by Anne Douglas
“Fuck.” Rex stepped between her and the window, pulling her behind him and blocking her from view, growling all the while. “The Pack’s found us.”
“The Pack’s found us?” Pearl had readily absorbed Rex’s basic lessons on Were history and understood what he meant by the term, but she was confused as to why they would be standing so confrontationally on the back lawn. “Am I in trouble or something? Don’t they realize this isn’t my fault? Why do they look so angry?” Pearl shut her mouth with a snap as she literally saw the back of Rex’s neck ripple and the short hairs at his nape bristle. “What?”
As she looked around his shoulder, she saw that the man had stepped closer to the cabin. The three predators snarled at each other, tactically staying out of reach of each other’s claws, but making their presence felt with coughs, growls, yowls, and screeches. While they seemed engrossed in each other as they fought, the palpable sense of their attention never wavered from her.
“It’s not your fault, and it’s not anger. It’s sexual frustration. So I guess, yeah, you’re right: they’re pissy. A few hours ago, I was feeling the same way.”
If Pearl hadn’t seen his previous frustration and his consequent battle to fight it, along with his attentiveness and eagerness to please, she’d be running for her life. Instead, she was battling her own new and potent urges to defend against a perceived threat.
“Rex! We know she’s in there; you need to bring her out before someone sticks their claws where they’re not wanted.” The tall, dark-haired man, rakishly attired in classic studly-man clothing of tight, worn jeans and a formfitting black T-shirt, walked forward until he stood at the bottom of the porch stairs. “No one’s about to harm her.”
Mr. Tall, Dark, and Studly crossed his arms across his chest and flexed. The muscles between his clasped arms bulged in a display of prowess; no doubt the move was designed to cow those of a lesser status into obeisance. Unused to the beast now prowling her subconscious and the innate need to protect her mate and cub, regardless of how little she knew of him or how minutely she was pregnant, Pearl saw red.
Before Rex could stop her, Pearl had charged to the door, flipped up the locking bar, and stormed out onto the porch and down the stairs. She used the height of the second stair to stand face-to-face and theoretical toe-to-toe with Rob, the Pack Alpha. Rex had no clue if she actually realized she’d bared her teeth and snarled.
“Who are you, and why do you think you can come barging in here demanding Rex ‘bring me out here’? I’m quite capable of making my own decisions, thank you very much.” Pearl didn’t realize it, but she had mimicked Rob’s stance and turned it back on him with deadly effect. With her arms crossed under her breasts, the robe gaped open yet clung tightly to her flesh as her arms forced her breasts up and out, presenting quite an eyeful of a display to the males present.
Rob, the man who’d fought his way to Alpha leader status, and who had only moments before been posturing with the best, was reduced to a gulp and an intimidated shiver as he watched Pearl’s chest heave in indignation. Having made his way onto the porch ‑‑ just not with Pearl’s dramatic flare ‑‑ Rex stood along with him, awed at the display.
“Ahh…” Temporarily speechless, Rex watched Rob make his second wrong move ‑‑ or his first right one, depending on which side of the male/riled up female debate you stood on ‑‑ and stepped back. It looked to Rex as if it took a lot of effort on Rob’s behalf to find a part of his brain not fried by the sight and scent of a potent woman on the warpath. “Robert Deidrickson, Pack Alpha, ma’am.”
Rex smiled as he watched his best friend hold out his hand in introduction. It took balls to offer an appendage to a displeased female. Especially one that all the men in the clearing could tell was a born protector. Pearl positively reeked of dominance and the need to suppress the interlopers and protect what was hers.
“You’re Rob?” Pearl’s words were definitely no compliment, yet in the next moment her attitude reversed a hundred and eighty degrees, leaving all of them stunned. She reached out and took Rob’s hand, shaking it in a ladylike manner. “My name is Pearl Gordon. I’m glad to meet you. In the, umm, short time I’ve known Rex, he’s said a lot about you. Good things…for the most part.”
Rob’s eyebrow rose as he looked at Rex over Pearl’s shoulder. “He has, has he?” Rob turned Pearl’s hand over, then kissed the soft skin at her wrist. Rex watched Rob’s nose twitch as he covertly sniffed her skin, smelling her transformed state, and also Rex’s claim of ownership on the woman none of the rest of them would ever know as his mate, and made his sardonic reply. “I wonder where he found the time.”
Caught in the reprimand in Rob’s gaze, Rex wasn’t as aware as he should have been of his surroundings, and he flinched when he heard a yelp from the jaguar. The Weres in animal form had slunk close, rubbing themselves against the bare skin of Pearl’s legs that the robe left exposed, their animal natures demanding they press their suit to mate despite Rex’s recent claim. The beast Pearl didn’t yet know how to control had flexed its claws, digging into the sensuous tail curling around her thigh, reminding the three Weres just who was now an Alpha bitch.
All three Weres slunk away from the stairs and to the edge of the clearing, their noses finally understanding Pearl’s scent. Mated and pregnant, she was not to be trifled with.
Rob’s cell phone rang; pulling it from his hip, he flicked it open.
“Grande Dame, I hope you’re well.” With his recent conversation with the same woman still echoing in his head, Rex understood the flags of color that flashed over Rob’s high-cut cheekbones as he was given no choice but to listen to the older woman. Leader of the Pack or no, you listened to the Grande Dame. “I see. A very interesting situation for Rex to find himself in ‑‑”
The loud click of the old-fashioned rotary telephone the Grande Dame used was audible to all of them as she hung up on Rob in mid-sentence. Rob sighed and pocketed his phone.
“Will the day ever come that she understands that I run the show around here?” Rob’s frustrated glower made Rex want to laugh.
They had grown up together, fought together, even gone so far as to share women together. It had been a surprising friendship, since they were both considered Alpha males ‑‑ prime males capable of protecting and leading the Pack into the future. But Rex hadn’t the desire to lead. His nature was satisfied by his hunger for science and medicine ‑‑ there would have been no way to balance his devotion to science and the dedication needed to lead the Pack.
It definitely hadn’t been a problem when there was no way he would have been mated. The Pack was more like a clan than an animalistic hierarchy. While, yes, there were upsets now and then due to the nature of their beasts, in general they got along well, sometimes better than their full human counterparts. A little like the Mafia, the Pack looked after its own.
But now? He had no idea how Pearl would react to the situation when Rob finally found his partner. What would happen when she was asked to bend her head to the leader’s mate? She seemed so correct, so prim and proper, yet she had this wild dictatorial streak.
While that might make his dominatrix librarian fantasies come to life, Rex knew so little about this woman he had no idea how she would act in response.
Rob turned back to Pearl and gestured toward the cabin. “It seems there’s a lot for us to discuss, shall we go inside?” He stepped forward and held open the door for Pearl, earning himself a smile from the lady.
“Rex?” Pearl turned back to him with her brow raised in question. “Are you coming?”
“In just a second.” The door clicked shut behind the pair, and Rex quickly strode toward the Weres, coming to a halt in front of them with a growl.
“You know I love you guys, and you’re my family, but if one of you so much as sniffs her way again, it won’t be her leaving a few scratches on your tail ‑‑ you’ll be lucky if I let you walk away with your head.” All three Weres ducked their heads at the chest-deep rum
ble and took note of Rex’s partially formed claw.
Rex could, and would, protect what was his to the death.
* * * * *
“Where’s Pearl?” Rex trusted his friend implicitly, but that didn’t mean that he had to like that Pearl had been near enough to naked in front of Rob while he’d been out of the room.
“Changing, I think. We walked through the door and she hustled past me with an apology, straight into the back room.”
Rob’s eyebrows rose as Rex smirked. “Good.”
“Oh, it's like that, is it?”
Rob’s full-blown smile wiped the smirk off Rex’s face as it sank in that it was just like that. Shit, four hours and he was already pussy whipped.
The door handle rattled, and both men turned toward the sound, gaping as an almost perfectly dressed woman emerged. Her skirt fell sleekly to her calf, and her blouse was buttoned primly, though, Rex noted, not quite to the top as there were a few buttons missing. Her hair was chicly captured in a bun at the nape of her neck.
“I’m sorry to delay you, but I really needed to repair my dishabille.” She looked at Rex, then to Rob as they both gaped at her. “What?” she said, one eyebrow raised. “You go around meeting people in your bathrobes?”
Rob’s smile came back in full force, and he asked with all the eagerness of a small child, “Can I be there when she meets the Grande Dame? Please?”
Rex humphed his disgust at his friend and moved to where Pearl stood, cradling her elbow in his hand as he courteously squired her to the settee. Rob tried to hide a bark of laughter behind a cough when Rex nearly sat on top of Pearl, pulling her tightly to his side in an unconscious claim of ownership to the other prime male.
Rob took a seat opposite them. “Pearl, I must apologize on behalf of the Pack. Weres usually don’t go around randomly biting people and causing mischief. I’m pretty sure I know who bit you, and he will be reprimanded.”
Rex held Pearl’s hand in his, like some teenager showing his defiance while being lectured to by his girlfriend’s unreasonable father, so he felt the telling twitch of her fingers when Rob mentioned the pups that had let loose the night before. Little spots of color that he figured would usually be covered with discreet makeup blossomed on her cheekbones.
“Is that really necessary? After all” ‑‑ her voice choked and she cleared her throat ‑‑ “I was there too; he wasn’t the only person involved.”
Pearl was politely trying to say it took two to fuck, so she was as equally to blame. Rex’s temperature jumped at the thought of someone else having had Pearl so recently. But the twenty-first century man on the inside insisted he ignore the beast. He couldn’t judge Pearl when he’d blown off steam the same way in the past ‑‑ but that didn’t mean he was going to be nice to the kid the next time he saw him.
“That’s true, Pearl, but your behavior was no more or no less than normal; the man concerned did something rather more unusual, something he’d been warned not to do.” Rob looked at them both with sympathy. “His actions have far-reaching implications for you and Rex, while he gets to walk away. But I will make sure it’s not unpunished.”
Rex watched the byplay between Pearl and Rob with interest. This was the first test ‑‑ would she bide by her new Alpha?
Pearl’s eyes dropped just a fraction below Rob’s forthright stare, and then flicked back up to look at him directly. “I just didn’t want you to think I was expecting someone to be punished for both of our actions. I was a willing participant ‑‑”
Rob raised his hand and politely waved her apology down. “It’s okay, Pearl, having to deal with Rex in your life for the foreseeable future, I think, is punishment enough for your, albeit small, sins.”
Rob was laughing at him, and judging by the expression on her face, Pearl knew it.
Pearl looked around the room. “The other…ahh…what do I call them, Weres? Shape-shifters? Animals?”
“Weres is fine, honey.”
“Well, that must make for some confusing conversations.” A little sarcasm came through as she raised her brow. “Where did the other Weres go?”
Rob answered the question. “The wolf and bobcat headed home. But Jacob’s probably in the back of my truck nursing his tail ‑‑ he’s the jaguar you clawed. My cousin’s a bit of a drama queen when it comes to his pelt, but he’s only twenty; he’ll get over it.”
Rex was suddenly enamored with a certain shade of pink; the shade of pink that was currently tinting the pearly complexion of the woman beside him. She was embarrassed that she’d marked the cat.
“I…I’m sorry about that.” Her chagrined whisper did perverse things to his dick, and he wondered if she would use that same husky, embarrassed tone if they were to play dominance games in the bedroom.
Rob laughed, and Rex laughed along with him, drawing Pearl to his side in a hug. “Honey, you gave him the equivalent of a kitten scratch. Really, there is nothing to be embarrassed about. Any of the other bitches would have taken his tail right off, not just left him with a few claw holes.”
When Rex tilted Pearl’s head up to give her a quick peck, he saw her frown. “What? What’s wrong?”
“Do you have to use that word? It’s disgusting and degrading.” Pearl’s lips pursed into a delectable pout that had nothing to do with being coy; it was all about being peeved.
He sighed. Getting to know Pearl wasn’t going to be easy. He could see before him even now the volume of misunderstandings waiting to unfold. “I told you about that, Pearl. We don’t mean it as a term of disrespect.”
“I know you don’t, but please don’t call me that. It makes me feel…I don’t know, dirty.”
And she did look uncomfortable, which was the kicker. He had a funny feeling that if he slipped ‑‑ and with nearly forty years of the habit under his belt he was sure to slip ‑‑ that she would look at him with those wounded eyes and upset pout and he would give her anything to make her happy again.
Silently, he cursed magic and biology and fate for having dropped him in it this time, right up to his damn neck.
Pearl seemed to perceive the change in his demeanor and shifted on the seat, moving away slightly. It was his turn to frown as he slid over the few inches she’d put between them.
She sensed a change in the air, but was unsure of its direction, so she changed the topic. “So, Rob, if your cousin is a Jaguar, does that mean your…what do you call it…beast…is too?”
If the man’s silky black hair and gold-green eyes were all she had to go on, she’d have judged him a panther. He looked to be someone who’d be able to slink through the shadows when needed.
“Yes, black jaguar, to be exact.” Rob’s smile was suddenly toothy. “Much more exotic than a hulking bear, that’s for sure.”
She’d tried to put space between her and Rex, but no sooner had she moved than he’d leaned back into her, his thigh pressed along hers ‑‑ perfect for feeling it tense as though he was about leap.
“I don’t intend to hulk.” It was pleasing to watch Rob swallow his smile with a gulp as he realized that he’d just insulted her.
“I…ah…I meant Rex…hell.” The poor guy was red in the face as he tried to backtrack.
“Ha!” Rex’s snort of air expressed his disgust. “Good luck digging yourself out of that one, Rob.”
“Yes…well.” While it was nice to sit and chat, there was a lot more she needed to know from them both about the new world she was now a part of. Plus, there was this Grande Dame to deal with ‑‑ she seemed to know a lot about things no one else did. “I believe this Grande Dame called you before ‑‑ did she have anything interesting to say?”
Rob took the peace offering she handed him with good grace. “Only the basics, I assume. That you got bitten and went into heat, and Rex here wasn’t able to keep it in his pants, and some freaky magic stuff happened.” He’s succinct at least.
“Something like that.”
“Though she didn’t explain how you ended up ou
t here ‑‑ took us hours to track you down. Damn distracting that scent of yours was, by the way. Nearly ended up in my pelt myself.”
Rex growled beside her and snarled at his friend. “Just be glad you didn’t.”
“Hey!” Annoyed, she stood up and let her temper get the best of her. Sorry, Mother. “I didn’t choose to be here either, you know!” She lashed out with her foot and caught Rex's shin with the pointed toe of her shoe. “You’re not much of a prize either.”
Pearl put her hands on her hips and turned to Rob to question him. “I got the idea from Rex’s earlier phone call that this Grande Dame wants to see us at some point. Did she say anything of the sort to you?”
“She did, actually; she asked to see you Friday night.” Nearly a whole week away. Rob screwed up his nose. “For post-dinner drinks were her exact words.” As he rose, Rob straightened his jeans and muttered, “Thanks to you guys, I’m expected too. So much for the hot date I had lined up.”
Chapter Eight
“You’ll need to give me the address.” They pulled up beside her car, which had been left outside Rex’s practice.
“Whose address?”
“This Grande Dame person.” Who else would she be talking about?
“Why?”
“So I can meet you there on Friday, of course. I assume Grande Dame is a title not a name, so I doubt I can look her up in the telephone book.” She nearly rolled her eyes, but remembered her manners and sighed instead. Men.
“I’ll pick you up.” Rex was looking at her oddly, like he was getting annoyed.
“No, that’s okay; I’d rather take my car.”
“No, that’s not okay, Pearl.” He was annoyed.
“I’d really prefer ‑‑”
Rex cut her off in mid-sentence. “No. This is the way it works: I collect my date. I drive my date. I bring my date home.”