me think back to times before our parents died.
Yeah, I was coming home. It was time. And all because of the pretty blonde doing the Boot Scootin’ Boogie.
A horrible crack filled the air, so loud I watched Marina jump. Immediately after, a huge crash sounded, then part of the barn roof caved in and fell all around us.
Automatically, I ducked down but glanced up, watched the wood as it fell. A tree branch came with it. There was a huge cottonwood behind the barn, and it must’ve been struck by lightning.
On instinct, I ran and tackled Marina to the floor, covering her body with my own, my arms cradled around her head to keep anything from hitting it. All around screams, growls and snarls rang over the crashing wood and pelting rain as pack members’ wolves sprang to the surface to help them survive.
It was only through years of military training I suppressed my own urge to shift. It helped that I had Marina safely beneath me. If I hadn’t, my wolf would’ve gone nuts to save her.
“No!” a woman screamed. The terror in her voice made me jerk my head up. She was throwing slats of wood away with shifter strength. “Liam?”
A child. Fuck, a kid was under there.
I scrambled up to help her. Boyd and Rob were right there, too, throwing the pieces of wood away until we uncovered the fallen boy, a shifter child no more than ten years old.
“Don’t move him!” Audrey yelled, pushing her way through and dropping to her knees beside him, forgetting she was wearing her pretty wedding dress. Rain poured through the destroyed roof. “His neck may be broken.”
“Don’t worry, it’ll heal,” Boyd said to her in a low voice. He squatted beside her, dripping wet. “It would heal faster if he was old enough to shift, though.”
Audrey knelt beside the boy, carefully checking his pulse without moving him. “He’s alive.” She looked to the boy’s mother and nodded in reassurance.
“Shift.” Rob’s voice rang out with alpha command. Every shifter in that barn felt it, and the familiar internal response.
Some of the younger wolves—teens or more submissive pack members, actually shifted, even though Rob wasn’t talking to them. Whimpers sounded over the rain as clothing ripped and shredded and the animals were released.
Marina gasped, grabbing my hand and stepping closer to me. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her snugly against my side.
“He doesn’t shift yet,” the boy’s mother cried.
“Shift,” Rob moved to stand directly over the boy, blocking some of the rain and commanded again.
“He can’t.” The boy’s mother wept. “Don’t you think he would’ve if he could?” She appealed to Audrey. “Is there anything you can do for him, Doctor?”
Marina trembled at my side, her slender body shaking with the trauma of everything she’d seen.
Fuck. She saw. She knew. There would be no coaxing her to the truth. It had hit her on the head like a piece of falling roof. I hadn’t wanted her to find out this way. Fuck.
“Shift, Liam!” Rob commanded again. Marina looked up at me in confusion, but I didn’t say anything. This time he infused so much command it exploded through the barn. My body shuddered in response. More pack members shifted, whimpering and tucking their tails. “Shift now.”
It worked.
The boy’s body moved of its own accord, joints snapping and rearranging, clothing tearing until he lay on his side, a panting young wolf.
Audrey stroked her hands down the wolf’s spine, like she was checking for breaks. There had been no bleeding when he was in boy form, so I had to assume he’d been hit on the head from falling debris.
“Now isn’t that a sight? Liam’s got black fur, Mama,” Boyd said calmly, looking up at the boy’s mom from where he knelt beside Audrey. “Give him a little bit. He’ll be okay now.” While he wasn’t a doctor, he assured the weeping mother. “I snapped my neck more than a few times riding bulls and pulled through just fine.”
“Oh, thank you,” the mother exclaimed, dropping down on the other side of her shifted son. Clarinda, I think her name was. I remembered her from high school.
Rob took charge. “Everybody out of the barn. Clearly, it’s not safe. If you can get home, go on. If not, we’ll put you up in the
bunkhouse for the night. Johnny, Levi, pick up Liam and carry him to a bunk so he can recover.”
Everyone moved at once, Johnny and Levi doing as told, Clarinda following them out into the rain. Audrey and Boyd stood. He set his hands on her shoulders as he spoke to her. She nodded and then was pulled into his arms.
Boyd looked to Rob. “If you don’t need us, we’re leaving. I want to get to the cabin before that small stream between here and there rises. The last place I want to be on my wedding night is with you guys.”
“What if someone else is hurt?” Audrey asked.
Boyd tipped her chin up, wiped the rain from her face. “Everyone’s fine. You and the baby are on my watch. It’s time to get you home. The only one who can’t shift and heal is Marina.” They looked our way. “And I’m sure Colton will take good care of her.”
I squeezed Marina close, but I didn’t have to say a word. There was no fucking way anything was going to happen to my mate. I’d had a moment of sheer terror when she wasn’t by my side when the roof collapsed. It only confirmed my plans. I was staying. She was it. I just had to wait it out. Hell, maybe I’d even go to LA to be with her. Whatever the plan was, she was in it. Front and center.
Audrey’s glasses were speckled with water, and her face was marred with concern. She didn’t care that her dress was wet and muddy or that her hair was dripping wet or that the party was ruined. She was thinking about others like a true member of the pack.
Rob nodded. “Go.”
Boyd didn’t waste a second, steering Audrey out into the storm and to their wedding night at their cabin in the hills.
Only Rob, Marina and I remained in the barn. Rob looked to me and nodded again, giving me silent permission to tell her. Although, that fucking cat was out of the bag.
I turned to Marina and cupped her face. Beneath my skin, my cells vibrated with the need to claim her, but I forced the sensations down. “Remember, yesterday, you surprised me in the kitchen?”
She looked up at me from her tucked spot against my chest. “Yeah.”
I wiped her wet hair back from her face. Just like I had that first night. “I’ve got one of my own. Surprise. I’m a shifter.”
18
MARINA
* * *
I’m a shifter.
No, not just a shifter. A wolf.
They all were wolves.
Colton was part wolf.
WOLF!
Holy shit.
I felt like I was trapped in a Twilight Zone episode.
Audrey hadn’t been surprised.
She knew.
Of course, she knew. Her husband was part wolf.
That meant she knew Colton was part wolf, a shifter, and didn’t tell me.
I was going to kill her.
Yet, her knowing and being okay with it enough to marry one of them—and have his baby—was the one thing that kept me from totally freaking out. Like, if she’d already accepted it, I could, too. Right?
I saw a boy, unconscious, turn into a wolf. Like a transition in a movie. Could Colton do that? Could all of them?
“Surprise? This was what you were going to tell me before… ” I pointed up.
It must have reminded him where we were, for he led me out of the damaged barn and tugged me beneath one of the overhangs, so we were out of the rain.
It was just like the other night when we met, standing in a downpour together. Now, we knew so much more about each other. Things I’d never, ever, imagined.
His brows dipped in concern. “Yes. Are you hurt?” He had a strong arm wrapped around me, but my knees wobbled so much from the adrenaline, I still feared I might collapse onto the ground. He wiped rain from my face, as if the rain might hide some kind of wound. Sniffed.
Oh God, now I knew why. He could smell me. I didn’t know what it meant exactly, but it was so obvious now.
“No.”
“I have to ask for your vow never to tell an outsider about us,” he said, his breathing ragged. We were both riled from the tree falling through the roof, but this was more. He was back to being intense, just like when we’d first met. “It’s extremely important, for the safety of the pack.”
I flipped through my mental notes on werewolves, and what I came up with scared the crap out of me.
“Is Audrey one now, too?”
His mouth dropped open as he stared at me. “No.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
“Are you going to bite me and turn me into a werewolf?” What did it mean that the thought excited me as much as it scared me? Strangely, I was already willing to jump into any adventure with Colton by my side. Even a plunge in the paranormal pool. Yet, he’d made it pretty clear he wasn’t interested.
“What? No. Oh, Christ. Don’t believe what you’ve seen in the movies. It’s not a disease passed through biting. We’re a different species.”
I shivered, absorbing that information. I had no idea about species or… wolves. Maybe I should have been a biology major.
“It’s not safe here. I’ve got to get you inside where it’s safe and dry.” Colton swung me up into his arms as if I weighed nothing and ran for the main house.
“Colton!” I cried.
“I won’t keep my mate in danger.” He said it almost as a vow.
Mate? What did that mean to a wolf? A shiver ran through me that had nothing to do with the rain. It was something about the way he’d uttered those words. Rain pelted down on us, instantly soaking us through. I clung to his strong shoulders, marveling at how wonderful it felt to be so heroically cared for.
Two days. I’d known this man for two days. It already seemed like so long ago.
He didn’t stop once we got inside, just carried me up the back staircase to his bedroom, sat me on my feet just like he had yesterday morning after he’d found me in the kitchen.
And then he tore off my wet dress. Tore it, as if it were made of tissue. The sodden material opened, then he slid it down my arms and let it fall to the floor.
He stared at my naked body—well, I was wearing skimpy panties and nothing else—and his eyes changed to amber, and this time I recognized it for what it was. His wolf.
Did it mean he was excited?
It must.
A low growl rose in his throat. “Fuck, Marina. You’re impossible to look at. I shouldn’t have brought you in here.”
I reached for his wet shirt, undoing the button, unsure if I should be flattered or upset. “Why not?”
He caught my wrists and threw me up against the wall, my hands pinned beside my face. His mouth was on me before I could finish gasping, claiming me with a searing kiss.
“Fuck, Marina,” he repeated, dragging his open mouth down the column of my neck.
“I thought… I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”
“I do. Fuck, I can’t control myself around you.” He licked the rain from my skin, sucked on it until I knew he’d leave a mark.
“You did last night. Why didn’t you… why did I not stay with you if you want me? I, oh God, I don’t get it.” I squirmed against him, trying to rub, to feel more. His hold was firm. I wasn’t going anywhere, and the idea of that made me so hot.
He pressed his wet body against mine, his leg insinuating between my thighs, giving me something to grind down on when he pinched my nipple.
“Colton,” I moaned. I’d missed this. One night without him, and I was lost.
“I need that pussy,” he growled. He sounded half-crazed, but I loved it. He hoisted me higher on the wall, until my hips were the height of his head, then he tossed my legs over his broad shoulders and cupped my ass. “No more panties.”
He literally ripped them off me. The fabric tore, digging into my skin a little before they gave way and rent in two. And then his mouth was on my core. A hot tongue on cool flesh. He lashed me in long strokes, licking and sucking. He nipped my labia, grazed my clit with his teeth.
Oh, this was so intense. He was as frantic for me as I was for him. I
writhed and moaned, wrapping my arms around his head, both terrified and thrilled with my precarious position and the intensity of his passion.
It was so much, all at once. I got dizzy from the sensations flooding through me. The pleasure, the build-up, the emotional ride of being Colton’s on-again off-again sex interest.
Finding out they are all shifters.
I ground my core against his face shamelessly, seeking the release I so desperately needed. I’d never gone from zero to orgasm so fast before. Ever. I’d been primed for him ever since I fell asleep beside him the day before.
Just as I got close, though, Colton lifted his mouth from my core. He looked up at me with a look I’d never seen before. So fierce. So wild. Primitive.
“Wait, no,” I whimpered. “Don’t stop. Please.”
The only sound from Colton was an unearthly growl. He carried me to the bed and tossed me down, and I bounced. Before I even settled, he was climbing over me. His eyes glowed pure amber. His lips were wet from my core, the tendons in his neck were taut. The humanity was completely gone from his face.
A shiver of fear ran through me. He liked to be in control, a little wild, but this? It was different. It was as if he’d been tightly coiled before, and now he was unleashed.
What did I really know about these Wolf brothers? Maybe he’d lied. Maybe he was about to turn me into a werewolf. Could I trust him?
His touch was rough as he shoved my legs wide and pulled down his zipper. When his cock sprang free, he fisted the base, stroked it from root to tip. Lifting his head, he looked at me. Prey. I swore his teeth had changed.
Oh my god—vampire fangs. No, wolf fangs! Either way, they were fucking long and sharp.
“Colton?” I scrambled backward on the bed, bumping into the headboard.
He grabbed my hips and dragged me back under him.
“Mine,” he growled.
“Okay, fine, but I don’t understand. You’re… changed. Colton?” Alarm rang in my voice as I shoved at him.
He growled and rolled my hips over, slapping me on the ass.