by Kate Douglas
“As impossible as men changing into wolves?”
“No, Cain.” She kissed him. “That’s entirely possible. I’m a mathematician. All I need is proof. And you are absolute proof.”
He laughed and then his expression went totally serious. “We’re getting cable Internet installed in the lodge. Our quarters will be totally wired by the end of next week. There are rooms up there you can use as your office if you want to keep your job here and telecommute, and I know Trak wants to hire you for some contract work. Will you come back with us, Cheraza? Will you be our mate? Werewolf life isn’t all that different from any other life. We do like to run under the full moon, but it’s a choice, not a compulsion. Our children will all be boys, born to this life, though natural wolves like Brad and I don’t make the shift until we’re around thirty. Of course, we stop aging with the shift—you will forever be twenty-eight.”
Cain kissed her. “Brad’s got his architecture business, and I’m the pack enforcer, so that can take me away on occasion, but he and I also want to continue to work at Feral Passions. However, I promise no more naked massages with women.”
Cherry sighed dramatically. “I wouldn’t ask you to quit altogether. As long as I’m the one getting the naked massage, I’m okay with them. In fact, I really love them.”
“Only for you.” He kissed her again.
“You’re the pack enforcer? What’s that mean?”
He shrugged. “I’m the one Trak calls on when anyone gets out of line. They’re all just a little afraid of me.”
She laughed. “It’s that tough-guy persona, but I can see right through you.”
He kissed her. “Please, don’t tell. You’ll ruin my cover.”
“Never,” she said. “What’s going to happen when you change me?” She wasn’t afraid, but she definitely wanted to know what was coming.
“Brad and I will both bite you, which will make the three of us mates. All it takes is a small nip, just enough to break the skin. Usually, within twenty-four hours, you’ll go through the change. It’s not painful, though you might sleep a lot during that time. You’ll awaken as a wolf with the knowledge of how to change back, but generally for the first change we’ll take you for a run, introduce you to the wild wolves. That way they won’t challenge you if they see you later.”
“Can you communicate as wolves?”
Brad shook his head. “Not well. We’re not really telepathic, though we do get better at understanding one another. Cain and I have been together for so long that we understand each other fairly well, but it’ll take a while with you because we haven’t known you all that long. Once you’ve changed, you’ll live a long, long time.”
She looked at them, both so young and healthy and way too sexy for their own good. “How long have you been together? How old are you guys?”
Cain smirked and glanced at Brad. “Rather rude questions, don’t you think, Bradley?”
“Cherry, he’s only saying that because he’s sensitive about the fact that he’s older than me. I was born in 1931. Cain and I have been together since I was about thirty, in 1961.”
“And he doesn’t look a day over eighty-five.”
“Better than you, old man.” Brad jabbed him in the ribs with an elbow.
“Personally, I think I look pretty good for my age. One hundred and six and I can still make Cherry scream my name.”
“That you can.” She gave him a sexy glance and slipped her fingers inside the collar of his shirt to tease. “But so can Brad. I think I need some more screaming demonstrations, if you’re up to it.”
They were both on their feet within seconds.
It wasn’t all that many minutes later and Cherry was definitely screaming their names. Quite clearly.
EPILOGUE
Two nights before the summer solstice, at Feral Passions Resort
The summer solstice wasn’t until Monday, but they held the mating ceremony on a Saturday night when there were no guests at the resort. Instead, the lush meadow was filled with strikingly handsome men, including a few older mated couples who’d made the trip back to the preserve just for this occasion.
Cherry wore a beautiful white gown and stood between Cain and Brad. Steph and Christa wore white as well, standing proudly between Ronan and Wils. The sisters and Steph had shared so much laughter all day while preparing for tonight, they’d decided ahead of time not to risk even a glance at one another until Trak completed the ceremony.
They’d all made their first shifts the weekend before, but tonight? Tonight was the real thing, more real even than growing fur and running on four legs. Tonight Cherry stood in front of the pack alpha, promising to love and cherish the two men who promised the same to her and to each other.
Brad and Cain had never had a ceremony of their own. They told her they’d been waiting all these years to find her. Tonight was significant on every level possible.
As Christa and Steph repeated their vows beside Ronan and Wils, Cherry tightened her grasp on Cain’s and Brad’s hands. Then Trak stepped back to the middle once again and faced all of them. He’d worn a dark suit for the occasion, and he looked absolutely regal standing before them with silvery moonlight bathing a small meadow beside the lodge. Cherry thought of her dreams that first night, of running beneath a full moon with two wolves by her side, and she felt the power of Trak’s words, as if by speaking them he created something magical out here. The moon, almost full this close to the solstice, was a silver beacon of light bathing the entire group of werewolves gathered for the ceremony.
Trak raised his hands, encompassing the newly turned wolves and their mates. “You have made your vows to the ones you love and to the pack you serve. Go forth secure in the strength of the pack and the love of your mates. My blessings and those of the pack on each of you for peace, good fortune, and love from this day forward. As Alpha of the Trinity Alps wolves, I pronounce each of you mated for life.”
Brad and Cain kissed her and then kissed each other, and it was done. Cherry glanced toward her sister and caught Christa’s eye. “Thank you,” Cherry said.
Christa dragged her three mates with her. “What are you thanking me for?”
“For dragging me on a vacation I really didn’t want to go on.”
“You had a good time, right?” Steph slung an arm around Cherry’s shoulders. “I sure hope you did, sweetheart, because it’s too late for a refund on the deposit.”
The band started to play and drowned out the rest of Steph’s teasing comment, but it was all okay, because Cherry learned something else she hadn’t known about her two wolves.
They both really knew how to dance.
Two nights later, Cherry ran with her two wolven mates beneath the full moon. Pine needles crunched beneath their paws as they raced through the dark forest, winding their way along a narrow trail to the top of a rocky peak. There, surrounded by their wild brethren, they raised their muzzles to the silvery sky and howled.
Exactly as she’d dreamed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My thanks as always to my beta readers, Ann Jacobs, Rose Toubbeh, Jan Takane, Lynne Thomas, Karen Woods, and Kerry Parker—six women with busy lives who always manage to find time to read for me. Thanks also to my editor, Eileen Rothschild, who has given me a chance to play once again in the world of make-believe.
WILD
PASSIONS
Kate Douglas
CHAPTER 1
“Everybody here?” Traker Jakes took his seat at the head of the big dining room table in the lodge and pointedly made eye contact with every other wolf who’d managed to show up tonight. Kentucky Jones, a.k.a. Dr. Tuck, the pack’s vet, sat at Trak’s left; Trak’s older brother, Lawz, was on his right.
The rest of the single guys—Evan Dark, Manny Vicario, and Drew Miklos—had taken seats, and while there was space for Wils and Ronan and their mates, no one really expected the four of them tonight. They were currently somewhere up in Canada celebrating a long-delayed honeymoon. He’d ki
nd of thought Brad and Cain and their mate, Cherry, would show up, but you never knew. Understandable, considering how flat-out sexy Cherry was. Trak imagined she could prove to be quite a distraction.
Those four guys had all found their mates, proof that the whole concept of Feral Passions was on target. Everyone—including Trak—had laughed at Brad when he’d first proposed the idea that they build an upscale resort for women here on the wolf preserve as a way to meet and find mates. The guys had laughed even harder when Trak reversed his original opinion and agreed that building a resort designed with the single woman in mind was an excellent way for the pack to attract available women up here to the middle of nowhere.
It wasn’t as easy as it sounded for single werewolves to find lifetime mates, especially when their women birthed only male children and the guys liked to howl at the moon.
No one was laughing now, and it hadn’t escaped Trak’s notice that all of the guys had ended up joining the partnership of Feral Passions Resort Inc. Cherry had been the catalyst—Cherry DuBois had won their hearts when she’d fallen for both Brad and Cain, accepting not only the fact the guys went furry and ran on four legs, but also that she’d get two guys for life—a very long life—when she went furry along with them. Brad and Cain had been a pair in search of a third, and Cherry had slipped right into her place as part of a loving triad. Even better, Cherry had come to the resort with her sister and her sister’s best friend, two women who’d fallen for each other as well as both Ronan and Wils, and another atypical match had been formed.
As if there was anything at all typical about women falling in love with werewolves.
But it was already the middle of August. They’d agreed they’d shut down for the season by mid-September, and there were still six wolves actively searching but still without women. Not that they hadn’t had plenty of chances, but no one wanted to risk falling for a woman who wouldn’t be able to handle the kind of life the pack could offer.
“Ya know, Trak, it would be a hell of a lot easier if we could tell them what we are, damn it.” Evan glanced from one guy to the next. “Trying to figure out if a woman’s the kind who can handle pack life without a hint of what she’s getting into? Think about it.”
Manny’s laughter lacked a certain amount of humor. “Tell me about it. Convincing a woman you love her while hiding the world’s biggest secret isn’t easy. We want them to be honest with us, but we’re lying to them through our very sharp canines.”
Trak glared at Manny. “Armando, if that jackass Cain can do it, you can figure it out.”
“Who you callin’ a jackass, my exalted alpha? Good evening, gentlemen.” Cain Boudin sauntered into the dining room with Brad and Cherry beside him. “Sorry we’re late. I know you’ve missed me like crazy, Trak, but Ronan called. They’re in Alberta, everyone’s having a great time, and they said to tell all of you hello from the four of them. By the way, they’ve got a bet going that Tuck and Manny are going down this week or next. Just thought you should be forewarned.”
Tuck laughed, reached across the table, and high-fived Manny. “She’d better be a whole lot of woman. We are not small men.” He gave Manny an appreciative glance. “Anywhere.”
Cherry laughed so hard she snorted. Trak merely waited them out while the jokes got tossed around the table. It was good to see them laughing, because there’d been a time when he feared the pack wouldn’t survive much longer. When a man lived for hundreds of years, he saw a lot of changes, and the modern era had not been good to shifters. The old days had been so much easier—when you wanted a mate, you took one. Grabbed a woman and hauled her into the hills, and rarely did you find one who wasn’t willing to make a new life within the pack.
Women back in the day led hard lives, treated like so much chattel with very few rights and not much to look forward to beyond popping out babies on a regular basis. Pack life was always a shared life, with women treated like royalty. Once they’d decided on a mate—because in the old days, the women were given a choice of men once they were captured—then they went through the process of joining the pack physically. A single small bite, and she became one of them with a life span to match her mate’s and the chance to run as free as any other member of the pack.
Female werewolves were made, not born. A female bore only male children, all of them werewolves, but she was an equal within the pack. Before women had won equality in the modern world, it made a captive mate’s changed circumstances much easier to bear. Modern women, though? They already had it all. When you couldn’t tell a gal what you were offering her beyond life out in the boonies surrounded by men, it wasn’t easy to make it look like a very good trade-off for life in the city and all that it offered.
The purpose of Feral Passions was to change all of that. It gave the men a chance to get to know women, in many cases intimately. That was one of the really terrific things about the modern woman, at least the ones who’d made it to Feral Passions. They really liked sex. Loved sex, in fact, and while only four men had found mates, every guy here had enjoyed more quality time with the feminine gender than at any other time in their very long lives.
Hell, he’d waited for a mate for well over a hundred years. Trak figured he could wait a few more. In the meantime, Feral Passions had turned out to be the best financial investment any of them had ever made. And they’d gotten Cherry, Christa, and Stephanie in the first season. Not bad.
He clapped his hands, and the chatter stopped. “Okay, gentlemen. Time to figure out the work schedule for the coming week. We’ve got six young women expecting to have the time of their lives. Three of them are nurses, two more are in finance, and the last is unemployed and looking to have ‘way too much fun.’ Seriously, that’s what it says on her reservation.” He shook his head. Never a dull moment. “It’s up to us to make sure that’s exactly what happens.”
“The week after that, we’ve got a bridal party coming,” Manny added. “Three bachelorettes and the bride-to-be coming to celebrate a week of freedom. Now, whether or not the bride’s freedom is, shall we say, all encompassing, we’ll have to wait to find out. But in case it isn’t, I would suggest you manage to keep your paws off the woman while still showing her a good time.” He raised one very expressive eyebrow. “The bridesmaids, however, are fair game.”
“Excellent point, Manny. If the bride-to-be doesn’t want a man trying to get her into the sack, all men will back off.” Trak made eye contact once again with everyone at the table, including Cherry, who had the audacity to wink at him. He had a feeling she’d never quite get the concept of deferring to her alpha. He bit back a smile.
She’d definitely gained self-confidence along with her werewolf mates. It was all good.
Meg Bonner stood in the bedroom doorway, watching her boss as he slept the unrepentant sleep of the well-fucked male. He lay on his stomach with one hand draped over the side of the rumpled bed; his black hair, streaked with iron gray and usually so neatly combed, was tousled into sweaty curls around his face. With his penetrating hazel eyes hidden in sleep, the thick sweep of dark lashes left perfect half-moons against his cheeks. He was, without a doubt, the most breathtaking man she’d ever seen. And he was hers. Sighing softly, her gaze roamed his body. Sheets tangled over his perfectly formed butt, and sunlight through the window highlighted his sleek, muscular back and strong arms, teasing her with the visuals and sensations of exactly what he’d been doing with that body.
Of what that body had been doing with her body.
Muscles pulsed between her legs, released, and tightened again. Her mind filled with memories of his strong thighs between hers, the clench and stretch of rock-hard buttocks beneath her hands, his strength as he powered into her. Her breath hitched in her throat. At one point, he’d dipped his head, taken first one nipple between his lips and then the other. Her breasts, which felt so ponderous to her, captivated him.
His big hands had held her, fingers tangled in her hair as he looked into her eyes just before taking her over
the edge for the most amazing orgasm imaginable.
Yet here she stood, fully dressed, hair combed, purse in hand, ready to go back to work. Even worse? She was actually thinking of looking for a new job, of walking away from him forever, even though she knew it would kill her. She was such an idiot, but he was just too … too everything. That had to be the reason for the panic, because for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out where else this monumental case of cold feet could be coming from.
Her boss, her lover, and her fiancé? That last word was the one she still couldn’t seem to wrap her head around. The most handsome, the smartest, sexiest, nicest—not to mention richest—guy she’d ever known wanted to marry her. No caveats, no prenup, nothing but her promise to love him back as much as he claimed to love her.
If she could actually make herself believe he really meant it.
Just like her mother never meant it. She’d made damned sure Meg knew there was nothing about her worth loving. She glanced at the sparkling solitaire diamond on the ring finger of her left hand. He’d actually gotten down on one knee in one of Portland’s nicest restaurants in full view of the other patrons, asked her to marry him with promises of love forever, and then slipped it on her finger just two months ago. She’d never forget the sigh that spread across the exquisitely decorated dining room—an audible wave of pure emotion—or the applause from the other diners when she accepted, sitting there at their table in absolute shock and happy tears until Zach stood and pulled her into a loving embrace. He’d cried, too, hazel eyes sparkling beneath the crystal chandelier.
Theirs had been—and still was, for all intents and purposes—a storybook romance. The wealthy young owner of a successful company falling for his personal assistant, courting her, asking for her hand.
Storybook, as in fantasy—but that was the problem in a nutshell. Fantasies didn’t come true in Meg’s world.