Which he’d done before.
And now he’d never have the stomach for it.
Christa was making him soft inside.
“Let’s go.”
He was the first to shift, a right given to Alphas.
If Jordan kept more of his conscious mind in wolf form, he wouldn’t have been able to stop snarling as they approached Tim and Jenny’s. As a wolf, he kept thinking “offspring,” “trap,” and “hunters.”
A half mile from the house, he shifted and motioned them all to crouch out of sight behind cover as he surveyed the area. The moon was nearly full, which made the change to wolf quicker and the pull of the primal form whisper in their brains all night. It felt unnatural not to be a wolf at night during this week.
Even though he had the blessed genetics of darker skin and dark hair, he still felt more vulnerable in his human form. But his mind was clouded with instinct as a wolf, and he needed to be able to remember what he’d seen to relay back to the others.
He scanned the forest slowly. His skin felt all prickly with awareness. With the moon so close to full, the forest should have been teeming with creatures and their noise. A forest on a full moon was deafening from the amount of life crawling, slithering, and flying. This time, it wasn’t. He turned to check on the pack members, but an innate awareness dragged his gaze back. The flash of glass lenses was all he had time to note before a bullet snicked by his head, embedding in a tree.
He whipped his head up and around. In the trees—they were using tree stands, and if their hunting party hadn’t stopped this far back and been using trees as cover, they’d all be dead in an ambush.
“Back,” he hissed quietly as more bullets started splitting the air. The Lycans bolted fast, and he shifted and ran behind them with bullets chasing at their heels. He heard the snarl of an approaching Lycan. And out of his periphery, he saw Ross coming straight for him. The phosphorous tattoo glowed on his right shoulder. Jordan huffed a command to his group meaning “go” and then he split away, running straight at Ross.
Bullets flew their way. His Lycan mind was pressing to “run” and “kill” at the same time with Ross in the area. Fight and flight. An Alpha thought of the pack before anything else—even revenge—and the bullets were too close. He shouldn’t face Ross. The pack needed him. The pack was more important. Christa was more important.
Pack.
Leave.
Pack.
Mate.
Go.
And then the whisper of revenge and fight, just a whisper.
A memory flashed in his head of another fight on another day, and right before Ross reached him, he shifted to human. That surprised Ross already, but he definitely wasn’t expecting Jordan to rear back and punch a wolf in the head. Jordan’s fist connected to the Lycan’s head with a satisfying crack.
Ross hit the ground, dazed. The dark brown Lycan lay there, probably thinking, “What the hell just happened?” Jordan knew that’s what he’d been thinking when Dane had punched him in the head. It’s not what you expect from a human facing a wolf.
“That’s for Aggie, you bastard. Pick on someone your own damn size.” Bullets sprayed the ground all around them, hoping for a lucky hit, and Jordan knew the poachers didn’t consider a Lycan working with them a problem for “friendly fire.” Ross was expendable. Jordan shifted and chased his hunting party. Sometimes a retreat made sense, even to predators.
But it felt awfully good to have punched Ross in the face.
…
It was like sitting in a herd of antelope when a lion approached. As one, all of the Lycans looked toward the door and started moving toward it.
“What’s going on?” Christa asked Vanessa.
“They’re back.”
She followed the others out into the dark house. They were all heading toward where the cellar was. The Lycans must have incredible night vision, because she tripped over something, but someone grabbed her and set her back on her feet, and she heard Dane swear as he knocked into something.
The quiet shuffle of feet stopped, so she stopped…and waited…and swallowed the lump in her throat. Please let Jordan be okay. Please let Jordan be okay. After seeing the faces of what he might be up against, she was twice as terrified as she had been when she’d been pacing the floor and ranting—which a houseful of Lycans had heard.
Please let him be okay.
She swallowed again.
A door swished open, and a rush of cooler air with an earthy smell brushed her face. After a moment, warm arms grabbed her and pulled her up against a naked chest as Jordan turned her away from the cellar. She hugged him tight, pressing her face against his skin.
“You’re not wearing a shirt,” she whispered against his chest.
“I’m wearing more than most of them—that’s why I turned you around,” he whispered back, amused. “Looking only counts with me.”
“I can’t see a thing.”
“Travis sent bios on the poachers. His guy was able to track them through communication with Ross,” Dane said. She suspected he was guessing at where Jordan was from their conversation.
It was pitch black in this room. They’d covered all the windows with drapes, so the only light was moonlight through a sunroof in the adjoining room, and it didn’t penetrate the dark where this downstairs den emptied.
Jordan wrapped both his arms snugly around her, and she listened to the reverberations in his chest as he spoke. “I’ll look at those in a moment. We found the road they traveled in on, but more importantly, we found them, and Ross is with them. They’d set up a trap using tree stands about fifteen feet off the ground, and they were sitting there. I counted four separate stands, but they were firing on us at the time, so I didn’t have the luxury of long-term analysis.”
“If they’re paired as we suspect—surgeons and snipers—they might all be here then,” Dane said. “There were four hit men and three surgeons.”
“That sounds possible. But we have a bigger problem. We’re not going to be able to attack at night. The one I could see the best was wearing some expensive gear that looked like military-grade thermal vision equipment, and I’m assuming the others were similarly outfitted. They shot a tree a foot above my head from about seven hundred meters. If we attack at night as Lycans, they’ll pick us off before we ever reach them, and if they’re in tree stands, reaching them won’t mean anything. If we attack on two feet, we don’t have the gear to go up against them.”
“You saw Ross?” Ethan asked.
“He punched Ross in the head,” a woman’s voice said. “It might have been the most hilarious thing I’ve ever seen. Even if I’d been shot for looking back, it would have been worth it. There was Jordan, on two feet, and he just slugged Ross.”
Everyone around them laughed, but she hugged Jordan tighter. He’d almost been shot in the head, and then he’d been attacked by another Lycan. She clenched her eyes tightly closed against the moisture gathering in them.
“It’s late,” Jordan said suddenly. “It sounds like we’ll need to rethink our strategy for daylight hours, anyway. We need two more shifts of sentries for tonight, but the rest of us should get some sleep.”
“I can do sentry. I’ll go relieve Henry right now,” a man said.
“I’ll go with him,” another man said.
Two others volunteered to relieve them.
“Jordan, those files?” Dane asked.
“It’ll keep until tomorrow,” Jordan said. “Go with your family and get some sleep.” Then he tipped her away from him and whispered to her, “Did you need anything before we go to bed?”
She shook her head while blinking. Her cheeks felt wet from where she’d been pressed against Jordan’s chest, so she must not have been successful at not crying. She was so not Alpha material. Alphas probably weren’t even allowed to cry. Jordan didn’t pick her up this time, but he kept his arm around her as he guided her down the dark hall. It probably would have made her seem weak or something if he had
picked her up. Wait until he heard she’d had a nervous breakdown while he was gone.
He might already not be interested in her because she’d shown weakness.
The door opened in front of her, and the flickering light cast from the gas fireplace illuminated the hallway before Jordan pulled her into their room. He closed the door behind them and then, when she was about to apologize for crying, he pressed her against the door with his body as his mouth sought hers.
He whispered her name against her lips before he nudged hers open so his tongue could tangle with hers. Her hands wound up trapped between them, her palm pressed up against his chest, where his heart sped up. Her other fist rested against her breastbone, where her own heart had never stopped pounding since he’d left, but at least now it was slamming against her ribs for a better reason.
“Christa,” he breathed against her wet lips before his lips drifted along her jawline to her neck. Her name had never sounded so good. He was finally home. They were finally alone.
Jordan went still and lifted his head to smile at her. He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “That’s the third time I’ve heard someone in the pack say you’re sweet.”
Oh. Right. They weren’t really alone. They were surrounded by the entire pack. And they were all listening.
Jordan didn’t seem bothered by this. He scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed.
“Is it okay that the fireplace is on?” she whispered. Lucifer was curled up in front of it, sleeping contentedly. She might have wanted the cat out if anything really could happen between Jordan and her.
“It’s fine. It’s on low, and I think they’re regrouping, too. It’ll be a quiet night.” He set her on the bed, but stayed leaning over her, caging her in between his arms. “Besides, I thought you might like a little light to see—or are you already sick of me?”
She grinned.
His eyes were hot, his mouth serious. Every moment he held her gaze made her skin hotter and her heart beat faster.
Leaning down slowly, he pressed a short kiss on her mouth. The next was on her neck. It was followed by a kiss and a lick where her shirt ended in a vee between her breasts. “You are wearing too many clothes.”
She sighed. “Not for an audience.” She’d changed into a T-shirt and soft black yoga pants before going back to pace in the study. She’d expected to wait up for Jordan with Dane, not with the entire pack. She’d expected to sleep with Jordan tonight—have him safe beside her, finally feel like this whole thing was real—and she could, but the whole pack would know that. She hadn’t even told her parents yet she was as good as married to someone, but fifty people in this house would know they were good and mated.
This was a fantastic idea of hers to have them here.
Okay, so it probably saved a lot of lives.
It had.
It also meant that Jordan would go back to living like a monk for a bit longer.
“Hmm?” Jordan said, looking up.
“All the privacy of a fishbowl,” she whispered.
He grinned. “They can’t see us.”
She wriggled out from under him. Jordan followed her movement with a frown. Then he climbed on the bed and crawled across…and she could see the wolf in the movement and in the intense look in his eyes.
“Christa,” he said when he was back on top of her.
“Jordan.” Two could play that game.
He smiled. He dropped down and rolled so that she was on top, lying across his entire length. “I’ll let you be on top.”
She dropped her head onto his chest and pressed her cheek over his heart again. This wasn’t exactly how she’d planned to spend this night. At all.
…
Jordan looked at the crown of her head. He had the rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins from the hunt. He’d been thinking of nothing but getting back to her the last three miles of their run. With the last few days included, he’d been dreaming of getting back to her longer than they’d been together. And here they were, finally, and she was playing shy.
To say this wasn’t how he’d expected to spend this night would have been an understatement. The first half spent chasing serial killers. The second half with Christa as far from amorous as they came.
He rubbed a hand down her back—slowly. She’d seemed upset when he got back, and he’d heard several members of the pack mention how sweet it was that she was so worried about him. Maybe that was it.
“I had to go on that hunting party tonight.”
“I know,” she said. “You’re Alpha—of course you had to go.”
Maybe he should go back to kissing her. He tipped onto his side and pulled her up to eye level with him. He’d have to be careful to let her be on top of or beside him. Even if it wouldn’t hurt her to be crushed by twice her weight, he couldn’t imagine it’d be arousing to have the air compressed from your lungs. He brushed a hand up her hip and across her body, tracing her outline.
“You’re so beautiful,” he said. With his hand curved under her jaw, he leaned in and kissed her. “And you smell so good,” he whispered against her lips. Every inhale could have been his last, and he would have died happy—well, fairly happy—but he’d rather live long enough to see if her whole body tasted as good as she smelled.
She moaned quietly and pressed closer against him, and wrapped her arms around his neck. This was more like it. He’d come home high from the hunt, and this was what he had in mind to help ease him down…eventually.
Oh, Christa. He wanted to whisper her name as he kissed every inch of her. Every inch of her lithe, gorgeous body. For being so thin, the weight she had—well, it was in the right places. He’d been thinking about this, dreaming about this…and he was finally doing this.
She opened her mouth, and he could smell her arousal and taste her on his tongue. This was better…up until she pulled back, her mouth wet from his, her breathing fast.
“We can’t.”
“What?” He blinked in confusion. They couldn’t?
“Your whole pack is listening,” she whispered as quietly as she could.
“Would you like me to tell them to stop?”
Her eyes narrowed.
He licked his lips and tried again. His entire hunting party was probably choosing this way to settle down—well, if they had the privacy of a room—a room alone—a room like he had. And he wasn’t listening to them. Well, now he was because she’d brought it up, but he was trying not to. “They won’t care.”
“My sister-in-law could hear,” she hissed, glancing at the door as if she expected Vanessa to come running in and separate them.
“We’re mates, Christa. In my culture, we’re married.”
Her eyes were to a full-on glare. “In my culture, we don’t spend our honeymoon on speakerphone with everyone we know.”
Yeah, even if she had a point, this was still frustrating. “We’ll be very quiet,” he whispered. “And no one will care because they’ll be busy or sleeping. Besides, your sister-in-law’s snores will drown out a full-on invasion.”
At least she stopped glaring, but now she looked a bit miserable. “What if I don’t want to be quiet?”
He grinned. She didn’t want to be quiet? Even if he was going to spend the night chastely beside Christa, he had that to look forward to. “Are you loud?”
She looked significantly at the door again while hissing, “I don’t know, but I’m not going to answer something like that knowing Vanessa will tell my brother.”
“You don’t know?” Christa was passionate—if she was with even a decent lover, she’d be loud.
She dropped on her back and stared up at the ceiling.
He inhaled. Mmm. She smelled so good—this was going to kill him. He’d need to get his house empty again in a hurry.
Dropping onto his back, he asked, “You’re sure you can’t be quiet?” At least he was half joking—it was the best he could manage under the circumstances.
“I don’t know.”
This time, she flipped away from him.
Swallowing, he stared at the back of her head, and the implication of her words and her peevish tone sank in.
He swore under his breath and dragged a hand through his hair.
Christa sighed. “Thanks. Just what every girl wants to hear when a guy finds that out.”
Oh, hell… He pulled her back and wrapped his arms around her waist. “No, it’s not that.”
“Yeah, because what else could it be,” she said sarcastically.
Jordan rolled off the bed and grabbed her in his arms as he did. The master bedroom had an adjoining bathroom, which he took his struggling and cursing mate into. Setting her on her feet, he closed the door, turned the lights on dimly. Then he turned on the shower before turning on all the faucets…and, to show her he was serious, he flipped on the fan.
She had her arms folded and a scowl on her face. He leaned down and kissed her right on that scowl and felt it dissolve with a soft sigh. When he pulled back, he cupped her hips and pulled her forward as he sat on the edge of the large, sunken tub.
“I want your…our first time to be perfect. I want it so you can be as loud as you want to be—and I can be, too—and we can keep at it until we’re both exhausted. It should be like that. Nothing to hide and nothing to hold back.”
She sighed. “At least it should be better than a house full of people waiting for me to screw up and look weak.”
“Did someone say that?” A blinding rage built up so quickly in him that it made his chest burn.
“No, they didn’t have to.”
He released his anger in a long exhale. From what he could tell, the pack had accepted her completely. And there weren’t any other females jealous of her position because they were all content with their own mates and their own places. Maybe they’d pushed too much of a new way of living on her at once. It probably didn’t help that she seemed under the impression that he ripped out the throats of anyone who crossed him.
“No one is waiting for that, and they don’t think you’re weak.”
Her posture relaxed, so he tugged her closer, pulling her between his legs as he pressed his cheek against her stomach. She unfolded her arms and brushed a hand down his hair and neck. Pushing her shirt up, he kissed a bared inch of her stomach. Mmm. These might be the only inches he had tonight. He kissed a path across to her navel. She moaned—and not quietly. A wave of emotions built up in him—passion, a desire to dominate, and then a softer feeling that he didn’t want to name before she did, but also…disappointment.
This Weakness For You (Entangled Select Otherworld) (Taming the Pack) Page 22